Crime Weekly - S3 Ep214: Julie Jensen: Psychological Warfare (Part 1)

Episode Date: June 7, 2024

On the late afternoon of December 3, 1998, Mark Jensen called 911 from his Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin home to report that his wife, 40-year-old Julie Jensen, was found dead in bed. When the police arrived, Mark suggested Julie might have died from an allergic reaction to new medication, he said she had been sick for a few days before her death. However, as the police looked around, they grew suspicious about the circumstances surrounding Julie’s death. They called in the medical examiner’s office and the district attorney’s office, both of which agreed that something was off. An investigation was opened, and it was soon discovered that for weeks before her death, Julie was deeply concerned that Mark, her husband of 14 years, was going to murder her. If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic violence or abuse, please call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233, or text START to 88788. You can also visit their website at www.thehotline.org. Try our coffee!! - www.CriminalCoffeeCo.com Become a Patreon member -- > https://www.patreon.com/CrimeWeekly Shop for your Crime Weekly gear here --> https://crimeweeklypodcast.com/shop Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/CrimeWeeklyPodcast Website: CrimeWeeklyPodcast.com Instagram: @CrimeWeeklyPod Twitter: @CrimeWeeklyPod Facebook: @CrimeWeeklyPod ADS: 1. SKIMS.com - Get FREE shipping on orders over $75! After placing your order, select "podcast" in the survey and let them know we sent you! 2. AloMoves.com - Use code CRIMEVIP for a FREE 30-Day trial and 20% off an annual membership! 3. Smalls.com/CrimeWeekly - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY to get 50% off your first order and FREE shipping! 4. ZipRecruiter.com/CrimeWeekly - Try ZipRecruiter for FREE! 5. LiquidIV.com - Use code CRIMEWEEKLY to get 20% off your first order!

On the late afternoon of December 3rd, 1998, Mark Jensen called 911 from his Pleasant Prairie, Wisconsin home to report that his wife, 40-year-old Julie Jensen, was found dead in bed. When police arrived, Mark suggested that Julie might have died from an allergic reaction to new medication. He said she'd been sick for a few days before her death. However, as the police looked around, they grew suspicious about the circumstances surrounding Julie's death. They called in the medical examiner's office and the district attorney's office, both of which agreed something was off. An investigation was opened and it was soon discovered that for weeks before her death, Julie was deeply concerned that Mark, her husband of 14 years, was back to Crime Weekly. I'm Stephanie Harlow.

And I'm Derek Levasseur. So today we're diving into a new case, and it's one that both Derek and I really didn't have a ton of information on going in, but I think it's definitely a great case to talk about. And it's something that I feel like happens a lot these days. A lot of spouses being suspects for the murders of their partners. We know the statistics, but this case definitely illustrates this in a different way, but in a very clear way. And we need to talk about Julie Jensen, her marriage, her life, and what ended up happening to her. a former detective myself, I think about how many other cases where it looks like on the surface, it was an overdose or an accidental overdose or something of that nature where you don't have

anything to dispute it. Right. But in a case like this, where it appears on the surface that there were breadcrumbs left before Julie's death, you ask yourself, how many other cases did the person feel that way? The victim feel that way, but did not leave something like this and what would have been the outcome in those cases if they had. So it definitely as an investigator makes you go back and think about your own cases and just want, you know, you always question yourself, did I miss anything? And cases like this, where you have evidence that the victim before their death knew something was off and fortunately left stuff behind to prove that or suggest that. It definitely makes you think. I'll say that. But I don't know the details of

it. So I'm looking forward to hearing this one because not everyone agrees that this is what transpired in this case. All right. So Julie Carol Griffin was born on February 26th, 1958 to her parents, Raymond and June. And she grew up in Kenosha, Wisconsin, in a tight-knit family that included five brothers. The Griffin family traveled the country in a school bus that their father, Raymond, had converted into a fully functional motor home. And they went all over the place. They went to Canada, Florida, Idaho, the Ozarks, and many other places. And whether they were at home or on the road, the family stayed very close and very active. They would hike, fish, swim. They played sports together. They went ice skating. You name it, the family was doing it. And when the Griffins weren't spending time outdoors, they were inside playing cards and board games, just enjoying each other's company. Julie's parents and brothers would always say that they loved Julie's gentle, carefree, and easygoing nature. Her personality was warm, nurturing, caring, and sincere, and her brothers said that she was the absolute perfect sister. In the 1970s, Julie attended

Tremper High School, where she was an excellent student. She maintained straight A's and participated as an exchange student in Germany. Julie was also involved with the music department. She played the accordion and the violin, and she sang in the choir. And on top of that, Julie worked at Sears to bring in some extra spending money. After graduating from high school in 1976, Julie continued working at Sears, and it was there that she met a man, Mark Jensen, who was also working in the department store. Mark was born in Kenosha, Wisconsin, to parents Dan and Florence, and not much is known about his childhood except that he was a Cub Scout and a Boy Scout, and he graduated from Tremper High School, just like Julie. After Julie and Mark started dating, they both enrolled at the University of Wisconsin, Oshkosh, while Julie attended the nursing program. It is unclear

what Mark studied during college. However, we do know that after college, he went on to become a successful stockbroker. So we assume he probably studied something in that field and most likely got a degree in that field. While in college, Julie worked at a nursing home, but it ended up not being the best fit because she would become very attached to the patients and she was devastated when they died. This experience led her to believe that she could not be a nurse, so she quit the program shortly before graduating. Mark ended up graduating from college and, like I said, he went on to become a stock broker while Julie took a job as a bank teller. Later, she went to work at a brokerage firm in

Lake Bluff, Illinois, and eventually she earned a license to be an investment broker. And on April 14, 1984, Julie and Mark got married, and they would later settle in Pleasant Prairie, an upscale neighborhood south of Kenosha that borders Lake Michigan. Julie seemed to love her new home. She spent many hours remodeling, painting, wallpapering, gardening, and landscaping. She even had a sewing room filled with patterns for stylish clothes, curtains, quilts, and so much more. And in January of 1990, almost six years into their marriage, Julie and Mark welcomed a son, David. Julie's family said that her gentle personality allowed her to be a great mother as she nurtured her son with patience and love.

Julie's friend, Kim Shaw, said, quote, we all looked up to her as being a perfect mother, end quote. And apparently, Julie and Mark had a pretty good marriage. They seemed to get along for a little while. Their next door neighbor, Margaret Wolfe, said that Julie and Mark would always be outside. They were always working on some kind of project. And she said they would laugh and have fun while they were doing it, that it was amazing to watch them. They seemed like the best of friends. They seemed like they had the perfect marriage. But while Julie was a natural at being a mother, reportedly, Mark was far from being a good father. And in fact, according to a lot of different reports, he was basically useless. As a baby, little David was very colicky, but Mark

refused to help care for him. Yet, he still insisted that Julie keep the household spotless and have meals ready on time when he got home from work. Later, Julie told one of her brothers that Mark never even wanted any kids, which is why he insisted that Julie did all the work. He was also pressuring Julie to return to her job after an extended maternity leave period. All of this left Julie feeling very depressed. So starting in June of 1990, she began seeing a psychologist named Paul DeFazio. Her main talking points during these therapy sessions was that she wanted to stay home with her son instead of going back to work. And she felt like Mark had no interest in the baby or helping her around the house.

Yeah. On the surface, when we talk about neighbors and their perception of a couple from the outside, first and foremost, for anybody who lives close to people in their residential area, you know the surface level stuff. Normally, if the houses are far enough apart, you may not be exposed to the things that are happening inside the house. But even in those cases, there are a lot of different explanations for why on the outside, a family can look like it's the perfect situation. And on the inside, it's anything but that. And I've said to you guys before about my experience as a police officer, where there were multiple times when I'd be off duty, I would see this individual with their family or whatever, they were a coach or a director of a youth program or whatever, or a councilman

or a councilwoman and, and see him in a suit and tie and they look great. And then three o'clock in the morning, I'm getting called there for domestic disturbance. And he just, he just hit her multiple times in the bedroom because he's been drinking too much. So what can be happening here is you could have a situation where they're just kind of pretending to the outside, although it looks like they were caught in different moments where they didn't know they were being watched. And if that's the case, you could have situations where at moments the relationship was great.

And at moments it was exactly the way it looked. Which is what kept her there, probably. That's where I was going with this. It could be the highest highs, which is what, those are the things you hold on to. But then there's also the lowest lows. And it's this unfortunate situation where some days you couldn't be happier and some days you can't get away fast enough. So I do think more often than not, that is the situation. And then there's a lot of in-betweens. It's a spectrum where, you know, it also could be an evolution where it starts off really

well and then it can deescalate over time. And when they were seen, when these things were being viewed, it could have been a point where things were good and they just got out of hand really fast. It doesn't always happen over multiple years. It can happen over a couple months if something bad enough happens. So a lot of reasonings for it, but never happy to hear about it because, again, they had children, like you mentioned, and at the end of the day, they're the ones that suffer the most. Let's take our first break and we'll be right back. So the psychologist, Paul DeFazio, he initially diagnosed Julie with a very mild depression called adult situation reaction with mixed features. So this really does look like it's some sort of adjustment disorder.

And adjustment disorders are basically excessive reactions to stress that involve negative thoughts, strong emotions, and changes in behavior. The reaction to a stressful change or event is much more intense than would typically be expected. And this can obviously cause a lot of problems in getting along with others, as well as life problems in work, school, things like that. But the mixed features part of this adjustment disorder, that refers to the presence of high and low symptoms occurring at the same time or as part of a single episode. And in most people experiencing an episode of mania or depression, if you're having these highs and lows, that's going to be the mixed feature part, the context of this adjustment disorder. Yeah, I think for me, and this is in my field of expertise, but that is the one thing where you do know there was obviously something going on there for her to go to the point

where she's seeking professional help. And in some instances, it comes out of nowhere where everything's still perfect at home, but just, you know, it just happens. Mental health issues can come up without any reason at all. But in many instances, there's something that occurs that causes that trauma that creates this level of anxiety or depression that you now have. And it appears to be the case here. Yes. So initially, this is what Paul DeFazio told Julie he thought she had. But later, he thought her depression was slightly worse, being more towards the middle of the scale. And DeFazio suggested that Julie try samples of Prozac,

which she took and then reported back that it made her feel better. Now, after improving, Julie never refilled her Prozac prescription and instead decided to see DeFazio with Mark for marriage counseling. Now, although Mark initially agreed to meet with Paul DeFazio to help their marriage, he ended up canceling many appointments. And when he did actually show up, he mostly talked about Julie being the problem. But DeFazio later testified that he found Mark to be introverted and emotionally stoic, unequipped and overwhelmed by fatherhood. In these counseling sessions, Mark would claim that Julie was too involved with their child and she needed to go back to work. It's insane to hear a parent say that his co-parent is too involved with their children.

Stop loving your child so much. Yeah, we all know that the best thing for a child, especially in early childhood, is having an attentive parent who's meeting their needs and giving them a healthy attachment style. But no, you need to get back to work. Even though Mark's a successful stockbroker, Julie's got to go back to work instead of be there for their child. Why even bother having children at that point? Why did he even agree if he never wanted them and he didn't even want his wife to stay home and parent them. You know, something else I'm reading between the lines here, and I could be completely wrong, but in a lot of instances, these individuals will try to find a way to justify why it's not them. And they'll actually believe it too, by the way. So what I'm reading between the lines here is

not only that she was too involved with her child, but he was probably insinuating, this is too much for her. She can't handle the kids. That's why she's so stressed out. That's why she has anxiety now. Before the kid, she was fine. Now she's not. This is the child's fault. She's having some type of postpartum depression after the baby's born. This has nothing to do with the way I'm treating her. That's what I'm picking up here, what he's trying to throw down, hey, it's not me, it's the baby. I also think it's interesting that sometimes men like this are almost jealous of the babies, the children, you know, because before he had his wife all to himself, he would get that ego stroke. And she was there to give him the attention and spend time

with him. They were outside laughing and their neighbors are like, oh, my God, look at them. They're the perfect couple. They're the best of friends. But now there's a baby in the picture. And of course, if Julie's a good mother, which she reportedly was, she's going to put her all into being there for that child. And yes, a baby is very needy, takes up a lot of time. But then once again, imagine being in this position, right? A woman who is financially dependent on her husband at this point because she's not working because she's taking care of the baby. Right.

She's a new mother. You have a child with this person now. So just one more thing that ties you to him. And suddenly you're seeing a side of him that you never saw before. Well, what do you do? She's trying to go to marriage counseling. He's not being cooperative.

He's putting it all on her. Still, what do you do? You get a divorce when you just had a baby? Can you see a part of this too, where if you're the mom in this position and you're trying to take care of your newborn baby and your husband is constantly beating you down, berating you, making you feel guilty

that you're not giving him enough attention, where you can almost you feel guilty that you're not giving him enough attention where you can almost start to believe that like, oh my God, maybe I am, you know, not thinking about his needs and his wants as his wife. And so, I mean, it's one of those things where you could have a situation here where unfortunately some of the guilt, some of the anxiety she had was trying to balance both plates, you know, at one time, both spinning plates and without letting them fall where she's trying to be a good attentive wife while also tending to the needs of her newborn baby. And that could be stressful. That could be stressful for anybody. So Julie did end up compromising, I guess, or just giving in. And she returned to work part time.

And this meant she had a two-hour commute per day to Illinois while her baby was waiting at home for her. And of course, this didn't help her mental health. This still left Julie feeling depressed and upset, and she confided in friends that she thought Mark didn't love her anymore. And this led her to having a brief affair with a man that she worked with. His name was Perry. He would later testify that one weekend in 1991, when Mark was away, Julie asked him to come over for dinner. And while he was there, she ended up asking him to spend the night and he agreed. And obviously one thing led to the other. They ended up in the bedroom.

They had sex. However, Julie abruptly ended their relationship after that. And later she said she didn't want any contact with him. Soon after, Mark secretly recorded Julie's phone conversations and found out about the affair. Now, apparently, when Mark found out about this affair, he was upset. They argued. Julie filed for divorce, but she never ended up going through with it. However, it wasn't because Mark forgave her. It wasn't because they worked things out because the affair that Julie had with her

coworker, it changed everything in the Jensen marriage. And there's going to be evidence that Mark never forgave Julie Jensen for that affair. And listen, this happens a lot. I've seen this as a mediator who comes into especially domestic violence situations as a police officer, patrolman, where we separate the two parties and the argument that they're having that we were called for isn't even about something that happened that night. It's some residual aftermath of what's been going on for sometimes weeks, months, maybe even years.

And when you start to break down those walls and you break up the two parties, usually because of ego, it's not the male in the two parties. It's usually the female who will say, listen, I had an affair, a short affair a few years ago. He found out about it. We agreed to kind of try to work on things, but he just always throws it in my ago. He found out about it. We agreed to kind of try to work on things, but he just always throws it in my face. He's always bringing it up. And if like there's something that comes up, he wants to continue to talk about it. And so you, then you go over to him and, and, oh no, that's not the problem. I don't even care about that, but you know, he's calling her all the names you can think you can imagine before we arrive. So this is something that unfortunately

where one of the two parties will betray the trust of the other. And out of love, they may try to work things out. But I think in a lot of cases, it's very difficult for that person to do so, male or female. That's a tough thing to get over. And oftentimes, once again, these men, although this affair changed the way they look at their wives, they will keep them in the marriage simply to continue punishing them. And it looks like that's what happened because Julie filed for divorce. A few days later, she withdrew the petition because Mark threatened her that if she followed through with the divorce, she would never see their son again. And after Julie and Mark ended up staying together, Julie would tell her neighbor and friend, Ted, that Mark was controlling.

He would give her a list of chores he wanted her to do every day on top of keeping the house spotless, on top of taking care of their son. Mark would also make Julie wear a cordless phone at all times, even when she was in their yard gardening. That way, he could keep tabs on her. He could call. If she didn't answer, she would pay for it. Julie also said that when Mark came home from work, she and her son would immediately have to drop what they were doing for, quote unquote, daddy time. Now, eventually, Mark no longer let Julie have a job, and she became a stay-at-home mom. But it wasn't really in the way that she wanted it. It was more like a prison sentence, because Mark still required that she tell him where she was at all times. And this controlling

behavior escalated as the months passed. And in September of 1991, things came to a head when Julie's mother was hospitalized after a near-drowning accident. Julie's mother seemed to recover, but then she went downhill fast. However, Mark refused to let Julie go to Florida to see her mother because he was not capable of taking care of their son alone. And by the time he finally agreed to let her go, it was too late, and Julie did not get to see her mother before she died. And this is unforgivable for me. You think an affair is hard to come back from? You wouldn't let me say goodbye to my dying mother. No, definitely a very toxic situation. And it's easy on the outside. And we talk about it all the time. It's easy on the outside to say, oh, if you see these things, if you feel these things, get out, move on. It's not good for you.

It's so much easier said than done. I don't care. It doesn't matter what role you are in the relationship. It's not always women. Sometimes it's men. These people are not just characters on a page. They're actual individuals with personalities and feelings. So for us to sit here in hindsight, as we're reading it to you and talking about it, to say, oh, you should just get out. We know that's not the case. We know how hard it can be, especially when there's a child involved, especially when you have one of the parties threatening to never let you see that child again.

It complicates things. That's the human element of this. It's a lot easier said than done, especially take the kid out of it for a second. When you have history with this person and for a period of time, like we talked about earlier, things were great. Things were what you had hoped your life would be. And I'm sure there's a part. I know there's a part as a human where you're hoping it can get back to there.

We did it before. We can do it again. And that false hope is what sometimes keeps people around. Even towards the end, it's not always bad 24-7. He's mad at her about the affair. He's mad at her about the affair. They get in a fight about it. But in her head, she's like, I mean, valid, you know, valid. I did something wrong. I betrayed the trust in the marriage. He has every right to be upset with me. And then, you know, a brief period of good times will resume. And then the arguing starts again.

Now, this is going to keep somebody like Julie in a loop where it's not just like there were good times. It's like there still are. Yeah, that dreadful I can fix this mentality. We all feel that way. Sometimes you just sometimes you just got to let go. Normal marriages. That's a good thing, right?

Because people have problems and things happen and things come up and it's not going to be roses and, you know, peaches and cream all the time. And you should work through hard times. But you have to know the difference between when you're being kept in a trauma loop, when you're being kept off balance purposely, and when there's just actually a person on the other end of your marriage who genuinely wants to fix things. And you have to figure that out. And I think that Julie eventually did. Let's go to our next break and we'll be right back. We're back. So in addition to being super controlling, obviously, Mark never let Julie forget about the affair she'd had with Perry. And in 1992, this weird thing happened where Julie was being harassed with pornography.

It was all over her house. It was in her car. It was in her yard. And it mainly consisted of pictures of penises near a woman's face. And eventually, Julie realized that it was her own husband doing this, planting these pornographic images around the house, her car, the yard. Mark would also prank call their home, pretending to be the culprit, the person who was planting these things. He suggested the person responsible was Julie's ex-lover, Perry. Now, of course, initially, Julie had no idea Mark was really the person doing it. She became so upset, so stressed out

and anxious about this, that she and Mark hired a private investigator to look into the culprit. And they also installed video surveillance to try and catch the person in the act. At one point, Perry found out that Julie was being harassed and he reached out via letter. He said he was concerned for her. He said it wasn't him. However, Julie didn't believe him. She called the police and Perry received a ticket for wasn't him. However, Julie didn't believe him. She called the police and Perry received a ticket for sending the letter. Now, Perry, although, yes, did have an affair with a married woman, he seems to be genuinely supportive. He seems to be concerned. He finds out she's being harassed. He wants to check in on her. And she's so paranoid because

her husband has made her feel like somebody's out to get her, that she just cannot trust anybody except for Mark, who was the worst person for her to trust. But that's exactly what he wants in this situation, right? He's the offender, but also the one she's running back to when she's in fear. He has complete control. That's exactly what he's looking for. Yes. And that is, in a nutshell, what a trauma bond is.

They hurt you. They push you until you're a wreck, and then they open their arms to you and say, oh, it's going to be okay. They are the person that hurts you, but also the person that brings you relief from the pain that they are bringing you. And at some point, the human brain just breaks and you become addicted to that high and low cycle. This almost seems worse than a trauma bond to me though, right? Like, I mean, it you will, where she's living in an alternate universe that he's creating in order to elicit that fear. And then he's serving as the person she can confide in, even though he's the one secretly creating the fear in the first place. It seemed pretty

sick to me, honestly. It's very much Stockholm syndrome. These are tactics that are used intentionally to create this level of, I don't even know which way is up right now, and I need you to tell me what's right, what's wrong, where I'm at, where I'm standing. You get to the point where you don't even know anything about yourself. You can't even trust your own instincts anymore. And you depend on this person who's your abuser to guide you, which is exactly what he wanted. Yes. The first start of this story, and I didn't know all the details, is sounding like a plot of a movie, honestly. I know we got a lot to go, but it really does. Yes. And these calls and photos, they went on for years. They started in 1992 or 1993. They kept going. And Julie actually contacted Pleasant

Prairie Police Officer Ronald Cosman about what was going on. And Cosman responded to the Jensen home for these calls around 30 times over the years. And through these visits, Julie and Cosman's relationships developed into a friendship. Cosman would stop by the Jensen home as many as 10 times per year to check on Julie and see if things had quieted down. And Cosman later testified that he had always suspected Mark was the person behind the harassment. However, he never had the proof. Later, the police would find proof that Mark was doing this and more. But we're going to get into that in a later episode.

So in addition to the photos and the calls, Mark continued controlling Julie to the extreme. In 1994, Julie became pregnant with their second son, and by early 1995, she was at least seven months pregnant. Despite this fact, Mark made Julie rip apart an old porch and nail down new lumber as a contribution to the family because she had no job. Then in March of 1995, Julie and Mark welcomed their second son, Douglas. But unfortunately, things did not get better between Julie and Mark, who kept on with his crazy behavior. At one point, Julie invited her father, who was dying of cancer, to stay with them for a week, but Mark threw a fit and made her father get a hotel instead. When Julie's dad actually did

visit the house, the Jensen's dog really liked her dad, and after her father went home, Julie kept talking about how much the dog liked her father, and Mark did not like this one bit. So you know what he did? He had the dog put down. Because that's the solution. So despite being married to an abusive asshole, Julie continued being a ray of sunshine, making sure everyone around her felt special. Not only did Julie never miss any of her siblings' birthdays, but she would send cards and gifts for every holiday, including anniversaries, and she would personalize each card, usually filling it inside and on the back with warm wishes and moral support. And this makes me so sad because Julie was struggling so much. She was so isolated.

She didn't have any emotional or moral support at home, but she was still very willing and able to give it to others. And that's a testament to who she was. Now, at some point in 1998, when the Jensen children were now three and eight, Mark got a new job, still working in stockbroking. Julie's neighbor and friend, Ted, later testified that he noticed a big change in Mark's personality after he started this new job. Mark became very critical of Julie for no reason, and he'd do things like tell her she was a bad mom and a bad influence on their kids. On September 3rd of that year, Mark started sending flirty messages to his married co-worker, Kelly, and they eventually started having a sexual relationship. Around the same time, Julie told her friend, Officer Cosman,

that it had become very cold in the Jensen home, and Mark was not as affectionate as he used to be. When he came home from work, he'd immediately go to the computer. Also around this time, Julie started confiding in her son's third grade teacher, who she volunteered for, about her marital problems. She explained that she had had an affair previously and had gone to marriage counseling with Paul DeFazio, who was actually the teacher's brother-in-law. Julie told the teacher that Mark said a lot of things to DeFazio to make her seem crazy, and she worried that Mark would do anything to make her seem crazy if she filed for divorce, which was a legitimate and valid worry. He told her he would she would never see her child again if she left him. And in order to make sure that happened, he would obviously have to tell the courts and the lawyers something. And that would be, you know, she's not right. She needs help.

She she needed mental health help. I didn't need it. She did. And hoping that would look bad for her in a custody battle. The whole situation, the whole relationship is very intriguing to me because now you have a situation where both individuals have now cheated on each other and yet they're still staying together. And I wonder why that is. Is it for kids is it is it just to This this resentment is it that's between them where they hate each other, but at the same time they can't leave each other You know, what what is it? Okay, this is my opinion Julie had an affair a very short affair right with somebody because

Her emotional needs aren't being met by her husband and you know, she she slipped up She made a mistake. But then she doesn't want to talk to this dude anymore because she feels bad. She wants to make her marriage work. Mark had an affair in retaliation. And I would wager that it wasn't the first woman he reciprocated those feelings. Probably. But he's probably thrown other lines. He's thrown other lines in the water, if you will, in the past. Just maybe either she didn't catch him or they just, you know, he didn't get any bites. I don't think that Julie knew about Kelly at this point either. Okay. But I think that is a good clarification because that may be mistaken by some. When you're saying that he was sending flirty messages and he was having this relationship, we're telling you guys this. But at the time she didn't know this. Julie didn't know this was occurring. All she knew was that things had gotten cold between her and her husband.

Yeah. And I also think you have to consider the fact that at one point in this story, not too long ago, you were talking about how she had to carry a cordless phone with her just to even go outside. And now it doesn't seem like he could give two shits what happened to her. And I'm sure that's part of it where she's asking, what changed here? Why suddenly is there no interest in what I'm doing before I couldn't even go outside to put the trash out without being questioned? Now he comes in and goes right to his computer and I could be alive or dead and he wouldn't care. But still, he's not going to let her leave. Well, that's the thing, right? That's the control element to it, right? Where

it's like, you know, I don't want you, but nobody else can have you either. Exactly. I'm done with you, but I'll be damned if I let you go out and find someone who's going to treat you well. You don't deserve that. You don't deserve anything. Right. You did this to yourself. Not after the blow to my ego that you made me suffer. Right. This is your fault and you suffer the consequences now. So Julie was feeling down about her marriage. And on September 21st, she went to visit her family doctor, Dr. Richard Borman. At the end of that appointment, Dr. Borman concluded that Julie may have had some mild depression, but it does not appear that he prescribed her anything.

Starting around mid-November, Julie told her friend and neighbor, Ted, that she and Mark were arguing daily and that Mark was pressuring her to see a doctor. And he wanted her to put their youngest son in daycare and get a job all of a sudden. Because once again, now he's not worried about her going to a job and having an affair. He's got his own thing going on the side. Now he just wants to use her. So you can't do what makes you happy, which is be a mother, stay home, raise our kids. I want you to go to work, which is something I know makes you miserable, but something I'll benefit slightly from financially, but mostly from the fact that it makes you miserable. Yeah. And like you said,

utility, there's utility too, right? She's a means to an end. She's an asset. She's basically a babysitter at this point. If it's not her, he's going to have to pay someone else. So babysitter, a housekeeper. Yeah. And I guarantee you that Mark hated this friend and neighbor, Ted, because Ted's of the opposite sex, right? Definitely hated him. And don't forget, he probably hated Officer Cosman too.

Every single person who would lead Julie to believe that she wasn't in the wrong was not not a good person in this book and he probably told her that multiple times this person watch out for them they have these intentions bad he just wants to he just wants he's hitting on you he just wants to come between us or of course yeah absolutely we know this so julie said that mark threatened if she ever tried to leave him he would make her seem like an unfit mother. She would never see her kids again. So this is going on for years and years and years. And this this will happen. Right. Going back and forth between, oh, we can make this work. I'll go to therapy. I want to be good to you. We can have a good family. Why? Why would we throw all this away, everything we built? And once you feel like that's not working, the abuser is going to go into the threats. Well, I'm going to destroy you. I'll take everything from you. You'll have nothing by the time I'm done with you. And these things are going to keep you in a situation that's unsavory because the fear of the unknown is worse. So Julie

further said that she suspected Mark was seeing another woman because he kept staying overnight in Chicago. Within a week or so of this conversation, Julie told her neighbor Ted that one night she noticed that their nightstand drawer had been left cracked open, so she looked inside the drawer and could see syringes. Julie then said that she and Mark got into a huge fight that night, and Mark started chasing her with a glass of wine, trying to get her to drink it. He kept following her around with the wine and he would put it next to her. This went on until 3 a.m., but Julie refused to drink the wine because she was afraid that Mark had put something in the wine and that he was going to inject her with something, which is why the syringes were there.

Julie told Ted that she was scared that Mark was going to poison her and that she was going to die. That's so interesting. I wish I could have been a fly on the wall for that incident where they're having this argument and he has this like, I'm picturing like a chalice in my hand, like something where he's like, drink from it, drink from it. And she's like, no, I won't.

Or was he being more subtle where they were arguing, but he would always put the drink near her? I really wonder what was going on there, because I will tell you when you initially mentioned the syringes, I was thinking we were going in the direction that, yeah, she was going to find out he was using drugs on the side. I didn't even think, oh, he's going to use the syringe on me. But yeah, that's, that's a scary stuff. And you're living in a situation right now where there might be people out there saying,

oh my God, if you knew, or you thought that was the case that he was trying to kill you, why wouldn't you get out of there? My opinion, you got two small children in there. Yeah. That's why you convince yourself that you're just being paranoid. Because once again, the fear of the unknown is worse than at least this is the devil you know. You can sort of manage it. You can sort of keep yourself above water. But you know that it's going to get worse because of him if you try to leave and you've got kids to worry about. So you convince yourself and you tell yourself, oh, you're just being paranoid. Like, why would he do that? He's not going to do that. Like, that's crazy. But still, I'm not going to drink it just in case. Yeah. And I think it could be even a situation that's

even more straightforward than that. She could have been looking at the situation even after talking herself down was like, no, he was definitely trying to do something to me, but motherly instinct kicks in and she's like, I'm not leaving these children here alone with him. I seen what he did to the dog. I'm not going to leave these kids alone. I have to stay there, stay here and protect them. Maybe she was starting to work on an exit strategy, but she wasn't going to up and leave those kids behind. So a lot going on here, a lot of layers to this one, a lot of reasonings why, even though the situation sounds dire, you would choose to stay as opposed to leaving. This is a nightmare situation. Again, when kids are involved, it always complicates

things. And even when you do recognize certain things that are a danger to you, an eminent danger, you have to choose between your safety and the safety of the people that you care about even more than yourself. You have to weigh the risks. They mitigate the risk benefits. And 99.99 or even 99.99% of the off, you're going to as the mother that Julie was, well, stay for the kids. Yeah. Yeah. We're going to take a break. We'll be right back. Not long after the wine incident, Julie told her friend Ted that she had seen sticky notes with, quote, different poisoning sites for different poison, end quote, on Mark's desk.

And this left Julie feeling very confused and obviously scared. Julie further revealed that Mark had left his computer on, and when she looked at the screen, there was a website about poisoning. Julie told Ted, quote, I don't know what Mark's trying to do to me. If he's like trying to scare me, he's playing with my mind, or he just forgot to turn it off, end quote. And this is once again, goes back to not being able to trust your own instincts, not being able to trust yourself anymore. The voice you now hear in your head is his voice. It's not yours anymore. So when you feel off about something, you have his voice telling you,

no, you're just crazy. You're just paranoid. Why would I do this to you? Who would do this? What is this? Like you said, this isn't a movie. This is real life. I'm your husband. We have kids together. That's insane. And so once you're in that place, once you can't even trust your own gut, it's really hard to pull out of it. And that's why when we say, why didn't you just leave? Because you don't even know what's going on. And the fact that she says this, I don't know what he's trying to do. Is he trying to scare me? Is he playing games with my mind? Is it just an innocent thing on his computer and he forgot to turn it off? I don't know what this is. I don't know what this is. And you just end up feeling absolutely insane, which is what they want you to feel.

Yeah. My gut tells me, my gut, without knowing Mark personally, especially if the syringes are what she thought they were for, is he's just sloppy. I don't think he's leaving it up on the computer to scare or intimidate her. I don't know if he would necessarily do that because he's got to be somewhat smart. He's a stockbroker. He's successful in that sense. I think he's just slipping up where he's forgetting he left his search history up or something. No, I think he left it up on purpose. To preemptively tell her ahead of time, like to try to intimidate her. He knows he already has her stuck there. She hasn't left yet. Right. But think about what we're here for. Right. Let me just let's just go back and forth with this a little bit. Right. So we know that Julie is no longer with us. Right. And it's

believed based on the courts, you know, not getting too far ahead that Julie's no longer with us, right? And it's believed, based on the courts, you know, not getting too far ahead, that Mark's responsible for it, okay? And if that's the case, and he knew that he was setting himself up to do this, why would he show his hand to his victim ahead of time if it was just an intimidation factor? Why would he give her any indication

of what he was planning on doing? Because people like this are delusional, and they have these delusions of grandeur where they think it doesn't matter what I do. It doesn't matter. I'm going to get away with this. I'm charming. I'm successful. I will have explanations for everything. They don't think they're going to get caught. And it always stuns them when they do. He definitely left it up to intimidate her. Because at this point, he's like, well, the threat of you never seeing your kids and me making you sound like an unfit mother, maybe that's not enough. Now I want you to be scared for your life.

It's just intimidation tactics. It's Stockholm syndrome. I want to hear from you guys in the comments on this one as well. What are your thoughts on this? Maybe it comes from your own professional background. Maybe it comes from your own unfortunate personal experience. Because the Post-it notes, Derek, the Post-it notes. You think he left the Post-it notes and the desktop up? Desktop, syringes. It just seems like an awful lot. I mean, maybe.

The drawer was cracked open and you left them there. But if you're going to poison your wife, you wouldn't leave the syringes in your bedside drawer. No, no, you wouldn't. So it's like he wanted her to find those things. he's in your wife, you wouldn't leave the syringes in your bedside drawer. No, no, you wouldn't. So it's like he wanted her to find those things. Let us know what you think on this one. What do you think in here? Is Mark a dummy or is Mark a sadistic weirdo? Sociopath. He's taunting his victim before actually carrying out the act. I definitely want to hear your thoughts on this one because it's a toss up for me. It's a toss-up for me.

So you've heard of the term gaslighting, right? Unfortunately. So you know where that comes from, right? No. Right. It comes from an old story where a man drove his wife crazy by turning the lights, the gaslights, I believe, down every day. And she'd be like, it's dimmer in here. And he'd be like, what are you talking about? No, it's not. And every day he would turn them down a little bit more and she would say something about it. He'd be like, what? You're crazy. It's the light hasn't changed at

all. And she ended up going crazy because she thought she was going crazy because the person that she trusted and loved was telling her, I don't see any difference in the lights. What's wrong with you? That's where the term gaslighting comes from. This is a version of gaslighting. He's going to leave all this weird stuff hanging around. And when she says something about it, it's all in her head. What are you talking about?

And you could tell when she talks to her neighbor, Ted, she's like, I don't know what's going on. Is he trying to make me crazy? Was this an accident? I don't know. And that is the perfect place you want a victim to be in to manipulate, control, and torture them. Yeah.

At this point, she doesn't know if she's coming or going. She doesn't. And it's awful. Any intuition she has, any gut instinct, now she's questioning even that because he's got her so on tilt. Let me throw one more scenario at you. Is it possible, just going down the path that you're taking us on with the gaslighting is it possible that it was even more than that where he was he knew this was someone

who is seeing a professional who had depression who had anxiety that he caused that he caused and was trying to push her so far over the edge that maybe she took her own life she would take her own life could that have been part of this? Yes. I mean, that's maybe, maybe it wasn't even just to try to make her crazy. I mean, it was a point to make her crazy so that she would do what he was hoping she would do in the first place. The whole pornographic pictures all over. That's gaslighting too, right? Creating this toxic environment where it's constantly stressing her out.

Yeah. And he's like, oh, it's your ex-boyfriend. And then the ex-boyfriend's like, I'm not doing this. I swear. Right. So yeah, it's, it's gaslighting. It's just this trying to make you not trust yourself. And honestly, it is the worst thing you can do to somebody. And we'll never know for sure, but imagine if the, if the motive behind all this was in fact

to push her to suicide. Can you imagine? I mean, at the, at the end of the day, I don't think that Mark would care which way she went out as long as she went out. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. If that worked, great for him. If not, he had a plan B. And that's what I'm saying is essentially where this story could be going based on the teaser that we hit the top of the show where there was one avenue that was tried. That didn't work. So Mark had to step it up a notch.

Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, just to think that somebody has enough time in their day to do all this and set it up. And he's got a full time job and two kids, which shows you the dedication that he put into completely torturing this poor woman every single day of her life. Terrible. Now, Julie expressed suspicions that she believed Mark may have been trying to poison her or trying to drive her crazy in order to take the kids from her. And Ted told Julie to take pictures of the computer screen and the notes, the post-it notes on Mark's desk, and then give them to the police. A few days later, Julie gave Ted a sealed envelope and a roll of film and asked that if anything happened to her, that she give the envelope to the police. Ted did not read the letter, but he did hold onto it along

with the film. Now, in between all of these scary incidents, Julie's trying to follow Mark's demands. Why is she doing this? Because at this point, she's just trying to get from one day to the next. Okay. She's thinking in her head, long-term, something's got to give, but she's also rationalizing. It's not the right time. I'm so busy. The kids are so young. I've got to really play my cards right. And until then, I've just got to appease him and I've just got to keep him calm and on my side and not do anything to trigger him or upset him. Logically, you think that's going to work, but it doesn't.

So Julie's going to appease Mark. She's going to go get a job again. She applied for a job at her son David's school to be a part-time secretary. And on November 20th, she interviewed with the principal for this position. Five days later, Julie was serving as a volunteer parent in her son's third grade class, but something was off that day. The teacher recalled that Julie was acting extremely nervous and she didn't want to talk about what was on her mind. The teacher told Julie that she could talk to her whenever she was ready julie then started to wring her hands and said quote i think my husband is going to kill me

end quote the teacher later testified that when she asked julie why she thought such a serious thing was going to happen julie explained that she had found a paper listing out things to buy in her husband's stuff the paper listed sy syringes, nicotine, alcohol, and the phrase bag hands. Julie said that she thought Mark might be trying to kill her with a drug overdose and make it look like a suicide. Julie further told the teacher she had a plan to get away while keeping the kids safe from Mark. She was looking for a place in Illinois because she didn't feel a local shelter or her own relatives were safe from Mark. So this is, once again, going back, why would he be doing this stuff? Why would he be leaving it out in plain view? Well, because he probably knows,

because he's monitoring her, that Julie is telling people, like her friend Ted, and that these people are going to be like, that's kind of weird, you know, that you think this drastically, that's something this, like you know, that you think this drastically. That's something like your husband has syringes and he's poisoning you and he's looking up stuff and you're just happening to find it. Kind of like you said, like, oh, well, why would he leave that up there? Somebody might think Julie's kind of going off the deep end a little bit. She's super anxious. She's got this nervous energy.

The teacher noticed that something's going on with Julie. And Mark might be thinking, well, everyone around her is going to think Julie was not in a good mental state in the days, weeks and months leading up to her death. Yeah, I'm going back and forth a lot here because I'm almost playing devil's advocate in my own head. I'm sitting here on one hand saying I know how hard it is for victims of abuse to come forward and discuss their trauma with law enforcement. Because once you do that, there's no putting the lid back on that pot. It's off, it's off. But there has to be a part of her that knows that when she's talking with a teacher who I don't think she was that close with, there's a risk that this is going to get out and this is going to get to people in law enforcement even without her wishes, right? Because the teacher

may feel an obligation to report these allegations to someone in a position of authority. So I wonder if this was just a spontaneous utterance in the moment where, like you said, the teacher walks in, sees that she's frazzled. Julie's intention isn't to talk to the teacher initially, but when the teacher pegs her for being something like, hey, I know something's off with you right now, she opens up and says what's on her mind. But again, I do wonder the rationale behind speaking to her friend, giving him the film. If anything happens to me, go to the police, talking to the teacher. She's really talking to everybody else other than someone who may be able to do something about it. And I just wonder what her rationale was for that. How did she, what was the plan behind that? Or was it just, or there really was no plan?

It's fear. You don't want to go to the police because then what happens? They're going to question Mark. But couldn't that happen with the teacher? Isn't that a concern as well? I think they actually were close because, you know, remember the teacher was the sister-in-law of her psychologist. Yeah. And they've been, you know, they'd been working together for a while. This is more than just a teacher-parent relationship is what you're saying. Yeah. And I mean, at some point you're also going to just, you just start coming apart at the seams. You just say it to whoever's around because you're so paranoid and scared. But in my opinion, this was, once again, part of his plan. These kinds of people don't think that they're going to get caught. They're not worried that she's going to tell somebody. We don't know what Mark was doing behind the scenes, because I guarantee you, Julie's talking to people. She sounds a little crazy because she's on edge. She's anxious. She's not sleeping. Oh, I'm sure he's completing that narrative as well.

Mark's talking to people that he knows. Mark's talking to people that she knows. He's triangulating people against her. So he's over here going to work every day. I'm so tired. My wife, she's just- She's losing it. Yeah. Ever since she had those kids, man, it's like she's a different person. She's just, she's not even with it. She's saying the craziest things. She said she thinks I'm trying to poison her. This is insane. I'm really worried about her. Yep. He's setting the story for sure. Absolutely.

He's not going to make it seem like he's mad at her or he's angry with her. He's done with her. He's going to make it seem like he's super concerned about her because he loves her so much. The good thing in this case, if there's any silver lining, is the fact that Julie was so open to talking to people about what was going on because, again, we are where we are, but would we be where we are if she hadn't made these comments to people and these recordings and taken the film and all these different things that we might not be in the situation where we are right now. And we're going to obviously get to that over the next two or three parts. But there's a lot here where we think about this case and the reality of it is it wasn't necessarily law enforcement. And I don't know all the details,

but the key element in this whole investigation was julie working her own case that's really what it came down to yes but she did go to somebody in a position of authority and we're going to talk about that after our next break so around this time which is you know julie's thinking that Mark's going to try to call her as soon as he was available. And in the second voicemail, Julie, who sounded confused and afraid, she said she thought Mark was trying to kill her. Now, when Cosman returned from his trip, he met with Julie.

Once again, she's emotional. She's completely anxious. She doesn't know which way is up. And she told Cosman that Mark had been acting strangely. He was being very secretive and was complaining that Julie was not being romantic enough. Julie expressed concern to Cosman over several suspicious things she had noticed,

including the stuff on Mark's computer, the sticky notes with different poisoning sites for different poison, and a new shopping list she found that had listed the aspirin, razor blades, and syringes, all items that neither Julie nor Mark would usually need. Julie told Cosman that she'd photographed Mark's computer and notes and gave the film, along with a letter, to her neighbor Ted. Julie then

specifically told Officer Cosman that if she died, Mark should be the first suspect because she would not have killed herself. Now, this annoys me that nothing happened at this point. And once again, I think many women have been in the position where they're telling anybody who will listen, whether it's law enforcement, lawyers, judges, social workers, whatever, what have you, this person's going to kill me. And they're like, yes, we've made note of that. We've made note of that.

Nothing ever happens. You know, nothing ever happens. So Julie's telling not only a police officer, but her friend, this my husband's going to kill me. And, you know, if that happens, he should be the first suspect. But in that scenario, she's already dead. Right. So, yes, Mark will be the first suspect. But you're gone. Your children don't have a mother anymore. their relationship than he was a friend. And as time evolved and as their relationship progressed, they became more friends than anything. And I think based on the fact that this wasn't reported, maybe this conversation happened with Officer Cosman, not only because he was a police officer, but because he was a friend. And maybe she was coming to him, not necessarily in a formal

capacity, but more saying like, Hey, I know the position you're in. I know what you can do. If something happens, I want to make sure someone in your position can, can help me afterwards. Cause having just a teacher come forward may not do it. I don't necessarily want anything done now. And as my friend, I'm hoping you won't go do something. That's not what I'm asking. I just want you to be aware of it. I wonder if those parameters were set up for Cospin. Now you could come back at me and say, Derek, that's fine that she said it. But at this point, Cospin has an obligation as an officer to say- Yeah, he's a mandated reporter. That's not true.

Yes, he is. There are times where I've had situations with friends that were in situations that were criminal in nature. They were involved in something and they've asked me not to go forward with it as their friend. When you were actively a police officer? Yes, ma'am. Absolutely. Absolutely. There would be people.

I like when you call me ma'am. There would be people that would come to me for advice as a police officer and say, hey, Derek, can I talk to you without the hat on right now? I'm not in official capacity. I'm not working. Yeah, but do you think she said that? Like, can I talk to you as a non-police officer? I don't know. And that's why I'm not saying it for sure.

We're just having the conversation. if he came to her, if she came to him in that way, where it was more of two friends talking about something and maybe her letting him know, but also getting advice from someone who had a professional background in it. I have personally had that happen many times. Now, just to clarify here, if someone comes to me and says, listen, I think my so-and-so is going to blow up a school tomorrow. We're going to shoot someone up. I have a responsibility at that point. I got to come forward and make sure that I could have prevented this. I got to do it. If this is a friend coming to me saying, here's my situation, how should I handle it? And by the way, if something happens, know that this is your guy, it does become this really difficult decision because we have to

balance our responsibility, the oath we've taken with our loyalty to our friends and not wanting to break that trust. If they feel comfortable enough coming to us and confiding in us that we're going to turn around and make a report on something that, which may make their situation worse for them. I, yes, I agree. I agree, but it's just hard. It's just a hard thing. You still think you'd want to be a little vigilant, like as a cop and a friend. Okay. If you think that let's get you out of here, let's grab your kids and we'll find a safe place for you while we figure out what to do. We'll find a place where he won't find you. We'll take your kids. He'll be pissed, but you'll be safe. How do we know that didn't

happen is what I'm saying. Well, it didn't because I feel like that would have been talked about during the trial. You would think, yeah, you would think so that it would come up in conversation that, hey, what did you, but I think more what was important in the conversation that they had was not necessarily what didn't occur. Like, hey, I had recommended she do this, but more so her saying, hey, if anything happens to me, it's Mark. And now this is coming from an officer at trial saying that. So obviously it's very significant. But I do understand what you're saying. And I'm not sitting here and blaming him for this at all. I know you're not. You're in a rock and a hard place at that point. What do you do? What do you do? She probably said, don't say anything to him because she knew what would happen. I'm sure she did. Let me give some advice to any women out there who believe that they're in a relationship or a marriage with a narcissistic man and they're afraid for their lives, what

I have found in life is these men typically will not push back against other men. They won't. When faced with other men, their demeanor completely changes because they're intimidated because narcissists at their core have very low self-esteem and no confidence and they think they suck. And that's why they need you to make them feel like they don't suck. So it's okay to go. And I wish I had known this in the past, but it's okay to go to a male friend and say, hey, can you just talk to my husband, tell him that you know what's up and you're aware and you have eyes on him?

Because Mark might be upset, but now that he knows somebody else who could potentially kick his ass is aware, is watching and has been told things, it may be at least a deterrent to what he planned to do in the future. Yeah, I agree with you. I think if this conversation gone a different way, like you said, if Cosman had gone to him and said, listen, I'm not going to report this because she asked me not to, but just so you know, I know. And if something happens to her, there's going to be consequences. Your ass is grass, buddy. There's going to be consequences. And maybe, like you said, that serves as a deterrent for any future plans.

And listen, I understand being in that situation and feeling afraid to do that, but it usually is pretty effective. It could be, but there is that risk too, and I think you'll acknowledge it. It could go that way. It could also make it a lot worse for the person being abused. I mean, it looks like it was already pretty bad. It could get worse. You know that, right? I mean, it could get a lot worse.

So it's one of those things where you could have a situation where let's say I'm the person, right? They come to me and I go to this person and I tell them what I know. And then this person turns around, this offender turns around and beats the crap out of her. I know how I'm going to feel. I'm going to feel terrible about it. And I'm not the one that had the pain inflicted on me. It's her. So it's a slippery slope, which is something I always try to consider when we're talking about these cases. Because again, it's always easier to sit here at this computer desk and say what you should do and what you could do. But when you're in that situation, you have those emotions and those feelings. It was one thing about being in law enforcement,

I always knew, even though the cases are similar, right? Like it'll be a domestic assault, they're never the same. No matter what case it is. I went to thousands of domestic assault complaints. Not one of them is the same. Every single one is its own thing because every single one consists of a different personality and it could even be the same two people. But on this next event, there's a different situation behind it. It's a different day of the week. It's a different time. There's alcohol involved or there's not alcohol involved or there's a new character in the story. No two calls are ever the same. It's one of the first things I ever taught my officers when we were training a new police officer on their FTO, their field training officer program. We always told them

no two cases are ever the same. That's true. But I think what Julie did, and you mentioned this earlier, was she was doing her own investigation. Of course. It wasn't even so much an investigation as I need this stuff in case something happens. And that was actually smart. Right. That was smart of her to do. As we will see, this helped get her husband into court at least. Can I throw one more thing out there?

Yeah. Without foreshadowing, because I truly don't know. I know the overall story here, like the timeline, but I can also see a potential defense here down the road where this could be framed as a gone girl scenario, right? Oh yeah. Yeah, exactly. But would that be believed? Would that be believed? There's people out there that would buy it, and you know it. There's people out there that would buy it,

but it's so overt. It's so much where it's like, what's the motive here, right? And it's also like one person who said they were going to end up dead ended up dead. Right. It's not like she escaped, you know, and she's like hiding out and she's been kidnapped. And Ben Affleck is like, ah, why am I in this position? She's she's dead. Her body's dead. Yeah, you're

right. That's you're really playing the long game on that one. Right. Yeah. So I don't really know if I would believe that. But I'm just throwing as we go, because we know this is going to come up. Right. This is if this was a straightforward case, we wouldn't be covering it. There's going to be wrinkles to it along the way. Yes, unfortunately. But I see what's happening here. So Julie talks to her friend, Detective Cosman, following their conversation where she said, if something happens to me, I would never kill myself.

Mark should be looked into first and foremost. Julie got the film from her neighbor Ted and she gave it to Cosman, but she did not get the letter from Ted and Cosman did not get the letter. Cosman did develop the film, but most of the photos were not of good enough quality. And Julie then told her friend Ted that Detective Cosman probably thought she was crazy, which is once again another indication because we know from Cosman himself, even when the pornographic image thing was happening, he thought it was Mark. So he clearly believed her to some extent, but Julie is so not trusting of herself that she almost feels like ashamed to say these things that are happening to her,

because she thinks that other people are going to think she's crazy, because she's being made to feel like she's crazy. And she's also definitely being told this is not reported but i guarantee you she's being told by her husband everyone thinks you're crazy like this person told me the teacher our son's teacher told me that you you don't seem right like people are noticing what's wrong with you get help i guarantee you that Mark was saying that to Julie. So now she thinks everybody thinks she's crazy. And she's not only full of shame, full of doubt, but now she's second guessing what she really knows to be true because she's seen it with her own eyes. And she's paranoid that no one's going to believe her. It's so sad. Now, on November 29th, neighbor and friend Ted saw Julie again.

And this time, he said she was in really bad shape. She was shaking. She was crying. She told him that she was afraid Mark was putting poison in her food or drink. And because of that, she didn't eat all weekend. The following day, Julie told Ted's wife that Mark insisted their youngest son start full-time preschool and that he would kill her before getting a divorce. By the way, this is a very big red flag. And sometimes these men will say it to you in a way where it's like almost romantic, you know, like, oh, he's so possessive of me. Like he loves me so much. You know, they will say things like, when i said till death do us part i meant it

you know like you're never gonna get away with you'll be dead before you get away from me and they'll say it in like a light-hearted kind of joking way but anybody who says that that's a red flag by the way don't ever look at that and be like how cute okay this isn't 50 shades of gray this isn't twilight this is real life if a man says that to you, red flag, get out. Get the hell out. I don't care if he's smiling when he says it. I don't care if you think it's cute because he loves you so much that he'd rather you be dead than be without him. It's not cute. It's not it's not lighthearted. It's not romantic. It's a red flag. Do you agree, Derek? Am I crazy? But do you agree? Like, would you ever say that to somebody? No, but I mean, obviously, I'm not in these situations. And I think it's just, man, I'll tell you what, the human brain, what a fascinating thing, because why we do the things we do or say the things we say or why we choose to make the decisions we make. It's the world's greatest mystery. I don't know. Right. But what do you think about that? Like, do you think that that could ever come across as innocent or benign at all?

I just think it's a weird thing to say to anybody. It's a super weird thing to say. So the straightforward answer is no. It's not something you should joke about or anything like that. But I, I, I'd be a hypocrite if I didn't get up here and say that I'd with, even if it wasn't with my significant other, but like my brother or something, it's like, if you do that, I'll kill you. You know what I mean? But it's completely just obviously sarcasm. So I guess tone and intonation is a big part of it, but based on what we're talking about here it doesn't appear that it was a a form of sarcasm right and based on their dynamic that's not the type of jokes you make in that relationship

based on what they've gone through together i mean i've literally been told like oh yeah if you ever cheated on me i'd kill you yeah that's not cool no but it's the same it's the same thing. It's the same thing. Like, you'll be in a grave before you get rid of me. You know, it's never a benign, innocent, offhanded comment. It's just the fact that that would occur to anybody to say is a concern and should be taken seriously. But let us know in the comments if you guys think the same. Like, have you ever been told that by a man? If you are a man or even a woman? I hope that most of you guys say no. I mean, I'm really hoping this isn't a common thing.

It feels common to me, man, because more than one person has said it to me. And in my younger days, I was like, how cute. And then, you know, I learned more about the world. Yeah, I must have missed that trend. Yeah, thank God. But let us know what you think in the comments. Has somebody said this to you? Have you said it to somebody in a way that wasn't nefarious?

I doubt it. So Ted's wife later testified that she and Ted never told the police about their suspicions and that Ted wanted to, but his wife told him to stay out of it. She didn't really think that anything would happen to Julie. On December 1st, Julie spoke to Ted's wife again, and Ted's wife asked Julie if she thought Mark would really hurt her, and Julie said yes. That same day, Julie went to see her family doctor, Dr. Borman,

which is something Mark had been pressuring her to do. Dr. Borman recalled that Julie was visibly upset and complained of bad marriage problems. She alluded to an affair that she had had in the past, and she said she believed Mark had never really forgiven her for it. Julie complained of loss of appetite. She said she'd lost eight pounds since she last saw Dr. Borman on September 21st. When Julie was asked if she was suicidal, she said no. She said her boys meant everything to her, and she didn't want to lose them. At the end of the appointment, Dr. Borman concluded that Julie was not suicidal.

He prescribed her with Paxil, which treats depression, anxiety, and more, and he referred her to counseling and said he wanted to see her back in two weeks. Now, when this happened, Julie said she was concerned that she would be labeled crazy and lose custody of her kids. This is also super, super common. You're going to a doctor, you have depression, you have anxiety, that's the result of what somebody's doing to you, but you're almost even afraid to be diagnosed with that. And you're afraid to even get this medication and start taking it because you're afraid it can be used against you. Now, despite being worried about being labeled crazy and losing custody of her

kids, Julie did fill the prescription and then she went home. Now, at that point, Mark turned into a super husband, and he started taking care of Julie. What happened next is not super clear, but we know that Julie ended up taking the Paxil along with some Benadryl. It's unclear exactly how this happened. However, it's very likely that Mark gave Julie the Benadryl, but we're going to get more into that in a later episode. Mixing the Benadryl with Paxil caused a really bad reaction for Julie, which is no surprise considering that Drugs.com says these two drugs together may increase side effects such as dizziness, drowsiness, confusion, and difficulty concentrating. Some people may also experience impairment in thinking, judgment, and motor coordination. Julie had all of these symptoms and possibly more. Now, by the morning of December 2nd, Julie was still completely out of it and she was unable to take her nine-year-old

son David to school like normal. So David called his friend Eric and asked if his mom could give him a ride to school. David said his mom was sick and couldn't take him. Eric later testified that David told him he was really worried about his mother and didn't know why his dad wasn't taking her to the hospital. Eric's mom ended up giving David a ride to school, and later that morning, Ted's wife noticed Mark leaving late for work. After that, she received a call from Julie, and she said Julie sounded strangely drunk. Julie said she wasn't feeling well

and was surprised her medication was affecting her so much. Ted's wife later said, quote, for some reason, I didn't want to hang up. I kept asking her, please let me help. Let me do something. And she keeps saying no and keeps saying Mark is being good to me. Mark is taking care of me. And that was the last time I spoke with her. End quote.

But what do you make of that? What do you make of her saying that? Is that, again, just a false sense of security? It's the trauma bond. He's being nice. Again, I knew he would come back. I knew I'm going through something very difficult. He notices that. And when push comes to shove, he may be a dick other times, but he's here when it counts. That's what she's telling herself because that's what she wants. She wants a happy home. She wants a happy family.

She wants a husband who loves her. And she knows or thinks he's capable of doing that because he has. But that's not what he was ever doing. He was just hitting her with those highs and those lows, keeping her off balance. They say that this level of abuse creates a similar addiction in a person's mind that drugs or gambling creates. It's that reward center of your brain lighting up. I have to go through this horrible abuse, this very low, low. But when he's good to me, he's good to me. And then your body's flooded with dopamine and oxytocin. And you're just so, you feel so good. You feel better than

you ever have. And it's kind of like that saying goes like, oh, you can't appreciate the good times without the bad times. The good times are made better because you know how bad it can be. And that's what the human brain does. That's why a trauma bond is so powerful. And that's why abusers use it to keep their victims in check. It's a terrible situation all the way around. And as we're going through this episode tonight, we're coming to an end for at least episode one soon. You can see how this went from, you know, just a few arguments and moments of really high highs, like we said, and then some low lows and look where we are now. Right. And just one episode, how this kind of just fell off

a cliff and how, I mean, it didn't happen overnight. Obviously it's one episode, but there's been some years in between here. When we started this episode, it was just, it was just David. Now we have David and Douglas in there at At this point, now we're saying three, four years old, eight, nine years old at this point? Yes. Yeah. So still very young. But yeah, David was about nine years old. So just a terrible situation. That's what I keep coming back to as the kids, as this is all taking place. These are things where especially the nine-year-old, I have a nine-year-old at home right now. And it's like, they're going to remember that stuff. At some point during that day, Mark Jensen called Julie's doctor, Dr. Borman, and said Julie needed some medicine to sleep. Dr. Borman then gave Mark some Ambien samples without contacting Julie. This should never have happened, by the way, but that's a story for another day. Dr. Borman

then directed Mark to stop the other medications and take Julie to the ER if any of her problems got worse. Now, Julie's symptoms did get worse, but Mark did not take her to the hospital. At some point on the following morning, which was now December 3rd, the school principal called to say that Julie got the job she'd recently interviewed for at her son's school. Mark answered the phone and said Julie was sleeping. He went on to say that she was going to be sleeping for a long time. Then he laughed. In the afternoon, Ted noticed that Mark was still home, which was odd because he was usually at work by that time. Then in the late afternoon, Mark left the house and picked up the boys from their schools. After they got home, Mark called 911 house and picked up the boys from their schools.

After they got home, Mark called 911 to report that he'd found Julie dead in bed. Detective Paul Ratzberg and another officer from the Pleasant Prairie Police Department responded to the Jensen home, and when they got inside, they found Mark standing in the kitchen trying to use the phone. He appeared to be visibly upset. When Ratzberg asked where Julie was, he pointed down the hallway, so the officers went down the hallway. Then they entered the bedroom at the very end. There they found 40-year-old Julie lying in bed. She was on her stomach with her face partially buried in a pillow.

She had no pulse, and it appeared she had been dead for some time, so no efforts were made to revive her. Ratzberg spoke to Mark and asked if he knew why Julie had died. And Mark said he wasn't sure, but he thought it had something to do with an allergic reaction to her medications. He explained that she'd recently started taking Paxil and Ambien. Mark told Ratzberg that earlier that day, Julie was incoherent and incapacitated. In the morning, she could hardly sit up. She wasn't able to get out of bed, and she was not able to move around and function. She had very labored breathing and could only grunt, not speak. And because of this, he started propping her up in bed at 7.30 a.m. Because yeah, that's what you do when somebody can't move around and function with labored breathing and can only grunt and not speak. You don't call a doctor.

You don't go to the hospital. You prop them up in bed because that makes absolute sense. Now, Mark said he didn't call an ambulance. Instead, he took his son Douglas to daycare, doctor. You don't go to the hospital. You prop them up in bed because that makes absolute sense. Now, Mark said he didn't call an ambulance. Instead, he took his son Douglas to daycare. Then he came home for a while before he ran a work-related errand. After he picked up both boys from their schools, he said something didn't feel right when they arrived home. So Mark told the boys to wait in the car. He went inside, and that's when he found his wife, Julie, dead. Detective Ratzberg felt like Julie's death was suspicious, so he called in the medical examiner. The examiner initially thought Julie might have died from natural causes or suicide, but also they felt that there could be more to it. So the police got the district attorney involved.

The DA also found Julie's death to be suspicious. So they agreed to launch a thorough investigation. And thank God that they did, because this may have been written off as, you know, somebody taking medication, taking too much. Yeah, just an accidental mixture of people not knowing what they're doing. And, oh, poor Mark, you know, he should have done more to get her help. But maybe he just mistaken her behavior as like, oh, she was feeling really good and she was finally getting to sleep well and he wasn't going to disturb her if this is all you knew. And you didn't know everything that we just talked about this episode for almost two

hours. Then maybe you would think that, but I don't think anybody's thinking that after what we just ran down. This is awful. And it's very hard to go through this case. And I mean, yes, obviously in person, it's very hard to go through. So I know there's a lot of people out there who have been in similar situations and this may be triggering you and this may be making you feel a little CPTSD there. And I feel you and I get it. But it is important that we talk about these things because there are people out there who are in relationships like this currently, and they need that little push to get out. Or there's people out there who may encounter a relationship like this. And hopefully

when they start seeing these red flags, instead of continuing on in the relationship, they get out before they're stuck with a marriage license, before they have the children involved, which just, once again, adds another layer of control for your abuser. So let us know in the comments what you think about this one. It's very tough to hear, but there's more, and we're going to talk about it. Yeah, there's a lot of curveballs coming in this. We're not even close. We're not even close again.

You guys think you have the story. This sounds like we're at the end of it. We're not. But I'm glad you just said what you said. And that's what my final words would be tonight where with Crime Weekly, yeah, we're in the true crime genre and we're covering cases and we're telling these stories. And there is an element where the mystery of it is fascinating or interesting for people to learn about. Let's just call it what it is, right? That the people like a good mystery and they like these stories to hear about the arc of it and how not necessarily they're enjoying someone's tragedy, but just how the case came to be and then how it was ultimately solved. But I think one of the more important things and part of the

reason that we started Crime Weekly and part of the reason I was okay with doing a podcast was I do think just like history, right? When we're reading about from the history books, we learn from things that have been done in the past, both, both the positive and the negative things we did right as a society and the things we did wrong. And we can read about those things and learn about the decisions that were made and adapt them to the society now to not repeat those mistakes or to find different ways to handle similar situations. I do think that true crime can be that as well. I really do.

And I think that, yes, you can have this element where you put this on while you're running on a treadmill or you're at work and you can have it for something that keeps you calm while you're hearing these stories. But I also think there's an element, whether you want it to be or not, where you're hearing these stories, maybe they're applicable to you, maybe they're not. Maybe they're applicable to a friend of yours or a family member, or maybe this particular story isn't applicable at all.

But in some instances, there may be something in there that you find similar to something you've experienced or something you're currently going through or something you may go through in the future. And having these stories and seeing how they played out and seeing what was done and what wasn't done, maybe it'll help you be more equipped to handle a similar situation. And if not for you, maybe someone you care about. So I do think that's something in true crime that we don't talk about enough. Yes, these are tragedies. Yes, there's nothing we're going to do about this case now.

So the question becomes, why are you covering it then? In my opinion, that's the reason to learn from it. Absolutely. I agree. And if you can reach even one person that will make a different decision because they heard this story, that's absolutely worth it. I completely agree. Because what Julie went through and what so many people go through is something I don't wish on my worst enemy. It is torture. It steals

your life. It steals your life force. It's horrendous. It is just prolonged torture that nobody deserves and you almost never recover completely from it. So there's a lot on the line here when you get into a relationship with somebody who will do this to you and not feel a second of remorse about it. Yes. And on that note, I want to give you guys the National Domestic Violence Hotline number as well, which is 1-800-799-7233. You can always call. They have the resources available. They can guide you in the right direction. So that resource is available for you as well if you don't want to go directly to the authorities.

Any final words from you, Stephanie Harlow? No, I said a lot of words this episode. This was a good episode. We covered a lot. We had a lot more to cover. We appreciate you guys being with us. Everyone stay safe out there, and we will see you next week. Bye.