Little Lost Angel (38 page)

S
handa Sharer’s name remained in the news during the four weeks leading up to the sentencing hearing of Toni Lawrence.

On January 6, Shanda’s parents filed suit against the four girls charged in their daughter’s murder in order to block them from selling their stories for publication or broadcast. The suit was spurred by a Louisville television station’s report that Laurie was negotiating to sell her story to television and movie producers and that Melinda was also considering offers.

Horrified that their daughter’s killers might profit from their crime, Jacque and Steve enlisted their private attorney, Bob Donald, to seek $1 billion in damages from the girls. The billion-dollar figure was set to discourage the four girls from trying to cut lucrative deals with publishers and broadcasters.

“Obviously we’ll never collect that money,” Donald told the Louisville
Courier-Journal
. “But when considering the value of Shanda’s life to her family, why should they consider anything less?”

“It’s appalling to think that they could profit from killing
Shanda,” Jacque said. “But I can’t say that I was shocked to hear about their plans. I know the horrible things these girls are capable of.”

Steve found it ironic that Laurie should be shopping her story around. “During her testimony she couldn’t remember a thing that happened. Now all of a sudden she remembers enough to sell her story. It’s a slap in our faces.”

Clark County circuit judge Daniel Donahue thought so too. He immediately issued a temporary injunction blocking the girls from making any such deals.

While this was going on, another news story involving the murder was being played out. Based on the testimonies of Melinda’s sisters and cousins, Floyd County prosecutor Stan Faith filed charges against Melinda’s father, Larry Loveless, accusing him of rape, sodomy, and sexual battery against children.

Faith was pressing the charges rather than Guy Townsend because the molestations allegedly occurred at the Loveless’s New Albany home. Larry Loveless was arrested at his home in Florida and extradited back to New Albany to stand trial. After Loveless pleaded not guilty to the charges, his attorney, Michael McDaniel, the pre-eminent criminal lawyer in southern Indiana, said he could make a solid case that the molestations did not occur and were simply trumped up as a scheme to lighten Melinda’s sentence. (Loveless’s trial encountered numerous delays and was not expected to begin before January 1995.)

Against this background, Toni Lawrence’s attorney, twenty-eight-year-old Paul Baugh, put together the final pieces of his defense. He’d closely followed the two previous hearings and intended to call on Melinda and Laurie to retell their stories, since both murderers had testified that Toni did little to help them kill Shanda.

There was no hired psychologist to offer excuses for Toni’s role in Shanda’s death, and there would be no testimony claiming that Toni’s abusive home life had warped her personality. Baugh had been dealt a different hand than the other attorneys. The murder charges against Toni had been dropped when she pleaded guilty of criminal confinement
and agreed to be the state’s key witness. Under the agreement, Toni faced a sentence of between six and twenty years, and Baugh felt he had a good chance at the lower range. He knew that the public viewed Toni in a different light than they did Melinda, Laurie, and even Hope, now that it had become clear that Hope had been the first one to pour the gasoline on Shanda’s body. Toni had already been the subject of several articles and television reports in which the question was asked, What would other teenagers have done if they had been in Toni’s place?

Obviously, Toni should have done something to prevent the murder, and Baugh knew that would be Guy Townsend’s strongest argument for a lengthy sentence. It was Baugh’s duty to offer convincing reasons why Toni had failed to act.

“I had two things on my mind going into the hearing,” Baugh said later. “To establish that Toni was too scared of the others to try to stop them and to show that she was not like the other three girls.”

Working in Baugh’s favor was the fact that Toni went to police after the murder and gave them the information that led to the quick arrest of Melinda and Laurie. Baugh intended to show that Toni was an average but timid teenager from a good home with loving parents, who’d made the fatal mistake of choosing the wrong friends.

The hearing began with a brief opening statement by Baugh: “I’ve heard some of the attorneys for the other defendants state that Toni received the plea of the century when she pled guilty to criminal confinement. Well, that’s absurd. The only crime which Toni is guilty of is the crime to which she pled. The state would never dismiss the murder charge against Toni Lawrence if she was guilty of murder. I hope the judge understands how frightened the events leading up to Shanda’s death were to Toni and the fear that she experienced for her own life. Finally, I hope that you realize the deep remorse that Toni has for what happened to Shanda Sharer and that if there was any way she could turn around the events of that night she would.”

As Townsend presented the state’s case, he seemed to lack the enthusiasm that had driven him during the previous
hearings. That was understandable, since he was coming off two big victories. He had succeeded in getting maximum sentences for Melinda and Laurie, and although he would never admit it publicly, he was sympathetic toward Toni. Without her it would have been much harder to prove Melinda and Laurie’s guilt. That’s not to say there were serious flaws in Townsend’s case against Toni. He covered the proper bases, calling as witnesses Steve Henry, Crystal Wathen, Amanda Heavrin, Kary Pope, and Melinda and Laurie. But his examination of those witnesses wasn’t as vigorous as it had been at the two previous hearings. Still, Townsend had little trouble in showing that while Toni may not have participated in the violence against Shanda, she did nothing to prevent it and never took advantage of her numerous opportunities to summon help.

Baugh managed to solicit the testimony he wanted from Steve Henry, Melinda, and Laurie. Henry acknowledged that Toni’s statement led directly to the arrest of both Melinda and Laurie and that her subsequent plea agreement was the key element in persuading Melinda and Laurie to admit their guilt. Under questioning from Baugh, Melinda and Laurie acknowledged that Toni took no part in beating or killing Shanda. But it was also clear from their testimony that Toni never insisted that they stop. Melinda and Laurie both said that Toni seemed in shock throughout the incident and that she cried and screamed on several occasions.

Laurie admitted that while she was a close friend of Hope Rippey’s, she wasn’t very close to Toni, explaining that it was because Toni was “a preppy. I didn’t want to be a preppy.”

Melinda related how Toni spent much of the morning of the murder in silence and biting her knuckles: “She was there but in her mind she didn’t want to be there. She was scared.”

Before he dismissed Melinda, Baugh wanted to clear up one matter: “You testified at Laurie Tackett’s sentencing hearing that when you and Laurie went to the car, that Toni and Hope were in the car with two boys and the boys had to pull their pants up. You also testified that when you came
back to the car later, that Toni and Hope had switched partners, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Melinda answered quietly.

“You’re a homosexual, aren’t you?”

“Yes.”

“You don’t like seeing other girls with boys, do you?”

“It doesn’t bother me.”

“Isn’t it true that when you see girls with boys you conjure up bad notions about them?”

“No. I just think it’s based on sex. That’s what I think, but it’s probably not.”

“But that’s what you think?” Baugh asked.

“Yeah,” Melinda said. “That’s what I think of men, I mean.”

Baugh began his defense by calling on three of Toni’s teachers, all of whom said she was a quiet, good student who had never been in serious trouble before.

“I think Toni would be the last person I’d have picked to be involved in something like that,” said Beverly Cook, the girl’s French teacher. “You could tell from her appearance that she came from a good home. I thought that Toni was probably going to continue her education in college.”

A number of Toni’s friends testified that she did not normally hang around with Laurie Tackett or Hope Rippey. The teenage girls who testified on Toni’s behalf were much different in appearance than were the troubled youths who had testified at Melinda’s and Laurie’s hearings. Mikel Pommerehn, a pretty brunette who looked like she might have stepped off the pages of a modeling magazine, came to court wearing a stylish pants suit. In a voice filled with regret, Pommerehn explained how she’d agreed to help Toni trick her parents into thinking that Toni was spending the night with her on the night of the murder. Pommerehn said there was no doubt in her mind that Toni had been coerced into helping the other girls.

“Toni wasn’t the type of person to do something like this,” she said. “She was in the wrong place at the wrong time.”

Toni’s father, Clifton Lawrence, fifty-two, a small but wiry
man with a black-and-gray speckled beard, and his tiny wife, Glenda, had sat near the back of the courtroom during Melinda’s and Laurie’s hearings, ignoring the occasional disparaging glances from Shanda’s family. Now Clifton was called on to speak in his daughter’s defense.

Much of his testimony dealt with the night that he learned of the murder and took Toni to the police, but he also talked about his daughter’s rape the year before and how she was discouraged by the police’s meager response.

“It’s your testimony that Toni reported a serious crime to the police in the past?” Baugh asked, hoping to establish Toni’s distrust of police as an explanation of why she didn’t call them the night Shanda was killed.

“Yes.”

“And the police didn’t believe her?”

“They didn’t believe her enough to do anything about it.”

Toni took the witness stand for the third time in as many hearings and once again claimed that she didn’t help Shanda because she feared that Laurie and Melinda would turn on her and kill her too.

Townsend’s heart didn’t seem to be in the cross-examination. After getting Toni to admit that she’d not taken advantage of numerous opportunities to get help, he dismissed her.

A few minutes later, Toni was on her feet, standing timidly beside her attorney and reading from a written statement. “Mrs. Vaught, Mr. Sharer,” she said softly. “I’m so sorry about your little girl. I know that you can never forgive me for being with those girls on January 10 and 11, but I would like to explain some things to you. I do feel very much remorse for your daughter. I’ve been locked up for ten months and that time has been a living hell. I’ve had nightmares where I woke up screaming and can’t stop and think for a second without seeing Shanda’s burned body or hearing her screams. I tried to help Shanda. After I gave her a hug and said I was sorry, I asked Melinda to please take her home but Melinda told me to shut up so I did. I was terrified of Melinda and Laurie. Melinda had a knife and was going to kill Shanda. I know I should be punished, but
in my heart, seeing Shanda tortured and burned was punishment in itself. I didn’t get help because I was scared they would kill me too. That night and morning will live visibly in my mind for the rest of my life. Mrs. Vaught, Mr. Sharer, I know you have the right to hate me. I wish there was something I could do for you, but all I can say is how very sorry I am.”

Toni was sniffling as she finished, but her words seemed to have no effect on Shanda’s parents. After a brief pause, Jacque, as the victim’s advocate, was once again allowed to vent her anger.

“First off I’d like to say that I do not accept your apology. I’ve heard a lot of sympathy for Toni. I heard a teacher testify that she worried about Toni being in prison because the people there would have a bad influence on her. It would seem to me that it is a little late to worry about her being around bad influences. I have sat through three hearings and had to listen to attorneys try to convince everyone that these girls were all victims. Yes, there are many victims to this crime, but none of them sat to the left side of me during these hearings. The victims are Shanda Sharer and her family and friends. Toni could have saved my daughter’s life that night at any given time. She chose not to. She chose to go along with the other girls and she continued to go along to the bitter end. I beg the court to impose the maximum sentence of twenty years. Her disregard for human life in allowing my daughter to be murdered is a crime that cannot be taken lightly. If this court does not sentence Toni Lawrence to twenty years it will send a message to the world that it’s okay to stand by and watch while another human being is being tortured and murdered. We must protect and love our fellow human beings and abide by the law or suffer the consequences set out by the law, regardless of age.”

Townsend’s closing argument focused on Toni’s involvement in Shanda’s abduction and the many opportunities she’d had to summon help.

“She claims that she was afraid to stop things because she was scared that what happened to Shanda might happen to her. She could have stopped it when she talked to the boys at
the concert in Louisville, or when she talked to the boys at the service station, or when she called her friend while at the service station. There were attendants at the service stations they stopped at during the night and the next morning. She could have put herself in the protective custody of these people and not only saved herself from any injury from Laurie Tackett but also terminated the events that led ultimately to Shanda Sharer’s death. She did not do that. And that I believe is Toni Lawrence’s abiding failure in the events that led to Shanda’s murder.”

In countering, Baugh gestured toward Toni as he said, “There has been no testimony that Toni played a role in physically harming Shanda. Toni’s only crime is failing to step up and tell the other girls to stop, or failing to get help for Shanda. Yes, Toni recognizes that if she had done something Shanda may still be alive today. She also realizes that if she had done something, she too may have been killed. It’s easy for adults to say she should have done this or she should have done that. The reality is that Toni was only fifteen at the time. She was extremely intimidated by these other girls. Without putting ourselves into Toni’s position and experiencing the rage of Melinda and Laurie that night, there’s no way we can say what each of us would have done in Toni’s position. But I’m sure of one thing. Once we viewed that rage we wouldn’t want it turned on us. Sure it’s easy to say that Toni could have reported it to someone. Toni dealt with this traumatic event by withdrawing from it. Melinda said that Toni was there physically but not mentally. All of us who have children know that at some point in time our children are going to be hanging around with the wrong people. Unfortunately for Toni Lawrence, she was with Hope Rippey, Melinda Loveless, and Laurie Tackett on the night of January 10 and the morning of January 11. Toni was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people.”