Jennifer Daugherty was born in 1979 in Latrobe, Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, she was plagued by intellectual and developmental disabilities from a young age.
Her parents, Denise and Richard Daugherty, separated when she was quite young. Afterward, she continued to live with her mother, who married Bobby Murphy. The family grew to include her stepbrother, Dave, along with her sisters, Jamie and Joy.
Jennifer’s sister, Joy Burkholder, did not notice Jennifer was different until grade school because other students treated Jennifer differently. This made Joy extra protective of Jennifer.
Jennifer Daugherty, though, was easygoing and sweet-natured. Her disabilities, however, made her miss some social cues, and she was very trusting.
Meeting Her Doom
In 2010, at age 30, Jennifer was close to reaching her dreams. She wanted to live on her own. That meant leaving her mom’s house. To help, Jennifer took living skills classes at the West Place Clubhouse in Greensburg, Western Pennsylvania.
The community center offered therapy and opportunities to socialize for people with intellectual and developmental disabilities.
Jennifer often took a 20-minute bus from Mt. Pleasant to Greensburg. There, she trained to become a mechanic, like her uncle. She also went there for dentist and counseling visits.
At the West Place Clubhouse, Jennifer met Angela Marinucci, Ricky Smyrnes, Amber Meidinger, Melvin Knight, Peggy Miller, and Robert Masters Jr.
Jennifer’s new friends had all faced life-changing events at young ages. In 2008, when Marinucci was just 15, she was involved in a severe traffic accident involving a truck, causing significant head injuries. This subsequently affected her behavior and thinking patterns.
23-year-old Ricky Smyrnes was Marinucci’s boyfriend and was born to drug-addicted parents. Smyrnes spent his youth moving in and out of foster homes.
He faced a lot of physical and sexual abuse and neglect. By age six, he had tried alcohol, marijuana, cocaine, and heroin. At 8 years old, doctors said he had PTSD. Later, he was diagnosed with seven different personalities and 15 psychiatric issues.
He led a life of crime, involving burglary and indecent assault. He was sentenced to two years in prison, where he met Melvin Knight.
20-year-old Knight was born to a drug-addicted father who was in prison for much of his early life. At age five, he fell from a moving vehicle and hit his head, which caused lifelong learning and social problems.
Knight would meet his girlfriend, 20-year-old Amber Meidinger, at a homeless shelter in Washington in January 2010.
She became pregnant with his child soon after, and they both moved into Smyrnes’s apartment in Greensburg, Pennsylvania. The four started going to the West Place Clubhouse together.
There, they became friends with 36-year-old Robert Masters and 26-year-old Peggy Miller before they all met Jennifer. Marinucci was the first in the group to befriend her.
After meeting Jennifer, Angela Marinucci feared her boyfriend, Ricky Smyrnes, was becoming too attached to Jennifer. He talked to her in a flirtatious way. Marinucci then came up with a plan to get back at her.
She talked it over with the others in the group, and they invited Jennifer to a sleepover. On February 10th, 2010, Jennifer told her parents she was going to her friend Miller’s apartment in Greensburg for a sleepover.
Before leaving, Jennifer left a note for her mother that, according to Vivaldi, read, “Mom, I hope you have a good day at work, and I love you very much. I will talk to you sometime later. Love, Jennifer.”
Her stepfather, Bobby, dropped her off at the bus stop, and Jennifer proceeded to Greensburg.
The last message she posted to her MySpace and Twitter accounts, as reported by Splcenter, was, “This is my time to make a new start for myself, and make new friends and not be afraid of anything.”
When Jennifer got to Greensburg, Meidinger, Knight, and Smyrnes met her. They took her to their green two-story apartment building just a half mile away. There, Marinucci, Miller, and Masters took her in.
Jennifer’s sister, Joy Burkholder, was at work when Jennifer left for Greensburg. She noticed Jennifer had not called her. This was unusual. When Joy called Jennifer’s cell phone, she noticed the voicemail wasn’t in Jennifer’s voice.
Joy thought their mom might have forgotten to pay the phone bill and that the number had been repurposed. Joy called her mom at home to check. Her mom concurred that she had heard the same thing after calling her that morning.
Joy started to think that someone had stolen Jennifer’s phone, and that she could be stuck in Greensburg without a way to call her sister or mother. She could not possibly have memorized their numbers. Joy thought she would probably have to go to Greensburg to find her.
Torture and Murder at the Hands of Friends
Joy Burkholder would never have suspected that the young adults her sister thought were friends were about to put her through the unthinkable.
As soon as Jennifer entered the apartment, Marinucci accused her of wanting to have a relationship with Smyrnes.
Marinucci even suspected that Jennifer might be expecting Smyrnes’ baby. She got the others to take turns kicking Jennifer in the stomach. This was just the start. The group went through Jennifer’s purse and stole money, gift cards, and her cell phone.
They hit her head with filled soda bottles and then used scissors to cut off all her hair. Then they painted her face with nail polish.
As their misplaced anger against Jennifer increased, Angela Marinucci, Ricky Smyrnes, Amber Meidinger, Melvin Knight, Peggy Miller, and Robert Masters Jr. all participated in or watched as they poured water and oatmeal over Jennifer’s head and rubbed spices into her eyes.
Jennifer screamed that her eyes burned. She begged them to stop. She asked what she had done to deserve this.
Jennifer’s tormentors then wrapped her in fairy lights and made her masquerade as a Christmas tree. Things got worse when Knight stripped her naked, gagged her, and raped her. The others watched and laughed. The horrible ordeal of humiliating Jennifer lasted 36 hours.
At one point, the six locked Jennifer in a dark wardrobe and debated what to do next. Neighbors would later admit that they heard a lot of slamming and crying that day, and they even called the police multiple times.
Floria Headen and Angela McGowan, who lived downstairs, told NBC News, “They were coming in droves. You didn’t know who was living there,” McGowan said. “It was unreal. All the noise and the pounding and the fighting and the drinking, you thought the ceiling was going to come in on you.”
Peggy Miller and Robert Masters were left alone with Jennifer for a couple of hours while the other four left the apartment. Jennifer then begged Masters and Miller to let her go. They did not.
Jennifer almost escaped one time, prevailing on the mercy of Robert Masters and Peggy Miller. Before she could dress up and leave, Marinucci called and refused any permission for the release of the hostage.
The group decided she needed more punishment. They made Jennifer consume detergent, bleach, nail polish, cigarette ash, chili powder, and medications. She was also compelled to consume urine and human waste.
The enraged group hit Jennifer with a vacuum cleaner hose, after which Amber Meidinger and Angela Marinucci took turns beating her with a crutch and a metal towel rack.
After 36 hours of torture, the six feared getting caught for what they had done to Jennifer. All of Jennifer’s so-called friends voted for her to die. They made her write a ‘suicide note’ which, according to CBS News, read, “I haven’t been very happy for a while, and I also feel that everyone will be better off without me on the earth. I will always love my mum and stepdad no matter what, and I will always love the rest of my family also. My nieces and nephews would be lucky to have a better aunt than me. I am done with life. Goodbye, Jennifer.”
They pushed the note into Jennifer’s back pocket and hoped people would think she killed herself. Miller then tied Jennifer with fairy lights again and turned her to Melvin Knight and Ricky Smyrnes, who took her to the bathroom where they forced her to take sleeping pills.
Smyrnes then took a steak knife from the kitchen and handed it to Knight. The two stayed with Jennifer in the bathroom for a while, passing the knife back and forth. They stabbed Jennifer 18 more times and then left her to bleed out.
When they returned later, Jennifer was still breathing in spite of all the injuries. So Smyrnes and Knight cut her wrists and wrapped Christmas lights around her neck. Both men pulled the opposite ends of the Christmas lights until Jennifer stopped breathing.
Smyrnes and Knight then put Jennifer’s body in a garbage bag, which they pushed into a trash can in Greensburg Middle School’s parking lot. A witness saw the two men pull the can through the snow and stuff it under a truck.
On the 11th of February 2010, a truck driver named Daniel Grant found Jennifer’s body under his work truck in the Greensburg-Salem Middle School parking lot. He called police, who started an investigation and identified Jennifer as the victim.
Forensic pathologist Cyril H. Wecht did the autopsy. The body was still in the garbage can, head first, and partly covered with plastic bags. Christmas lights were around the neck and wrists. Decorative material bound the ankles. Jennifer’s body had countless cuts, scrapes, and bruises.
Justice for Jennifer Daugherty
The group later called the ‘Greensburg Six’ was apprehended quickly. The note Jennifer left for her mother before heading to Greensburg on her last day to be alive included Marinucci’s contact details.
Jennifer’s sister, Joy, had also tried calling her many times from her workplace that day. Joy discovered that Jennifer’s voicemail greeting had changed.
Investigators went to Marinucci’s apartment and questioned her and her friends. They admitted everything that happened, confirming that Jennifer had arrived back at the apartment and the whole group started bullying and mistreating their guest.
Detectives talked to Melvin Knight just hours after finding the body of 30-year-old Jennifer Daugherty. He recounted the murder before investigators implicated Smyrnes. CBS News recorded the interaction as follows.
“Melvin Knight: Then, Ricky went and got a, um, knife, and told me to stab her.”
“Detective: And what did you do?”
“Melvin Knight: I hesitated for a little bit, and then I stabbed her.”
“Detective: Okay, where, where did you stab her first, Melvin?”
“Melvin Knight: In the chest.”
“Detective: And about how many times did you stab her in the chest?”
“Melvin Knight: Mmmm, three.”
He said it all started when Jennifer allegedly made a pass at defendant Ricky Smyrnes. Smyrnes’ girlfriend Angie Marinucci got angry and started beating Jennifer.
The others joined in, including Knight and Amber Meidinger. All six were charged with Jennifer’s murder. Nine months later, the trial began. Prosecutors wanted the death penalty for Ricky Smyrnes, Melvin Knight, and Amber Meidinger.
Angela Marinucci was 17 at the time of the crime. She was the first of the Greensburg Six convicted of Jennifer’s murder. At her trial, prosecutors said she started the torture and encouraged the others to join in.
She was found guilty of first-degree murder and got life in prison without parole. The state appeals court overturned the conviction and ruled that juveniles cannot receive mandatory life sentences. In 2017, Marinucci got another life sentence. This was overturned too.
In 2022, Judge Rita Hathaway gave her a third sentence of 40 years to life for the murder, plus 20-40 years for conspiracy. CBS News reported her statement on the defendant, which read, “Angela Marinucci played a major role in the execution of this crime. She knew what she was doing; she was manipulative.”
Marinucci appealed again, arguing the latest sentence was unconstitutional, but three Superior Court judges rejected it in 2024.
Ricky Smyrnes and Melvin Knight were found guilty of first-degree murder and were sentenced to death by lethal injection. After going through a new penalty phase trial, Knight was again sentenced to death in 2018. He currently remains on death row.
As the proven ringleader, Ricky Smyrnes exhausted state appeals, and his death sentence was firmly upheld by the courts. The judge issued a stay of execution to allow his appellate team to prepare and pursue long-term post-conviction relief appeals.
The state of Pennsylvania is also under a moratorium on capital punishment, so neither Smyrnes nor Knight faces a threat of execution while the order is in effect.
Amber Meidinger pleaded guilty to third-degree murder and received a sentence of 40-80 years. She was a key witness in the trials of Marinucci, Knight, and Smyrnes. Amber Meidinger is currently incarcerated at SCI Muncy.
Peggy Miller and Robert Masters pleaded guilty to third-degree murder too. Miller received a sentence of 35 to 74 years, while Masters got 30 to 70 years.
Miller is currently at SCI Muncy with Meidinger, and Masters is currently housed at SCI Greene.
After the trial, CBS News reported Jennifer’s sister Joy Burkholder statement, which read, “She was exploited, and her kindness and her handicap made her very vulnerable. She trusted everybody; she believed everyone was good, and no one would hurt her.”
Greensburg Police Chief Walter Lyons told NBC News, “She was at the wrong place, at the wrong time, stumbled into a bad situation.”
The murder of Jennifer Daugherty by the Greensburg six bears striking, structural resemblances to the murder of Reena Virk. Both stories exposed the dark realities of teenage swarming, mob mentality, and severe schoolyard-type bullying.
For more stories on unsolved disappearances, explore our articles on Darla Harper and Ryan Shtuka.
