117: WARNING: Apartment of Horror | Murdered & Wrapped In Christmas Lights
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Hey, true crime besties. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly.

Hello, hello, hello. Welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly with me, Annie Elise. I hope you guys are all doing great today. Whatever you're doing, whether you're commuting into work, whether you're cleaning, whether you're listening to this while you're still in bed, whatever it is you're doing, I really hope you're having a nice, peaceful day because I'm

I'm truly about to come in and just like dump all over that with this case. Now, if you have been following my YouTube channel for a while now, tend to life over on YouTube, obviously the YouTube channel.

You might be familiar with the Mary Collins case. If you're not, it is horrific. It is one of the most brutal cases I think I've covered to date. I will actually link it in the show notes for those of you who have not seen it and are not familiar with this case. But for those of you who have and are familiar, this case is kind of reminiscent of that one in terms of its level of just like darkness and true brutality and evil.

So I want to just jump right in, but it takes us back to 2010. And on February 11th, 2010, it was an extremely snowy morning in Greensburg, Pennsylvania.

People were bundled up. They were trying to clear the snow off of their cars and their driveways and pathways. City trucks were out also trying to clear the roads. I mean, it was your true snow day type environment. Now, one man was starting his day by arriving at his service work truck, which actually was parked at a local middle school. And he was really ready to just get his day started. When he arrived at the truck, though, he noticed something odd about it.

It looked like a garbage can had actually been tipped over and was right next to the passenger side door of his truck, but almost kind of like tucked underneath his truck a little bit too. So you know when the weather starts getting unpredictable and the winds start kicking up, it's not super uncommon to find things that end up in odd places, whether it's by your car, your front door, your backyard, furniture tipped over. I mean, I'm sure we've all experienced it to some degree, right?

So he figured that this garbage can must have belonged to a neighbor near the school and that it had just gotten stuck by his truck because of all of the snow, right? So then he started walking towards it, planning on just moving it to the side and out of the way so that he could just drive around it and move on with his day.

but when he bent down to pick it up, he noticed that it was really heavy, which was actually pretty odd considering that he suspected that the wind is actually what carried this garbage can over to his truck and placed it underneath his vehicle, so this immediately set off a red flag to him. So he opened up the lid, which was already partially popped off, and he began to look inside to see why on earth this thing was so heavy, and as soon as he opened it,

his eyes began to focus on what he was truly looking at, and a chill ran down his spine. This was not trash, far, far from it. This was a body. He called the police, who immediately rushed to the scene and tried to assess the situation and see what the hell was even going on here. This body was actually wrapped in plastic,

There was also garland and Christmas lights everywhere. It was a very interesting sight to see, as you can imagine. And the condition of the body of this person inside of this trash can, it was actually really difficult to identify if it was a male, if it was a female, maybe if it was possibly a child, because remember, this was right next to a middle school. But obviously, one thing was clear. This was a homicide. So what happened here? And who was inside this trash can?

It was here along Main Street in Greensburg, in the parking lot of Greensburg-Salem Middle School, that the body was found, wrapped in a garbage bag, stuffed in a trash can and shoved underneath a parked truck Thursday morning.

Well, in February of 2010, Jennifer Daugherty was 30 years old and trying to find her way in life. Jennifer was born with an intellectual and development disability, although she was never formally diagnosed with anything specific. She did have her challenges because of this, and this disability made her intellectual skills that of a 14-year-old child.

Jennifer also had two sisters growing up, and it's really actually pretty remarkable because she didn't realize that she was any different than her sisters until she hit elementary school. And unfortunately, the reason she noticed that she was different at this point was because people started picking on her, and they started making fun of her.

and these other kids just really began to torment her, and adults were also beginning to treat her differently. Jennifer lived in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania with her parents and her sisters, and every day without fail, she would wait at the end of the driveway by the mailbox, waiting for her parents to come home from work so that she could greet them, ask them how their day went,

And this was just Jennifer. She was kind, she was caring, and she had this true childlike innocence about her even as an adult. Because remember, she's now 30. And as an adult, despite her ability, Jennifer was absolutely determined to never let it stop her from doing the things in life that she wanted to do.

She still craved that sense of independence, just like we all really do, especially as you're entering adulthood. And she really wanted to live on her own. She also wanted to fall in love. She wanted to find herself and she wanted to make new friends. So she really started putting herself out there and working towards the life that she so desperately wanted without having any sort of fears getting in the way of her doing that.

So around 2009, Jennifer joined a place called West Place Clubhouse, and West Place was a clubhouse similar to, like, a community center of sorts. And they actually hosted therapy sessions and other social events for people with disabilities similar to Jennifer.

So Jennifer really liked this clubhouse, and she frequently took the bus to Greensburg from Mount Pleasant so that she could partake in these sessions, be around like-minded and similar individuals to herself. And that's where she ended up meeting a woman named Peggy Miller. Now, her and Peggy, they hit it off right away, and they would even walk around Greensburg together, which might not really seem that fun or interesting to somebody, but

But to Jennifer, it meant the absolute world because she loved, loved, loved going on walks. And now she had this new friend who was accompanying her on these walks. So this was pretty much like a dream come true for Jennifer. And her parents were really happy that Jennifer was finally making friends and was able to meet people who were just so similar to her.

And they were so proud of the strides that she was making. It seemed like she was finally starting to settle in and be the person that she was always meant to become. So then on February 10th, when Jennifer had some medical appointments coming up in Greensburg, she told her parents that she was going to go to Greensburg a day earlier to spend some time with her new friend Peggy and to stay at her apartment. And she wanted to do this so that she would already be in Greensburg for her appointments the following day.

And because of their new friendship, this didn't seem odd at all. And her parents were really excited that she was making such a close friend that she was invited to the apartment. She was going to stay at the apartment. And she figured that she would just go to the sleepover, already be in town for her appointment, and then head back to Mount Pleasant afterwards. And like I said, Jennifer didn't make friends easily. And her parents were just so happy, so happy that she was branching off on her own here. So like I said, they didn't think much of it, even though they didn't really know Peggy.

And honestly though, neither did Jennifer, since they only knew each other for now at this point. It was about three weeks. It was a pretty new friendship. So Jennifer did everything that she needed to do to prepare for her little trip. She told her family what her plans were. She wrote down Peggy's information in case they needed to contact her or in case there was an emergency. She even left a sweet little note for her parents before leaving, which read, I hope that you will have a good day at work and I also love you very much. I will talk to you sometime later.

And with that, Jennifer's dad drove her to the bus stop, told her goodbye, and told her to have fun. The last thing that she did was give her dad a kiss on the cheek, and then she hopped onto that bus and headed towards Peggy's apartment. In that moment, her stepdad had no idea that this was actually going to be the last time that he or anyone else in the family would ever see Jennifer alive.

The same day that that man found the garbage can underneath his truck in the snow, Jennifer's sister Joy was going about her workday when she realized that something was off about her usual routine. Because Jennifer usually called her every single morning, and this time she didn't.

and that was very out of the normal. So she decided that she was just going to call Jennifer's phone, but she was extremely confused when the phone went to voicemail, and it wasn't Jennifer's voice on the other end of the phone. So she thought it was extremely weird, and she actually began to worry that the phone bill maybe hadn't been paid, and that the number was given to somebody else, since it was a different voice entirely on the other end of that line. So that could be the only sensible answer in a situation like this, right? Clearly she wouldn't be having somebody else make her voicemail recording,

what was going on here? So Joy called her mom and asked her about Jennifer's phone, and her mom said, yeah, I noticed that too when I tried to call her. She had already been trying to contact Jennifer that morning with no answer and no call back, so this now was setting off alarm bells for both Joy and for Jennifer's mom. Jennifer was always communicative, she always answered her phone, and it wasn't like her to just go off the radar, especially because she knew that it would worry her family if she did.

So her family also contacted her new friend Peggy, since they had all of her contact information from Jennifer that she had left behind. Peggy told her that Jennifer had been there, but that she had left her house, and that she hadn't seen her. So Joy worried at this point that she must have lost her phone, and she worried now that Jennifer was alone in Greensburg without a phone, and that she didn't have any phone numbers of her family or her friends memorized, and that she was just isolated.

So Joy knew that the only way to find Jennifer and help her was to actually go to Greensburg herself and search for Jennifer on her own. However, before Joy even started driving to Greensburg, her mom called, and her mom was absolutely frantic on the other end of the phone.

She told her that she had just seen on the news that a girl was found that morning in Greensburg and that she was deceased in a garbage can. And she also said that the news said that it looked like it was a young girl, possibly even a child. Joy told her that she didn't need to worry and that it was probably absolutely nothing even remotely related to them or to Jennifer.

However, once she got off that phone call, she really started to doubt herself, and she didn't even fully believe what she had just told their mother. So unsure of what to do, the fear of the worst case scenario began to really set in for Joy, and Joy ended up calling the state police, who then directed her to the local Greensburg Police Department. Investigators weren't sure right away the cause of death of the body that they had found.

All they knew was that it was a homicide, and a pretty gruesome one at that. They worried that by removing the body from that garbage can, especially in the weather conditions, it might possibly ruin or alter some of the evidence. So instead, they actually decided to seal up the entire garbage can and then transport it with the body still inside of it, so that they could then get it somewhere safely and perform an autopsy.

Now, at the autopsy, they could tell right away that the victim was in fact a girl, but they still were not sure about the age or the identity. It looked to be a younger girl, but they were waiting for further testing to come back so that they could say that without a shadow of a doubt. So in the meantime, the investigator sent over pictures of the body to the Greensburg Police Department, and Joy happened to be there because she was waiting there anxiously, just looking.

looking for answers, hoping somebody had some information. And while she was waiting, Joy opened up her tiny little flip phone to see a photo that was sent to her from the police. And at that moment, she realized her worst nightmare was coming true. She saw what looked to be possibly a woman, but at the same time, she couldn't possibly believe that it was her sister. The person in the picture had no hair,

And the face was so bloody and swollen that it was hard to even make out any distinct facial features. And underneath the face onto the neck, there was a huge slash all the way across it. Joy told police that she didn't know if this was Jennifer. She couldn't reconcile it. She couldn't believe it.

And I mean, it was. It was unrecognizable. It was very difficult to get any sort of identity or information in this picture. So police then started going through and asking some very specific questions, such as, did she have any specific markings on her body? And sure enough, it was Jennifer.

Her entire family was absolutely crushed. They had no idea how their sweet and innocent sister and daughter had gone from this person that was just so full of love and life to the one that Joy was now seeing in this haunting and horrible image. So all heartbreak aside, they were more confused than anything. She had gone to a friend's house for a sleepover.

And then somehow she ended up thrown away like literal garbage and murdered, not to mention brutally attacked. What was really going on here? And not only that, but at that point, they didn't even realize just how badly Jennifer had been attacked.

And let me just say, it was more than just horrific. And we're gonna get into more of that later, but for now, they literally didn't know how this could have even happened. What could have gone wrong so quickly? Did she ever make it to Peggy's apartment? Was she attacked on the bus or was she attacked shortly after getting off the bus? Nobody knew. - Jennifer Dougherty appears to have been a woman looking for a fresh start.

On her MySpace page, she wrote, quote, This is my time to make a new start for myself, making some new friends and not being afraid of anything. So this is going to be this is going to be a good thing for me. She's a happy, vivacious person. I mean, she truly enjoyed life. Her favorite things were anything that involved being happy with other people. And truly, she trusted anybody. If you met her today, she was your friend for her life.

And if you had a friend, they would be her friend as well. It was cold and it was brutal. She was tortured. She was humiliated. And she was alone when she died. Barbaric in a sense because you don't think about this happening in today's day and age. People are supposed to be more civilized around here. And it's just, it hurts.

So of course the first thing that the detectives wanted to do here was figure out who that garbage can belonged to. And because it had snowed that day, they figured that it would be a pretty easy task to figure out which house was missing a can. And they quickly found that the can belonged to 428 North Pennsylvania Avenue. And they were able to determine that because they noticed that there were several bags of trash that were just

outside of the home that were now covered in snow. And to investigators, that indicated that the trash bags may have been in the trash can at some point, but then later taken out of it for some reason, which is now why they were covered in snow. So detectives were waiting outside of the apartment for backup to come and to pick up these bags of garbage to confirm that they had come from the same can. And that's when two people walked up the sidewalk past the detectives and into this home. They were Ricky Smears and Angela Marinucci.

Now, these names are new to us at this point in the case, but they were not new names to the detectives. You see, they knew Ricky. He had actually gotten into some trouble before, and he was no stranger to law enforcement. And let me just say, Ricky kept himself busy.

especially during the year of 1997. One particular crime that he committed involved breaking into a neighbor's home and stealing items like knives, guitars, coins, bullets, and even some cash, and then later that same year, he actually sexually assaulted a woman. So like I said, he was absolutely no stranger to law enforcement.

So when Ricky noticed the officer was outside of the front of his home, he went up to him and he started talking to him. And the officer, of course, at this point knew that Jennifer was deceased, but they didn't want to let Ricky know that they knew just yet. So he told him that Jennifer was missing and that they were searching the area for her. And what's interesting is that Ricky straight up told him that he knew Jennifer. And not only that, but he also said that Jennifer had even stayed over on Monday night at his house, but that he hadn't seen her since. Which...

How convenient, right? Like, okay, so you're trying to kind of work in why there might be evidence, why there might be transfer evidence, things like that. You're trying to explain why you may have had contact with Jennifer. But the detectives were not buying his story. Not at all. Their radar immediately went off, and they began the process of actually getting a search warrant for the home. Because they had this gut feeling that once they got inside, they might know what exactly happened to Jennifer.

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So not long after they were able to present a search warrant and they began going through the apartment and just going through a quick walkthrough of kind of like a game plan to come up with on how they were going to go about the search, even more red flags began coming up. There were multiple sharp items lying around that could easily be used as weapons.

and there were also multiple items with what looked to be bloodstains on them. There was even an empty box of trash bags with what appeared to be bloodstains on them, and this was just in the bottom half of the house. And then when the detectives searched through Ricky's attic, they found a box that had all of Jennifer's belongings inside of it.

Her purse, her credit card, the bloody clothes that were all present, everything. And to make it worse, they also discovered a bloody knife, which they assumed was more than likely the murder weapon. Jennifer had told her family that she was going to her friend Peggy's apartment. So how was Peggy connected to Angela and Ricky?

Or was she even connected at all? The investigators then brought in Ricky and Angela for questioning. This as soon as they found the multiple pieces of evidence in their home. Then, around 1.30 a.m., the following night, or early morning I should say, investigators called Jennifer's sister Joy. And they told her that they had made six arrests. Six.

Six guys. So they said that they had made six different arrests concerning Jennifer's death, and they wanted Joy to know before the news went public and before she found out through the media. The arrests were Peggy Miller, Angela Maranucci, Amber Mettinger, Melvin Knight, Ricky Smearans, and Robert Master. And they were all found to be involved in Jennifer's murder. And these people became known as the Greensburg Six.

Breaking news at this hour, six people arrested in connection with the brutal torture and murder of a woman whose body was found stuffed in a garbage can at Greensburg Salem Middle School. And we've just obtained a copy of a police affidavit that reveals disturbing details about what some investigators are calling a cult-like killing.

But who the heck were all of these people? Well, as it turns out, when Jennifer met Peggy at West Place, that community center, she also met Angela, who was Peggy's very close friend. And Angela was in a relationship with Ricky. But Jennifer apparently had a very big crush on Ricky.

and the crush also seemed to be mutual. So obviously this made Angela very upset, so she really didn't like Jennifer from the get-go. Now Melvin and Amber were other friends of theirs who apparently didn't have a place to stay, so they ended up crashing at Ricky's. And Robert was someone who moved to Greensburg from Michigan and had met Peggy over the internet and then shortly became a part of their friend group afterwards.

So Ricky's house was the place that they would all go to, they would all hang out at, and unfortunately, it had also been the place where they lured Jennifer there, who was more than eager to be a part of a new friend group, a new friend circle, and making new friends. I mean, it is so heartbreaking. Now, once the group was arrested, it didn't take long at all for them to start turning on each other. I mean, they were just like ripping each other apart, throwing each other under the bus, and singing like canaries.

especially Ricky and Melvin. The group claimed that they had absolutely no intentions of killing Jennifer, but that they mainly just wanted to humiliate her. Melvin said that on February 8th, him and his pregnant girlfriend Amber were at the Greensburg bus station when they noticed Ricky. So Melvin and Ricky had met a few years prior when they were actually in jail together.

Ricky was with Angela, Robert, and Peggy at the time, and it turns out that Jennifer knew Peggy was staying at Ricky's, and that she didn't have her own apartment at all in any of this. But at the time, she didn't want to worry her parents. I'd imagine there was also something kind of exciting if she had a crush on Ricky, staying at Ricky's, but in any event, she knew that she wasn't going to Peggy's apartment, and

and apparently she knew she was going to Ricky's, but she didn't want to worry her family. So later on, when Jennifer arrived at the apartment, Amber recognized her from West Place, from that community center. They started talking, and she said that Jennifer told her that she was going to marry Ricky, and apparently Angela overheard her say this, which infuriated her to where all she was seeing was red.

So after that, Angela went with Amber and Melvin to their hotel. And she said that she was in a relationship. A relationship with a married man. And it turns out that married man was Ricky. He was married, guys. So at the hotel, Amber overheard Angela tell Ricky over the phone, you better not be with that bitch. Meaning Jennifer. Then later on, Amber and Melvin went over to Ricky's apartment to join Jennifer, Peggy, and Robert and stay the night.

Now, apparently at some point during the night, and again, this is according to the group, Jennifer tried to get intimate with Ricky, but Ricky kind of just blew her off, and apparently he became angry with her. So then the next day, Jennifer decided not to go to her appointments, which also made Ricky mad. She was just lingering. She was just sticking around.

So instead, Jennifer had decided to take a shower, and while she was in the shower, Ricky called Angela. And Ricky told Angela what Jennifer did the night before, which he knew was just going to antagonize and anger Angela. So Angela responded and said, Now somehow during all of this, Ricky apparently called Angela,

quote unquote, a family meeting between everyone. And this must have taken place when Jennifer was in the shower. But during this family meeting, they decided that they were going to humiliate Jennifer. So they started bullying her. They were taking things from her purse. They were pouring mouthwash on her purse and on her clothing. And Melvin actually ended up choking her and choking her so hard that she couldn't breathe. And she was crying, begging for them to stop. But they didn't.

They didn't. And the humiliation, as they call it, which in my vocabulary is actually called torture, just continued. Because then they cut off all of her hair. They beat her with crutches. They beat her with empty soda bottles that were lying around the apartment. And really, any objects at all that they could that were just lying about, strewn about. They even poured oatmeal and spices all over her head. I mean, everything.

So, so cruel. Then once Angela got to Ricky's, her and Amber started accosting Jennifer in the bathroom. Angela even pushed her into the metal towel rack three different times, then hit her in the head, the chest, and the neck. At this point, Jennifer denied that she had any interest in Ricky at all, but they still didn't stop.

They then dragged her into the living room, where Melvin and Ricky just continued to dump that oatmeal and those spices all over her head after Angela had poured water on her. They then forced Jennifer to drink Angela's urine. They forced her to consume a mixture of urine and feces, bleach, detergent, cigarette ash, prescription peels, all while threatening her life if she didn't comply.

She was gagging, of course, through all of this, almost even throwing up, but they still forced the liquids down her throat. So at this point, Jennifer's eyes were just stinging. She could barely see. She was in an incredible amount of pain. And when she told Ricky about the stinging in her eyes, all he said to her was, go get in the shower. You smell. You stink. You smell really bad. Go take a shower.

And as if all of these things that had been done to her were not bad enough, they just grew progressively more violent as time went on. Each person made the sick and twisted choice to just get going and keep it going. And they admitted that Jennifer had begged them to stop and that she had asked multiple times why they were hurting her and why they were doing what they were doing. And they just continued.

callously, cold-heartedly, ruthlessly. They ended up painting her entire face with red nail polish. They took off all of her clothing, and when they did, Melvin raped Jennifer. Next, they tied her up with that string of Christmas lights.

And they actually even apparently tried to turn the Christmas lights on, but when the lights didn't come on, they got frustrated and started tying garland around her, tying her up even more so that she could not move. Now, I have no idea why they wanted to do that with the Christmas lights and why they would want those on and just kind of keep her there with the lights on. I honestly have no clue. It is really sick and really disturbing to think about.

So as all of this was going down, they then had another quote-unquote family meeting. And this time in the meeting, they decided that the only option was that they needed to end Jennifer's life. So they voted that killing her was the best solution to their problem. So Ricky and Melvin moved Jennifer to the bathroom, and there they took turns stabbing Jennifer in the chest,

side, and in the throat with a steak knife, all until she unfortunately succumbed to her injuries. Now, one of the most fucked up parts about this case was that while the group had been torturing Jennifer, police actually did stop by this apartment and even went inside the apartment.

because a former tenant had needed to get inside to grab some of their belongings, and they had an officer go and accompany them. But the group somehow managed to move Jennifer from room to room, staying unseen by this officer, and then finally they hid her in the attic, where they told her that if she called for help or made any noise at all, they would kill her. And unfortunately, she believed them. So she stayed quiet, she didn't make a sound, even though she knew that a police officer could help her and was inside that house.

She had probably just been a few feet away out of getting out of this entire horrible nightmare that she had been enduring. But whether she was just simply too terrified or maybe believed that they wouldn't kill her and would just let her go, whatever reason, she listened to them and she didn't make a peep. However, Jennifer did put up a fight though. She had multiple self-defense wounds all over her body. But no matter how hard she fought,

She was outnumbered. It was as plain, as simple as that. It was six against one. It was not a fair fight at all. So I think it goes without saying that the Greensburg Police Department had never seen a crime as horrific as what was done to Jennifer. There were so many different layers involved in it. There was kidnapping, assault, sexual assault, murder,

And for six people to come together and at no point decide that what they were doing was wrong was absolutely unheard of to the police. These friends had multiple chances in between each layer of this inhumane abuse of Jennifer that they could have put things to an end. Somebody could have called it quits. Somebody could have raised their hand and been like, this is going too far. This is becoming too much.

They could have even decided to let her go and convince her not to tell anybody because she believed everything they said. She was hanging on every word. But they didn't. And instead, they actually had three family meetings in total and decided collectively what to do during the course of everything. They only got worse and more brutal every single time after these meetings too. It was like every last one of them had no shred of humanity, no shred of sympathy left.

The forensic pathologist that performed the autopsy on Jennifer received her body while it was still in the garbage can, placed in headfirst, partially covered with plastic bags, with Christmas lights wrapped around the neck and the wrists and garland binding the ankles. She had suffered multiple wounds, abrasions, and contusions, and several prescription drugs were also found in Jennifer's system.

The cause of death was a combination of all of the injuries, but it was primarily due to the stab wounds of the chest, which then penetrated the left lung and went into Jennifer's heart. The pathologist determined that these injuries were inflicted shortly before death with the intent to cause pain and suffering.

meaning that Jennifer would have been conscious after the initial infliction of the wounds. Then she would have bled for a couple of minutes, lost consciousness, and then finally died within four to six minutes.

The pathologist also said, and I quote, All Jennifer wanted was friends. Her kindness and eagerness for those close bonds and relationships was just so wildly taken advantage of.

After ending Jennifer's life, they ended up putting her body into that trash can with the Christmas lights and the garland still wrapped around her swollen and beaten face and beaten body until she was ultimately found on the side of the road like garbage. And it gets even worse, guys, because after they had come to the decision in their family meeting of what they were going to do to Jennifer and how they were going to murder her, they actually forced Jennifer to write a suicide note.

Can you believe it? Now, they clearly didn't think too much about how unlikely it was that someone would, I don't know, torture themselves and put their own bodies into a trash can at a random middle school before killing themselves, but that's besides the point. It still was just absolutely...

Absolutely deplorable, despicable. The neighbors said that they had called the police countless times with different noise complaints, and they said that so many people were constantly coming in, coming and going from the apartment, that they weren't even exactly sure who lived there at all. On the night of the murder, their neighbor noticed that her Christmas lights had actually been stolen off of her porch, and those lights had sadly been the ones that the group ended up using to tie Jennifer up and bind her as they held her captive. I would

Two separate witnesses also came forward after the news of what happened to Jennifer had gone viral all over town. One witness saw two people dragging a garbage can over to the middle school that very morning that Jennifer's body had been found after being dumped.

And she described it as being pretty odd, considering it was the middle of a snowstorm. And it's not like they had just been taking the can out in front of their apartment or the house. They actually had been dragging it on the side of the road to this middle school. Moments before, Rebecca Clark's dad was driving her to work. Something was suspicious about what we saw. Yes. Why? It's just...

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It's very bad for the family and friends, and if we could have helped in any way, I wanted to. And get this, another witness was actually able to identify Ricky, and they claimed that on the morning that Jennifer's body was found, Ricky actually randomly came up to them at the bus stop and admitted that he had killed somebody named Jennifer. So I think a huge question that everybody wanted answers to and wanted to know at the time and still wants to know was simply why.

Why Jennifer? And the group had no answer. Like I mentioned earlier, they claimed that they hadn't planned on killing her initially, just humiliating her and torturing her a little bit, but then they felt like they had no other choice since they had gone so far with it.

Now, investigators believed that a possible motive was that Ricky had just wanted to hurt Jennifer in an act of showing his true love and devotion to Angela. Since remember, she had been jealous of Jennifer's alleged crush on him. And then they say that the other friends just agreed to it and followed along since they were a close friend group, making Ricky kind of the ringleader of all of it. Now,

Now, interestingly, some of the members of the Greensburg Six had their own alleged intellectual disabilities as well, and they tried to use this during their defense. In particular, Melvin was born to a drug-addicted father who was in prison during the early years of his life. His defense argued that he developed lifelong learning and social problems after he fell out of a moving vehicle and hit his head when he was just five years old.

Angela also suffered a head injury when she was hit by a truck in 2008, while she was just 15 years old. And Ricky, too, was apparently born to a drug-addicted Philadelphia sex worker and a Pittsburgh gang member. He was moved in and out of foster homes as a child and was treated for mental health disorders as early as age 4.

It was really interesting because everybody seemed to have these stories from their childhood that they were using during their defense very well could be warranted if they truly did have disabilities. Absolutely. But we've seen this before, too, where people are trying to reach to their childhood as some sort of excuse and some sort of leverage to have in their defense.

But was it going to work? So Amber, who was 20 years old at the time of Jennifer's murder and also facing the death penalty if she went to trial, pled guilty to third-degree murder. This was in December of 2013. She was sentenced to 40 to 80 years. While in custody shortly after being arrested, she actually gave birth, and the baby was then later adopted. Amber ended up testifying against Ricky, Melvin, and Angela in all of their separate trials.

During Ricky's trial, Amber was cross-examined for seven hours straight. Amber went into greater detail than she ever had before about the events that led up to Jennifer's death, and apparently her attorneys had advised her not to testify, but she did anyway, claiming that she wanted Jennifer's family to have closure and to know the truth. Amber testified that at the time of the murders, she and Melvin had been engaged and that they had met at the homeless shelter.

She claimed that on the night of Jennifer's torture, and then later murder, the couple had gone to Ricky's apartment because they needed a can opener so that they could eat. She told the graphic details of witnessing Jennifer getting hit in the head with empty soda can bottles and then later helping Angela beat her with that towel rack. She claimed that she and Angela had been yelling at her about her liking their men while they repeatedly hit her.

Co-defendant Amber Meitinger insists she was not offered a deal for her testimony against Greensburg 6 co-defendant Ricky Smearns. Today, Meitinger testified Smearns invited the co-defendants and Dougherty to his apartment, where she testified he and then-girlfriend Angela Marinucci led the torture by instructing and suggesting what should be done to Dougherty. Experts testified Smearns' fingerprints were found on the bottle of Crisco Dougherty was made to drink, a metal towel rack she was beaten with, and the fake suicide letter she wrote.

Doherty considered the co-defendants her friends prior to this. Of Doherty, Meidinger testified she was very loving. She talked to anybody. She just wanted to be cared for and loved. Rickey's lawyer argued that Amber's story had changed multiple times depending on who she was talking to. They also argued that Rickey hadn't been the one to actually cause the fatal blow to Jennifer.

This was all in an attempt to pin the actual death on to Melvin. Confession tapes were then played during his trial, where he confessed to cutting Jennifer's wrists as well as helping move her dead body.

Ricky Smearns is facing death, convicted for a killing he claims he didn't do. However, Pennsylvania law states you don't have to actually deliver the fatal wounds to be convicted of murder if you're in on it. Today, jurors heard from Smearns for the first time in his taped statement he gave to police when they found Jennifer Dougherty's body on February 11, 2010. So what did you do? Chest to wrist? Rick, come on. I swear.

Tell us the truth. I did. Did you stab her in the chest also? No. Rick? I didn't. Rick? I didn't. Smirnes maintains in the entire 62-minute-long statement that it was co-defendant Melvin Knight who stabbed Doherty and that he only cut her wrist, a wound Dr. Cyril Wecht testified would not have killed her. Instead of closing arguments during Ricky's trial, a psychologist testified about Ricky's mental capacity.

She presented IQ scores from age 7 all the way up to 2012, and his latest score in 2012 was a 60. She also testified about the reoccurring sexual abuse that Ricky faced as a child by his uncle and his fathers, as well as his mother, who apparently sold him for sex to fuel her worsening drug addiction. The psychologist also diagnosed Ricky with having seven different personalities and 15 psychiatric issues. He was...

repetitively raped by his father and his uncles. He was sexually molested by his mother's paramours. And his mother was a drug-addicted prostitute who sold him for sex. Ricky's profile is atypical. IQ scores normally rise in childhood. Ricky's has fallen. When a child goes through those kinds of experiences,

They don't develop in a normal or a full way. They don't learn to reach out to the world and be curious. Ricky's adopted mother, Audrey, also testified at his trial. She claimed that when she adopted him, she knew that he would be a lot of work due to his traumatic childhood. She felt that despite all of his traumas, though, with her unconditional love and her support, she could raise Ricky to be happy, to be healthy, and a functioning member of society.

She testified that her family had years of trouble dealing with Ricky after he began vandalizing and stealing from the neighbors. She also claimed that he never had any friends and that he couldn't maintain relationships. She testified that in his adult years, he fathered two children, moved out, and stole furniture from her.

She testified that when she went to visit him and his wife at the time to then confront them about what they had stolen from her, Ricky apparently cussed her out, shoved her, and then threatened to kill her. So this had scared her, and it was the final straw. She knew that she would never be able to turn Ricky into the person that she had hoped that he would become if he was under her care. So after this incident, she cut him off completely.

cut off all contact with him, and she even got a protection from abuse order against him. So Ricky was ultimately convicted of first-degree murder in 2013, and he was sentenced to death by lethal injection. Ricky appealed his sentence, but four years later in 2017, a judge upheld his sentence. Amber also testified against her ex-fiancé Melvin.

Melvin is also the father of the child that she gave birth to while in prison. Amber testified that as a mother, she would want to know what happened to her child, which was why she made the choice to testify against Melvin. She testified that she had walked in and witnessed Melvin raping Jennifer.

She claimed that before Jennifer had been killed, Ricky had handed Melvin the steak knife and had instructed him on what to do. But that was the only part of the night that Melvin had been told to do anything. Everything else was completely his own twisted desires. She also said that she and Melvin had been the ones that changed Jennifer's voicemail greeting. So when Joy, Jennifer's sister, called her to check on her when she was looking for her, the voicemail said,

This is Melvin, Amber, and the name of their unborn baby. She claimed that it was Angela's idea to wrap Jennifer in Christmas lights so that she would, quote, "'look like a Christmas tree.'"

And it was apparently Peggy's idea to paint her with the nail polish because she thought it would, quote, look nice. Now, Melvin had previously confessed to the police in his role in Jennifer's death, and the confession tapes were then played in court. This is the transcription of Melvin Knight's taped confession. In it, he admits to torturing and killing Jennifer Dougherty, but he says he only did it for the protection of himself, Amber Meidinger, and their unborn child.

Melvin Knight is facing life in prison or death. The jury who will make that decision heard Knight in his own words describe what he did to Jennifer Dougherty in that Greensburg apartment. Then Ricky went and got a knife and told me to stab her. And what did you do? I hesitated for a little bit and then I stabbed her. And Ricky can be a very intimidating person.

While the entire one hour long confession was played, Knight sat in court expressionless. All right, guys, we are going to take the final break in today's case to hear from the last sponsor of today's episode. PenFed free checking offers zero fees and zero balance requirements for zero hassle.

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Melvin originally pled guilty in 2012 and was sentenced to the death penalty, but he then appealed his sentence, resulting in him being found guilty and sentenced to death for the second time in 2018. Melvin Knight will return to death row. Jurors deliberated for more than seven hours tonight before deciding to sentence him to death for killing Jennifer Dougherty eight years ago. Knight's original death sentence was overturned on appeal. His lawyer argued that Knight is mentally and intellectually challenged.

The last trial that Amber testified in was against Angela, who was just 17 years old at the time of Jennifer being murdered. Angela had a snow day off school, allowing her to then be present for the torture and murder of Jennifer. Amber testified that it had been Angela who started the entire thing. Angela had allegedly texted Jennifer pretending to be Ricky in order to lure her to the apartment, which she willingly did go.

She also testified about the various family meetings. One meeting was held by Ricky, where he asked the group who would be a better mother to his children, Angela or Jennifer, which is just such a fucking bizarre question to ask your group of young friends, but whatever. The second meeting that was held was held by Angela, who had given Ricky an ultimatum of her or Jennifer. And then that last meeting was the one that sadly decided Jennifer's fate, which we all know resulted in them actually having

voting to kill Jennifer. Amber broke down during her testimony. She even said, quote,

Now, I don't use that language, guys, but I am using the direct quote that she gave. She also said that at one point when Jennifer was fighting back, Jennifer hit Angela in the stomach, and this apparently enraged her, and Angela screamed, "How dare you hit a pregnant woman?" even though she wasn't even pregnant. Like, what is actually happening here?

She cried as she described Jennifer Dougherty as a sweet, trusting woman with a mental disability who the group decided to gang up on last February, stealing from her, humiliating her, beating her, then stabbing her to death inside this Greensburg apartment where they were all staying.

Meidinger said Jennifer Dougherty sobbed through the torture, begging them to stop and asking them why they were doing this to her. So Amber was cross-examined for nearly six hours. Angela's lawyers argued that she was just a child at the time and that she didn't fully understand the consequences of her actions. The defense also argued that the head injury when she was just 15 years old substantially altered her behavior and it pushed her into a downward spiral that ended with Jennifer's death.

Angela Marinucci told the jury she did not want Jennifer Dougherty to die. She says she did not drug her and played no role in her torture or murder. She pinned it all on her five co-defendants, blaming them for the beating, torture and stabbing of 30-year-old Jennifer Dougherty. Dougherty was from Mount Pleasant and excited to spend a few days in Greensburg with people she thought were her friends.

Marinucci says they were all hanging out inside this Greensburg apartment in February 2010 when the group ganged up on Dougherty. She claims she was good friends with Dougherty, so she was the only one who spoke up to stop the torture. But she couldn't force the issue because she was afraid the group would gang up on her.

MARINUCCI'S EX-BOYFRIEND TOOK THE STAND IN HER DEFENSE. HE TOLD THE JURY MARINUCCI WAS FRIENDS WITH DOCKERTY. HE TOLD US HE JUST CAN'T BELIEVE THIS HAPPENED. "I NEED HER TO GO WAY BACK TO THE YOUNG MARINE PROGRAM.

I still have feelings for her, but after what she did to Jen, I just can't deal with it. Maranucci spent the entire afternoon on the stand. The only thing she did admit to? Punching Daugherty with her fists four times because she says Daugherty made fun of her family.

Two different mental health experts testified that she also suffered from depression and that she might have had drug and alcohol addictions as a teenager. Inmates that spent time with Angela in jail also testified against her, and they said that she was happy about the murders and that she was giddy and she was excited that there was media coverage so she could be seen on the news.

Mitinger was one of a slew of witnesses from the Westmoreland County Prison who say Angela Marinucci is anything but sorry, even jumping up and down on her jail bed, excited about being on the news. Jumping up and down, being happy that she was going to be on the news. You actually heard her? Yeah, she said that she was going to be on the news.

How do you feel about coming forward? Are you happy you did? I'm very happy we did because it's justice and peace for Jen. I just did it because I thought the family should know that Jennifer tried to fight back. Are you happy that you came forward? Yes, ma'am. Is it hard to hear the details and see that she's happy about being on the news? Yes. What's she been like this week? Happy. Couldn't even tell she was here for a murder charge, you know?

Today, the jury heard from a jailhouse snitch who says she was on the same cell block serving time at the Westmoreland County Prison with Angela Marinucci. She says it wasn't long before Marinucci opened up.

Police say Casey Byrd was serving time for retail theft, and there's no way she could have possibly known the details of Jennifer Daugherty's murder unless someone who was there told her. She claims Angela Marinucci didn't hold anything back, that she faked a pregnancy so her boyfriend would pick her over Jennifer Daugherty, saying, quote, I'm the one who wanted Jen dead. She claims Marinucci forced Daugherty to drink concoctions of oil, urine, detergent, and

pills as part of two days of torture inside this Greensburg apartment. Why did you decide to come forward? Are you happy you did? Yes, I am. Today, jurors saw the elements of torture, a crutch and a towel bar used to beat Docherty, Christmas garland used to tie her up, the knife used to stab her, and the blood spatter on the jeans of her killer.

Several other witnesses claimed that Angela actually planned to kill Jennifer several days before the rest of the planning. They testified that Angela overheard Ricky calling Jennifer and telling her that he loved her and that he wanted to marry her. And during Ricky's testimony, he told jurors about that love triangle between them, between him, Angela, and Jennifer. So Angela was ultimately found guilty, but because she was a minor at the time,

She was not eligible for the death penalty, and she was sentenced to life in prison instead. Both Peggy and Robert pleaded guilty to third-degree murder, and Peggy was sentenced to 35 to 74 years in prison, while Robert was sentenced to 30 to 70 years. Now, the reason for their lesser sentences was because there had been no evidence to tie them to any of the physical abuse, torture, or trauma and killing of Jennifer.

Even though they hadn't done what the others had, though, they were still aware of what was happening, and they had voted for Jennifer to die. They also didn't do anything when she was, in fact, murdered. Additionally, when Jennifer was left alone with Peggy and Robert, she begged them to let her go and to call for help.

But instead of freeing her or calling the police, they alerted the other four group members of their sick, twisted friend group what Jennifer had done and what she had said, narking on her for wanting to be saved and rescued. I mean, talk about just extremely callous.

Both of their lawyers argued that they had been scared of the others and that they feared that they would be murdered too if they helped Jennifer in any way. Both of them were full of tears, and they were begging for some kind of leniency as well during their sentencing. Now, both of their pleas, as you can imagine, enraged Jennifer's family. It felt like they weren't truly sorry, that they were only sorry that they had been caught.

So they urged the judge to give them harsh sentences, and they even accused Peggy of valuing a hairbrush more than Jennifer's life as a person and friend.

In 2010, a law was proposed by Senator Kim Ward, which was called Jennifer's Law. This law would establish a legal obligation for witnesses of a violent crime to contact law enforcement, which is actually kind of crazy that that was never a law before. It honestly just sounds like common sense to me. You're witnessing a crime. You have a duty to report it. Like, how did this only go into effect in the 2000s? Make it make sense.

She was held against her will for days. Some committed violent acts, while others of those six looked on and did nothing. They did nothing to help her for days. All they're asking is for just a simple phone call. Pick up your cell phone. You don't have to stop. You don't have to...

aid anybody. All you have to do is alert authorities. Jennifer's family was comforted by the justice that was served ultimately, although they have said that they feel a lot of guilt surrounding her death and they feel that in some ways they could have helped her avoid the events that happened that day. People tell me that I have to forgive to move on, but how do you forgive someone for

I THINK MAYBE FOCUSING MORE ON FORGIVING OURSELVES. I THINK OUR BIGGEST REGRET IS THAT WE'RE NOT ABLE TO

Forcing Jennifer to act like an adult while treating her like a child. I would go back and do so many things differently knowing now what I do. Jennifer really wanted to see the good in everyone. And she wanted to be someone who believed that evil like that was so rooted in these six people didn't exist. As we can see, that was sadly far from the truth.

She was taken advantage of because of her kind nature, and ultimately she was absolutely a victim of a hate crime. The Greenberg Six made fun of her, taunting her for her disabilities, torturing her, calling her slurs, while doing everything in their power that they could do to humiliate her and to hurt her in every single way imaginable, forcing her to drink bleach, urine, feces, painting her whole face with nail polish. I mean, it is so brutal, so disgusting.

And like I said, this is one of those cases that truly is revolting and unfortunately reprehensible.

reminiscent of the Mary Collins case which is equally haunting and it's just one that really for me at least as a parent makes me fucking terrified it makes me terrified for my children because there is such evil out there in the world and as we have seen in so many cases that we cover that evil in oftentimes it does begin at a very young age and that is something that is just so scary to think about I

I appreciate you guys listening to Jennifer's story today and what she went through and what these people who posed as her friends put her through. Her story deserves to be heard. Her voice deserves to be heard. So even though it was difficult to listen to all of these horrific details, thank you for taking the time to hear what Jennifer went through and to hear her story. All right, guys, thanks for tuning in to another episode of Serialistly. I am signing off, but thank you for being the true crime besties that you are.

I love just jumping on the mic and talking about these cases with you because for me, I feel like it kind of in a weird twisted way as always,

as it is to hear about these cases, research these cases, talk about these cases. For me, jumping on the mic and talking about them with you is like cathartic in some way. People always ask me, how do you do it? How do you keep your mental health in check given all of the nature of these things that you cover? And in some weird twisted way, I think that's how, honestly. I think talking about these, talking about these cases, talking about the emotions, getting my feelings about these cases off my chest, like there's something therapeutic in that in some way.

weird way. I don't know if that makes sense. Maybe it doesn't, but that's what makes sense to me. So I appreciate you guys being here and listening. All right, until the next one, please stay safe and please take care of those close to you. All right, thanks again, guys.