Michelle Ashley found not guilty for involvement in Marine Corps veteran murder

Reporter: Gail Levy, Marcello Cuadra Writer: Paul Dolan
Published: Updated:
Closing arguments in trial for the murder of a Marine Corps veteran. (CREDIT: WINK News)

Michelle Ashley has been found not guilty of being involved in the murder of a marine 25 years ago.

The jury deliberated for close to two hours before reading out that Ashley was not guilty.

“I told you I was innocent,” were Ashley’s first words to reporters after hearing the verdict, changing the course of her life forever.

It didn’t take long for Ashley to get to her second point after hearing the verdict. “You guys didn’t ask me. You didn’t ask me. You put on the news that I shot somebody you didn’t ask me. So now y’all can kiss my a** period,” Ashley stated.

“I’m very pleased with the jury’s verdict,” Robert Harris, Ashley’s attorney, said. “And I cannot thank the jury enough for looking through this. And I can’t thank the judge enough for giving us a fair trial.”

Michelle Ashley was arrested in 2019 for the murder of Marine Corps veteran and police academy graduate Keith Jones.

Both sides went at the jury during their closing arguments. The state believes Ashley helped plot the robbery of Jones, getting four men into the Tides Motel where those men beat and killed Jones.

Harris said that she truly was the victim of a robbery. Harris stated she didn’t need to rob Jones because she had money from working at the club Lookers in Fort Myers.

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