Jennifer Ann Monroe appears in a mugshot. (Michigan Department of Corrections)
A Michigan woman was sentenced to a lengthy prison term this week for killing her then-partner in 2019. The judge overseeing the case had harsh and sad words to share with the admitted killer.
Shiawassee County 35th Circuit Court Judge Matthew J. Stewart called the death-by-stabbing murder of Kevin Parker, 47, “brutal, shocking and senseless,” on Friday, according to MLive.
According to the Michigan Department of Corrections, the woman who killed him has “Kevin 5/9/16” tattooed on one of her left fingers.
Ultimately, Jennifer Ann Monroe, 41, was sentenced to 22-and-a-half to 67-and-a-half years in state prison for the fatal stabbing.
The sentence caps a long-and-winding legal process for the defendant, who, for years, had maintained her innocence. She even won an appellate victory directing the trial court not to admit certain statements she made while in police custody because her initial interrogation violated her Miranda rights.
In February, Monroe changed her plea to guilty of murder in the second degree, leaving her fate in the judge’s hands. She previously faced a charge of open murder, including murder in the first degree, second-degree murder, and manslaughter. The plea deal saw that charge dropped and a potentially lighter sentence.
During the sentencing hearing, Stewart chastised the defendant for the profound loss she caused to Parker’s loved ones.
“It’s clear from the sentencing materials and the family members that we heard from today, there were a lot of people that loved him,” Stewart said, referring to the dead maintenance supervisor. “They wrote and spoke extensively about his good qualities. When you killed him, you put an end to those qualities, you ended everything that Mr. Parker was and everything that he ever could be.”
On Oct. 16, 2019, at around 7:30 p.m., Owosso police were called to a residence on Dewey Street about one person dead and one person injured. Parker was stabbed to death. Monroe suffered serious injuries, including cuts to her thighs, chest, and neck.
“She was administered several medications, including at least 2 doses of fentanyl within the first two hours of her hospitalization,” the Michigan Court of Appeals noted. “Doctors surgically placed a chest tube to re-inflate her collapsed lung. She was transferred to Sparrow Hospital for further treatment, receiving two units of blood during her transport.”
The court recited, at length, how the ensuing interrogation occurred:
Just two hours after Monroe’s fifth dose of morphine, two detectives interrogated her. The interrogation, which continued for two hours, was recorded. The detectives flanked Monroe’s hospital bed, with one seated next to her and one seated at the foot of her bed. The recording began with one of the detectives calling out Monroe’s name and appearing to rouse her from a state of sleep. During the first 25 minutes of the interrogation, Monroe can be heard groaning, loudly sobbing, coughing, and struggling to breathe. At one point, one of the detectives told Monroe that the monitor reflected that her oxygen level was decreasing. Monroe was encouraged to keep the nasal cannula in place to maintain a steady flow of oxygen. A little over an hour into the interrogation, a nurse entered the room and interrupted the interrogation to administer medication to Monroe to reduce her pain and “take the edge off.”
Throughout the interrogation, Monroe repeatedly stated that she could not recall any specifics of the events or a timeline. Despite her inability to recall the events, the detectives continued to press Monroe for specifics. After nearly two hours of interrogating questions, she responded “I have never been so unsure about anything ever before in my life. I don’t know what to say.”
Monroe always planned to claim self-defense in her trial, and her attorneys argued about using a domestic violence expert witness just the day before she changed her plea, MLive reported.
“Things got heated, and I grabbed a knife, and I stabbed him,” she reportedly told the court, estimating three to four stabs. “When I did that, I knew there was a chance he could possibly die.”
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