VIDEO: She Was Shot in the Face 21 Years Ago

When she was 17, Shawna was a cashier at a grocery store.

In January 1992, she was attacked in the grocery store by two armed girls.

Jerrie, 14 at the times, shot her in the face. The bullet blasted off her lower jaw, lip, and teeth.  Fortunately, Shawna survived the ordeal.

Mark Strickland, the one who organized the robbery, was convicted and Jerrie and her accomplice were placed in juvenile dentition for six years.

Read the full story below, provided by Dr. Phil.

On a busy Friday night in January, 1992, 17-year-old Shawna was working part-time as a grocery store cashier alongside her high school sweetheart, Bob, when she found herself in the middle of a robbery. She says Jerrie, 14, came into the store with another girl and shouted, “Everyone on the ground. This is a robbery.” Shawna says Jerrie held her at point blank range with a sawed-off shotgun and demanded the money from her register. “The last thing I remember her saying was, ‘Bitch, I want it all.’”

“The gun went off. Everything turned black,” Shawna explains. “I recall someone saying, ‘We’re losing her. We’re losing her.’”

Doctors determined that the bullet entered Shawna’s lower jaw, and took off her chin, lower lip and bottom teeth. The force of the blast fractured her upper jaw.

Three people were arrested for the events that day, including Mark Strickland, who was convicted of organizing the robbery. Jerrie Jones and her female accomplice were given six-year sentences in juvenile detention.

Shawna says that because Jerrie was a minor, she was allowed to hide her face during the trial. “She would not make eye contact with me,” Shawna says. “Jerrie Jones could hide but I can’t hide. I couldn’t hide then, and I can’t hide now.”

For the last 21 years, Shawna says she’s endured 100 painful surgeries, panic attacks and public ridicule. She says she’s been called a “monster” and a “Cabbage Patch doll,” and that children call her gross. “Every time I look in the mirror, I am reminded of what she did to me,” Shawna says. “This is a lifelong sentence. It’s not fair that her sentence was six years.”

Shawna says she’s sometimes unable to leave the house for weeks at a time due to the depression. She says she still has nightmares as often as three times per week. “Twenty-one years later, and I still can’t forget it,” she says. “I didn’t get to live my dreams. My dream now is to get one good night of sleep.”

“When I was a teenager, I got mixed up in the wrong crowd,” Jerrie says. She says her friend introduced her to Mark Strickland, who told them that he had robbed Ken’s grocery store several times, and it was easy. Jerrie says Mark gave her a gun and told her it was empty. “My intentions were never to hurt her,” she says.

Jerrie says that she was shocked when Shawna was shot. “The gun just went off,” she says. “I don’t remember pulling the trigger of the gun.”

Jerrie was charged with felonious assault and robbery, and she says she turned her life around in jail.