Allison and her boyfriend left.
“Obviously, if you’ve ever had a conversation with Jennifer,” Allison explained later, looking back on the way things happened, “or received a letter from her, I don’t mean this in a bad, demeaning way, but she is kind of illiterate.... She’s not . . . Well, she has learning disabilities, that’s absolutely clear”—which made Jennifer Mee, Allison concluded, an easy mark to manipulate and mold into whatever an emotionally stronger person wanted.
In the days before this incident, Jennifer’s sister, Ashley, later reported, Laron did the same thing to her and her lover: pulled out that gun and threatened them with it one day when they showed up to see Jennifer.
Behind the back of Lamont and Jenni, Jennifer Mee was sleeping with a man who was out there robbing people that Jennifer had purportedly set up online. It was clear from his actions that Laron was unafraid of brandishing a weapon as intimidation—a handgun, which Jennifer Mee, according to her sister and friend, knew Laron Raiford had and would use anytime he felt he needed it.
PART THREE
CHAPTER 54
IT WAS ONE of those postcard-perfect autumn weekend nights in Florida. The moon reflected off Tampa Bay, the impeccably clear and crisp air breezing in gusts from the east. As Jennifer Mee sat inside the apartment waiting for her new friend, Jenni Charron, to return home from work, every once in a while a car beeped just outside the window. The street was busy with passersby, people hanging out on their front stoops, talking and laughing. All of this, mind you, juxtaposed seamlessly against the backdrop of those common city sounds any Saturday night in downtown St. Pete produced.
It was close to nine o’clock at night, on October 23, 2010, when Jenni Charron walked in the door of the apartment on Fifth Avenue she had shared with Laron and, for the past few weeks, Lamont and Jennifer. It had been a long night’s work. Jenni later admitted in court that she was a dominatrix and fetish expert working for a local “spa,” and had been paid to “have sex” with clients. It wasn’t that she was proud of what she did for a living, but Jenni wanted to be honest about her life.
And so she was.
On this perfect fall night, Jenni planned on taking a shower, and then heading out with Laron, Lamont, and Jennifer to the local IMAX theater downtown to see the latest installment of the Paranormal Activity films. They had talked about it earlier that day. They had made plans to all meet after she got off work.
After walking in and putting her keys down on the table, Jenni noticed that Jennifer was wearing a rather sharp-looking dress. She thought it was a bit much for the movies, but hey, whatever. Jennifer looked nice when she dolled herself up like that. Maybe she wanted to wear a dress for Lamont.
“Yo, Jen?” Jenni said.
“What up?” Jennifer responded. She was putting on her shoes, Jenni later remembered. Jennifer Mee had Laron’s cell phone in her hand. She seemed to be waiting for a call.
This was a fairly common sight for Jenni during the time Jennifer and Lamont lived at the apartment. Neither Jennifer nor Lamont had a cell phone of their own, and both were constantly borrowing Laron’s and Jenni’s.
Over the past several weeks, since Jennifer had moved into the apartment with Lamont, she and Jenni had gotten “to know each other” fairly well, Jenni said. Jenni would take her and Laron’s dog for a walk around the neighborhood and Jennifer would tag along. Jenni’s little sister would stop by sometimes and the three of them would go out shopping and commence to, as Jenni later labeled it, share “girl talk.”
“We were two girls staying in a house,” Jenni later said after being asked to recall the relationship she had with Jennifer. Jenni also had a secret she wasn’t sharing with many people (she was going to be a mother), but Jennifer knew.
“Jenni Charron was real cool and laidback when I met her,” Jennifer told me. “The first time I ever met her, Lamont and I went to the [apartment] to chill—we had popped some ecstasy pills and was smoking and drinking. Just vibin’. Then after that night, we just started chilling on a regular basis.”
As far as Jenni knew, Lamont and Jennifer were not going to be staying at the apartment much longer. They were supposed to be looking for an apartment of their own.
“She gets a check at the beginning of every month,” Laron had told Jenni one day when they talked about how long the two new roommates would be there. It was not a big enough apartment for a dog, cat, and four adults. “She and Lamont will be leaving soon.”
It wasn’t that Jenni didn’t like Jennifer or Lamont, but she wanted to be alone with her boyfriend. They were going to be parents.
The movie was set to start just after ten o’clock, so there was no hurry after Jenni arrived home. They could drive to the theater in ten minutes, get their popcorn, candy, and soda, and then get comfortable.
“Where you going?” Jenni asked Jennifer. It was clear Jennifer was preparing to leave the apartment and run off somewhere. She also seemed even more anxious, waiting and anticipating a call.
Jenni said she then watched as “Lamont and Laron”—although only one of them could have done so—grabbed a backpack out of the closet.
Were they leaving, too?
“It’s a little early to be heading out to the movies, isn’t it?” Jenni asked. She thought they were all getting ready to go down to the IMAX. She wanted to shower and change. Wasn’t there enough time?
Lamont and Laron looked at each other.
“What are you going to do?” Jenni asked Jennifer.
“I’m going out to get some money,” Jennifer said.
( Jenni would later recall: “All I heard, I . . . They left with a gun.” So Jenni knew the three of them were leaving the apartment and one of them had a gun, apparently.)
Lamont said that Jennifer Mee told him, “‘I’ll be right back.’ [She] got Laron’s phone and left.” This was before the boys took off. Laron had just told Lamont, according to Lamont’s recollection, “Hey, bro, come with me so I can get this money.” Lamont had a “show” later that night, and it was $100 to get in. Laron didn’t have the money to go, but he wanted to.
As Jenni headed for the bedroom to get undressed for her shower, the only thought that had occurred to her was: They’re going out to handle something? Not that they needed the gun for any particular reason, or they were on their way to do something she knew much about. According to what Jenni later said, she had no idea exactly what they were planning to do. Jenni was no dummy. She understood Laron and Lamont and Jennifer sold drugs. She didn’t ask; they didn’t tell. It was good that way. Another way she put it was that she had “no indication” as to what they were all planning. As she went into the bedroom to get ready for her shower, “I didn’t give it a second thought. . . .” It was just another night in the apartment. This was what they—Lamont, Laron, and Jennifer—did.
As Jenni took off her shoes, she heard Laron take a phone call on her phone. Laron used Jenni’s cell phone when Jennifer or Lamont used his.
It was Jennifer Mee, who had since left the apartment and went off by herself.
Laron and Lamont took off after that. Laron had the backpack around his shoulder. Inside the backpack was that revolver he had waved in front of Allison and her boyfriend’s faces just days before, threatening that if they came back, he’d use it.
Jenni had been home a total of five minutes.
CHAPTER 55
LAMONT NEWTON LATER told police that he and Laron, as well as Jennifer Mee, went down to “the park” close to the apartment with a plan in mind.
“Well, we were sitting at the park and someone rolls up, says something to [Jennifer Mee],” Lamont said, adding it was a “black guy,” who arrived on a scooter.
To me, Lamont said, after he and Laron left the apartment, “we went to one of [Laron’s] friends’ house.” Lamont waited outside. Laron went in. When Laron came out, he and Lamont walked “to Seventh Street . . . and that’s when I see Jennifer [Mee].”
“My friend wants to buy s
ome weed,” Jennifer explained to Laron and Lamont at that time.
Just then, Lamont recalled, the phone Jennifer was holding—Laron’s—rang.
It was six-one, 185-pound, twenty-two-year-old Shannon Andre Griffin on the other end of the line.
From there, Lamont’s later description to the police of what happened next became vague, and he skipped over a lot of detail. Although, Jennifer Mee gave a rather telling account within the second statement she gave to police.
That second story Jennifer told went like this:
“I spoke to [Shannon] and he had wrote me on Moco talking about he wanted some weed.”
“Come and meet me [at the park],” Jennifer told Shannon over Laron’s telephone.
Jennifer had gotten dressed up, waited, and then took that call from Shannon on Laron’s phone while at the apartment—most of this Jenni Charron later backed up with her story of walking into the apartment that night and observing what was going on.
“Where can we meet?” Shannon asked Jennifer, who was down on the block then, with Lamont and Laron by her side.
“Grove and Seventh Street,” Jennifer told Shannon. Grove and Seventh wasn’t a park; it was a two-story, stucco-type house that had been turned into four separate apartments, recently renovated and put on the market for sale. The windows had red trim around them, against a cream-colored exterior. The neighborhood wasn’t bad; it was off the beaten path, and the main drag was right around the corner, approximately three hundred feet, from the apartment where Laron, Jenni, Lamont, and Jennifer lived. Incidentally, there was a major hospital, St. Anthony’s, just three blocks west of where Jennifer had told Shannon to meet her.
“I’m already at the Coliseum,” Shannon explained to Jennifer. Jennifer could hear the noise in the background as he rode on his scooter toward her. The Coliseum was close by, merely one large block south and two small blocks east from where Jennifer stood with Lamont and Laron. Shannon was essentially right around the corner. By this time, Jennifer had let Laron know that Shannon was on his way and would be there any moment.
“When he told me he was already at the Coliseum,” Jennifer later told police, “I told him just to come to . . . My Playground . . . off Fifth and Seventh.”
Shannon pulled up and parked on a sidewalk across the street from the two-story house where they had agreed to meet in the first place, and Jennifer was there to greet him.
“Hey . . .”
“Follow me,” Jennifer said. By then, Lamont and Laron had taken off.
Shannon did what he was told.
Jennifer told police, “I had walked the man to the back of the apartment—the house, whatever the hell that shit is.”
That “shit,” as Jennifer called it, was a death trap set up for Shannon Griffin to walk into.
As soon as Shannon rounded the corner in back of the house, either Laron or Lamont (probably Laron) said, “Do not say anything!”
Jennifer never recalled which man said this.
That was when, according to Jennifer, Mont, as she referred to Lamont, grabbed Shannon by the neck and choked him (Jennifer claimed she saw this take place) as Laron came around the front of Shannon. With the revolver brandished, Laron “put the gun to his head.”
It was game on.
Jennifer knew all this because she was standing there, witnessing the entire confrontation go down. Jennifer later admitted that beforehand she knew there was going to be a robbery and that Lamont and Laron were going to roll Shannon Griffin.
As the altercation ensued, Jennifer did not run away. Instead, “When I walked off,” she explained to cops in a second statement, “I was to the corner and I heard the first gunshot.”
It was after that first gunshot, she added, “I ran and went home. . . .”
Lamont said he never saw Laron walk up to Shannon and grab him, nor did he admit to choking Shannon. “When they started fighting and shit, I . . . That’s when the other Jen walks to the house, and then I’m going after her, following her, and then soon as I get, like, two houses down, I hear the shots and take off running.”
When I asked him, Lamont told a similar story. He said, “The plan was to sell him some weed. Why would I rob someone for fifty dollars if I can make that with one person coming to buy some weed?” Lamont continued, adding that Jennifer “walked him to the back [and told us] she was going to look out.” Lamont said he then told Laron to give Shannon the weed.
“So Laron goes in the bag and pulls out the gun!” Lamont claimed.
If we take this scenario and look at it, within the picture Jennifer Mee painted for police, two very important facts in this case that would become argumentative issues for Jennifer, her family, and her lawyer later on became utterly clear: One, Jennifer lured Shannon Griffin to that spot, carefully explaining where they were to meet, knowing that Lamont and Laron were waiting around the corner with that backpack slung over Laron’s shoulder; and two, Lamont and Laron were waiting there to roll this poor soul and take whatever cash he had on him and, most important, that Jennifer Mee knew Laron kept his gun inside that backpack.
However, at this point in the plan to rob Shannon Griffin, despite why he was there (and who he was there to meet, both of which would become argumentative issues later), Laron Raiford never expected that Shannon, a big guy who could take care of himself, would resist and fight back.
CHAPTER 56
ALONE INSIDE THE apartment, with just the dog and cat to keep her company, Jenni Charron wondered where everyone had run off to and when they’d be back. They needed to leave for the movie theater. It was close to 10 P.M. and Jenni worried they’d be late for the showing. Like most movie patrons, Jenni liked the previews and didn’t want to miss them—sometimes it was the best part of the movie theater experience.
Jenni later said she knew Laron and Lamont had a gun—but she had no idea that on the night of October 23, 2010, they had it with them. It was sometime before that night, while she was outside, in front of the apartment, hanging out with the dog, when Laron and Lamont came home and one of them—she could not recall who—had a backpack slung over his shoulder.
“Lamont’s brother got shot at,” Laron said.
“What?”
“Yeah, someone shot at him,” Lamont said.
Inside the backpack was a .38 revolver. They showed it to Jenni. The weapon was unloaded then, but as time went on and they kept it inside the apartment, each one of them (including Jennifer Mee), Jenni explained, handled the gun, loaded it, and waved it around.
As Jenni was just about to make a call to find out where they had gone off to and when they were coming back, Jennifer Mee came running up the stairs toward the apartment front door. She was screaming something Jenni could not make sense of.
“I heard gunshots.... I heard gunshots,” Jennifer said, over and over, as she got closer to the doorway and Jenni could hear her clearly now. Jennifer was out of breath; she was overwhelmed and frantic.
“What? Where are Lamont and Laron?” Jenni asked.
“I don’t know.... I don’t know,” Jennifer said quickly. She was shaken to the core. Something had happened, Jenni could tell.
Something very bad had just gone down.
Jenni went back into her room and put her work clothes and shoes back on: “To go see where the boys were.”
Both girls were now in what Jenni later agreed was “rush mode.”
What’s more, pregnant with Laron’s child, Jenni could only think that Laron was no flight-by-night boyfriend. They had a future. She considered herself his fiancée. She was having his child; they were building a family, a life. On top of that, Jenni considered Lamont one of her closest friends. “Bro” was what she and Laron called Lamont—not as a euphemism, but to mean “brother,” someone whom they respected and cared for as deeply as family.
Jennifer Mee was “extremely disturbed” and trying to catch her breath. She paced. It was clear to Jenni that Jennifer had been running.
“She was in a panic
state.”
Asked about Jenni Charron later, Jennifer Mee said: “She was very chill. I remember she would [be] very secretive . . . and also seemed very creepy. I know that when me and Lamont moved in with her and Laron, she worked at some ‘spa,’ but I had never been to her job. One thing I do remember, she dressed very promiscuous.”
Overwhelmed by what she had heard on the street, Jennifer Mee did not know what to do with herself inside the apartment. It was as though she knew what had happened, but did not know the outcome. She had asked Shannon Griffin to follow her to the back of the building, watched Laron pull out a gun, and as she ran away, she heard gunshots. It wasn’t hard from there for Jennifer to make out what had happened. As far as her dealings with Shannon, Jennifer later told police, Shannon had sent her a friend request on MocoSpace about a week prior.
“We were talking, and the first time I had met him, he also wanted some weed, but I didn’t follow through with it, and . . . I finally followed through with it and gave him Laron’s phone number and told him to call me when he was down this way.”
A controversy would ultimately surround this case claiming that Jennifer Mee had set up a “date” with Shannon and lured him to the meeting spot with the promise of a romantic encounter. Shannon’s cousin later said that Shannon was going out that night under the assumption he was meeting a female for a date. He was dressed up and excited to meet a girl he had been talking to online for some time. But according to this interview Jennifer gave police—her second—the entire meeting was built around Jennifer selling Shannon Griffin some weed.
During his first interview with police, Lamont Newton would further confuse the situation by telling detectives Shannon became “pissed” when he showed up and saw that “Jen’s boyfriend” was there with her—meaning Laron. Even the cop interviewing Lamont said, “That’s the kind of scenario that we thought. It was just something that when he rode up there, he was simply asking to speak to Jen [Charron] . . . and it just didn’t go over because [Laron] was there.”
One Breath Away: The Hiccup Girl - From Media Darling to Convicted Killer Page 21