Jennifer Morrisey

43m

When a concerned co-worker discovers a man executed in his home in a well to do neighbourhood police are sent down a winding road of greed, drugs, and heartbreak.

Season 26, Episode 16

Originally aired: December 8, 2019

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Transcript

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When a straight-laced bachelor falls for a fiery biker babe, 30 years his junior, sparks fly.

Tall, long legs, very lean, beautiful hair, beautiful eyes, everything that you could imagine.

He provided her with a nice life.

He took her on vacation.

He had two jet skis and two motorcycles for them to ride together.

He got his first tattoo right after he started seeing her.

But their joyride unexpectedly hits a dead end.

He's dead, he said.

He has blood all over his mouth and it's dark.

I don't know what happened.

The violent way in which he was killed was pretty shocking.

The ensuing investigation will lead into dangerous territory.

The last conversation they had right before his death, they exchanged threats.

And one wrong turn may have cost him his life.

There was a love triangle going on.

He was on parole for drug dealing.

If she were able to protect him, he would be able to make her more powerful.

I didn't even know what to think.

I think I wasn't shocked.

When you love somebody, it's hard to believe that they could be capable of something so horrible.

August 8th, 2017.

It's just past 6 p.m.

in the suburban town of Upper Makefield, Pennsylvania, as Mary Ann Shockley and her daughter Amber arrive at the home of her 64-year-old coworker, Mike McNew.

He's a sales rep, and he had missed a call-in or a check-in that day.

It's very unusual for Mike not to be available by phone.

He was an incredibly reliable coworker, so she went to his house to make sure he was okay.

Marianne looked inside the garage and discovered Mike's vehicle was there.

The front door was unlocked, and they were able to just enter.

Inside, they call Mike's name.

But there's no answer.

When they make their way up to the living room, they're relieved to see Mike At first,

Mike was seated in a recliner.

His head was rested back peacefully, and he looked like he had been sleeping.

But Mike's not moving.

When they got closer, they saw the blood

and immediately called 911.

911, where's the emergency?

River Road, Washington Crossing.

There's the man I think might be dead in the house.

They should release visiting a killing.

Dispatchers request more information, but Mary Ann is too stunned to move, and Amber takes over the call.

Look at his chest.

I want to make sure it's rising and falling continuously.

Is he cold?

Is he blue?

He's dead.

He's dead.

He has

like blood all over his mouth and it's dark.

I don't know if I'm going to.

Mike McNew always knew he wanted to be a family man.

My dad was born in Waynesboro, Pennsylvania, and then they moved and lived in Williamsport, Maryland his whole life.

He had a very average childhood.

Two parents who were married, grew up in a pretty quaint little neighborhood.

After graduation, Mike married his high school crush, Ann Hennessy, and had two children, Katie and Patrick.

We had a pretty typical upbringing, middle-class family.

We had nice houses.

We went to the beach every summer.

My dad worked really hard.

But family wasn't Mike's only passion.

My dad was very success-driven and he was the main provider.

He sold insurance for a while and he did really well at that and then moved into pharmaceutical sales

and was really good at that and just, you know,

he worked a lot in order to succeed.

Mike's career as a pharmaceutical representative provided a great life for his family, but it came at a price.

We moved every three to four years due to promotions and transfers.

Eventually, Mike and his wife Anne grew apart and divorced, but continued to share custody of their children.

They cared about each other.

I don't ever remember my parents fighting even after they were divorced.

In the early 2000s, Mike moved out on his own to Bucks County, Pennsylvania, and decided to finally settle in for his eventual retirement.

He had a beautiful home on the river.

He had the jet skis and he was a single man.

And he just enjoyed life in general.

He started to get interested in art.

I wouldn't call him a major art collector.

However, he started getting into it with some smaller pieces and things of that nature.

though he'd loved and lost in the past that didn't stop mike from putting himself out there mike was a bachelor um he wasn't tied to anybody

then in 2012 mike began dating 28 year old single mom jennifer morrissey

You have this almost retired man in his 60s and in Jennifer he saw youth and he saw excitement.

The two went on vacations together to the Caribbean.

They spent a lot of time together.

He had two jet skis and two motorcycles for them to ride together.

He even went so far as starting to get tattoos up his one arm to kind of enjoy the things she enjoyed.

He got his first tattoo right after he started seeing her.

In 2015, Mike asked Jennifer to move in with him.

Mike really provided a nice life for Jennifer.

She lived in a beautiful home.

There was a room for Jennifer's son.

He clearly was making room in his life for her.

But after five years together, their wild and free lifestyle comes to an abrupt end on August 8th, 2017, when Mike is found in his home by his coworker.

Marianne Shockley reported a male who was not breathing, not responding, who had some blood on his face.

The call taker took all of that the way she described it, with the blood being from the nose down and assumed that there might have been some issue there and put it in as a cardiac arrest.

As the sun sets, first responders arrive and work quickly to process the scene.

He was leaned back in his chair a little bit with his hands in his lap.

Almost looked like he had been sleeping.

And at the base of the chair, just behind him, was a pool of blood that had gathered.

There's blood visible around Mr.

McNew's mouth.

There's blood visible on his black polo shirt.

It's clear this is no heart attack.

Michael McNew

had a gunshot wound to his face.

Once they got in there and saw the apparent gunshot wound to his face, they contacted their detective, Detective Jeff Jumper.

When we got to the second floor, aside from Mike's body in the chair, you would have never known it was a crime scene.

Police immediately begin to develop theories of how Mike McNew met his demise.

Perhaps he had ended his own life and then the gun had inadvertently fallen underneath him.

You always have to be open-minded and not focus on what you believe, you know, right off the bat could have happened.

We take everything in and analyze it, but there was no gun present.

It was apparent that the subject on scene had died as a result of a homicidal act.

Authorities scour the living room looking for evidence.

Maybe eight to ten feet to his left was the single bullet casing that would have fit a 380.

It was ejected and rolled over right near the wall.

There were no injuries that indicated Mr.

McNew had been in a struggle.

His shirt was tucked in.

He was wearing slippers.

A tan line on the victim's wrist indicates that Mike had recently worn a watch, but like the gun, it's nowhere to be found.

There was a device charging cord plugged in behind the little night table that was next to his recliner.

No device was located, and there appeared to be a laptop that was missing from the first floor office.

All signs pointed that it was a robbery that had gone bad.

Coming up, the mystery surrounding Mike McNew's death deepens.

Investigators believe that he was shot with his own weapon.

There could be something on there the person who took it did not want law enforcement to see.

It certainly seemed like a personal crime, given the nature.

On the evening of August 8th, 2017, Pennsylvania authorities are investigating the murder of 64-year-old pharmaceutical rep Mike McNew.

The Bucks County District Attorney's Office was there almost immediately, and the detectives, along with Upper Makefield Police, I mean, really a lot of detectives there, doing a lot of investigating.

But as they make their way through Mike's home, their initial robbery gone wrong theory starts to crumble.

Mike McNew's pockets were turned inside out.

A laptop and a cell phone were missing from the house.

But that theory didn't hold a lot of water ultimately because other valuables valuables in the home were not disturbed.

They left behind some pretty significant items.

Most noticeably untouched is Mike's extensive art collection.

It was all framed nicely.

Most of the artwork had individual lamps to highlight it.

Mike McNew had very expensive pieces, and nothing was disturbed.

It didn't look like robbery was the motive in this case.

The condition of the home is something else that stands out to investigators.

The house, for having a dead body in it, was otherwise really pristine.

There were no scuffs, nothing leading into the room, nothing leading out of it, no broken windows, no disturbed locks.

There were some concerns about there being a lack of evidence in order to try to identify Mike's killer.

But as detectives make their way to the master bedroom, it's what they don't find that changes everything.

He had two pistols and a rifle registered to him.

We were able to find a rifle and we found an additional.22 caliber pistol in the home.

But what we did not find was Mr.

McNew's.380 caliber Smith Weston bodyguard.

Inside Mike's nightstand was an empty holster,

which we believed at one point contained the.380 Smith Weston.

Investigators believe that McNew was shot with his own weapon.

Though clues are few and far between, they begin to paint a picture for investigators.

It wasn't so much as the evidence that was on scene, but the absence of certain evidence, Mike McNew's phone and laptop, that led me to believe that whoever had taken those belongings knew that they contained some valuable information.

Those two items can both share backup, text messages, and things that we would want to have.

There could be something on there the person who took it did not want law enforcement to see.

It certainly seemed like a personal crime, given the nature.

It was in his home.

There was no apparent signs of a break-in, and being shot in the head between the eyes.

As officers continue to process Mike's room, they notice a photo of him with his arms around a young woman.

Nearby in the kitchen, detectives discover several boxes filled with personal personal items.

The items all appeared to be females, placed near some male with Jennifer Marseille on it.

If Jennifer lives in Mike's home, detectives have a new worry on their hands.

My concern was Mike was dead and she was living in this house with them, but yet she was nowhere to be seen or heard from since the time we got the call.

So not only did we have a concern about where was Jennifer, but was Jennifer okay?

With Jennifer unaccounted for, police turned to Mike's friends and neighbors for more information.

A lot of people didn't know what happened to Mike, and they were kind of fearful about talking about it.

But a few neighbors at the scene immediately described Jennifer as his girlfriend.

According to neighbors, before she came into 64-year-old Mike McNew's world, 33-year-old Jennifer Morrissey's life was anything but easy.

Jennifer didn't like to talk about her past a lot.

She did volunteer that her relationship with her mother was very strained and there were some very, very difficult, abusive times that she had spent as a child in her mother's care.

She suffered abuse at the hands of various people, different men that had come into her life through her mother, and dropped out of school due to bullying.

It was a very, very difficult, very stressful and abusive time in her life that seemed to leave her very scarred.

Jennifer eventually got a job as a motorcycle mechanic, but spent her free time living on the edge.

She had a motorcycle that she rode quite often.

She bragged about how fast she rode it.

Everything was just moment after moment of thrill-seeking.

Jennifer has numerous tattoos, some words across the chest.

There's a revolver pointing at you on one of her biceps.

She had this very distinct tattoo on her hands.

It was sort of a skull grinning.

But Jennifer found her softer side when she became a mother in her mid-20s.

Though her relationship with her son's father didn't last, Jennifer worked hard to provide for her child.

She was a single mother.

She was sort of struggling.

Part of the way that she supported herself was by working as an exotic dancer in Bristol Township, Pennsylvania.

It was there at the club in 2012 that 28-year-old Jennifer first met 59-year-old Mike McNew.

He was sort of a regular and during one of her shifts, they struck up a conversation and he offered to take her out to dinner.

They went to some pretty swanky places.

And from there, their time together becomes more frequent.

She saw him as somebody stable, had success and money.

She also saw him as an album.

Jennifer just wanted a place in life to fit in where she could be herself and be respected and loved for being herself.

As months turned into years, their relationship grew more serious.

And in 2015, they moved in together.

It's very clear that he loved her, cared about her, and was willing to provide for her.

But now, as detectives speak to Mike's neighbors outside his home-turned crime scene, it seems Mike and Jennifer's May-December romance had started to unravel.

Based on the crime scene, talks with the neighbors, we learned throughout the relationship, it seems like they fought a lot.

It's not entirely clear when the two drifted apart.

It was clear that it wasn't a happy relationship between the two of them.

There was a lot of tension there.

Hoping for more answers, detectives reach out to Mike's children, who are struggling to come to terms with the shocking news.

When they said he had been shot in his house, I just, I didn't even know what to think.

I wasn't shocked.

I just remember thinking, this can't be, this can't be true.

Then I called my brother.

She told me, and I didn't handle it too well.

I was kind of a mess.

We immediately packed bags, and my wife and I headed from Pittsburgh.

My sister and my mother headed up from Maryland, and we met up there.

Despite their grief, Katie and Patrick are able to talk to detectives about the case, starting with their feelings towards Jennifer.

It was difficult him dating somebody that was close to my age.

Jennifer was definitely rougher around the edges than other women I had ever seen my dad with.

Dad was very intelligent, well-spoken, and meticulous, where she seemed not so much any of those things.

I never really did accept it just because I didn't think it would last.

None of Mike's friends approved of Jen and said that she was trashy.

A few different friends had really tried to talk some sense into him, and they didn't really want to be around her.

I got engaged in July of 2016.

I did not want to invite Jennifer to my wedding.

And he didn't want to attend my wedding without her, so he did not come to my wedding.

For him to make this decision really showed where his mind was

coming up, sordid details emerge.

She just didn't know what to do with herself, which contributed to the non-stop drug use.

And investigators uncover a dangerous love triangle.

Mike was scared for his life.

She had been dating a man named Ruthless.

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Mike McNew's children have informed police that his romance with Jennifer Morrissey had driven a wedge into his family life.

Jennifer's relationship with my dad was definitely a reason why our relationship, my dad and I's relationship was estranged.

It was difficult.

I was angry.

But according to Mike's children, in early 2017, his relationship with Jennifer began to be strained as well.

Jennifer became more distant from him and he would get frustrated.

She'd disappear for hours and he didn't know where she went and then just wouldn't come back.

And, you know, when she was there, she would just sit there and literally not say a single word.

From the outside looking in, it appeared that my dad was more invested in the relationship than she was.

To top it off, Mike's children say Jennifer had begun using drugs heavily.

She would be home alone.

She just didn't know what to do with herself, which contributed to non-stop drug use.

It was enough to develop a physical dependency on the heroin.

She had been arrested arrested a number of times, I believe, for drug cases, as well as a hit-and-run accident.

Mike McNew helped her pay for legal fees and court fees that resulted from two arrests of hers.

When you have court fees and obligations, you're required to make a payment monthly.

And McNew, every month, was making those payments for her, I think, a total of about $4,000.

One was a drug case, and the other one, she was accused of clipping a bicyclist while actually driving McNew's car.

Mike had decided to effectively end that relationship, which means she would no longer have access to the beautiful home, the jet skis, the motorcycle, his finances, and his support whenever she would get in trouble.

Seeing her condition, the way she was conducting herself, the lack of social ability, the drug use, if anybody in his life had a tendency to hurt him, that she could probably be the one.

That afternoon, investigators received the results of Mike's autopsy.

The medical examiner indicated that Mr.

McNew had passed away sometime between 24 and 48 hours prior to the discovery of his body, which would have put us back to August 6th.

The coroner determined that Mike McNew had passed away from a single gunshot wound to his face.

The proximity of the shot was within very close range of Mike McNew's face.

The bullet when it entered Mr.

McNew's body shattered and the projectile split into two pieces of lead.

One of the two pieces struck the spinal cord of Mr.

McNew and it caused immediate death.

The two pieces of lead were consistent with being from a 380.

As for Jennifer Morrissey, police are still trying to track down her whereabouts, which begs the question, is Jennifer's disappearance intentional or not?

She was on probation from a hit-and-run accident that had occurred about a year ago.

And her probation officer had informed us that he had an upcoming meeting with Jennifer.

So we were waiting to see if Jennifer would go to that probation meeting.

Detectives don't have to wait long.

On August 10th, four days after Mike's murder, Jennifer makes contact with authorities.

I just need to speak with a police officer.

Is there a specific one you want to see?

Yeah, any office is fine.

Okay.

What's it in reference to, though, ma'am?

It's in reference to

something on the news.

Can you just please have an officer follow me, please?

It was very odd that Jennifer had waited two days to reach out to us, and it's to talk about something she heard on the news, but she never could mention the death of Mike in the call.

Through texting, we set up an interview date for the following day, and Jennifer never showed up for that interview.

With Jennifer a no-show, detectives prepare a warrant for both her and Mike's cell phone records.

Once she failed to appear for that meeting, we knew there was something else going on regarding her.

She didn't reach out to the police for several days.

She didn't act like somebody would act if a loved one had just been murdered.

As they await a signed warrant from a judge, a friend of Mike McNew comes forward with a break in the case.

We talked to a gentleman that was a close friend of Mike's that advised us that their relationship had ended.

Mike was lovesick over her and she had moved on.

Mike had expressed some fears over Jennifer's new boyfriend or fiancé, as she called him.

He proceeded to tell us a text message he had received from Mike.

Mike was scared for his life

that Jen had been dating a man named Ruthless.

Ruthless.

And he told the friend that Ruthless could kill me.

A quick records check suggests Ruthless is the known alias for a man named Charles Kulo.

So we start to look into him and realize he has a criminal history as well.

He has a pretty long rap sheet in Bucks County and in Philadelphia for various offenses.

He was on parole for drug dealing at the time the murder took place.

According to Mike's friend, though Jennifer had moved in with Charles, she still frequented Mike's home.

Her belongings were still at Mike's house.

Mike McNew felt that if she was living with him, they were an item.

And if Jennifer wanted to date somebody else, then he was not okay with that.

But on the social media, Charles Coulo and Jennifer Morrissey both said that they were engaged to each other.

Mike had a good job, a large home, lots of luxury amenities, but Charles had power.

He had a reputation, and there's always that attraction to power.

Mike knew about the relationship, and that was what we believe was the tipping point for him.

There was at least one time when Mike and Chuck crossed paths at Mike's house with Jennifer.

Mike had a firearm on him to protect himself when Charles was there.

We start to explore the idea that maybe Charles could have had some involvement in Mike's death.

But we were also looking at Jen being responsible.

When Jennifer fails to arrive for her scheduled probation meeting on August 25th, 2017, officers spring into action.

Jennifer was picked up at her place of employment where she was working as a motorcycle mechanic.

She was arrested on a bench warrant for a probation violation.

Following her arrest, she was remanded to the Bucks County County Correctional Facilities.

As detectives look into Jennifer and Charles Ruthless Kulo's potential involvement in the crime, they receive a call from the correctional facility where Jennifer is being held.

One of the inmates recalled looking out through the bars within the prison, and she said, Oh, I just wish somebody would kill me.

Jen stood up and said, Did you say you wanted somebody to kill you?

I'm your girl.

Coming up, hidden messages reveal chilling details of Mike McNew's final hours.

He just sent a like, he was hurt, he was upset.

He responded by saying that anybody who comes in this door is going to get shot.

Detectives investigating Mike McNew's death have just learned of some alarming statements Jennifer Morrissey made to fellow inmates while being held for probation violations.

The jailhouse informant that was spoken to by law enforcement indicated that Jennifer had approached her and said that she was involved with Charles Coulo in a homicide in Bucks County.

With this new information in hand, investigators try again to question Jennifer.

However, she has already retained a lawyer, so they are unable to properly interrogate her.

At that point, she was a person of interest,

but we didn't have a clear picture of exactly what had happened.

As investigators figure out a new plan, Jennifer and Mike's phone records come back with a startling revelation about the night of Mike's murder.

Jennifer's cell phone pinged off of cell towers near Mike's house from 9.34 to 9.45 p.m.

that night.

The records confirm that Jennifer was in the area during the time of Mike's murder, but police still need to determine who pulled the trigger.

Who the shooter was or who was the person that killed Mike was still up for debate.

Cell Tower records show Jennifer's phone on the move again at 9.45 and traveling about 15 miles south towards the area of Charles's Charles's trailer.

Then the movement of her phone stops for the night.

So, late evening, around 11 o'clock on August 6th, Jennifer had arrived back at the trailer.

However, when detectives look at the records of Mike's missing cell phone, they notice something curious.

Mike's phone remains stationary all evening until it mysteriously leaves his house around 1 a.m., which police believe was hours after his murder.

Mr.

McNew's device was tracked using cell towers to an area in or around the Delaware River about 1.30 a.m.

The phone stopped communicating with the cell network.

Somebody who was fleeing the scene probably launched the phone into the river, and that's consistent with the cell tower information.

Now more certain than ever that Jennifer is responsible for Mike's murder, detectives double down on their efforts to connect her to the crime, starting with a tip from Mike's son, Patrick.

Every time I walk in his house, I connect to his wireless router because that's the only way that I have phone service in that house.

So I brought that up to the detectives, and within a half hour, they had a forensic specialist at the house dialing into the router.

We found that Jennifer's phone auto-connected with the router at Mr.

McNew's house on August 6th, 2017, at 9:37 p.m.

Her device was within zero and 150 feet of that router and Mr.

McNew's house the night that the medical examiner indicated he died.

Looking for further confirmation of her actions, investigators obtain a warrant to search Jennifer's personal belongings collected upon her arrest.

Inside of her purse were two cellular phones.

We wanted those phones because we wanted to see what her communications were.

The first phone was in Mike's name and paid for by Mike.

The second phone she obtained after the killing.

Unfortunately, they are both locked with passcodes.

When we tried accessing her two devices, we found that the Apple device was locked with a numeric passcode and the ZTE was also locked with a pattern code or what's known as a swipe code.

If you tried too many times, the phone would reset itself and all the data would be lost.

The only way we were able to get access to the iPhone is because we were given a warrant to review the information.

And then Detective Londamia was was able to guess the password.

Mike actually had a lot of Jennifer's accounts, logins, and passwords in a file that we had access to.

It ended up being a variation of her birth date.

Mike definitely helped us from the grave by being so organized.

With the phone unlocked, Detective Londamia begins reviewing heated text messages between Mike and Jennifer on August 6th, the day of the murder.

It's pretty graphic.

I mean, they exchanged threats.

She had deleted a significant amount of them, but detectives were able to extract them from the phone.

There was an ongoing federal investigation into Mr.

Kulo at the time we were conducting our homicide investigation.

And the fight between Jennifer and Mike contained information that Mike had sent to Jennifer saying that he was going to go to the FBI about Charles Kulow.

and that he would see that Mr.

Kulo was put in jail for the rest of his life.

This new information calls back into question the idea that Charles may have helped Jennifer commit the crime.

My original thoughts were, okay, so this is a motive for why Charles would want to cause harm to Mike.

However, as the text exchange continues, it's clear Jennifer is the one rattled by the threat.

Jennifer makes an immediate turn and says, what did you say about him?

He's not doing anything wrong.

You're going to get an innocent man in trouble.

It really set her off.

There were messages from her, which included threatening to gut him like a deer, that she would stab him.

Mike responded by saying that anybody comes in this door is going to get shot.

As the text exchange escalated, it kind of went from some threats regarding Mike's unhappiness with Jennifer's relationship with Chuck.

And from there, Mike would shift gears to saying, I'll give you one more chance.

Come back to me.

What it was is some form of desperation.

He just sounded like he was hurt.

He was upset because she was leaving and he didn't actually want that.

The last text message that Michael sent to Jennifer was, Jennifer, I love you to death.

Next, Detective Londamia uses Mike's password list to access Jennifer's Facebook page.

Jennifer Morsey sent messages to people in the wake of Mike McNew's death.

She told some people that a burglar came came in and killed Mike.

She told other people that she was learning about it for the first time.

She was spreading misinformation so that it couldn't be linked back to her directly.

Finally, detectives are ready to sit down with Charles Kulow.

So we met, we spoke with Charles Kulow.

During that interview, Charles had stated that the day of the murder, he was hanging out with Jennifer and that she was texting someone and that she was upset and that she told him she was leaving.

When detectives press him about his involvement in Mike's murder, Charles makes a startling admission.

She came back a short time later and told him that she thinks she might have killed Mike.

Charles had stated that the day of the murder, Jennifer said Mike confronted her with a gun and she got a hold of the firearm, pointed the gun at Mike, and when he reached for it, the gun accidentally went off.

Charles is adamant he had nothing to do with the murder, and detectives are inclined to believe him.

He had just been in an accident very recently.

He's in a wheelchair.

He's currently not in great health.

Charles was on parole at this time.

He didn't want any involvement in this case.

No evidence was ever found that Charles Coulo was involved in the killing of Mike.

But Charles isn't done talking.

He wanted to make sure Mike was dead or if he was alive to get him help.

Coming up, a surprise witness changes everything.

They went in, they went up on the second floor, and he was shocked at what he saw next.

And Jennifer struggles to defend herself.

Did you pull the trigger intentionally, or was it an accident?

She just didn't seem to know which lane she wanted to stick with.

Charles Ruthless Kulo has just told detectives that on the night Mike McNew was murdered, Jennifer Morrissey had returned to his trailer and claimed she accidentally killed him.

Charles couldn't believe the story he said he was hearing.

He called called his buddy to the trailer to hear what Jennifer had to say about what she had done.

Jerry Watson is a friend of Charles Coolow.

Jerry lives with Charles' mother, and Charles lives on a trailer on the property.

Charles nominated Jerry to go back to the house to make sure Mike was dead or if he was alive to get him help.

Charles didn't want any involvement in this case, and that's why he suggested Jerry go up there because he was on the final end of his parole sentence.

When detectives sit down with Jerry Watson, he confirms he'd taken Jennifer back to Mike's house on the night of the murder.

Jerry said that he was shocked at what he saw next.

It didn't match anything that Jen had said.

This didn't look like self-defense.

This looked like an execution.

He next said that he saw Jennifer kneel down in front of Mike and she was taking his watch off his wrist.

As the evidence mounts against Jennifer, police received the forensic report on the pair of pants Mike had been wearing the night he died.

From the DNA analysis, Jennifer Morrissey's DNA was on the pockets that were turned inside out of Mr.

McNew's pants.

That was a big piece of evidence.

Why would her DNA be found on the inside of someone else's pockets?

For Jennifer Morrissey, it's the coup de grace.

Detective Jumper and I filed charges against Jennifer Morrissey on September 29th, 2017.

Jennifer was formally charged with murder, burglary, and possession of instrument of crime and tampering with evidence.

She pulled the trigger.

The contention was the circumstances around why she did it.

I was very scared that the things that I read in the papers and online were accurate.

When Jennifer's trial begins on January 24th, 2019, the prosecution paints a picture of a calculated killer who shot her wealthy ex-boyfriend in cold blood.

Michael McNew was a good man, so we wanted the jury to realize how personal this was.

The prosecution's theory of the case, aside from Jennifer being upset that she was being cut off financially by Mr.

McNew and told to get out, was that Mr.

McNew had sent a message to Jennifer about her boyfriend and that he was going to go to law enforcement about her boyfriend.

The world must have been crashing down on her.

Everything she knew was going to change, and she didn't want it to.

She wanted the bad boy, boyfriend, but she also wanted to go home to the guy who actually took care of her and was able to provide for her.

And when Mike threatened to take all that away, I think that was when Jen realized she had to take care of Mike.

We think she had worked herself up to the point where she was homicidal and went to the home to confront him,

found him asleep,

and used his own gun to kill him.

Next, the prosecution lays out their evidence against Jennifer.

Data obtained via cell phone extractions, what those jailhouse informants all told us.

And from the DNA analysis of Mr.

McNew's pants, it was a lot of evidence.

But the final nail in the coffin comes from Jerry Watson.

He testified that she had gone back to the crime scene to manipulate the evidence to make it look like it had been a robbery.

When it's the defense's turn, they insist Jennifer acted that night out of fear.

Jennifer never seemed to be the violent, vindictive, evil type of person.

To prove it, they call their own surprise witness to the stand.

He just dropped the bombshell.

He said, I'd like to call Jennifer Marcy to the stand.

And we were shocked.

Jennifer claims that after a huge fight with Mike over text message, she went to his house to get her personal belongings.

Jennifer stated Mike was seated in the recliner.

Mike stood up and brandished a firearm.

Jen panicked and swatted the firearm away.

She kneels down to grab the gun, and when she goes to point it at his face, he lunges for it and the gun goes off.

Jennifer's claims ring hollow.

You have to knowingly and intentionally pull the trigger to raise a self-defense defense.

She kept saying it was accidental.

Did you pull the trigger intentionally or did you not?

Was it an accident?

And she just didn't seem to know which lane she wanted to stick with.

Unfortunately for Jennifer, an expert is there to dismantle her version of events.

A forensic investigator who conducted the autopsy said that the barrel of the gun would have had to be less than an inch away from McNey's head when it went off.

You don't shoot someone for an inch or less away, almost precisely between the eyes, accidentally.

You shoot someone from an inch or less away, almost precisely between the eyes, because you want to kill that person.

On February 1st, 2019, after 10 hours of deliberation, the jury returns their verdict.

She was found guilty of first-degree murder and tampering with evidence.

Jennifer Morrissey will spend the rest of her natural life in prison without the chance of parole.

Jennifer showed zero remorse.

She had no reaction.

Part of me believes that she saw the writing on the wall and knew what was coming.

It was a good day because of the outcome, but it was a very difficult day.

And it was, you know, happy tears, sad tears, relief.

Though the verdict brings some sense of closure for Mike's family, nothing can replace what they've lost.

I'm sad, of course.

You know, I'm hurt.

I'm mad.

I hate her for what she did to my father and to my family.

She took away a lot from me.

She took away any chance of full reconciliation with my dad, she took away my son's grandfather.

It can happen to anybody.

Just love and love fiercely everybody that's in your life all the time.

He was a beloved friend to many, a hard-working man that worked his entire life to provide for his friends and family that worked really, really hard to enjoy retirement that was stolen from him.

He put his faith in her, and she put a bullet in his head.

For more information on Snapped, go to oxygen.com.

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