Ok folks, here goes. What follows is just a portion of the evidence against Julie Rea. Warning: incomplete sentences for the sake of brevity
Bitter divorce and custody battle. Julie lost her appeal for primary custody less than two months before Joel was murdered.
Told responding officers that assailant was a white kid between the ages of 14 and 17, with a short, preppie haircut. Julie’s composite sketch strongly resembled her son, Joel. (Tommy Lynn Sells was 33 years old at the time, and didn’t look anything like Julie’s composite sketch).

Told neighbors she awoke to a man standing over her bed. She struggled with him all the way through the house and out through the back garage door. He then took off his mask and calmly walked away.
Told E.R. nurse Garvey that she pulled the ski mask off, and it was an old ski mask, not a new one. It was soft and had little nubbies on it, as if it had been washed a lot.
Told Fred White, family friend and defense witness, that intruder took off his ski mask in the back yard, looked her right in the eye, and then walked away.
Told police she heard a scream and ran to Joel’s room. Julie saw intruder standing on the side of the bed where Joel lay bleeding on the floor. Intruder jumped onto the bed, then onto her. No bloody shoe prints on bed, none on the floor, no blood trail whatsoever through the house.
Julie consistently said she fought and struggled with intruder through the hallway, dining room, kitchen, and into the backyard. Baseball bat standing upright under framed pix on hallway wall. None of the pix were crooked. Only 3’ from edge of table to kitchen counter. Chairs and placemats straight, items on fridge, nothing disturbed or out of place in kitchen. Adjoining dining room, which was in the pathway to the kitchen, was in order; papers and scrapbooks on table, some extending over edge of table. Nothing knocked to the floor. Placemats undisturbed on table.

Julie’s story changed when she realized that her neat, tidy house didn’t support the“fighting and struggling” scenario. In her second trial, she said she was not struggling or fighting. She was simply holding onto the intruder - he was dragging her, he just wanted to get away.

In one story, Julie said she heard Joel scream, which means he was still alive when she ran to his room. Why didn’t she hear a struggle before that, considering that her bed was just a few feet across the hall? Joel was stabbed multiple times, fell to the floor beside his bed, and struggled. When asked how she failed to hear her son being murdered 14’ away, she asked if it was possible that Joel was murdered someplace else and then brought back to his room.
No forced entry of any door or window. Julie said she always locked her doors, and did so that night. Nothing taken from the house.
Bloody knife lying on carpet outside Joel’s room. Placed, not dropped. No blood spatter. Knife came from butcher block in kitchen. Only light in kitchen was from a 7-watt “candle” light. Butcher block was on the counter on the opposite side of the room as the light. Dust on toaster beside butcher block not disturbed.
Heavy dew that night. No disturbance in the grass, no footprints.
Bottom pane of glass from garage door leading to backyard was broken from the inside (broken glass was on the concrete walk outside the door).Bottom pane of glass from kitchen storm door to garage was open at a 90 degree angle when it was broken from the inside. Not consistent with two bodies crashing into the closed door, as Julie claimed.
Julie’s injuries were very superficial; treated and released. She pointed out every single injury to Lewis. Strange reaction after her son had just been stabbed to death. Joel had multiple stab wounds to his chest, back, and neck. Defensive wounds on his wrist and hand.
Julie asked Officer Brown, “Do you know how my son died?” Brown said he didn’t know. She immediately asked, “Did you find the knife?” If she already knew “the” knife was involved, why ask Brown how her son died?
Joel’s blood on right front shoulder of Julie’s nightshirt.
Julie said she turned off the light in Joel’s bedroom. York, the first person to enter the house, said Joel’s light was on.
Next-door neighbor heard glass break, but heard no screams, no sounds of a struggle.
During a convenient “flashback,” Julie stated that she let a man in her front door, and was possibly raped. (The front door was locked when police arrived; Julie’s neighbor confirmed the locked door).
When asked point blank if she’d killed Joel, Julie replied, “I have thought of that possibility, but in my mind I know I didn’t do it.”
Yeah, another murderer that doesn't bother to bring his own weapon and then overkills the most vulnerable of the people in the house, but leaves the person that could pose the biggest threat and/or defense with minimal injuries.
Just like Darlie and Jeffrey MacDonald. Baby killers all of them.
