Douglas Gibson's Reviews > Cruel Sacrifice

I have decided that this will be Non-Fiction November! Since I was starting this new theme with a new book on November first, my mind was still stuck in Halloween Horror mode, so I was instantly drawn to my true crime section and then to Aphrodite Jones’, “Cruel Sacrifice.” I had no idea that this little paperback would be much more disturbing and horrifying than anything horror book I had read over the past two months.
This story is what I would, as a fan of MY Favorite Murder podcast, call “ My Hometown Murder” and one of my earliest obsessions with true crime. And although it is cool to read references to River Falls Mall, Rocky Horror at the Vogue, Fag Hill in Cherokee Park, and other places I often haunted in the early 90’s, not to mention quotes from a couple of acquaintances I once knew, nothing about reading this is fun or outweighs the truly disturbing details described in these 300 and something pages.
The book is unofficially divided into 4 sections. The first sections gives a fairly well-detailed description of the abduction, torture, and eventual murder of Shanda Sharer. Next, and I think the largest section of the book deals with the backstory of Melinda Loveless’ mentally unstable parents. There is an entire book that could be written about these two, before they even give birth to would-be-killer Melinda. The stories of her childhood are stomach churning and include not only incest and molestation but an exorcism in a motel room by members of Graceland Baptist church. Next we are given the childhood of equally disturbed, Laurie Tackett. Where Jones implies Melinda didn’t stand a chance being raised by her mentally ill father, there is a slight implication, although a victim of many hardships, and several church lead exorcisms too, seems to have been “born bad.” The entire time I was reading about Tackett, all I could think is, this is the last person on Earth that should ever met Melinda Loveless. The final section of the book informs the reader of the girl’s court cases, here the book becomes too repetitive and dry.
I don’t know that I can recommend this one unless you really like your true crime on the deskside. As it is, this one stands as a cautionary tale to listen and act on warning signs when you see them, and the need for better mental health in this country.
Pet Peeve-this book was published in 1995 and Aphrodite Jones felt no need to mask his homophobia while faking journalistic objectiveness.