Jez, that’s probably the most disturbing true crime story I’ve ever heard. After reading that account at crimelibrary.com, my hands were shaking and I felt physically ill.
I see that two of them are already out of jail, and the other two will be out before they are 50 (60 years?, nah, out in 25). Isn’t that nice. Oh, and they all are working on their B.A.'s, free of charge, of course, playing volleyball, and engaging in all sorts of sexual encounters.
That’ll teach 'em a lesson. Again, justice is not served.
I think you’re getting the movie confused with the book. In the book it was An axe. She actually cut off his foot, she didn’t smash it. Later she cut off one of his thumbs.
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I’m not sure I can explain it to you, but I’ll try.
Mostly, I think it is just one of those things that varies from person to person. You know, like fart jokes: some people always think they are funny, some people sometimes think they are funny and some people never think they are funny.
Well, some people like reading about sex, and some people don’t. Some people don’t care what people read in their spare time, but mind what they are assigned to read for class. And some people find it annoying when society seems to be sending the message that sexual partners are (or should be) more like Post-it Notes than like Liquid Nails. Or that waiting until marriage to have sex makes you weird, rather than responsible.
Having said that, it seems to me that there was something objectionable about the way that the scenes in The White Hotel were written- but it’s been more than a decade since I’ve read the book and I fail to see any reason to go find a copy so I can read it and see if the scenes are still obnoxious. But as I read romance novels, I know that there are certain words which strike me as situationally appropriate, certain words which tend to strike me as funny- and certain words that tend to strike me as just not fitting.
Imagine being less than six degrees separated from it.
And look at the mugshots for Hope Rippey and Melissa Lovelace. They’re LOVING the attention.
I remember crying when I heard about all this. I mean, 12 freakin’ years old! Thrown in the trunk of a car, beaten with a tire iron several times, sodomized with it. And set on fire while still alive.
And over a girlfriend? No one deserves that. EVER.
Even thinking about it now makes me feel like vomiting.
Even though I’d never met Shanda, or Melissa, or Hope, or Toni, I feel at least a little involved in the whole thing. The girl I mentioned, Kari, who was dating one of the girls involved, was interested in me before all this happened. So, like I said, I was within 6 degrees of Shanda’s death.
I had nothing to do with it, but I still feel guilty about it, and wish it had never happened.
Not to keep drawing attention to this particular crime, but the community itself is a fairly sleepy, stereotypically so, area. Everyone was just floored by it. Still are.
It also made it into a music video. At the beginning of Jeremy by Pearl Jam, when the newspaper headlines are flashing on the screen, one makes a reference to the Shanda Sharer story.
I get that. That’s fine. To each his own. However, we’re not talking about “doing” it. We’re talking about understanding a character through someone else’s eyes. Sometimes that character is motivated by, or partakes in, sex. I guess I just don’t understand how someone else’s (frequently a fictional someone else) sexual behavior would be objectionable strictly from an informational standpoint. It is what it is.
I have a new one to add to the list. The Crime Library account of Sylvia Livens’s murder. I had weird dreams with people being glued to beds last night after reading that.
I can only imagine how you must feel Superdude. It’s shocking beyond belief. And to have it happen in your small, hometown. Wow.
This is what really makes me angry about this, and so many other cases, the punishment is a joke! They get a free college education, they get to play sports, they watch TV, they play games, they get media attention, they have relationships (one of the girls was sleeping with a prison employee for crying out loud). True, their freedom is taken away, but still, all-in-all, they have a pretty cushy existance in there.
If you brutally torture (for hours no less), rape, and burn somebody alive, you should be on death row! If death is not an option (or for the sake of this argument, you are against the death penalty), you should be in solitary confinement and doing hard labor 4-6 hours (at least) a day. No TV. No free college education. No volleyball scrimmages.
God, this pisses me off to no end!!! :mad: :mad: :mad:
I worked at the store the girls shoplifted batteries from earlier that afternoon. If
we had caught them & they had been grounded that evening…
Hope’s dad (a decent guy AFAIK) attended my church. A co-worker attended another church that Laurie’s family attended. I know some family members of Toni’s. Several ladies involved in my church’s jail ministry talked with some of
the girls.
I however knew none of the immediate parties.
Damn did this area feel like Twin Peaks for the year from the murder through the trial.
And yeah, I have both books- CRUEL SACRIFICE is one of the three books that gave me nightmares as an adult (the other two were Barker’s The Hellbound Heart and Fred Schechter’s book Deviant about Ed Gein).
I’d seen the first two Hellraiser films (I don’t think III had yet been released but if it had, I’d seen that also) with no nightmares whatsoever, but upon reading the book I had this dream…
I’m with some people who seem to be friends but aren’t anyone I can ID IRL.
And what should they be playing with but the Configuration? I try to warn them, but too late- tinkly music starts playing, the Configuration is rearranging itself, deep funeral bells are tolling, the wall start shifting with a pale blue light from the cracks, I’m yelling “oh sh*t, they’re coming…”
I live in Louisville, KY. But was born and raised a Hoosier, and lived in New Albany, where Shanda lived at the time. Her house was, I think, less than five miles from mine.
That’s a good way of putting it. I was thinking “Law & Order.”
I read Cruel Sacrifice, too. They were both equally disturbing.
You mentioned that you didn’t know anyone actually involved in it. I didn’t, either. Kari Pope’s involvement didn’t enter into the equation of that night until after it was done.
