Little Lost Angel (4 page)

On the night of the dance, Melinda was drinking heavily. She pleaded with Kary to take her by the school so she could see if Amanda was with Shanda. Kary tried to talk her out of it. She knew that if Melinda found the two girls together there would be trouble. But Melinda insisted, and they ended up in the parking lot, waiting for the dance to end. When Melinda saw Amanda and Shanda walk out together she became livid. She jumped out of the car and confronted them as a crowd circled around.

“I just went off on Amanda,” Melinda said later. “I started yelling at her in front of the whole school, and the principal was there. I just started yelling and crying. Amanda wanted us to take it to her house but I told her we’d settle it there and now. I smacked her across the face.”

After the Hazelwood principal had broken up the fight, Amanda left with Melinda and Kary.

“Amanda told me that she and Shanda were just friends and that it was no big deal and that Shanda needed someone to talk to,” Melinda recalled. “I told her that was fine but that she shouldn’t talk to her unless I was there and that’s how I wanted it to be.”

A few days later Melinda was turning a corridor corner at Hazelwood when she spied Amanda up ahead. She was about to yell out a greeting, but before she did she caught sight of Shanda. Melinda hung back, watching as Amanda and Shanda began talking and laughing. There would be no confrontation this time. Tears came to her eyes, and she turned away.

“There for a while Amanda and I kind of stopped seeing each other,” Melinda said. “I was just hurt. I cried a lot and was depressed.”

Melinda felt abandoned. She told her sisters, Michelle
and Melissa, that Amanda had betrayed her. Hoping to ease her loss, one of her sisters told Melinda that a lesbian friend, eighteen-year-old Carrie East, had expressed an interest in dating her. Melinda began going out with Carrie, hoping that Amanda would find out, become jealous, and come running back to her arms.

Meanwhile, Amanda tried to convince Shanda that the difficult times were behind them now that Melinda was out of their lives. In the early part of October, Amanda wrote Shanda the following three letters:

Shanda,

I’m sorry for all the stuff that has been happening. I never meant for you to get in any trouble. I’m sorry and if you don’t want to see me anymore I’ll understand, OK. I’m all yours, not Melinda’s. She fucked up my life and I finally understand because for so long my dad has been trying to tell me that Melinda was a bad person but I didn’t believe him. But I realize myself that she’s not the kind of person I should be hanging around. Please find somewhere in your heart to forgive me because I probably won’t be able to look at you without crying. I feel so bad for what I’ve done. I should have listened to you when you said it was wrong, but I’m stupid and didn’t. Don’t worry about Melinda anymore because I can’t hang around with her. I can only hang around with you. My dad thinks you are the greatest thing that happened to me, so please forgive the way I acted around you.

Love,    
Amanda

Shanda,

Hi Honey. Well listen, Melinda don’t want nothing to do with me so I don’t want nothing to do with her. I guess I’m all yours. You can do what you want with me. Is there anything you expect out of me? What I expect out of you is to be nice and don’t lie or flirt with anyone besides me.

Love ya,       
Amanda Poo

Shanda,

God, I’m really starting to hate Melinda. I never thought I would but it’s happening. I don’t care anymore and if she even talks to me I will tell her to F—off because I’m so pissed off at her. Shanda. Listen, OK. I’m all yours, OK.

The letters sound convincing, but Amanda was actually playing it both ways. She wouldn’t admit it to Shanda, but Amanda was extremely jealous of Carrie East’s relationship with Melinda. She learned Carrie’s phone number and began a series of harassing phone calls, telling Carrie to stay away from Melinda. Carrie, who at eighteen was bigger and stronger than Amanda, was hardly scared. And anyway, Carrie, who was not a particularly attractive young woman, considered Melinda quite a catch for her, so she was not about to give her up.

But Melinda had eyes only for Amanda. When Melinda saw that Amanda was jealous, she told her that her affair with Carrie was just a fling and that it was Amanda whom she truly loved. Melinda pleaded with Amanda to break off her relationship with Shanda, and Amanda agreed to do so.

But once again it was a lie. Instead, Amanda sent Shanda these two notes:

Shanda,

Hey honey. Yes, I do love you but I just feel like Melinda has me in a trance and I don’t know how to get out of it and I’m scared. If I try to get out something bad will happen and I’m scared to death.

Love,    
Amanda

Shanda, I don’t think I would ever tell Melinda that we’re going out. She would probably kill you. Yes, I love you a lot, Shanda my honey.

Love ya,
Amanda

While Amanda was trying to sort out her feelings about Melinda, she was confronted with another problem. Shanda had begun to make new friends, and several of them were boys. Suddenly Shanda wasn’t returning her phone calls or responding to her notes. Instead of meeting Amanda between classes, Shanda was devoting her time to two male suitors, Ray and Mike. Feeling scorned, Amanda used veiled threats and sweet talk to woo Shanda back. In mid-October, she sent the following notes:

Shanda,

Melinda said she saw you flirting with some boys. And you better stop calling Ray when you like me. How do I know you don’t like him if you aren’t calling me? I’m scared of losing you.

Love ya,

Amanda

Shanda,

Hey, what’s wrong with you? You were acting all stuck up when you were walking with Shawna. You just looked at me and kept walking. What’s your problem? Can you look me in the eye and tell me them rumors about you and Ray are not true? I know it’s true so just tell me.

Shanda,

I thought you never liked Mike. Yesterday you said you didn’t like him anymore. So that means you did like him at one time. Tell me the truth. I can have people who can find out.

Shanda,

I talked to someone that saw you standing real close to a blond headed boy. So who was that boy? Don’t lie.

Since Shanda was occupied with her new friends, Amanda began spending more time with Melinda and other friends. When Amanda was caught cutting school one day, Amanda’s father called Jacque at her job. Jerry Heavrin was
unsure who’d skipped school with Amanda, and he warned Jacque that Shanda might have been with her. Jacque immediately called the school but was told that Shanda had been in class all day. That night Shanda admitted to her mother that Amanda and some other girls had tried persuading her to cut school with them.

“I told Shanda that I was proud of her for not skipping school with them,” Jacque said. “I also told her that I didn’t want her hanging around with Amanda anymore.”

Shanda promised her mother that she would break off the friendship, but she actually had no intention of doing so. Even though she was beginning to develop new friendships, Amanda still had a strong hold over her.

Shanda’s father and stepmother, Steve and Sharon Sharer, didn’t know that Jacque had forbidden Shanda to see Amanda. So they thought nothing of it when Shanda asked if Amanda could accompany them to Harvest Homecoming, New Albany’s annual fall festival that October. Before they left the house that night, Sharon overheard Shanda talking to someone on the phone.

“She was asking the person on the other end what kind of cologne they were going to wear,” Sharon recalled. “I thought it must be a boy, so I asked who she was talking to. She said it was Amanda. Then Shanda asked me if she could wear some of Steve’s cologne. She said it was the new fad.”

Steve and Sharon had met Amanda once before. The girl had been dressed nicely and had been on her best behavior, in the hope of impressing Shanda’s father and stepmother. So when they arrived at Amanda’s house on the night of Harvest Homecoming to pick her up, Steve and Sharon were startled by her appearance.

“When she came over to our house that first time she looked like any normal little girl, but that night she came out looking like a little boy,” Steve Sharer said later. “She had on a ball cap and a baggy sweatshirt and jeans. She even walked like a boy does, kind of swaggering. I looked at Sharon and said ‘What is this?’”

Steve and Sharon were also put off by Amanda’s smug
attitude. She seemed to be trying to impress Shanda with her toughness. On their way home from the festival, Shanda asked if Amanda could spend the night, but Steve and Sharon said no.

“I was really concerned about the way Amanda acted,” Steve said. “She carried on like she was a boy.”

The next day, one of Melinda’s friends told her that she’d seen Amanda with Shanda at Harvest Homecoming. Melinda couldn’t believe it. Amanda had told her that she was staying home that night. Unwilling to accept the girl’s word without confirmation, Melinda recruited a friend, Kristie Brodfuehrer, to check out the story. Kristie didn’t really know Shanda, but she called her at home, saying she was a friend of Amanda’s. During the brief conversation she managed to get Shanda to admit that she’d gone to the festival with Amanda.

Melinda couldn’t believe that Amanda had lied to her. She felt betrayed and angry. Despite all her threats, Amanda and Shanda continued to flaunt their friendship for the whole world to see.

“Shanda’s going to pay for this,” Melinda told Kristie. “She’s ruining my life.”

The fifteen-year-old Kristie, a small, delicately built blonde, listened to her friend rant about how she wanted to hurt Shanda. Finally she turned to her and said, “It’s not Shanda’s fault. She wouldn’t be with Amanda if Amanda wasn’t encouraging her. If you do anything, you need to teach Amanda a lesson, not Shanda.”

That evening, Kristie and Melinda devised a plan to do just that. Kristie called Amanda and asked if she wanted to sneak out later that night. Amanda agreed that it sounded like fun, not knowing that Melinda would be joining them. Kristie told her she would talk some boys into driving and would come by later that night to pick her up.

Melinda and Kristie had worked out all the details of their scheme. Kristie would persuade one of her boyfriends to pick up her and Melinda and drive to Amanda’s house, where Melinda would hide in the backseat while Kristie went to the door to get Amanda. When Amanda came out to
the car, Melinda would grab her. Then they would drive to some secluded place, where Melinda would beat up Amanda.

Melinda and Kristie hadn’t figured on the boy bringing two male friends with him, however, and one of the boys knew about a party where Kristie could find some cocaine. Melinda was upset about the change in plans, but Kristie persuaded her that the night was still young and there’d be plenty of time to abduct Amanda—after they got high.

They drove to an older boy’s apartment. Melinda was not interested in doing any drugs, as she wanted to keep her head clear for her confrontation with Amanda. Kristie didn’t have any money, so she paid for her cocaine by having sex with one of the boys. It wasn’t the first time she’d worked such an exchange. The innocent-looking young girl was strung out on the drug and would, a few weeks later, be checked into a detox center by her mother. As the hours dragged on, Melinda became impatient and started begging Kristie to leave, who by this time was also angry. The high just didn’t feel right, and she suspected that the cocaine was bogus, a mixture of baking soda and speed.

Finally they all left the party and drove to Amanda’s house. Kristie went around to Amanda’s window and knocked but there was no rousing the fourteen-year-old, who was now in a deep sleep.

The whole plan had been screwed up because Kristie couldn’t keep her nose clean. Melinda vowed to herself that the next time she’d choose her accomplices more carefully. And the next time the victim wouldn’t be Amanda. It would be Shanda.

3

S
handa’s physical relationship with Amanda was still a secret from Shanda’s parents, but they had begun to suspect that something was not right with their daughter.

“Shanda used to spend hours in the bathroom fixing her hair,” said Shanda’s stepmother, Sharon Sharer. “I’d have to tell her to quit spraying all the hair spray because everything in the bathroom would be lacquered up. All of a sudden she didn’t care about her hair anymore. She didn’t care about her clothes, either. She started dressing like Amanda, wearing flannel shirts and baggy old pants.”

Jacque was also concerned about the changes in appearance, but Shanda’s older sister, Paije, assured her mother that it was just a phase. “Mom, leave her alone,” Paije said. “All the kids dress that way.”

But Shanda’s taste in clothing wasn’t the only thing that had changed. She became withdrawn. Her bubbly personality was replaced by a sluggish detachment. After making the basketball team, she began to complain about going to practice and eventually quit the team. Jacque encouraged her to go out for the swim team, but Shanda would have nothing to do with it.