Does "Hiccup Girl" Jennifer Mee Deserve a Life Sentence?
20:31 Share

Hey guys, welcome back to my channel. Thanks for joining me today. So for today's case, we're going to be talking about someone who is actually kind of, I guess, famous in a way for a brief period of time in 2007. And I'm talking about the hiccup girl.

I'm sure some of you remember her or have heard of her story. Many people remember Hiccup Girl or just remember hearing about a girl with a horrible case of the hiccups, but a lot of people don't know what ended up happening in the rest of her life. It's pretty crazy too and I know that this is going to be a pretty controversial video and I know you guys are going to have super mixed opinions on this case. So feel free to express in the comments what you think. Of course, as always, be kind,

when interacting with other people and sharing opinions, having other opinions and listening to other opinions is okay. So this is Jennifer Mee. She was born on July 28th, 1991 and is from Vermont. And like I mentioned in 2007, she got a horrible case of the hiccups, which everyone knows what that feels like to have the hiccups and not want them anymore.

Like at first it's kind of funny and whatever, but then it starts to get really annoying. It can become painful. It can become very disruptive of your life. So can you imagine having it all the time? Well, that became reality for Jennifer. On January 23rd, 2007, Jennifer was in science class. It was just a normal day. And all of a sudden she got the hiccups, which is, you know, somewhat normal, pretty inconvenient and embarrassing in class. But she started hiccuping uncontrollably and very close together.

And after an hour, it did not stop. After two hours, it did not stop. It didn't go away that night. It lasted until the next morning. The next day, another day, she could not stop hiccuping, which would get so annoying and become extremely painful and disruptive. Jennifer was hiccuping around 50 times per minute all day long. Can you imagine trying to sleep, eat, have a conversation, focus, be in somewhere public like class?

It's like, it's almost impossible to do anything. It wasn't long before she started getting really bad chest pains, spasms in her throat and really horrible back pain because she's constantly doing this like motion. So Jennifer and her mom went to the doctor and they could not figure out what was wrong. They did scans and tests and gave her medication and nothing worked. Jennifer couldn't even go to school because her hiccups were so bad and disruptive. So it really impacted her life.

Now because of her condition, Jennifer ended up getting a lot of attention from the media. She ended up being interviewed on several news stations. The sound echoes through the TIA terminal announcing the arrival of 15-year-old Jennifer Mee. That sound has been her constant companion since the first HIC. Four weeks ago tomorrow.

And the sound is the least of it. I get really bad chest pain, abdominal pains, throat pain, back pains. It's unbelievable. We've been keeping her spirits up, keeping her smiling, but when she starts hurting and starts crying, that's when it breaks my heart. So there's nothing I can do for her. After the attack started in science class on January 23rd, Jennifer's parents took her to any doctor they thought might be able to help. I've been to neurologists, pediatricians, cardiologists to get MRIs, CAT scans, blood work, everything. And nothing? Nothing.

Then Jennifer and her parents embarked on a whirlwind media tour, appearing on local and national news shows, hoping someone would be able to offer a solution. None have worked so far. I know this started January 23rd, first period science class, out of nowhere. Yeah.

First, it's kind of funny. It's not funny. Not at all. And she also got to meet Keith Urban, which, you know, was a kind of a highlight for her. And even though she was really struggling with this case of the hiccups, it was kind of fun for her to have this 15 minutes of fame and travel around and get some attention. So, of course, tons of people contacted Jennifer and her mom to try to help and had all

types of remedies as you can imagine. I've heard a lot of different remedies for hiccuping. I remember I had a teacher who would always tell kids to put a pair of scissors in a cup of water and then drink the water, which

I'm sure was incredibly unsanitary. Of course, there's the classic method of trying to scare the hiccups out of somebody, but people also told her to ingest a bunch of sugar, to ingest peanut butter, drink gallons of water at once, ingesting a bunch of mustard, breathing into a bag.

So many different things. And Jennifer tried as many as she could because she was so desperate to get rid of them. I cannot imagine how uncomfortable that would be. We tried a tablespoon of peanut butter, tablespoons of sugar, mustard or some other ones. Gallons of water.

Lots of water. Other suggestions have been impractical or illegal. Somebody told me to smoke marijuana, take a hit of marijuana. That would help. Yeah. But you're not going to go that route. Oh, definitely not. Eventually, Jennifer was put on a medication that's normally prescribed for people with Tourette's syndrome. And luckily, they think it worked. They actually think it was a combination of things that cured Jennifer's hiccuping. But she thinks it was mainly the medication and this special drinking cup that she had.

Obviously when Jennifer got rid of her hiccups, she was super relieved and she told her mom that she wanted to get right back to school. So Jennifer ended up moving on with her life. Um, her family ended up suing the maker of that medicine because they used a picture of Jennifer without their permission.

which is really not cool. But Jennifer continued on to be happy and she was a good kid. Her mom said that growing up, she was always a sweet little girl. Her family says that whenever she was around them, she was super, super sweet and attentive to her younger siblings. She was happy. She would help her mom out with chores. She was just a good kid. However, she did say that she knew from a young age that Jennifer was really impressionable and she

also a people pleaser and really wanted to make her friends happy and would kind of go along with what other people would tell her to do, even if it wasn't right. And this becomes a huge problem for Jennifer. So eventually her family moved out of Vermont and moved to Florida. And when they moved there, she was a little older. Her mom said that she started acting really tough around her new friends and kind of had a new persona.

Suddenly she started not getting along with her stepdad and she seemed to be rebelling a lot. At one point Jennifer even ran away from home and she was gone for long enough that it was reported in the newspapers and was really serious. It really freaked her parents out, but eventually she did come home. So yeah, they were starting to experience some difficulty with her for sure. So in 2010 when Jennifer is 19 years old, she started dating this guy named Lamont.

His full name was Lamont Newton, and he was definitely not a good influence to Jennifer at all. She started spending a lot of time with him and some of his other friends, and eventually Lamont and Jennifer and another friend decided that they were going to commit a robbery altogether. His name was Shanon Griffin, and he was 22 years old at the time. He had just moved to Florida from Petal, Mississippi after Hurricane Katrina had hit really bad and devastated a lot of the buildings and houses around where he lived.

So he wanted to get a fresh start in Florida. Shanon grew up loving football and he was really good at playing. He played on the high school team and people who knew him said he was a really great guy. And after the two of them had met online, Shanon and Jennifer decided to meet up. Now Shanon said that he was under the impression that he and Jennifer were going to be going on a date.

But Jennifer saw it completely different. She claims that she was just going to help him get some weed from Lamont. But Shanon really thought this was a date and he ended up getting dressed up. He put on cologne. Shanon had even told his cousin that he was going on a date. He hopped on his motor scooter and rode down to St. Petersburg to hopefully meet up with Jennifer.

So him and Jennifer ended up meeting in kind of a sketchy location. It was an alleyway that was next to this house that was for sale, but it was a vacant. Jennifer claims that she told Shanon the guys with the weed were at the end of the alleyway in this backyard. So she leads them to Lamont and this other guy named LaRon. And then Jennifer just walks away.

Then investigators assume that they demanded that Shanon give them all of his money. After this, there was probably some type of physical struggle. Shanon tried to fight back and eventually a gun was pulled and he was shot. And after he died, they ended up robbing him for 50 bucks. All of that for $50. After this, all of them fled the scene and the gun that was used to kill Shanon was left

the scene. All three of them went back to an apartment that was on the other side of the city and just kind of sat in their guilt, freaking out. She said that they didn't sleep that night at all, that they were just panicking. And she was starting to get scared according to her at this point as well, because she didn't expect them to kill him, which is the big debate. Did she know they were going to do this or not? But anyway, she claims she didn't know. And she started thinking about

you know, what if they kill me? Am I in a really bad situation right now? And she thought about going home, but she didn't want to put her mom in danger. She felt like this was her responsibility. Now she got herself into this mess and she didn't want to bring these people into her mom's life, which I guess makes sense. So they ended up soaking their clothes in bleach that night. And they also took Shanon's

wallet and they put it in an air vent to try to hide it. And Jennifer was just freaking out because she claims she never wanted to kill him. That was never part of the original plan. She just thought they were gonna kind of maybe beat him up or, you know, rob him, do what they had to do, but she didn't think that he was gonna be murdered.

And this all happened in Florida. And the laws in Florida are very, very strict. It's actually law in Florida that if someone dies in a robbery, everyone who was involved in the robbery can be charged with murder. So early the next day on October 24th, police ended up figuring out that it was these three that had killed Shanon. They looked at his messages. It was pretty easy to kind of put the pieces together and they brought all three of them in.

So when they were first interviewing Jennifer, they actually had no idea that she was part of this. In fact, she was not considered to be part of it. She didn't mention anything about a robbery. They didn't know that that was at all a motive at this point. And she actually told them that

The reason he was shot was because Shanon was messing with one of the guy's girlfriends and they took care of him because of this. And Jennifer said this, of course, because she knew if it was proved that she was actually involved in this robbery in any way, she could be charged with murder too. But then Lamont ends up convincing Jennifer that,

that she should tell the police about what happened and just be honest because she's famous. She's the hiccup girl. They're going to let her get away with this. She was young. There's no way that she's going to get in trouble. She should just be honest. However, this was not the case. And Jennifer ended up being charged with felonies.

first degree murder, even though she wasn't even there and didn't pull the trigger. - By probable cause, your bond is currently zero. Can you inform a lawyer to help you? - All right, I'll call the lawyer to represent you. - Mi's mother, Rachel Robideau, held back tears as she sat next to her parents, Mi's grandparents. Police say Mi lured a man to a home while the two men with her robbed him at gunpoint. Police say the victim was shot and killed. Police say all three admitted to their involvement

And all three now face first-degree felony murder charges this morning. Now, the biggest piece of evidence in this case was the phone call that Jennifer made to her mom when she was first charged. Hello? Hi, Mama. Hello, Jennifer. What's going on? I'm in jail. Why are you in jail? For murder in the first degree. Who'd you kill? I didn't kill nobody. Well, then how did they charge you with attempted murder? Because I set everything up.

It all went wrong, mommy. It just went downhill after everything happened, mom. Who are you trying to kill, Jennifer? Nobody. What are you supposed to have somebody step on? Well, something happened, obviously, Jennifer. You're in jail. OK, listen. OK, sorry. So I told him to come meet me over at the park where I used to stay at. And the boys brought him into a little alley thing. And the wrong person pulled the gun out on him. And the guy went and got rich with his gun and pulled the barrel.

- Mom. - Go. - Call you when I can, 'cause I gotta go. Let mommy try to make a visitation, please. - What is visitation, Jennifer? - You gotta call in the morning and make one. - What, are you at Clearwater jail? - Yes, ma'am. - All right, Jennifer, I love you. - I love you too, Mom. - All right, bye. - Bye.

Yikes. So Jennifer's defense team knew that defending her was going to be really hard. Florida is just a whole nother beast. And they knew that going through the whole trial process was going to be really hard. So Jennifer's lawyer, John actually asked the court if they could do a plea bargain. She could plea guilty in exchange for a 15 year sentence.

And they actually turned this down and they said, don't even come to us unless you are offering at least 25 years. That was the bare minimum they were going to accept. They did not want to move forward with this. Jennifer did not want to get any more than 15 years. So they decided to move forward with the trial.

So during the trial, it was presented that Jennifer's DNA was actually on the clothes of Shanon, which doesn't prove that she killed him. I mean, it proves she was with him and she was, but it doesn't prove that she was the one to actually do it, but it was definitely used that way.

The defense also tried to argue that Jennifer had schizophrenia, but she actually had a psych eval and it was determined that she didn't have it. And they determined that she was competent to stand trial. They also tried to argue that she had Tourette's syndrome, which could have caused those hiccups, but

This really doesn't matter considering it has nothing to do with the murder itself. And at the end of the day, they basically argued that without Jennifer, Shanon would still be alive. She lured him there and whether you believe, you know, she knew what she was doing or not is up to the individual. But at the end of the day, it can definitely be argued that he would still be alive if it weren't for her actions.

So in 2013, after the jury deliberated, Jennifer was found guilty of murder in the first degree. And not only that, she was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. - Be the jury finds as follows, Finnette in this case, Finnette is guilty of murder in the first degree as charged, so say we all.

THE JURY WAS CONVICTED OF A LESSER CHARGE, PERHAPS ACCESSORY TO MURDER OR MANSLAUGHTER. NOW THOUGH, SHE'LL SPEND THE REST OF HER LIFE BEHIND BARS FOR THE MURDER OF SHANNON GRIFFIN.

the victim's mother. She said she was not the one who pulled the trigger. Now prosecutors told jurors today that even though me did not pull that trigger three years ago, she ultimately orchestrated Griffin's death and lured him to that robbery gone wrong. Tonight I did speak with Griffin's mother, and she said that no matter what this verdict was going to be tonight, it will never bring back her son. We've

And we just wanted it to be about him. It's been a long journey. It's been almost three years. It's been a struggle. And we're just really grateful to the state for pushing this through.

Our cameras were rolling as Mi's mother left the courtroom flanked by family members. You can see she was very upset. I tried asking her a few questions, but she did not want to talk. Mi's mother did not make it back into the courtroom in time to hear the verdict. Instead, she found out from family members that her daughter will spend the rest of her life behind bars without the possibility of parole. So I know people are going to have opinions all over the place on this sentence. Personally, I think it's

way too much time. I think she should have gotten some time, yes, but life in prison when she wasn't even there and you can't even prove for sure that she actually knew it was gonna happen, it just doesn't sit right with me that the person who actually pulled the trigger is getting the same sentence as someone who wasn't even there. Like, of course she has responsibility here, but life in prison? I would love to know what you guys think would be a proper sentence because

I highly doubt many of you are going to think it's life in prison. So she's currently serving her sentence at the Lowell Correction Institution in Florida, and it's very depressing for her. What happened to that sweet 15-year-old girl that we first met? I couldn't even tell you. I got cased up with the wrong crowd of people, really. Unfortunately, when I started experimenting with drugs, I just felt like I was invincible to everything.

Now 24 years old, she's serving a life sentence in maximum security at Lowell Correctional, her cell block, housing some of the 50 most violent women in Florida. And I'm just like, this is a nightmare. You know what I mean? And then there's other days where it's just like, it is what it is.

Jennifer is in maximum security for her own safety because of the celebrity story behind her name. I felt like a lot of it was due to manipulation and being brainwashed, so to speak. Jennifer's siblings and her parents are just

just blown away that she actually ended up with life in prison for this. You know, they get to visit her every once in a while, but I mean, it's almost like someone dies when they go to prison. Their role becomes so diminished in your life. It's just way too much time. Jennifer could easily, you know, be given some therapy and worked with and rejoin society as a normal person.

Jennifer's lawyer, John Trevena, has motioned for a new trial, but he was denied. And this is crazy. I don't know what you guys think about this, but Jennifer's lawyer actually thinks that if she wasn't the hiccup girl, that he would have been able to get her less time in prison. In fact, less than 15 years, he thinks.

Which I don't know. I don't know if her being the hiccup girl is the reason why she's in there so long. But, you know, I'm not working on the case. Jennifer says that she feels incredibly remorseful. That she really liked Shanon as soon as she met him and instantly felt bad.

leaving him with the two guys, 'cause she knew that something was gonna happen. Whether she knew he was gonna be killed or not is debatable, but she knew he was probably gonna get beat up. And she says that she wishes so badly that she had decided to tell him to leave. - In my mind, I was like, "What do you mean you killed him?" He was like, "He's dead."

And from there, it just seemed like everything unraveled. She still claims she had no idea the plan included a gun. To this day, I still truly don't know and understand

what took place for them to do what they did. You are doing life in prison. What do you think would be fair? I think, me personally, I feel would be fair is at least 20 years. I do. Because, yes, somebody's life was taken, somebody's loved one, somebody's child. Your attorney has said now there's less than a 1% to 2% chance of you ever getting out of here.

How do you hold on to hope? I can't put nothing past God, but I've been locked up since I was 19. I can't stop fighting. I have a family that wants me home. The two guys, Leron and Lamont, were both sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole as well. And, you know, that's more deserved since they were the ones there, the ones who actually did it. But Jennifer, it's debatable.

That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode. And make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then, stay safe out there.