Killer Women: How Jennifer Mee's chronic hiccups led to man's brutal alley death

Jennifer Mee became a media sensation as a teenager for suffering from chronic hiccups.

In a bizarre turn of events, the 18-year-old girl lured an innocent man to a dark alleyway where her friends were waiting to rob him in 2010.

The man ended up being shot dead, and though she didn't pull the trigger – and was nowhere near when the bullets were fired – Mee was sentenced to life without parole.

Tonight, (6 July), Piers Morgan revisits her case and meets the woman whose journey through fame and rejection saw her descend into a criminal lifestyle.

Mee began life as a normal child and was the daughter of a waitress. Her stepdad was on benefits when she became known for hiccupping 50 times a minute.

She hiccuped uncontrollably for five weeks and tried everything from crank home remedies to visiting medical specialists, a hypnotist and an acupuncturist, until the hiccups finally stopped on their own.

Mee appeared on a number of international chat shows about the issue and became known as The Hiccup Girl from her home in St Petersburg, Florida, as well as across the world.

Mee began mixing with a bad group of people. After meeting student Sharon Griffin online, she enticed him into an abandoned house under the pretence of buying marijuana.

She then robbed him at gunpoint with her boyfriend and housemate. Griffin was shot four times in the chest and left dying in an alley.

Journalist and GMB presenter Morgan said of Mee: "Of all the women I interviewed for this series, Mee was the one for whom I felt most sympathy.

"Not for the crime she helped perpetrate but for the fact that she had her life turned upside down by freakish chronic hiccups that turned her briefly into a global celebrity.

"That horrible affliction and subsequent flirtation with fame damaged her schooling and home life – and sent her down a path to undesirable company, petty crime and ultimately a murder.

"Without the hiccups she would almost certainly never have strayed into that other, darker life," The Mirror reports.

Morgan – who rarely feels sympathy for the convicts he meets – also claimed that their meeting was "very sad".

He continued: "My interview with her was very sad, but my interview with her poor mum and her little sisters was utterly heartbreaking. So many lives wrecked by a moment of dumb madness.

"Jennifer tried to feign toughness when I met her in prison – but I looked into her eyes and saw a frightened young woman who knew she had destroyed her life and desperately wanted a second chance to prove she's not the evil killer everyone thinks she is," he added.

Mee once again became the subject of chat shows and news programmes, but for murder and not hiccups. Her two housemates, boyfriend Lamont Newton and his friend Laron Raiford, robbed Griffin of just $50 before he was shot dead.

Despite the trio running away, Griffin's wallet and keys were found at Mee's home, along with her fingerprints on his driver's licence.

Florida law cites that someone who participates in a robbery that leads to a death can be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Mee and her family believe that life sentence is too harsh, and the programme will look into her troubled youth and what it says about young people shoved into the limelight without having achieved anything of note.

Killer Women with Piers Morgan continues tonight (6 July) at 9pm on ITV.