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The Case of Jennifer McMullan at the 2024 Innocence Conference
📻 Episode #453
🎙️ Hosted by Jason Flom
📅 Jun 06, 2024
About This Episode
On March 6, 2001, two masked men attempted to rob a small restaurant in McHenry, IL. The owner, wielding a butcher knife, and his employee chased the men out of the restaurant, and in the ensuing chase, the owner was shot and killed. Police began to focus on 19-year-old Jennifer McMullan and some of her…
Case status as carried in this site's original 2026 profiles. Independent record verification is rolling out episode by episode — statuses are being re-checked against court and registry sources and date-stamped as verified.
The Case
On March 6, 2001, two masked men attempted to rob a small restaurant in McHenry, IL. The owner, wielding a butcher knife, and his employee chased the men out of the restaurant, and in the ensuing chase, the owner was shot and killed. Police began to focus on 19-year-old Jennifer McMullan and some of her friends after finding out that they were in the area at the time of the shooting. A couple of months later, police – believing Jennifer was the getaway driver in the shooting – questioned her for 15 hours resulting in Jennifer falsely confessing to the murder. Despite the only eyewitness not identifying Jennifer’s friend group as the perpetrators, she was sentenced to 27 years in prison for first-degree murder.
Click here to see the entire interview on our YouTube channel.
TO GET INVOLVED, PLEASE CALL ILLINOIS GOVERNOR JB PRITZKER AT 217-782-0244 AND SAY:
"Governor Pritzker - Jennifer McMullan was wrongfully convicted as a party to a 2001 robbery homicide. It appears the prosecution withheld evidence of more compelling suspects who had confessed to multiple witnesses. Further, DNA test results have made the state’s theory in her case completely implausible. Her clemency petition is currently under review, and she rightfully deserves a pardon. I hope you do what is just. Thank you."
YOU CAN ALSO WRITE GOVERNOR JB PRITZKER AT: Office of the Governor 555 W. Monroe St., 16th Floor Chicago, IL 60661
https://lavaforgood.com/podcast/443-jason-flom-with-mario-casciaro/
In Their Own Words — transcript excerpts
Short excerpts from the episode's official published transcript, with timestamps — listen from these moments, or read the full transcript via the podcast's own platforms.
00:04:32“Speaker 1: and then how you eventually got implicated. Speaker 4: So that day, I remember I had got a call Speaker 4: from one of my friends who needed to find somebody Speaker 4: to borrow a laptop, so I called another friend who Speaker 4: I knew had one. So I went and grabbed my”
00:18:00“Speaker 2: Was never disclosed to Jennifer's trial council was there was Speaker 2: an alternate suspect group that had repeatedly confessed to family Speaker 2: and friends of committing this crime. In November of two Speaker 2: thousand and one, the mom called in to the police Speaker 2: and she says, my daughter told me you have the”
00:30:30“Speaker 2: they said, no, we got it right. With Ken three Speaker 2: juries convicted him. It didn't matter that they kept not Speaker 2: hearing all the evidence, and so they said, but she's Speaker 2: already spent way too long in prison. Even if she's Speaker 2: guilty for what you know she was convicted of, it's”
Listen to the Episode
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← #452 Miguel Solorio #454 James Soto →
Also on the podcast: #21 Floyd Bledsoe and Cornelius Dupree (Live from the Innocence Network Conference 2017) · #22 Kristine Bunch and Obie Anthony (Live from the Innocence Network Conference 2017) · #357 Jennifer Del Prete