Jennifer McKernan (nee McCullough)
(1957-2007)

Found hanging in her cell at the Women's Detention Center in Crownsville, Maryland, where she had been serving a 5-year sentence for credit card fraud.

Ms. McKernan was well liked by the other inmates in the prison and will be missed. Ms. McKernan was rumored to have always had a stash of cigarettes at the end of the month and was unselfish with them. She was an ace pinochle player as well.

She read the Tarot cards, prompting some to call her a witch, a title she did not dispute. She found it easier to serve her time having some of the "harder" inmates thinking she possessed magical powers. She could be found any time during free time giving readings for cigarettes, pens and paper.

She left behind a mass of poetry and other short writings, written late at night from inside her cell with a contraband flashlight. She was obviously putting together a book she had planned to entitle "From the Inside." Her family plans to publish it posthumously.

She is survived by her mother, Barbara Jackson, a sister, Patricia McHale, a brother, Irvin Charles McCullough III, and two loving children, Mickey and Colleen McKernan. She also had a couple of ex-husbands but when asked about them her family had "no comment."

There will be a private memorial service for family members only at McCully's Funeral Home in Brooklyn, Maryland. Sources say that the inmates Ms. McKernan left behind have already smoked a carton of cigarettes in her honor.

There was no evidence of a motive for the hanging.

Copyright © 2007 Jennifer McKernan (Luna)