Mother Of Murdered Plantation Woman Speaks
FT. LAUDERDALE (CBSMiami) - Joan Luciano said she is devastated over the murder of her daughter, Jeanine. But what haunts the 84-year-old is the phone call she says she received from the killer -- her daughter's longtime domestic partner, Michele McCann -- in the moments after the fatal shooting.
"'Are you happy? Your daughter's dead. I shot her and it's your fault,'" Luciano said McCann told her. "And she started cursing."
Joan says she immediately called 911. Police say McCann shot Jeanine Luciano once in the face in the bathroom of the Plantation home the couple shared, killing her.
"If you say you love somebody, how could you kill them?" Joan said.
Joan Luciano says her daughter Jeanine was a nurse. She said Jeanine was with McCann for decades although the couple had separated for times in the past few years. Joan says McCann had trouble with alcohol and little by little pulled Jeanine away from her family.
"She's a real control freak and took all of Jeanine's friends away from her," Joan told CBS 4's Carey Codd. "Totally alienated (them) from her."
On Monday, McCann appeared in court charged with murder. She was wearing a self-protection smock reserved for inmates on suicide watch. Judge John Hurley ordered McCann held without bond.
According to the police report, "When police arrived McCann said, 'It took you long enough.'" When asked about the shooting McCann told police, "I had no choice, put up with her." When asked if any of the blood on her clothing was hers, McCann replied "No, I (expletive) shot her. She's in the front bedroom," according to the report.
Investigators said the couple was arguing over "relationships" prior to the shooting.
A neighbor who's know McCann for most of her life believes McCann changed after suffering a head injury in an industrial accident several years ago.
"A high pressure hose came loose and hit her," said Elise Judy, a neighbor. "It was a very serious accident and I think she was never the same after that."
But Jeanine Luciano's mother says McCann's problems go deeper than that. She says McCann forced her daughter to keep her family at arm's length, like micromanaging the time she spent with her family at the holidays. She says McCann should be punished for what she admitted doing.
"I hope and pray she stays in jail forever," she said. "I'm sorry she didn't shoot herself afterwards but this way she'll suffer more."
