The Florida woman known as "hiccup girl" for her incurable case of the hiccups she developed as a teen has been sentenced to life in prison for murder. A judge found Jennifer Mee, 22, guilty of first-degree murder Friday. The Pinellas County jury for the case deliberated for four hours before handing over the verdict. Attorneys for Mee said she suffered from schizophrenia and Tourette's Syndrome, while a court psychologist said her intelligence was "low normal." In spite of such evidence, Judge Nancy Moate Ley ruled at the conclusion of the five-day trial that the only possible ruling would be life in prison without a chance for parole.
Mee is said to have lured a 22-year-old Wal-Mart employee Shannon Griffin to an abandonned home in 2010. She and two men, who were also charged in his death, told him that they would sell him marijuana. Once they arrived, the trio attempted to rob Griffin at gunpoint. Griffin resisted the attack and was shot four times. LaRon Raiford, a co-defendant in the case, was sentenced to life in prison in August. Lamont Newton, the other defendant and Mee's boyfriend at the time of the shooting, has not yet gone to trial.
When she was 15, Mee developed a case of the hiccups that would not go away. She appeared on numerous television programs to talk about her condition, such as the "Today" show. She tried consulting with several sources to aleviate her condition, including a number of medical specialists, a hypnotist and an acupuncturist. Her attorney John Trevena said she was now on medication to control the hiccuping, but still suffered from occasional bouts. Trevena said because she did not carry out the robbery, there was not enough evidence to convict her. Police interviews and a taped jailhouse call to her mother, however, were used as a means for conviction. "Because I set everything up," Mee explained during the call that was played for the jury. "It all went wrong, Mom. It just went downhill."
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