One Breath Away: The Hiccup Girl - From Media Darling to Convicted Killer

by M. William Phelps

  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]?

  I’ll let her know, Rachel wrote back. I wasn’t aware she had gone into detail about [the] crime. I think she is worried that it may hurt her case too bad [and] she didn’t think that way in the beginning.

  Now, at this point, she doesn’t want to talk about the case!? I e-mailed back to Rachel. I was totally taken aback. All throughout the process of interviewing Rachel, Chris, two of Jennifer’s sisters, and Jennifer herself, I had been given what I thought was full access—or, rather, as complete as I could get. Here came the hardballs from my pitching rotation, and now Jennifer wasn’t willing to take a swing. She’d spoken to everyone about her case—the entire world, in fact. I wanted it from her, myself.

  After all she has said? I wrote to Rachel. They are very important questions.

  She told me she doesn’t feel comfortable talking about [the] case with possible appeals, Rachel answered.

  I had set a date (September 30, 2014) as a cutoff point for any information the family wanted to share with or send me—including Jennifer. I had sent Jennifer a package of several self-addressed, stamped envelopes, along with enough paper to write to me anytime she wanted. Jennifer had requested this because she did not have any stamps or money for paper, I was told.

  In late October, I finally received a letter from Jennifer. She acknowledged that I had asked her those hardball questions.

  I’m not tryen 2 avoid answern your questions about my case, she wrote in her broken, childlike, street language.

  She went on to say it was a “hard subject” for her to talk about: As when I had the hiccups, I never once did it 4 the media attention.

  She went on for only one page, and I am going to include her misspellings and strange syntax here, verbatim, the way in which it was written to me. She avoided my questions. Instead, Jennifer once again played the victim. She wanted readers to know she had joined a faith-based group in prison and is forced to watch inmates “sexten on each other” and “peopel be cutten on other peopel.” She said she hadn’t gotten into any trouble while behind bars and was working on her GED. Her wish was for the “world” to see her as “not the person they clamed me to be.”

  Yeah, I’ve fucked up in life, but I’m only humman, Jennifer wrote.

  “Fucked up”?

  She is a convicted murderer. That is more than “fucking up.”

  Once again, it’s clear that Jennifer Mee doesn’t truly understand that she lured a man behind a vacant home, where he was ambushed and murdered. She, effectively, by law, took a life. Yet, she constantly and consistently places herself in the role of the victim.

  * * *

  I kept asking Rachel to get me the state police reports for the alleged rape case, offering to pay any costs associated with obtaining them. Rachel told me the police had been called at the time of the incident. That meant there would have to be a report. I could not send a Freedom of Information Act request myself—or I would have—because of certain issues. And it was never prosecuted. I’d never get those reports without years of bureaucratic red tape and lawyers. But the mother of the “victim” in the case would certainly have the best chance to get her hands on them.

  As of this writing (September 2015), almost a year after asking and asking and asking, I do not have the reports. Do they exist? I have never seen them. Thus, the rape allegations from Ashley, Jennifer, and the family are based solely on their tesimonials.

  I grew fond of Rachel. She has never been given the benefit of the doubt; she has always been judged, by the public and by the media. Several people told me Rachel and Chris were money-grubbing scoundrels, who used Jennifer. Not true. Not one bit. Rachel or Chris never asked me for money, while some others in this case did. Rachel shared deep, dark secrets with me, which I did not write about. I greatly respect that trust. I wanted so much to find something that proved Jennifer was not involved. But it just wasn’t there. Jennifer broke the law. She was prosecuted to the fullest for that. Was she overcharged and used as an example because of her quasi-celebrity? We could argue that all day long and never come to a conclusion.

  * * *

  Anyone familiar with my work knows that I try to place the victim of murder first and foremost. My goal—always!—is to tell the complete story of the victim and bring him or her back into the headline of the case, where his or her place rightly belongs. This case was especially tough in that regard. I reached out to Doug Bolden several times with no response. I left four messages for the victims’ advocate representing Shannon and his family. No one ever called me back.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  MY READERS ARE always the hardest to thank—because nothing I can say will extend to each the gratitude I feel in my heart for returning, book after book.

  Kensington Publishing Corp. and Michaela Hamilton are, by far, the only publisher and editor in the business for me at this time in my career. We’ve worked on over twenty books together now. I am entirely grateful for their support.

  I also would like to give my sincere appreciation to everyone at Investigation Discovery and Beyond Productions for being responsible for my television career. We have some things in the cooker now that I am really excited about!

  For my entertainment lawyer/business manager, Matthew Valentinas, a continued thanks.

  I would also like to thank Deb Allen, Jasmine Fox, Donna Dudek, and Dave Lane from Jupiter Entertainment. They helped me out tremendously with research for this book.

  I interviewed scores of people for this book, conducting well over one hundred interviews with those sources. They know who they are and I thank each and every source that took the time to talk to me. John Trevena was open and honest, and I have a tremendous amount of respect for him. Betty Long, supervisor, Records and Identification Division, St. Petersburg Police Department, was incredibly helpful.

  Rachel Robidoux made herself available to me anytime I needed, and I thank her immensely for her time and honesty. I have a place in my heart for Rachel that I cannot explain. She has been through so much in her life, beyond the hiccups and the murder her daughter was involved in. I don’t know how many other people could ever manage what Rachel has and come out of it.

  Jennifer Mee is still, in my mind, a paradox. I need to say a thank-you to her because she did help; but, on the other hand, I do not believe she was as totally honest and open with me as she could (or should) have been. Prison will destroy this fragile soul and my hope is that she can get out of prison and get involved in some other type of program. However, I also realize that is highly unlikely and that Jennifer has a debt to pay society for what she did.

  Here’s what needs to be said: When you are involved in taking someone’s life, you can never take it back. As much as you wish like hell you had made better decisions, there are no do-overs in murder. Jennifer never planned on that man being slain. But he was. And she was part of it. That can—and will—never change.

  The last word of this book should be that a good man, Shannon Andre Griffin, is dead and is greatly missed by his family.

  NOTES

  1 This quote was excerpted from http://criminal.laws.com/criminal-news/reputable-criminal-defense-attorney-john-trevena-talks-crime-and-punishment-37015.html

  2 According to the National Library of Medicine, “Gilles de la Tourette syndrome is a condition that causes a person to make repeated, quick movements or sounds that they cannot control. These movements or sounds are called tics. . . .” http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmedhealth/PMH0001744/

  3 Jennifer was clear that her attackers were not family members. They cannot be named, because no charges were brought against them.

  4 I need to make a point here about Jennifer and her comments. Some of her comments—such as the way they are sourced here—were written to me
in letters we exchanged for the book. In lieu of stuffing and stifling the narrative with misspelled words, bad grammar, and my corrections (there would be many instances), I’ve opted to correct the words without notation, without changing the context or meaning of her prose. I have also included them as conversation rather than as italicized letters/notes. That said, however, Jennifer’s writing allows us to look deeply at her education and learning disabilities. For example, in the passage quoted above, she misspelled simple words like “awsome” and “growen.” She would often misspell “try.” Misspellings like this are littered all over her writings and it tells me that she truly suffers from learning disabilities and/or little education.

  5 I asked Rachel to call the state police and order the police report from the day the police showed up at the house and took a statement from Jennifer, Rachel, and other family members. Generally, I do this myself with a Freedom of Information Act request, but since Jennifer was a minor at the time and the case against her attackers was never prosecuted, I could not get the report. As of this writing, I do not have any report detailing these allegations; all of the information stems from Rachel, Chris, Jennifer, and her sister. Personally, I have no reason not to believe Jennifer.

  6 This passage is from WebMD (http://www.webmd.com/digestive-disorders/hiccups-chronic), where you can find an abundance of information about the hiccups.

  7 I would encourage readers to Google this video and have a look. It’s worth watching to see how genuine Jennifer’s torment was during this period of her life, not to mention how bad you will feel for her as you sit and watch this girl suffer from what can be a life-altering, irritating, and painful condition.

  8 I asked Rachel to produce medical reports regarding Jennifer’s Tourette condition and the hiccups. As a journalist, I cannot gain access to these reports by myself. And she did mail me some documentation proving that Jennifer’s condition had been diagnosed and treated by medical professionals.

  9 When asked, Rachel did not recall saying this.

  10 Michele says her records indicate this FedEx package was sent to Rachel overnight.

  11 The Mayo Clinic classifies hiccupping as a “simple tic” associated with Tourette’s.

  12 To be clear, although the family wishes to keep it a private matter, the “dark family scandal” referred to here is not the alleged sexual assault Jennifer went through as a child. It is an entirely different matter.

  13 See a complete diagram and key of this crime scene in the photo section.

  Don’t miss the next stunning real-life thriller by

  M. William Phelps

  If You Only Knew

  Coming from Kensington Publishing Corp.

  in Fall 2016

  Keep reading to enjoy a preview excerpt . . .

  CHAPTER 1

  SOME THINGS ARE not what they appear to be at first glance. Take, for example, the quiet stillness of the night inside her patrol car, interrupted only by the crackling static of a police scanner every so often. It was that sound, rolling over her relaxed breathing and the occasional shuffle and leathery crunch of her well-oiled duty belt, that had misled Patrol Officer Lynn Giorgi into thinking it just might be a slow night, devoid of any major public evils.

  Officer Giorgi had worked for the City of Grand Rapids, Michigan, before becoming a police officer in Troy, about a 150-mile drive east, two years prior. Troy is sandwiched between slices of Lake Michigan, Lake Huron, Lake St. Clair, and Lake Erie. Troy is, essentially, part of the metro Detroit region, within Oakland County. A family-oriented city, one of the largest in the state, Troy bills itself as the “most dynamic and livable” metropolitan area in the “Wolverine State.” It’s the schools, everyone says, that attract the yuppies and hipsters to settle down with their privileged kids and live the good life in suburbia.

  As Officer Giorgi patrolled through downtown during the early-morning hours of August 12, 2000, near the halfway point of her midnight-to-eight shift, the otherwise quiet radio in her cruiser buzzed with a voice. It was dispatch: “Man down . . . not breathing . . .”

  A second request then came in for an ambulance.

  CPR run, Giorgi thought.

  Some poor bastard probably had a heart attack and was fighting for his life.

  Up until then, it had been an inconsequential night in Troy. It generally was.

  As Giorgi hit the lights on her patrol car and took off toward Grenadier Drive, a rather swanky end of town, she expected to arrive at the scene and find a man she needed to perform first aid upon. In two years with the Troy Police Department (TPD), Giorgi had answered maybe ten of these same calls.

  As Giorgi pulled into the driveway at four twenty-five in the morning, her colleague, friend, and fellow officer, Pete Dungjen, pulled in right behind her. The single-family home, with four bedrooms and three-and-a-half baths, at about three thousand square feet, was spacious and kept meticulously. The area had a reputation for building half-million-dollar homes. Not necessarily the ultrarich, but most of the people in this neighborhood did not have to worry about money.

  Giorgi went directly into her trunk and took out the first aid CPR kit and ran toward the front door.

  When she reached the stoop, the door opened. There were two females, Giorgi later said, standing in the foyer, waiting on the TPD to arrive. Both women seemed “calm,” but also were in great need of someone to help the victim inside the house.

  One of the women, whom Giorgi would later come to know as Billie Jean Rogers, said, “He’s in there—in the kitchen.” Billie Jean pointed the cop in the right direction.

  Billie Jean was the man’s wife.

  Inside the kitchen, Giorgi’s training kicked into action. On the floor was a man “in his fifties,” she later guessed (he was much older), lying on his back, on the floor. There was a chair turned over on its side next to him. Without any other information provided, it seemed to Giorgi that the man had grabbed for the backrest of the chair on his way down to the floor, flipping the thing over as he hit the floor.

  Donald Rogers was actually seventy-four years old. Billie Jean’s husband was a local business owner who had made quite a bit of money manufacturing a line of automotive assembly tools. In the “car capital of the world,” Don Rogers and his business partner, Don Kather, had started the business together back in 1977. Kather actually bought Don out in 1990, but Don had still invested in the company and went into the office every day, helping to keep it afloat after the car industry boom left only ashes in its wake.

  Kather had gotten together with Don Rogers the day before, August 11, as they did daily, to meet for lunch. Rogers looked and sounded good, Kather later said. Rogers was “very frugal” with his spending habits, Don Kather explained, which became somewhat of a component of his life. He had plenty of money, yet he never went on vacations or bought luxurious items or drove glamorous cars. Same as when he went out to eat, Don chose middle-of-the road restaurants, always forgoing the four-star hot spots. He lived life simply. And yet, there was one thing Don never skimped on— something he spared no expense at and did every day: drink.

  Billie Jean was quite the polar opposite when it came to spending money—most of which was Don’s.

  “Well, if she saw something she liked,” her daughter later said, “she would just buy it.” Billie Jean had no real “concept of money,” the daughter added. “She saw money as fun. . . . That [was] what it was for, in her mind.” More than that, she was a “very poor money manager.”

  Billie Jean had lived both sides of the coin. In Tennessee, where she grew up with seven siblings, she was “dirt poor.” There was not even running water in the house; they literally lived hand to mouth. Hand-me-downs and handouts were a way of life.

  As Officer Giorgi prepared to work on Don, Billie Jean Rogers, Don’s wife for a second time—they had married once, divorced, and then remarried—stood over her, explaining what she thought had happened.

  “He’s been drinking—he has a problem with alcohol,�
� Billie Jean said. “He’s a chronic alcoholic.” Then, oddly enough, Billie Jean added, “He suffers from rectal bleeds.”

  The drinking had, apparently, gotten so out of hand, she was saying, Don often bled all over the place from his rectum.

  Giorgi noticed that Don Rogers had very slight bruising on his face and one small abrasion on his upper lip. But one would expect some mild scruffs and scrapes on a guy who had supposedly passed out drunk and had fallen on the floor. Suffice it to say, he probably fell into that chair that was on its side lying next to him. In fact, he probably made a habit of falling down and into things, if he drank as much as his wife claimed.

  Giorgi had to move the chair so she could kneel next to Don and begin to work on him.

  Acclimating himself to the situation, trying to figure out the best way to help Don Rogers, Officer Dungjen walked up and knelt on one knee next to Giorgi. By now, Billie Jean was a bit more antsy, but not at all frantic or exceedingly concerned, both officers noticed. The way she acted, this fall seemed perhaps to be a common thing around the house: Don tying one on and then passing out on the floor.

  Dungjen touched Don Rogers.

  “He’s cold,” Dungjen said to Giorgi. “Rigidity has set in.”

  Giorgi didn’t have to check for a pulse. She knew.

  Don Rogers wasn’t passed out this time.

  He was dead.

  CHAPTER 2

  THE OTHER WOMAN, standing next to Billie Jean Rogers as law enforcement backup was called in to determine what happened to Don Rogers, and if the scene warranted further investigation, was thirty-two-year-old Vonlee Nicole Titlow. She went by Vonlee alone. Born in Maryville, Tennessee, a deep southern town at the foothills of the Smokey Mountains, Vonlee had lived in Nashville and in Denver, and had a penthouse in Chicago at one time. Vonlee’s aunt, Billie Jean, her mother’s sister, had invited Vonlee to stay with her and Don in Troy, and Vonlee had been living at the house for the past few months. While the age difference spanned decades, Billie Jean and Vonlee shared a common love of going out and partying at the local casinos in Detroit. Whereas Billie Jean was more focused on gambling, Vonlee was a nightlife gal, dancing and drinking, working the rooms. She’d been an exotic dancer and had run an escort service in Denver and Chicago, making upward of—Vonlee later claimed—$20,000 a week. Back then, Vonlee later said, she was dating a few different men at the same time.