Charlie is one of two young women convicted as accomplices in the horrific murder of 15-year-old Seath Jackson. The teen was lured to the home inhabited by Ely, where a group of teens beat and shot him to death, before burning him in a fire pit until he was ashes. His ashes were then put into paint cans in a crime that was one of the most gruesome committed by young people in recent Florida history.
There is one problem with the case, though: Charlie never physically committed any part of the murder.
Charlie Ely has long admitted that she was at the home the day Seath Jackson was murdered, and she has long maintained that she hid in a bedroom in shock and fear while the crime took place. Nonetheless, she was given a life sentence, of which she has served four years.
At the time of the crime, Ely was living alone for the first time in her life after her husband had gone to jail. She was a young bride of just 18-years-old, and a naive girl who had lived an otherwise sheltered life. She was also a long-term victim of bullying (due to her eye deformity). She was afraid and lonely, and therefore vulnerable to falling into the wrong crowd -- which is precisely what she did against the warnings of her loved ones (who lived elsewhere). Ely ended up in cahoots with Michael Bargo, Justin Soto, James Young Havens III and siblings Amber Wright and Kyle Cooper. All of the members of this group played active roles in the murder of Seath Jackson -- and likely the intimidation of Charlie Ely. Bargo has even been given the death penalty over his role in the murder.
There is no doubt that Jose Baez will be a bulldog for Charlie Ely. She is a young woman who made a terrible mistake, but she did not commit a murder and she did not voluntarily help in covering up the murder of Seath Jackson. She deserves freedom, another chance at life.