She left a note for her mother that morning: "I hope that you will have a good day at work, and I also love you very much." She thought she was going to a sleepover. She never came home.
A Woman Who Saw the Best in Everyone
Jennifer Lee Daugherty was 30 years old, living with her mother and stepfather in Mount Pleasant, Pennsylvania. She had an intellectual disability that left her functioning, by most accounts, at roughly the level of a young teenager — but by every description from the people who knew her, she was kind, trusting, and easygoing, someone who genuinely believed the best of everyone she met. Her sister later said Jennifer "always wanted to be part of the group" and "saw the best in everyone."
Jennifer took regular bus trips on her own from Mount Pleasant to nearby Greensburg for medical appointments and classes at the West Place Clubhouse, a community center supporting people with intellectual and developmental disabilities. It was there that she met the six people who would later become known, collectively, as the Greensburg Six.
A Sleepover That Was Actually a Trap
On February 8, 2010, Jennifer told her mother and stepfather she was going to stay overnight with a friend named Peggy in Greensburg before a doctor's appointment the next day. Her stepfather dropped her at the bus stop as usual.
What Jennifer didn't know was that the plan had nothing to do with friendship. According to later testimony, one of the women in the group, Angela Marinucci — then 17 — had grown jealous, believing her boyfriend, Ricky Smyrnes, was becoming too attached to Jennifer. She proposed a plan to the others: invite Jennifer over under the guise of a sleepover, then punish her for it.
Jennifer arrived in Greensburg and was taken to an apartment shared by the group. She would never leave alive.
Three Days of Torture
What followed, over the next three days, was sustained and deliberate. Jennifer was held against her will, beaten, sexually assaulted, and humiliated — at one point stripped of her clothing, which was thrown out a window, and forced to write a fake suicide note. The group went through her purse, taking her money, gift cards, and phone.
We're not going to walk through every specific detail of what was done to her over those three days — it's extensively documented elsewhere for anyone who wants the full account. What matters for understanding the case is this: testimony from multiple witnesses, including neighbors who heard screaming and body-slamming sounds through the walls, made clear this was prolonged, and that several people in the apartment were aware of what was happening and chose to participate or do nothing to stop it.
On the third day, when it became clear Jennifer might escape with help from one member of the group who'd let her retrieve her clothes, the others returned and the group made a collective decision to kill her. One member tied her with Christmas lights. Smyrnes handed Knight a steak knife. Jennifer was stabbed in the chest and throat. Her body was wrapped in Christmas garland, stuffed into a garbage can, and dumped in the parking lot of Greensburg-Salem Middle School.
Discovery, in the Middle of a Snowstorm
On February 10, 2010, during a snowstorm that had prompted the county to clear extra parking space off the streets, a man named Daniel Grant went to move his truck in the middle school's parking lot and found the garbage can lodged beneath it. What he discovered inside led directly to the case being identified within days.
Jennifer's family had already grown concerned. Her sister Joy noticed something was wrong when she called Jennifer's phone and the voicemail greeting wasn't in Jennifer's voice. By the time police identified the body and traced it back to the apartment on North Pennsylvania Avenue, six people were quickly identified as involved: Angela Marinucci, Ricky Smyrnes, Melvin Knight, Amber Meidinger, Peggy Miller, and Robert Masters Jr.
Twelve Years of Trials
What followed was one of the longest-running prosecutions in the region's history, with trials and sentencing for the six defendants stretching from 2010 to 2022.
Melvin Knight pleaded guilty to first- and second-degree murder, kidnapping, and conspiracy in 2012; a jury later voted to sentence him to death. Ricky Smyrnes was also convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death. Both have pursued appeals over the years; both convictions and sentences have been upheld.
Angela Marinucci's case took the longest to resolve, largely because she was 17 at the time of the crime, which complicated her sentencing under evolving rules around juvenile life sentences. She was convicted of first-degree murder in 2011 and initially received a mandatory sentence of life without parole — later overturned because the U.S. Supreme Court had ruled mandatory life sentences for juveniles unconstitutional. She was resentenced to life again in 2017; that sentence was also vacated, this time because it carried no possibility of parole. In 2022, a judge handed down a third sentence: 40 years to life for murder, plus an additional 20 to 40 years for conspiracy, citing Marinucci's central role in planning and carrying out the assault over the full three days. She appealed once more, arguing the sentence was unconstitutional and reflected judicial bias; Pennsylvania's Superior Court rejected that appeal in January 2024, and the state Supreme Court declined to hear a further appeal in July 2024 — likely closing the door on further challenges to her sentence.
Amber Meidinger, who became a key witness against the others, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and was sentenced to 40 to 80 years. Peggy Miller and Robert Masters also pleaded guilty to third-degree murder rather than face trial.
A Law Named for Jennifer
The case's brutality, and the fact that several people appear to have known what was happening to Jennifer without intervening or reporting it, led directly to "Jennifer's Law" — Pennsylvania legislation, signed in 2012, that made it a criminal offense to witness a violent crime and fail to report it.
Where Things Stand
As of the most recent court rulings, all six members of the Greensburg Six have had their convictions and sentences upheld through the appeals process, with Marinucci's case marking what appears to be the final significant legal challenge to be resolved, in 2024. Jennifer's family has continued speaking publicly about her in the years since, including through victim impact statements at multiple sentencing hearings, describing a woman who, in her sister's words, simply wanted what most people want — friendship, normalcy, and to be part of a group that cared about her.
Sources
Murder of Jennifer Daugherty — Wikipedia
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Jennifer_Daugherty
The Murder of Jennifer Daugherty — Killer Queens: A True Crime Podcast
https://www.killerqueenspodcast.com/the-murder-of-jennifer-daugherty/
Murder of Jennifer Daugherty — Grokipedia
https://grokipedia.com/page/Murder_of_Jennifer_Daugherty
Jennifer Daugherty & The Greensburg Six — Morbidology
https://morbidology.com/jennifer-daugherty-the-greensburg-six/