Dark Downeast - The Murder of Julie Campbell (Massachusetts)

Episode Date: April 12, 2021

COLD CASE, 1978: Julie Campbell's sister, Lori Manning, is on Dark Downeast to share memories of her sister, and questions that a remain in this cold case over 43 years later.Why end the life of this beloved woman? How did the attacker take Julie by surprise, a woman with a Black Belt in Karate and mace always in her pocket? Who killed Julie? Is it possible that Julie Campbell's murderer has ties to other cases in Massachusetts, Maine, and beyond?If you have information regarding this case, please call the Cambridge, Massachusetts tip line at 617-349-3359.Visit juliecampbellmurder.com View source material and photos for this episode at darkdowneast.com/juliecampbellFollow @darkdowneast on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTokTo suggest a case visit darkdowneast.com/submit-caseDark Downeast is an audiochuck and Kylie Media production hosted by Kylie Low.

The case of Julie Campbell is an open and active investigation in Middlesex County, Massachusetts. As of this episode's original air date, no one has been charged or convicted of any crimes related to the murder of Julie Campbell. The enduring question that we'll never have an answer to is why. That's, I think, the eternal question that every person who's been in my situation wants the answer to. And what I've come to realize is that there is no answer for that, because there's never a reason to take someone else's life. 43 years have passed since that dark, cold New England night when someone stole the life of Julie Campbell. 43 years have passed without knowing who is responsible for her murder.

Here to tell Julie's story is her younger sister, Lori Manning. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is the unsolved case of Julie Campbell on Dark Down East. I mean, I always wanted to grow up and be like my sister. She always set a good example. Lori Manning smiled as she talked about her older sister, Julie Campbell. She's had more years without Julie than with her. But I could feel the warmth of their memories together as if it was just yesterday. They were two young sisters growing up in Lexington, Massachusetts. We shared a bedroom and at nighttime when we were supposed to be sleeping, we literally had a tube from a vacuum cleaner and we would talk and tell secrets to each other through this tube, pretending our own little world that, you know, that our parents couldn't hear us talking in there

she always included me we went to the movies we she never made me feel like oh you're that pain in the butt little sister even though she was three years older I was always welcome. She used to take me on all of her babysitting jobs, but one has always stood out in my mind was we went to babysit these two young boys, and once the boys were down for the night and supposed to be sleeping, Julie decided, well, let's have some french fries. We can watch a movie on TV. She loved old movies. And as she was heating up the oil in the pan on the cooktop, one of the boys cried out from upstairs. So she immediately ran up to make sure he was all right. But in doing so, she accidentally hit the pan in such a manner that some of the oil started a fire in the kitchen. And I'm screaming from downstairs, Julie, Julie, the house is on fire.

And she came running back down, called the fire department, and she's trying to smother it with anything she could put her hands on to put it out. But there's one of those old-time clocks that I don't know if many people remember these. It was a silly clock that was a black and white cat, and the tail would wag back and forth to tick the seconds, and the eyes would also move back and forth. And that poor thing was like the only thing that survived from the kitchen, but it was such a melted blob on the wall.

And yet, when the homeowner came home, she was grateful. She said, Julie, thank you. Don't feel bad that you started a fire. I've been wanting a new kitchen for years. And now my house, my homeowner's insurance is going to have to pick up the tab. I get a new kitchen. I'm just glad you were here to take care of my boys. And I mean, that was Julie. Leave it up to her to be the only one who could get a homeowner to say, thanks for setting my house on fire. I'm going to benefit from that.

Julie had an enormous heart for inclusion, for charity and social justice. It came through even as a child and a young teenager. Julie was just a very outgoing, fun-loving, free-spirited person. She never knew a stranger. She had the ability to make friends with anyone regardless of where they were at that point in their lives. She was the kind of person to give to charities. She would sit and read books to visually impaired people. She would give you the shirt off her back if you needed it.

It was just the type of person she was. She would be that kid on Halloween with the UNICEF box and more concerned about collecting quarters than getting some candy from the neighborhood houses. She was always very giving. The beauty of her giving heart and charitable spirit was matched by her outer beauty as well. When she walked into a room or an area, all eyes would turn to her because she was a very beautiful person and it kind of radiated out of her. A free spirit, fun-loving, giving to everyone that she met. You hear people use it all the time, but she was truly that person that when she entered the room, all eyes were on her. Julie was aware of her beauty and the attention it drew, the eyes of men and women alike that looked on in admiration or intrigue, or maybe sometimes even jealousy. In some cases, that even kind of bothered her. It made her feel a little uncomfortable to be the center of attention at times. She also tended to dress

in men's three-piece suits quite often and wear a fedora hat because she didn't like having all the extra attention that she would get. So she would deflect. Plus, it gave her more pocket options to have a man's suit on. You know, they get all the pocket. Though she captured the eyes and hearts of many with her beauty that radiated from the inside out, Julie only had eyes for one person, her boyfriend, Brian Hemberger. She was very mature beyond her years. She moved out by the time that she was 17

years old and moved right into a full-time relationship with her boyfriend, Brian. And they kind of settled into just a married style life, even though Julie never wanted to be married. Brian was just a very quiet guy. You know, there wasn't really, I don't really have a whole lot of memories of any kind of, they just got along like they had always been together. As Lori said, Julie was mature beyond her years and fiercely independent. Moving away from her parents, two brothers and younger sister at 17 years old and into the city with her boyfriend, it wasn't met with any opposition from her family. It did feel a little surprising to Lori though. The city life was never something they were raised in, but Lori knew, and her whole family felt, that Julie was mature enough to handle it.

Julie and Brian lived together with their pets, two attack-trained German shepherds, Circe and Sibley, as well as two Siamese cats named Oreo Cookie and Banana Man. Their life was quiet and simple. They didn't go out and party. There was never any, that just wasn't her lifestyle. She was just a kind of a stay-at-home, very interested in animals, nature, books. She could breeze through a novel in just one evening, just sit in a corner somewhere quietly and read through a novel. Julie was deeply introspective. She was spiritual and intuitive. She kept journals of her thoughts and reflections of life, its fragility, and the role of her life

on this earth. Julie, in her own way, knew she didn't have a lot of time on this earth. And I think that it just pushed her to be the best version of herself that she could be. Because she knew her life was going to be short, and so why not be the best example that she could be while she was here? Lori and their mother moved to Florida when Lori was 16 years old. Julie was still living with her longtime boyfriend, Brian, and her work and dedication to service continued. When she wasn't waiting tables at Hungry Charlie's, she worked as a records clerk at the Leahy Clinic. With her family so far away,

Julie stayed in touch with her mother in Florida, penning long letters about her life back in New England. It's in these letters Lori's mother learned that the several-year-long relationship between Julie and Brian was not what it once had been. My mother told me that she had expressed some concerns that things weren't working out, that it was maybe time to move on, that Brian wanted to get married. Julie did not want marriage. She was too free-spirited to be tied down that way. In another letter, several pages long,

Julie reflected on the fragility of life. Dear Ma, she wrote, the fact is that a schoolmate of mine from Lexington died recently, and it just got me thinking about how very fragile life is, how it can be snatched away so suddenly, without warning, sometimes very unexpectedly. That letter also contained Julie's will. And most people don't think at the age of 23 to send their mother a bill.

But she had lost a friend that she had went to high school with. And so she explains in this letter that she realized life is short and that if anything were to happen to her, no one knew her wishes. And so she wanted my mother to hopefully not take it as a morbid type of letter, but just simply, these are my wishes. If anything should happen to me, you're the best person to carry them out. You're the best person I can write to. And she said, I want my organs to be donated. I'm hoping that even in death, I could help other people. I would like to be cremated. I don't want to spend the rest of eternity in the ground. And if I have any belongings that mean anything to anyone, then of course I would like them to be donated to whomever might benefit from them. The letter, with her will and final

wishes laid out in plain detail, it might feel to you like this dark foreboding message but it wasn't taken as such not to Lori or her family it was Julie's way mature and wise beyond her 23 years that same reflective and intuitive nature putting into words what she seemed to know more deeply than most Life is delicate, fragile, temporary. She was, she, intuitive is a good way to put it. She had premonitions or intuitions that her life was going to be short. She had a strong spirituality and calmness about the fact that even if she left early, life goes on after. Late in 1977, all the Campbell kids were in Florida visiting their mother and younger sister Lori. Brian and Julie were still together, and they traveled around to see the sights of the Sunshine State. Brian with his camera in hand.

He was a photographer by trade. If you see a photo of Julie Campbell, it's likely Brian Hamburger was behind the lens. He took her to different areas of Florida and took some photographs of her. I think she was his muse. We all got together. There's one photo of the four of us kids and my mom all gathered.

That was our last get-together just a few months before she was murdered. The photo of all the siblings, Clay, Bruce, Julie, and Lori, and their proud, smiling mother sandwiched between them, no one knew that it was the last time their family would all be together as one. The last interaction I had with her was during that trip that she and Brian made here late in 1977 where she, they only stayed a day or two with my mother and I was busy working. We didn't really get a chance to do any sister bonding during that visit. I think she and Brian were just kind of passing through to visit all the highlights you can. They're maybe in Florida when you're from Massachusetts

and, you know, you want to come down here for a visit. But that's the last I remember having any time with her. Of course, if I had known then what I know now, I would have taken more time to make sure that those hours were spent better. On a Sunday evening, February 26, 1978, Julie Campbell had left a 24-hour copy center carrying the stack of flyers she printed for a co-worker. She was planning to follow that co-worker, George Lai, from Hungry Charlie's, where she waited tables, to a new establishment that he was starting. The flyers she printed announced the grand opening. A rush of frigid winter air followed her in the door as Julie arrived at the Plow and Stars bar on Massachusetts Avenue. It's still there today. But in 1978, Julie sidled up next to George and his female friend, ordering a drink as she took a seat beside them.

It was late. Late enough for Sunday to become Monday over the course of one round. She had one drink. She was apparently approached by someone while she was at the bar who offered her drugs and or drinks, and she turned him down. She was not interested and they all finished their drink and decided it was time to go home. At this point, it was right around 12 30 or so is my understanding. They left the bar together, but George and his friend were headed in the opposite direction of Julie, and so she started her walk back to her friend's apartment on Ellery Street alone. It was about a quarter mile away, not a far walk from the Plow and Stars bar at all. within the one block of her apartment when someone, for reasons we will never know, stabbed her four times. Once in the back, once in the neck, once through the heart, and once in the abdomen. Somebody heard her scream and looked out their window of their upstairs apartment

called 911 and said there's a woman being attacked the first officer on the scene was a then rookie police officer by the name of Jim Dwyer and he just scooped her up. There had been a big snowstorm going on a day or two prior, so there weren't any cars or traffic or anything to impede his getting to her

or his getting her to the Cambridge emergency room where she was declared dead at the emergency room. And that's all I knowledge of what happened that night still isn't much more than what the public learned in news reports. It's the nature of open but long-standing cold cases. To protect the integrity of the investigation, to protect any possibility that the cold case could one day be solved, so much of the information about what happened that night is kept confidential,

even from the family. What Lori does know, what she could never forget, was the heavy weight that landed on the shoulders of her entire family. Her mother and brother Clay, who happened to be visiting in Florida, they showed up on Lori's doorstep around 5 in the morning that February 27, 1978. They told Lori her older sister was gone, that she'd been murdered. To me, it was kind of just like a nightmare. I didn't think I was even awake. I felt that was a dream. And in fact, I continued to be in a fog-like state until a few days later when we arrived in Massachusetts and literally until I saw her in the coffin, I did not get the gravity of the situation until I saw her there.

That was when I had my meltdown and total falling apart and belief that I would never see my sister again. Detectives began their investigation collecting evidence at the scene. Some reports say there were a few broken beer bottles nearby that may have fingerprints. They canvassed the Cambridge neighborhood, knocked on doors, and questioned bar patrons to find anyone who might have crossed paths with the beautiful Julie Campbell in the early morning hours before her murder. I don't know about what the police did back in those days as far as investigation of, you know, they did go door to door. They did end up going back to the bar and talking to people that saw her that night, that interacted with her that night. Investigators asked the critical question,

why? Why kill Julie, a friend to everyone she met, with a giving heart and a gentle spirit? What was the motive there? The answer to that question would be pivotal and could uncover the answer to another critical question. Who? Who did this to Julie? The enduring question that we'll never have an answer to is why. That's, I think, the eternal question that every person who's been in my

situation wants the answer to. And what I've come to realize is that there is no answer for that, because there's never a reason to take someone else's life. In a March 1, 1978 piece in the Boston Globe, it's reported that two other women had been accosted near Ellery Street, the same location as Julie's murder, in weeks prior. The area also had two unsolved robberies gone wrong still on the books from several years earlier. Investigators explored possible connections between the cases, but they didn't play out. And then as they do in any investigation, detectives took a close

look at the people closest to Julie before her murder. It was then that Lori learned Julie and Brian were no longer together. So my mother knew that there were some issues in the relationship, but never really discussed it with me until after Julie passed away. I didn't really know the extent to which she was unhappy until I found out that when she was murdered, that she and Brian had broken up six weeks prior. That was my first knowledge of it. Julie didn't want to get married, and Brian did. That could have been the final line in the sand that caused their split. It certainly could have been viewed as motive to take the life of the woman who didn't want to be his missus.

But as far as Lori knows, Brian was ruled out, and she herself has never suspected that he was responsible. Brian was a person of interest, of course. They always look at the closest person, and with them having a breakup only six weeks prior, I do know that he was considered, but he was ruled out very quickly. And my brother Clay and myself have actually never believed that Brian, while I know that you can never know what a person is capable of doing in a moment in time. I've never believed he would be able to live with himself without confession. Even if he had snapped, this happened. Brian is not the type of person who could go on without confessing.

Beyond the critical why and the who, there are other questions about that night that Lori still asks to this day. She was a black belt in karate. She always had mace in her pocket. She never carried a purse because at one point in time, a few years before, she had had a purse. Someone tried to steal it from her. So she tended to wear clothing that had pockets and just carry mace in one pocket, a wallet in the other pocket. And there's, of course, no such thing as cell phones or any of that that were needed back in 1978. These are the things that make me question how she was taken by surprise that particular night, because she had the means of defense. In my mind, if you go to the extent of becoming a black belt and you carry mace, you have the means to self-defend.

So there's a mystery there also as to why is it that she was not able to fight back unless she was totally taken by surprise, which apparently she was, you know, at midnight on a quiet, stormy winter night, which is when this murder occurred. The story of the quiet, stormy, winter night murder took hold of the Cambridge community. Other female residents of the area told Boston Globe reporters that they feared walking alone at night and had started to take extra precautions should they have to travel anywhere after dark. Detectives appealed to the public through local media, asking anyone who knew anything about that

night or thought they might have seen something, no matter how insignificant it may seem, to report it to the Cambridge Police Headquarters. And reports did come in. One tip led them to the door of a man named Ronald Reed Purley. I found an article in my father's briefcase. He took fantastic notes and kept all articles that there was an arrest of a gentleman named Ronald Reed Purley, who happened to be in Cambridge at the time that Julie was killed. According to that article, Lori found in her dad's briefcase from the Boston Herald American by Dan McLaughlin and Harold Banks, an unidentified informant reported seeing 25-year-old

Ronald Reed Pearly inside the Plow and Stars bar just before Julie left that night. He was known to live in the area, right near Ellery Street. On the afternoon of Wednesday, March 8, 1978, police stood at Purley's door and knocked several times, but no one was home. The article goes on to explain that police knocked on the door of a neighbor across the hall, and when the door opened, they met a woman in a shocked and dazed state. Immediately concerned, they asked the woman if she was all right, but the woman told the officers she had just been raped. She identified her attacker as her neighbor, Ronald Reed Purley. The next morning, police arrested Purley.

He was held on $50,000 bail for charges of rape, a previous 1972 charge of assault with intent to rape, and possession of marijuana. He could not make bail and so was sent to await proceedings in the Billerica jail. At the time, the suspect was also wanted in Winnipeg, Toronto, and in New Brunswick for various charges, as well as a charge of intent to rape in Berkeley, California. And if you've listened to previous episodes of Dark Down East, you've actually heard

his name before. Because Ronald Reed Purley was also believed to be with the 16-year-old Kathy Marie Moulton when she disappeared while walking home down Forest Avenue in Portland, Maine on September 24th, 1971. Retired Portland police detective Kevin Cady joined me on Dark Down East last fall to tell Kathy Moulton's story. When Kathy was just 16 years old, she seemingly vanished while walking home from a quick shopping trip in downtown Portland, Maine.

If you've listened to Kathy's story on this show, you know the details of the investigation into what happened that day, the last day the Moulton family ever saw Kathy again. You also know how Kevin Cady believes Kathy's story ended, based on what he learned during his investigation. Kathy's case is still unsolved and remains one of the oldest missing persons cases in the state of Maine and in the country. Kevin Cady wrote a book about Kathy Moulton that details the leads and timelines and connections he uncovered alongside Detective Sergeant Thomas P. Joyce Jr. In that same book about Kathy's case, titled Kathy Marie Moulton, Missing and Endangered, Kevin also explored a case in Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1978. That case, of course, was Julie Campbell's.

It was actually Kevin Cady who first connected with Lori Manning about her sister's case and shared my coverage of Kathy's story with her. He's how I came to meet Lori, virtually, of course. The following clip comes from my conversation with Kevin Cady about Kathy Moulton's case. A listener note, Kevin misspoke and uses the name Judy, though he did mean Julie. So Tom Joyce and I went down and we met with a detective at Cambridge PD. And when we showed him Kathy's picture, literally his face went white. He said, he goes, I got to get a picture of this girl, Judy Campbell. What the detective tells us is Reed Purley had been in a bar where she was, had been talking

with her. The investigation shows that she rebuffs his advances and tries to get away from him. And when she leaves, Reed Purley follows her out the door and then moments later, her throat slashed from someone from behind. Reed Pearly is taken into custody and is interrogated and ultimately they, for whatever reason, couldn't find evidence to link him to the actual murder and he was never charged with it. Those are Kevin Cady's recollections of his conversation with Jim Dwyer, the officer who responded to the scene of Julie's murder. I could not independently verify the details shared by Kevin regarding Reed Purley's presence in the bar with Julie that evening. requests to the Middlesex County's DA office for a number of items in Julie's investigation, including any notes taken during questioning of Ronald Reed Purley as a suspect or person of interest in her murder. These requests, at the time of this episode's original release,

are still pending. As this is an open and active investigation, it's unclear if I will ultimately be able to gain access to any of that information. Everything shared regarding Ronald Reed Purley in this episode was previously publicly reported by other sources. been charged with any crime as it relates to the 1978 murder of Julie Campbell in Cambridge, Massachusetts, or the 1971 disappearance of Kathy Marie Moulton in Portland, Maine. In a Boston Globe column called Ask the Globe, published Tuesday, July 11, 1978, D.M. from Alston, Massachusetts asked, Much was written about the murder of Julie Campbell last February. What is the status of the case? The Globe responded, quote, That was over four months later, and still nothing. It kind of came to a screeching halt. There's no murder weapon.

There was no such thing as DNA back in those days. So the case went cold rather quickly. The grieving, the trauma, the dark and difficult journey for Julie's family would be a long one. It took me many, many, many years to get past this trauma. It just threw our whole family into a state of utter despair. The whole family is affected, the other people that just care and love the person that is killed. It goes, the ripple effect is endless when something like this happens.

My poor son, he grew up with such a paranoid mother. I wouldn't even let him get in a car, I told him. Kyle, even if someone, our next-door neighbor, comes to you and you've known them for years, even if they come and say, well, your mom's been in an accident, get in the car, I'll take you to her, you have to say, what's the code word? And if they don't know it, you don't get in the car, we all take you to her. You have to say, what's the code word?

And if they don't know it, you don't get in the car. It changes your whole, I go to a restaurant, I still am the one sitting with my back to the wall because no one's going to sneak up behind me and take me by surprise. It just never goes away. I even lost one brother to suicide, and it was many years after the fact, but he and Julie were extremely close, and I just believe in the end, it took my mother in a way, and it also took my brother from us. So people who commit these kind of crimes, they don't apparently have a care for the victim, but they don't also ever stop to think of the ripple effect of who else gets hurt along the way. In 1999, Lori's father brought the family together for a meeting with the investigative team on Julie's case. That meeting, two decades after her murder, was transformative for Lori.

My father made an appointment with the Cambridge police, the state police, the DA, anyone who at all had ever been involved in the case. And we went and had a meeting. came out of it knowing and feeling that I could finally start to heal because it didn't matter anymore how my sister died. It could have been a long-term illness. It could have been a plane crash. It could have been an auto accident. The answer was she's at peace. She is on the other side. I will see her again. Though not an easy, linear process, Lori feels she has now reached a place of forgiveness. I have found forgiveness. I could not move on without finding forgiveness.

Even if we find the person who did this, I have already forgiven this person for what they did. My fear is that this person is continuing to hurt other people. And that was always my father's driving force was that, what if this person doesn't stop with Julie? What if it's more women and families that go through? And that's my point in trying to get the story out with you is that I would hope someone out there would have knowledge to be able to help us bring this person to justice so that no other family ever goes through what we went through. Lori, what do you hope we can all learn from your sister, not in how she died, but in how she lived. What do you hope her legacy will be? To be good to other people.

She truly was always kind, giving, thoughtful. To live every day as if it may be your last day. Be nice to people. Smile. Say something that will make them feel better. Be generous of spirit. If you can give something to help someone else have a better day, do that. To be more charitable, Julie gave to charities, whether it was the ASPCA, UNICEF, reading to people who are visually impaired before there was any such thing as an audio book.

She always gave freely of herself, her time, and if she had some change in your pocket and you needed something, it was yours. If you needed a piece of clothing and she had it and you didn't, it was yours. Be kind. I don't ever remember Julie having angry outbursts at people, even though they may have done something that, you know, on a certain day, things can stress you out. But Julie would just kind of let it roll off her back and try to smile at that person and make their day a better day for having met her. It would be, the world would be such a better place if everyone thought, you know, this may be my last day on earth,

and maybe I can do something today that might help someone else. Julie Campbell's murder remains an open and active investigation. There are elements of this case that I cannot share in order to protect the integrity of the investigation. But I can tell you this, I'm prepared to follow this case until Julie Campbell's murderer is brought to justice. I'll be staying in close contact with Julie's sister, Lori, who has waited 43 long years to know who stole the life of her sister. I didn't realize how cathartic this was going to be for me to actually get Julie's story out there in my words and to finally feel like I've done something to take action, to bring closure on it. It's been a long time coming. Julie's case is currently with Middlesex County's Cold Case Squad, established by the new district attorney Marion Ryan, seated in 2019.

If you have any information about the 1978 murder of Julie Campbell, contact the Cambridge Special Investigations tip line at 617-349-3359. I want to thank my brother Clay for bearing with me over all the years and being the other survivor in my family, Clay Campbell. He has a friend, Larry Barefield, who has created a beautiful Facebook page in honor of Julie. For more information on Julie's case, visit the Facebook page. Search Julie Campbell Unsolved Murder. You can also visit juliecampbellmurder.com. I just would be ever so grateful if anyone could reach into their memory banks. I know 1978 is a long time ago, but people talk, people make confessions, people brag. I just would love to have the answers and get this person off the streets so that no one else ever has to walk

through what my brother Clay and I and our what was our family has walked through when something as awful as a murder takes place. Lori, thank you for joining me to tell Julie's story on Dark Down East and for all of the beautiful memories you shared with us. Is there anything else we should know? Anything else you hope we carry with us to help honor the life and legacy of your sister? Life is short. Live it now. You know, you never know know tell people you love them if you love them

let them know Thank you for listening to Dark Down East. Sources for this episode, including links to individual articles, are listed in the show notes at darkdowneast.com. A special thank you to Lori Manning. If you have a story or a case I should cover, I'd love to hear from you at hello at darkdowneast.com. For photos and more information relating to this case and others, visit darkdowneast.com and follow along on Instagram at darkdowneast. Thank you for supporting this show and allowing me to do what I do. I'm honored to use this platform for the families and friends who have lost their loved ones, and for those who are still searching for answers in cold missing persons and murder cases.

I am not about to let those names or their stories get lost with time. I'm Kylie Lowe, and this is Dark Down East.