A Pennsylvania woman shot her "sugar daddy" in the face soon after he broke up with her and then faked a robbery to cover up the crime, prosecutors said Monday.
The relationship between Jennifer Lynn Morrissey, a 33-year-old motorcycle mechanic with a checkered criminal past who has been charged with murder, and Michael McNew, a 64-year-old father and grandfather, was unconventional, but one that seemed to work for them – until it didn’t.
According to prosecutors, Morrissey moved into McNew’s home outside Trenton, N.J. in 2015. For nearly two years, he bought her presents, paid her bills and even covered any court fees from previous legal woes.
She referred to him as her “sugar daddy,” NBC 10 reported.
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But eventually the relationship soured. When McNew tried to end it, Morrissey killed him, prosecutors said.
In August 2017, McNew was found dead at his home with a bullet in his head. Morrissey was charged with criminal homicide.
Police said Morrisey staged the death to look like a burglary gone awry and even buried McNew's cellphone and laptop computer in her current boyfriend’s backyard. She also messaged McNew on Facebook after he died to make it look like she didn’t know what happened.
To allegedly remove any gun residue from her hands, her boyfriend urinated on her hands, prosecutors said.
Morrissey maintains the shooting death was accidental – a result of what her lawyer called a “kill or be killed” moment, NBC 10 reported.
"She came to her home to retrieve some belongings and struggled over a firearm and Mr. McNew unfortunately was shot and killed," Morrissey's lawyer, Phillip Steinberg, said at a two-hour preliminary hearing on Monday.
Her texting records, however, show a different story, officials said.
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According to the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office, Morrissey sent threatening messages to McNews on Aug. 6 when he told her he was boxing up belongings she’d left at his house and that she was not welcome back in his home.
“Get the gun ready cause I’m coming. I already told you that I’ll be there tonight … guess your [sic] just gonna have to shoot me,” one of the texts read, the DA office said. “I’m gonna stab ya.”
McNew’s body was found Aug. 8 in his Washington Crossing home. An autopsy determined that he died from a single gunshot wound to the head.
“I don’t believe she’s a victim,” the prosecutor said in court on Monday.
Morrissey is back in court on Dec. 8.
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