Coming up.

The 12-year-old girl Shanda Cher lured into a car and then murdered by a group of girls beaten her body set on fire in 1992.

For Vault Studios, I'm Will Johnson.

You're listening to The Daily Crime.

It was just over 29 years ago in January, 1992 1992 that a murder case in and around small towns

in Indiana and Kentucky took the life of a 12-year-old girl and horrified so many across

multiple towns and communities.

Twelve-year-old Shanda Sherr was kidnapped, tortured, and killed by teens.

Tony Lawrence, Hope Rippey, Lori Taggett, and Melinda Loveless because Lovelace had convinced

the group that the 12-year-old Cher was trying to steal her girlfriend.

And to this day, the murder of Shanda Cher leaves people asking why. Why would four teenage girls

target, torture, and kill another girl, only 12 years old?

You can never justify, answer, explain whatever you want to call it this crime.

This, when you know everything that happened to that child, can never be explained.

In my mind, and this is after I have stopped being a reporter, to me it's just evil.

It's just out and out evil combined with peer pressure.

And I will frankly never, ever understand it. It's the type of horrendous

act that most human beings can't really ever understand or wrap their mind around.

Melissa Swan has retired from the news business,

but for over 30 years, she covered news as a reporter and an anchor.

She's well known in Kentucky for her long tenure at WHS 11 in Louisville.

Over three decades, she covered a lot of stories.

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