#114 Jason Flom with Julie Rea

Wrongful Conviction

Lava for Good Podcasts

True Crime

4.4 • 5.8K Ratings

🗓️ 12 February 2020

⏱️ 65 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

On October 13th, 1997, Julie Rea’s nightmare would begin, when an intruder broke into her home, killed her son Joel, and the authorities would begin a bumbling, tunnel vision investigation to pin the murder on her. With their blinders on, the incompetent investigators would inadvertently destroy or fail to capture vital evidence of the intruder’s presence at the crime scene. They would ignore developing leads that implicated the 3rd party to this horrific crime of which Julie still cannot speak. The prosecution’s blood spatter “expert” who played an integral role in Julie’s conviction at her first trial would become, according to jurors, “a powerful witness for the defense” under more competent cross examination at her retrial.

The state would later willfully ignore the intruder’s confession and crassly attempt to conceal the new evidence from the retrial jury. Their gross misconduct only added insult to this grave injury. Julie was acquitted in 2006 and formally exonerated in 2010 with the help of the Center on Wrongful Convictions at Northwestern University’s Pritzker School of Law under the leadership of Karen Daniel to whom this episode is dedicated. Karen’s colleague and one of Julie’s attorneys, Ron Safer, joins Julie and Jason to both pay tribute to Karen and tell Julie’s terrifying story.

You can read more about the life and career of Karen Daniel here: https://www.chicagotribune.com/news/ct-karen-daniel-obit-20191227-h3jbt3ch3ff7naqdin6kletytu-story.html

You can read the NY Times article mentioned in this episode here: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/12/20/magazine/she-was-exonerated-of-the-murder-of-her-son-her-life-is-still-shattered.html

https://www.wrongfulconvictionpodcast.com/with-jason-flom

Wrongful Conviction is a production of Lava for Good™ Podcasts in association with Signal Co. No1.

We have worked hard to ensure that all facts reported in this show are accurate. The views and opinions expressed by the individuals featured in this show are their own and do not necessarily reflect those of Lava for Good.

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Transcript

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0:00.0	On October 13th, 1997, Julie Ray woke to a sound from her 10-year-old boy Joel's bedroom.
0:09.7	When she looked, she did not see Joel and a man-in-a-skimasked lunge from the darkness.
0:15.0	Julie, a black belt and Taekwondo, struggled with the mask man, as he escaped to the backyard,
0:20.4	slamming her head on the ground before fleeing into the night.
0:24.0	Julie banged on her neighbor's door, asking for help and saying that Joel was gone.
0:28.2	When Sheriff Deputy Dennis York searched the house, he found Joel between the bed and the nearby wall.
0:33.2	His pajamas soaked in blood. He had been stabbed 12 times.
0:38.2	Despite her own injuries and the minuscule amount of Joel's blood found in her shirt,
0:42.2	authorities came up with a theory that there was no intruder and that Julie was responsible
0:46.0	for the death of her own son.
0:48.2	After a bumbling, tunnel vision investigation, searching only for evidence of Julie's guilt
0:53.2	and coming up empty, prosecution resorted to using blood-spatter analysis, a known
0:58.2	junk science. Their experts testified anyway employing no actual demonstration that the blood stains were consistent with Julie wielding the murder weapon.
1:08.2	Julie was sentenced to 65 years in prison and subjected to the abuse that he falls a person who murdered their own child.
1:15.2	Just two years later, a serial child murderer facing the death penalty for a nearly identical crime
1:21.2	and who was linked to many other similar crimes could best to being the mask man from Julie's version of events.
1:27.2	His confession was corroborated and she was acquitted at her retrial in 2006 and formally exonerated in 2010.
1:35.2	All of this was made possible with the help of the Center on R awful convictions at Northwestern University
1:40.2	and most notably, Staff Attorney Karen Daniel, to whom this episode is lovingly and respectfully dedicated.
1:47.2	Karen was a pioneer in the Innocence movement and a hero to many. She passed away on December 26, 2019.
1:57.2	This is wrongful conviction with Jason Plum.
2:05.2	Hi, this is Chelsea Handler and I'm Catherine Law. We are the hosts of the Dear Chelsea Podcast where we give advice to real life people.
	...

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