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- [00:01]
A
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Hi, I'm Juliette Cowley, a retired FBI profiler and host of the true crime podcast the Real FBI Profilers. If you're fascinated with true crime and criminal profiling, then join us as we discuss real cases and examine the behavior exhibited before, during and after the commission of the crime. You can listen to the consult wherever you get your podcasts. And it's as close as it gets to being in the room with the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit.
- [01:09]
A
I'm Brett.
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B
And I'm Alice.
- [01:11]
A
And we are the prosecutor. Today on the Prosecutors, we conclude our look at the murder of Jade Beasley. Hello everybody, and welcome to this episode of the Prosecutors. I'm Brett and I'm joined as always by my go getter of a co host, Alice.
- [02:11]
B
I don't know if I'm a go getter, but we're gonna go get to the end of this case finally today. That's right, because Jade deserves the close look. But also, man, it is hard diving back into this case every time whenever there is a child murder, it just hits differently now that we're parents.
- [02:28]
A
Yeah, I think it does. And not that, I mean, any murder is tragic, obviously, but when you see an 11 year old who's got everything in front of her and it's taken from her, especially in such a horrific way, it's hard not for it to hit you. And I think that's why some of these stories resonate so much with people. Delphi case, why that meant so much to people, these girls and the just the bloom of their lives taken by a horrific murderer. And that happened here no matter what you think the answer is. We've spent four episodes on this case, gone through a lot of stuff, gone through some timelines, gone through some of the statements that Julia Beverly made and some of the evidence. And now we're going to finish that up and then we'll get to what we think actually happened in this case. We ended last time with the bathtub and some of our discussions about that. Now we want to talk about Jade's fingernail scrapings. So this is something. Whenever you have a vicious attack like this or it seems like someone tried to defend themselves, one thing you want to look at are fingernail scrapings. And these were tested. Julia's DNA was found in the scrapings. The defense would argue this was a relatively small amount of DNA, though I would note she also had some unknown male DNA under her fingernails. That has been pointed to by people who support Julia's innocence as evidence of the attacker. That unknown DNA was infinitesimally smaller than the amount of DNA under her fingernails from Julia Beverly. Now, we know you're going to have DNA under your fingernails. That's going to happen. And the alternative argument would be that that DNA is random DNA and so is Julius because they lived together. But we know for certain it was Julia's. It matched to 1 in 950 million. Julia's hands and nails were also swabbed. They were never tested. Nothing in Julia's story indicated that she had scratched her attacker or anything along those lines. And there's no reason to think her fingernail scrapings would have been useful if she were telling the truth. Having said that, I do think not testing them was probably a mistake by the prosecution. If they had, they would have either have found Jade's DNA, which would have been explained by Julia's defenders in the same way while they live together, or they would have found nothing. But what is not surprising is that the defense did not take it upon themselves to test the scrapings. If you think Julia is guilty, if she's innocent, though, you'd think they'd at least have asked to have the scraping tested in the hopes that just maybe the man in black could have been identified. But they never moved to do that. Apparently they were happy not knowing. And I think that tells you a little bit about what they would have expected to find in those fingernail scrapings.
- [05:19]
B
Yes. You know, it is really so hard. We've talked about this before where oftentimes the defense or people in the true crime world will say they didn't do X, Y or Z because there are infinite number of leads and investigations and tests you can run. And it's impossible to do all of them because of resources, because where the investigation is leading you. And in this case, though, because they started suspecting Julia's story so early on, really the same day, I think it was a mistake for them not to test her fingernail scrapings now, because the bottom of her feet were so clean. We know that there were attempts at cover up, both in wiping up footprints to the video of her throwing something away at the gas station. Likely she probably scrubbed not just the bottoms of her feet, but her hands and fingernails as well. And there probably was nothing to see there. But that would have been interesting in and of itself that they were so clean. For example, just like the cleanliness of the bottom of her feet in such a bloody scene would have also been very interesting, especially when you have the instance of, well, why wouldn't she see trace amounts of DNA from living in a home? Or she did say that she went and touched Jade when she first came and found her in the bathtub. So you would expect to see something, but when you see nothing, that may tell a story. So in this case, I do agree with you. It was a mistake because they questioned Julia's story and the veracity story so early on.
- [06:39]
A
I'll say this, number one, if it is kind of amazing that Jade had any DNA under her fingernails for that very reason she'd been in that bathtub. It's obviously she'd been cleaned up. I think someone was trying to remove DNA from her. So the fact that she has that DNA, I think, is pretty compelling. I think there was probably more. You know, talking about the amount, there probably was more before the cleanup started. The other thing, I'll say, I assume that the scrapings, the fingernail scrapings are still available and the state has them. Julia's defender should test it now. I'll help pay for it if it's relatively inexpensive. If it's under $10,000, I will pay to have the scrapings tested. Send me the bill. I'll pay for it. So, you know, get it done. If that's something that concerns people and they think testing these scrapings would prove that she's innocent. I am all about proving people who are in prison unjustly innocent. So let's test them. Let's do it. There shouldn't be. I mean, I think you can test fingernail scrapings for less than $10,000. You can do DNA tests on Othram for like, 5,000. They're always raising money to do DNA testing. So, hey, let's make it happen.
- [07:47]
B
And sometimes you don't ask the questions you know the answers to. So that's why I think that hasn't been tested yet. Okay, so there's the fingernail scrapings. And by the way, she was in the bathtub for some amount of time. The purpose of the bath Test was likely to remove evidence and remember that water had been running clear. The fact that there was such an intense fight back, you, I think would have expected to see much more DNA under her fingernails. But let's talk about Julia's wounds because she did not come out unscathed. And I think the entire story that she had to tell the police were because she knew she had visible wounds. So Julia had a cut on her hand from a knife. Now, it was not bleeding. Officers did notice what looked like fresh scratches on her face. Matthew Deschamps with the Illinois State Police responded as a CSI investigator and when he arrived, he took a number of photos of Julia. This included a red blood like substance on her left hand and fingernails. And he also found these lacerations on her finger and palm of her left hand. He took a picture of a laceration on Julia's chin and abrasion above her left eye. He photographed more red blood like substance on her pants. He also noted that Julia had a bite mark on her right forearm. She also had a bite mark on her left arm. This chance took swabs from both and Julia would claim these wounds were the result of self harm. So real quick, I know we just kind of listed a bunch of those things. Let's back up a little bit. She has a lot of small minor wounds in a lot of places. This is significant because she describes her interaction with this intruder as incredibly brief seconds. This man is running out, not going for her, not interacting with her. She's the one who interacts with him. Grabs a knife, he kind of like twirls away and runs. That's the extent of the interaction. Yet somehow she's able to get fresh cuts or bite marks or lacerations in, let's see, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. At least six different locations of her bodies. Both palms and fingers, we'll count that as one because they're close to each other. Both arms of the eye, the chin. That's really interesting because none of them are like very significant. Doesn't look like she got into a bar fight, for example. But they're all in lots of different areas. You would envision a longer tussle to have resulted in all those different scratches. That's why of course, we never heard about a bite. Right. The man didn't bite her. So she has to explain these bite marks. It's really interesting that she doesn't say, oh, that's just a bruise or I don't know where I got that because I'll say sometimes I look down on My legs. And I'll be like, I have no idea where that bruise came from. She acknowledges that they are bite marks, but says that she's the one who did them because she has to explain them and says that she self harmed by biting her arms. Both of her arms, none of them, again are incredibly serious. But all of them look like they took effort. Right. Like she was in a struggle, a struggle longer than the interaction she had with this so called intruder. The bite marks I think are really, really interesting because we'll talk more about like bite mark science, but the fact that she also has an answer for that. Whereas you can imagine if something happens, I don't know, there's four kids in the house, including a baby, a baby who wears diapers. Right. When my youngest is teething, which is like always 24 7, he bites me really hard on the shoulder because it gives him relief or something and it hurts so badly. But if I saw a bite mark on myself, I wouldn't immediately explain it away. I'd have to think for a second. So on the screen here we have on her pointer finger, it's a little more serious than a paper cut, but it's not like gaping. It doesn't look like it needs stitches or anything like that. But it does look like there's bruising around that cut insofar as like it's like you're squeezing your hand when you get it.
- [11:44]
A
Yeah, we're just showing some other pictures. This is a picture of her forehead. She has a cut right over her left eye and then on her face she also has like a slight cut on her chin. To me they certainly don't look like knife wounds. They look much more like some sort of scratching wound. And recall, she does have the DNA of Jade underneath her fingernails. And I think one thing is important to note. So she has all these wounds and you know, we're all trying to figure out like how could she possibly have gotten these wounds, etc. Etc. Well, recall that when she tells the story about the intruder and the person who comes in and the man in black and all that stuff, she makes clear and emphasizes the point because I think it's really an important point to her that he was wearing gloves, he was wearing black gloves just like everything else. So if he's wearing gloves, how does she have scratches? She couldn't have gotten them from him. If he's wearing gloves, he couldn't have scratched her. She doesn't say she ripped his gloves off. She doesn't say they had any kind of Interaction like that. So she has these scratches on her that seem to be fresh, are relatively minor, obviously not caused by a knife. These are not knife blade cuts on her. How did they happen? Now, the ones on her hands I think probably were caused by knife, but the problem is they're much more indicative of holding a knife and it's slipping and cutting yourself maybe in a frenzied attack than in grabbing a knife. Look, we've said this before, just go online and Google defensive wounds, defensive hand wounds with a knife, you're going to see some really horrific stuff. But compare those, you'll see them with Jade. Yeah, you. Yeah, if you see Jade's hand, you'll see him. And if you compare those, they're just not the same. And we're going to put all these pictures of Julia on the website so you can look at all her various injuries and decide what you think. There's one and it's not on the screen now, but it's of one of her arms. She has a tattoo. She has what looks like a scar, possibly from previous self harm. And she has what looks like a scratch on her arm. It's red. It looks like a scratch mark. Once again, something that seems to have happened. All these pictures were taken right after, actually, if you watch the video of the interview, which happened right after she's taken to the the station, you'll see the tech come in and start taking all these pictures of all these different places on her body where she has slot injuries. And all these were shown to the jury and the prosecution's position was these are all indicative of being in a struggle with someone, not some sort of brief interaction. Five seconds, maybe 10, where you're grabbing at the knife and then they're running on.
- [14:31]
B
So we've talked about this a lot, motive. People have asked, you know, up and down in this case, what's the motive? You know, she's working and she's been living with and essentially like a stepmother to Jade for what, seven, eight years at this point. And proving a motive really can be a key part of the prosecution's case, but it's not required to show that a murder occurred. Motive is not one of the standards you have to meet when you are bringing a murder charge. But here it was the defense that focused on motive, or rather Julia's lack of it, to try and drive that wedge of reasonable doubt. Very smart, by the way, because, you know, no one wants to believe that a seemingly loving mother, stepmother even is capable of doing something like this, especially when there's no real evidence that they've had, you know, a violent past. So in their opening, the defense said the jury would see a woman who had no motive, who had a great relationship with Jade and no conflict with her. Now the prosecution said they would not be trying to prove motive at all. Now why this happened, if it happened, would remain a mystery. And I think that's actually the biggest and really only mystery of this entire case. I think there really is no mystery what happened to Jade in terms of who did this to her. But I think the motive is very curious, which is why I think Julia's been able to get this train of people behind her to say she's innocent. Not because the evidence doesn't point to her, but rather because motive is a tricky thing because humans are complex and incredibly tricky things. I'm definitely going to dive into motive later.
- [16:10]
A
And look, I mean, here's the thing I think about this. I understand why people ask this and they always do and they want to know the motive. They want to try and understand why something like this would happen. I will tell you, people ask about their family life. This is not a case where Julia is the evil stepmother and she hated Jade and she abused Jade and she starved Jade and there were all these reports from the school about Jade coming with black eyes and bruises and broken legs and everything. There's nothing like that. Their relationship is described by Michael, Jade's father and Julia's long term boyfriend, father of several of her children, and Jade's mother, Jessica, who didn't really have interactions with Julia and you can expect that. But it's described as cordial. Fine, they weren't close. You know, I think Jessica said they were as close as two people who are very different could be. Doesn't seem like she had a lot of interactions with her. They didn't have heart to hearts. This wasn't a situation like many of you also have. You have step kids and you have a hard time imagining this because you love your step kids and you're as close to them as your birth children, whatever we call those biological, biological, that's the word, the biological children. But I think probably some of you also are in relationships where you got some step kids and you know what, you're not that close to them. You don't dislike them, but it's not like you're lovey dovey, you know, they don't call you mom, you don't hang out all the time. Well, it seems like it was one of those relationships, not an unusual abusive relationship. But just one that wasn't particularly close. So you're not going to find the motive in some long term abusive thing that's happening. But one thing I think always surprises me about true crime. All of us follow this stuff so much. If you're listening to this, you know more about crimes than 90% of the people in your life. You know more about crimes than 90% of the people we worked with in law enforcement. And yet so many of you are so surprised when something like this happens. And that always blows my mind because you see it so often, unfortunately, particularly in families in relationships, this kind of violence can happen and seemingly happen out of nowhere for no reason and escalate very quickly to murder.
- [18:29]
B
And in fact, some of the most horrendous cases that Brett and I have seen both covering on this podcast and the ones that we prosecuted are between family members and not because of some long history of abuse, but rather, there's so much complexity and interrelationship and emotional baggage that comes with these very close relationships that they can boil over. I don't know. Have you ever snapped at one of your family members about doing dishes? And it really had nothing to do with dishes. It maybe had to do with, like, all the other interactions you had during the day. It's kind of like that there are so many touch points that at any point, especially when there are close living quarters, it may not be about specifically what happened at that moment. You never know what's simmering right below the surface and what happened earlier that day or what may be going through other people's minds and something is perceived the wrong way and people really do snap. Every single person is capable of snapping. We may have different snapping points, but I think we'll see that in this case it was an instance of snapping. I don't know what caused Julia to snap, but you don't stab someone 104 times without snapping, especially when that's not something that you have a history of doing.
- [19:42]
A
I also think it's obvious if she did this, it wasn't premeditated. And I think you can really say that whoever did this, it wasn't premeditated, whether it was an intruder or Julia. And I think for some people, that would be significant because you don't see the kind of overkill Alice mentioned overkill before. You don't see the kind of overkill you see here necessarily when it's just sort of, you know, somebody came in to rob the place to get some drug money and came upon somebody, they might stab them. But Are they gonna. Are they gonna stab them? I can't remember. How many, like 15 deep stab wounds, 100 something total? Maybe. It's possible, but I think it's at least a little less likely.
- [20:25]
B
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B
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- [27:31]
A
Okay, let's talk about bite mark evidence in this case. This is something that was focused on a lot by Julia's defenders and also a lot by her defense team, particularly in the appeal bite mark evidence. And we're going to talk about that as well. So for those of you watching, I'm putting one of the pictures of the bite marks on the screen. You can tell it's a bite mark, but it's not like they didn't take a chunk out or anything.
- [27:59]
B
Maybe I'm naive, but if I were trying to lie about this, I don't know that I would admit it's a bite mark. Like, well, I see that it looks like a bite mark, but like, it could also be a really weird. Do you know what I mean? It's just a bite mark is so specific and so indicative of like a struggle that I might try to explain that away.
- [28:18]
A
Yeah, piece of advice out there, future murderers, don't say it's a bite mark. That was a huge mistake. Now, once again, Alice, that she's sitting here thinking about this, it's probably another reason why if you're sitting out there and you're a murderer, you shouldn't talk to the police. Because when you're talking to the police and all of a sudden they're like, hey, I noticed you have some sort of injury on your arm. And you have to in a split second decide how you're going to explain that, saying, oh, it's a bite mark. I bite myself might be the thing that comes in. Or maybe she does bite herself. I mean, that's also a possibility and she's just telling the truth. It is certainly a bite mark, though this is not a case where we have to worry about that problem because she tells us the bite mark and in fact, she has bite marks on both arms. So the way this came in, Dr. David Wold, who was a board certified forensic dentist and a member of the American Academy of Forensic Science, was called to testify. He's also board certified in forensic odontology. Now today, odontology typically is limited to identifying people through dental records, which is something just like, it blows my mind that they can do that. But really, before DNA, if you had an unknown body, that's how you did it, was this. The field of bite mark analysis has fallen out of favor. Generally speaking, it's just not used in a lot of courtrooms anymore because even if it's accurate in one case, really hard to have any kind of scientific rigor with it. You know, even cases like Ted Bundy, who was convicted largely on bite mark evidence and was definitely guilty, apparently had really wonky teeth. And so it was very easy to say, yeah, that's his bite mark on the victim. But just typically, because it is hard to look at and make that kind of determination and not know it's made by something else. It's not sort of a hard science in the way that maybe DNA analysis or even something like tool mark evidence is.
- [30:12]
B
I've actually thought about this because I'm no Ted Bundy, but I had very strange teeth. Like I fused teeth that were baby teeth and it passed on to squanto my second son. So like his bottom two teeth are fused together. So where you would have two teeth, there's one tooth. And I've always thought about bite mark evidence for either of us. Like if we had bit someone, they'd be like fused tooth, definitely this one. But other than that, you're right that this is, you know, especially with, I will say the bite mark that we see here, it's not punctured as you noted. It looks like there may have been some like a long sleeve shirt or something in the way. Because it does look like a pretty severe bite to have bruised but not punctured.
- [30:55]
A
So if anybody was an expert in this field and can testify here it was Wold. Now the defense did object to forensic odontology as a whole and asked that there be a hearing. It's a fry hearing in Illinois, so we won't have to say that other word. They didn't get one because the judge did not allow this to come in as scientific evidence in the way we think of where I'm qualified to do DNA testing and I have an opinion within a 1 in 770 million that this DNA matches the victims or whatever. Right. It's not like that. They allowed him to do basically observational testimony. So what he could do in his testimony is, is he can point to this bite mark, we know it's a bite mark. So he doesn't even have to identify it as a bite mark. And he can give things that he observes. This is what I'm seeing to help the jury. When they're looking at the bite mark, they can look at it for themselves. They can decide whether they see that or not. It's a fine line. This went up on appeal in the Illinois appellate courts. The law in Illinois on forensic audentology is a little unsettled. There was a case that basically said you couldn't do it, at least not to a scientific certainty. That was overturned by the Illinois Supreme Court. A little unclear, but just know that forensic odontology in large is pretty weak. We talked about this in West Memphis. 3. Anyways, so he knows that Julia said she bit herself on the arm. But some of the things he said, number one, he said that based on the orientation of the wound, he concluded it was not reasonable to me that this would have resulted from self infliction. So basically based on where the bite mark is and how the teeth are, he couldn't imagine how someone would do this to themselves. You know, maybe the jurors were, you know, trying to do bites on their arm to see. But he couldn't figure out how you would do that. And he said it was a forceful bite, that there were a few teeth that did go through the tissue, though it's hard to see in this photograph. One thing he noted that was very interesting and poignant is that there is a place in this bite mark where one would expect to see a tooth impact where there was not one. And Old noted that Jade was missing a canine tooth. She's an 11 year old girl, she didn't even have all her teeth. So he doesn't say specifically this bite was made by Jade Beasley. And you know that because you can tell she's missing a tooth. But he does note there's a gap where you'd expect a tooth to be. And by the way, same place Jade's missing a tooth.
- [33:36]
B
If that's not interesting enough, DNA was tested from the swabs on the bite marks. Now on the left arm there was DNA consistent with Jade Beasley that would match one out of 160,000 individuals. And the bite mark on the right arm, there was also a swab taken from it. And that DNA matched Jade 1 in 240 quintillion. In other words, this is super interesting. I don't think she realized these bite marks were left there and that there was DNA in them because I think there was a lot of washing. Maybe you can explain away Jade's DNA under your fingernails. Again, we don't know. There are scrapings, but they weren't tested. But it's really hard to explain why Jade's saliva is in the bite marks on your arms which you say you bit yourself on. And the experts say the angle is one in which it's pretty much impossible for you to have made those marks with your own teeth. I think this is incredibly damning for Julia. I don't know how you feel about it, Brit.
- [34:38]
A
So one thing to correct, because of the sample, they could not say definitively it was saliva. That's one thing that's missing. However, because the match is 1 in 240 quintillion, it probably was saliva. Saliva is a really good medium for DNA transfer. Much better than touch DNA. Skin cells, hair, like all this stuff. Saliva's great. That's why when you're swabbing for DNA, where do you do it? You do it on like inside of your cheek, right? Your cheeks shedding cells like crazy. Your saliva's full of DNA. So 1 in 240 quintillion, almost certainly Slava. But they couldn't say that for certain. However, one thing that's worth noting, this is her DNA and it's on a bite mark. The only thing you can say is well maybe she lived with her, remember she didn't pull her out of that water, she didn't rub her arms on Jade at any point. She doesn't say that, she barely even touches her. So the only thing you can say is well maybe she got Jade's DNA on her because they live together. Well how unfortunate that she didn't have Michael's DNA somehow. The only DNA she picked up from transfer, transfer that was good enough for 1 in 240 quintillion that just so happened to be on the bite mark came from the victim, not from the other person who lived in the house who she probably had a lot more physical interactions with than Jake.
- [36:01]
B
And one other thing to note, if this is in fact a bite mark as she says that self inflicted harm typically when it comes to self harm because we also know that Michael, her husband who lived with her for seven to eight years says that he never knew her to bite herself. People who self harm try to hide it, that is like a key characteristic, a key harm self harm is to hide it from yourself. So the fact that Michael doesn't know that she bites herself I think is not great for her. But you can imagine someone who does self harm in this way, who hides it. So if this is something that she self harms and hides it so well from her own husband who she lives in, sleeps next to for eight years, it would be really strange that she would expose it so much so to Jade where Jade's DNA would get on it, right? You would imagine that this is a covered part of her. Even if she had transferred DNA from Jade from living with her, you would imagine it's not on the parts of her self harm that she keeps so well hidden that her own husband who probably sees her unclothed doesn't know that she does this. So the placement aids DNA, even if you want to say it's transferred DNA cuts against her own story that this is some like secret self harm.
- [37:11]
A
Once again this circumstantial case and you can take any particular piece of evidence and say well maybe the, well maybe defense, well maybe it's transfer, you know, maybe she got it, you know, some other point she just so happened about herself and well maybe you know, Michael's not that observant and didn't notice and maybe she's just really unlucky and she just so Happened to bite herself the night before this happened. I mean, how unlucky is this woman? But you're having to do this with all this evidence and facts that we've gone through as we've been talking about this case. And that's why all this is really important. It's not. And I think this is important to remember because I see people do this all the time. It's not that any one piece of evidence is the knockdown smoking gun. And if there's no explanation for that smoking gun, that's the only way she can be guilty. And if you can come up with an explanation and the whole thing falls apart, you have to take a look at the entire picture of the evidence. And I think that's where this type of thing becomes really important.
- [38:12]
B
What we do know is that as horrendous as the last few moments of her life, or not just few moments, I think this struggle went on for minutes. We see it as she's running through the house with blood and she is fighting for her life. We may not know motive, but we do know modus operandis of from Jade's mom. So Jade's mom said that her daughter would have attacked anyone who attacked her. Now, how would Jade's mom know this? Because she had told Jade that if this is sad that but mothers of young daughters know this. She had told her daughter how to fight back if she were ever in a situation. So she knew that if Jade were attacked, Jade would kick, bite, scratch, scream, claw, pull hair, do whatever it took to try and get away from anyone who tried to hurt her. And she knows this because Jade's mother taught her this mother to daughter. She said, look, you're an 11 year old girl now. There are bad people out there. She probably was thinking about men, right? Or a bear. She wasn't thinking about a stepmother here. She said if anyone is doing anything to you, you do everything, everything you can to try and get away. And that means everything within your faculties. Biting, scratching, kicking, screaming, clawing, fight to the death. Now it is worth noting that Julia had dried blood on her hands and under her nails. She also had scratches on her arms, an abrasion over her left eye, and a laceration on her chin. She had those bite marks on both of her arms with Jade's DNA in it. The prosecution cannot directly link and Jade's mom cannot say, I told her to do this and this is what happened. But what we do know is some 11 year olds, we may not even have testimony that they would do this. Right. Jade's own mother said, I taught her to do this. And I know she would have done it. She was a feisty one. She would have fought. And that's exactly what we see here. Whatever happened, we know from Jade's body, from her autopsy, from the crime scene, from that. This was an all out fight. Now, she ultimately didn't have a chance because the person coming after her stabbed her 104 times. But she also got 104 stabs because she fought likely so hard. And what we do see is the person who was on trial and ultimately convicted for Jade's murder looks like she was also in quite a tussle.
- [40:38]
A
And look, I think we've talked about this case for a while and probably longer than we even thought we would. And I think this brings us to our theories in this case, and mine is quite simple and straightforward. I mean, look, we are faced with a situation here. There are only two options. This is not one where we can come up with some crazy out there theories about weird things that could have happened or ways to explain this stuff away because of Julia's own words. It's either the man in black or it's her. That's it. There either was a man in black who did this or Julia did it. Those are our two options. And I think it's worth noting before we even get into this, people who defend Julia, Julia's camp, the people who try and prove that Julia Beverly is innocent, One thing they do is they don't have a lot of hard facts to rely on. So they try and attack the case through some pretty tried and true moves. One of them is they allege there's racism in this case. That may strike you as strange. Having talked about race, Julia is half African American. That is literally it. As far as evidence that this is somehow racial, there's no evidence this is some sort of racial attack on Julia. But I'll tell you what, when you raise race in a case, one thing that it does is it can make you, the listener, stop thinking about the evidence and stop thinking rationally and start thinking emotionally. Because that makes you angry. And it should make you angry. If this were actually a racially motivated prosecution and you start seeing things through that anger and not through the cold lens of the evidence. And you should always be careful when someone does that. They're absolutely racially based prosecutions, they happen and you should oppose them with everything you have and you should tear them apart. But when someone makes that claim, scrutinize it, look for evidence of it. And hold them accountable when they make that claim. And it's not true because it trivializes those real cases and it makes those real cases harder to find, harder to uncover, and harder to make people believe when people are essentially crying wolf to try and defend themselves. So that's the first thing. The second thing they do is say no, this is actually some sort of satanic panic thing Because Julia was a Wiccan and her cousin runs a store in Salem, a witchcraft store, which incidentally I have been to, as I've been to Salem many times. I can tell you that has no effect on how I view this case. Had nothing to do with the trial either. The only time it even comes up is the cousin testifies about a trip that Jay took to visit her in Salem and there's a brief discussion about the fact that she owns this esoteric shop, but that's it. There's no expert on satanic rituals like in the West Memphis three thing that comes and testifies this is a non entity in the case. Read the trial transcript for yourself and see completely irrelevant things brought into this case to make you forget about the evidence. Think about this emotionally. The other thing people say, well, you know, if the police had only investigated more. When people say that, think about what should they have done. Try and come up with something in your mind. Imagine a case like this. The police show up, they're on their way, they get a 911 call, there's an intruder, they're on their way, they see someone who vaguely matches the description. What should they do there? They should stop and talk to that person. If they didn't do that, if they just continued onto the scene, okay, legitimate criticism, but here they did look. If they didn't look for the person, if they didn't bring out the canines, if they didn't search acres of land, that is a legitimate question. If they didn't pull every camera in the area looking for the man in black and not seeing him, that would be something they should have done. You don't have any of that in this case. You've got at best, months later, a junkie shows up at somebody's door and people say, well, they should have figured out who that guy was because maybe he's the man in black. Maybe. Should they have investigated every person in Marion, every five foot tall man in Marion to try and determine where he was that day? Is that what you have to do in an investigation? Particularly when you are seeing the evidence that they are seeing and that's where this case is Decided only evidence. Just like everything else. You have two people who were alone in a trailer. One of them ends up brutally stabbed to death. The other one has wounds that look like defensive wounds. Not only that, but she tells you a story that is demonstrably false. She tells you she was 30 minutes away at Walmart when this happened. She doesn't tell you that once or twice or three times or four times. She tells you that five or six times that she did that. She then later tells Michael, I don't know if we discussed that. She tells Michael that she went to the Walmart in Carbondale, a place she did not often frequent, and yet not only says she went there, but describes with particularity where she went, where she parked, how she checked her phone, how she realized she didn't have her credit cards, and she went back. And she even tells you specifically she didn't stop for gas. And then when the police pull the surveillance tapes, what do they see? They don't see a man in black running down the road. They don't seem going to a bicycle or a car parked somewhere where he had hidden it away and driven off. They see Julia in her vehicle, go to a gas station right down the road, pull up to a trash can, throw something away, and then go back. And they don't see her gone for an hour. They see her gone for 17 minutes, come back, and then more than 30 minutes pass between the time she arrives back at that home where, according to her, there's a man in black and a dying girl inside. She sits outside for 30 minutes. The man in black sits inside for 30 minutes while the dogs are barking and going crazy. Only then does she go in. Only then does he come out. And what does she do? She tries to grab the knife, but somehow only has minor wounds on both hands. And the man in black makes no attempt to stab her. Meanwhile, the man in black leaves no evidence of his presence. No footsteps, no DNA, no broken grass, no trail of blood, nothing. He is a phantom who simply appears, commits this crime, and then flees, never to be seen again. This is not a close case. It is not a hard case. This is a case where the evidence stacks up and paints a clear picture. Julia Beverly kill Jade Beasley. I don't know why. I don't know what made her do that. We will never know unless she tells us with her own words. But there is no question, there is no doubt, certainly no reasonable doubt, that Julia Beverly committed this crime. And she's exactly where she needs to be.
- [47:53]
B
Guys, it's spring. But it's already getting hot where I am and me and my kids are diving into the pool every day already. We are going to be spending our entire summer in swimsuits. That's why I choose to dress my entire family in Minnow swimsuits. Minnow is a family lifestyle brand that embraces clean lines, simple details and crisp seaside breezes. I choose Minnow for my kids because I know that they come with premium products for my family. They have the girls Rash Guard one piece which I always put my daughter in because it helps me so much with not having to apply sunscreen all the time. The boys boardies are so cute and they also have the unisex rash guard shirts that I dress all of my kids in. The best part? I get to match all four of my kids with me and my husband because these clean lines fit everyone in the family. Every suit is thoughtfully designed with comfort, performance and protection in mind. And all the suits have UPF 50 plus protection blocking 98% of UVA and UVB rays.
- [48:53]
A
Guys, I never thought I'd be somebody who had matching swimsuits for my entire family. And then Minnow came along and we are basically a postcard. This is something you're going to want to dive into this year. Minnow celebrates 10 years with a special heritage capsule that is centered around their classic original Minnow styles. From their first ever collection featuring archival prints, this capsule is rooted in nostalgia and the memories to come growing up, growing together and growing with Minnow. Shop the Heritage capsule starting April 9th at shopmenow.com and enter code meat minnow15 at checkout to receive 15 off your first order. That's shopmenow.com code meat minnow15 for 15 off your first order.
- [49:49]
B
So you've heard us talk about one skin before. And whether you're someone who tries every new skincare product that hits the market or you've been using the same one or two for years, at some point, most of us realize our skin just isn't keeping up the way it used to. That's what Oneskin changed for me. It didn't just make my existing routine better. It actually works differently than anything else I've tried. As we age, which unfortunately, we all are, some skin cells stop functioning the way they should. Longevity scientists call them zombie cells, and that's what's actually driving those visible signs of aging. The fine lines, the loss of firmness, the dullness that creeps in over time. OneSkin's OS1 peptide was specifically engineered to address those. So you're getting everything you expect from great skincare. With OS1 doing something most skincare was never built to do. Since I started using it, I can tell my skin is just more vibrant in the morning. I don't even have to throw on makeup in the morning. When I do kid drop off because of what One Skin is doing for my face and it's so easy. It fits into my routine seamlessly. I don't have a ton of time for skincare but with One Skin, I know I'm using the best thing for my skin.
- [50:58]
A
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- [52:44]
B
So I have this really fun black tie dinner coming up that is just a bunch of girls. We're not celebrating anything in particular but I really wanted to get something special for it. I just couldn't stay stomach the price tag on some of these dresses I was looking at. I was looking at this Veronica Beard dress. It costs, you know, basically my children's tuition. And I was like you know what, I wonder if Poshmark has something like it.
- [53:05]
A
Boom.
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B
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Amen. I think that's exactly right. The evidence does all the speaking here. When I first started looking into this case, I didn't. I didn't know that there was an entire innocence movement. I didn't know that race had anything to do with. I didn't know that there was a satanic panic angle to it because none of that is part of the trial. None of that is in the record, and nothing in the evidence points to a skewed prosecution trying to pin this on someone. This is an incredibly clear cut case. When I opened the file, I thought, why are we covering this? Other than the fact that Jade's story deserves to be heard because like Abby and Libby in Delphi, I think that the crime scene and the wounds on her body do tell a very clear story here. Had she not left marks on Julia, Julia may not have tried such an extensive cover up that ultimately doomed her. Had she not left scratches on her face, visible bite marks on both of her arms and cuts all over that were clearly visible. That when Julia looked in the mirror, she thought, I have to explain this away, if not to the police, to Michael. I can't simply stay hidden away. Because it would have been easier for her alibi if she had just been out of the house for an hour and waited for Jessica, Jade's mother, to find Jade and for Jessica to be the one to call 911, she had to concoct a story and that story fell apart. She thought she was smart. She thought she accounted for everything. She had to think of things on the fly. But the thing about lies, it's really hard to keep things straight. Jade, the girl who you've murdered brutally, has left behind a trail of evidence that is very hard to overcome in any sort of a lie. You want to talk about motive, there's no motive for the man in black. There is absolutely no motive for that individual because they didn't leave with anything. They didn't leave with the credit cards that Julia left behind. They didn't sexually assault a young girl. They didn't stay. If they meant to go for Julia, to stay for her and finish her off, or to sexually assault her, this man in black has even less motive than Julia, who lived in the same house as this young girl. You can speculate all you want on what happened, but I think it's very clear that this is not premeditated, but something happened. Things in family relationships, things in parent, child, step, parent, stepchild relationships are complex. We don't have to delve into that because I think all of us have enough family relationships that we can imagine that there may be things that are simmering right below the surface that can cause someone to snap. But I think when Julia signed on to work that morning at 7:30, she didn't intend to kill anybody. She was working and she intended to take her break and I think come right back. But I think something happened in that 9:30 hour when she took her break. I don't know what caused it to happen, but something snapped and it was unexpected. I do not think that she took that break with the intention to murder Jade because if she had, I think there would be a lot More steps. I don't think she would have asked retroactively for time off. She wouldn't have asked for the rest of the day off much later. I think she would have asked for the rest of the day off at 9:30 if she was going to sign off her computer and go kill Jade. That's not what happened. Something happened in what was supposed to be a 15 minute break and very likely it happened right in that 15 minutes. Otherwise I think she would have come back to work right away. Something happened in that time and I think Jade was dead before Julia signed back in to ask for time off. I think by the time Julia texted Michael and said, when are you going to be back? Jade was already dying or dead at that point because that was the beginning of the coverup. Every piece of evidence points to Julia. Every piece of evidence points to the fact that Jade was not expecting this and that she fought all over the house, from her room to the kitchen to the door to the back where she ultimately ended in the bathtub. And I think every indication and every piece of evidence points to the fact that Julia tried with all of her might to cover this up. Wiping her feet, washing her feet, throwing away likely the murder weapon and other things that were likely stained with both of their bloods. But there were things that could not, that were invisible to the eye. Jade's DNA on her bite marks, the bite marks that Jade left behind. Because Jade took her mother's words to heart in her last moments, she probably knew she wasn't going to make it. She knew that this was her end and there was no one there to help her. Her dad was going to be at work for a few more hours. Her mom wasn't going to get here in time because she knew that she had but moments to live. And so she left everything she could on the table. She bit, she clawed, she scratched, she screamed. And left behind enough evidence where this is a slam dunk case. Julia should have been convicted. She would be convicted again on this record, over and over and over. And if you have any doubt, read the record. But this is not a case of racism. This is not a case of the prosecution had it pinned on her for whatever reason. We can talk about how hormones had things to do with it. Who, who cares? Human beings, we are immense. We can have esoteric questions. We can invent the wheel, we can invent cars and planes, and we can do all these amazing things. But we are also the only creatures who have this immense ability to do the most decrepit things in life. And this is what happened here. Every single person is capable of snapping and is capable of deep evil. And that's what we have here. It doesn't have to always be followed by a long history of violence or abuse. But the worst thing from this, I think, is the repeated denial of what she's done. Julia has repeatedly denied and continued to lie. She lied from the very first moments before anyone even discovered Jade. And she continues to lie to this day. Listen to all of her stories. And that's what they are. They're stories because they're not rooted in reality or fact. They undercut each other. They make no sense. And the more she talks, the more she's going to dig herself into this hole. But it doesn't matter because she has been rightfully convicted. And this story should now shift away from Julia and back to Jade, an 11 year old girl who is no longer here and will not be able to live out her life because she died at the hands of someone who was like a stepmother to her. That stepmother who continues to deny to this day that she did this to her. So stop talking about Julia and start talking about Jade.
- [61:39]
A
And look, I don't think Julia's ever going to admit it. Allison's right. And I will just say the only hard thing about this case is it's hard to imagine someone in the role of a stepmother doing something like this. And I get that. I get it's hard. But you have to put that aside and look at the evidence, because Jade's murderer can't go free because we have a tough time imagining why she would have done it. And I think one thing we can definitely take from this case and one lesson we can take from this is something that we've talked about a lot. I absolutely believe there have been people who've been convicted of crimes who didn't do it. We talked about some of those people before, and I think it's important to talk about that. But I think it's worth noting that the most popular true crime cases are innocence cases. If you do an innocence podcast, it's going to do numbers because people enjoy those. There's a hint of mystery to it. There's a feeling of righting a wrong. They're really popular. And one thing we have expressed concern about is as it gets harder and harder to find them, cases where there's really no question are suddenly going to be turned into them. And I think this is one of those cases. There's no question this case, this is not a hard case. You know, if we didn't want to do J justice, we could have done this in one episode or two. This case is straightforward. It really is. And the evidence is straightforward. And the jury did a great job. It took him like an hour and a half to return the guilty verdict in this case. Not because they're a bunch of racists, but because Julia's clearly guilty. And I just hope as when these stories come out, just look at them with a questioning eye and really think through it. Because we cannot have true crime, cannot become a vehicle for springing child murderers. They just can't. We can't let that happen. So that's why I want to do this case. And that's we're going to continue to do these cases. I love looking at these cases where someone claims someone is innocent. And we're going to do more of these in the future. Well, is there anything else you want to add on this case?
- [63:37]
B
No, I just. I know you say you like doing these cases, but they still make me so incredibly sad. Well, no, I know. I know exactly what you mean. But. But man, guys, when you're gonna like say someone's innocent, can you do it for someone who's like, not murdering children? Because these cases make me so sad.
- [63:55]
A
Yeah. And I don't know, I mean, I just feel like people need to think about Jade. And I get it. If Julia's innocent, then Jade's murder is out there. I get that. I totally understand that argument. But if you're gonna argue Julia's innocent, you gotta grapple with the actual evidence in this case. You know, you got to grapple with the bathtub, the weirdness there and the DNA in the arm and the Huck's gas station and the lies about Walmart,
- [64:20]
B
the timelines, the dried blood, the coagulated blood, the DNA and the bite marks, nobody knowing you had bite marks, her
- [64:26]
A
constantly changing story, the fact she doesn't tell the police that she spent 45 minutes talking to Jade. That didn't come out until there's going to be a podcast about her. And then she comes up with that story that they're having a heart to heart. And that's why, because they had such a deep conversation. And Julie's thinking, man, I got to get out of here and I got to do some retail therapy. I got to go do some shopping. That's her new story.
- [64:45]
B
And that's why I do think it happened within the first. I think we know when this attack happened because I don't think that they had the relationship where they would have actually had a heart to heart and she did not plan to be gone for more than 15 minutes.
- [64:57]
A
Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. And that is when it happened. I agree with 100%. It happens sometime. Then I don't know exactly what the catalyst was. People point to different things, lots of different things.
- [65:08]
B
But again, there's always going to be tensions when there's more than two parents in the picture. Jessica was coming a couple hours later to pick up. It could have been something as simple as Jade was mouthing off. And maybe Julia said something she shouldn't have. Jade said something as simple as I'm going to tell my mom. And maybe there had been some issue with visitation, that who knows, right? It could be something as simple as that. This is why I said earlier, when you have complex family relationships, there can be outbursts that have nothing to do with the actual situation at hand.
- [65:41]
A
The one thing I've learned both in doing this case and working as a prosecutor is people will murder people over nothing. You know, you think you're out there having not murdered someone and would never murder someone and you just don't understand. It does not take some deep, meaningful problem, argument, hatred to drive someone to murder. Particularly when it begins. I mean, because remember, you grab that knife and you swing it one time at Jay, it's over. Then you got to finish the job. There's no like stopping. You know, you're fighting all over that house with her, you're chasing her around. That happens. And even if she felt real remorse afterwards, which I don't think she did, frankly, watch her conversation with the police, watch how she's denied it all this time, I don't think she did. But even if she did, at that point, it's self preservation mode. Got to come up with a story, got to clean up, gotta fix this. And that's what she tried to do. And you, it's so obvious that's what she tried to do. That's where the whole Walmart thing comes from. Come on. Do you really think this is just some sort of crazy coincidence that she just so happened to go to Walmart, that Walmart she never went to a few days before and she got confused and it just so happened to be this day. And then she just so happened to sit there scrolling on Facebook after just so happening to forget her cars and just so happening to have a diaper in her car she need to throw away and just so happened to have bit herself the night before? I mean, come on, do you really think that's what happened. Seriously, what world are we living in that didn't happen? I mean, come on.
- [67:19]
B
There's, like, more you have to believe in this case than just about any
- [67:21]
A
other case you can do a whole episode on. You have to believe.
- [67:25]
B
Please don't make us do that.
- [67:26]
A
He avoids the cameras and she doesn't. She's on the cameras they pull, but not him, the dogs.
- [67:32]
B
It's the fact that they brought in all these canines, and the canines are like, why are we here?
- [67:36]
A
It's just insane.
- [67:37]
B
No one's run through here.
- [67:39]
A
Sometimes I feel like we give these cases too much respect. You know, somebody online, they listen to our first episode, they're like, I don't know how they're going to come out. And I was like, man, we are giving this way too much respect, this case.
- [67:50]
B
Because someone actually said that earlier, like, episode two, they were like, why are they being so nice to her?
- [67:55]
A
Yeah. And I mean, it's because we like to try and present both sides to you. We try really hard, but it's really.
- [67:59]
B
By episode two, it was really hard for me to not show.
- [68:02]
A
I was losing it by episode two.
- [68:03]
B
I was. I was losing it before we started on episode one, if you remember. And I was so good about pulling it back for episode one.
- [68:09]
A
Yeah. Anyway. But that's the case, and justice has been done in this case, and that's the one good thing you can say about it, because it doesn't bring Jade back. And Julia ruins so many lives with this. She was the mother to multiple children, including one that was born while in custody. Just awful.
- [68:27]
B
There will be eternal ramifications of this, but like Michael, I mean, he loved her. Right. They had multiple children together. He didn't know at the time, but they were pregnant together again. She has other children who are old enough at the time this happened to recognize what this conviction means and what an existential crisis. Wherever they stand on this, whether you're. You think your mother did it or not, she was convicted of it. Jessica, who, as a mother, if another woman killed my children, I think I would just go ape. I would just. I would completely just lose it. Right. Like, that's my baby girl. And she obviously loved her. And they did have a close relationship, because what she thought she had to look out for for Jade were predators, like boys and men who wanted to take advantage of her. I don't think she thought when she said claw out people's eyes, she was thinking about the stepmother. What a betrayal of trust. Because this is someone she Sent her to go live with every other weekend. Every weekend. Seven, eight years. And she was sending her unknowingly, of course, she had no idea, you know, to her daughter's death by dropping her off there.
- [69:38]
A
This is awful.
- [69:39]
B
It's awful on so many, so many points.
- [69:42]
A
She was going to pick her up to take her to her half ass birthday party.
- [69:45]
B
Yeah, to her, the two year old's birthday party.
- [69:48]
A
People have asked us to wrap this up. Julia got 55 years in prison. She won't be eligible for parole until I think 2074. So it's a good long time in Illinois prison. Not enough, frankly. But the only thing I'll say about it, I do think this was a heat of the moment murder. So to the extent that makes any difference to you, you know, that's why she got a term of years and not life without parole. And I don't think they have the death penalty in Illinois anymore. All right, guys, well, we're gonna go ahead and wrap it up for today because this has been an intense one. We'll have something new for your next week or maybe something special for you. I'm kind of working out something. We'll see how it goes. But we'll have something and hopefully it'll be good. And maybe I'll try and pick a less gruesome, tragic case for the next case before we inevitably do yet another. Let's think when you pick true crime, when you decide, let's do a podcast. What should we do it about? People getting murdered? There's going to be a lot of these cases and we see them a lot, unfortunately. But if you want to comment on this case, go to Facebook, join the gallery, be a part of the conversation. Let us know your thoughts. If you think there are things we missed, if you think there actually is some evidence for the man in black, lay it out for me. I want to know how many five foot tall men live in Marion or in surrounding areas. That might be a good place to just do a statistical analysis of, you know, maybe it would have been really easy for the police to interview every 5 foot tall man in Marion and get their alibi. But let us know what you think. Shoot us an email prosecutors pod gmail.com@ ProsecutorsPod for all your social media. If you want to see us record these episodes, $3 will get you that on Patreon. If you want to get episodes early and ad free, you can do $3 on Patreon. Or you can do Apple subscriptions. If you hate Patreon, which I Know many of you do. One thing I'll note when this episode comes out, I believe it'll be the first week in May, which is hard to believe, but the end of May will be CrimeCon. And if you still haven't gotten your tickets, do that. Code prosecutors for 10% off. Also, I would note that on our store on bonfire.com, just search for Prosecutors podcast, we do have shirts just for CrimeCon. So if you want to wear Prosecutors themed crime con shirts, you can get them there. We cannot wait to see you. All right, Alice, is there anything else you want to add before we sign off?
- [72:24]
B
No. Thank you guys for listening. Like we said, go read the trial transcript. Don't just take our word for it. The evidence in this case is incredibly clear. And we always say, go look the evidence yourself.
- [72:34]
A
Yeah, check it out. It's all on prosecutors podcast.com, which is our website. All right, guys, well, I hope this was a satisfying conclusion to this case. We'll be back next week, but until then, I'm Brett.
- [72:50]
B
And I'm Alice.
- [72:51]
A
And we are the prosecutors. Hello.
- [73:14]
B
I can't believe anyone's here. How much time did we give them?
- [73:17]
A
How much?
- [73:19]
B
It's. It's like the shock and a true crime on a weekend.
- [73:22]
A
Exactly. Exactly. What else would you be doing on a Sunday night?
- [73:26]
B
Exactly. Exactly. That was. That was my bad. Sorry, guys. I was putting the kids to bed, so I found that. So I didn't text you back. Oh, the time. So today was like really hot. It was like 80 something degrees. And if you call anything a party, it's like it's a walk to the park party. My kids get excited. Just call it a party. And so that's what we did today. Pluto TV has thousands of free movies and TV shows.
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We're coming at you with everything we got.
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