Sword and Scale - Episode 194

Episode Date: August 16, 2021

Loving parents Jason and Julie live on the California coast with their three young children and have the dream life, or so it seems. Jason is a respected and loved teacher and coach while Julie earned a Harvard degree. But Julie is a hoarder who has given up on her stay-at-home role as a mom, and Jason has had enough. One of them is highly trained in firearms and one has no experience at all. One of them ends up dead, and the other claims no responsibility. Will the children be left with one parent, or no parents?See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Sword and Scale contains adult themes and violence and is not intended for all audiences. Listener discretion is advised. And I'm still recovering from everything he did to me all those years. And it's been so hard for me to talk about. Hello and welcome to season 8, episode 194 of Sword and Scale, a show that reveals the worst monsters are real. This is the part of the show where I take a minute to tell you about plus. I'm going to keep it short because I tell you about this every episode, but it really does help us out tremendously when you join Plus. And you get all kinds of extra content. You get 90 something, almost 100 episodes of the show called

Plus, which is completely separate from Sword and Scale proper. The episodes are about an hour long each and they're all commercial free and beautiful high bandwidth 320 kilobytes. You can get Sword and Scale Plus at swordand skill.com.com plus, through either our iOS or Android app, or you can get a light version of plus on the Apple Podcast app. Wherever you choose to listen, you're going to get lots of quality, sword and skill content. So consider joining today. Alright get ready, here we go for this week's episode. Are you ready? You better be.

Privilege. What a word. It seems to be a very popular word these days. But despite its overuse and abuse in the political sphere, the word itself does have some meaning. To be a privileged person, you have an advantage over others, whether you were born with it or it was handed to you. It kind of implies that you didn't necessarily earn this advantage. For example, someone whose parents pay for their expensive college education is privileged,

or someone who inherits quite a lot of money and can buy a new house without having to even think about it, let alone save for down payment. That's a privileged person. There's a lot of privileged people in academia these days telling others who've worked hard their whole lives to make a couple bucks that they're the ones that are privileged instead. And who hasn't heard of the term Karen by now? The privileged white woman throwing a fit in the park or at the mall, because someone else isn't doing what she wants them to.

The term privileged is a close neighbor to the word spoiled, but it's a little different. When we think of spoiled, we tend to think of bratty little children. But have you ever met a spoiled adult? It's always about them. And because they expect things to come easy for them, it's're a tantrum when it doesn't. Sometimes it's just a little bit of acting out, but sometimes when things get really tough for a spoiled California Dreaming California is one of those few states in which a lot of people would love to live in if they could afford it and if they could get past the rampant homeless problem, and political climate.

Speaking of climate, Southern California especially boasts the perfect climate. Take calls bad, for example, located between Los Angeles and San Diego, where the temperature sits beautifully between 64 and 77 degrees every single day. Doesn't that sound lovely, Minnesota? Add to that that Carlsbad is right on the ocean with magnificent cliffs and beaches glistening with white sand. However, the price tag for a rather ordinary home in this land of paradise is about 800 grand,

unless you want to live in a double-wide trailer on a very small lot. Julie and Jason Harper were lucky enough to afford a home on Badger Lane, one that would run a cool million in 2021 and was about $400,000 at the time they purchased it 20 years ago. Jason and his wife lived in an upper middle class gated community with everything going for them. And Jason had landed his ideal job. He was a beloved math teacher and volleyball coach at Carlsbad High School for many years,

where he was loved by his students and his players. And he had attended UCLA. But in his childhood, he was raised by his students and his players. And he had attended UCLA. But in his childhood, he was raised by his parents to love education. And he did well in school. He was an excellent student, and he also enjoyed playing the many sports that his loving parents put him into. He excelled because of his height in basketball

and volleyball. Going into high school, he was over six feet tall. He became the captain of his volleyball team and his basketball team. But he didn't just do well in sports. When it was time to apply to colleges, he did so well in his academics that he got into the nation's top universities. He chose to attend UCLA. During his time at UCLA, he not only excelled academically, but won national competitions on the men's volleyball team. Soon after graduating, he began teaching at Crawl's Bad High School, and simultaneously studying for his postgraduate degree at Chapman University.

Well, it was during this time that Jason was living after UCLA, living in El Segundo, working as a teacher and studying to get his master's degree, that he met a gal named Julie Ciac at a party. They were very much from different worlds. Julie was a USC girl and she was from a well-to-do family. Jason was a UCLA man and came from a working class family. But nonetheless, they hit it off. And they started dating. And Julie was a good-looking, young, blonde girl from USC.

And she came from money. And she was very appealing to Jason. Not only did Julie come into the picture loaded with piles of money, but she was also exceedingly bright. Julie Harper, who through her own resume, She was also exceedingly bright. Julie Harper, who through her own resume, talks about how she went to Harvard University, studied at USC, got her master's degree from Cal State Long Beach, and got into UC Davis Law School.

This is a very smart woman. On November 4, 2001, Jason and Julie married and moved to their carls bad home two years later. But how did they afford a $400,000 home in 2001 on Jason's salary as a teacher? That kind of house was way above Jason's pay grade at the time. And Julie wanted to be a stay-at-home mom

in lieu of using her Harvard degree. I mean, hey, not not going to women's right to do anything she wants, but Julie wanted to be a stay-at-home mom and Lou of using her Harvard degree. I mean, hey, not not going to a woman's right to do anything she wants, but Julie wanted it all. Jason's mother told us how she felt when she first met Julie. The first red flag was when they were dating and she broke up with him because she wasn't sure she wanted to be with just a teacher. That comment told me that a teacher's salary would not be enough for her. Julie's love for Jason overcame her misgivings about his working class salary,

and they married anyway. You see, Julie was born with a silver spoon in her mouth. Remember that show? Silver spoons? Young little Ricky Schroeder riding his train around the living room? And who could forget? It was the early start of Alfonso Ribeiro's career. Ah, the 80s. Anyway, that term, silver spoon, has an interesting history. One explanation is that during the Middle Ages before people learned how to set a proper table way before Martha Stewart etiquette, of course, guests were expected to bring their own spoons

and they carried a spoon with them, pretty much wherever they went. Just like today, we carry our keys or our wallet. I'm gonna start doing that. I'm gonna start carrying a silver spoon around. Class up the place. If a person showed up to dinner with a silver spoon, it was clear they had certain social status

like land ownership. But it didn't denote exceptionally high status. It just served as more of an indicator that a person wasn't a surf or slave with dirt under their fingernails from a long, hard day of work. Julie was no surf. She wanted the kind of life she was accustomed to, but no worries.

There was already a safety net in place. Because Julie came from a family of money that they had an expectation that she was going to contribute because she continued even into adulthood at 39 years old or so to get an allowance from her father and that she was expected to contribute. Your father contributed to both of his daughters, adult daughters, and would give them money even into their marriage. Despite Julie's prestigious Harvard degree, she chose to be a state-owned mom, and the couple eventually created a family, two boys and a girl.

At the time, Julie seemed like any other mom in the neighborhood, taking care of her first born boy, packing lunches, and taking into school and other activities, assuming an active role in the community and at the school. The same was true for her second child, a girl, except Julie was changing by this point. Despite the financial help from her parents, there just didn't seem to be enough money for her satisfaction and for her spending habits. Julie Harper started spending excessively, spending money that this family didn't have because they had purchased a house

in a very nice gated community of Karlsbad, a house that was far too expensive for Jason Harper living off of his full-time teacher's salary, which was somewhere in the range, I think, of 60-something, 60,000 or more. But essentially, it was not an extravagant salary. And at the same time, Julie Harper was spending and spending and spending.

And along came another baby boy. By this time, Julie was in pain much of the time from an autoimmune condition causing arthritis. The more steroids she needed, the less mothering she did. And the more she spent. While Julie was becoming somewhat reclusive, spending more and more time isolated in the bedroom, Jason was assuming more and more of her responsibilities. The older kids remember that they didn't realize other moms did most of the cooking and diaper changing. Because in their house, Jason did those things.

It got to the point that Jason was the only one doing things when he wasn't working. Even the neighbor kids remembered being excited to go to the Harper house after school because Jason would be around to shoot hoops with them. Jason was a loving and a very helpful son to me and to his father. He had become a man of high character with high standards. He was also a lover and respected high school math teacher and coach. Most of all, Jason was a devoted and hands-on father who dearly loved his three children. While Jason was picking up the slack, Julie was developing an addiction not only to spending but to prescription pain

medication, which only exacerbated her isolation and quickly fed into other habits, bad ones. She started buying things like clothing that she didn't wear, and pretty soon these things began to pile up. If you've ever watched the show Horders, you know exactly what this looks like. You probably also know that these vices can fit into the same picture together, each playing off of each other. A vicious cycle, if you will. If you've never watched the show hoarders my god, go watch it.

It's actually pretty amazing. But here's an expert on the subject. A classic profile of a hoarder is of a person in their 50s who collects clothing, newspapers, magazines, lots and lots of containers, boxes, bags, paper bags, and so forth. And all those items are usually collected in the middle of the room and they're all dumped in a pile. And so, the three basic features that we see in hoarding, that are behaviors and experiences that are a little bit different than those of the rest of us.

One is, has to do with the acquisition of these things. And the acquisition happens in a couple of different ways. Most people who hoard, a engaging, excessive levels of acquisition either by compulsively buying things or compulsively acquiring free things. Remember in Julie's case, she was used to a certain lifestyle,

kind of posh-like, or as they say these days, bougie, she liked to spend, and this was getting out of hand so much so that she racked up credit cards and jeopardized the family budget in a pretty big way. Jason and Julie began arguing about her spending habits, her lack of involvement with household duties, her many pills, and her end of 2009. The master bedroom and bathroom had become deeply cluttered and filled with bags, boxes, stacks of papers, and a large shopping bag overflowing with her empty pill bottles. At some point, Julie contemplated getting a job or two to help manage the mounting

bills. But these efforts never came to fruition. Meanwhile, she was sinking deeper and deeper in her self-created mess. Here is a key figure in the story who became familiar with the Harper's Family life. Oh my God, there were so many prescription bottles from various pharmacies and grocery stores in the area.

I mean mean dozens, about dozens of bottles, both full and empty. There were clothes strewn all over from their bedrooms and their closets. I think she was kind of a mess between the pills and being disorganized and she seemed to have lots and lots of clothes. They were new, they were still hanging in the closet with their tags on it and they were on the floors and the beds. So she looked disorganized, popping a lot of pills and she was trying to find herself in the job market, I think. She had had a lot of

different jobs. She had gone to a wonderful school, USC, here in Los Angeles, had a good education. And I think initially she did have some good jobs. So I don't know where somewhere along the line, things start going downhill. The money was running out. Despite the thousands of dollars her own family had contributed towards her adult allowance, Julie was becoming desperate to fund her indulgences, mostly consisting of clothing, purses, and pills. And how did husband Jason react? Well, according to C, D. Another behind closed doors.

My husband was a different man by closed doors. But he was a very different man to me. And it's been so hard to go through all of this for the last 24 and a half plus years after what I went through for him for years and still recovery from everything he did to me all those years and it's been so hard for me to talk about. A different story was the California coast, three young beautiful children, a great community to live in, and supportive families. Julie had an especially supportive family, one that endorsed her lifestyle with a stipend to help out with their costly mortgage.

But Julie had a medical condition that led to a drug addiction, that she had something else, avoid that she compulsively filled with stuff, lots of stuff, everywhere. Julie's issues had begun to cause serious problems in her marriage to Jason. And now, Julie was finally admitting

that Jason had been abusive to her for 30 years. Her claims included berating her, belittling her, and everything short of beating her. I don't care, we're gonna force me into going to her until you get three $3,000! In case you had trouble understanding Jason, he yelled, but don't force me into going somewhere until you give me my $3,000. The bickering had become so incessant that on August 2, 2012, Julie was the one who filed

for divorce. Reporting that Jason was verbally abusive and the abuse had been going on for 30 years. He was swearing at her in front of the kids, grabbing her wrists during arguments and even pushing her. He also had the audacity to cut the purse strings, shutting her out of their joint accounts. This wasn't going to stop Julie from continuing her out of control spending. She began writing checks to herself fraudulently from

Jason's personal bank account for thousands of dollars. She stole 9,000 dollars from Jason Harper's solo account. You see this couple had a plan that's maybe unlike many other traditional marriages, where at times they had separate bank accounts and they had agreements to contribute separate money to the marriage. And Jason had his own solo account. And on this day, Julie Harper went and fraudulently stole money from him. Each time she did it, very smart, staying under the $5,000 fraud alert

limit that would trigger a red flag. Julie Harper opened a brand new safety deposit box without Jason's knowledge. She listed herself as the sole renter, not Jason, and she listed a PO box as her address, not the Badger Lane address that they were living at, and she placed $3,000 inside of that safety deposit box. On that same day, on that same bank, she also opened up two brand new savings accounts, one for $1,000 in which she placed $1,000,

and then opened a second account and placed $500 into that that's August 4th and the third thing I'm going to tell you about is that on Saturday August 4th she then withdrew over 11,000 dollars She went to the Pitches Bank and she withdrew $10,000 out of her daughter Jackie's dormant college fund account. In between shopping, self-medicating, sleeping, and stealing, Julie liked to play games with Jason. We're not talking about the game of life for trouble or clue, not even monopoly. However, appropriate these games would be. We're talking about messing with his head.

A very popular game that lots of women play. Oh boy, I'm going to get in trouble for that one. In any case, at this point, in their relationship, the bedroom had been divided in half by a mattress. With Jason's part of the room neatly organized into an office on one side, With Jason's part of the room neatly organized into an office on one side, and Julie's chaotic mess on the other. At night, Jason flipped the mattress down and slept on it, while Julie somehow found a spot on the nightmare of her messy bed. On the morning of August 7th, 2012, Julie was up to one of her spiteful tricks. She had removed an essential piece from Jason's computer, rendering it unusable. Rather than engaging in the usual sparring match, Jason was going to purchase another piece. Just before he left, Julie magically returned it,

which started a fight in the bedroom. You can tell by this time that the troubled marriage went both ways. The once modlessque, Julie, had let herself turn into a bloated and lethargic blob due to her opiate addiction. The house was a hoarder's lair. The kids were being completely cared for by Jason, who also worked a full-time job and money, had run out thanks to Julie stealing it. And Jason's part? He ranted and raved, verbally assaulted, and sometimes grabbed. But you gotta ask yourself which came first.

That morning, August 7th, the kids were watching cartoons downstairs, while the parents were fighting upstairs. They were jolted out of TV land when they heard a huge clunk and screaming. Curious about what had happened, one of the kids went upstairs to check. Julie peaked nervously through the barely open door and simply said that their dad had fallen from a chair while going through his things. She had explained that he would need to sleep and prompted them to get ready for breakfast. Here is Julie's version of what happened that morning. He grabbed me by the arms began shaking me forcefully.

I was so scared. He began shoving me, pushing me toward the couch. I call it a chase. And he was yanking my pants and top off. As he was coming toward me, he said, I'm gonna kill you. You. You.

I told him, stop. Can he stop? No. Julie claimed years of physical abuse and rape, yet there was no one, including her children, who could verify these claims. No, I was very embarrassed. I was very embarrassed that he was doing it. I didn't want.

I didn't want my family to know. I didn't want my neighbors to know. I didn't want my neighbors to know, I didn't want my friends to know. The scenario, as told by Julie to her children, was that Jason had fallen from a chair, what she insisted actually happened was that he was coming towards her and got in the way of her gun. In reality, he had not fallen, and he was shot in the back. The six-foot seven-inch man crashed to the floor in a slump, face down, and Julie added him to her collection of hoarder's junk. Julie was highly trained in weapons and knew just where to aim. Julie was highly trained in weapons and knew just where to aim. The bullet entered from the back and went through his heart at close range, killing him

instantly. The giant man was motionless on the floor. Yet Julie claimed she ran to the bathroom and fear he would jump up and come after her. She did not perform CPR and she did not call 911. We asked one of the future jurors who wants to remain anonymous, what he thought of Julie, an abused housewife defending herself or something else. Well, I'd consider a monster

or shooting her husband instead of divorcing him, and leaving her two kids parentless. I don't know how those kids are going to, the grandparents were wonderful. How they adjust to that, I don't know, I don't know how I turn out. So what did Julie do next? She took the kids to a coffee shop for breakfast. She pretended to be Jason and sent a message to his brother from Jason's phone, which he had taken from the house. The message asked Jason's brother to relay

to her parents the harpers that he wouldn't be able to make it for the barbecue. She asked for a play date with the kids at our sister's house and was denied. She went back to her neighborhood and called one of her friends, a friend that did not answer because she knew it would mean an immediate play date. That's the only relationship she had with Julie. And after two more unsuccessful attempts at play dates, she dropped the two older kids off at a play center unsupervised. When she finally arrived home again, she was spotted in the driveway looking frantic and putting things into her vehicle. Finally, Julie met up with her mom by accident,

and together they took the kids back to her sister Amy's house. Meanwhile, Jason's blood was pooling to the front of his face, turning it dark purple, and blotchy red patches were forming on his chest as he lay down, covered in debris, dead, ironically, sitting on top of all the junk covering Jason was a box of 1,000 sex games. By the time the police got to this house and found what they found, Jason Harper had already been dead all day. And that during this entire day, the defendant never called police. So how did we find out about this? Well, at 11.04 pm, this is 11.04 at night, getting close to the very next day, August 8th, the Carl's Bad Police Department received a phone call from defense attorney, Paul Finks.

He called an unrequited line and asked to speak to the watch commander. He spoke to the watch commander, Lieutenant Bruce May. Lieutenant Bruce May immediately recognized the name because Mr. Fink's was the former years ago elected district attorney of the county of San Diego. And since then has gone on to have a very prominent high profile career as a criminal defense attorney. So Lieutenant Bruce May said,

what can I do for you, Mr. Fink's? And Mr. Fink said, what can I do for you, Mr. Fink's? And Mr. Fink said, you need to do a welfare check at 2-4-2-0, Badger Lane. And Lieutenant May said, well, what do we need to do a welfare check for? What are we checking for? And who are we checking on? He was just trying to get more information.

And Mr. Fink's said, well, you'll see when you get there, and you'll need a warrant. And there is a woman and children that live there, and you're not checking on their welfare. And the lieutenant tried to get more information to find out. Remember, he doesn't know what happened to find out what this is all about. And he really couldn't get any more information. So they went up the stairs and went to the ride and looked in the various children's rooms which also were quite messy.

I mean just filled with stuff. But again, they didn't see anything unusual other than a messy house. All the way down the hall to where the master bedroom is located. And they were able to open the door and walk in. And what they found was an absolute mess. Just so much stuff, so many belongings had been stuffed into this master bedroom. Little did they know Jason Harper's deceased body lay in weight, buried beneath blankets, laundry baskets with clothing, containers with miscellaneous items, a pregnancy pillow, and the box of sex games. So much stuff they could barely open the door.

And it was hard for them to even move around this very large master bedroom. And so the lieutenant, as well as his fellow officers, began searching all around the room. They jumped over, climbed over piles of stuff, looked around, walked where they could, and they all searched throughout the room, and they still couldn't find what Mr. Finks had called them to look there for. They assembled in the middle of the room and said, well, I don't see why we're here. What do you think we should do? And the lieutenant says, let's start just like overturning these piles of things

and just see if there's anything under there. And as they removed more and more belongings, they realized that there was a human being under that pile, and that human being would later turn out to them to be the father of this household, Jason Harper, lying face down in his own bedroom under a pile of his family's belongings. At first, it truly did look as if Jason was sleeping because there appeared to be no injuries. The police scrutinized a little more closely.

They noticed that there's blood coming from his side in his back, and they lift his shirt and realize that there is what appears to be a bullet hole on his side towards his back. Remember, that day Julie was frenetically trying to find a place for her children to play. What seemed like an ordinary day of potential play dates was actually Julie's attempt at keeping her children out of the house and occupied so that she could cover her tracks. The house was locked and strangely, Jason's Ford Explorer was missing. It would later be found several streets from the house. Most importantly, the gun used to shoot Jason was also missing. This was Julie's gun. She was the one who owned it and was trained to use firearms.

Jason did not have a single gun registered in his name. What they did find amongst the debris and Jason's dead body were dozens of pills and pill bottles in Julie's name. Oxycontin, Oxycodone, Hydrocodone, valium, and even morphine. If you know anything about controlled substances, you know how hard they are to get from your doctor. They simply do not prescribe them these days. They know better. It's actually almost impossible to get your hands on morphine, for example. After digging into Julie's closet, which was packed full of brand new clothing and other items, other guns and ammo were uncovered. But the actual murder weapon, a 38 caliber, was nowhere to be found. When the clothing was removed and literally stacked to the

ceiling to allow entry into the closet, a cleaning kit and ammunition for a 38-calibre appeared. This was a clear sign that the gun existed and was missing. Julie was missing too. She was driving around desperately searching for someone to take her kids so she could visit the one person who would help her clean up this mess. And she shows up at her sister Amy's house. And she says to her sister Amy, hey we're here for the play day, the kids want to see their aunt. And she drops off the kids with Amy who really didn't want to watch the she doesn't have kids and didn't really want to watch

the kids. But she agreed to do so. And the defendant now without children, just leaves. She ends up at her father's office. Her father is a well-to-do licensed real estate broker with an office in the normal Heights area, which is near downtown of San Diego. His daughter came into the office and says to him, I shot Jason in self-defense. And that's all she said. Julie had run to daddy.

There's a reason Julie Harper didn't reach out to her mother and it's dead chose her father to save the day. She knows that it's daddy who always bails her out and gets her out of trouble and is not going to call the police but instead is going to help her out and gets her out of trouble. And it's not going to call the police, but instead, it's going to help her to get away the best she they can with what she did. She would spend the next eight hours at her father's house,

and according to her father, the only thing spoken was, I killed Jason in self-defense, hardly believable. What did happen included calling a very high profile defense attorney and meeting with him before going back to pick up her kids from her sister's home. They then took the kids and went to her dad's house again. This is Julie's dad. And yet you didn't open the door. No.

What happened then? They left. We've been instructed by Mr. Fanks to let him handle the situation. According to attorney thinks, Julie was to turn herself in that day. Julie gave her own advice to the attorney and her dad. Look for a blue backpack. This was a bug outback, Julie had carefully put together just after shooting her husband in the back in what she calls self-defense. And just before witnesses at the coffee shop

saw her with her children looking calm and collected. As I recall, what was in the backpack was currency, jewelry, credit cards, some traveler's checks, and a gun. Okay, so it had a gun. It had a gun. Did it have passports in it? Oh yes, passports. The currency in the bag mentioned by her father was nearly $40,000, out of which Julie directed the attorney to remove his fees.

There was also another form of currency in the bag. Get this, silver spoons. On August 8th, after basically hiding for a day and a half, the cops came for Julie at her dad's house. And there was nothing that even daddy could do about it. Julie and Jason Harper of Carlsbad, California had three small children and lived in an upper middle-class neighborhood on the beautiful sunny coast. Now Jason was dead and Julie was in jail.

The children were placed in temporary custody through children's services and Julie had brought forth a secret she'd been hiding. The reason she actually shot her husband. The secret was that she had been abused and raped by her husband Jason for years. Her so-her defense team would present. But she had an even bigger secret. Here Julie is describing her ex-boyfriend Jeremy, whom she called from jail and sent a postcard to 17 days after murdering her husband.

In it, she referred to Jeremy as the love of her life, and also admitted that she had been in touch with him during the marriage, a marriage in which she claims she was repeatedly raped. In fact, she kept a diary of the rapes. But when the diary appeared in court, it never mentioned the word rape. Instead, Julie detailed days and times that she and Jason had sex. Saturday, March 5, AM sex. Then, talk discussion for 5 hours into the evening on marital topics. Julie explained the word sex was code for rape. It's understood that many women do not report

being raped for various personal reasons, but I'm scratching my head because she was raped but did not disclose this to anyone. Did not document it in her diary in a way that anyone would understand. Did not report it to police, but instead had a long discussion following morning sex as she referred to it in her diary. I wasn't generally writing down when it was regular sex. Miss Harper, although she does very bizarre things, she is a person who's documents a lot of things in her life. And she writes these letters that are essentially journals

in which she documents her every thought, things she eats, what's happening in her life, what her family's doing, documents things about the marriage, just every minutia and detail of their life, she would write it down in these journals or letters. After she was arrested and placed into jail, 17 days after the murder, she wrote a letter to the Jerome Torres Yap from the jail. And 17 days later, you're going to be able to read the letter in which she shows no remorse at all

or no care for her husband who is killed on August 7th and for which she is in custody. But you will see that at the end of the letter she signs it, T-L-O-M-L-July, which stands for the love of my life. Not only was she sending him friendly letters, or maybe even love letters, but she was also sending him her journals with details of her life. If she was being physically abused or raped, why would she not disclose this to the love of her life? Even though she was contacting this

a love of her life Jeremy, and had shot her husband because he was about to rape her, there was one more weird item than her getaway bag, naked pictures of Jason. This is gonna get graphic here folks. So put the kiddies away, not that they should be here anyway, honestly. The pictures show Jason lying prone on the battle alone,

looking at the ceiling, his hands at his sides, obviously just before or after sex. The backpack also containing passports and birth certificates, both of Jason's cell phones and wallet, a gun that was not the murder weapon, family heirloom, silver spoons, almost $40,000 and naked photos of Jason were originally discovered by Julie's father on his premises.

Well that's embarrassing. After meeting with the defense attorney, this bag went missing for a period of time, only to resurface during a second police search at the Harper residence where it was discovered in the garage attic for some reason. In court, it was revealed that the defense attorney had suggested they put it in a safe place to preserve it. Attorney Finxd had also removed the $40,000 for his attorney fee and another attorney and gave some money to Julie's dad, as for the gun that killed Jason. And according to Ms. Harper, she went to Mr. Fink's office with a gun in her car.

She has the murder weapon, which means she removed it from the crime scene, which is already incriminating enough. She places it in her car and she drives it to the parking lot across from her lawyer's office. That's according to her own testimony. She has the gun. And she says she didn't take the gun inside.

It stayed in the car. But whatever the case is, she has the gun in her car at that point. This sounds like she is trying to cover up her actions. And we know she met with her attorney from 416 to 645 because the self-outtower record show them at the downtown office of Mr. Finx on A Street. That's a long time. According to her, the gun is still in the car and what happens immediately after she leaves Mr. Finink's office after 6.45pm, she immediately goes and disposes of the murder weapon.

According to testimony, she was told by Mr. Fink's to preserve the gun, just like the backpack, for evidence, of course. To this day, the gun has never been found. Julie claimed to have buried it and then forgot the location. Julie's location, however, was jail. Even then, Daddy was prepared to bail her out. What about Julie's mother? You might ask. You see, this dynamic between the parents is pretty obvious. You heard the testimony of John C. Hack that he was willing to bail his daughter out Put up money and collateral to bail her out of two million dollars When she was in jail for 400 something days, but it was the mother side the mother side that wasn't willing to release these funds The mother is notably absent from this courtroom and from this story because Miss Harper did

not want her mother's help that morning because her mother would have done what all of us would have done, which is go to the police. Well, our dad went back upstairs and we heard a big flood. He went to Papa's house in his room, and Julie told us that he was dead. When he fell off his chair, he got dead, I think. By the time of Julie's trial, it was 2014, and Jason had been gone for two years. The children were now referring to their own mother by first name Julie, rather than mom or mommy or anything that resembled anything like that. And it was clear how they felt.

I don't like her because she called my father. Despite the heartbreaking testimony of Jason's children, his parents and his brother, Julie was acquitted of first degree murder and it was a hung jury for the remaining charges. Women always get off easy. Talk about privilege, by the way. She would be retried for a second degree murder. In the meantime, her doting dad bailed her out of jail and she would be free until her second trial would take

place in 2015. Even though Julie was free, her kids wanted nothing to do with her. And we're being raised by Jason's parents. In the absence of her husband, Jason, and now devoid of her children, Julie had yet another surprise for everyone. Carl's bad woman charged with killing her teacher husband is celebrating a legal victory as we first told you at midday, Julie Harper's retrial is being postponed because she's pregnant. The bigger secret was the paternity of this baby. Rumor circulated that she had used Jason's sperm through in vitro fertilization and prosecutors hoped so because this could work

against her in the retrial. It was also very possible Julie reunited with her ex-boyfriend Jeremy. No one knows, but Julie. We asked the juror we spoke to earlier what he thought of Julie's new baby to be. What kind of a person is this? I mean, you've already got two kids that are going to be raised without parents, and now you're bringing in another child into this world who are going to have far from a normal life. I mean, we're really surprised and disappointed to hear that she was pregnant.

And I quite don't know how she did it. However, she did it. However she did it. The retrial was delayed because of Julie's high-risk pregnancy, and many had their suspicions that this was an intentional stall tactic, or maybe it was a tactic to garner sympathy. Regardless, Julie finally had to face the jury and the judge for what she did. It was difficult to find jurors who had not heard of this case, but they were out there. We were asked a three or four questions each primarily is do you think you can tell when people are

lying? Are you able to tell the difference? The answer is, well I think so. I don't know anybody in this room or, but I think I can tell when people are lying. And they asked, do you remember anything about the first trial? And I said, you know, I did not. I might have been working at the time. This juror may have been working at his job during the first trial, but now it was time to take his job as a juror seriously.

I just looked at her and assumed that she was innocent until I started hearing the information from both sides. I really wanted her to have a fair trial. Since this was a murder case, I know what the consequences were probably life in prison because there was a gun charge added to it. So I and all the people I served with were very serious about getting this right. During the retrial, the defense argued that Julie had been abused was about to be raped the morning of the murder and was just defending herself. According torial, the defense argued that Julie had been abused, was about to be raped the morning of the murder and was just defending herself.

According to Julie, the gun accidentally fired, as she says Jason moved towards her. However, the prosecution brought in the gun expert, who made it very clear just how difficult it would have been for this to have been an accident. They even let jurors hold and test the same type of gun to see for themselves. That's the sound of the trigger clicking as Julie Harper watched while each juror got a chance to hold and pull the trigger of an unloaded double barrel darenger. Like the one you'll see in this picture. That's the same kind of gun police say, Julie Harper used when she shot her husband. It was concluded that it would take 11 pounds of force

to pull the trigger. Too much for it to have been an accident. Since the previous jury was not afforded the opportunity to pull the trigger themselves, this may have been the turning point for the second set of jurors. The prosecution also presented the staggering number of pills Julie was taking every day.

This amounted to 4,025 narcotic pills in 335 days. To break this down even further, she was self-medicating with 10 narcotic opiates, and nearly two sleeping pills every single day. It's no wonder the kids of Julian Jason testified that their mother was sleeping most of the time and barely interacted with them. Did the oldest child Jake, for example, remember that by the time his sister was born, she was dirty most of the time and sometimes went without clean clothes, or that the baby was showing disturbing signs of gross motor delays from being confined

to his crib until his dad could arrive home from his teaching job. One thing was clear during the second trial, they had no love for their mom. That's exactly what the second jury decided. Julie Harper killed her husband Jason and it wasn't self-defense. She was given 15 to life for a second degree murder and an extra 25 years for a gun enhancement charge. When victim impact statements were being given by Jason's grief stricken family at the sensing,

Julie visibly smirked and grimaced. Jason was a devoted son and we were proud of the man he had become. He was ethical and dedicated to his teaching and to the success of his students. He was easy going, extremely patient and very responsible. We saw him on a frequent basis and we knew as we aged, we could count on him to help us. We no longer have Jason's help. Jason was a fantastic hands-on father.

Every day I miss him as I watch his children, Jake, Jacqueline and Josh grow, develop, and succeed in school and their extracurricular activities. The ripples of this horrible experience extended so many directions. These children need to be safe from their own mother. She needs to be in prison until they are all adults so that they feel safe, so that they can put this behind them, and so they can move on in their lives in the most positive way as possible. These are wonderful and precious children. They need justice to be done. In our interview with Jason's mother, she added these

tearful remarks. Even though it has been almost nine years since Jason was murdered, we miss him so much and the pain keeps resurfacing. It's so unfair that he can't be with his children as they grow and accomplish their goals. Barely shedding a tear at the loss of her husband, much love teacher, coach, father, brother, son, and friend, she sobbed and shook for 40 minutes while discussing herself in a rambling stream of consciousness monologue. And it's been so hard to meet so public and media and all the internet. I never even had a social media counter and anything like that.

I'm not guilty of the torch. I worked hard all my life since I was a little girl. I got all aids in school, other than in geometry and physics. Other than that, all the years, all A's, were very hard. I worked so hard all those years, and sacrificed so much to someday be able to be able to have a good career

to go to graduate school, to be able to support myself and help support a future family. By now you get the gist of her message. She worked very hard and it wasn't her fault, but she had much more to say. I like so many people, believed in the American dream. I never imagined that I would ever be charged with anything my whole life let alone murder. And let's not forget it's true that she was verbally

abused. Here's a little more verbal abuse for Julie. Fuck you, Julie. You piece of shit slop. You're gonna take my husband, use the effort, any time's on me, and f'ing be full words and phrases. She then started into a long diatribe about how unfair the system is with regards to the placement of her children. The judge was rightfully annoyed, so he interrupted her. Well, Mr. Harper, I'm going to interrupt for just a moment. This is your opportunity to express your views about sentencing and your feelings towards the crime. And I want to give you every opportunity to be heard. Now it appears that you're venting about child protective services.

That's not the appropriate forum for you to vent about your children in the decision process. It was- I'd wrap it up and bring it back to the case here. Well, yeah, I want to bring it back to the case because you are venting about the process. But I will continue with the rest of the story for now. But you got the gist of what happened there, and I will bring it back to me.

And so she did. It hurts so much when I hear that some have my post instant actions were selfish because all I thought about when I saw that my husband was dead were my children. And you know, in hindsight it would have been so much better for me or how it would have lived to the DA or to you or to the press. I do love calls, 911 right away, but all I can think about was my babies. I don't remember what happens to me. I love them because they're anything in the world. And now, ever hard is for me to go on. Every day with having lost my babies,

they poured my whole world to me. And I will for them. And just like that, the courtroom rolled out the red carpet. And the award goes to Julie Harper. exterior in the courtroom and looking at the laws and taking the time to read your instructions on the time to listen to the videos and the audience that I brought in on the way my husband treated me. at least there was some glimpse of what my life was like behind closed doors. Julie's defense team attempted to lessen the sentence, but it was too late. The judge had already made up his mind. There's claims that she had been repeatedly abused and raked throughout the

marriage, and the court has to independently weigh and consider all the evidence that was received throughout the trial and determine whether it's sufficient to support the verdict of second-degree murder and that's exactly what this court has done. I have note that the only evidence that was presented to establish or support the heat of passion argument is the testimony of the defendant. The court has to consider all the credible evidence in the term of the credible evidence supports the verdict. And I want to emphasize the word credible

because the defendant's story that she told from this witness stand lacks the most important element when it comes to sworn courtroom testimony. That's the element of credibility. And the court listened carefully to the defendant's testimony and finds that the testimony of the defendant is inherently untruth worthy and not worthy of belief. In America, the justice system does usually work. We depend on a jury of our peers to

weigh all the evidence and consider a reasonable doubt. In the minds of this jury, there was no doubt. Everybody's got to get a fair trial. Regardless of how evil the person looks or acts or what he's been accused of, you really have to sit in judgment with an open mind and gather all the facts and discuss it with the people you're on the jury with and try to leave out any personal opinions about the person and just make the decision on the facts and give the person a fair trial regardless of how you think about the person alive. If she ever, if Julie ever hears this, she should be reassured that I

think the 12 of us were very fair. We listened to her attorney and the prosecutor, prosecutor, and we read that room for three days talking about it for two and a half days, and we found her guilty without a doubt. Was Julie Harper spoiled? Seems like it. Seems like those literal silver spoons she carried around with her really painted a picture of who she was. Daddy handed her a lot of privilege and ultimately bailed her out of jail for $2 million. So it seems like she grew up with this feeling that she could get away with anything and deserved everything and nothing was her fault.

Let me ask you something, if you were in jail would your parents hand over $2 million to get you out? How would they even be able to? Julie may have reached sociopath status and that she refused to see that she had done anything wrong. And she was only upset that it would have looked better if she had called 911 right away. Did she catch that in the testimony? Julie had everything.

And even when she had made a mess of her own life, she still had everything. And then some, let's also cross the line and took the one thing that could not be replaced. Not even by her daddy. A human life. I doubt she gets to use those pretty little silver spoons in prison. in prison. That's going to do it for this episode of Sword and Scale. Thank you for joining us. And until next time, make sure you take your Gerrit Hall and stay safe. Oh my god, this is Nikki. I just heard your comic cast here, you said one where you called Peggy Boy Rose, a 52 year old lady, a sweet little old lady, and why would we go after some random

elderly person? She's 52. I mean, give me a break. That is not a sweet little old lady, okay? Now, just, you'll understand in about 10 or 15 years. But, boy, don't offend any more people. You need to stop doing that. So, I'm listening to episode 192.

And what world is a 52-year-old elderly? Either you guys need new riders that have a more diverse adjective selection, or perhaps you need some better examples of aging, because 52 is not elderly. Thank you. you