Adventures with Dr. Lady Cutie Troublemaker

I’ve never written about this before since it began a number of years in my past, and it hasn’t been an active part of my life for a while.

In the summer of 2000, I took an Intermediate Statistics class. My main friend in this class was a woman named Julie. She and I organized a study group and met at Encore Cafe in Bloomington before tests. We became friends, too. She was an Educational Psychology doctoral student, and she had been teaching the Ed Psych class (the one I was about to start teaching in the fall) for two years already. We hung out a lot that summer. She alluded to having had a rough few years. I knew that she was incredibly aware of her own safety. When we hung out at her house, she always waited for the garage door to close completely before getting out of the car. She had bars on her bedroom window. Her pet was a German Shepherd that was trained using French commands (he was pedigree). She was a good friend and a supportive and competent mentor when it came to preparing me to teach. She was also very sweet, and sharp as a tack.

I have a file in my file cabinet: “Julie Rea”. That fall, it came out that she had been accused in the 1997 brutal murder of her own son with a knife. She was immediately put into the local jail. That whole fall, I wrote to her every day. They put her in solitary confinement because women who are accused of murdering their own children are not safe from other prisoners. I learned about exercises that could be done in a small space (yoga in particular) and sent them to her. Sometimes I’d just ramble… just so she would always get something in the mail from me. I took pictures of the trees changing color and sent them to her.

When her parents came into town, they stayed in her house, and each night, Julie’s friends would alternate bringing her parents dinner. I remember that I made them tuna casserole. I knew they were “simple folk”, and I didn’t want to bring them anything to “weird”. They were extremely religious, and when we sat down to eat, they took my hands, and while sitting in a circle, they said a prayer for Julie. I remember having a birthday party (my 33rd, I think), when the phone rang, and it was Julie calling me from jail. It was a collect call. It was a strange time. I didn’t know if she’d done it or not, but I did know that she absolutely believed that she was innocent. My thought was that if she had somehow done it, it was in a completely psychotic state. But really, I knew Julie. It didn’t seem right.

While Julie was still in Bloomington, I went to two of her hearings at the courtroom in the same building as the jail. Julie was always thin, but I was shocked at how much thinner she’d become, and her eyes were puffier than I’d remembered. She was distraught at those times. It was clear that the simple experience of jail was taking a massive toll on her. That experience in itself was a traumatic one.

March 2002 was when my husband and I separated. It was an unexpected and sudden separation for me, so I became unable to be as supportive of Julie as I had been. I just didn’t have much to give. While I was not facing murder charges, I was still emotionally distraught, and I knew that I had to take care of myself first for a while. Sadly, I lost touch with Julie’s situation until later that year, when her case was on 20/20.

In my “Julie Rea” file, I have lots of articles about Julie – even one about about how she would NOT receive the death penalty. Each time I have revisited what was going on, it feels surreal. The smart Julie I knew? Really? It seems like someone else I’m reading about. Not her.

Today, my mother sent me a link to an article: ABC News: Untangling a Murder Mystery – Julie Rea Harper Was Convicted of Murdering Her Son. But Was a Serial Killer the Real Culprit?. Tonight, they are revisiting the story on 20/20. I’m halfway through. I had to take a break. It was too much. I don’t know how Julie has gotten through. I think it’s time to write her again. It’s been too long. I hope she’s OK.

OK, I just watched the end. I feel like an ass. She was finally acquitted in August, and I just heard the news today. In fact, I was so focused on trying to get my computer working (it still isn’t, but thanks for all the help, Massimo), that I never finished the article. I think it’s time to contact Julie again. I hope she can forgive my absence. It was so great to see her talking like herself again. Like the Julie I met that summer, not the wrongly incarcerated mother. God, I’m so happy for her!