True Crime All The Time - The Murder of Julie Love

Episode Date: August 24, 2020

On July 11th, 1988, 27-year-old Julie Love was on her way home from a meeting when she disappeared. Her car was found a few days later and police theorized that she had run out of gas and met with foul play. It became a highly publicized missing persons case and the pressure was on the police to solve it. Julie's family did everything they could to find their daughter. They knew she had not run off because she and her boyfriend, Mark Kaplan, had been talking marriage. Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the disappearance and murder of Julie Love. Over a year after Julie disappeared, a 34-year-old woman named Janice Weldon came forward to say that her 24-year-old boyfriend, Emmanuel Hammond, and his 18-year-old cousin, Maurice Porter, were responsible for Julie's murder. This was the information that police needed but had been unable to get on their own. There are a number of twists and turns in this case. Race became a huge factor in this case as an attorney and a judge were killed by mail bombs and a white supremacist group took credit for the killings.You can support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation informationSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hello everyone and welcome to episode 197 of the True Crime All the Time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. How are you? I'm good, man. About you. I'm doing pretty good. I'm doing pretty good.

I'm worried about what's going on in this country right now, man. There's, uh, you know, we just talked about it on our weekly Patreon video. We've got wildfires in California. We've got tropical storms, uh, battering the northeast. and somehow extending in all the way into the Midwest. Yeah. And then obviously earthquakes. Earthquakes.

And then we're still dealing with the corona thing. So I think what I said on the video was, can we just get a break? We need a break. Right. Let us catch a break. Or the guy that owns Virgin Airlines and Virgin phones and records or whatever his name, Branson, whatever, the rich guy needs to. Richard Branson.

Rent us free his island. And we all. go there? Well, not all of those. I was going to say, it'd be selective now. You know, there's like 330 million people in this country, right? Yeah.

Me and you and the TCAT fans can take up the whole island? Again, we have to be a little more selective. Because we have a lot of fans now, so I don't know how big the island is. But when they get there, they have to do the temperature, scan. A bubble, quarantine. Yeah. Yeah. And then they can come on there.

But man, you talk about like maybe a two-week party. That would be a party. That would be fun. All right, buddy. we continue to have some great support through Patreon. Let's get some shout-outs. All right. We had Crystal Grocy.

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Good old Kate. Yeah. You had to put the old in front of it, but yeah. I'm like, you know, O-O-L-E. Yeah. So we appreciate the long-term support as well. We had some PayPal donations. We had a big one from Beer Dental.

Really? And he wanted to give a big donation because he wanted to say he loves men, and that's M-I-N. Okay. And wanted to give her a belated happy birthday shout-out. Well, that's amazing. Yep, we had Amy Newman. Okay. Brandy Hay.

Thanks, Amy. And Samantha loves John. Thanks, Brandy, and thanks Samantha. Sorry. Was I going too fast for you there? Maybe. Gives, we had a Patreon monthly merch winner, and that was Amelia Thompson. Really?

Mm-hmm. For July. Enjoy that. So congratulations to Amelia. Right now, we have an episode out on True Crime All Time Unsolved. This is really going to be one that I think T-CAT listeners are going to want to jump over to. I agree. especially if they don't normally like the unsolved facet because we're covering the Bishop family

murders. William Bradford Bishop is thought to have killed his family and then he took off on the run. So is it unsolved? I guess technically because they haven't convicted the guy. I like the word that you used, which was more like unresolved. Yeah. Because they're pretty sure they know what happened. They just haven't been able to catch this guy.

So it's a good one. Make sure you check it out. All right, buddy. Are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I am. We're actually headed down to Atlanta, Georgia, to talk about the 1988 murder of a young woman named Julie Love. The murder was perpetrated and or witnessed by a number of people.

And it was an unsolved case for over a year. During that time, it was one of the most publicized missing persons cases in the area. you know, maybe since the Atlanta child murders. It received a lot of attention. But I think the way that police learned about who killed Julie Love is interesting. The one thing I know for sure is that when the details all came out, they were very shocking. Julie Love grew up in Birmingham, Alabama. As a child, she suffered from a disease that caused the loss of one of her eyes.

So she had to have a glass eye put in. I had a buddy had one of those. Did he used to pop it out at parties and things like that? He did. He actually did. Yeah. I mean, I've heard of people that, you know, will mess with them. Yeah.

You take it out and put it on the table and we go out and drink. Now, I think, you know, as a young child, that would be tough. I mean, it'd be tough at any age to have a kid, yes. To have to have a glass eye. But as a child, you know, you and I have talked about it. Kids are cruel. They make fun of people. You're telling me that back during.

this time frame, because this is like when you and I grew up. Right. Type time frame. Kids were rough with any physical type of, you know, issue that you had. But Julie wasn't the type of person to let something like that hold her back. In high school in Birmingham, she was a cheerleader and a state gymnastics champion. Then after high school, she attended the University of Texas, where she obtained a degree in physical education. That's impressive. University of Texas, man. After college, Julie moved to Atlanta, where in 1985, she met a man named Mark Kaplan

at a Jewish singles event. The two hit it off immediately. And I think, you know, once the sparks started to fly, they fell in love. That happens. Yeah. Mark was a successful, driven person. He had worked at a Wall Street. Street Bank. And then he got into marketing signed on with Coca-Cola.

Big employer down there. Yeah, you're right, because that's the job that brought him back home to Atlanta that led to him meeting Julie Love. Then in 1987, Mark and some fellow Coca-Cola executives bought the Gorin's ice cream chain in Atlanta. So, you know, he was a pretty successful guy. And years later, turned the ice cream chain into a family eatery that expanded into a number of states. But all of this brings us to 1988. Julie Love and Mark Kaplan are dating had been for, what, three years now. Julie was 27 years old. Mark was a few years older. You know, there were different types of quotes from people that knew them. Most of the people said that, you know, this was a couple that was in love with each other. There had been talk of marriage, you know, over the time they had been

together. Now, friends of Julie said that she was deeply in love with Mark and she really wanted to get married. She couldn't wait. Yeah. That was something that she talked to her friends about a lot. While Mark was running the ice cream chain, Julie embarked on a business of her own called the Julie Love creative movement for children. So basically she was taking her physical education degree that she had gotten from UT and was going to use it to teach kids fitness. Yeah. And, you know, kind of real young kids, like preschool age kids and try to make a business out of it. Get those kids moving. Got to.

Yeah. So I think what you have, bottom line gives a couple of good looking people in love. Both were highly motivated to make their mark on the world. Now, I think where some of the quotes differ is that, okay, yes, they were in love, but they had been together for three years, but it was on and off. They had separated at times. Right. even dated other people.

And it was reportedly really over Mark's unwillingness to commit to marriage. Because like we said, I think she really wanted to marry him. Right. He was a little hesitant, not that he didn't love her, but. He was really driven in his career. Yeah. Maybe he was focused on that. Maybe he just wasn't ready to get married.

I don't know. But at the point that all this takes place in 1988, they had gotten back to together and really all signs pointed to the fact that they were going to get married. Unfortunately, though, that would never happen because July 11th, 1988 would be the last time that Mark ever saw Julie. That morning, Julie left Mark's house around 8.30 a.m. As he had to head off to work, so she went to her condo. And there was some conflicting information gives, but I don't think they lived all that far apart.

They live separately. Right. But I don't think it was that far. The other thing that was interesting is they had just returned from a weekend in Florida with Julie's family. So again, you don't spend the weekend with somebody's family unless you're serious. Pretty serious. Yeah.

Now, it's known that Julie made several phone calls to relatives and friends that day. She later met a friend to swim laps and then she got her nails done. At 8 p.m. She attended a career counseling meeting. This was a regular meeting that she went to. And she was wearing a peach blouse, shorts, white socks, and tennis shoes. When interviewed later, other members of the meeting said that Julie seemed very normal that night and that she left the session around 9.30. So I take from that, you know, she wasn't nervous. It wasn't like there was some sense of impendent. ending doom. Right. Just a regular night. Yeah. Dooner thing. And these people knew her. Right. It wasn't like they were meeting her for the first time. So they could tell that she was acting very normally. The problem is Julie never made it home. Mark tried to call her that night, but didn't get an answer. And some of these things are verified from his messages, right? Later on, they're going to check the answering machine. Right. So they're going to know that Mark called at this time, at this time. He would later

say that he really wasn't worried at all. That Monday night, they both had busy weeks. They had talked about it over the weekend. They really weren't planning on seeing each other, you know, in the first part of the week. But on Tuesday, Mark bought a ring for Julie. It's a huge step. It's big time. Given what we just talked about. Right. The fact that, you know, they've been dating for three years. I think Julie was kind of on him about either, you know what or get off the pot. So buying a ring is huge. He tried to call her again that night.

Still couldn't get a hold of her. Okay, probably a little more worried, right, at this point. But not in panic mode. Right. And I think, again, it's because they didn't live together. They probably didn't see each other every single day. They talked on the phone. Yeah.

Most likely every day or most days. But like you said, they had a busy schedule that week. They did. And they had already talked about. it was kind of pre-established that they weren't going to be spending much time with each other. I think Wednesday is when panic really started to set in. Mark still hadn't been able to reach Julie. You know, that's when he began calling her friends. And he's hearing from her friends that they hadn't heard from her. So early Thursday morning, Mark talked to one of Julie's friends who

said that she had seen Julie's car on Doe's. over road, but really hadn't thought much about it, right? You recognize somebody's car. Yeah. As far as you know, there's nothing going on. Why would you feel the need to tell anybody? Now, when you find out that that person hasn't been heard from in three days, well, that obviously becomes a much bigger deal. Yeah, it changes your tune at that point. So Mark goes over. And that's when he found Julie's red Mustang convertible on the side of the road. And it. But Gibbs, this was just really about a mile and a half from his house. Pretty close.

Yeah. Yeah, it was pretty close to his house. And there were descriptions of how the car was parked. You know, it wasn't like a parking job that most people would do. It was almost as if the car stopped and wherever it stopped, it stopped. Right. It wasn't parallel with the street. Right.

I think the back end was more towards the curb. The front end was a little. little more out in the street. It's just not how most people would park a car. More like somebody coasted in. Maybe. Maybe. And that's going to lead to, you know, some of the police's theory on on what happened. Mark called police. And he met an officer at Julie's condo. Eventually, they got inside, but they didn't find any signs of a struggle. They found Mark's messages on the answering machine, but nothing else. Suspicious. It didn't look like anything. had been taken from the condo.

So I think right away, you're most likely ruling out robbery. Right. And a home abduction from that home, the condo. But no doubt Julie Love was missing. And the investigation began that day. It was really Mark who spearheaded the search from the kind of friends and family side. Right.

You got the law enforcement side. They're going to do their thing. Sure. But you as a concerned loved one, and we see this in a lot of cases, most people want to do whatever they can do to help. Well, Mark was able to kind of organize that. And he called a bunch of friends. He called a bunch of family. He's the one that made all the calls, got everyone together.

They were pretty busy. Oh, man. You know, early on, it said that they handed out over 100,000 flyers, put up over over. over 30,000 posters. Just think of the, the work that goes into that. Now, I did read somewhere that a local,

I don't know if it's a printer or something donated, some of the supplies and the work. Yeah. Which is nice. The community really came out in support. They held some rallies. Julie's father posted a $20,000 reward for information leading to, you know,

solving his daughter's disappearance. Definitely helpful. Yeah. Like I said, this was a highly publicized case. Gibbs, in the research, I found articles that ran in newspapers all across the country. Right. So this happened in Atlanta. There were articles in San Francisco papers. There were articles in papers in the Northeast, in the Northwest. And this was pretty early on. And I think one of the reasons why is because the family was really driving this. Yeah. They spent their own money to take out an ad in the USA Today, which is, well, back then for sure. I don't look at a lot of media today at the newsstands, but I know that was a huge newspaper back in the way. It had a big circulation. Yeah.

No. Now what newspaper has a big circulation? I don't know because everything's online. Exactly. And a number of tips did come into police, you know, in the early days. They were definitely under a great deal of pressure to find Julie. Right. When, when newspapers are writing daily stories about this missing woman, you're going to get a lot of pressure. From the mayor down to the police chief down, you know, just right down the line. Hey, we got to solve this case. Sure.

Yeah. Communities outrage. Let's get something going here. When it's in the media, then it hits the community. Then you start to get the editorials saying, why aren't the police finding, you know, this woman? It's just, it's just the way it happens. The other thing that came in was a bunch of sightings. I mean, people called in to say that they saw her in California up and down the West Coast, even up into Canada.

Really? So according to some of the reports I read, police checked into this. Now, I'm not saying they flew to California, but they had to chase down all these leads. I mean, they had psychics calling in, as I think you do in a lot of cases. Yeah. Saying, okay, here's where you'll find her. Well, they got to check that out, even if they don't believe it. I definitely think there's a lot of people who have doppelgangers out there. We all have a doppelganger or two or three.

That or, you know, I think a lot of times, you know, if you're driving in a car, and you look over real quick. Yep. You see somebody and then later on, let's say that night, you see this woman's picture on the news and you think, no, that was her. Yeah, I saw her today. When in reality it wasn't at all, but your mind kind of works that way. You know, I've said it before.

Your mind's not a video recorder. It doesn't work like that. And I tried to explain that to you one time when we used to work together. Uh-huh. Because you'd be like, I know I saw you come in and take my donut all. off my table. I'd be like, I was never in your office. I never took your donut. My big thing was why you couldn't fill out your TPS reports correctly. I still have that problem. I still have that problem. So inside Julie's car, they didn't find much. Her purse was missing.

They monitored her cards. No activity. So that never looks good. Police learned that Julie had a history of running out of gas. And I guess Gibbs, it happened quite a bit. You know, this came from friends, family. There was one report where police came out and said, that year alone, she'd run out of gas six times. That's great. That is quite a bit.

Wow. I've never run out of gas in my entire life. I've ran out of gas twice in my lifetime. Have you? Yeah. I almost ran out of gas in the Smoky Mountains. And my wife literally was crying. Yeah.

I coasted down the last. hill, you know, going down into the valley. Yeah. And had enough to just on fumes, get off the exit into the gas station. You're like, see, I told you, there's no problem. Why you got so upset? Kramer can do it. I can do it.

Exactly. But six times is a lot. That is a lot. And even Mark would come out to papers and say, yeah, she had a habit of testing it. Yeah. Right? If you want to call it the Kramer test or whatever. We all have done it.

I've done it more than most. It just happened to work out for me. Now, one time, my luck's going to run out and I'm going to run out of gas. I know I left here a couple weeks ago saying, hey, man, stay by your phone because I forgot to get gas. And I don't know if I got enough to make it to the gas station up the road. Yep. And I turned my phone off immediately and went to bed.

Of course you did. But Gibbs, I think based on this. police put together a pretty easy theory, which was that Julie ran out of gas on her way back home from the career counseling session. She set out on foot either to get to Mark's house or get to the gas station and something happened to her because I mentioned it, right? The car was found about a mile and a half from Mark's house. It was also only about two miles from a gas station. Well, Julie was 27 years old. Right.

She ran. She swam. She was in really good shape. Yeah, she's fit. Everybody said that she could have easily jogged a mile and a half or two miles to get to wherever she needed to get to. Right. But obviously she didn't. So police are thinking foul play, right?

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the cost of in-person therapy. But with Talkspace, you can send unlimited messages to your therapist and they'll engage with you at least five days a week. That means you'll never have to wait to share what's on your mind. Talkspace is secure and private using the latest encryption technology to store client information. Talkspace therapists have experience treating depression, anxiety, substance abuse, trauma, relationship issues, food and eating, and much more. The bottom line is that we all need someone to talk to. And Talkspace wants to give the licensed support we deserve. add a price we can afford. As a listener of this podcast, you can get $100 off your first month on TalkSpace to match with your perfect therapist. Go to Talkspace.com or download the app. Make sure to use the code TCAT to get $100 off your first month and show your support for the show. That's T-C-A-T-T and Talkspace.com. Police did a lot of searching for Julie in a lot of different areas, but they had no luck. I really think. think they put a lot of manpower into finding Julie Love. Probably based on the pressure that I talked

about. Sure. That was coming from the community upwards and then downwards from, you know, the hierarchy. Now, I'm sure they looked into Mark Kaplan, right, is the boyfriend. You always have to do that. But it was also reported that police interviewed at least three other men that Julie had recently been seeing. And I think that's where the whole on and off again relationship came. They saw other people during these time periods where they were taking a break, if you want to call it that. But a year went by. No results. Now, the other thing I will say about this case is I found a ton of editorials debating the differences and how the disappearances of white women and black women were handled, right? So these were in the Atlanta papers,

the Atlanta area. Race comes up a lot when you talk about this case, not just in this part. It's going to come up later on, as we'll find out. But then in August of 1989, 13 months after Julie disappeared, the case broke open. So really for 13 months, police had nothing. And it broke open Gibbs in a very strange way. 24-year-old Emmanuel Hammond worked as an auto repair man. He was dating a 34-year-old adult entertainer named Janice Weldon. Apparently, the two of them got into an altercation, I think, I'm pretty sure they lived together, in which Hammond assaulted and tried to strangle Janice.

Right. It's not good, right? Domestic violence, not good. We don't like it. No, let's get rid of it. She had him arrested and she had every right to do so. Right. But she also told police that he was involved in the disappearance and murder of Julie Love.

And not only did Janice Weldon name Hammond in Julie's murder, but she also named his cousin Maurice Porter, who was 18 at the time of the murder as his accomplice. So the question is, how did Janice Weldon know this? And the answer is because she was with those two guys that night and was a witness to a large part of what happened. So based on that, police brought in Maurice Porter. He confessed. He was arrested, told his story to police. That obviously implicated Emmanuel Hammond. Right. Or corroborated

what Janice had already said. So most of what happened that night comes from court documents and court testimony. The three of them were driving around the night of July 11th, 1988 in Emmanuel's car when they drove by Julie Love, who was walking after her car had run out of gas. So police were right about that. They offered Julia a ride, but she declined, saying that she lived close by. So Emmanuel drove off, but he turned back around. And one again drove up to Julie. She said, no, I'm good. I don't need anything. But this time, Hammond got out of his car with a sawed off shotgun. He wasn't going to take no for an answer. No, no. He wasn't. And I think according to Porter, he had already made up his mind. As soon as he left and turned

around, he'd made up his mind that he was going to get Julie. And he didn't know who she was. but so using the sought off shotgun he forced julie into the car hammond took off and drove to grove park elementary which weirdly he had attended as a youngster so he went to his old elementary school right where he learned nothing yeah i don't i don't know that he learned a lot there but it was there at that location where they searched julie's purse they found her ATM card. And this is what they were after. Hamman forced Julie to give up her pen. And then he instructed Porter and Weldon to drive to the ATM with Julie's card and pen and get some money. Get whatever money you can. The problem is they came back empty handed because apparently Julie was so

shaken, which anybody would be in that situation. Right. That she had given the wrong pin number. And when they tried to punch it in, the ATM ate it. Oh, yeah. Or kept it. You know, they used to happen sometimes. Weldon later testified that she told Porter on the way back, quote, demon going to be mad. Because that was Emmanuel's nickname, demon. Oh, well, she hung out with them, didn't she?

Which usually means you're a nice guy. Yeah. Because I, you know, always like to go by devil or demon or gargamel or whatever. or some, Cargamel, whatever some of those other names are. That's from the Smurfs. Yeah,

I think so. The problem gives is that Janice Walden was right. Emmanuel Hammond was so angry that he struck Julie in the face with the shotgun. And then Maurice Porter raped her. And Julie had to have known. She was in big trouble. She was trying to save her life. So she told the group that she had other cards at home.

home. If they could just get those cards or that card, okay, I can get you some money. Right. That's what she's telling them. So they drove to her condo, but they decided against going in because there was a security guard. Now, according to Janice, and I think this was backed up by Maurice Porter, at this point, Janice said, hey, I don't want this. I'm out of this, man. Drop me off at home. Now, she had already witnessed some pretty horrific. things. Right. That she's like, I don't know what's going to come later, but I don't want any part of it.

This is, if you believe, the version of events that have been told by some of the parties. Exactly. And I think you always have to take that into account. So they dropped her off and then Hammond drove with Porter and Julie back to the Grove Park school. They got out. Hammond got some coat hangers that he had in his trunk. And they used these wire hangers to bound Julie's hands and feet.

Then he wrapped a coat hanger around her neck. And the way it was described and it's so horrific to even picture it in your head was that Porter was holding one end of the hanger. Hammond is holding the opposite end and they're pulling. Yeah. Trying to strangle Julie. And these are two grown men. Right.

But Julie fought hard. She was not about to let these men strangle her. And I haven't mentioned it yet, but the description of Julie that was given by family members and police is that she was about five feet tall and weighed all of 100 pounds. About describing your wife there. Yeah. Yeah. Not even. My wife's five two.

Yeah. So even smaller. So when you're that size, you got to fight really hard. But how much fighting can you really do when you have a sought-off shotgun on you? There's only so much. The men got Julie back in the car and they drove to a wooded area. This is when Hammond pulled her out of the car, walked her into the woods and shot her. And according to Porter's account, he heard the shot.

He was in the car. He heard the shot. And then he said that Hammond returned to the vehicle. with blood on it. Now, Janice Weldon would later say that Hammond returned home around seven that morning. When she asked him what happened, Hammond said that Julie put her hands in front of her face and he fired and it blew the side of her face off. And then he dumped her body in a trash pile and covered it up with a board. As the family of Julie Love gives those details. are going to be very tough.

All of these details, you know, when they come out at trial, that's really rough. And I don't, we won't talk about it at trial, but I know there were a lot of parts of the trial that they just couldn't watch. You know, they had to leave. And I think that happens a lot. Yeah, I think so too. With the families of victims. When you get into some of the really graphic testimony, the pictures, the evidence,

Are you going to be able to sit there and watch it and hear it, knowing that that happened to your daughter, your sister? It's going to be rough. I don't know if I could sit in there and listen to that. So Emmanuel Hammond was charged with four counts, including the murder of Julie Love. And then it later came out that while he was in jail, he put out a contract on Janice Weldon with another inmate who was about ready to get out of jail. I guess he offered this guy a car. He offered him $20,000 if he would kill Janice Weldon.

He didn't want any witnesses out there, did he? Well, he definitely didn't want Janice out there. He knew that she was kind of the catalyst that had started this whole thing. And I'm sure he knew that she was most likely going to testify against him. I mean, let's face it, Gibbs, he did beat her and try to strangle her. He did. I'm sure she had a lot of animals. towards him at that point. I mean, she'd already turned him in. Right.

Chances are, he must have been thinking she's going to testify against me. Yeah. And I can't have that. Got to do what I got to do is what he was thinking, I guess. It was early on Thursday, August 24th that about 100 officers began the search for Julie's body in a wooded area in northwest Atlanta. And this was all based on information provided by Janice Weldon. And I know there were some people that were upset that it took police as long as it did to start

searching for her body. I think they had the information from Janice for a couple of weeks, give or take. Right. But apparently there was some mix up between the departments. And so the information wasn't passed on. And I know that the media made and the public made a big deal about that. It was a big deal. You know, when you, if that was my daughter and they knew where she was and they haven't

made any effort to go get her, I'd be extremely upset. Yeah. And I think a lot of people were, including the family. So they're at this site. You know, it's known as kind of an illegal dumping ground. But Julie's father was there at the site along with the media just waiting to see what the police found. Can you imagine that, Gibbs?

you as a father, you're standing around basically a dump, a dump site, knowing that police are searching for your daughter. And if they find her, it's not going to be good. No, but I'd want to be there. And I would too. You know, I would too. And it would probably be the hardest thing that, you know, one of the hardest things that you ever had to go through. But I would be there too because I want to know what's going on. And it was just later that afternoon. that authorities found some skeletal remains that they believed to be Julie and took the medical examiner just a couple of hours to confirm through dental records that it was in fact the remains of Julie Love. So again, as a family, obviously you want to know what happened. You're not

hoping for this outcome. But I think after 13 months, most people, I know the authorities, because they came out and said that they believed she was most likely dead. We mentioned it. No activity on her cards. And most people said there was no reason for Julie to run away, especially after what had been going on with Mark in the last, you know, little bit. It was like they were talking marriage. That's what she wanted. Right. She had no reason to run off. And where is she going to go without her car and her and not using her cards and stuff? Now, I mentioned that race played a big role in this case. There's a debate on whether it did in the murder. I mean, I think Emmanuel Hammond was looking for drug money.

He saw Julie Love as an easy target. Now, Janice Weldon would later say that Emmanuel said he was out looking for white women because he felt as though they would have bigger bank accounts. But that's according to her. But regardless, the fact that Emmanuel, Maurice, and Janice were black and Julie was white sparked some hate by white supremacist groups. A civil rights attorney named Robert Robinson was killed in December 1989 when he opened up a package with a bomb inside him. That same month, a Birmingham, Alabama judge named Robert Vance. opened up a package at his home, and it exploded, killing him and severely injuring his wife.

And then later on in that month, an Atlanta television station received a letter claiming to be from a white supremacist group. They took responsibility for the killings and said that they were, in part, revenge for the murder of Julie Love. Wow. So a group has taken this on themselves. to seek some type of revenge. The letter read, Julie Love, an innocent white lady, was robbed, kidnapped, raped, sodomized, murdered, and dismembered by a group of black males. And her remains were concealed for an extremely long period of time,

leaving her loved ones in excruciating anguish. So besides the outright racism, which you've got a bunch of it, in there. I mean, have you heard of a run-on sentence? Because that's a very long sentence. And I know run-on sentences. You do. Then a group calling itself the Aryan resistance movement mailed some death threats to the judge and defense attorney directly tied to Julie's case. The other two guys that were killed, they weren't involved in her case at all. It was as though I think these people were saying, Hey, judicial system, you're letting this happen. We're going to take it out on you.

Right. But here's the fascinating part. Gibbs years later, a man named Walter Leroy Moody Jr. was convicted of the bombings. So it turned out that he mailed four bombs out during that month of December. Two were intercepted, I guess by scanners that picked up, you know, something that didn't look right. Right. And he was trying to make it look like it was all the work of a white supremacist group.

In fact, he was just a guy who had gone to law school, but was barred from practicing law due to a 1972 pipe bomb possession conviction that he tried to get overturned and couldn't. He was just mad at the legal system. He didn't care about Julie Love's murder. he didn't care about black on white crime. That was just all a smokescreen to do what he wanted to do. Right. He was just stirring the pot.

Moody was executed in 2018. And at the time, he was the oldest inmate to be executed since the death penalty was reinstated. He was 83 years old. Now, the death threats from this Aryan resistance movement, I think that was real. That was real racism. The bombings, he just used racism, I think, as a cover. Right. Janice Weldon was given immunity in exchange for testifying against Emmanuel Hammond.

Maurice Porter confessed and pleaded guilty to felony murder, armed robbery, and rape charges. But his sentencing was delayed. It wasn't going to take place until after the trial of Hammond. And for a very good reason. Of course. And that's because they wanted him as a star witness. Yeah, absolutely. And not only would they have Maurice Porter, but they would have Janice Weldon. So those are going to be the two star witnesses for the prosecution. Right. But if you go ahead and sentence Maurice Porter, then where's your leverage? Right. Because the leverage has got to be, yeah, we know you've confessed, but help us out.

and maybe you'll get a lighter sentence. We won't go after the death penalty. The trial of Emmanuel Hammond began in February of 1990. And the prosecution laid out a pretty simple theory to the jury. Hammond wanted to get money to buy drugs. And as soon as he saw Julie Love that night, he made the decision that he was going to get it from her. He murdered Julie and put her body,

in an illegal dump because he knew that she could identify him. Yeah. And I think even Janice and Maurice said this that they had used some of their names while Julie was in the car. I think that was a factor. Right. Obviously, I don't think they were wearing masks or anything like that. So she would have gotten a good look at their faces.

And I think she knew some of their names. Now, Janice Weldon would testify too, but we've already. covered everything she said. Yeah, I don't think there's a big reason to go into her testimony as much because really everything we laid out. Right. The details of the crime and all of that came from her. Now, she testified to all of that, but there's no reason to rehash it. Maurice Porter testified that he had known Emmanuel all his life, but he had never seen a dark side in him like he saw that night. And he too gave all the horrible details to the jury about what happened. And he told them later on, Hammond said to him, quote, you should have seen how I did it.

Execution style. One thing I found very interesting Gibbs was that the prosecution brought in a mannequin. And they had Maurice Porter. And you see this in some trials. Right. Every now and then, they had Maurice Porter. get down on the floor and using this mannequin and some coat hangers show the jury exactly how they bound Julie Love, how they tried to strangle Julie.

Right. It just frustrates me to hear him talking about how bad Emmanuel was and his dark side. But, you know, Maurice was just as bad. I mean, he participated. He raped her. Yeah. And he's already confessed. Yeah.

And we'll talk about his sentencing here in a little bit. I agree with you Gibbs from the standpoint that he went along with everything. Now, you can make the argument that he didn't kill her. You know, it was Emmanuel who marched her out in the woods and shot her in the face with a shotgun killing her. But he tempted to kill her. Yeah, he did. He tried to strangle her.

He raped her for sure. And he admitted to all that. what he did was horrible and he's going to pay the price for that. But before he does, he's got to help convict his cousin. Both Janice Weldon and Maurice Porter testified that Hammond threatened to kill them both. If they breed the word of what happened that night, Hammond's cellmate took the stand to tell the jury that Hammond offered him $20,000 and a car to kill Janice Weldon. when he was released from jail. And the prosecution had an expert come on to talk about the shotgun blast.

And they described it as shattering Julie Love's skull into 22 pieces. Yeah. But it was a salt off shotgun. At close range. Yeah. But let that sink in for a minute. 22 pieces of skull. And then what does that mean?

to the jury. What's the jury thinking when they hear that? This guy's already a monster. Yeah. Brutality of this. I think it's just helping it sink in even further. You know, as a man, how do you stand in front of a five foot, 100 pound woman or any woman, for that matter, point a shotgun and shoot somebody in the face and the head? How do you do that? What kind of monster is capable of doing that? I don't know how man does any of the things that happened to her that night. You know, it's just horrendous in both of those guys. Well, I think you do it if you don't care about anything.

You don't care about other people. You know, it's like this guy wasn't a serial killer per se, but, you know, in talking about serial killers. Yeah. How do they do it? You know, they don't view other people. the way that we do, right? Most of us are empathetic to how others feel and, and that's why we treat others with respect. Right. These killers, they don't give a, you know what. And that's how they're able to stand in front of somebody, pull the trigger, walk back to the car and go home. Yeah.

And fall asleep, probably. At the end of the day, it was all over, if they could have got the money out of the ATM, what? Most ATMs cap off at $500 a day, some $300 a day. Yeah, three to $500. Yeah. So. But when you want to score drugs. Yeah. That's what you need, right?

$300, $400, $500. Yeah. That gets your fix for some period of time. But to think that you're going to take somebody's life. Yeah. I think that's where most people have a hard time, you know, wrapping their, their minds around how people could do this.

I get it. You know, if you're addicted to drugs, people steal, they'll do a lot of things to try to get that money. They will. The prosecution entered into evidence the shotgun that they believed was used to kill Julie Love, but they couldn't prove it forensically, right? Proving that a specific shotgun killed somebody much harder than proving that a handgun or, you know, even a shotgun. You know, even a shotgun. killed somebody much harder than proving that a handgun or, you know, even a rifle fired the shot that that killed someone. It has a lot to do with the way that shotgun barrels are and the fact that, you know, the shells that are in the shotgun thing. Right. They never actually even touched the barrel.

There's a plastic wad in there. Yeah. And so you just don't ballistic. you just don't have that type of stuff that you would have with now if you have the shotgun the empty shell right that's like having a casing and I think you can do something with that but you can't pull a bunch of buckshot out of a victim and then match it back to a shotgun I just doesn't work that way from my understanding and you can't always do that with a bullet either sometimes they get so deformed there's just there's just not a whole lot you can do with it right

But again, another interesting part to this case because the prosecution didn't even have the shotgun when the trial began. Didn't know anything about it. Didn't know where it was. It happened to be in a police evidence room because it was seized during a drug raid on a man named Michael Dominic. And it was Dominic who came forward after the trial had already started to tell authorities that the gun they seized from his house was sold to him by Emmanuel Hammond.

Probably looking for a deal. Well, probably. Helpful. Yeah, probably. But still very helpful. The prosecution also introduced a pair of Julie's earrings that they recovered from a pawn shop. So I guess what happened was Hammond took her earrings, gave them to Janice Weldon to pawn. She got about $140 for these earrings.

But then later on, she was able to provide that information to authorities. They were able to track them down. Now, the defense strategy was basically to put the blame on Janice Weldon and Maurice Porter, saying that they were responsible for what happened to Julie Love, not Emmanuel Hammond. The defense played a video of Janice Weldon's interview with police. And during this interview, not only did she talk about what happened with Julie Love, but she implicated Hammond and a bunch of other crimes. Some of them very similar. And one was even a murder.

Right. I think she really wanted to make sure that he got put away. Well, she had a vested interest. She did. Because he had already put one hit out on her. He'd already proven that he wasn't above trying to have her kids. And I'm sure if he could have, he would have killed her himself. The defense attorney pretty much came out and accused Janice Weldon on the stand.

And at one point, she shouted back at this guy, I didn't kill Julie Love. Your psycho client killed Julie Love. Now, the prosecutor came out and told papers that they thought it was very strange that the defense attorney would use this strategy, right? of showing to the jury Janice Weldon going through and talking about these other crimes that Hammond had committed. Right. It's almost like you're doing the prosecution's work for them. Yeah.

Let me set up how bad this guy really is. This is his girlfriend at the time saying all these bad things about it. Right. I think their strategy was to try to show the jury that she had told a lot of different stories. Right. So which ones are you going to believe? Right. The problem is the police used that same evidence, basically, to show that Hammond had a history of these types of crimes. So I think a lot of people looked at it as though the defense was just really reinforcing what the prosecution was already trying to do. They thought it was strange. Because according to the prosecution, not only had Hammond,

kidnapped women and forced them to give up their ATM pin codes so he could get money. He had killed at least one woman and left her body in the same area where Julie Love was found. So he was accustomed to doing this in that specific area. Yeah. And I think that's one of the things the prosecution really wanted to get across to the jury. This wasn't a one-time thing. This guy had a history of doing things. that were very, very similar to what was done to Julie Love.

You think the defense attorney would have clued in when the prosecutor was just never really objecting to any thing, you know? They're just letting us run with this. Okay. Yeah, I got no problem. If you want to use that video, go right ahead. Emmanuel Hammond did take the stand, testified in his own defense. Of course, he said he didn't commit the crimes against Julie Love.

Now, when he was cross-examined, the prosecutor showed him the shotgun and got him to admit that he was familiar with it, but he denied selling it. He claimed it was actually Janice, who sold it to Michael Dominic. But Dominic testified, no, it was Hammond. Yeah. He's the guy that sold it to me. The prosecutor in his summation called Hammond every name in the book. I mean, every horrible adjective that you can think of, he called this guy. But he also called him demon, which I said was his nickname.

And then in what sounds like a very Perry Mason like moment. Yeah, I really love when he did this. He pointed to Hammond as he told the jury, give the devil his due. That's what he said. He could have took it to another level, though. maybe played a little bit of Charlie Daniels, uh, devil went down in Georgia. Yeah, that would have put an exclamation point on it. I don't know if the judge would have liked it. Well, but we're in Georgia. That's true. He just called this guy a demon. There's a lot of, you know, parallels there.

On March 7th, 1990, the jury took eight hours to find Hammond guilty on all charges related to the kidnapping and murder of Julie Love. And then just two days later, on March 9th, it took that same jury a little over four hours to recommend that Hammond be put to death for his crimes. And that's exactly what sentenced the judge imposed. Maurice Porter later received multiple life sentences for his role in the rape and murder of Julie. And I think it goes back to your point, Gibbs. He was a bad guy. He did some really horrible. horrible things when it came to what happened to Julie. My assumption is that maybe they took the

death penalty off the table in exchange for him testifying because, you know, he got multiple life sentences. The guy's never going to get out of jail. So I don't know what else enticement there would have been other than we won't seek the death penalty. Right. But I never actually saw that. Well, good. At least he got what was coming to him. Yeah. He definitely got, you know, a very serious sentence, most likely he'll die in jail. Now, on appeal, the Georgia State Supreme Court said that the prosecutor made a mistake during Hammond's trial when he told the jury, there is no life without parole in Georgia. So one day he will be a free man. He's talking about Hammond. Obviously, this is said in an attempt to try to get the death sentence. Right. The problem is,

under Georgia law, you're not allowed to say this type of stuff to the jury, right? You can't hint or say that someone may not serve their full sentence in trying to sway the jury to get them to give them a heavier sentence. But the court also said this was something that Hammond's attorney should have objected to, but didn't. So you're getting into the area a little bit of ineffective assistance of counsel. Right. What they did was they ordered the lower court to review the case again. But in the end, Haman didn't get a new trial.

But for a while there, it was looking like it was heading that way. He was sent to death row to await his execution. And that date came in January 2011. His last meal consisted of fried chicken, French fries, corn on the cob, jalapeno peppers, mint chocolate chip ice cream, and cherry limeate.

It's a lot of food. It's a lot of food. And I think as far as last meals go, it's not the worst I've heard of. I love me some cherry limeade. Of course, I love fried chicken, French fries.

I will say it does seem like a lot of killers choose mint chocolate chip ice cream. I felt like I've heard that a number of times. What is it with mint chocolate chip? and killers. I don't know. Might be some...

If that's your favorite, you might want to check yourself. I do like. I meant chocolate chip. I figured you would, for sure. But it wouldn't be my first choice if I was going to be executed. On January 25th,

Emmanuel Hammond was strapped to a gurney, given an injection of the lethal cocktail of drugs. He didn't have any last words. He pretty much just stared straight ahead during the 13 minutes that it took for the drugs to stop his heart, he was pronounced dead at 11.39 p.m. And of course, there were a ton of last minute appeals. There always are in these death penalty cases.

I just didn't feel like we need to go through each and every one of them. Obviously, none of them worked because he ended up being executed. I just wish that that night, if you believe what Janice said. Take me home. And Maurice, too, because I think Maurice backed up Janus. Right. So you really got two against one. Right.

So when she said she went home, I wish she would have picked the phone up and said, hey, police, you need to get over there. Something bad's about to happen. And maybe that would have stopped the murder. Yeah. I mean, you talked about how bad of a guy Maurice was. There's no doubt about that. Right.

Hammond was a horrible human being. Yeah. But definitely you can't just give Janice Weldon a pass. I mean, she was in the car. She didn't witness the murder because she was at home by that point. Right. But she witnessed Julie Love being beaten. She witnessed her being raped at the very least.

Yeah. And she had to have known that things were going to probably continue to escalate. That's the reason she wanted to go home. And then later on. when she found out that Julie Love had been murdered and she waited 13 months. Right. So, I mean, you can't just give her a pass and look at her and say she's completely off the hook.

Now, the prosecution had to give her immunity. Well, sure. In order to get the testimony they needed. But I can't sit here and look at her and say, oh, wow, she did a great thing. Right. I mean, glad she came forward. Yeah, because there's a chance. we could be talking about this as an unsolved case.

Exactly. If she decides not to. So at least the family knows what happened. And two really bad individuals are no longer out on the streets. That's true. I just don't want to diminish her role completely because she witnessed some really horrible things and took her time bringing them to light, I guess. You could say she only brought them to light because bad things were happening to her at that time.

And she was afraid for her. life. And I think she had four kids. Yeah. She was afraid for them too. I didn't mention that. Yeah. But again, glad she did come forward. Yes. Yeah. I mean, it's kind of one of those things where I don't want to glorify her, but I don't want to downplay what she did either. Right. But I think overall, this is just an extremely tragic story. You know, one of the things that stood out to me gives was the dynamic between Julia Mark. And we spent some time talking about it. Right. I think. think Julie really wanted to marry Mark. It sounds like he was a bit hesitant over the years. They were hot and cold. They dated other people. But in the time before her death, it seems to me

as though they had both made the decision that they were going to get married and be together forever. Yeah, it was time to move forward. He bought a ring. Julie had talked to friends about, you know, picking out a wedding dress. And then it's like, Like, poof, in the blink of an eye, everything has changed because of the decisions of these people to do something absolutely horrible that they didn't need to do. No, definitely not for a few hundred bucks. It's never okay, period. But for a few hundred bucks, what are you thinking?

And when you look at the acts committed by Hammond and Porter against Julie Love, extremely brutal. And I really didn't go too much into Hammond's past. We talked about, you know, some of the things that prosecutors said he had done. He definitely had a very extensive criminal history that dated back to when he was a juvenile. I mean, I think he had been in trouble for most of his life. I think emotionally, he was pretty numb. I think he was.

To be able to do what he, what he did, I think he had to have been. I think he was a guy that just didn't really think anything about other people. Yeah. Only what he wanted and how he was going to get that. Yeah. And whatever was in the way or whoever was in the way, that was just collateral damage. That was just part of me getting what I want. Like I said, Maurice Porter will most likely die in prison.

But as far as Janice Weldon, I really couldn't find much on her. it seems as though she's done a pretty good job of staying out of the media. That's good for her. Which you think you would want to do if you were in her position. Yeah, there's nothing good that could come from her being vocal. No, and if a paper is writing a story about you now, that means you've done something to come to their attention and it's probably not going to be good. Exactly.

I just didn't find anything. But that's it for the case of the murder of Julie Love, give them. We've got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Yes, hear them. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Caitlin calling from Baton Rouge, Louisiana. I just want to say that I love you guys.

You guys keep me entertained. I'm a teacher. So during all my free period, I have to make sure I slam the pause button as my kids come back into the room so they don't know what I'm listening to. But totally worth it. I absolutely love listening to you guys.

You guys make me feel like I'm having a conversation with my dad who lives like all the way across the country. So it's so nice listen to you guys. you guys remind me a lot of him. Anyway, I would love to hear you guys cover a case that's sort of local to me, but it's actually more local with some of my family that I have in Lake Charles, Louisiana, which is about two hours from Houston. It's the case of Heidi Broussard.

I'm sure you guys saw about it when it was on the news. It's a pretty crazy one. I don't really want to spoil too much, but she was murdered by her friend Megan Pira Muska for some very disturbing reasons. So I would love to hear you guys take on that case. She spent most of her life where my boyfriend grew up. So I would just love to hear you guys talk about it. But honestly, I would love to hear you guys talk about just about anything.

Anyway, I hope you guys have a good one and keep your own time taken. Bye. I'll just go and hear her Louisiana accent. I wasn't really sure she was from Louisiana. Yeah, it wasn't strong. But, you know, depending on where you're from in Louisiana, you know, top to bottom, it's a long way. It really is. So if you're in the northern part, it's not as strong.

You get down to Norlands. Yeah, get down to. that boot of get down to the hill of the boot. I thought you were going to say boo-doo. You were trying to say boo-doo. But we appreciate the voice mail. We do. Thank you.

Hi, guys. This is Jimini speaking. I just want to say that I really love your podcast, and I know you hear this a lot, but it's truly amazing. I love the kind of detail you put into not only the victims and the murders, but also going to the entire trial, that's really great. I am actually from Denmark. but I currently live in China

and I was just thinking I would like to hear maybe one day could do some true crime involving something that happened in China or at least a connection between China and the state that could be really awesome

I would truly love that but yeah I really really love your podcast keep on doing your awesome have a good one guys and thank you we could Yeah, I mean, there's no doubt.

We need to get over to some other countries. I've been wanting to get to China. Russia has some really interesting cases. The problem is every time I look into them and I start to look at the pronunciations of things. Right. Like, we can't even pronounce the cities in our own country and we're supposed to figure this out. It has a whole lot of different obstacles. There are some other obstacles, no doubt about it.

But we're going to get there. We've got to Russia for sure has got, you know, two or three really monstrous cases that we need to cover. And people send them in all the time. And I'm sure everyone listening knows what they are. But do that one case we're going to do in Kazakhstan falls that Borat guy. Yeah. Borat the serial killer. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. People will like that one. Yeah, it's a good one. Hey, Mike and Gibby. This is Alicia down in South Georgia. I'm a big fan of the podcast. I've been listening to it as much as possible.

when my kids aren't around. I did have an interesting case for you that happened near my hometown. His name was Billy Daniel Rollerson, Jr. He was convicted in the Memorial Day playing in 1993 of three people. And it's an interesting case to me because there's a little bit of necrophilia involved, which I will never understand, but it's there. Anyway, thank you so much for all your hard work. And as always, keep your own time ticking.

Yeah, I don't think I'm familiar with that one. I'm going to have to write that one down. I mean, the guy's name's Billy Daniel, so. Yeah. You know, that's interesting there. But she liked this case, being in Georgia. Oh, yeah. Sure.

I doubt she liked it. Well, I liked it, but, you know. Like the episode. I know what you're saying. Yeah. Nobody likes what happened. No. Hi, Mike and Gibby.

This is Max from Atlanta. I haven't called in the while, but still listening. Just haven't had a chance to call. Mike, so glad to hear your daughter's going, is feeling better and everything's going well. Just listen to the Polk case. I think Susan Polk. Really, out of all your cases you've done, that's about the least sympathy I have for a victim.

I mean, at the best case, it was a statutory rape, and he, you know, he took the trust the parents had and the girl, basically a child had in him, and basically abused her. Like you said, at the end of the episode, she was probably mentally ill from the junk, and he never did anything for her. Tragic case, keep your own time ticking,

and continue good health, so I'll take care, bye. And have heard from Max a while. I'm glad he reached out. Yeah, he always has good insight. And I would say he's spot on with what most people are saying about that Susan Polk case. Right.

It's very rare that the person that is killed is seen as, you know, like kind of very unsympathetic because of what they did. Yeah. You know, in the past. But I, and I didn't even realize it, but, you know, Max from Atlanta, too. Oh, yeah. It's not like I'm screening these and placing them in because we're doing a case in Atlanta. It just turned out that way.

Yeah. But we appreciate the voicemails. We had a couple things in the mailbag. Yeah. Francesco Gentenetti. Gintenetti. Sending a Harley chip from Vacaville. Really?

From Vacaville? Yeah. Where Big Ed Kemper is housed. Yeah. How about that? So that was pretty cool. Yeah. And then Yvette Casey sent us basically.

a COVID-19 care package. I've seen. From Australia. Yeah. There's Tim Tams, which I know my daughters will eat. They love those. Right. There's all kinds of snacks.

Most of them made with veggie mite. Yeah. There's also vegamite. I know how you feel about vegamite. Yeah. Yeah. I was kind of thinking that I should go on a all-vegemite diet. Yeah.

What better way to lose weight than to say to yourself, the only thing you can eat is And at that point, you would lose the weight you want to lose? Yeah. But did you know if you take the vegamite and rub it on your scalp? Hair will grow. It's not a chia plant. I bet you try it after I leave. You're like, you know what?

What if he was correct? Oh, there was also some emergency TP in there, which I found pretty funny. Well, that's important. Never know. So we appreciate all of that. All right, buddy, that's it for another episode of true crime all the time. So for Mike and Gibby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking. Your math skills have global potential.

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