by Ray Black
The first time Cindy met Shirley Wolf was when she had just walked away from yet another work project and had hitched her way back to the group home. She hoped to find a friend here from the juvenile hall who would be willing to take to the road with her. However, her friend was not prepared to go with her, but another resident at the home, fourteen-year-old Shirley, was ready for an adventure.
Shirley Wolf was also an innocent victim of incest, and a survivor of neglect and frequent abuse. Her father had forced her into having oral sex right from the age of three and then full intercourse from the age of nine. He took photographs of her for an illicit child pornography magazine and made her go on birth control at the age of twelve.
When her mother was also subjected to a severe beating from Shirley’s father, Shirley decided to tell her exactly what he had been forcing her to do. Together they contacted the authorities, who arrested Louis Wolf, and sentenced him to one hundred days in jail.
Torn apart by feelings of guilt, confusion and fear, Shirley tried to renounce her statement, but this only made things worse for her. She was then considered to be beyond hope and was sent to a series of foster homes. Meanwhile her father returned home, claiming he was free from blame. Shirley was somewhat of an outcast at school and often ended up picking fights with fellow classmates. It was due to this constant fighting that she ended up in the group home where she met Cindy Collier.
THE FATEFUL DAY
It was June 14, 1983, and the brand new best friends Cindy and Shirley hitched back from the group home to Cindy’s home town of Auburn, California.
Their spree of destruction started when they went swimming in a pool at a condominium and then dyed their hair in the pool’s bathroom. Wanting to find some excitement they started prowling condominiums, knocking on doors at random to gain admittance. One elderly lady, 85-year-old Anna Brackett, was a grandmother herself and thought they looked like nice little girls and decided to let them in. She opened the door to the two young girls wearing only swimming costumes on the premise that they were going to call their parents.
Anna fetched the girls some water, and for a while they sat chatting with the old woman while they thought up a plan to steal her car. The phone rang and it was Anna’s son calling to say that he was coming over. Cindy said to Shirley, ‘It’s time!’
Shirley grabbed the elderly woman by the neck and started to choke her. Cindy had found a butcher’s knife and tossed it over to her. Shirley then wrestled the old woman to the floor and then started to frantically stab and slash at her body. In her fury and frenzy she broke the knife, so Cindy handed her a much larger one. Shirley stabbed Anna twenty-eight times in total, ignoring the old lady as she begged for her life. Cindy took a few stabs at the woman herself before they ran off laughing back to Cindy’s house.
They were arrested by the police that night and confessed to the police that the murder gave them a ‘kick’ and that they would like to do another one as they thought it was fun. Shirley even wrote in her diary:
‘Today Cindy and I ran away and killed an old lady. It was lots of fun.’
Cindy Collier and Shirley Wolf were subsequently sentenced to the maximum penalty for juveniles. They both stayed in prison until the age of twenty-seven and are now free.
It is obvious from this story that these two girls have a serious character disturbance. They seem to lack a sense of morality due to their lack of affectional bonds during adolescence. What they have developed are traits of arrogance, dishonesty, self-conceit, shamelessness and callousness, once again acting out the violence that they suffered at the hands of their parents.
The Murder Of Shanda Sharer
Shanda Renee Sharer was one of the youngest murder victims in the state of Indiana in 1922. She was a sweet, caring, outgoing, twelve-year-old who was coaxed into starting a lesbian relationship which proved fatal for the unfortunate youth.
Shanda Sharer lived in New Albany, Indiana and attended Hazelwood Junior High. She was an outgoing girl with a sweet nature and had no problems making new friends. One of these new friends when she started eighth grade was a fourteen-year-old girl called Amanda Heavrin. They became close buddies and Amanda coaxed Shanda into having a lesbian relationship with her. The only problem was that Amanda already had a girlfriend, a very jealous sixteen-year-old named Melinda Loveless. Melinda became more and more obsessed and, over the course of six months, threatened Shanda both in and out of school. In fact her threats became such a problem that Shanda’s parents moved her to a private catholic school even though she hadn’t completed one full semester at Hazelwood High.
Shanda continued to see Amanda in secret. Melinda Loveless continued the threats to Shanda by telephone or by having friends pass on threatening notes. The teenage lovers Melinda and Amanda had been fighting for weeks over Shanda and the situation was starting to get out of hand and she wrote her lover, Amanda, a note saying:
‘Yes I’m hurt and pissed at you! You better straighten your act up missy. You have not shown me no improvement yet. Shanda is not gone! And until she stops calling me and her name and writing is off of your shit, I’m not going to hang with you and your problem. I’m real mad at you! I feel like I need to cry! I want Shanda dead!! Love, Melinda’
But the notes and the threats were not enough to deter the developing relationship that was forming between Shanda and Amanda. Shanda continued to see and be seen out with her new lover.
MAKING PLANS
In December 1991 Amanda was introduced to a girl named Laurie Tackett through some mutual friends. The main reason she wanted to befriend Laurie was because she had heard her bragging that she would like to kill someone, simply for the fun of it. By Friday, January 11, 1992, Melinda Loveless had reached boiling point and decided that enough was enough. She decided to make plans to eliminate Shanda and she knew just the person who would be able to help her.
Melinda asked Laurie Tackett to come over to her house and she had something she wanted to discuss. Although she thought Laurie was a little strange, because she claimed she was a vampire and could raise demons, she was still a loyal friend.
On the way over to Melinda’s house Laurie picked up two other friends, fifteen-year-olds Hope Rippey and Toni Lawrence. Neither Hope nor Toni knew Melinda well, but they had all lied to their parents about having a sleepover at a friend’s house and they thought it would be a fun night. When they arrived at Melinda’s they all went upstairs and starting talking about what they were going to do that night.
While they were chatting Melinda pulled out a large kitchen knife and told the others that she was going to use it frighten a girl. She then told Toni and Hope about the relationship Shanda was having with Amanda and that she was determined to do something about it. At this stage Laurie became angry with Melinda talking about her hatred of Shanda and said that if she really felt that way then she should get on and do something about it. The girls talked some more and devised a plant in which they could get Shanda into a vulnerable position.
The girls all got into Laurie’s car and headed off in the direction of Shanda’s house. They had difficulty in finding it at first, but after asking directions managed to find the right street and parked the car about half a block away. The plan was that as Toni and Hope had never met Shanda, they should knock on her door, say they were friend’s of Amanda’s, and ask her to come out to the car. The girls knocked on the front door and Shanda answered it. She was a little perplexed at first as she did not recognize either of the girls, but when they said they were friends of Amanda she relaxed a little. Toni and Hope explained that Amanda was waiting for her at a deserted stone building in the woods called Witches’ Castle. Shanda told the girls that she was unable to come now as her parents were still up, but she would be able to sneak out around midnight after they had gone to bed.
Toni and Hope returned to the car and explained to Amanda what had happened. Initially she was angry that Shanda was not with them but calmed down when they told her that she was going
to sneak out later to meet them. As they had time on their hands they all went off to see a punk rock concert that was being held at a nearby park.
As the concert didn’t finish until around 12.00 p.m. the girls found they had to hurry back to Shanda’s house. When they got there Laurie, Hope and Toni helped to hide Melinda in the back of the car by covering her with a blanket. Shanda was already waiting for them when Hope and Toni walked up to the side door of her house. Shanda was nervous at first but when Hope convinced her that Amanda was still waiting for her at Witches’ Castle she followed them to the car. Shanda sat in the front seat while Laurie drove, Hope and Toni sat in the back with Melinda hiding on the floor of the car. Shanda became agitated and so the girls started chatting to put her at ease and told her that the Witches’ Castle was a short drive away in a place called Utica and how it used to be the home of nine witches. During the drive Hope asked Shanda about her relationship with Amanda and she replied that she had been seeing her for quite a while and that she really cared for her. This was too much for Melinda, who suddenly popped up from the back seat, grabbed Shanda by the hair and held a knife to her throat. Shanda started to plead with the girls not to hurt her, but all they did was laugh. Shanda called her a bitch and continued to hold the knife to her throat until they reached a secluded part of the woods.
They dragged Shanda out of the car, who by this time was sobbing uncontrollably, and dragged her up to the Witches’ Castle. Melinda tied Shanda’s hands and continued to taunt her with the knife. It was rather dark when they reached the castle so Laurie decided to light a fire using a lighter and an old t-shirt. Laurie, pointing at the fire, teased Shanda and told her that that was what she would look like before long. Melinda and Laurie beat Shanda repeatedly and strangled her with a rope to the point where she passed out. But Laurie became nervous as several cars drove by the castle, and suggested that they take Shanda to a more secluded place to finish the job.
Unsure as to whether Shanda was still alive, the girls stuffed her into the boot of the car and covered her with a blanket and then headed for a petrol station to fill up the car. By this time both Toni and Hope were getting scared and, so as not to lose face with the other girls, they lied and said they were tired. Laurie offered to take them back to her house in Madison so that they could have a sleep, and the girls agreed.
Once back at Laurie’s house all the girls went upstairs to her bedroom where she started to tell their fortunes by reading some strange mystic stones. All of a sudden Laurie’s dog started barking and when they put their heads out of the window they could hear Shanda’s screams coming from the boot of the car. Laurie ran downstairs and grabbed a knife. She ran to the car, opened up the boot and then repeatedly stabbed the distressed Shanda with a knife. When Laurie came back into her bedroom she was covered with blood and told the other girls that they needed to take a ride. Both Toni and Hope refused to go and so it just left Laurie and Melinda driving off into the night.
They drove around for a long time using side roads where they came across very few cars. Wondering what to do next, Laurie decided to stop the car and see if Shanda was still alive. The moment they lifted the lid of the boot, Shanda sat bolt upright. She was covered in blood and her eyes were rolling. She attempted to speak but all that came out was a very weak word ‘mommy’. Laurie reached into the boot of the car and picked up a metal tyre iron and smashed it into Shanda’s head. After the assault Shanda was quiet again and the two girls got back into the car and started driving once again.
They hadn’t gone very far when they heard some strange gurgling noises coming from the back of the car. Once again they stopped and opened the lid to find that Shanda was now lying on her side completed saturated in her own blood. Again Laurie picked up the tyre iron and hit her so violently around the head that this time a chunk of her skull actually broke off. Satisfied that this time Shanda was dead, Laurie got back into the car and started to laugh.
By now it was around seven in the morning and the girls decided to return to Laurie’s house to pick up Toni and Hope. When they got back to the car both Hope and Toni asked what had happened to the little girl. With a cruel laugh Laurie replied, ‘What little girl. It was all a dream’. With that all four girls got back into the car and Laurie offered to drop them off at their homes, after which the other two planned to dispose of the body in the boot. However, their plan was foiled when once again there was the sound of hitting and pounding on the lid of the boot. By now the girls were becoming quite frightened, they knew that Shanda was in a very bad shape, but were unsure how to kill her once and for all.
They made the decision to burn her and so Laurie stopped at a petrol station. As Laurie put petrol in the car she told Toni and go and buy a two-litre bottle of soda so that they could fill it up with petrol. When they had finished the girls drove off to Lemon Road. Hope knew the area quite well and suggested that it would be a good spot to finish off Shanda. They turned off Lemon Road onto a rural gravel track and stopped the car.
When the girls opened the boot of the car they were astonished to find that Shanda was still alive. There was blood and pieces of human flesh all over the boot, and yet she was still clinging to life begging them not to kill her. Toni said she did not want to take part any more and went and laid down on the back seat. Laurie, Melinda and Hope covered Shanda with the blanket and dragged her tortured body out of the boot and laid it onto the soft ground. They briefly argued about who would actually pour the petrol over her body, but it was finally agreed that Hope would do it. Laurie struck a match and threw it onto Shanda’s petrol-soaked body, which immediately burst into flames. The three girls stood for a while watching, probably making sure that this time Shanda was actually dead. When they felt certain it was over, they got back into the car and drove away.
For some reason at this stage Melinda got nervous and asked Laurie to turn the car around. She said she wanted to make sure that Shanda was really dead. Once back at the scene Melinda grabbed the bottle of soda containing the remainder of the petrol and proceeded to pour it over the already burning body. She stood for a while watching and then got back into the car and started laughing, telling the girls how Shanda’s tongue had been darting in and out of her mouth.
The girls were now happy as they felt the ordeal was over. Tired and hungry they stopped at a McDonalds restaurant on the way home to have egg Mcmuffins for breakfast. After they had eaten Laurie drove Toni and Hope back to their homes and then went back with Melinda to her house. Laurie was going to sleep over at Melinda’s but not before they made some telephone calls to brag about what they had done that night.
THE GRUESOME DISCOVERY
It was a Saturday morning and two brothers, Donn and Ralph Foley decided they would like to do some quail hunting. After having a cup of coffee they loaded their hunting dogs into the back of Donn’s truck and headed off to the country. As Donn turned into Lemon Road, Ralph saw something strange lying a few feet from the road in a field.
The first thing that came into his head was that it was a body, but then it looked so strange he thought it must be something else. Donn reversed the truck so that they could get a closer look. At first it was really hard to actually see what the object was. They initially thought it was a blow-up doll that someone had discarded and then burnt, but upon closer inspection the grisly reality of the situation was apparent. It was not the charred body of a doll at all, it was a human body. The body was naked apart from a pair of pants and was extensively charred from the waist upwards. The legs were stretched apart as if they had been posed, while the clenched fists were reaching out towards the sky. The sight of her face with the colourless eyes, and mouth wide open, was so horrific that it was something that would haunt the brothers for a long time to come.
Jefferson County sheriff’s office received a call around 11.00 a.m. from Donn Foley. As there hadn’t been a murder in the county for at least three years, Chief Deputy Randy Spry felt that it was either a hoax call, or that it wasn�
�t a body at all that the brothers had discovered. He left for Lemon Road and on arriving at the scene his doubts were soon erased and he realised that he was dealing with a very grisly murder.
He called back to headquarters and asked Sheriff Richard Shipley to come to the scene of the crime. Shipley was horrified when he looked down at the charred remains, he had seen many dead bodies in his time but none that had been so horrifically mutilated. He realised that his office would not be able to handle a murder of this magnitude and so he radioed the Indiana State Police to ask for their help.
The forensic expert, Curtis Wells, along with the Indiana State Police arrived at Lemon Road just after 1.00 in the afternoon. Wells recorded everything with a video camera and then took some photographs of the crime scene and surrounding area. He made a preliminary examination of the body and then took prints of various footprints and tyre marks that were near the scene. When he had finished, Wells turned the body over to the coroner and the body was removed to the State Medical Examiners Office in order that they could carry out an autopsy.
A ring that had been removed from the victim’s body was a class ring from Jeffersonville High School, and it had the initials SGH inside. They went through all the missing person’s reports, but none of them matched the description of their victim. What did puzzle the investigators in the case was why the body had been left in the open for anyone to find. If they had only dragged it several feet into the brush, it was possible that it wouldn’t have been discovered for a long time. The only possible answer was that the perpetrator of this horrendous crime assumed that the fire would completely reduce the corpse to ashes and therefore be unidentifiable.