00:00:00
He was coming towards me with his arms raised. I started pushing back. He grabbed me. I was shaking. I said, stop, stop. What are you doing? Stop.
00:00:22
They had a charmed life by the beach. Surfer dad. He was a stud, you know, I'm not going to lie to you.
00:00:29
Do-It-All Mom. She would do family-oriented things. And a picture-perfect home tucked away on Badger Lane.
00:00:37
This is our little American 3. He wanted a lifestyle where he could be there for his family, for his kids.
00:00:42
That's what made what happened so startling. It was dark when they got there. They found a body upstairs in the master bedroom.
00:00:50
The victim was clearly shot with a handgun. The kids were missing. Julie was missing.
00:00:55
Was this a case of murder? This is our neighborhood. These are our friends. You're just in utter shock.
00:01:00
There were secrets in that house. Who would unlock them? I didn't want my family to know.
00:01:07
I didn't want my neighbors to know. Devious and manipulative. This is our best friend.
00:01:13
It didn't have to end like this. I'm Lester Holt and this is Dateline. Here's Keith Morrison.
00:01:23
Grief, like the ocean, rolled into their lives in waves. Ride the waves or sink, it seemed to say. Ride them again and again.
00:01:34
Just a shot through the heart. Once there were four fast friends, four tall men.
00:01:42
Before it all went down and the waves took on their new meaning. It didn't have to end like this.
00:01:48
No, except it did. And when it did... It just felt like someone hit you in the stomach really hard and you wanted to cry.
00:01:55
What could they do? Ride. It's what Harp would have wanted, after all. Harp. Jason Harper, sports-loving, outdoors-loving California boy, with a childhood best friend named Paul Severins, who, as they grew, became Tall Paul.
00:02:17
We were always together. You know, in the early years, he was always taller than me, but then I caught up to him.
00:02:21
But we were both the two tallest guys in school. So when they got to high school, there was one sport they were very well suited to play.
00:02:32
Volleyball. Harp was a stud, you know. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to sugarcoat it.
00:02:36
He was, you know, MVP on the team. Yes, and went on to play at UCLA, where he met Jeremy Brandt.
00:02:45
Here they are together on UCLA Bruins Talk on Public Access TV. Everybody came back and goes, we're not going to lose or whatever, and came back and they haven't lost since then.
00:02:56
We can beat a lot of teams out there. We could definitely be a Final Four contender.
00:03:01
I always said we ran the same speed, and so we would run the warm-ups the same speed, and we would end up talking together, and we became roommates throughout college.
00:03:10
Just a great guy, a great friend. Quiet, mind you. Shy. At least around the girls.
00:03:18
He wasn't quite the ladies' man. I'm not going to lie to you. And then one night back in 2000, four years after he graduated from college,
00:03:26
Harp met a girl at a party. Tall Paul was there, too. The girl's name was Julie Syhack.
00:03:33
She kind of zoned in on Harp right off the bat and started talking to him. So I get the impression she picked him.
00:03:39
Yeah, exactly. Went pretty fast after that. And why not? Julie was pretty and smart and from a well-to-do family.
00:03:48
Still, when Harp proposed just three months after he met this first real girlfriend...
00:03:54
I felt like it was the first girl that he really loved, and there's a lot that goes with that,
00:03:58
and I just didn't want him to have the wool pulled over his eyes. But they stood up for him, and the marriage at San Diego's historic Hotel Del Coronado was a great happy party.
00:04:11
I remember their first dance. They were in this giant ballroom, and they did a very nice ballroom dance, you know,
00:04:19
and Harp had a big old smile on his face. They moved to the seaside, the Carlsbad, California,
00:04:25
just north of San Diego, and Jason Harper signed on as a math teacher and volleyball coach at a local high school.
00:04:33
Jason was your typical Southern California surfer, beach volleyball, public school teacher.
00:04:40
Where he met the third of those tall friends, Andy Tomkinson. Andy and his wife Kristen taught at the same school, Carlsbad High.
00:04:49
On a campus of 3,000, 2,500 students, you tend to notice other people who are at the same eye
00:04:55
level as you. And Jason being 6'6", and myself being 6'9". There aren't too many people at the
00:05:00
same eye level as you. No, no. So you do notice after a while who they are. The two became fast
00:05:06
friends. Surfing, pickup basketball, poker, guy things. And then Jason and Julie started a family.
00:05:14
Jake first, then Jackie. J names. Even if that meant not playing cards with the boys or going on a surf trip,
00:05:23
those kids always came first. Were there times when you wanted to do something with them and he said,
00:05:29
sorry, I've got to stay on. Absolutely. Absolutely. Home was here in the terraces at Sunny Creek, a brand new gated place not far from the beach.
00:05:41
These were their neighbors. So many neighborhoods now, you don't even know who your next door neighbors are.
00:05:46
But that's not like this place at all, right? No, not at all. Julie ran the mother talk group in the neighborhood.
00:05:53
So she would actually organize all those activities She was a good mom She was really involved with her kids And hard to know exactly why things changed After Joshua III was born in 2011 Julie just didn seem the same
00:06:09
And as time went by, you would see less and less and less of her. She would say hi and get in her car and drive away really quick.
00:06:17
Like she was hiding from everybody. Yeah. But Jason? He was part of the permanent landscape of our neighborhood.
00:06:23
He was there every day. I mean, literally every day. Very hands-on father. Well, I look out my door to see if he's out there and wave, you know, and we walk over.
00:06:32
Bring the kids over and walk in the driveway, and the kids start playing right when we got home from school.
00:06:35
And then it was an August morning in 2012. You don't know what's happened, but you know it's not something good.
00:06:41
Your stomach kind of sinks. Didn't take a rocket scientist. Something was awfully wrong.
00:06:48
There was crime tape. My house is inside the crime tape. and there's a police officer stationed at the base of my driveway.
00:06:54
And so I asked the police officer, is everything okay? And he said, no, no, it's not.
00:07:02
What had really happened that morning? When we come back. They say that they found a body upstairs in the master bedroom.
00:07:09
The kids were missing. Julie was missing. We're all in shock. What are you talking about?
00:07:13
Do you worry about their kids? Absolutely, their safety. Number one, their safety.
00:07:18
Are they okay? At 7.30 in the morning on the 8th of August 2012, Michelle Cullen gazed on the police cars, the crime scene tape,
00:07:41
and asked the cop in her driveway, what's happening? You need to go inside. You need to turn on your television.
00:07:48
The policeman told you this? He told me that, yes. What are you talking about? That was apparent soon enough when they wheeled out the body bag.
00:07:56
One of our colleagues and friends called us and said, I think something really bad has happened.
00:08:03
They say that they found a body upstairs in the master bedroom, and it looks like it's Jason's house.
00:08:09
Bit by awful bit, Andy and the rest of them heard the details. The body had been hidden under a blanket, another debris.
00:08:19
One bullet still lodged in the chest. Death was at least quick. The victim was the beloved member of that tall quartet,
00:08:29
the neighborhood dad, Jason Harper. That was terrible enough, but it wasn't all.
00:08:38
The kids were missing. Julie was missing. And as details unfolded, we were in complete shock.
00:08:45
Officers continue their investigation at the Harper residence. They still have...
00:08:48
We're all in shock. Jason's dead. We're flipping out. And they're saying, where is she?
00:08:53
We've seen this woman and flashing her plates and her picture. Wow. On the news.
00:08:58
So, what happened? Home invasion? Kidnapping? Murder? Suicide? Did you worry about their kids?
00:09:05
Oh, that was the worst part. Absolutely. Absolutely. Their safety. Number one, their safety.
00:09:10
Are they okay? But the Carlsbad Police Department had one piece of information the neighbors lacked,
00:09:15
which came in a strange phone call at 11 p.m. the night before. Sergeant Jeff Smith was the lead detective.
00:09:23
The watch commander working that night got a phone call from an attorney asking the police department to go do a welfare check at a residence.
00:09:32
A welfare check? Seemed like an odd request. Who was this lawyer who called? It was Attorney Paul Finkst.
00:09:41
That Paul Finkst? He just happened to be the ex-DA. and now criminal defense attorney,
00:09:48
who knew the police department very well. He'd called an internal extension that,
00:09:54
unlike a 911 call, was not recorded. The cops went to the house, and they found Jason's body.
00:10:03
But not Julie and the kids. They were gone. So police talked to Paul Finkst again,
00:10:10
who said not to worry, Julie and the kids were fine. Julie was not a victim. She was his newest client.
00:10:19
He arranged the safe return of the children to a local children's hospital, and then, 15 hours after the cops discovered Jason's body,
00:10:27
Finxt orchestrated Julie's surrender at her father's house. Did she talk to you?
00:10:34
No. But her attorney spoke with local reporters. She's very upset. She's upset about her children.
00:10:41
She's upset about her health. She's upset about seeing basically at this point her life is in shambles.
00:10:48
It's a catastrophe all the way around. So it was. But what happened in the bedroom?
00:10:56
Neither Julie nor attorney Finkst would say. So the police launched an investigation to figure out what was Julie guilty of, if anything.
00:11:06
To begin, they had specialists interview the two older children, ages 8 and 6, who said their day started out like a typical summer morning.
00:11:16
And then sometime between 8 and 9 a.m. When you were watching cartoons yesterday morning
00:11:26
and you heard the loud clunk. A thud. That's all they could tell you. A loud thud.
00:11:31
Did they know at that point that their father was dead? I don't believe so. They must have been very confused.
00:11:38
Yes. Frightened? Yeah. Young children. And the only things you know are there's a guy with a bullet hole and the kids heard a thump.
00:11:46
Yes. Not a lot to go on. Not a lot. So what did you do next? We talked to neighbors who had possibly seen things.
00:11:55
One neighbor said that they saw Ms Harper leaving right around 9 in the morning and exiting their gated community So now you know when they left the house anyway
00:12:06
Roughly. Now the detectives did what they could to retrace Julie and the kids' movements.
00:12:11
During their interviews, the kids said their mom took them to a coffee shop first.
00:12:15
From that point, they went to a local playworks or jumpy-type house place. And from the kids' accounts, that's where they stayed for a short period in play.
00:12:27
And we were able to corroborate that with cell phone analysis. Which led to a disturbing thought.
00:12:35
If the thud the kids heard was Jason being shot, then the coffee run and the play date happened afterward,
00:12:43
while he lay wounded or already dead on the bedroom floor. On August 9th, two days after the shooting,
00:12:49
a medical examiner conducted an autopsy and recovered the bullet that killed Jason.
00:12:55
It came from a .38 caliber handgun. We did find a gun in the home where Mr. Harper was found.
00:13:05
But it was not the gun that killed Jason. So, no murder weapon, and the only suspect wasn't talking.
00:13:14
We believed that there was an argument between the two, and a gun was produced and she shot him.
00:13:22
And we didn't know why. Not an easy question under the circumstances. Oh, there was an answer.
00:13:30
But do you think anyone intended to reveal that? Coming up. I don't understand why any of it happened.
00:13:39
You know what I mean? New clues. She was preparing for a change in her life. Private journals and secrets in the attic.
00:13:46
My wildest dreams, I would have never expected that. When Dateline continues. By the time Julie Harper's attorney arranged for her to turn herself in,
00:14:07
her husband Jason had been dead for a day and a half. For reasons nobody could understand, they appeared to be a solid couple.
00:14:14
Why would she shoot him? That's what Carlsbad detectives were determined to figure out.
00:14:19
Julie wasn't talking. So they interviewed friends and family and peeled back the layers,
00:14:24
and Sergeant Jeff Smith learned that a whole year earlier, Julie sent a friend some envelopes for safekeeping.
00:14:32
What was in the envelopes? Journals, writings, bank statements, personal history.
00:14:37
In that personal history, signs of a marriage that wasn't as perfect as it seemed.
00:14:43
Julie wrote that Jason yelled at me, and maybe divorce is the answer. It appeared that they were not happy with each other,
00:14:52
and that their marriage was going towards an end or a divorce. Whatever was going on, Jason tended to keep to himself,
00:15:01
said his teacher friends, Andy and Kristen. He would never say any ill words or bad things.
00:15:06
He kept it very personal and private. But it was pretty clear, they said, the marriage was winding down.
00:15:13
Arrangements were being made. Jason's parents actually bought a house down here,
00:15:18
and it had enough room for Jason and all the kids. I mean, they were preparing for him to be able to leave.
00:15:25
Julie seemed to be getting ready to get out, too, said Sergeant Smith. In fact, she filed for divorce five days before the incident.
00:15:33
And that same week made some unusual financial transactions. Days prior to, Ms. Harper had taken out about $10,000 in cash out of a dormant account that was under her daughter's name.
00:15:45
And she had written two $4,500 checks to herself, and it was against a credit card in Mr. Harper's name.
00:15:53
Julie had pulled out nearly $20,000. Cash! We found that to be very suspicious. Deputy District Attorney Keith Watanabe was assigned to the case on day one.
00:16:03
Did it suggest to you that she had been hoarding money in anticipation of something?
00:16:09
She was preparing for a change in her life. But did the change involve divorce or murder?
00:16:16
Julie's father, John Syhack, lived here, 30 miles or so from Jason and Julie's house.
00:16:23
This apparently was where Julie and the kids spent the night after the shooting.
00:16:28
So Sergeant Smith got a search warrant for Dad's place and found nothing useful.
00:16:34
There were other guns, but none of them fired the bullet that killed Jason. Perhaps a little frustrated, eight days later, he got a second search warrant.
00:16:44
At this time, there was something new. Tucked away in the garage attic in a spot they searched the first time around.
00:16:51
A blue backpack must have been hidden between searches. They opened up this blue backpack, and they discovered Julie Harper's wallet, credit cards, and ID, her passport, a different gun, and Jason Harper's last will and testament.
00:17:08
Also, Jason's cell phone, its batteries removed, and call and text history cleared.
00:17:14
The backpack gun was also clean. Not the one used to shoot Jason. This had to be a getaway bag, the prosecutor decided.
00:17:23
She must have packed it up after she killed Jason. That's the only reason to take a person's last will and testament.
00:17:30
It's because she realized he was dead. Julie's actions before and after the shooting raised all sorts of questions.
00:17:36
The foremost for the prosecutor was, did she plan this? Was it premeditated? And if so, for how long?
00:17:45
We believed we could prove first-degree murder, not on the theory that she had planned this murder the days or weeks before the shooting had taken place.
00:17:55
Instead we were relying on the theory that even during this argument she took enough steps in order to get the gun that this would have been planned and premeditated even if it was only for a minute or two before the shooting
00:18:09
And that's enough. In California, that qualifies as first-degree murder. So that's what he charged her with, first-degree murder.
00:18:18
Julie pleaded not guilty, but otherwise kept her mouth shut and sat in jail. But strange details kept coming out,
00:18:26
like what Julie's dad said at her preliminary hearing about the blue backpack. There had actually been $39,000 inside that backpack.
00:18:38
Julie's father admitted that he found the cash in the backpack and gave it to Julie's lawyer to help pay for bail and legal fees.
00:18:47
What did you think when you heard that? In my wildest dreams, I would have never expected that.
00:18:53
By the way, Julie's dad testified at the prelim only after being granted immunity.
00:18:59
He initially pleaded the fifth. And even though bail was $2 million, Julie's family eventually coughed it up.
00:19:07
And after more than a year in jail, she moved back into the house on Badger Lane,
00:19:13
three doors down from Michelle Miller. She knocked on my door to let me know that she was back
00:19:17
and that we're going to have a good talk someday when this is all over. What did you say to her?
00:19:25
I was just completely shocked. I couldn't believe it. All those comfortable notions about her neighbors.
00:19:33
Maybe Michelle didn't know them at all. I don't understand why any of it happened.
00:19:38
You know what I mean? He was our friend and he's gone and I don't know who she is.
00:19:42
And when Julie finally did start talking, well... Coming up... I said, stop, stop.
00:19:54
What are you doing? Stop. On the stand, her life on the line, and... Get up from the carpool, f***. Figure it out.
00:20:03
Secret recordings from behind closed doors. The End talked to Julie, had never heard her story, he was confident. His theme was something he called
00:20:42
the deterioration of Julie Harper. Her life had become a disaster, both in terms of her marriage,
00:20:49
her children, her health, her financial state, and we believe she was seriously abusing her
00:20:56
prescription medication. Look at this, he told the jury, pill bottles. Though Julie suffered from an
00:21:03
autoimmune disease, he said. This made it clear she was abusing powerful medications.
00:21:09
And, said the prosecutor, look at the mess in Julie's bedroom, as if a hoarder lived here.
00:21:15
When Jason's body was found, it was hidden under a blanket and surrounded by debris.
00:21:21
The bullet that killed him entered from a side rear angle, so he was shot pretty much in the back.
00:21:26
What happened? Julie must have shot Jason between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., said the prosecutor.
00:21:33
while the kids were downstairs watching cartoons. A neighbor saw Julie leaving just after 9 a.m.
00:21:40
And she was at La Costa Coffee roasting 40 minutes later. She wasn't crying. She wasn't upset.
00:21:48
She didn't ask anyone to call 911. It showed that this woman had a calloused heart.
00:21:53
She was capable of murdering her husband and really had the wherewithal to be able to go out into public
00:21:59
and appear to be perfectly normal. It was clearly murder, said Deputy D.A. Watanabe.
00:22:06
But was it? Remember, Julie did not talk, not once, to the police or the prosecutor
00:22:12
because her attorney never allowed it. But now it was time. Defense attorney Paul Finkst called just one witness, Julie Harmer.
00:22:22
Yes, I did. And she said, yes, she did it. She shot him. But she said it wasn't murder.
00:22:31
Why? Because, she said, Jason Harper, so beloved by friends and neighbors and colleagues,
00:22:38
was in private an angry, abusive husband. Did you videotape Jason telling you...
00:22:44
And here was her proof, she said. Here was her secret recording of Jason losing it over money.
00:22:52
I don't want to enable your horrible money waste and your poor credit score and everything else.
00:22:58
I don't want to enable that. it's horrible and then this get a carpool bitch figure it out
00:23:08
can't help it if you're too dumb to do it too lazy well you know at least I have more words in my vocabulary
00:23:14
than you do seems like the B-I-T-T-H is the only word that you can use that's right right now that is darn right
00:23:22
that's what you are that said Julie it got worse it got physical He grabbed my wrist and my hand so forcefully and twisted it so hard that, I mean, it was hurting into the next day.
00:23:39
Remember, Jason was a 6'6 athlete about a foot taller than Julie. By then they slept in separate rooms.
00:23:46
But sometimes, she said, when he got angry, he came to her room and the abuse turned sexual.
00:23:52
Slamming me up against the wall, face first. And I said, stop, stop. What are you doing? Stop.
00:24:07
Julie told the jury that Jason raped her about 30 times. She said she was so frightened, she stashed a gun under her pillow just in case.
00:24:16
And she woke up the morning of the shooting, she said, to the sound of Jason yelling and screaming.
00:24:22
He was, you know, using some curse words and... Um, God, I'm so sick of this s***, and, you know, where's my f***ing computer?
00:24:35
Jason believed, said Julie, that she'd hidden his computer. His face was all red, and he was just, you know, his nose stretched up, and his eyes squinting,
00:24:49
and he'd just get this look of absolute rage and hate. but this was, I don't know, this was bad.
00:25:00
What did he attempt to do to do that? He grabbed me and began yanking my top off.
00:25:13
I started pushing back and somehow managed to sort of wiggle my way free, pulling away as quickly as I could, moved from there across the room to my bed.
00:25:36
What did you do when you got to the bed? I grabbed my gun from under my pillow. A Derringer .38 caliber handgun.
00:25:45
He was coming towards me with his arms raised, and he said, I'm going to kill you, you f***ing bitch.
00:25:56
And I was shaking, and I was holding onto my gun tightly. next thing I knew I felt felt my hand jerk and heard a loud noise and he was
00:26:28
still like coming forward at me and then all of a sudden he froze completely and
00:26:45
just like a tree in the forest just fell forward at me just like a tree Jason the
00:26:56
tall man, the athlete, the volleyball coach, the math teacher, was dead. So that finally was Julie's
00:27:03
story, that she was an abused woman who shot her husband in self-defense. On that day, did you
00:27:11
still love your husband? Yes. Did you have, did you want him to be dead? No. But now, for the first
00:27:21
time, Julie would have to face a prosecutor with a lot of questions. Coming up, the crime recreated in court.
00:27:32
Do you need a moment, Ms. Harper? But did the witness outmaneuver the prosecutor?
00:27:38
This was the smartest woman that I had ever cross-examined in my life. When Dateline continues.
00:27:51
He was coming towards me with his arms raised. So finally, Julie Harper told her story.
00:28:02
Her husband Jason was an abuser and she killed him in self What did you think when you heard that It hurt my stomach hurt my heart She could say anything she wanted because there two sides to everything and he not here to tell his
00:28:16
The story was not a big surprise to Deputy D.A. Watanabe, but as a prosecutor who'd specialized for years in spousal abuse cases, he just didn't believe it.
00:28:26
She was saving her own skin and she was willing to throw her dead husband under the bus
00:28:32
and ruin his reputation in order to do so. Well, that's your point of view. Maybe it was true.
00:28:38
We considered that possibility, but it simply didn't stand up under the scrutiny of truth.
00:28:43
It was when the prosecutor began his cross-examination that he discovered Julie was ready for him.
00:28:50
As you sit here today, do you believe that your shooting of Jason was justified based on your need to defend yourself?
00:28:58
I didn't even intend to shoot him. I only wanted to scare him or to get him to stop and not rape me, not hurt me, or possibly worse.
00:29:14
This was the smartest woman that I had ever cross-examined in my life. Dodging and weaving.
00:29:19
Well, she was able to think on the spot. Those pill bottles, all necessary for her medical condition and prescribed by her doctor.
00:29:26
she never abused them, she said. But if, as she said, Jason was coming at her when she shot,
00:29:34
why then, the prosecutor wondered, did the bullet enter from the back? Do you mind stepping down here?
00:29:41
Prosecutor Watanabe set up a courtroom recreation. I'm going to have Mr. Carr stand in for Jason.
00:29:47
But things didn't quite play out the way the prosecutor hoped. Did Julie use this moment to her advantage?
00:29:56
She broke down and started crying and was visibly upset in front of the jury. That was maybe not the best strategy on your part then, as it turned out.
00:30:15
It was a powerful moment for her because it allowed her to really retell the story in an emotional way and bring the jurors into her story.
00:30:26
Julie was on the stand for three days, and then the jury had to decide, was she a murderer or a victim in fear for her life?
00:30:37
I was juror number three in Julie Harper's trial. Joseph Dial said he knew early on in the deliberations it wasn't going to be easy or quick.
00:30:47
Within 15 minutes, we had taken a vote, and it showed we were way, way apart. and we would argue each points to where there was nothing conclusive.
00:30:58
On the second day of deliberations, the judge called everyone back to the courtroom.
00:31:02
You received a note from the jury this morning at 10.06 a.m. The note reads, we are unable to reach a verdict on some of the counts.
00:31:09
We are deadlocked. Deadlocked on some of the counts. But they had been able to reach a unanimous verdict on one count.
00:31:17
Let's bring the jury. This was the moment of truth. Did the jury believe Julie? I'll ask the clerk to read the verdict.
00:31:27
Verdict, first-degree murder. We, the jury, in the above entitled cause, find the defendant, Julie Harper,
00:31:33
not guilty of the crime of murder in violation of penal... Yes, they did believe her.
00:31:38
She did not pre-plan and deliberately kill her husband, so it couldn't be first-degree murder.
00:31:44
But was it second-degree, not premeditated, but still intentional? On that, the jury was hopelessly deadlocked.
00:31:53
The judge declared a mistrial. Defense attorney Paul Fink's. Obviously, when there's a murder trial and you get any form of acquittal, that's a good thing.
00:32:02
She would have hoped for a total acquittal. So, with a hung jury and bail already established, Julie walked out of the courthouse a free woman.
00:32:11
Did she do it? Yeah she did it Was it self It certainly was after who knows how many years of the toxic relationship they had and his incredible cruelty
00:32:28
I felt like I've lost a little bit of faith in the justice system. Jason's friends just couldn't understand it.
00:32:34
Just felt like, you know, you were a little kid and someone hit you in the stomach really hard and you wanted to cry,
00:32:39
but you weren't going to cry and your eyes started tearing up. It was very, very surreal, I guess.
00:32:46
You know, emotional. While the prosecutor thought about whether to charge her again,
00:32:52
Julie went on with life back at the house on Badger Lane. And then she just comes back in the neighborhood.
00:32:59
Down the street, right? Just like before. We're like, is this ever going to end?
00:33:04
Are we ever going to close? Well, they couldn't know, of course. There was another secret Julie was keeping.
00:33:12
From everyone. Coming up. Really that devious? She's really that devious. Another bombshell and another trial.
00:33:22
I didn't want my family to know. I didn't want my neighbors to know. What would the verdict be this time?
00:33:42
Julie Harper was walking on air, acquitted of first-degree murder. A jury deadlocked on second-degree.
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It tasted like sweet victory. As Keith Watanabe bit down on frustration. The images of her walking out of that courtroom as a free woman were tough for me to swallow.
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Still, what he could do was try again. Of course, first-degree murder was off the table now,
00:34:09
but he could go for a lesser charge of second-degree murder, which he did. A new trial date was set for six months later, April 2015.
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And then, one month before that trial was to begin, surprise! Julie had some astonishing news for the judge.
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The retrial for a Carlsbad woman accused of killing her husband. The attorney says she is pregnant.
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Seven months pregnant. Caught everybody by surprise, that did. She intentionally got pregnant in order to interfere with our retrial.
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Really that devious in your mind? She's really that devious and well-planned and manipulative.
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What's more, Julie's pregnancy was highly intentional. In vitro fertilization. The judge, no choice really, delayed Julie's trial for five months.
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Her daughter was born in April 2015. No father listed on her birth certificate. the neighbors on Badger Lane watched and wondered.
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She decided she was going to walk the baby in the stroller through the neighborhood.
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And, you know, that was very uncomfortable. It was like nothing had happened in her mind and everything was fine.
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Everything's fine. And she's, you know, my life 2.0. Well, not quite, of course.
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In September 2015, Julie, the judge, the attorneys, all assembled before a brand new jury.
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Twelve new strangers to win over. Except this time, Prosecutor Watanabe knew what was coming from Julie.
00:35:41
And so he canvassed the witnesses. Did they ever see signs of abuse? This is Jason's mother, Lina.
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Did Julie appear in any way to be fearful to you? No. Did you see any bruises or marks on her?
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No. Neighbor Michelle Cullen saw Jason and Julie together five days before Jason's death.
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Did you ever see anything that led you to believe that she was being physically abused?
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No, never. So why would the jury believe Julie's claim that Jason did rape her violently and repeatedly?
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When Julie testified, she asked the jury to look at entries in her private journals and day planner Whenever they saw the word sex said Julie that was code for rape Were you making notations of the days that you had
00:36:32
coerced sex? Yes. Prosecutor Watanabe, of course, didn't believe that. But when he challenged her,
00:36:40
was this real emotion? Now, have you ever called the police on Jason for any of these incidents?
00:36:47
No, I was very embarrassed. I was very embarrassed that he was doing it. I didn't want... I didn't want my family to know. I didn't want my neighbors to know.
00:37:01
I didn't want my friends to know. Manipulation? Or the awful truth? Once again, a jury was asked to pass judgment on Julie Harper.
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In the Superior Court of the State of California... Everybody waited. Bated breath.
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We the jury in the above entitled cause find the defendant, Julie Harper, guilty of the crime of murder and fix the degree thereof as murder in the second degree.
00:37:28
Guilty of second degree murder. On went the handcuffs just like that. Jury number two was not at all like jury number one.
00:37:39
No doubt at all. No, no, no, no, not at all. No. No disrespect to the first set of jurors from the initial trial.
00:37:49
I just don't understand how they could not have found her guilty. And so we made an appointment to talk to Julie,
00:37:56
by then behind glass in a San Diego County jail. I don't think you expected this result at all.
00:38:03
Would I be right about that? You'd be correct in that, yeah. What was really so shocking was that they could ignore
00:38:10
are all of that independent evidence outside of my testimony. By that she meant the recording of Jason yelling and her claim that in her diary sex meant
00:38:19
rape. And despite what the jury thought, she has big plans. Because of what I've gone through with my husband and the abuse that I've suffered, I
00:38:29
am planning and working with a couple of people to start the Julie Harper Foundation as a charity
00:38:36
benefiting victims of domestic violence and their families. First of all, you have to start with getting a jury to believe that you were a victim of domestic violence, and that was your problem.
00:38:46
Well, and that's where you go. Like, the first jury did believe that. There's different people that process information, the same information and the same evidence, in very different ways.
00:38:56
The way Jason Harper's friends processed it was that Julie tormented a good and decent man,
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and then threw him under the bus to save her own skin. The hardest thing, I think, for me was the rape allegations.
00:39:08
It's just no way. No way. Not Harp. You know, Harp's gone, and we miss him, and we love him,
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but for her to be put away, it helps heal. And Julie, she was sentenced to 40 years to life in prison.
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Essentially, I'm 42 years old. It's a death sentence. Very true. Which brought up a question on a lot of mine.
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Why did you get pregnant? I was such a good parent, and I had that love to give to another child
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and really wanted to be able to give and share that love with my daughter, who I love more than anything in the world.
00:39:54
Julie's father sent us a statement repeating Julie's abuse claim and saying the verdict is unjust.
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We asked him and Julie's attorney and her friends and siblings, any of them, to sit with us on camera and talk about Julie, if nothing else, to defend her.
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All declined. Thank you very much. Barring a successful appeal, Julie Harper will die behind bars alone.
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That's all for now. I'm Lester Holt. Thanks for joining us. you