Jennifer Kalicki Death, Obituary – In 2019, Eric Griffin was found guilty of all counts brought against him, including first-degree murder, for the gruesome beating death of his girlfriend, Jennifer Kalicki, who was 39 years old. The jury’s deliberations took less than five hours, and they reached their verdict shortly after. Several of Kalicki’s loved ones, including her mother, Kathy Gadd, were present in the courtroom during the entirety of Griffin’s trial, which began on June 29 in the Middlesex Superior Court and lasted until July 29.
Gadd spent each day of the trial watching Griffin from the defendant’s table while seated in the first row of the courtroom gallery. They were separated by a distance of many dozens of feet. Gadd was seen once again in the front row of the courtroom on Wednesday afternoon, late in the afternoon, with her eyes closed and her lips moving in a quiet prayer. The jurors were about to make their verdict.
After hearing the guilty convictions, Gadd embraced her family and friends who were sitting in the gallery of the courtroom. This included her one and only other kid, Matthew Kalicki, as well as her husband, George Gadd. It was clear that she felt excitement and relief after hearing the verdicts. Kathy Gadd said, “I’m in shock, I really am,” while she was wiping away tears from her eyes. “It’s exactly what I wanted, but I never in a million years thought I’d get it. I was afraid that it wasn’t going to happen for some reason, but I’m relieved because Griffin really does deserve to be mistreated.
Mernaysa Rivera and Junie Joseph, two of Jennifer Kalicki’s very good friends, were also at the courtroom on Wednesday. They were both there to support Jennifer. They comforted each other while crying and hugging after hearing that Griffin had been found guilty by the jury. Rivera and Joseph both came to the conclusion that the death of Kalicki eventually helped save the life of another person.
“Jen is gone, but he’s never going to hurt anyone ever again,” Rivera said of Griffin. “Jen was the last person he ever intended to hurt.” “She can rest in peace, and justice has been served,” Joseph said as an addition. Griffin was found guilty of first-degree murder, which carries a required sentence of life in prison without the chance of parole, as well as two charges of assault and battery on a household member, strangling, and intimidation of a witness. The life sentence without the possibility of release for first-degree murder is obligatory.
During the course of the trial, Middlesex Assistant District Attorney Suzanne Wiseman disclosed the fact that Griffin and Kalicki had dated intermittently for a period of a couple of years prior to Kalicki’s passing away. The prosecution stated on June 29 during her opening remarks that the couple’s connection was “punctuated by violence.” The phrase was used to describe the couple’s relationship.
When Griffin’s friend Kalicki tried to stop him from consuming drugs, according to Wiseman, the aggressive inclinations that Griffin already possessed would come to the surface. “This case is about abuse that culminated in murder,” Wiseman told the jury in the case. The corpse of Kalicki was discovered by first responders early on the morning of September 15, 2019, inside the apartment on Archstone Avenue that she and Griffin shared.
The unit had one bedroom. During the course of the trial, it came to light that Griffin had stated to the police that he had summoned emergency personnel to the flat after discovering Kalicki in bed unconscious and ice cold to the touch. Wiseman said that Griffin had staged the corpse of Kalicki on the bed after beating her the day before, and then “left her there to die.” There were other witnesses who claimed that they saw Kalicki laying in bed the day before and the night before that.
During the course of the trial, a forensic pathologist working for the Office of the Chief Medical Examiner named Dr. Anand Shah testified that an examination of Kalicki’s corpse led to the discovery that she had died as a result of “blunt force head injuries.” During her about one-hour-long closing arguments on Tuesday, Wiseman told the jury that there were “specifically at least four areas of blunt force trauma to the back of her head, causing a brain bleed, which caused an agonizingly slow death.” Wiseman’s remarks came after the conclusion of the trial.
Wiseman and Middlesex Assistant District Attorney Maren Shrader revealed the gruesome photographs of Kalicki’s body at various times throughout the trial. The images showed a variety of bruises and abrasions splattered throughout the body of the 39-year-old woman, which they claimed were caused by Griffin.
During the course of the trial, the attorneys for Griffin, William Dolan and Debra DeWitt, argued that Kalicki could have been the one who initiated the fight, and that Griffin was only defending himself against her. The defense made attention to wounds that were seen on Griffin’s face that were caused by Kalicki prior to her passing away.
Dolan and DeWitt also referred to Kalicki’s arrest in June 2019, when he was purportedly accused of assaulting Griffin. However, the allegation against Kalicki was ultimately dropped. During his opening statements, Dolan addressed the jury and stated his opinion towards the prosecution, saying, “They want you to believe that this is as simple as angels and demons.” “Eric was a devil, and Jen was an angel, even while she was attacking Eric. Even when she did that. … There is no devil in Eric, and there was no angel in Jen.
Dolan and DeWitt were standing next to Griffin as the jury announced their findings on Wednesday just after 4 o’clock in the afternoon. Griffin, who seemed disheartened throughout the course of the trial, continued to exhibit similar demeanor after learning the verdict. After the trial was over, DeWitt stated that everyone is disheartened by the verdict, and he continued by saying, “I don’t think the jury got it right.”
“I think we have a couple appeal issues to look at, but it’s a tragedy for both families,” DeWitt said. “I think we have a couple appeal issues to look at.” The question of Griffin’s substance addiction was brought up repeatedly during the trial. After spending the past several years waiting for his trial away from narcotics in prison, DeWitt stated that Griffin is now “thinking with a clear mind.” Griffin has been incarcerated for a while now.
“It is abundantly clear that he was engaged in a conflict with demons at the time,” DeWitt said. “Addiction.” Additionally present in the courtroom on Wednesday were Tewksbury Police Chief Ryan Columbus and Tewksbury Police Sgt. Shane Gallagher. Both of these individuals were essential in the investigation of the case. They did nothing except look on as Kalicki’s family and friends celebrated the decisions in their favor.
