10 Heart-Rending Details Surrounding Jennifer Daugherty, Who Was Tortured And Killed Before Being Wrapped In Christmas Lights By Her “New Friends”

6 /10 Jealousy

The ultimate reason for their decision to torture and kill Jennifer was, unknown to her, the incredible jealousy that Marinucci had been feeling due to Smyrnes, her boyfriend, having fallen in love with Jennifer.

It is unclear whether anything happened between Smyrnes and Jennifer, but Marinucci had come to believe that he loved her and had proposed to marry her.

Some witnesses at the trial testified that they had known that Marinucci intended to kill Jennifer because of this: she had said in a rage, “I’m going to kill that bitch.”

5 /10 Thirty Hours

And so, it began. As soon as Jennifer crossed the door and entered Peggy Miller’s apartment, the six of them overpowered her and tied her up with Christmas lights purchased by Miller.

Soon they began to hit her with a towel rack and to go through her purse for things to steal, shaved her head, painted her face with nail polish which they also fed her forcibly, as well as her urine and disinfectant.

Knight raped her, and they all dumped spices, oatmeal, paint, and other things over her head. This lasted for over a day: thirty hours, to be exact.

4 /10 Death By Stages

After thirty hours of torture, they decided to proceed with the killing.

By this point, (they thought) if they were to let her go, she would turn them all to the police, apparently believing that killing her and dumping her in a public place would somehow leave them in a better position.

They forced Jennifer to write a suicide note, then proceeded to try to stab her to death with a meat cleaver, which didn’t succeed.

Then they slit her wrists open, which also failed. Finally, they strangled her to death with the Christmas lights. It was finally over for Jennifer Daugherty.

3 /10 Corpse Defilement

The murderers weren’t done with her corpse, however. They covered it with Christmas decorations to make it look as close as possible to a Christmas tree.

They then placed her body inside a garbage can and dumped her in Greensburg-Salem Middle School’s parking lot, where a truck driver noticed it on February 11th and alerted the police.

The body was found in a deplorable state, which further added an element of corpse defilement to her killers’ sick, twisted actions.

2 /10 Masters And Miller

Out of all of them, only Robert Masters and Peggy Miller expressed some measure of remorse when they were caught the next day, February 12th.

“I was scared for my life. I should have done something, but I didn’t because I was scared”, said Masters, whereas Miller said at the trial: “I am sorry and I am guilty. She was my friend, and I should not have voted for her to die.”

They received between 30 and 70 years, while Meidinger received up to 80 years and Marinucci a life sentence. Knight and Smyrnes were sentenced to death.

1 /10 Jennifer's Law

Since then, a movement has been growing to make it mandatory to report violent crimes to the police by passing a law known as Jennifer’s Law.

It was later known that several neighbors and other inmates during previous convictions of the killers had known of their intention to murder Jennifer but hadn’t done anything about it.

To this day, friends and family Jennifer question what would have happened if someone had warned them or the police.

But they are not without their regrets: “My biggest regret was forcing Jennifer to act as an adult,” said her mother, Denise; “she was trusting.” It was indeed a cruel world for Jennifer, who trusted these so-called friends.