One Breath Away

by M. William Phelps

  Judge Nancy Moate Ley wanted to know if everybody was in the courtroom.

  Apparently, with that settled, the jury was then brought in.

  Judge Ley asked for the jury foreman to stand and hand the verdict to the deputy.

  The clerk took it from the deputy and read it into the record: “‘State of Florida versus Jennifer Mee, murder in the first degree. We, the jury, find as follows as to the defendant in this case. The defendant is guilty of murder in the first degree as charged.’”

  A deep, collective gasp could be felt more than heard.

  It was the worst-possible outcome for Jennifer Mee, who began crying almost immediately. And the one person Jennifer had leaned on throughout, the one person she had been through everything in her life with, the one person she relied on for support more than any other human being, as Jennifer turned to look for her mother, Rachel Robidoux was not yet there.

  “It took me about fifteen minutes to get back and I was . . . too late,” Rachel said later, nearly in tears herself recalling the moment her daughter was found guilty of first-degree murder and she was not there to cushion the fall.

  Thus, a panel of seven women and five men had found Jennifer Mee guilty. The jurors were now being polled as Jennifer could be heard heavily breathing, nearly hyperventilating, crying loudly.

  Shannon’s mother cried, too, as did Doug Bolden.

  There were no winners here.

  John Trevena was not at all surprised. And yet anytime a client is found guilty, especially with the stakes as high as they were on this day, Trevena felt hurt and frustrated To him, it had been a witch hunt from day one. Here it was the state had offered a deal to the admitted shooter and not once did it take seriously a deal that Jennifer could consider.

  Jennifer Mee now faced sentencing.

  The judge wasted little time: “All right. The jury, having found you guilty of murder in the first degree, Miss Mee, I will adjudicate you guilty and sentence you to life in prison without parole.... You have thirty days to appeal.”

  What many found to be an indication of how emotionally taxing it had been in such a short time of just three days of testimony, four jurors cried as the verdict was read into the record and Jennifer Mee was told the remainder of her life—which, by average, would amount to sixty years or more—would be spent behind bars.

  “I lost it,” Rachel said after arriving and feeling the weight of the world pressurizing that small courtroom, emotions raw, whispers abounding. She walked in and knew right away. No one had to tell her.

  As everyone left the courthouse, the media descended upon Rachel and the lawyers, demanding comments.

  “How are you feeling?” someone asked Rachel as she walked quickly away from the courthouse.

  “How do they think I’m feeling?” Rachel responded.

  Later, the mother of convicted murderer Jennifer Mee said: “It was one of the worst days of my life. I didn’t want to live anymore. The pain was so bad. As a mother, it’s your job to protect your children, and yet there was no way I could. I wanted to hold her, tell [her] I loved her, and everything would be okay.”

  Leaving the courtroom, Jennifer Mee could barely walk on her own accord.

  “I had never seen a jury openly weeping as they are giving their verdict,” Trevena commented.

  CHAPTER 97

  THREE WEEKS AFTER the verdict, John Trevena’s law firm filed a surprise motion seeking a second trial based on “new evidence,” which had, according to Trevena, surfaced shortly after the trial concluded.

  That evidence, the motion claimed, came from an online comment posted to the Tampa Bay Times’ website. On the site, a woman who identified herself as “Rosalea Hughes” posted a comment under a story about none other than Jenni Charron. The motion claimed Rosalea Hughes wrote: Miss Charron went around telling people that she’d “had her boyfriend killed.”

  It was a rather revealing comment.

  If true, of course.

  Shockingly, the judge ordered a hearing.

  “We simply don’t believe that the state met its burden,” Trevena told the court during that October 2013 hearing. “She certainly should not be serving a life sentence for what conduct they have alleged.”

  Trevena’s co-counsel Bryant Camareno offered “printouts of [that] e-mail exchange he had with the commenter . . . Rosalea Hughes about the possible involvement of Jennifer Charron” in the murder of Shannon Griffin.

  LaBruzzo and Hunter-Olney countered by stating that a “fourth person’s involvement in Griffin’s death wouldn’t have affected Mee’s case and that the allegations raised by her lawyers are hearsay, anyway.”

  All spot-on.

  “It is speculative at best,” ASA Hunter-Olney told the court.

  Again, a very accurate statement. Taking it even further, one had to ask: was the court now inclined to listen to Internet trolls commenting on the outcome of cases?

  “Her statements to the police and to her mom show there was a plan,” LaBruzzo said, feeling as though he’d explained this rather perfectly during trial. The jury believed him by returning a guilty verdict. “Her statement showing that she, in fact, set it all up is an important part of this.”

  After the proceeding, Trevena said he did not “believe Judge Ley would grant the motion” because she would essentially have to reverse herself. “And I don’t see that occurring.”

  And he was right.

  It didn’t happen.

  As for the commenter Rosalea Hughes, Trevena said they investigated further, “but it went nowhere.”

  No surprise, in December, after a brief trial and three-and-a-half hours of deliberation, Lamont Newton was found guilty of first-degree murder and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.

  The saga, for now, was over. All three involved in the death of Shannon Andre Griffin would serve life behind bars.

  CHAPTER 98

  JOHN TREVENA HAD said just before the judge sentenced Jennifer Mee that he was not going to take on her appeal. Jennifer would have to get a public defender. In the end, however, on July 28, 2014, Trevena filed it himself.

  Some later accused Trevena of failing to bring in several significant issues about Jennifer Mee’s life that might have helped her win over a few jurors, such as Jennifer’s claim of being raped, her Tourette diagnosis, her low IQ. These all seemed to be strong mitigating factors that could have helped explain some of her behavior and maybe lessen her charges and sentence.

  “The problem with all of that is that you cannot bring it in,” Trevena explained to me. “The way the law is in Florida, there can be no mitigation.”

  There are mandatory laws in Florida with regard to sentencing and the guidelines that judges use for sentencing. In most states, the time to bring in all of that information about Jennifer’s life would have been during the sentencing phase of Jennifer’s trial after a guilty verdict, whereby the lawyer argues on behalf of his client for a lesser sentence based upon certain “mitigating” factors. In many of these instances, the lawyers bring in witnesses to testify on behalf of the defendant, and family members and friends can write letters to the judge asking for leniency.

  “She’s convicted. It’s life without parole. End of story,” Trevena explained. “Normally, I would use all of those witnesses on my sentencing argument, but they’re not going to be any help in a murder case [in Florida]. I could put them on, but it would all be futile. There is no way the judge could impart anything other than life in prison.”

  Interestingly enough, John Trevena said Jennifer Mee never told him about being raped. My mention of it to him was the “first time” he had ever heard about it.

  The appeal Trevena filed with the court runs fifty pages. It is a brilliant piece of appellate work by an extremely competent, passionate, and caring lawyer. In short, one of Trevena’s major points of debate is this salient idea: [The court] erred in failing to grant a judgment of acquittal, as the state presented insufficient evidence to sh
ow that [Jennifer] intended to participate in the underlying attempted robbery.

  It is a strong opinion, made by an experienced lawyer.

  The second issue revolves around the notion: [The court] reversibly erred in denying [Jennifer’s] request to provide the “independent act” jury instruction where there was evidence to support the instruction.

  He was blaming the judge here—an unfortunate way of trying to get Jennifer a new trial, which lawyers in Trevena’s position use all the time.

  Next, Trevena appealed where the court erred once more: [It permitted] a law enforcement officer to testify that [Jennifer’s] statement was consistent with other statements he heard.

  In other words, Dave Wawrzynski put blinders on and didn’t take into account that Jennifer and Jenni and Laron and Lamont all told the same story at first; he only viewed their second story as valid. Trevena was insinuating that the SPPD kept searching for the narrative it wanted and did not stop until it got all of the suspects to give them that official, incriminating story.

  Finally, Trevena said in his appeal, [the trial court] abused its discretion by excluding on hearsay grounds testimony showing that one of the witnesses had discussed “cover stories” with co-defendants and that she made inconsistent statements to law enforcement officers concerning the incident.

  And thus, it was back to the Jenni Charron argument for Trevena.

  In total, Trevena requested that the appellate court “vacate” Jennifer’s conviction and sentence and “remand” her to trial court with “directions to discharge her.”

  “The way it is here in Florida,” Trevena said of the appellate court, “if they feel that the defendant deserves a break, then great, they suddenly find one and it gets reversed. If they think the defendant deserves what they got, or they don’t want to deal with the media fallout from a decision, then no matter how strong the issue, nothing will happen.”

  In June 2015, Jennifer’s case was heard by the Court of Appeals. Without any explanation or written opinion whatsoever as to why or how the judges came to a conclusion, the appeal was denied.

  Trevena was incensed. “For us it is a slap in the face to be given . . . no explanation.” In some thirty years of practicing law, he added, “I have never seen a case that has gone south like this . . .”

  Pinellas Pasco State Attorney Bernie McCabe seemed to take a shot at Jennifer after the verdict was announced. “It is a tragic case but there is nothing unique about it except that she appeared on television with hiccups . . .”

  Trevena said he was determined to get Jennifer’s out of jail, concluding, “. . . We are now investigating new evidence in the case that will hopefully support a motion for post conviction relief,” Trevena said. “We will continue the fight for her exoneration and release.”

  EPILOGUE

  LOOKING AT THIS case, studying all aspects of it for over a year, it’s easy to see how Jennifer Mee bought into the myth and disillusionment that a “celebrity”—a Dance Mom, Teen Mom, wealthy duck call inventor(s), Real Housewife, tattoo artist, Big Brother, Master Chef, Gold Digger, king crab fisherman, hot rod mechanic, antique hunter, pawnshop owner, etc.—that was created by what is a short-attention-span, merciless, pop culture–driven, i-everything society, becomes something more than he or she was before being plucked out of obscurity and put on display without any direction. The idea, essentially, that being on television can change one’s life is a fantasy. Celebrity used to be earned. It was special. Real life has become a carnival, and certain “freaks” of society are the main attraction. Reality television is a vacuum; its “stars” sucked up into a black hole and disposed of when ratings fall. I find it appalling, actually.

  Jennifer “Hiccup Girl” Mee was stripped of her dignity and privacy by a common ailment that turned her into a household nickname. She and her parents, in part, allowed some of that to happen. But, in truth, Rachel reached out to a newspaper in desperation, hoping to get her daughter the help she needed. That led to a firestorm of coverage—Rachel could have never seen coming—precipitated by a celebrity-driven cult of media today that determine what is and is not so-called “news.”

  Now Jennifer is a convicted murderer. She did that herself. A twenty-two-year-old man, a good human being with a future ahead of him, was killed for nothing—three youngsters in their early twenties locked up for the remainder of their lives.

  That, alone, is the only reality here.

  * * *

  I wrote to Jennifer Mee in 2013 asking if she would be willing to talk about her case. I was interested in Jennifer’s case for a number of reasons, mainly to take a look at the rise and fall of an Internet/reality/pop culture celebrity and how we as a society treat disposable celebrities. I wanted to chronicle how those celebrities react to the instant fame, and then afterward, where their lives go, and how they manage the crash. (Go back and look at my dedication in this book—that list, within this context, becomes remarkable.)

  I reckon a comparison can be made to some lottery winners. We’ve all seen the reports of rags to riches: Someone hits Lotto. They immerse themselves in the lap of luxury and then go down in a ball of flames from all the debt they’ve amassed. Their lives turn out ten times worse than before it had all started.

  I wanted to know how Jennifer Mee had gone from the Hiccup Girl to convicted murderer. What happened in between? And what did the backstory of her life encompass? Was she, in fact, guilty as charged?

  Jennifer didn’t write back to me right away. Her parents called. We had long chats. They spoke from their hearts, believing that Jennifer was not guilty and that she’d been drawn into something she had very little to no part in.

  “Jennifer is no killer,” Rachel and Chris told me.

  I agreed—she was not like the sociopaths I generally write about.

  At the time I spoke to Rachel and Chris after sending that first letter, I was skeptical. I had not seen much of the evidence and had not yet read through Jennifer’s trial or interviewed many of the players. I was going with my gut. I am familiar with Florida law. Florida is not a state where you want to be around anyone who has killed another human being for any reason. A small role in a crime that results in a murder can, as you have just read, put you in prison forever.

  After a long discussion and an agreement that Rachel and Chris would open up their lives to me and provide me with unfettered access to Jennifer and the case records, including medical records and everything in between, I agreed to go into the case with an open mind—as I try to do with every case. I promised to listen to what they had to say and look for those holes in the investigation and prosecution of Jennifer Mee that Rachel and Chris were certain I would find.

  “This will not be your typical true-crime book,” I told Rachel Robidoux, speaking of my vision for the book I wanted to write about Jennifer Mee and her ordeal. What I meant was, I would approach it differently: from a perspective of knowing that Jennifer Mee was unlike the typical female psychopaths I write about.

  “That’s all we ask,” Rachel said.

  “I cannot promise anything, however,” I told Rachel. “I am going to report what I find.”

  She accepted that.

  In the end, I met those promises.

  * * *

  I feel sorry for Jennifer Mee and her family. I wanted to find a loophole for Jennifer. I wanted to uncover a glitch somewhere that told me and them that she had been wrongly convicted. I do not believe Jennifer is a vicious killer who set out to lure Shannon Griffin to that house so her boyfriend and his BFF could rob and then kill him. I also don’t believe she knew about the murder or that there was a murder planned, to begin with. But all three committed robbery, and a murder occurred during the course of that crime. There can be no denying those facts. Nothing can change what happened. The law in Florida is the law. The evidence, furthermore, points unequivocally to the three charged in the case. Jennifer Mee herself admitted to her mother later, while Rachel and the family visited her in prison, that s
he set up the robbery. That’s all we need to know. There was never any evidence linking Jenni Charron to any part of this crime besides the cover-up afterward. (Yes, that was a serious crime in and of itself, but not part of the murder.) I do not believe for a moment that Jenni Charron and Shannon Griffin set up a sexual rendezvous and Laron walked in on it. There is zero evidence to support that claim. A condom wrapper with Laron’s fingerprints found near the scene is hardly enough to suggest anything of the sort.

  It was difficult to get Jennifer to write to me. As you’ve read, her answers in the letters she finally wrote were rather terse and sometimes hard to follow. (I always sent her specific, direct questions.) As we wound down our interviews, I sent Jennifer a list of final questions. By this time, I had made it clear to the family that things I was uncovering were not necessarily going to help Jennifer. Before sending this list of final questions, I told Rachel: “You’re not going to like everything in this book.”

  Some of the questions I wrote to Jennifer included: Maybe the most important question of all: What happened the night Shannon Griffin was killed? Begin as early as waking up that morning and continue until you call your mom from jail the following night. Take as much space as you need. Details are very important. Did you know Laron and Lamont had a gun? Did you know they owned a gun? Did you know they brought the gun with them? Did you ever hear Laron or Lamont talk about killing Shannon? Where was Jennifer Charron that day/night?

  I also encouraged Jennifer to talk about the Hic-Cup deal, if she ever faked the hiccups for attention, how much money she was paid in total for anything having to do with the hiccups, if she was ever mad at Rachel for taking any of the money she made from the hiccups (something I was told), and about Debbie Lane and that hypnotherapy session.

  It took months. I thought she would not write back. So I e-mailed Rachel: She hasn’t gone into detail about the crime—but I need that from her now. I need her version of what happened. She’s told it to the police. I thought she was participating [in this book]?