Jury to consider whether mother or inmate killed

[SoulTrainOz]

boy

Julie Rea-Harper insisted she didn't stab her 10-year-old son to death in her rural Lawrence County home nearly nine years ago, arguing that a masked intruder killed the boy as he slept, then struggled with her and vanished into the darkness.

Jurors didn't buy it and concluded Rea-Harper murdered Joel Kirkpatrick early Oct. 13, 1997, siding with prosecutors who argued the 37-year-old mother killed her only child after losing custody of him to his father.

Rea-Harper was sentenced to 65 years behind bars but caught a break in 2004 when an Illinois appellate court, citing a technicality, ordered a new trial.

The retrial begins Tuesday in the Clinton County community of Carlyle, only with a twist: Jurors this time may consider defense claims that the intruder's identity no longer is a mystery.

The case could hinge on how much stock jurors put in Texas death row inmate and onetime drifter Tommy Lynn Sells' claims that he killed Joel, along with more than a dozen other people. He's suspected in dozens more slayings across the country.

Once a barber, mechanic, laborer and carnival roustabout, Sells is on death row for knifing to death a 13-year-old girl in her bedroom in the family's Texas mobile home.

Sells won't testify during Rea-Harper's new trial, but jurors will hear his claims about Joel's death. One of Rea-Harper's attorneys, Jeff Urdangen, declined to publicly discuss Sells beyond pledging "evidence of his involvement will come from his statements."

"We're representing an innocent client," Urdangen said. "Everything else is defined by that fact."

A prosecutor brushed off Sells' accounts as unreliable hearsay, among other things arguing the 42-year-old inmate merely was trying to become part of a pending case to postpone his execution.

"It'll be up to the jury to decide whether to believe it," Ed Parkinson said. Rea-Harper's defenders "have gone to the extent of claiming they have found the real murderer of Joel Kirkpatrick. Sells apparently is the component of their case, but he doesn't change ours a bit."

"It's been our theory that she did this, and we intend to prove it,"
Parkinson said.

Early the morning of Oct. 13, 1997, Rea-Harper called from a neighbor's rural Lawrenceville home and told authorities she had just wrestled with a masked intruder who savagely attacked her son.

A sheriff's deputy found the boy's body, repeatedly stabbed, on his bedroom floor.

Rea-Harper told investigators the assailant wore a sweat shirt and military fatigue pants, but a suspect never was found. Authorities also didn't find signs of forced entry at the home and could determine no clear motive for an outsider to kill the boy.

"No struggle took place in that home," John Lewis, an Illinois State Police investigator, later testified.

But a struggle had taken place in the courts. Two months before the 5th-grader's death, an Illinois appeals court rejected Rea-Harper's request for custody of her son. The father, Len Kirkpatrick, had gained custody in March 1996, 18 months after the couple divorced.

On the eve of the 3rd anniversary of her son's death, Rea-Harper was indicted on 2 counts of 1st-degree murder and arrested.

At that time, Rea-Harper - an Indiana University doctoral student in educational psychology - called her son "the most wonderful person that I have ever known, and whoever took him from me, and you, took away the most precious part of my life."

During Rea-Harper's 2002 trial, Len Kirkpatrick testified his former wife had a fixation with the number 13 - the date the 2 were married, the date Joel was born, the date he died - even the number of times the boy was stabbed.

On March 4, 2002, Wayne County jurors hearing the trial on a change of venue from Lawrence County deliberated nearly five hours before convicting Rea-Harper, who called the outcome "asinine" and the charges "slander."

At sentencing, several witnesses testified they had never witnessed the devoutly religious Rea-Harper behave violently or utter a cross word. But Len Kirkpatrick called his son's death an "act of unparalleled betrayal and inconceivable brutality."

Rea-Harper was sentenced to 65 years. Around the same time, a new book quoted Sells as insisting he did the killing. In a 2003 prison interview in Texas with an Illinois prosecutor, Sells talked of a murder he says he committed but said, "I don't even know for sure if this was Illinois."

"I get in the house, I go to this room, I don't know whose room it is and, and, and I start stabbing," Sells told the investigator. "I come out. I have a scuffle. I leave. That's more or less the picture."

Prosecutors have questioned why the intruder that Rea-Harper described didn't also stab her; Sells told the Illinois investigator he had dropped the knife.

The St. Louis Post-Dispatch, citing transcripts of the 2003 interview, reported that Sells said he wasn't wearing a mask - a key element of Rea-Harper's story - and admitted that part of the reason he agreed to talk to Illinois officials was to get out of the Texas legal system.

Regardless, Rea-Harper's defenders say, Sells corroborates what Rea-Harper told investigators all along.

"Tommy Lynn Sells is more than the answer to a rhetorical question. He has confessed, on numerous occasions to different persons, that he murdered Joel," the defense has argued in court motions, also noting Sells' history of random violence against children.

Prosecutors say Sells could have gotten such details from a Web site maintained by Rea-Harper's supporters. Sells also has falsely confessed to killings before.

Without considering Sells, the state's 5th District Appellate Court in June 2004 threw out Rea-Harper's conviction, ruling that Parkinson, as a special prosecutor, did not have the statutory authority to try the case at that time.

Now, Parkinson says, he's ready to do it all again.

"It's a bizarre case where one would wonder why a mother would kill her child," Parkinson said. "It's hard to believe that would happen, but it does."

Julie Rea-Harper case

Key dates in the case of Julie Rea-Harper, facing retrial in the 1997 slaying of her 10-year-old son:

Sept. 3, 1994 - Julie and Leonard Kirkpatrick divorce.

March 7, 1996 - Leonard Kirkpatrick wins custody of young son Joel.

Oct. 13, 1997 - Joel, 10, is found stabbed to death in the rural Lawrence County home of his mother, now Julie Rea-Harper. Rea-Harper says a masked attacker entered her house.

Oct. 12, 2000 - Rea-Harper, then an Indiana University graduate student, is arrested after a Lawrence County grand jury indicts her on 2 counts of murder in her son's death.

Oct. 19, 2000 - Rea-Harper asks Indiana Gov. Frank O'Bannon to order an investigation of her extradition to Illinois, among other things claiming the grand jury that indicted her did not see strong evidence of her innocence.

Dec. 15, 2000 - Rea-Harper is returned to Illinois after she agreed to stop fighting extradition, in exchange for Illinois prosecutors setting her bond at $500,000. She later posts that bond.

Jan. 16, 2001 - Prosecutors announce they won't seek the death penalty against Rea-Harper.

Jan. 24, 2001 - Rea-Harper pleads innocent.

March 4, 2002 - A Wayne County jury, hearing the trial on a change of venue from Lawrence County, convicts Rea-Harper in her son's death.

May 10, 2002 - Rea-Harper is sentenced to 65 years in prison.

Summer 2002 - Tommy Lynn Sells, facing a death sentence in Texas for the 1999 stabbing death of a 13-year-old girl, confesses in a newly published book that he - not Rea-Harper - killed Joel Kirkpatrick.

June 24, 2004 - The state's 5th District Appellate Court, based in Mount Vernon, throws out Rea-Harper's murder conviction and orders a new trial.

July 8, 2004 - Rea-Harper is released from prison and sent straight to jail to face new murder charges in her son's death.

July 22, 2004 - Rea-Harper is released from jail, less than a week after having her bond reduced to $750,000 from $2 million.

March 8, 2005 - A Hamilton County judge rules that Rea-Harper's defenders may present Sells' confession of Joel Kirkpatrick's death at her retrial.

Sept. 9, 2005 - A judge grants Rea-Harper's request to have her retrial moved out of Lawrence County.

Oct. 4, 2005 - A judge taps Clinton County as the setting for Rea-Harper's retrial.

(source: The Associated Press)

[SoulTrainOz]

Jury deliberates in retrial of Illinois woman accused of killing son

A prosecutor pressed jurors Tuesday to convict a woman being retried in the fatal stabbing of her 10-year-old son, calling a Texas death-row inmate's confessions to the 1997 killing "an excursion into fantasy land."

"If you count on me to explain in logical terms why a mother would kill her son, you'd be waiting for eternity," Ed Parkinson told jurors in his closing arguments in the case of Julie Rea-Harper, charged with 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in the death of her only child, Joel Kirkpatrick.

While acknowledging investigators have uncovered no clear motive,Parkinson said "we don't have to prove the why."

"We have to prove the who, and the who is sitting right there," he said, pointing to Rea-Harper.

Defense attorney Ron Safer fired back, calling the prosecution's case "riddled with red herrings" against a client he said was wrongly accused by authorities who rushed to judgment and never took as serious her claims that a masked intruder killed her boy when the evidence proves it.

"It couldn't have been her. End of story," Safer said during closing
arguments, pointing the finger to Texas inmate Tommy Lynn Sells'
confessions to Joel's death. "He is big reasonable doubt" warranting Rea-Harper's acquittal.

Jurors, hearing the case in this lakeside community about 70 miles east of St. Louis on a venue change from Lawrence County, deliberated for about 5 hours Tuesday before being sent home. They were expected to return Wednesday morning.

Earlier Tuesday, Circuit Judge Barry Vaughn denied Safer's request to throw out the charges, saying a jury should decide whether Rea-Harper stabbed her son a dozen times in her rural Lawrence County home early Oct. 13, 1997.

Rea-Harper, 37, was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to 65 years in prison. An appeals court dismissed her conviction on a technicality and ordered a new trial.

Prosecutors have claimed Rea-Harper killed Joel months after another legal setback in trying to win back custody of the 5th-grader from the boy's father.

On Tuesday, Parkinson said the evidence pointed to Rea-Harper - not an intruder he labeled "a phantom" - as the killer, saying a sleeping Joel was attacked with a steak knife from Rea-Harper's own kitchen.

The prosecutor also said the home showed no signs of forced entry or a struggle, countering Rea-Harper's claims that she tussled with the masked intruder in a house she believed she'd locked.

"There were only two people in the house - one is dead, the other is here," Parkinson said, saying Rea-Harper's description of the suspect as "a boy" 14 to 17 years old hardly fits Sells, who was 33 at the time.

A police sketch using Rea-Harper's description of the intruder, Parkinson said, bore a striking resemblance to Joel.

In calling for Rea-Harper's acquittal, Safer countered that evidence proves her innocence, including the absence of Joel's blood on her hands, arms, legs and clothes at a crime scene where the killer, forensic experts testified, would have been saturated, with Joel losing half his blood.

Joel's blood also was found on a backdoor, something Rea-Harper couldn't have staged there with her pristine hands, Safer said. Rea-Harper's nightshirt also had Joel's blood on its back - something the woman couldn't have put there herself, making it transferred to her by the killer, Safer argued.

"The blood evidence proves there was a 3rd person," he said, adding that the flawed investigation included the failure to fingerprint the crime scene or look for trace evidence such as hair fibers.

"If they had some evidence of motive, they'd lead the case with it," he said. "Sane people do not act for no reason," unlike "heartless, soulless, dark people like Tommy Lynn Sells."

Sells, 42, is on death row for knifing a 13-year-old girl to death in her bedroom in her family's Texas mobile home in 1999. He has admitted to and been charged with killing a 13-year-old girl in Springfield, Mo., 2 days after Joel's death.

Sells claims he has randomly killed more than a dozen people, and he's suspected in dozens more slayings across the country - many involving children.

Hoisting a courtroom trash can for effect, Parkinson called Sells'
statements "garbage," saying the inmate initially called the killing
random, then insisted it was supposed to be a contract hit targeting Rea-Harper. Earlier this year, he recanted.

"Tommy Lynn Sells is a piece of junk," Parkinson said.

(source : Associated Press)

[SoulTrainOz]

Woman Cleared in Retrial of Son's Death

A woman who spent about 2 years in prison for the stabbing death of her 10-year-old son was acquitted at her retrial Wednesday, after the defense insisted the murder was carried out by a masked intruder, possibly a Texas death-row inmate who has confessed.

Julie Rea-Harper stood as the verdict was read then collapsed and began sobbing after she was cleared of 2 counts of 1st-degree murder in Joel Kirkpatrick's death in their Lawrence County home early Oct. 13, 1997.

''We are tremendously gratified by the verdict,'' her attorney Ron Safer said, clutching Rea-Harper's arm outside the Clinton County courthouse. ''This has been a nightmare nobody should have to live through.''

The boy's father, Len Kirkpatrick, angrily left the courthouse after the verdict and declined to comment.

Rea-Harper, 37, was convicted in 2002 and sentenced to 65 years in prison. The trial didn't include a confession by Texas inmate Tommy Lynn Sells to the child's slaying. Prosecutors dispute the credibility of the confession.

2 years later, an appeals court dismissed her conviction on a technicality and ordered a new trial.

Police said Rea-Harper stabbed her only child as he slept in bed. She had recently lost custody of him to her former husband.

Rea-Harper told police she wrestled with a masked intruder who attacked her son. Her attorney argued that evidence demanding an acquittal included the absence of Joel's blood on her hands, arms, legs and clothes at a crime scene where the killer, forensic experts testified, would have been saturated with the boy's blood.

Prosecutors told the jury there were no signs of a struggle or that anyone had entered the house.

Special prosecutor David Rands called Sells ''a red herring thrown up by the defense'' and said he was not a suspect.

(source: Associated Press)

[SoulTrainOz]

Woman's acquittal in retrial in son's killing ends 'nightmare'

Nearly 9 years ago, 10-year-old Joel Kirkpatrick was stabbed a dozen times, the 1st 2 strikes mortally lancing his heart in his mother's home. He lost half his blood.

The attack as the boy slept became another kind of nightmare for Julie Rea-Harper, who was cleared Wednesday of charges she killed her only child.

Rea-Harper, who was a graduate student studying educational psychology at Indiana University when she was arrested in 2000, never wavered that a masked intruder, dressed in black, sneaked into her home, killed the 5th-grader and struggled with her briefly before calmly walking into the night. But authorities didn't buy it and charged her.

Eventually convicted and sentenced to 65 years in prison before being ordered retried because of a technicality, Rea-Harper always hoped another jury would believe her version.

That came when jurors hearing the Lawrence County case cleared Rea-Harper without divulging which defense claim they agreed with -- that the investigation hastily targeting Rea-Harper was slipshod, that the evidence proved she physically was incapable of the killing, or that a Texas death-row inmate who has confessed to the killing is the real culprit.

The verdict, coming after more than 12 hours of deliberations over 2 days, hit 37-year-old Rea-Harper like a brick. She collapsed in the courtroom when she heard "not guilty," then sobbed in the arms of one of her attorneys, Ron Safer, and her current husband.

She declined to comment afterward, deferring to Safer.

"This has been a nightmare nobody should have to live through," Safer, who let loose with a fist pump when the verdict was read, said while clutching Rea-Harper's arm on the courthouse steps. "Today is a day of celebrating justice."

Not everyone felt that way. The slain boy's father, Len Kirkpatrick,
angrily scrambled out of the courthouse and into his car, then drove away from a reporter's request for an interview. Other relatives of his declined comment.

And though Safer said he hoped the state "now takes a look at who was responsible for this murder," perhaps Texas inmate Tommy Lynn Sells, a prosecutor said that wasn't likely.

"Sells was not and will not be a suspect," David Rands said.

Several jurors, who heard the case in this lakeside community about 70 miles east of St. Louis, waved off reporters afterward.

Rea-Harper's supporters hugged, some crying.

"The truth is finally out," said Lynette Barnett, a Pinckneyville woman who aligned herself with Rea-Harper when she first was jailed, spiritually convinced the woman was innocent. Wednesday's outcome, Barnett said, "is a miracle."

Prosecutors had argued that Rea-Harper alone killed Joel with one of her own kitchen's steak knives early Oct. 13, 1997. Prosecutors offered no motive but noted the slaying came two months after an Illinois appellate court turned back the woman's latest bid to wrest legal custody of Joel from Len Kirkpatrick, her former husband.

"If you count on me to explain in logical terms why a mother would kill her son, you'd be waiting for eternity," Ed Parkinson told jurors Tuesday, calling Sells' confession "an excursion into fantasy land," the alleged intruder "a phantom."

Safer had argued that the prosecution's case was "riddled with red herrings" and a rush to judgment against his client.

"It couldn't have been her. End of story," Safer told jurors, insisting Sells amounted to "big reasonable doubt" warranting Rea-Harper's acquittal.

Rea-Harper was convicted in 2002 during her first trial, which didn't include Sells' supposed admissions to slaying Joel.

In pressing Tuesday for the acquittal, Safer argued that evidence
demanding the verdict included the absence of Joel's blood on her hands, arms, legs and clothes at a crime scene where the killer, forensic experts testified, would have been saturated with the boy's blood.

Joel's blood also was found on a backdoor, something Rea-Harper couldn't have staged there with her pristine hands, Safer said. Rea-Harper's nightshirt also had Joel's blood on its back -- something the woman couldn't have put there herself, making it transferred to her by the killer, Safer argued.

"The blood evidence proves there was a third person," he said, adding that the flawed investigation included the failure to fingerprint the crime scene or look for trace evidence such as hair fibers.

Sells, 42, is on death row for knifing a 13-year-old girl to death in her bedroom in her family's Texas mobile home in 1999. He has admitted to and been charged with killing a 13-year-old girl in Springfield, Mo., 2 days after Joel's death.

Sells claims he has randomly killed more than a dozen people, and he's suspected in dozens more slayings across the country -- many involving children.

(source: The Associated Press)