GUILTY OH - Jeremy Simko, 36, shot to death in his Vermilion home, 18 Nov 2009

Jeremy Simko, 36 at the time, was found fatally shot in the head as he slept in the second-floor bedroom of his home on North Ridge Road in Vermilion.

Julene Simko was sleeping on the third floor and said she heard gunshots coming from the second-floor bedroom, Bradley has said, noting she assumed her husband was shooting out a bedroom window to scare off coyotes. Upon entering the second-floor bedroom, Julene Simko said she fired two warning shots after hearing an intruder and found her husband dead in his bed about 6 a.m. Police have said Julene Simko was known to be the only other person inside the home...

Neighbors had always wondered why they did not hear gunshots, or why the four German shepherds never made a sound.

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Julene Simko, 36, was indicted Wednesday by the Lorain County Grand Jury on multiple charges related to the 2009 homicide of her husband Jeremy. Jeremy Simko was discovered shot and killed in the couple's home in the early morning hours of November 18, 2009.

Julene has been charged with one count of aggravated murder, two counts of murder, two counts of felonious assault and two counts of tampering with evidence.

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Julene Simko will go on trial next month for allegedly killing her husband nearly eight years ago, despite the objections of her lawyers, who on Monday told Lorain County Common Pleas Judge Mark Betleski they needed more time to prepare for the case.

Betleski wrote in his decision that the trial would go forward as scheduled Sept. 12, noting that the trial date had been set more than a year ago. He also wrote that Simko’s lawyers’ desire for a forensic expert and to review the evidence in the case weren’t new issues.

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Assistant Lorain County Prosecutor Tony Cillo said that evidence the state expects to present will show that Simko took a .357-caliber Smith & Wesson gun from downstairs, went up the steps to the bedroom and fired a shot to the back of Simko's head. The bullet was recovered from the window at the back of the house, Will said. The gun was found by the back door on the floor by Vermilion police, Will said.

"She leaned down put the barrel of this gun in the middle of that king-size bed less than two inches from the back of his head and executed him," Cillo said. "From that point on she sought to blame it on an intruder. This is a family that everybody knew that was security conscious."

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Davis was the first officer to interview Simko while she sat wearing only panties covered in her husband’s blood in the bathroom of the home within the hour of personnel being called to the residence.

A recording of that interview was played in court.

Though the recording is rough, one could hear Davis attempt to ask Simko simple questions like what her name is and what day of the week it is.

She can be heard in the recording weeping and crying out hysterically and appearing unable to answer what her last name was or what her mother’s last name was.

The defense asked for the tape to be played in its entirety including a point at the end where the officer failed to stop the recording.

Within the last few minutes of the recording, someone, most likely an officer as they were the only ones on scene, could be heard saying, “she probably did it.”

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A forensic scientist who tested for blood and DNA on several items in the home of Julene and Jeremy Simko said Tuesday that tests of the DNA found on the holster of the suspected murder weapon only matched profiles of the couple.

Clothing, including underwear and terry cloth robes, and a holster that held a .357 Smith and Wesson prosecutors said was used to shoot Jeremy Simko in his head, were tested for blood and sent to the state for DNA analysis.

Violi testified that both Julene and Jeremy Simko’s DNA was on the Smith and Wesson’s holster and there was no “unidentified DNA” — meaning any DNA found on the holster could be matched to the Simkos.

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Former county Coroner Dr. Paul Matus, who testified Wednesday, said Jeremy Simko’s body didn’t exhibit signs necessarily consistent with someone who had undergone CPR.

“You might see fist or hand imprints on the chest, which I did not detect, when I looked at the body,” he said. “And I looked at it firsthand, not in photographs. There can be bruising as well as a broken sternum or broken ribs, and there was nothing unusual in this autopsy.”

He also said because of the amount of blood involved and because people typically use their palms when doing CPR, there would have likely been palm prints on Jeremy Simko’s chest, but there weren’t.

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Neighbor Steven L. said in his testimony Wednesday that he and Jeremy Simko had discussed the couple’s purchase of the land on several occasions because when the home was part of a farm, both parcels made up the property, and Jeremy Simko wanted to bring both of them together again.

Latto said on the morning that Jeremy Simko died, he didn’t hear the couple’s dogs bark, indicating there was an intruder, despite the fact that they were “very alert all the time” and would bark even if he was on his own property.

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The sex life of a Vermilion couple, including a dominant-submissive contract between the slain husband and wife accused of his murder, was revealed in court Thursday.

Lorain County Prosecutor’s Office investigator Rick Thomas said he felt the agreement, which listed 38-year-old Julene Simko as the obedient one, was part of her motive for shooting her husband the morning of Nov. 18, 2009.

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“The defendant here wants you to believe the killer is some mysterious intruder who is somehow able to, perhaps in a Mission: Impossible way, avoid all of the security systems in the house and the property, creep up, shoot her husband in the head at extremely close range without being seen, without being heard and to negotiate back out of the house in the dark without setting off any of the security systems and leave no trace,” Dezort said. “This court will determine that story is a fantasy, it’s a fiction, it’s like a movie script.”

For their closing statement, defense attorneys Jack Bradley and Michael Stepanik divided the duties. Bradley read through the text of the 911 call and interviews pointing out details he felt the prosecution and investigators missed or ignored. Stepanik called the evidence presented into question.

According to Stepanik, the linchpin of the investigation was accidentally recorded after the first interview with the Vermilion police in which an unidentified voice can be heard saying, “She probably did it.”

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Lorain County Court of Common Pleas Judge Mark Betleski will begin deliberating the evidence today. Due to attorneys’ schedules, his decision will be presented no sooner than Oct. 12.

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“Ultimately I found that the state didn’t come close to establishing what motive if any Ms. Simko may have had in perpetrating this murder,” Common Pleas Court Judge Mark Betleski said. “But the state is not required to prove motive. It did have an impact on how I considered this case, though, because this case is based almost solely on circumstantial evidence.”

“There was sufficient evidence to prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Ms. Simko was her husband’s murderer,” he said, noting she was found guilty of the aggravated murder charged because Jeremy Simko’s death demonstrated “prior calculation and design.”

“If there is a dispute that arose between the two parties, it festered for a long time,” he said. “I don’t know why this occurred but do know that it occurred with enough time for the defendant to think it through, to go downstairs and get the gun from the holster, to go upstairs and do it, to come back downstairs to place the gun and to then make the fake call to 911.”

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Common Pleas Court Judge Mark Betleski handed down the 28-years-to-life sentence to the 39-year-old Vermilion woman, a sentence that her father-in-law, Robert Simko, said was justice.

“It’s been a long time, but I really think the prosecution was able to prove it beyond a reasonable doubt,” he said after the sentencing. “I hope she’s miserable in prison every day and every night. It’s been a lot of time, but we finally got justice for Jeremy.”

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