Cruel Sacrifice [Mass Market Paperback]

Aphrodite Jones (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 3, 2005

On a freezing January in 1992, five teenage girls crowded into a car. By the end of the night, only four of them were alive. The fifth had been tortured and mutilated nearly beyond recognition. Her name was Shanda Sharer; her age - twelve. When the people of Madison, Indiana heard that a brutal murder had been committed in their midst, they were stunned. Then the story became even more bizarre. The four accused murderers were all girls under the age of eighteen: Melinda Loveless, Laurie Tackett, Hope Rippey, and Toni Lawrence. Here, for the first time, veteran true crime journalist Aphrodite Jones reveals the shocking truth behind the most savage crime in Indiana history - a tragic story of twisted love and insane jealousy, lesbianism, brutal child abuse, and sadistic ritual killing in small-town America...and of the young innocent who paid the ultimate price.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

The words of a murderer: "This should not have happened. This is not me. It's so stupid when you think about it. It shouldn't have caused a death. I don't blame me. We just need a little growing up. We were young, and we still are." Aphrodite Jones takes the reader into the world of several teenage girls in small-town southern Indiana--their clothes, rock music, and fascination with offbeat spirituality, and also their lesbian jealousies and penchant for violence. This book provides a useful balance to an earlier account by Michael Quinlan (Little Lost Angel). Jones's style is less dramatic than Quinlan's, but she devotes more space to the family backgrounds and psychological complexities of the two girls whose hot-vs-cold temperaments meshed to bring about the murder of 12-year-old Shanda Sharer. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Details

• Mass Market Paperback: 333 pages
• Publisher: Pinnacle (May 3, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0786010630
• ISBN-13: 978-0786010639
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (89 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #568,458 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 19 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Jealousy and Murder., December 19, 2000

By 

PVS "mizjori" (Englewood, New Jersey United States) - See all my reviews

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This review is from: Cruel Sacrifice (Mass Market Paperback)

"Cruel Sacrifice" tells the story of the savage beating, torture and eventual murder of 12 year old Shanda Sharer by four Indiana teenagers. The story involves lesbianism, love triangle, sex, and abuse. Ms. Jones spent a great amount of time talking about the dysfunctional families of Melinda loveless and Laurine Tackett 2 of the girls involved in the murder. Although the information about the families were valid in giving the readers some insight about the girls homelife, I felt she spent too much time on that topic. Although I found parts of the book redundant and boring, it's an easy read.

10 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Disturbing story, September 8, 2000

By 

Ellen - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cruel Sacrifice (Mass Market Paperback)

I have just finished this highly disturbing and very graphic book about the murder of 12 year old Shanda Sharer. This is a story that will shock even the most hardened true crime/murder readers. It is the story that nobody should have to read.I say that because it is a true account of five young women,one of whom died after being beaten,tortured and finally set on fire.Nobody likes to imagine that this sort of thing can happen but sadly,it does and it has. Too much of the fact that some of these girls are lesbians seems to give this account a reason for Shandas death.Yes,there is lesbianism going on,but there is also a deadly combination of severe child abuse,jealousy,mental illness and hate going on too. I do not like what these girls did to Shanda as nobody deserves this wickedness let alone a 12 year old child,but the sad fact is,is that Melinda Loveless,Laurie Tackett,Hope Rippey and Toni Lawrence are products of a dysfunctional way of life. What happened to Shanda is very disturbing and highly upsetting and I feel for her family and friends who no longer have her with them. I lent this book to a friend of mine who didn't like the fact that a great portion of this book concentrated on Loveless and Tackett and not so much on Shanda. I feel that Aphrodite Jones was right to portray the story this way.If we are to learn anything from this incident then we need to look not only at the victim but the accused as well. We need to analize these sorts of people and try to work out why something like this has happened and go on to try and make sense of it so that other children never suffer the same fate. A book written only about Shanda would have given us only half the story as we would then be left wondering WHY these girls did what they did and WHO were they. This book can be a bit 'tabloidy' but for those truly interested in the whole story of those that kill and the victims they choose then this book tries very hard to gather all the facts. Some of you may disagree but this book was written to give the facts,not as a tribute to Shanda.I think the author has done what she set out to do in the best way possible.

11 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Five Sacrifices, September 15, 2005

By 

Leslie Dixon (Nashville, Tennessee) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cruel Sacrifice (Mass Market Paperback)

In a book about true crime, the worst kind: murder, where all of the main characters are under the age of 17, it makes you wonder exactly where this world is headed in the days so different from which our ancestors, and possibly even our parents, knew. Aphrodite Jones, a best-selling author, tries her best to take you foward in a world where things are too cruel for anyone to comprehend or even understand. This tabloid-like detailed book on how so-called friendships came to be, how and why the murder happened, and what happened to the girls once they were caught is a great read and is hard to put away unless you've turned every single page.

A small Indiana town was shaken and stirred when four young girls, Melinda Loveless, Mary (known as "Laurie") Tackett, Hope Rippey and Toni Lawrence took the life of an innocent 12-year-old Shanda Sharer all in the name of some sort of "puppy love." Sharer, who had only been a resident of her new town for less than six months, never had a clue that she was the target of death when she began her new life at her new school. Three of the murderers whom she did not even know or had ever seen before until the day she was taken from this world. Sharer had taken up a friendship with a young girl named Amanda Heavrin, Loveless's girlfriend at the time, and Loveless grew very jealous and hateful towards Sharer. Loveless feared that the two had more than just a friendship, which they eventually did. Loveless made a vow to have Sharer killed if Sharer didn't leave Heavrin alone, and in the end Sharer paid the ultimate price: her very young life.

With actual letters written between Sharer, Heavrin and Loveless, Aphrodite Jones takes you into the minds of the murderers & the innocent, and even their pasts, to try to and understand and break into little pieces what could spark something so evil, something so worse than just being young and "out of touch."

Typed exactly as written, two of the many letters from Heavrin to Sharer read this:

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


Reading about Loveless's past could either give you reason for her actions or spawn off lame excuses, but either way it makes an interesting twist for the case. Tackett's past does the same. Both girls are the "main characters" when it comes to Sharer's death. Hope Rippey and Toni Lawrence seemed to just be along for the ride, often making you wonder whether or not they wanted to be there when the murder took place, or if they realized that this was the real deal and wanted to make excuses to escape punishment. Lawrence often recalls wanting to save Sharer from death after Sharer pleaded to her just hours before her life was taken, but she feared Loveless and did nothing. Later Lawrence would explain this to Sharer's mother, but was denied any pity from the Sharer family.

The photographs of all five girls, including photos of Sharer's autopsy, are haunting and real and definitely add more to the story's text. Mug shots, where two of the murderers are smiling once they were caught, really make this book cold and heartbreaking.

In the end, five people lost their lives, whether taken away from the world or taken away from their families. Every "character" in this book paid a price. A sacrifice.