02x03 - Girls in the Hoods

[bunniefuu]

LISA:
In middle school,

you have a lot of girls
that are mean.

NIKKI: She was the ringleader
of that group.

That was her g*ng
where she'd go

and feel like
she was in charge.

CRAIG:
She believes that she had

just walked into her yard.

She's trespassing
on her property.

NIKKI: I feel like she wanted
that girl to suffer.

I think she did it with
the full joy in her heart.

[theme music playing]

[theme music ends]

[eerie music playing]

NIKKI: I remember being fast
asleep, and my mother starts

screaming my
entire government name.

Usually, that means
I'm in a lot of trouble.

So I freak out, come in
the living room, and my mom is

just pointing at the TV.

REPORTER: Her cut, beaten,
and burned body

was found by hunters
on Saturday,

burned beyond recognition.

NIKKI: As we're listening
to the news...

REPORTER:
Detectives believe the victim

is a young female
with possible connection

to a missing girl from
Hazelwood Junior High.

NIKKI:
My mom fell down in her chair.

She started bawling for this
girl and bawling over me,

because my mom knew.

What would they have done to me
had I gone?

Like, it would have been me
in that place.

In the fall of '91,
I started ninth grade at

Hazelwood Junior High School in
New Albany, Indiana.

New Albany, Indiana is located
at the southern point of

Indiana, just across from
Louisville, Kentucky.

NIKKI: Hazelwood Junior High,
it started from seventh grade

and went up to ninth grade.

When I was there, youngest
was 12 in the seventh grade,

oldest was 17.

You know, people start late,
they were a little bit older.

The high school was pretty
much right next door to

the junior high school,
so we all intermingled a lot.

Younger kids with much
older kids.

You get
a lot of peer pressure.

I felt like I was only as
worthy as the amount of

friends that I had.

Break!

NARRATOR:
And just like every other

junior high school in America,

it's the popular girls who rule
the school at Hazelwood.

NIKKI:
They were little princesses.

They were in
the most expensive stuff.

Some of them were pulling up in
brand-new Volvos

and things like that.

They were just like
the quintessential mean girl,

always bullying me for
being different,

because I wanted to wear a
trench coat, ride a skateboard,

and that wasn't the thing
to do back then.

NARRATOR: But not every girl at
Hazelwood wears designer brands

and drives fancy cars.

There's another clique at
Hazelwood that rebels against

everything
the princesses stand for.

They're the hoodlums,
aka the hoods.

CRAIG: The girls that were
considered the hood girls

were girls from the other side
of the tracks.

They were a little
rough around the edges.

They all smoked cigarettes,
had sex,

and they all fought.

The hoodlum girls had a lot
of attitude.

You know, they were
never real feminine.

It was your traditional,
you know, Def Leppard shirts

and Kmart Keds.

NARRATOR: Every clique,
no matter how different,

has its mean girls.

And there's one hood girl
who rules the rest.

The first day at Hazelwood,
holy [bleep],

Melinda Loveless is
right in front of me.

Now, we're face to face.

This unmatched beauty
that she possessed,

the long, brown, curly hair.

She kind of had this sort
of '50s greaser

style going on.

She was definitely
out of my league.

NARRATOR: Whether hood or not,
everyone at Hazelwood

knows Melinda Loveless.

The guys want her,
and the girls want to be her.

CRAIG: She wasn't the prom
girl, wasn't a cheerleader.

She was running with
the kids that were

going against the grain.

She was the ringleader
of that group.

That was her g*ng where
she'd go and feel like

she was in charge.

Melinda was still in
the ninth grade at age 16.

NIKKI:
I don't personally know why

she was held back a grade,

but I feel like Melinda being
older, she seemed more

cool than others.

I really liked Melinda.

I definitely wanted
to be her friend.

I had one class where
I literally sat next to

her the whole year.

She was always
pretty quiet.

But Melinda came off as someone
who couldn't be bothered

or like everyone was kind
of beneath her.

To be her friend,
you have to accept that

she's going to be
in charge.

If you crossed her, not only
were you going to lose her as

a friend, but she would
make sure you lost

all of your other friends.

NARRATOR: And Melinda's love
life was a constant source of

gossip in the hallways.

Melinda was openly l*sbian at
a time where that was not

normally accepted
in the Midwest.

And so, you know, she had
the confidence to be like,

this is who I am, I don't really
care what you think.

NARRATOR:
There's only one person

at Hazelwood whose opinion
matters to Melinda.

CRAIG: The first time
I saw Amanda Heavrin,

I had no idea
she was a girl.

Short hair,
dressed like a boy.

In Podunk, Indiana,
you just didn't see a girl

that looked and acted
just like a boy.

It was a foreign concept.

Amanda was a jock,
and like,

nobody [bleep] with her.

I'd always heard
that if she wanted someone,

she didn't back down.

NIKKI: The only other outed
l*sbian that I was aware

of was Melinda.

I knew in the fall of '91,
Amanda and Melinda

were the couple.

Amanda was one of
our basketball stars.

And Melinda would wear her
Letterman jacket to every

class, every day.

Like, it was serious
for some junior high.

GINA: But Amanda and Melinda's
relationship was very volatile.

They had this on
and off again,

hot and cold relationship.

Melinda Loveless was
a 16-year-old ninth grader,

and Amanda Heavrin was
a 15-year-old eighth grader.

And so when Amanda was
with Melinda,

she was more subservient.

Melinda definitely had
this dominant part

in their relationship.

And so Melinda had
control of Amanda.

NARRATOR:
Or so Melinda thought.

[school bell rings]

GINA: Early in the 1991, 1992
school year,

Melinda gets a detention.

When she walks in the room,
she sees Amanda,

but instead of paying
attention to her,

she watches as her girlfriend
passes notes and giggles

with this other girl right
in front of Melinda's eyes.

[school bell rings]

When detention is over,
Amanda introduces Melinda

to her new friend,
Shanda Sharer.

CRAIG: In the fall
of 1991,

Shanda Sharer
was a seventh grader and was

a new student at Hazelwood
Junior High School.

Before Shanda moved to
New Albany, she was living

in Louisville, Kentucky.

JACQUELINE:
So I was from New Albany.

My family
was all there.

When I got divorced from
my husband in Louisville,

that's where I wanted to
go back to.

So, that's when I went
ahead and enrolled her

in the public school.

And Shanda started
going to Hazelwood.

NARRATOR: The transition
hasn't been entirely smooth.

A fight in the hallway lands
Shanda in detention.

But she comes out with
a brand-new friend,

Amanda Heavrin.

JACQUELINE: Amanda was
a little older than her.

Shanda thought Amanda was
somebody everybody knew and that

that was a way in, you know,
to make friends.

NARRATOR: Shanda may think
that Amanda's friendship

will get her on the fast track
to popularity,

but it will be the biggest
mistake of her life.

GINA: Amanda was getting
a little bit tired

of being
expected to shower

Melinda with attention
and love and affection.

She meets Shanda,
and she thinks this is a way

she could have more control.

JACQUELINE:
I certainly would hope that

Shanda would have stayed away
from somebody like Amanda,

but, you know,
I guess she

was just really desperate
to make friends.

JACQUELINE:
When she was in Louisville,

everybody knew Shanda.

She was a big fish
in a little pond.

And then I moved her
over to Indiana,

and she was going to a school
where she didn't know anybody.

When we were in school
together, Shanda did hang out

with, you know, the more
popular group of kids.

So that's why it was so
important for her to be liked.

NARRATOR:
And Shanda senses right away

that to be cool at Hazelwood,

it pays to run with
the older teens.

Shanda was not happy
that she was 12 years old.

She wanted desperately
to be 13 and to be able to tell

all the kids at her new school
she was a teenager.

She thought that would really
help her make friends.

The night before the first day,
she tried on


She wanted it all
to be perfect.

She wanted to have the best
clothes and look good

and, you know, look
like everybody else.

Shanda had to
have the biggest hair.

She used curling irons
and then teased it

like crazy.

She really wanted to fit in
and to be accepted.

But I think Shanda might've
done things that she

might not normally do, to hang
out with the popular girls.

NARRATOR:
That includes cultivating

her friendship with Amanda,

even if it risks pissing
off the meanest

girl in Hazelwood.

When Melinda started to
notice that Shanda was getting

close to Amanda,

she wasn't going to have
any part of that,

you know,
from the very beginning.

She hated Shanda.

GINA: Shanda looked much older
than 12 years old.

That is probably why she
attracted Amanda Heavrin.

But Melinda most likely
felt very threatened by Shanda,

because not only was she losing
control, she was losing control

to someone much
younger than her.

NARRATOR:
Unwilling to lose ground to

a measly seventh grader,

Melinda tightens
the already short leash

she keeps Amanda on.

But middle school girls
will always find

a way to connect.

On September 13, 1991,
Amanda writes a note to Shanda.

"I have
a question to ask you.

"Do you kind of, in
a way, like girls?

Do you think
I'm cute or something?"

Shanda was beautiful.

She was
a beautiful, beautiful girl.

And Amanda was
attracted to her.

GINA: Amanda's telling her that
she thinks she's pretty, really

aggressively throwing out
hints that maybe there's more

to their relationship
than just friendship.

She liked the compliments
and the attention.

I mean, as preteens,
we like the attention.

JACQUELINE: I discouraged it
from the very beginning.

As Shanda and Amanda's
relationship progressed,

there were things
Amanda was

encouraging her to do.

It was things like physical
contact, like kissing.

She would say, this is what
girls at Hazelwood do.

GINA: Amanda Heavrin had a lot
of comfort with her sexuality

for such a young age.

JACQUELINE: And being
a l*sbian is fine with me,

but Shanda was 12.

She wasn't old enough to
know her sexuality.

NARRATOR: But one morning,
Amanda's luck

juggling Shanda behind

Melinda's back runs out.

NIKKI: When Melinda saw
Shanda's name on the folder

and the little love letter,

she imploded.

She was very vocal about
how dare Amanda be

exchanging letters
with another girl.

Melinda's insecurities were
bubbling up inside of her.

Melinda had control of
the social circle, but she

feels like because of Shanda,
Melinda starts to lose

control of Amanda.

NIKKI:
It was seventh period.

I'm coming down
from the third floor,

and I see Melinda yelling at
Amanda, calling her

a cheater and a liar.

Melinda's just
losing her [bleep].

She's screaming,
she's yelling,

"Can't believe
you did this to me."

And then here goes Melinda,
taking this jacket off

and throws it at her.

Melinda was spiraling.

I just looked at Amanda,
and I'm like, "Are you okay?"

And she's like,
"Yeah, this is crazy.

I'm done."

And she picks up her coat,
and she walks on her own.

She don't say nothing else.

Obviously, Melinda
and Amanda's relationship was

over after that.

NARRATOR: But Melinda Loveless
isn't one to just get mad.

She also gets even.

I'm sitting next to Melinda
the whole class,

and she's fuming.

She won't quit talking about
wanting to beat this girl up,

Shanda.

I told her to calm down.

Melinda was 16.

I'm like, I know you're not
upset with this little

a relationship that you were

having in junior high school.

Let's get a grip, you know?

And she's like, "No,
you're right, you're right."

I felt like she took me
seriously, and I talked

some sense into her.

Our school dances
were pretty live.

A lot of music,
a lot of dancing,

a lot of intermingling.

They were fun.

Amanda had asked Shanda to
go to the dance at school,

and they went together.

NARRATOR: Amanda knows
she's starting some drama

by showing up at
the dance with Shanda.

GINA: A friend of Melinda's
calls her and tells her

that Amanda is not only
at the dance, but she's at

the dance with Shanda.

CRAIG: Even though she
and Amanda broke up,

Melinda was possessive
over Amanda.

To Melinda, Shanda just
walked into her yard,

so to speak.

She's trespassing on
her property.

NIKKI:
That's just straight crazy.

But that's how Melinda
thought it to be.

CRAIG: It's not a long distance
from the front door of

Melinda's house
through the cemetery to

the entrance
to the gymnasium.

We're talking maybe 300,

I saw Melinda moving
with a head of steam,

and then Melinda snuck
up on Shanda.

I can just remember being
like, oh, [bleep].

I was off in the corner with
a whole other group of friends

doing dance-offs.

I was in my zone.

I heard commotion, and I
just saw the crowds of people

forming, and we went
looking around to see

who it was,
because we love the drama.

Shanda was ambushed by
Melinda, and then she just

started beating on her
in front of Amanda.

But Amanda did not
do anything to intervene.

In my opinion, I think
Amanda was like, hell yeah.

Well, I got two cute girls
fighting over me.

Watching Melinda get upset
and throw punches over her made

Amanda feel important,
powerful, and in control.

Melinda leaves Shanda
disheveled, upset, crying,

and tells her to stay
away from Amanda.

NARRATOR: Melinda's beatdown
and Amanda's betrayal at

the dance leaves
Shanda broken.

JACQUELINE: It was a day
and night change.

Shanda didn't talk to
me a lot anymore.

She'd come home,
and she'd go to her room.

She didn't dress up, and she
wore, like, baggy clothes.

That wasn't her.

When I saw that, that's when
I knew things were bad.

And I know there's a lot of
parents that think children

have a right to their privacy
and all that, but they don't.

I have every right to look
in their room,

to go into their diary.

I thought that Shanda
was not having anything

to do with Amanda.

And then I found a lot of
letters that Amanda had

written
after the dance.

NARRATOR: Despite
the beatdown at the dance,

Amanda Heavrin
just can't quit Shanda Sharer

and tries to win her back.

JACQUELINE: Amanda was
giving her compliments

and telling her she was sorry.

Shanda had even made comments
to people that she wishes

Amanda would just leave
her alone.

And there was a letter
Shanda had wrote to Amanda.

When I read that letter,
I knew how dire the situation

was with Shanda.

There had been sexual contact
between her and Amanda.

I knew she was unhappy,
and that's when I found out

how ashamed
she was of herself.

She was so
conflicted whether or not

she was a l*sbian.

It just broke my heart,
because she was 12 years old.

LISA: The situation with Amanda
was toxic, so Shanda's mom

decided to move her to another
school to start fresh.

Shanda left Hazelwood,
and I put her in

Our Lady of
Perpetual Help.

NARRATOR: By Christmas 1991,
Shanda manages to tune out

Amanda's continued advances
and seems to be bouncing back

to her former self at
her new Catholic school.

Now she's in an environment
that's indicative to kids

acting like kids.

That was like her safe space
away from the hoodlums,

especially
Melinda and Amanda.

JACQUELINE: I think
she still was ashamed,

but she was happy again.

She had made new friends.

She was kind of getting
back to where

she had been before.

She started to prosper,
and her grades came up.

NARRATOR: The new year marks
a fresh start for Shanda,

but back at Hazelwood,

Melinda is still
living in the drama.

Turns out beating up
a 12-year-old is a bad look,

and Queen Bee Melinda has
fallen from her throne.

CRAIG: If Melinda would have
tried to recruit some girls from

Hazelwood,
they would have looked at her

like she's got three heads.

So she had to look
for the backing,

if you will,
from other areas.

We were going up to
the skate park in Louisville,

like, every weekend.

Melinda used to hang
out at the skate park.

Skateboarders, in general,
are really accepting of

the different kids.

So a lot of the hoods would
hang out at the skate park.

GINA: Melinda met Laurie Tackett
through mutual friends.

Laurie is a 17-year-old girl
from Madison, Indiana.

And she was a student at
Madison High School

before she dropped
out of school.

And she
moves to Louisville.

If Laurie had been a student at
Hazelwood Junior High, she very

much would have been part
of the hood's clique.

She was the daughter of
fundamentalist Christians,

and she becomes obsessed with
things that are the absolute

opposite of what her parents
are trying to instill in her.

She had a fascination with
death in and of itself,

the occult, witchcraft, very
dark things of that nature.

She suffered from
wanting to fit in just as much

as any other teenage kid,
except for she's a lost soul.

So she's willing to do whatever
just so she could be

called Melinda's friend.

GINA:
January of 1992,

Melinda starts to confide
in Laurie that she was very

unhappy and angry
about Amanda.

Amanda was trying to get
back with Melinda and in

Melinda's good graces.

Amanda leads Melinda to believe
that she is the only person

she wants to be with.

But then her actions
totally contradict that,

because at the same time,
she's doing things to make

Melinda jealous
and to keep some control in

that relationship dynamic.

JACQUELINE: Even months after
Shanda left Hazelwood,

Amanda was still taunting
Melinda with Shanda.

Melinda was obsessed
with Amanda Heavrin,

and she couldn't let go
of that jealousy.

Melinda has to figure out
now how to either move on

or how to get her control
and power back.

And I think for Laurie, seeing
how angry Melinda was,

it sort of excited her.

So she encouraged Melinda
to get more

and more worked up.

And Melinda chooses to get
her power back over Amanda,

however she can.

She wanted somebody to help egg
her on, and she found that

in Laurie Tackett.

That Saturday morning,
on the 11th, an officer who

worked for the Jefferson County
Sheriff's Department

received a call about
a possible homicide,

from Madison.

So we drove out,
and we talked to

two hunters who'd been out
hunting that morning,

and they saw the body.

The victim appeared to be
a young female, and her body

was severely burned.

Not every day that you would
see a body, you know,

badly burned like that.

So it's just...

it was really horrible.

Who is this person?

Who is this person?

[sirens wailing]

CURTIS: We went up to the body
on Lemon Road.

And she looked maybe

We had to wonder,
why would somebody do this

and then leave her out
in the wide open?

Because if they'd just went
a few more yards, they

could have placed her in
the woods, and she may have

been there
till next winter.

I saw that it appeared
she was wrapped in some

type of blanket --
it was red in color.

You could see the blanket
had melted.

And we did find
a plastic two-liter bottle

you could smell gasoline
had been in.

We've been out
at the crime scene all day,

and the sheriff says,
"Let's go. Let's go.

"We got somebody down there
at the jail, waiting,

that knows something about
a m*rder in Jefferson County."

We find that a mother and father
had come in with their daughter

who says that she knows
something about a m*rder.

NARRATOR:
The girl is 15-year-old

Madison High School student,
Toni Lawrence.

The petite sophomore looks
like the last person

who would have intel
on a m*rder.

CURTIS:
She seemed to be crying a lot.

She seemed to
be a little bit unhinged.

So detectives went to
the room to interview her,

to hear what she has to say.

Toni tells detectives that
on the night of January 10,

Hope Rippey, another student at

Madison High School, asked
her to go with her and some

other friends to
a concert in Louisville,

about an hour from
Madison, Indiana.

Hope and Toni
are picked up by Hope's

friend, Laurie Tackett.

When Toni gets in the car,
Laurie tells her, "We're gonna

k*ll a little girl tonight."

Toni tells detectives that
she really didn't believe that

that was going to happen.

She thought that they were
maybe going to beat up a girl.

But Toni wanted to be with her
friends and be accepted, so she

just kind of goes along
for the ride.

The three girls drive
for about an hour to

the skate park that Melinda and
Laurie hang out at frequently.

When Melinda gets there,
the whole

atmosphere changes.

She has
a very dominating presence.

She is angry, and she
has a butcher knife.

Melinda is stating what
she is going to do to get

back at Amanda.

GINA: Immediately, Melinda is
calling the shots, telling

them where to go and what
they're going to do.

And the girls just
kind of comply.

They go along with whatever
she says.

And Hope and Toni are instantly
intimidated by her, even though

they've never met her before.

She directs Laurie to drive
to a house in New Albany.

They show up at this small
but cute, well-kept house.

Melinda tells Toni and Hope,
"You go up

and knock at the door."

They asked if they could
talk to Shanda.

There's Shanda
standing right here.

They didn't even recognize her,
because they'd never

met her before.

They told her that
Amanda wanted to see her

and was waiting for her
at the Witch's Castle.

NIKKI: Witch's Castle is
very well known.

It was kind of like
the spooky place to go.

It was just this old
run-down structure in

the back part of the woods.

I was too chicken to go in
there, because I was

petrified of the spirit realm.

But all my
other friends would.

They'd smoke weed
and hang out.

LISA: Shanda explained to Toni
and Hope that she couldn't come

right now, but said, okay,
come back later.

I think that Shanda thought
nothing of it, and she hadn't

seen Amanda in a while.

She just wanted to see what
Amanda had to say to her.

Hope and Toni go back to
the car, and they tell Melinda

and Laurie they should come
back later after Shanda's dad

and stepmom go to sleep.

The whole house is dark,
except there's somebody

watching television
in the living room.

This time, Laurie goes with Hope
up to the door.

They knock very softly,
and Shanda comes to the door.

Shanda remembers Hope from
earlier in the evening.

They said to her,
"Amanda is in the car,

and she's right
at the end of the driveway."

She walked down to the car
from her dad's house.

It was January 11th.

It was extremely cold,
frigid night.

Her purse, her coat,
everything was

still in the house.

And I can tell you, she
wouldn't have left without her

purse because she didn't go
anywhere without her purse.

I think that she went
to that car out of

curiosity, just to see what
Amanda had to say to her.

Shanda had never snuck out.

She hadn't progressed
to all that.

But, you know, a lot of us
get in trouble

when we're curious.

NARRATOR: Whether forced
or willing, once in the car,

there's no sign of Amanda.

GINA: She asked the other girls
where Amanda is.

Amanda's not with
them, but Melinda is.

CURTIS: Toni said that the
victim is from Jeffersonville,

and she knew that
her name was Shanda.

And so I called
the Clark County Police

Department, and I said, "Did you
take a missing persons report?"

And they said,
"Yes, I did."

NARRATOR:
Earlier that day,

Shanda's parents
had reported her

missing to
the Indiana State Police.

CURTIS:
Now I had her identified.

We go out to where
Shanda lived at,

and we examine her home.

I was able to get
fingerprints that belonged

to her, and Jackie Vaught gave
me Shanda's dental records.

NARRATOR: While Shanda's parents
desperately wait for news,

the autopsy results from
the burned body in Madison

come back.

Her fingerprints
and the dental records

positively established

the body at the scene
was Shanda Sharer.

JACQUELINE: It was late
when the state police officer

sat down at the table,
and he just said,

"Your daughter is gone."

And I looked at him,
and I said,

"What do you mean,
she's gone?"

And he said,
"She's dead."

I just
started crying, screaming.

I was in shock.

But then when they add to it by
teenage girls, you just hope

you're having a nightmare.

They were kids.

They didn't
look like murderers.

People think murderers have
the word monster written

across their forehead.

But bad people can be
people that look

exactly like you.

Why would Shanda be scared to
open a door to another kid?

This cannot be reality.

It's just horrendous.

CURTIS: Toni Lawrence said
she and Hope Rippey,

Laurie Tackett, and, of course,
Melinda Loveless, drive

Shanda out to Witch's Castle
in Utica.

While on that property, Laurie
Tackett takes part of Shanda's

clothing, and she sets
it on fire, turns and looks

at Shanda, and says,
"Before the night's over,

that's what's gonna
happen to you."

Shanda was so terrified
and so scared.

CRAIG: Melinda, Laurie, Hope,
they fed off of each other.

And once that ball was
rolling, there became a mob

mentality where one was
trying to outdo the other

and vice versa.

JACQUELINE:
For 10 and 1/2 hours, Melinda,

Laurie, Hope, and Toni tried

to k*ll Shanda Sharer.

They stab her,
and they strangle her,

and they beat her.

They tie her up,
put her in the trunk,

and they literally thought
she was dead.

And then, all of a sudden,
they started hearing her

banging on the trunk.

She wouldn't die.

I think it was Melinda that
said, "Well, I heard if you

"burn a body, it'll just turn
into ashes, and then nobody

will ever know who she was."

CURTIS: Then they drive back
into Madison and stop at

a gas station.

They went and got a two-liter
soft drink bottle, poured

the soft drink out, filled
the bottle with gas.

Then they took this poor
little girl out to

Lemon Road near Madison.

This poor girl

was carried out of the car,

wrapped in the red blanket.

Hope is a follower.

So when Melinda instructs
Hope to pour the gasoline on

Shanda, Hope does so.

And Melinda lights her
on fire.

Toni said Melinda thought
it was really funny to see

Shanda
struggling to breathe.

She thought that was funny.

There's no hell
big enough for these girls.

REPORTER: Indiana teenagers are
charged with k*lling

Shanda Sharer.

NIKKI: My mother and I,
as we're listening to the news,

we're finding out
what Melinda did.

The day that all this happened,
Melinda had invited

me to a sleepover.

I'm like, sure, I'll go.

So I get to Melinda's
house, and Melinda's mom

opens the front door.

She was like, "Oh,
you just missed them.

They literally just left
five minutes ago."

I wholeheartedly feel like, had
I gone, they would have had

to harm me to even get
to that girl.

So I've always felt
responsible, because

what happened
if I got there?

Would Shanda be okay?

I've carried a lot of guilt,
because had I just been

on time, things could
have been so different.

GINA: Because Toni had been
the one who had come forward

and was willing to testify about
the events of that night,

she accepted a plea deal where
her charges were dropped

to criminal confinement.

Hope, Laurie, and Melinda
eventually plead guilty to

first-degree m*rder
and criminal confinement.

CRAIG: Hope Rippey
was just a follower.

Toni Lawrence was just
a scared little rabbit.

Toni Lawrence brought
the information to the police,

but Toni, you did it a little
bit too late, sweetheart.

GINA: Laurie Tackett is the one
that I think really wanted

to k*ll someone.

Laurie gave Melinda
the support to be able to do

something so terrible.

NIKKI: Melinda wanted
that girl to suffer.

And I feel like she did it
with the full joy in her heart.

GINA: Although Amanda was
not directly there

or involved, many people place
a lot of blame on her for

perpetuating anger and
jealousy and resentment.

CRAIG: She will always be
associated with this.

And that's something that
she is gonna have to

live with for the rest of
her life.

It's really hard to conceive
that some people could be

so mean-spirited,
so jealous,

so outraged,
that they let

their emotions
lead to m*rder.

It still
shocks me today.

JACQUELINE: You know, the only
thing that I ever asked of them

was to serve the time
the court gave you.

But appeal after
appeal after appeal,

their sentences were cut.

Honestly, I don't care what
the sentence is,

it's never enough.

I've lost a child.

Any way a child dies is
horrendous, and every parent's

pain is the same.

The day of the funeral,

in the very front of the church
were all the little kids.

All the little kids from
first grade on.

And Father John literally
spoke to them during this

service, and he walked down
to them, and he said,

"I want you to think about
Shanda as a butterfly.

Take your hands
and put them together."

This was
just the sweetest thing.

They all put their hands
together, and he said,

"I want you
to hold your butterfly,

and that butterfly is Shanda."

And he said, "Okay."

He said, "Now I want you all
to let your hands open

and let Shanda go."

And they all opened
their hands.

It was just wonderful.

On her tombstone is
hands with a butterfly in it.

I see butterflies every time
I go to her grave.

Every time.

I know I'll be with her again.

And that alone is what
makes me get up every day.

Love your kids.

Watch your kids.

Take care of your kids.

Make them feel wanted.

It's the most important
in the whole world.

On the next
Mean Girl Murders...

You had to have the looks,
personality,

and it also depended on who
you were friends with.

She was crowned
the Dairy Princess.

It would be easy to see where
someone could be jealous.

She was number one in every
thing she did. Even crime.