Woman convicted in 1992 slaying of 12-year-old Shanda Renee Sharer is released from prison

One of the four women convicted of beating, burning and killing 12-year-old Shanda Renee Sharer in 1992 was released Thursday from prison on the 26th anniversary of the girl's body being found.

Mary Laurine "Laurie" Tackett, 43, of Madison, was released shortly after midnight, according to officials from the Indiana Department of Correction.

Tackett, who was 17 at the time of the killing, was charged as an adult and sentenced to 60 years in the Indiana Women's Prison in 1993 alongside co-defendant Melinda Loveless of New Albany.

Two other defendants, Toni Lawrence and Hope A. Rippey, were sentenced to 20 years and 50 years respectively, according to IndyStar archives. Lawrence was released from prison in 2000, and Rippey was released in 2006.

Online records list the earliest possible release date for Loveless as Sept. 5, 2019.

Witnesses said that Loveless plotted to kill Sharer because she believed Sharer had stolen her 15-year-old girlfriend from her. Court testimony indicates that the four girls lured Sharer from her home the night of Jan. 10, 1992, on the pretense that she was being taken to meet her new girlfriend.

Sharer entered the car, not knowing Loveless was hiding in the back seat under a blanket, according to IndyStar archives. Loveless ordered Sharer to tell the truth about stealing the girlfriend or have her throat slit.

The 12-year-old began to cry and tried to answer Loveless' questions, testimony showed.

The teens then bound, bludgeoned, choked, cut and sodomized Sharer at a remote location. After more than seven hours of torture, the girls ended it by soaking Sharer with gasoline and burning her alive alongside a country road, evidence revealed.

Witnesses also testified that Tackett, who was obsessed with the occult and the notion of killing someone, had proposed asking Sharer's ghost during a seance how it felt to die by fire, according to IndyStar archives.

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During her sentencing hearing in 1993, Tackett conceded that she let opportunities to save Sharer's life slip away and that she was too afraid to stop it.

But Tackett also explained how after beating Sharer they locked the injured but still-living girl in the trunk of her car and drove her to the spot where she was set on fire.

Sharer's body was found the morning of Jan. 11, 1992.

In 1994, Tackett and Loveless appealed their sentences, citing their difficult childhoods. But the Indiana Supreme Court upheld their sentences.

In May 2011, Tackett appeared on an episode of "Dr. Phil." Sharer's mother and sister were also guests on the show. During the episode, Tackett said that if she could go back, she wouldn't have been there that night and she would have done everything in her power to stop it.

"I didn't know Shanda at all. I didn't go into that evening knowing anything was gonna happen, wanting anything to happen ... I didn't," Tackett said. "Peer pressure. That's all it was. It spiraled out of control way too fast. It's something that should have never happened."

Call IndyStar reporter Justin L. Mack at (317) 444-6138. Follow him on Twitter: @justinlmack.