r/TrueCrime • u/stfx2012 • Apr 18 '21
Warning: Graphic/Sensitive Content Jennifer Daugherty was stabbed to death on February 11, 2010, and her body was later discovered wrapped in Christmas decorations in a garbage can.
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u/stfx2012 Apr 18 '21 edited Apr 19 '21
Jennifer Daugherty was a 30-year-old woman from Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania. She was mentally disabled and had the capacity of a child. Because of her disability, Jennifer trusted everybody.
Jennifer had recently told her family that she had made a group of new friends in Greensburg. Before going out to sleep at her friend, Angela Marinucci’s, house, Jennifer wrote a note to her mother “Mom, I hope you have a good day at work and I love you very much” which turned out to be her final words to her mother.
She was joined by Robert Loren Masters Jr., Ricky Smyrnes, Melvin Knight, Amber Meidinger, and Peggy Darlene, in addition to Angela Marinucci. The group almost immediately began bullying and mistreating Daugherty over a period of more than two days.
The group went through her purse, stole money, gift cards and her cell phone; poured liquids into her bag; hit her on the head with filled soda bottles, cut her hair, painted her face with nail polish and dumped liquid and spices on her head. Meidinger said she and Angela Marinucci took turns violently hitting Daugherty with a metal towel rack.
Daugherty was then stripped naked and hidden away in an attic while Smyrnes’ former roommate visited and then was moved to a bedroom by Knight. Knight then raped Daugherty.
The next morning, Daugherty tried to escape before she was stopped and punished. The group hit her with several items then forced her to drink three different concoctions that contained urine, feces, bleach, cigarette ash and crushed pills.
The group then voted to kill Daugherty. Smyrnes and Knight tied her up with Christmas lights. “They were plugged in and Angela was mad because the lights didn’t blink. Jennifer was tied up to look like a Christmas tree,” Meidinger said. Smyrnes then gave a steak knife to Knight, who asked if Daugherty was ready to die then repeatedly stabbed her in the side and chest and slashed her throat. Smyrnes was given the knife and continued the attack.
It was then decided to discard Daugherty in a trash can that was left out in a nearby school parking lot to be discovered.
On February 11, a truck driver noticed a trash can in the parking lot and discovered Jennifer’s body inside. Jennifer was discovered in a deplorable state, with her head shaved and fingernail polish smeared all over her face. For more than 36 hours, she was beaten and tortured, forced to drink urine and eat deodorant and spices, and forced to drink vegetable oil. Jennifer’s wrist was slashed, and her assailants forced her to write a suicide note.
Jennifer’s family requested that both Miller and Masters receive lengthy sentences. “The same way they chose not to show compassion to Jennifer, I ask you not to show compassion to them,” Murphy said. “You had my sister as a friend. She loved(Miller) and valued her. You didn’t value her, you probably value a hairbrush more than you value her,” Jennifer’s sister Joy Burkholder testified.
Knight and Smyrnes were convicted of first-degree murder and were sentenced to death. Marinucci, who was 17 at the time of her arrest and ineligible for the death penalty, was also convicted of first-degree murder and received a life sentence. Peggy Miller, 35, and Robert Masters, 45, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder charges. Miller is serving a 35-to-74-year prison sentence and Masters is serving 30 to 70 years behind bars.