Petition opposes parole for accomplice in Nancy Shoemaker murder case

July 31, 2009

BY SUZANNE PEREZ TOBIAS
The Wichita Eagle

Right: Court appearance for Donald Wacker, convicted in the kidnapping, rape, and slaying in 1990 of Nancy Shoemaker. Al Schaben photo.

Below: Nancy Shoemaker dated about 1990. She was nine years old.

Nineteen years ago, 9-year-old Nancy Shoemaker disappeared while walking to a south Wichita gas station to buy a 7-up for her sick brother.

Her body was found seven months later in a Sumner County hedgerow. She had been kidnapped, raped and killed.

Now friends of the Shoemakers and others who remember the case — including employees of the Phillips 66 station where Nancy headed that day — are circulating petitions in hopes of keeping one of her kidnappers in prison.

Donald Wacker, who was convicted of aiding the kidnapping and murder, will go before the Kansas Parole Board in October...

Wacker is serving a sentence of 16 years to life for helping kidnap Nancy. He testified during trial that he sat by and watched while a co-defendant, Doil Lane, raped and strangled the girl...

Wacker has gone before a parole board twice. In 2004, Joyce Wacker, Donald's mother said on his behalf, "actually, he wasn't the one who done it," Joyce Wacker said...

Nancy Shoemaker would have turned 29 this year...

Copies of the petition are at Davis-Moore auto dealerships in Wichita and at the Presto Phillips 66 station at 2356 S. Seneca. It also is available on the Parents of Murdered Children Web site, www.pomc.com. Select "petitions" in the top navigation bar.

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