Matthew Cox | Inside True Crime Podcast - Falling In Love With The Devil | The True Crime Case of Jennifer Monroe

Episode Date: November 30, 2023

Falling In Love With The Devil | The True Crime Case of Jennifer Monroe

It was October 2019, right before Halloween. He had been charged with domestic violence, like two weeks before this. He went over there. Maybe it was to make peace. Maybe it was a borgie call. I don't know. I think he must have been under the influence of something. Of course, somebody sinks a butcher's into your chest.

That'll slow you down. That's going to incapacitate you. They get into an argument. It turns physical. She stag him numerous times. He basically bled to him. He had been dead for three to four days and that she had stayed with the body the entire time. Like she was like curled up next to the body during these two, three, four days.

They don't even know. Smuggling. Maybe that was, maybe that was the problem. He didn't typically like to snuggle. I don't like to snuggle. Yeah, I like my space when I'm sleeping. Yeah. So what was, it was Jennifer Monroe.

Jennifer Monroe. Yep. I might have some name. Well, it's funny. I was actually at a friend's house not even two blocks away when they found the body so I ran over there as soon as I heard it come across the scanner yeah

so what happened what was the deal there um so the the guy that she his name was Kevin Parker I think he was 47 um at the time and I think she was a little bit younger younger. But they had been together for years like boyfriend, girlfriend, and she, he had been charged with domestic violence like two weeks before this. And so there was like a no contact order in place.

And, you know, he went over there. I, who knows why, you know, these explosive relationships, you know, they can't get enough of each other. He went over there. Maybe it was to make peace. Maybe it was a booty call? I don't know. Maybe it was to pick a fight. Who knows? But he shouldn't have been there, is the point. And they never said as much, but I think he may have been under the influence of something because he was like a tall, lanky guy. He was in somewhat pretty good shape. There's no way he couldn't have defended himself if he had his wits about it. You know, so I think, I think he must have been under the influence of something. Of course, somebody sanks a butchering your chest. That'll slow you down. That's going to incapacity you. So, you know, it's only him and her know, and she's not talking. So what happened?

He goes over there. Right. So he goes over there. And this was, oh, God, it was, I forget the exact date, but it was October 2019, right before Halloween they get into an argument it turns physical she

him numerous numerous times some were like you know like slash type wounds some were sth type wounds there to his torso on upper chest area like right here he basically bled to death did she ever say that he attacked her

or no she she never she was never going to testify in the case So you know that's you don't put your client on the stand unless they've chopped someone up no well so I mean did so that they ever likes a you know allege that he had I mean obviously there's a domestic violence charge against him did they did her attorney allege that he may he was obviously abusive and that she was defending herself maybe well there was a lot of filings by having and forth between the defense and the prosecution. She was initially represented by the public defender's office in Chiawesi County, and her attorneys, man, they did her a lot of solids. I got the impression not only from some of the things they kind of alluded to in court,

but conversations that I had with them off the record, that that was one avenue that they were going to explore. and the prosecution was absolutely not going to let up on this. They were like, no, she killed him. And the worst part is, is it after she... And even it was Owasso police that responded. I heard it on the scanner, and I'm like, oh, shit, that's like a block and a half away. I take off running from my friend's house.

I go over to the scene, and Owasso police were on the scene, and I knew these guys. Like, I know pretty much all Owaso PD, and they're really good guys and women. But they're like, Josh, we don't even, don't even ask. We don't know. We can't tell you anything anyways. It's an open investigation. And I'm like, well, what the fuck, guys? You know, like something happened here.

I see the body being, you know, stretcher or gurneed out of there. Like, somebody's dead. Tell me what's going on. They're like, murder. That's all we know. That's all we can say. So I'm like, okay. So it takes a couple of days for her, for them to basically get the warrant.

sworn out and everything and she had attempted suicide um that's debatable but she had some pretty serious wounds to her neck which were self-inflicted the most disturbing thing about this is that after she killed kevin parker and the cops can only estimate you know they they estimate the time of death from you know within a certain time period eight hours whatever it might be they thought that he had been dead for three to four days and that she had stayed with the body the entire time. Like she was like curled up next to the body, sleeping next to the body during these two, three, four days.

They don't even know. Smuggling. Maybe that was, maybe that was the problem. He didn't typically like to snuggle. Some men don't. Maybe that, you don't know. I mean, maybe she had to,

maybe he was quick on his feet and she had to slow him down to get her to, get him to show her some affection. I don't like to snuggle. I mean, I'm hoping I go a different way. Yeah, I like my space when I'm sleeping. Yeah. So she's hanging out with the body. Yeah.

Playing dress up or whatever she's doing. So, and then who called the police? Like, how did that? So, I believe it was Kevin Parker's kids that called the police because they were aware of this whole domestic situation. And they hadn't heard from him in a couple days. which was not like him. And they're like, well, you know, I hope he didn't go over. It makes him even worse.

Now he was also a good father. Yeah. She's even more than that. His kids are, you know, had nothing bad to say about him great debt. She wasn't a jerk enough. Now she, a nice dad. Well, I and I've only, I've never met either one of them. I've been in the courtroom with while she was there eight or ten times.

And, you know, there's just nothing there. she's tunnel vision when she's at the defense table no human emotion no no nothing um but so the kids call in a wellness checker i think one of them actually went to jennifer monroe's house and walked in and was like oh shit so they see kevin parker's body and they see jennifer Monroe with these ones to her neck and she had yeah though yeah yeah so not she's rough looking not yeah it's not good so they call awesel police a wasa police gun and they found out that he had numerous like like I said slash and puncture wounds and that Jennifer Monroe had um started and not finished two different suicide letters, so it was allegedly going to be a murder-suicide

thing. And then either she didn't try hard enough or didn't know what she was doing, you know, if you're going to commit suicide, my understanding is with a knife, you're going to do it lengthwise on your forearm. That's what I understand. So whether or not the suicide attempt was genuine, I don't know. You know, I think she was trying to probably victimize her. yourself. And I have no doubt that she was a victim of domestic violence. I have no doubt. You know, those those kinds of relationships turn violent. They stay violent. Right. She wrote two half-hearted letters or just, you know, she was editing them, you know, like to rewrite. To say, it was just a rewrite, you know. Yeah. Hey, you got to get that. Listen, if it's going to be your last, it's going to be your last piece of work.

you want to get that letter. You want to get it right. Like I want to I want to polish gym by a time. Hey, you know, maybe she was doing it for posterity. I don't know. So that's, you know, it took some time. She took her time and didn't expect the cops to come out. Well, yeah, well, they came. And so they arrested her at the scene. And they took her to, I believe they took her to Memorial Health Care and Awasso first, which is a good size hospital. But they don't have, like, a severe trauma unit. So she was transferred to what it was either Sparrow Hospital in Lansing or McLaren and Flint. And, you know, she's got these ones to her neck.

She wasn't doing well. She was not in good condition, obviously. So she goes to the hospital, whichever one I can. I think it was Sparrow, but I'm not positive. She goes there and, you know, like the Owaso PD, paramedics, you know, they clear the scene. OPD, their detectives, I don't want to use their names because I consider them friends, and it really doesn't matter anyways.

So these two detectives, so I know one of them really well and one of them, okay. So they go to the hospital where Jennifer Monroe is at. And the nurses there have, are all, like, have IVs with morphine, fentanyl. she's out of it and um these detectives start questioning her and she's you know admitting to everything like yeah i did this i did this tells him the complete play-by-play was telling him about you know i was sleeping next to the body i didn't want to leave him you know whatever but um so she's telling the detectives this now the problem with this is that they never read her her Miranda rights which is you can't question somebody, especially in a murder case, like a misdemeanor,

you get arrested for a misdemeanor, they're not going to read you your rights, who cares? Right. It's only not that big of a deal. A felony murder case, you don't read somebody their Miranda rights. That's a no-no. Right. So that's strike one against the prosecution right there. The second is that she was all bombed out on morphine and fentany.

I've seen, you've seen all the, you know, like Philadelphia zombie footage of people on fentanyl. where they're all like right yeah yeah yeah it's horrible you know as a painkiller i'm sure it works very well i've never had it wouldn't know um so she basically confesses to the whole thing you know i stabbed him this many times or i think i stabbed him this many times stayed with the body i felt guilty i wanted to die you know all the whole nine yards so she's bound over over to circuit court. Again, the public defender's office is like insanity defense. No normal human being is going to do this. This is not normal behavior. So they, she has to go to the Michigan Psychiatric Center and Celine and she's ruled not competent at first and then very shortly after I want to say a month

or two later. You're like, okay, she's fine now. She's competent to stand trial. The defense, the public defender's office files an objection to statements she made while she was in the hospital saying, look, she couldn't have possibly given consent. She was under the influence of drugs. There's no way she could consent to giving any kind of voluntary statement. And the judge in the case, Judge Stewart, he's like, well, it's on video. They have audio and video the whole thing. She can't deny saying it. You know, like, you want to. appeal this ruling go right ahead, but they're not going to overrule me. So what does the defense do? They file, it's called an interlocutory appeal. And that's basically anticipating a

judge is going to rule against you in a motion. And this interlocutory appeal basically says, you know, this judge cannot be impartial on this. They've already made up their mind. Kick it up to the next higher court. And, you know, let them decide because we don't think that this is right. And it doesn't happen very often. I've only seen out of hundreds and hundreds of cases I've covered, I've only seen probably three out of probably, I don't know, 800,000 criminal cases. And I've only seen a couple of it. So it's somewhat rare.

So this thing gets kicked up to the Michigan Court of Appeals, right? And you know how appeals are. They take forever, forever on anything. And they actually did this one pretty quick. It only took them only, you know, about a year to rule on this. But they're like, no. And it was a three judge panel and two of them. It was a two one decision.

And they're like, there's no way you can do this. There was no Miranda. You know, she's under the influence of these high-powered drugs. She probably doesn't even remember giving this confession. So the Court of Appeals rules in Jennifer Monroe's favor. And they're like, this is not going to. come out at trial, this is inadmissible, don't even mention it at trial if you're the prosecution or else. So up until this time, the prosecutor's office was like, first degree, we're not offering

a plea, we're taking this to trial. So they lose at the appeal court level for the confession. Now, this decision comes down from the appeals court and the prosecutor's office is like, okay let's make a deal and um kind of in the intervening or during the time between waiting for this appeals decision Jennifer Monroe had fired the public defender's office and hired a defense attorney out of Flint good friend of mine Steve Ellis and uh he's a really cool guy never lied to me which goes a long way in my book um but he worked out a plea deal because in Michigan First-degree murder, automatic life without parole. Do not pass go.

Do not collect $200. You're never getting out. Right. So Steve Ellis goes to the prosecution with an offer. He says, look, you plead this down to second degree. My client will plead guilty right now. And that's exactly what they did. Now, the stat max, because she didn't have any prior criminal record, the stat max is 15 years.

in Michigan state you know circuit courts the sentencing that we have like a truth and sentencing law or statute here it's like you don't if you get 15 to 25 you're not going to get time off for good behavior you're doing at least 15 years if you behave yourself in prison you'll get out at 15 years and not a day before barring like a sentence reduction or something like that but she had nothing of so she got a plea deal to where she pleaded guilty to second degree murder received it was 15 to life so she's going to do at least 15 years but by now she's got with with credit for time serve um it wasn't dead time she wasn't on probation she'll be out in 10 10 years she'll be 50 55 somewhere in there and she'll be out enough time to get another boyfriend yeah she gets out she should yeah I hope it doesn't happen again but yeah yeah it's like some of these mental mental cases out of Shiawassey County Matt I tell you but yeah it was obviously the the shock factor the weird thing is why would you hang out with a dead body for three or four days. Yeah. Like you're just going to.

Strange. You're going to eat your meals, you know, talk to him, talk to this dead person? Yeah, yeah. It's odd. Definitely odd. Yeah. You know, and I was going to say, like, if she did go to trial, she could have brought up the, I mean, if she took the stand, And she definitely, you know, especially since they didn't have that confession, she could have got on the stand and said, look, it's been abused for a long time.

It was self-defense. I was really in love with the guy. But then you've got to, it is going to be odd that she was hung out with the body. People are going to be like, okay, but that's a little weird. So who knows? Well, I mean, I think she kind of just froze. Well, I'm speculating, but I think she kind of froze and panicked and was like, you know, what do I do now? And still, you get after like it within it within the first, within an hour or two, I would have come up with either I'm calling somebody or I'm disposing of this body.

But snuggling for three or four days, that's not an option. That's not in my top 10 of the choices that I have at that moment. Yeah. And yeah. And, you know, I don't know what happened in those three or four days. All I know is that Kevin Parker's body wasn't going anywhere, and neither was Jennifer Monroe. It's kind of funny, not funny, well, odd. Kevin Parker's family actually ended up suing Jennifer Monroe in a civil case because she owned the house that all this happened in. And Jennifer Monroe actually, I forget what she filed, but she basically, I forget what the term is,

but she basically didn't contest it because they were going after her house. They're like, okay, his funeral was like $16,000. You're going to pay for that and whatever else the judge decides. Right, I was going to say. And loss of, you know, wrongful death. I mean, the kids lost a father. Right.

So she basically doesn't contest it. She's like, look, I'm indigent. I have no money. I can't pay my attorney. here's what I'll do. I will sign this house over to you deed in hand if you dismiss this lawsuit and you do whatever you want to with it.

And she did that. So she does have one thing going in her favor. Right. Yeah. But the judge actually thanked her. He's like that was actually the right thing to do. So I was at that hearing too. All right.

Where's she being helped? Oh, God. There's only one women's prison in Michigan. It's Huron Valley. I think it's down in the southeastern part of the state, but there's only one women's present in Michigan. Is that a nice place? I don't know.

No, actually, no. They have, there's several pending lawsuits against Michigan Department of Corrections. They have like cockroach infestation, black mold, bedbugs. So, yeah, couldn't imagine a better place for Jennifer Monroe. Yeah. I hope you guys enjoy. one of our Halloween stories and I appreciate you guys watching. If you liked it, subscribe, hit the bell, leave me a comment.

Check out the next video. See ya.