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| Jennifer Mee reacts to verdict |
Mee was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the only sentence allowable under the law - according to Judge Nancy Moate Ley. At age 15, Mee reportedly developed hiccups that would not go away. She had appeared on the Today Show and Inside Edition for her odd case of the hiccups. Mee reportedly tried many therapies to rid herself of the hiccups,which stopped for a period of time and then returned. Mee disappeared from the spotlight and then in the summer of 2007 she disappeared from her family for 24 hours. Her parents found her crying on a park bench. Friends of Mee's say she was afraid her hiccups would hamper her life, and it may even prevent her from getting married.
According to her family, she suffered from seizures and had to be placed in a psychiatric hospital and may have been beaten by her boyfriend. She eventually "withdrew" from high school and by 2010 she was living away from home on social security disability. Mee was on trial for her role in the 2010 murder of 22 year old Shannon Griffin. The prosecution alleged that Mee met Shannon Griffon online and lured him to an vacant home under the pretense of wanting to buy marijuana. Once at the remote location, two of Mee's friends robbed Griffin at gunpoint and during the struggle he was shot four times. LaRon Raidford, one of Mee's co-defendants was convicted and sentenced to life in prison in August. The remaining co-defendant, Mee's former boyfriend Lamont Newton has yet to go to trial. John Trevena, Mee's attorney argued that she did not orchestrate a robbery and he claimed there was not sufficient evidence to convict her. Apparently the jury thought otherwise.
The prosecution argued that Mee did set the robbery up, and they used a taped jailhouse phone call between Mee and her mother as evidence at her trial. In the call Mee told her mother that she did not pull the trigger on the gun that killed Griffin, but was charged with murder "because I set everything up". She told her mom "it all went wrong mom, it just went downhill". There have been debates over whether Mee was the "mastermind" of this robbery gone bad or an innocent bystander who got caught up in a bad situation. I don't know which one she is, but any time you plan to rob someone or lure them to a place where others are lying in wait - you are responsible for what happens to that person. It's as simple as that. She may not have intended for him to get shot and killed, but if she knew he was going to be robbed for drugs,money or both then she is responsible.
It's amazing to me that people still don't grasp the gravity of their actions, and still seem to believe you have to be the one who pulled the trigger to be charged in something like this. Jacklynn Allen, the sister of co-defendant LaRon Raidford insisted that Mee was in control. "If it wasn't from her, none of this would've happened", Allen told tampabay.com. Mee argued that she and her co-defendants all had access to the phone that was used to call Griffin and direct him to the remote location. Mee's attorney argued that if Mee didn't know about the robbery, she was not part of any "plot". A look into the mindset of Jennifer Mee from her Facebook page:
September 2, 2010: Maken mo money than da avarage bitch...
September 5, 2010: Bae gave me 2beans n refa..im f****d up gota work at 930am wtf
Looks like Mee forgot to use spellcheck. The Facebook messages were posted around the time Mee moved into an apartment with her boyfriend with boyfriend Lamont Antonio Newton, LaRon Raidford and a woman named Jennifer Charron. During a formal interview with attorneys, Charron said that one night in October of 2010 Mee, Raidford and Newton all left the apartment - Mee told her they were "going to get some money", without saying exactly what that meant. Before long, Mee ran back upstairs and was very upset. She said "somebody got shot". Then LaRon Raidford ran up the stairs and was so upset he punched the wall. He reportedly was screaming "Lamont is dead bro". But Lamont Newton was not dead, and soon after he staggered up the stairs and collapsed on the ground, out of breath. "Lamont was saying he had to do it...he had to kill the guy or he would've been killed himself".
Lamont Newton is the only one of the three that has not yet gone on trial for this murder. Jennifer Mee's own mother, Robin Robidoux was arrested just days before her trial began on a warrant for interference of child custody. What a story. You couldn't make this stuff up.
