CLEARWATER, Fla. - Jennifer Mee is a much different girl today than the shy high school freshman who wound up in the national spotlight in 2007 when she had hiccups that wouldn't stop.
It was all the attention that surrounded her unusual condition which she believes sent her down the wrong path.
"Every time I walked into school, 'oh, there's the hiccup girl, oh, let's be friends with Jennifer.' That was still overwhelming. People I never thought I would talk to came up to me and acted like they wanted to be my friend," Mee said.
Asked about the instant fame she said, "I basically let it all go to my head and just started doing what I wanted to do."
That's when Jennifer said she fell in with the wrong crowd. At 17 she left home and less than two years later faced the allegation of murder in the first-degree.
"I took the path of the devil. I really did. Instead of keeping my faith with the Lord, I let the devil overcome me," Mee said.
Police say Jennifer met 22-year-old Shannon Griffin online and led him to a St. Petersburg home where her boyfriend Lamont Newton and his friend Laron Raiford planned to rob Griffin at gunpoint.
In the course of the robbery Griffin was shot multiple times.
Do you think about the victim at all? she was asked. "Every day. I do. I think 'what if that was me behind that barrel?' That could have been my life taken. He didn't deserve -- he was very young. He was only a couple years older than I was. I think about it every day. It eats me alive."
She was asked if she felt responsible. Mee said, "I can't tell you the truth because I -- I didn't do nothing wrong. I'm not guilty of anything."
In police audio recordings obtained by NBC News Jennifer is heard giving two versions of what took place that night. First she says the shooting was part of a love triangle involving the victim Shannon Griffin, one of the suspects, Laron Raiford, and another woman.
"Laron, I guess found out he had some type of relationship going on with his girlfriend and Laron snapped."
In another interview that night Jennifer breaks down confessing that she lured the victim to the scene so the others could rob him.
Jennifer has gone back to the original story saying she was coerced into taking the blame.
Why implicate yourself in murder? she's asked. "From -- I just -- I don't know. It's hard. It's hard to explain. I...made a mistake. I thought since I was, quote/unquote, famous, so young, nothing would happen to me. So I went with a story I thought I wouldn't get in trouble with. But, in all reality it put me behind bars. I have been here five months. I could be facing life."
Jennifer's attorney says the truth will come out in court. "If you really believe her story she's really not guilty of anything except poor judgment in who she associated with," said attorney John Trevena.
So what's life like now behind bars? "Rough. Really, really rough. Prior to three days ago I was on lockdown 23 hours a day. Came out only a half hour each day, able to make a phone call which is only 20 minutes and able to get in the shower. Maybe talk for a couple minutes to the other female inmates. I don't get to see my family. Everything has been really rough. I am missing my sisters grow up, my mom," she said.
She missed her grandma's funeral. "I did. That broke my heart. I feel like I had a big part of why it happened with her passing away because she was so old -- not old, but stressed. I feel like I had a big toll on why she passed away," Mee said.
NEXT PAGE: On the possibility she will face life behind bars.
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