She Was Just Hungry – The Story of Jasmine Miller

She Was Just Hungry – The Story of Jasmine Miller

The little girl was playing outside of the motel that her family had just moved into. When suddenly she realized that she was hungry, she took off to grab a snack. But the little girl would never come back again.

The story I have for you today is one in which there was one murderer; however, there were two other people who were considered partially responsible in this little girl’s death. This is the story of Jasmine Miller.

Jasmine Marie Miller was born on September 29th, 2008, in Wichita, Kansas. She was the daughter of Raymond Miller Jr. and Lori Kratky. Jasmine had two brothers named Logan and Raymond, and a sister named Jewel. Jasmine, or “Jazzy” for short, was described as a beautiful, loving, and kind-hearted girl. She loved to swim, sing, and dance. She loved spaghetti and meatballs, pizza, dogs (especially Chihuahuas), and anything with glitter. Her favorite colors were pink and purple, and the little girl already had her sights set on being a cheerleader when she grew up.

At the time of her death, Jasmine was also a kindergartener at Cedar Ridge Primary School in Branson, Missouri, but she had only recently started there after she had moved from Springfield, where she was a student at Horace Mann Elementary School. In July of 2011, Jasmine’s mother, Lori, married a man named Jason Balo. After living with her mother and stepfather for a few years, at the end of 2013, Jasmine went to live with a family friend named Amanda Kennedy.

Amanda had a written agreement with Jasmine’s parents, Lori and Jason, stating that she would be Jasmine’s legal guardian. This was so that Amanda could enroll the little girl in school and take care of any medical matters that may arise. Amanda, who was a single mother, said that Jasmine had been living with her since September 3rd, 2013, without any assistance from the little girl’s parents. Amanda had first met Jasmine when she began babysitting the little girl, but Amanda said that every time Jasmine came over to her house, she would be wearing clothes that were too small, or she would be hungry.

At the time Amanda met the family, Jason had been working for the Springfield News-Leader newspaper, and he and Lori would be out on the road at 3:00 a.m. along with little Jasmine. Amanda knew this was not a good schedule for such a small child, so she stepped in and offered to babysit Jasmine. This arrangement worked well for everyone, especially the little girl, but in only a short time, Lori and Jason would begin not showing up for days to pick up their daughter.

Now, Amanda said that Lori and Jason were not capable of caring for Jasmine, and that’s why she initially took her into her custody. However, Jason and Lori had something different to say. They said that they had sent Jasmine to live with Amanda because of the kidnapping and murder of a little girl named Hailey Owens in Springfield, and they did not want their daughter to be in the Springfield area anymore. However, Hailey Owens didn’t get murdered until February of 2014, and Amanda said that Jasmine had already been living with her for a few months full-time at this point.

So, after Lori and Jason began leaving Jasmine with Amanda longer and longer, Amanda would call them, and they would come over and do things such as have dinner, but then leave again later that night and leave Jasmine again with Amanda. But Amanda had no problem caring for Jasmine; she loved the little girl like she was her own.

From September 2nd to December 24th of 2013, Amanda had custody of Jasmine, but Jason and Lori would come take her on Christmas Eve to go to her grandparents’ house. Amanda wouldn’t hear from the family again until February 1st of 2014, when Jason called her up and told her she needed to come get Jasmine because she was banging her head against things and they didn’t know what to do. So, did they really send her to live with Amanda because of the little girl that got murdered, or were there other reasons?

Once Amanda had Jasmine, that’s when her parents signed over temporary custody of her. In the fall of 2014, Amanda, along with Jasmine, moved to Cape Girardeau without telling the Balos. Amanda said at that time she planned on just keeping Jasmine and raising her as her own, but the Balos would end up demanding their daughter back in early 2015. Amanda contacted her attorney to see if there was anything that she could do, but they told her that she would just get arrested if she did not return the little girl to her parents, as she had no legal grounds. Amanda returned the little girl to her parents, and shortly after, the family moved to Branson, Missouri. Amanda would never see Jasmine again.

On February 21st, 2015, around 6:30 a.m.—only a little over two weeks after Jasmine had gone to live with her parents again—the little girl woke everyone up for the day. Now, the family was currently living at the Windsor Inn on West 76 Country Boulevard in Branson. The family had moved there as it was more affordable than where they had been previously living in Springfield. The Windsor Inn had low monthly rates for people who might otherwise be homeless.

So, on the morning of the 21st, the family was sitting in their motel room watching television when an acquaintance of theirs, who also lived at the motel named John Roberts, came by. He asked Jason if he could drive him to run a few errands; he needed to pick up a few things. Jason agreed, and the two of them took off to a Super Walmart. Jasmine decided to tag along. Now, Jason had given John a ride before, just the previous week, actually. He had driven John to his friend’s house as well as a few other places, so during this trip, John gave Jason a little bit of money for gas. After grabbing a few items from Walmart, the three headed to Wendy’s because Jasmine had recently gotten a good report card and Jason wanted to reward her. After that, they returned to the Windsor Inn, where Jasmine changed her clothes and then went outside to play.

Jason said that the entire time she was outside, he had the door open and the blinds open so that he could keep an eye on her. But around 6:15 p.m., Jason noticed that Jasmine was gone. He couldn’t find her anywhere, so he called the Branson Police Department. Police were dispatched to the Inn. They searched the Inn as well as adjoining properties, and after they had searched multiple rooms, police found Jasmine. Her naked body was discovered under the bed of one of the rooms at the Inn, Room 155. She had been strangled, and the only occupant who was living in this room was John Roberts.

John Roberts was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. He was then booked into the Taney County Jail. The family, who had known John, said that they had gone to his room a few times before, but Jasmine had never gone alone. Jason also told investigators that he and Lori had never observed anything odd about John’s behavior prior to that night. When the investigators sat down to speak with John after his arrest, he told them that that night he had been on “devil poison,” or methamphetamine. He said he couldn’t remember it clearly, but he did remember that Jasmine had come over to his room that night.

John often left his motel room door unlocked because Jasmine often came over by herself for snacks, unlike what Jason had said. Normally, John would share his food and snacks with Jasmine and her family. But this time, for some reason, when he walked out of the bathroom and saw Jasmine there trying to steal some snack cakes, something snapped in John. That night, John grabbed Jasmine by the throat and squeezed. After she had stopped breathing, he dragged her across the carpet and placed her body under his bed. He said he had not meant to hurt her; he had just meant to scare her. But leading up to this bad decision was the fact that John had been smoking meth and drinking alcohol the entire night.

John also said that he was mad at one of his neighbors, though he didn’t say which, because he had bought a couple hundred dollars worth of meth for them, and they had yet to pay him back. So, he had taken his frustration from this out on Jasmine. John told police that he wasn’t sure how Jasmine’s clothing had come off, but he said he was pretty sure it was from him dragging her across the floor. But what had really happened that night was John had strangled Jasmine after he caught her stealing some of his snack cakes, and then he had planned to, quote, “mess around” with her sexually, which was why he had actually pulled down her clothing. However, the Inn manager and the fire department, who were searching for Jasmine at the time, had knocked on his door right before he was about to do so, and that’s when he stuffed her under his bed.

John Roberts had actually been out of jail on bond at the time of Jasmine’s murder. He had previously been charged with felony burglary and was released on a $171 cash bail that his brother posted for him. This was only 10 days prior to him killing Jasmine. John had also been incarcerated in the past for charges of possessing a controlled substance, most likely meth.

Amanda, the family friend who had previously had custody of Jasmine, said she was absolutely heartbroken when she learned of the little girl’s death. When she heard that the reason why she had gone into John’s room was because she was hungry, Amanda said that “she was always hungry.” Now, Amanda had found out about Jasmine’s death on February 22nd when Jason texted her. He texted saying, “I have bad news for you.” She thought this was an extremely odd way of him letting her know that the little girl she loved and cared for had died. Amanda would say that neither Lori nor Jason seemed very upset about Jasmine’s death. In fact, they had been bragging about all the things that they had been given by the churches, and Lori was also bragging to her about getting her hair and nails done after Jasmine’s death.

The Missouri Children’s Division of the Department of Social Services investigated her murder. There were concerns that Jasmine’s death had occurred in part due to her parents’ neglect. Jason and Lori, however, denied that Jasmine had been left alone for any extended period of time that night. During CPS’s investigation, it was unveiled that there had been a series of hotline calls and accusations of neglect concerning the little girl in the past. Apparently, the family had a history with Child Protective Services dating back to 2008 when Jasmine was only a few days old, but all this evidence of neglect would not come out until after Jasmine’s murder.

In a 550-page document, the family’s history with DCF had begun when Jasmine was only four years old, and over the next six years, child welfare workers from Kansas and Missouri would continue to check in to make sure that Jasmine was safe and healthy. Though they had never found enough evidence to conclude that she lived amongst cockroaches and maggots, or that she had been abused or neglected by those entrusted with her care—which is what the allegations to the Child Safety Hotline had said.

The first time that DCF had visited Jasmine, back in 2008, she was under the care of her mother, Lori, and her biological father, Raymond. The concern then was whether or not Lori and Raymond could parent their newborn. The notes written by the social worker said that the parents needed to be monitored to assure that they were actually feeding, changing, bathing, and caring for the little girl. It also said they had a significant lack of parenting skills. Another report had allegations of neglect by Lori and allegations of sexual and emotional abuse to Jasmine by Jason, but those allegations were all considered to be unsubstantiated, of course.

There was even CPS involvement when Jasmine had been living with the family friend, Amanda. Apparently, at the time, Amanda had a boyfriend who had spanked Jasmine with a ping-pong paddle. But Amanda said that she was at work at the time, and she denied seeing any bruises on the little girl afterward. Amanda would speak with CPS during their investigation, telling them that she had always had concerns of physical abuse, sexual abuse, and chronic neglect toward Jasmine. She also told them that when she had first started watching Jasmine, around the time the little girl was four, she had complained about her leg hurting. Amanda looked at Jasmine’s leg and noticed that there was a bite mark on her thigh, as well as bruising. The bite was almost near her genital area. When Amanda asked her what had happened, she told her that Jason had bit her.

Amanda asked Jason about the bite, and he admitted that he had bit Jasmine because she had bit him first (apparently, he’s five). He never explained why he had bit her in the area that he bit her, however. Amanda would also say that Jasmine told her she was scared at night of a ghost that came into her room that looked like her dad. She said this ghost would always come into her room and scratch her, and she indicated that the scratches were always near her genital area.

Amanda also told DCF that she had seen Lori in the past throw a fit and hit Jasmine in the chest and body with closed fists. However, Amanda said that she had just never reported these concerns because she was afraid that Jasmine would be taken away from her, and then she would not be able to further protect the little girl. Come to find out, Amanda had been planning a trip to Branson the weekend that Jasmine had died, but due to bad weather conditions, she had never made it out there. This trip was so that she could try to take custody back of the little girl.

After Child Protective Services had spoken to the adults in Jasmine’s life and finished their investigation, they came to the conclusion that the family’s chronic history of neglect of the little girl, as well as the inconsistent statements about the length of time that Jasmine had been unsupervised the night of her death, indicated that the neglect in supervision was a factor in the murder of Jasmine Miller. Jasmine had been unsupervised at the motel that night and had walked over to John Roberts’s room, where she was murdered. Her mother and stepfather were not providing proper supervision of her and had no idea where she was at the time. However, for some reason, there were no punishments given to either one of them. So, Child Protective Services did an entire investigation but did nothing when they came to the conclusion that they were partially at fault. Make that make sense.

Instead, in September of 2015, a judge found that 55-year-old John Roberts was not mentally fit to stand trial. A state psychiatrist said that John had an IQ of only 57 and a very basic, low comprehension of why he was in trouble. John Roberts also did not understand the type of punishment that he was facing. He had told a psychiatrist that he believed his punishment would range from being injected with poison or having his brain cooked, to going to schools and telling children about how evil drugs were. Yeah, I don’t think that’s going to happen; you’ll never be allowed near a child again.

He was then sent to Fulton State Hospital for mental health treatment with the goal that, in the future, he would be fit to stand trial. But in July of 2016, the online dockets for John Roberts’s case showed that the order filed by the Missouri Department of Mental Health had found that John was permanently incompetent to stand trial. The online listing was changed a few hours later, however, to state that only a mental exam had been filed and then sent to the judge for review. A Taney County prosecutor objected to the order, so a competency hearing was held over two days in February and March of 2017.

Then, in June of that year, it was declared that John Roberts was fit to stand trial. But two months later, in August, John’s public defender filed a motion in state appeals court and then in the state supreme court to challenge the ruling that John was fit to stand trial. The request at the time, however, was denied. But then in January, a judge approved further examination into the mental competency of John Roberts, and John pled not guilty on November 9th to first-degree murder. At the time, his lawyer objected to a subsequent arraignment hearing based on his client’s competency, but his objection was overruled. However, John’s attorney made it clear that he intended to file a motion regarding John’s ability to stand trial. Apparently, John’s public defender would win the appeal because John was once again declared unfit to stand trial, and his charges were dropped.

He will most likely spend the rest of his life in the custody of the Missouri Department of Mental Health. Although unlikely, if John is ever deemed to be mentally competent to stand trial, the charges could be refiled. Jason would come out and publicly say about Jasmine’s murder, “How can another human who has any kind of sympathy take a little life?” He also said, “We’re very thankful for everything that the police department did for us and how supportive this community is in everything. On another subject, I wish that people would quit thinking that all of us within the extended stays are druggies.”

A GoFundMe account was also set up for the funeral expenses of Jasmine Miller. The assistant superintendent with Branson Public Schools called Jasmine a vibrant kindergartener; even though she hadn’t been enrolled at the district long, she had become well known by the teachers and her class, he said. A vigil to remember Jasmine Miller was held on April 11th off of the busy tourist Highway 76, where the Inn Jasmine had disappeared from was located. More than 200 of Jasmine’s family, friends, and members of the public attended. They all wore pink and purple t-shirts, as well as released pink and purple balloons as a brigade of around 120 motorcycles drove by to honor Jasmine. There was also a makeshift memorial for flowers located at a Banana’s restaurant.

Well, thank you for listening to all of Jasmine’s story today. Three people were all found to be at least partially responsible for this little girl’s death, but none of them were punished. It’s rather frustrating. If John knew to hide Jasmine’s body, that means he knew that he had done something wrong, and I feel like that alone deserves some punishment. Either way, it’s horrid that this little girl was only acting like a child would, especially one who’s always hungry as Amanda had said, and she was killed for it.