She’d experienced one or two hiccups, same as before, but the constant pounding of her diaphragm and that jerking of her chest and hips and stomach were gone.
Looking quite beaten, tired, and unkempt, Jennifer was interviewed by local 10 News reporter Beau Zimmer for the CBS affiliate out of Tampa Bay. It’s a telling interview for many reasons, as it truly depicts the “little girl” and genuine person at the center of all this—that same young person whom NPR, like many others, had made fun of during this same time. Jennifer could come across as mercurial during the big media interviews, having been catered to by makeup artists and hairstylists, coached by producers about what to say and how to iterate her thoughts. But here, within the simplicity of this local news building, there were no red carpets and no limos. There were no elaborately produced setup pieces of television by the big network morning shows. This interview took place in the hallway of the 10 News newsroom, and felt as though it had been recorded on a handheld camera. Jennifer wore a 93.3 FM (“MJ in the Morning”) T-shirt, her hair appeared to be unwashed and rather oily and tangled. She wore nearly no makeup. She came across as the person she actually was: an innocent teenager with a young mind behind her brown eyes, who was thrust into a media cesspool of pop culture celebrity she’d had no training for and had been totally unprepared to manage.
Beau Zimmer made a great point during the interview that no other reporter had focused on or talked about at any length. He pointed out to Jennifer that many people looked at her and her condition as silly and laughed about it, but it had been a very serious condition, hadn’t it? Indeed, no laughing matter. She had suffered greatly (and would continue to do so). The public saw it all as some quirky news story. However, behind the sad eyes of Jennifer Mee, she and her family were at the end of their rope with all of this. Chris and Jennifer were especially having a hard time getting along. Their relationship was breaking down a little more every day, which, in turn, was causing big problems for the marriage. This was a family that had never wanted the publicity, or worldwide attention, all of them later claimed. Jennifer had been insulted so much, made fun of, ridiculed and called so many names, she said she couldn’t even go out anymore without someone saying something stupid or personally attacking her. Maybe now that the hiccups were finally gone, she could get back to the life she’d had before it all went awry—and maybe take the experience and learn a lesson from it. After all, there had been far more positive comments and calls and cards and letters from the public, many people giving her well wishes, prayers, and advice. Jennifer had not been totally jaded by it all.
The relief alone for Jennifer was overwhelming, she told News 10 reporter Zimmer. There was a time when she had been so concerned about her condition she wondered if she’d ever have a relationship, go on to work, and have a home. But now, with the hiccups gone, she could relax and get back to her everyday life. She smiled so much during her time with Zimmer it was as if she had once again become that nervous little girl doing her first interview.
“I’m so relieved,” Jennifer told Zimmer, “that the first thing that popped into my mind the other day was that I’m going to go back to school.” She mentioned how a lot of her peers might think she sounded “crazy” for saying she “wanted” to go back to school, but she reiterated, “I’m going back to school!” She nodded her head in agreement, smiling.
The question came up whether there was any positive side effect to having had the hiccups for so long, her story garnering all that attention, and Jennifer quickly ruled that out.
“No!”
Her “hope [was] that they [would] stay away for a long time.”
The tone she used, the feeling she displayed during the piece (something Rachel later agreed with), was that the hiccups (“they”) were the enemy, a condition Jennifer and her family feared could return at any hour, any day.
Beau Zimmer wanted a timeline, a plan Jennifer had for going back to school and what she was going to do now that she could go anywhere and do anything she wanted to again.
Jennifer wasn’t going back to school until the following Monday, so she could “start fresh” with a new week. After leaving News 10, she was going to see her neurologist and then to a meeting with her homebound tutor and then to the chiropractor.
“But they want to fly me back to New York as soon as possible,” she added with a great big smile, indicating that the red-carpet treatment wasn’t, in fact, over. Today wasn’t finished. The show wanted a follow-up story—the traditionally packaged ribbon-and-bow ending to this American pop culture phenomenon.
Jennifer, a smile from ear to ear, said she was really looking forward to traveling back to New York, adding, “And actually when I get older . . . I want to move [there].”
CHAPTER 38
MICHELE EHLINGER WAS at her Pennsylvania home on Thursday, March 1, 2007, when her phone rang. On the other end of the line, according to Michele’s recollection, was a very happy, excited Rachel Robidoux, who wanted to share the best news she’d had in quite a while.
“Gone!” Rachel said.
“What?” Michele asked, confused.
“The hiccups are finally gone. You cured her with the cup.”
“Oh, my,” Michele said, startled. “That’s wonderful.”
Michele and her husband had not paid much attention to Jennifer’s story after Michele flew to Florida and the Hic-Cup cup failed to work. Michele and her husband had moved on to other ways of trying to build their company. But here was Rachel on the phone telling Michele that it had been the cup, after all, that finally cured her daughter.
Michele was thrilled.
“We would love for Jennifer to be your spokesperson and talk about how the cup cured her,” Michele later recalled Rachel telling her.
Michele was ecstatic. She’d had a feeling that with some effort and patience the cup would ultimately help Jennifer. And here it was, not two weeks after that trip south, and she was hiccup-free.
Rachel wanted to talk business so Michele handed the phone to her husband, who dealt in those matters.
Jennifer had been given a free Hic-Cup cup on that day Michele met the family in Florida. Yet, Michele said, since it did not work at the time, she left Florida thinking she would never hear from Rachel again. After all, there was no reason to expect further discussions: The cup didn’t appear to work for Jennifer’s hiccups. Thus, there was no reason to continue a relationship of any sort.
According to published reports that claimed Jennifer was offered a “generous and lucrative contract,” along with an “immediate cash signing bonus” by Hic-Cup Ltd., the company had apparently agreed to pay Jennifer $2,500 as long as she mentioned the product on Today. Some later claimed Jennifer was paid a lot more money for signing the deal.
“That’s outrageous,” Rachel later said, laughing. “I wish!”
Jennifer confirmed published reports that it was $2,500. Michele’s canceled check indicated the same. Documents provided by Rachel later said it was a “onetime fee” of $2,500.
Michele had a problem with the “generous and lucrative” comment, along with the “immediate cash signing bonus” information, which had been put out by the media after Jennifer signed with Hic-Cup. According to Michele’s husband, who had spoken to Rachel on the phone that day she called to say the cup had cured Jennifer, “[Rachel] wanted more money, but finally agreed upon the [$2,500] amount offered. The agreement up front was if it helped Jennifer, she would be offered compensation for her television, video, and written testimonials. This was all that was promised. Since the cup did not even work for her at our initial meeting [in Florida], why would we offer her a ‘signing bonus’? Her credibility was already in question and a payment up front would make it look like a fake endorsement for cash. She was only offered any compensation if it worked to cure her hiccups.”
Michele said Rachel, Chris, and Jennifer knew this when she left Florida: the only way Jennifer could be compensated was if the cup “cured” her.
D
uring this call from Rachel to Michele and her husband on March 1, reportedly after the Today show appearance had been booked, was to say that the cup had finally come through and “cured” Jennifer. According to Michele and her husband’s recollections of the call, Rachel never mentioned anything about acupuncture or hypnotherapy. At the time of the call, Hic-Cup Ltd. knew nothing about either. As far as they were concerned, the cup had cured Jennifer and they were now prepared to enter into a business relationship with Jennifer’s legal guardians, Rachel and Chris.
The $2,500 was a “flat fee,” Michele said. “That was all she was getting.”
Rachel told Michele’s husband that she and Jennifer were scheduled to go on Today the following morning.
“She’s going on Today . . . and she is not going to talk about [the cup] until we’ve been paid,” Rachel explained to Michele’s husband over the phone.9
“We will FedEx the check to you overnight—will that work?”10
“Yes.”
They hung up. Michele FedEx-ed the check for $2,500 as Rachel and Jennifer headed to the airport for a flight to New York.
Chris Robidoux received the check the following morning, according to Michele’s records.
All was set for Jennifer to go on Today and proclaim to the world that the Hic-Cup stainless-steel cup with the brass anode, invented by Michele Ehlinger’s husband, had cured her of the devastating, torturous condition of having the hiccups since January 23, 2007. It was set to be, as they say, a win-win situation for all involved.
CHAPTER 39
JENNIFER SAT ON the Today set and told America she was hiccup-free. Matt Lauer started the segment by high-fiving a smiling, cheerful Jennifer Mee. Rachel, barely unable to contain her excitement, sat next to her daughter with obvious joy illuminating her face.
Tell the world how they stopped, Matt Lauer suggested, quickly stepping out of the way so his interviewee could share the great news.
“Multiple things,” Jennifer explained. Not one or the other, but several “things” contributed to the hiccups going away for what they believed was good this time.
“I had acupuncture, chiropractor, hypnotism, and a Hic-Cup,” Jennifer said, highlighting that first word of the brand.
“A Hic-Cup,” Lauer echoed. “In other words, something you drank out of?”
Jennifer shrugged, saying she believed it was a combination of all those things that made her stop. She did give Debbie Lane a nod—although she never mentioned Lane by name—by adding, “Trust me, while I was in hypnotism, something told me that I would have trouble with my heart if I didn’t stop. . . .”
They discussed what life had been like for Jennifer over the duration of having the hiccups. Jennifer explained how it was “very hectic, a lot of stress in the family.”
An understatement.
This interview was especially revealing. Jennifer and Rachel were beaming. There was a gentle, sincere radiance about them that cannot be denied. It was as if a burden had been lifted and they could now begin life with a fresh start. No doubt, Jennifer and Rachel were happier than they had been in quite some time. They couldn’t contain it. Rachel had her legs crossed and one leg was moving rapidly, bouncing nervously along as she and Jennifer spoke. Jennifer was antsy and it appeared as though she was going to jump out of her seat and shout to viewers how delighted she was that the hiccups were gone for good.
Matt Lauer asked if Jennifer’s life from this point on would be full of anxiety and fear, never knowing if the hiccups might return at any time.
She said no, not especially.
Rachel spoke over her daughter at one point, adding, “She’s going to have her cup, because each time she’s had one”—meaning a stray hiccup—“she’s used that cup and it’s only been one single hiccup.”
“Yup,” Jennifer agreed.
There was the Hic-Cup plug!
One thing Jennifer Mee was adamant about at this point in her life: The damn hiccups weren’t coming back. Yes, she had a stray hiccup here and there, but the way she felt—the resources she now had because of all the support she’d received—she believed they were gone forever.
And all that “attention” she had received along the way, some of which Jennifer had taken to like a snake to a field of corn, was soon going to vanish as Jennifer integrated herself back into the life of a teenager.
The question would soon become: how would Jennifer respond?
CHAPTER 40
WATCHING THIS INTERVIEW on Today from her home had made Debbie Lane cringe. She knew the hiccups had left Jennifer on the evening she provided her with pro bono hypnotherapy in her office. Jennifer had been totally “cured”—a strong word to use in this situation—by the hypnotherapy, Lane believed. Sure, they might have come back, but Lane’s treatment started the ball rolling. And yet, here was Jennifer and Rachel—at least halfheartedly—backing away from that and giving credit to the cup, the hypnotism, a chiropractor, and acupuncture.
“I believe we said that these were the things she had tried very recently and it may have been a combination of them,” Rachel commented after being asked if she felt as though she had dissed Lane’s treatment on Today. “We felt pressured into talking about all [of the remedies]—they were all free of charge.... We never tried to dismiss anybody’s kindness and effort in her recovery.”
To the contrary, regarding dismissing one particular effort to help Jennifer, one could argue that Rachel had even asked and taken a moment out of the Today segment to give a broad thank-you to everyone that helped Jennifer throughout her ordeal. She and Jennifer were very grateful for all the well-wishers and their suggestions.
Michele Ehlinger and her husband were upset and felt duped after seeing the Today show segment, Michele saying later, “[Jennifer] offered only a vague partial credit to our Hic-Cup cup for helping end her hiccups. She instead said on [Today] and in follow-up interviews that it was a ‘combination’ of things that cured her hiccups. This was not what her mother told us over the phone when she was negotiating payment for the testimonial. We were let down and felt duped as she was paid [several] thousand . . . dollars by us based on her claim that it cured her hiccups. Yet she gave much less than a full-throated endorsement while speaking with the media.”
Michele and her husband decided they “had been played by the family, and [Rachel and Jennifer] were only saying just enough to keep the cash, yet not actually stating that it cured her hiccups.”
They were upset. They’d spent a lot of money the company did not have.
“We felt like we got ripped off by a fraud. We never spoke with them again, and in our last conversation, we made it clear we felt like they lied to us. We considered taking action, but it would be nothing but grief and bad publicity, which is the last thing we wanted, or a new company needs.”
Nonetheless, Michele and her husband took a screenshot from the Today segment and put it up on their company website. It only seemed fair that they promote the notion that Jennifer mentioned the cup on Today.
“It was one still picture of the morning television show she appeared on and was used briefly on our website. . . . [It was] in the compensation agreement,” Michele said.
It wasn’t as if they’d gone and printed sales brochures, advertisements, or run commercials or radio ads using Jennifer Mee as their spokesperson—Hic-Cup Ltd. did none of that.
“As for the agreement we did have, it included the TV appearance for which she was paid, and we had the right to use a simple still frame of her at that public appearance. That is what we paid her for when she claimed it cured her hiccups—a claim she failed to repeat, after Rachel used it for her demand for money.”
Michele and her husband shrugged it all off as a business loss, lesson learned, and considered they’d never hear from Rachel again.
CHAPTER 41
WHILE THE PRESSURE of being Hiccup Girl had been in its prime, Rachel and Chris had caved and decided to put a computer in the house, a laptop they bought with money borrowe
d from Rachel’s parents not long after Jennifer first got the hiccups. They had done this mainly so they could log on to the Internet, Rachel said, and search for remedies, research other people who’d been through intractable hiccups, find support groups, and communicate with professionals via e-mail and instant message in the same way the rest of the modern world had been doing for nearly a decade. Documents provided by Rachel show a long history of communication between the Robidoux family and doctors, well-wishers, children, men, women, haters, and so on.
Although the computer helped them, Jennifer sat at it during the day when Rachel wasn’t home and read what some people were saying about her. Even though she had stopped hiccupping, some of the comments posted by Internet trolls had taken her down into a burrow of darkness and self-hatred. What was most hurtful were the comments about her dating boys out of her race, how she was nothing but a “media whore,” who was looking for attention, the allegation that she had been faking it all along, and how it had all been a show Jennifer had put on to see how much money the family could make off her celebrity.
“Don’t read any of it,” Chris told Jennifer. “Stay off the computer.”
Now satisfied she was totally hiccup-free (save for a stray here and there), on March 14, 2007, Jennifer returned to school. Walking into Northeast High School in St. Pete was a strange experience for Jennifer. She felt as though she’d been gone a year or more. She was a different person—much more grown-up and experienced in the way that the world worked. She’d been to Manhattan (an alien place for this girl who had never been on a plane before that first ride to Today). She’d become comfortable with sitting and speaking to millions of people.
“And it all went to her head,” Rachel said later.
Everyone wanted to know Jennifer. Kids stared. They whispered behind her back. She was popular now.
Jennifer sucked it up. She loved being noticed, being the center of attention.
“It felt good,” Jennifer admitted.
One Breath Away: The Hiccup Girl - From Media Darling to Convicted Killer Page 15
