The high school cheerleader with the drop-dead smile looks at the camera from 36 years ago into a future that should have held nothing but bright promise.
Sharon Ann Reese, known as ``Sherry,'' is described in the 1960 yearbook of Chester County's Unionville High School as having ``beautiful blond hair.''
She was a member of the National Honor Society, played hockey and basketball, sang in the Glee Club, was a cheerleader and member of the Stagecraft Club and the orchestra.
``Knows everyone. Song leader. Coy,'' says the caption under her photo.
She shared many of her high school activities with her sweetheart, Merton Ronald ``Ronny'' Radloff, an earnest-looking young man in dark jacket and striped tie.
He was described in the yearbook as having a ``terrific bass voice,'' his hair sporting a ``blond wave, just so.''
Careers, children and broken marriages later, Sharon Reese, who became Sharon Devilbiss, and Ron Radloff met again in West Chester last September and were ready to resume their long-ago love affair.
Then tragedy struck.
A retired Presbyterian minister, 72-year-old Richard Whiteside - a man who boarded in Devilbiss' home and had been seen walking hand-in-hand with her through the neighborhood - pulled a .32-caliber pistol on the couple in her kitchen Monday afternoon.
In what police described as a fit of jealousy, the ex-minister shot Radloff twice in the chest, killing him, beat and shot Devilbiss and then killed himself with a bullet to the head.
Devilbiss was treated at the Crozer-Chester Medical Center in Upland, Delaware County, for a bullet wound of the back of the head and was released Tuesday night.
All three participants in the drama were married to other people, but the marriages had fallen apart.
The violence left families, friends and an entire community stricken with shock and wonder.
According to acquaintances, Sharon Devilbiss, now 54, lost little of her bouncy high school charm as she moved into middle age.
John Maiorano, of My World Travel Agency in Chadds Ford, where Devilbiss worked, said she still was ``almost like a cheerleader.''
He described her as atttractive, about 5-foot-4, with curly light brown hair that touched her shoulders, and ``bright blue eyes.''
``She's always smiling,'' a colleague said.
``You just had to like her,'' said a fellow travel agent.
``If a cat followed her home, with no collar or tags, that cat would go home with her,'' Maiorano said. ``That's how she is. Very caring.''
