Rachel explained all she had been told thus far, which wasn’t much.
“How is Jennifer as a person?” Trevena wanted to know.
That was easy. Rachel said her daughter had always been good-natured and good-hearted overall. “She’s had problems. She’s done some things I am not proud of. And she might be a lot of things, but I can tell you she is not a murderer.”
It was clear that Rachel did not know the extent to which Jennifer had been involved with Lamont Newton, her boyfriend, and the “empire,” as one source later put it, Lamont and Jennifer were supposedly building together.
As they talked, Rachel explained that she knew Jennifer had been smoking weed on occasion, acting badass and street tough, as though she was some sort of hustler online and around her friends, but she was mainly being influenced by that crowd, Rachel assumed. Jennifer had been through so much, over such a short period of time, and did not have the educational or psychological abilities to deal with it all. She probably did not realize what was going on around her, even though she was part of it.
Trevena said he understood. They’d get to the bottom of everything as soon as possible. He then got up from his desk, walked over to Rachel and her mother, told them he was taking over now. “I’ll do what I can.”
He handed Rachel “a few hundred” business cards.
“If anybody tries to contact you, you hand them my card and have them call me. Listen,” Trevena said next, quite sincerely, “do not speak to anybody directly yourself. Don’t worry about this. I will take care of everything.”
* * *
No sooner had Rachel and her mother reached her car in Trevena’s parking lot after the meeting than the local media descended upon them, sticking microphones and cameras in their faces, pestering them for comments. This was going to be a huge story, not just locally, but nationally and internationally as well. The Hiccup Girl had gone down in flames. The local celebrity had taken a bite out of a rotten apple and was now on her way from Eden to eternal damnation. Was there a better story from a pop culture perspective? It was going to be the lead story all over Florida. Inside Edition would pick it up. Good Morning America, the Today show, and several other gossipy-type print publications and television shows would be waiting. Nancy Grace was going to have a field day with the Hiccup Girl. Anderson Cooper would surely lead off 360 with the hiccup headline. FOX News would run with it, as would all the others: HICCUP GIRL CHARGED WITH MURDER AFTER ALLEGEDLY LURING MAN INTO TRAP.
There was that damn word: “allegedly.” Rachel knew enough about the media to know that they could wrap any accusation they wanted around that adverb and paint any picture they wanted to of her daughter, as long as they qualified it with allegedly.
And why weren’t they reporting the story as Jennifer Mee? Why the Hiccup Girl?
“Ratings grab,” Rachel said. “The Hiccup Girl was a name.”
One local reporter asked Rachel, as she tried to get into her car, “How do you feel now that your daughter is a murderer?”
Rachel was overwhelmed by this question. How dare the woman! Nothing had been proven. Nothing in the form of evidence or statements from the police had yet been released. There was no confession Rachel or Trevena knew of, but here was Jennifer being called a murderer!
Does Jen even have a chance? Rachel wondered.
“I did not know it at the time, even with all we had been through with the hiccups, but the media, that’s what they do—they try to bait you into showing emotion.”
“No comment,” Rachel told the woman. “I am not going to be talking.”
Rachel was struggling to get into her car as a reporter actually positioned her body in between the door and Rachel, so Rachel couldn’t get in.
“Excuse me,” Rachel said. “Please. Leave us alone.”
Just then, according to Rachel’s recollection, her mother came over from around the other side of the vehicle and pushed the female reporter out of the way so Rachel could get in.
“Don’t you dare lay your hands on me, I’ll have you arrested,” the reporter said to Rachel’s mom.
Rachel got into the driver’s seat. Her mother went around and hopped into the passenger side. Sitting, starting the vehicle, Rachel wanted to scream and bang her hands on the steering wheel. Let it all out. Have a good, long tantrum. However, she pressed forward, switching the shifter into DRIVE and taking off.
At home that night, Rachel had no idea where to turn or what to do next. Was she doing everything she could for her daughter? Was Jennifer okay? What would happen to her after fellow inmates found out who she was? Would she be ridiculed and beaten? The fear of the unknown asphyxiated Rachel. She was choking on a feeling of helplessness.
As she sat crying, her mother came over. She was comforting and consoling. “We’ll figure it out, honey. It’s going to be okay.”
While thinking through things, the telephone rang. It was a producer from Today. Rachel and Jennifer had told the world Jennifer’s hiccup story on that morning program three years prior. Here was the same producer wanting Rachel’s exclusive story about what had happened to Jennifer.
Rachel explained that she couldn’t do or say anything without John Trevena’s stamp of approval, but she didn’t think it was a good time right now to go on television and talk, anyway.
“We’ve already spoken to him and he wants you and him to come on as soon as you can get to New York.”
“I’ll get back to you.”
Rachel hung up, sat down on the edge of her bed, ran her hands through her hair, and took a long, deep breath. Maybe if she went on Today and explained to the world that Jennifer was that same girl who’d had the hiccups back in 2007, only somewhat mixed-up now as her life had taken a downward spiral after the hiccups ended, people would understand and sympathize. Maybe they would see Jennifer wasn’t some cold-blooded killer. She was a mixed-up young girl whose star had fallen and had turned to numbing agents to lessen the pain of life. Since Jennifer’s battle with the hiccups, she had been diagnosed with Tourette’s syndrome.2 Notably, in Jennifer’s case, children who suffer from Tourette’s generally experience more serious medical conditions as early as seven to ten years old, and as they age into adulthood, too. Among these are ADHD, OCD, impulse control disorder, and severe depression—all of which could be applied to Jennifer at various times of her life.
After speaking with Trevena, and under his guidance, Rachel agreed to fly to New York, with her mother supporting her. Rachel would appear on Today and talk about how she felt. While this was occurring, the St. Petersburg Police Department (SPPD) prepared to hit the airwaves themselves, ready to give its version of the events leading up to the murder of Shannon Griffin.
CHAPTER 12
IF THERE WAS any aspect of Jennifer Mee’s character she might have hidden from her mother during those days leading up to her arrest for murder, it would have to be the entirety of the life she led on her own. Rachel knew some things, but definitely not all. This life Jennifer led included a routine she had not been built for—and, consequently, was unprepared for, emotionally or otherwise. Jennifer had fallen in with several serious players totally plugged into the streets, a type of hustler whom Jennifer believed she would become one day. For one, Jennifer’s first boyfriend in Florida, a man Jennifer had claimed to have loved like no other boy she knew, was into things Jennifer had no experience with whatsoever. It’s clear from what she wrote on her Myspace pages during the latter part of 2009 that Jennifer had become someone completely different from that young, naïve, friendly girly-girl from Vermont whom friends and family had always known:
Im always havin fun chillin or vibbin to some gucci:) im a down ass chick and all the others will never compare so dont try me like im the next hoe. Ive lived in florida for a while now but my heart is still in vermont? im trying to better myself and just move on in life. Im single& not lookin but if a real nigga comes along then im here:) hit me up if you need to kno anymore . . .
Roberts Recrea
tion Center on Fiftieth Avenue North, downtown St. Pete, was a popular place for Jennifer to hang out and meet new people as she got used to life in Florida. Alongside the recreation center was a park, where Jennifer would go and watch the kids play hoops, where she would meet and befriend new people. Allison Baldwin (pseudonym) was there one day. She and Jennifer hit it off.
“I basically became part of her family, and she became part of mine,” Allison recalled with a degree of disappointment and concern.
Allison and Jennifer were both in their early teens when they met. The two girls soon became like sisters as the hiccup fame engulfed Jennifer and she quit high school, began collecting state assistance, and moved out of the family house and into an efficiency apartment by herself.
Allison witnessed firsthand the life Jennifer led on her own and wanted no part of it. She encouraged Jennifer to get away from Lamont Newton, especially, and also nineteen-year-old Laron Raiford and Jennifer “Jenni” Charron, the couple Jen had moved in with at 610 Fifth Avenue in St. Pete after Jennifer and Lamont were tossed from her efficiency. This was definitely not a clique of people, Allison knew, that were going to steer Jen in the right direction. These weren’t high-school kids going through some phase. They were a few years older and definitely were more in touch with how to hustle and work the street.
To Allison, back in those days when they hung around Roberts Park and spoke of all the things young girls chat about when their parents aren’t around, Jennifer was “always happy.” She gave Allison the sense that she’d had a good life, despite a few traumatic bumps along the way. She routinely discussed growing up in Vermont and the contrast she noticed now to her life in Florida. “She talked a lot about her family. She loved them.”
Not that Jennifer’s life was a Disney channel sitcom, but Jennifer expressed to Allison that she understood those tough times had built character. You became who you were based on the way you were brought up and how you chose to deal with the failures and misfortunes you met along your path—whether you forgave and loved, or harbored resentment and hated.
“The one thing about Jennifer,” Allison explained, “she was not an angry person—never, ever angry.”
The darkest part of her life, Jennifer had explained to Allison one day as a somber effect took over the conversation, came when two males repeatedly “raped” Jennifer and “took advantage of her at such a young age.” The alleged crime and the subsequent trauma that followed defined Jennifer and she spoke about it often to those in her close inner circle. It was something she never worked through entirely, many of those same friends later believed. Jennifer got kind of stuck in that traumatic moment of her life. As much as she had wanted to forgive and move on, the repeated sexual assaults dictated the path she later chose to take, proving for her that forgiveness and moving forward from the trauma was easier said than done.
“It would be every day,” Allison explained, referring to the rape and how often Jennifer said it occurred. “Her attackers [were close to her], so they would rape her every day.”3
From Jennifer’s point of view, the hardest part of it all was that when she began to talk about it, nobody, at first, believed her, Jennifer told Allison. It couldn’t be true. Her attackers were from a seemingly strict, solid Christian background. Jennifer claimed she was made to feel as though she was lying about it all. And this, Allison believed when she later looked back, was the beginning of the end for Jennifer and how her life later turned out. Jennifer saw everything through the prism of those assaults and believed her lack of self-esteem to be directly tied to the victimization and then not being believed.
“She told me her parents finally caught on to the rape, which occurred for a few years. . . .”
Allison and Jennifer often discussed the ramifications of the rape and how it affected Jennifer as she made her way through the rigors of life in Florida.
“It totally changed who she was,” Allison said. “And Jennifer knew that.”
Seeking attention and the way Jennifer viewed romantic relationships and her role in them became the main consequence Jennifer dealt with. Jennifer’s self-worth dissolved over time. She never expected to be treated properly by a man. She expected to be let down, to be ridiculed and punished, and so she went out and found those types of relationships that would allow her to have those experiences because she felt she deserved no better. Maybe not consciously, but definitely as an unconscious way of dealing with the sexual trauma she supposedly endured.
“Bad guys,” Allison said. “That’s who Jennifer went after. She never dated good guys. She always dated people who took advantage of her. And I believe one hundred percent that it was a decision on her part because of the rape.”
Jennifer felt comfortable being taken advantage of—and Allison was there on the sidelines to witness it all as she watched Jennifer date her first love and then Lamont Newton. In fact, what Chris and Rachel Robidoux didn’t know was that at the time Jennifer and Lamont moved in with Laron Raiford and Jennifer Charron, Lamont frequented a place called Bottom to Top Club, which billed itself as a “bikini bar.” To the rest of the modern world, it was known as a strip club. The city had a nude ordinance, which did not allow full nudity. Just about four months before Jennifer’s arrest, in June 2010, police raided the Bottom to the Top Club and shut it down after six “dancers” were cited for violating the ordinance—i.e., dancing naked. The disc jockey in the club was arrested for carrying a concealed weapon. Others were charged on the same night with resisting arrest and obstruction. SPPD spokesman Bill Proffitt told the Tampa Bay Times that “officers had also received complaints about drug dealing and prostitution at the club. . . .”
Not a good situation to be around. Either for Lamont or Jennifer, but this was Lamont’s comfort zone, according to several who knew him personally. Lamont thrived in this type of environment and came off as a player while cruising the club, handing the girls dollar bills, drinking, setting up deals.
The club and the area of the city where it was located was what cops described as “rough.” Not a place where you’d want to spend a quiet night in St. Pete. It had become, though, one of Lamont’s top hangouts, and he’d bring Jen with him. Yet, according to a source within the group, Lamont wouldn’t allow Jen into the club, and not because she was underage. Jennifer Mee, instead, would disappear out into the night around this same superseedy, very dangerous neighborhood to shill crack cocaine and other drugs.
Jennifer was a streetwalking dope peddler. And according to her and Lamont, she did this on her own. Lamont never pushed her to do it, and she had been dealing hard-core drugs far before ever meeting Lamont.
Jennifer was attached to Lamont’s youngest child and would often take care of him with great affection whenever Lamont had the child for visitations.
“She loved that baby as though it was her own,” a friend said.
Lamont had mixed feelings for Jennifer. This was clear to everyone in that St. Pete circle, except for maybe Jennifer. Some said he did not love her. Yet, all he needed to do was say, “Baby, come on, do this for me. . . . You know I love you,” and Jennifer was like his trained puppy. She’d do whatever Lamont wanted.
A lot of this behavior on Jennifer’s part, said a friend (with Jennifer’s mother and several others later agreeing), was centered on Jennifer’s hatred toward white males because her attackers were both white. Jennifer had always said she would date only black guys because she believed they would not hurt her in the same manner as her attackers had.
“You see, [her attackers] were supposed to take care of her, but they, instead, took advantage of her and raped her,” a source explained. “And that right there poisoned Jennifer’s entire outlook and turned her right around to date black boys only.”
Apparently not only date, but to do other things, too—which had made many people wonder as Jennifer’s case became the lead story everywhere: did Jennifer’s loyalty to Lamont and the others include murder?
CHAPTER 13
A LARGE, HEAVYSET man, with short-cropped, steely gray hair and a mustache, walked up and stood in front of a green-and-yellow banner reading, ST. PETERSBURG POLICE DEPARTMENT. An American flag stood tall and proud over his right shoulder. Embroidered on the right side of the banner was an eagle making its landing atop three words: LOYALTY, INTEGRITY, FIDELITY—the SPPD’s core value slogan.
The man at the microphone was Chief of Police Charles Harmon. It was October 25, 2010. Standing next to the chief was another cop, whom some would later confuse with the lead detective in the case, Dave Wawrzynski. But this man was not Detective Wawrzynski; the man standing near the chief was Major Michael Kovacsev, who wore a charcoal-gray suit, light-colored gray tie, and soft peach shirt.
Kovacsev had walked over and dropped some paperwork on a small table next to the lectern, where both men stood. The two police officers were there to announce, as the fact sheet accompanying the press conference stated, “Jennifer Mee [had been] arrested for homicide.” Not Lamont Newton and Laron Raiford, both of whom had also been arrested, but this meeting with the media, with the chief of police holding court, had been called to announce that Jennifer Mee, the infamous Hiccup Girl, was in custody on felony murder charges.
“There had been so many media inquiries after [it had been] learned that Miss Mee was involved,” one law enforcement source told me, “that the chief and major had no choice but to hold a press conference.”
Seemed reasonable enough.
The oak-finished lectern was not as crowded as one might expect with microphones sticking up into the chief’s face like lollipops, yet all of the local affiliates had a presence. NBC’s microphone, with that boxed-in, recognizable peacock logo just under the ball, stood front and center. The press conference had been set up to give the media some details surrounding the murder of Shannon Griffin and the arrests the SPPD had made. The SPPD had not been accustomed to holding press conferences to announce these types of inner-city crimes and arrests in the past. Some would question why they were doing it now, but it was a simple decision based on the amount of media badgering the department. People were interested, so the SPPD wanted to oblige the media. By doing so, they would likely stop the phone in the public information officer’s office from ringing off the hook.
One Breath Away Page 4