Serialously with Annie Elise - 117: WARNING: Apartment of Horror | Murdered & Wrapped In Christmas Lights
Episode Date: February 5, 2024On February 11th, 2010 in Greensburg, Pennsylvania, a man noticed a garbage can stuck under his service work truck. He tried to move the garbage can, but it was very heavy and stuck. He opened the lid... up, which was already partially popped off, and began to look inside to see why the garbage can was so heavy. As soon as he opened it and his eyes began to focus on what he was looking at, a chill ran down his spine. This was not trash. This was a body. Go to https://www.Bombas.com/serialously and use code serialously for 25% off your first purchase Go to https://www.Seed.com/ae and use code 25AE to get 25% off your first month. Go to https://www.Quince.com/ae for free shipping on your order and 365-day returns. Mary Collins Case: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mckGn-yHnWo Shop the Merch: www.shop10tolife.com   Follow the podcast on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@serialouslypodcast    Follow the podcast on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/serialouslypod/    Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/annieelise   All Social Media Links: https://www.flowcode.com/page/annieelise_   SERIALously FB Page: https://www.facebook.com/SERIALouslyAnnieElise/   About Me: https://annieelise.com/   For Business Inquiries: 10toLife@WMEAgency.com Sources: WTAE-Pittsburgh WPIX CBS Pittsburgh Very Local Pittsburgh Post-Gazette NBC News Audio Credits: WTAE-TV Pittsburgh CBS Pittsburgh ABC
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We've just obtained a copy of a police affidavit that reveals disturbing details about what some investigators are calling a cult-like killing.
So what did you do?
Just arrest? Rick? what some investigators are calling a cult-like killing. So what did you do? I... Chest or 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.
Hey, true crime besties.
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 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 duh 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
Dougherty 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 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 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 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 going to 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 Doherty 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 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 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.
We are taking a quick break in today's episode to hear from our first sponsor.
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, 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.
Now 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, 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 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,
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,
Nobody is having sex with my man.
Now somehow during all of this,
Ricky apparently called, quote apparently called 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.
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,
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 Rikki at all, but they still didn't stop. They
then dragged her into the living room, where Melvin and Rikki 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 I quote, and doing all of these things knowing that she is mentally challenged. Put it all together, it is bizarre.
It is extremely barbaric.
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 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 was laying on my love seat in the living room is right over my love seat
and I heard all this usually it's jumping you know stomping but just was slamming Barney slamming.
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 two people dragging a garbage can across the road.
It seems a little odd.
She told me about it that day
and i came to the police station here and started telling the story i immediately felt sick i felt
horrible um i knew that we had been a witness to it and what had happened and i just felt
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 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 four.
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, 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 Meidinger insists she was not offered a deal for her testimony
against Greensburg 6 co-defendant Ricky Smirns.
Today, Meidinger testified Smirns 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 Smirns' 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. Daugherty considered the co-defendants her friends prior to
this. Of Daugherty, Mitinger 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 Ricky 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.
Smirns maintains in the entire 62-minute long statement that it was co-defendantvin Knight who stabbed Daugherty and that he only cut her wrist, a wound Dr. Cyril Weck testified would not have killed her.
Instead of closing arguments during Rickey's trial, a psychologist testified about Rickey'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.
Ricky can be a very intimidating, scary dude when his temper gets the best of him.
Me, this is my first child.
I don't need to lose this child. So I was just
doing it. 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. 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 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 Daugherty 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 Maranucci 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 DOCERTY. DOCERTY 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
DOCERTY.
SHE CLAIMS SHE WAS GOOD
FRIENDS WITH DOCERTY, 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 JURSE 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 CAN'T 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.
MARINUCCI SPENT THE ENTIRE
AFTERNOON ON THE STAND. THE ONLY THING SHE DID ADMIT TO WAS THAT SHE WAS A LITTLE BIT MORE CONFIDENT ABOUT THE feelings for her, but after what she did to Jen, I just can't deal with it.
Now, 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.
Meidinger was one of a slew of witnesses from the Westmoreland County Prison
who say Angela Maranucci is anything but sorry,
even jumping up and down on her jail bed, excited about being on the news. 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?
Sad.
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 Dougherty'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 Dougherty,
saying, quote, I'm the one who wanted Jen dead.
She claims Maranucci forced Dougherty 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
torturing or murdering your child? I just don't know how that's possible. I think maybe
focusing more on forgiving ourselves. I think our biggest regret is 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
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 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 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 into 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 awful it is 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 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. Bye.