Friday's Child

Meagan J. Jimenez was introduced to the world on Friday, February 22, 1991. Born to Delance and Melissa Mangum, she would light up the world around her with her stunning blue eyes until, according to the Lexington County Sheriff's Department, Meagan overdosed on a deadly mix of methamphetamine and heroin. On the same day that President Donald J Trump donated his third-quarter salary to help combat the opioid crisis, November 26, 2019, Meagan "Mea Mea" Jimenez took her last breath.

In what seems to be commonplace with the Lexington County Sheriff's Department, the first officer on the scene quickly surmised that Meagan had died from a self-inflicted drug overdose when he observed the cap for a needle on the bed that Meagan had been in just before Sophia Binion, one of the four people present in the home, called 911. Meagan's toxicology report did indicate a deadly level of methamphetamine in her system, along with morphine free, codeine free, amphetamine (ADHD), and alprazolam (anxiety). The highest level recorded in her system was that of the methamphetamine at 5200 ng/ml. That level of methamphetamine in her system was certainly enough on its own to have taken the life of the young mother. It's not the overdose that anyone can question. What is in question, however, is how law enforcement didn't ask themselves some really basic questions at the scene. Nothing appeared to be anything but foul play at the scene, yet within moments of walking through the door, it was determined there was no foul play. The investigation into the death of Meagan J. Jimenez could not have been a better textbook example of what not to do.

The officer noted that he immediately noticed drug paraphernalia, and specifically mentioned the cap to a needle on the bed where Brandon Smith, the boyfriend of Meagan Jimenez, says he found her just moments before he had Sophia Binion, legal tenant of the home, made the 911 call to authorities in Columbia, South Carolina. Upon seeing the body of Meagan on the floor of the trailer that she and Brandon had moved into just a few weeks before her sudden death, the questions should have begun in earnest. Where was the needle that went with the cap that was left on the bed? Where did the bruising on her body come from? Where did the bruise on her neck come from? Where were Brandon Smith, Sophia Binion, and Haleigh Wells while Meagan was dying, supposedly alone in the bedroom that she shared with Brandon?

Missey Boyd, Meagan's mother said that her daughter had the fairest skin, the bluest eyes, and a shiny bald head until she was about two years of age. Meagan was described as a very good baby that grew into an inquisitive little girl that loved to learn. Meagan's grandmother was a teacher, and Meagan did her best to imitate her grandmother when she regularly "taught" her little brother in a makeshift school at home. It was Meagan's sixth year when a cancerous mole was found on her scalp that led to surgery to remove it. At around the age of ten, Meagan's feet began to turn outward, and the solution was bilateral ankle stents that left Meagan in a wheelchair for a while and grueling physical therapy to regain strength and balance. During this period in Meagan's life, her schooling was done from home for the most part, and it was quite a while before she was able to rejoin her friends to attend school. It was Meagan's young teenage years that she found what would turn out to be a passion for her, golfing. She was also active in her church choir and spent many hours with her grandparents. Life went along for Meagan, and she developed into a fun-loving teenager with an appetite for friends and fun with a connatural ability for speaking Spanish. When she was seventeen, she met who she thought would be the love of her life and became pregnant. She and the father of that child were married, and though Meagan tried to hold her marriage together, it would ultimately fail. After the divorce from her high school love, she filled her days with her friends and spent many hours traveling to and from Mexico. While in Mexico, Meagan taught the children English when she would visit, and she relished each trip. When Meagan's husband was deported from America with no possibility of returning, Meagan began to turn to drugs in earnest. She began to fill her time with more and more unseemly types and dropped into a deep depression. Just one month before Meagan took her last breath, she was in a horrendous motorcycle accident. Just three days before her death, she found that her back had been broken in the accident.

Who was in the house when Meagan was found dead?

According to reports, there were three other people present in the trailer that Meagan had recently moved into. Brandon Smith, Sophia Binion, and Haleigh Wells. Who are these three, and what was their story the day of Meagan's death?

Brandon Michael Smith is bad news. He has a lengthy criminal history and claims to have ties to a gang, Gangster Disciples. He is a low-level drug dealer and methamphetamine user. His criminal history reads exactly as one would think it would with a methamphetamine addiction. Fraud, shoplifting, and drug possession make an appearance on his record, as does impersonating a police officer. Following is Brandon's criminal record in the state of South Carolina.

1. Larceny
2. Failure To Return Rented Objects, Fraud. Appropriation, Value More Than $2,000, But Less Than $10,000
3. Shoplifting / Value $2000 Or Less (Enhancement Per 16-01-0057)
4. Drugs / Possession Of Less Than One Gram Of Meth. Or Cocaine Base, 1st Offense
5. Traffic/Hit And Run, Att. Vehicle, Duties Of Driver Involved In Accident, Property Damage
6. Impersonating / Impersonating Law Enforcement Officer
7. Burglary / Burglary (After June 20, 1985) - First Degree
8. Larceny / Grand Larceny, Value $5,000 Or More
9. Drugs/Possession Of A Schedule I
10. Burglary/(After 6/20/85)-3rd
11. Conspiracy/Criminal
12. Burglary/(Non-V)(After 1/20/8
13. Assault/Assault & Battery Of High
14. Lynching/Lynching-2n
15. Assault/Assault & Battery Of High
16. Lynching/Lynching-2n
17. Rsg / Receiving Stolen Goods, Value More Than $1,000 But Less Than $5,000
18. Burglary / Burglary (After June 20, 1985) - First Degree
19. Larceny / Grand Larceny, Value $5,000 Or More
20. Drugs/Possession Of Schedule I
21. Conspiracy/Criminal
22. Burglary/(After 6/20/85)-3rd
23. Burglary/(Non-V)(After 1/20/8
24. Burglary/(After 6/20/85)
25. Traffic / Use Of License Plate Other Than For Vehicle Which Issued
26. Traffic / Uninsured Motor Vehicle Fee Violation, 1st Offense
27. Traffic / Operating Or Permitting Operation Of Vehicle Which Is Not Registered And Licensed.
28. Traffic / Driving Vehicle At Greater Speed Than Is Reasonable Under Condition

It boggles the mind that with a record like Brandon Smith carried with him that he is not in prison. He seems to get away with his illegal activities on a regular basis. It certainly begs the question, how DOES he do it? The above record was ONE arrest. ONE instance of Brandon being caught breaking the law. There are at least twenty other cases, all with more of the same listed above.

Brandon's story was that he took Sophia to an appointment for drug rehabilitation and when he arrived back at the trailer, he went to check on what he believed to be a sleeping Meagan, found her dead, and IMMEDIATELY called 911. He explained that Sophia helped him move Meagan to the floor beside the bed and immediately began to administer CPR. Try as he might, he wasn't able to bring her back. Evidence shows that Meagan's body had not only entered the rigor mortis phase of decomposition of her body but was in the second stage, bloat. That would mean that Meagan's body was stiff and cold and not able to be manipulated. It would have been VERY apparent by the bloat (swelling) in her body, that she was no longer alive. Given the timeline that he gave and Sophia backed up, Meagan had to have been deceased long before Brandon and Sophia left that morning for Sophia's appointment. Bloat doesn't begin in a body until twenty-four to thirty-six hours after death. Meagan had to have been dead for a minimum of twenty-four hours for bloat to be present.

Sophia Josette Binion was the legal tenant of the trailer located on Steele Road West Columbia, South Carolina. Her story was that Brandon took her to an appointment so that she could attend a meeting in relation to drug rehabilitation. She further stated that when they got back to the trailer, she started cleaning and cooking dinner. A friend joined Sophia and Brandon during the time she says she was cooking dinner and cleaning the house. Sophia said that when Brandon went into the room to check on Meagan, he immediately called out that Meagan was purple and he needed help. She states she is the one that dialed 911 for emergency services that day, and records indicate she is telling the truth about that part of her story. She did, indeed, call 911. That's kind of where the story falls apart for her though. She told law enforcement officers that Brandon took her to a meeting and waited in the parking lot for her. Text messages between the two indicate that Sophia wasn't telling the truth, as she was texting Brandon to ask where he was, and said she was getting a ride from her boyfriend instead.

Sophia doesn't have much of a criminal history, but as is commonplace among methamphetamine users, she does have a record for theft. Sophia has also racked up quite a few traffic cases, including at least one DUI.

Haleigh Michelle Wells says she came to the trailer on Steele Rd. to hang out and eat dinner with Sophia, Brandon, and Meagan. She said when she arrived that she was playing music and had turned it up. It was then, she says, that she realized that Meagan had not joined them. Haleigh explained that she remembered that they had all played cards the evening before and Meagan has been sick. Haleigh said that she suggested to the others that perhaps the music should be turned down so as not to wake Meagan. Haleigh told law enforcement on the scene that it was then that "they", meaning Brandon and Sophia, went to check on Meagan. It was then that Brandon yelled out to Sophia and Haleigh that "she's purple" and he needed help. Haleigh explained that Sophia grabbed her cell phone and called 911 and then she helped Brandon move Meagan from the bed where she was found and onto the floor next to the bed. Haleigh says she wasn't in the room, but that when Meagan was moved to the floor, her arm and leg were stiff and unable to be manipulated. Haleigh eventually explained that her main issue with the whole scene is that when Brandon came out of the room to say Meagan was purple he didn't seem surprised by it at all. There was no urgency in his voice. That's telling in itself, but she had just told law enforcement that Brandon yelled from the room that Meagan was purple. Why, I wonder, did law enforcement not pick up that change in her story immediately?

As if Meagan's story isn't convoluted enough, Meagan's mother, Missey Boyd, circulated a picture that she claimed to be Meagan. I do believe Missey believed that picture to be Meagan in the beginning. In the picture, a woman with light-colored hair can be seen bound at the knees and wrists in the backseat of a car. She had obviously been beaten. That picture was circulated as Meagan, with the assurance from her family that they "know their family member" and that was one thousand percent Meagan J. Jimenez in the picture. The woman in the picture was wearing jeans and a t-shirt that Missey Boyd claims belonged to her daughter, and the picture was supposed to have been taken the day before Meagan's death. The people involved with taking the picture talked to me and explained what happened and who it was in that picture. Amber Hoffman is the woman in the picture. Height, weight, hair color, and shape of the face are all consistent with it being Amber Hoffman. The woman pictured has light hair and Meagan's hair was dark upon her death. It is worthy to note that none of the injuries that can be clearly seen in the photo were present at the time of Meagan's death.

Meagan was found in black shorts and a pink shirt with a design over the left side of her chest. She was found left lateral, meaning that when Brandon found her in the bed, she had been lying on her left side. A mark from her hand was present on her chest and another from where her hand had been resting on her leg. Marks that are consistent with sleeping on her left side were present, and one could easily determine those marks to be from the sheets she had been sleeping on. Her face had the same markings on the left side. Though the pictures from the scene of Meagan's death include her left side, none presented included the right side though it was requested on more than one occasion. When I asked if Missey had the right side pictures, and if they were consistent with Meagan having been tied up, she proclaimed that the markings were the same on both sides and she would see that I got those pictures immediately. To that point in the investigation, anything that I requested was sent mid-conversation. As of this writing, I've still not received the pictures that substantiate Missey's claim that Meagan's body showed evidence of being tied up.

When I approached the family with the news that it wasn't Meagan in the car, that it was instead an associate of Meagan's, and that two women were claiming responsibility, the reaction from Meagan's family was very unexpected. They became angry and combative immediately. Dismissing me as a fraud and making outlandish claims they can't possibly back up, just as quickly as they changed their story about what really happened to Meagan.

There was another thing that was noticed immediately upon opening the crime scene photos from my email. Meagan's hair was NOT light, as Missey and her family had claimed over and over. Meagan's hair was dark at the time of her death. When I asked about the difference, I was never answered. To my knowledge, the family has yet to acknowledge that Meagan's hair was a dark brown and not the blonde that can be clearly seen in the photo that is being circulated on social media as Meagan.

A few other things stood out to me in the short time that I was involved with this case. The aforementioned picture wasn't the only suspect thing that Missey has presented as evidence in the death of her daughter. There was another tale about an unknown white woman that entered the trailer that is in front of the one Meagan was found dead in, exited with a duffel bag, and left with an unknown black male in a nondescript vehicle. The police report indicates that Missey told the story to law enforcement immediately, but with one large difference. She stated emphatically that it was Haleigh Wells that left with an unknown black male with the duffel bag.

I am not sure what the motivation is to not tell the whole truth to a group of people that are doing their best to help find answers as to why Meagan isn't alive any longer. What I do know is that Meagan's case is tragic, and she is one of many in a county that has seen a fifty-seven percent increase in drug overdose deaths in just a year. My heart aches for her mother, and I wish her mother no ill will. She is doing what she believes is best for her daughter, and it's the only thing she can do for her now. The hole that was left in Missey's heart can't be measured. She fills her days and nights with trying to find answers for Meagan. She leads with her emotions, as would anyone in the same situation. When you are trying to find real answers, that requires real truth. Truth is hard to take sometimes. I truly hope that someone that knows will talk and give a grieving mother the answers she so desperately needs.

If you know anything about the death of Meagan J. Jimenez, please contact the Lexington County Sherrif's Department at (803) 785-8230. Silence isn't always golden.