Murder of Randolph Deon Thompson (Jennifer Mee Case)

In 2007, at age 15, Jennifer Mee gained international media attention after developing a prolonged case of uncontrollable hiccups, appearing on numerous American television programs, including NBC's Today Show, in search of a cure. Her fame as an internet search phenomenon persisted for years afterward, and she continued to attract media coverage, including reports that she ran away from home in June 2007. She later became involved in a relationship with a man named Lamont Newton and, according to Wikipedia's account of the case, developed a plan to find robbery victims online and recruited Newton and another friend, Laron Raiford, to assist.

In 2010, Mee met a 22-year-old man online, identified in source material as Shannon Griffin. She invited him to a vacant home in the St. Petersburg, Florida area. Mee led him to the back of the property, where Raiford and Newton were waiting with a .38 caliber handgun. The victim was shot four times and killed during a robbery that netted less than $50. Police reported they could not determine which of the two armed suspects fired the fatal shots. Mee, Raiford, and Newton, who all lived together, were arrested within hours of the crime. A St. Petersburg Police Department sergeant stated that all three admitted involvement in the crime to investigators.

Prior to trial, Mee's attorney, John Trevena, reportedly offered a guilty plea in exchange for a 15-year sentence; Raiford was separately offered — and rejected — a plea deal carrying a 40-year sentence. At trial, prosecutors played a recorded jailhouse phone call in which Mee told her mother, "I didn't kill nobody...I set everything up. It all went wrong, Mom." Forensic testimony indicated that Mee's DNA was found on the victim's shirt. The defense argued Mee had schizophrenia and that her earlier hiccups were a symptom of Tourette's syndrome; a court-ordered psychological evaluation found her competent to stand trial.

In 2013, Mee was convicted of felony murder and sentenced to life in prison without parole. Her co-defendants, Laron Raiford and Lamont Newton, were both convicted of first-degree murder and also received life sentences. A subsequent motion by Mee's attorney for a new trial was denied. Commentary in the Hastings Women's Law Journal later characterized her sentence as potentially disparate compared to sentences that might be imposed on a similarly situated male defendant, according to the Wikipedia summary of the case.