Jennifer McMullan

Jennifer McMullan walked out of McHenry County Courthouse in June 2021 after more than 19 years of imprisonment for a crime she did not commit. Two days prior, the State had vacated her murder conviction and sentence, and presented a plea agreement that would release Jennifer with her sentence considered “time served.”

“Jennifer has long maintained she is innocent of this crime, and the Illinois Innocence Project knows and believes her to be innocent,” said Stephanie Kamel, one of Jennifer’s IIP attorneys. “To be released, she faced an extremely difficult decision – accept a plea to a lesser charge or remain wrongfully imprisoned for years to come. Driving her decision was her father, whose health is deteriorating rapidly due to Alzheimer’s disease.

“While we would like to have seen Jennifer’s conviction vacated with no plea agreement required, we are glad she is finally free and reunited with her family after an almost 20-year absence.”

Coerced into a false confession

In March 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. In the ensuing chase the owner was shot and killed. Jennifer was wrongfully accused of being the getaway driver.

Just 19 at the time, Jennifer was intimidated and coerced into providing a false confession after nearly 15 hours of interrogation by multiple male law enforcement officers. No parents or legal representation were present with her.

At Jennifer’s trial, law enforcement withheld extensive and credible evidence implicating an alternate suspect group, never divulging the existence of the group. The alternate suspect group repeatedly confessed to committing the crime, providing to family, friends and two different police departments critical facts about the crime only the perpetrators would know.

Convicted under "theory of accountability"

Jennifer ultimately was wrongfully convicted of first-degree murder and attempted armed robbery under the “theory of accountability” – in which a person can be found guilty of acts committed by others. Despite having no prior criminal record, she was sentenced to 27 years in prison.

No physical evidence ever connected Jennifer or her three co-defendants to the crime. Multiple rounds of DNA testing (even as recently as 2020) have excluded her and her co-defendants from handling any key pieces of evidence located at the bloody crime scene.

Over the course of three separate trials, the State prosecuted and convicted Kenneth Smith, one of Jennifer’s co-defendants, as the actual shooter. Recently the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals found the trial evidence failed to support his conviction beyond a reasonable doubt. His conviction was vacated and he was released from prison in May 2021.