January 9, 2025 • 38 mins
Bob and Lauren connect in Marion, Illinois for Julia Bevely’s sentencing. Through a jailhouse visit with Bevely- and interviews with her family- a narrative emerges that is at odds with key elements of the prosecution theory in terms of the murder and the woman convicted of having committed it.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Murder on Songbird Road is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Previously on Murder on Songbird Road.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I don't think she did it.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
That's Stuart, the biological father of Jaden.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
They've never found a weapon or if the change clothes
never made sense, still doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
If there was a magic wand waved and Julie was out,
you wouldn't have any reservation whatsoever about Jaden.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Being with her. No, she loved all her children.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Nikki says she knows Julia extremely well, even for cousins.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Even the ones that she didn't give birth to. That
is one thing that she is extremely good at.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Beverly suddenly recalled that she actually stopped at Hucks. I said, Julie,
you got its home, because as of right now, they're
trying to say you never left the house.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
I called and asked for Carl Gustantine personally. I told
him that Julie remembered she stopped at Hucks for gas.
He said, well, I'll have to hear that from her.
And I said, well, she's already invoked an attorney, so
you have your information. And he said okay and hung
up the phone.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
The video from the gas station, what did they claim
they'd found.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
They got Julian camera stopping at the gas station to
throw away items in the same area.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Julie is, there is a incident and this hall was
made at ten thirty for.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
A suspicious person. In no way.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Yes, he's wearing a black hoodie and dark pants. We're
heading to Marian.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I'm here for it. I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I'm Lauren bred Pacheco and this is murder on Songbird Road.
(02:02):
Julia Beverly sentencing was scheduled for Friday, October thirteenth, twenty
twenty three, the day before Bob Matta came down from Chicago.
I flew in through Saint Louis, Missouri, and drove the
two hours to Marion.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
We connected there in person for the first time.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Hey.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
In person, Mada comes across more like a slightly jaded,
tough guy than a former defense attorney. He's recording Oh
we are Yeah, I had a new kid, so it
took me a while. He's long traded ties for T shirts,
a beard and a mustache that veers more biker than
bar exam, a look much more in keeping with his
additional passion to law and his wife Alison music.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
When we finally crossed paths. In Marion.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
He had just met with Julia Beverly at the Williamson
County Jail.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
So I get down their typical small town county jail,
but big structure. It's a relatively big structure. I don't know,
have you been into a jail.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah, So Pinkneyville where Chris is it basically looks like
a nineteen sixties high school.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, this one's a little more modern. It's still probably
thirty years old. But for Mary in Illinois, which is
extremely rural down here, it was big. Clearly they have
a pretty good amount of people in there because there
were several blocks, and you walk in and every jail
in prison has that smell. There's no other smell like
(03:26):
a jail or a prison.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
It's bad.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
It's like a weird maple syrup with like combined with
dirty feet.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
I can't say. It's kind of stress and depression.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, that's oll that's for certain, Like if that's if
that had a smell, that's exactly what it would smell like.
So I get in, give them my creds. I wanted
to be able to meet with her with suprivacy so
that we could have like a full discussion.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Since mod is still a licensed attorney, he was able
to meet with Beverly in an area that allows a
degree of privacy, as opposed to a commune visiting space,
which was conducive to the conversation he planned on having.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
So I wanted to interview her. I wanted to get
factually what her side of the story was, where it
wasn't being read through a transcript where I know obviously
things were not addressed, where things were inadmissible. I'm always
walking in having defended some pretty awful people in my life,
and I always can pride myself and be able to
(04:24):
sense if somebody seems off, I always feel like I
can pick them out. And I wasn't getting that sense
from her, you know. And I'm asking her a lot
of questions, like I wouldn't consider it to be an
interior Geisha, But I told her, I said, I'm going
to play Devil's advocate here. I want to pick out
the things that we know were issues at trial, the
(04:45):
things that we are going to be concerned with as
we're progressing through this. We want to address them. We
can't pretend that they don't exist. And I said, look,
I don't want you sugarcoating anything, Like if you and
Mike were in arguments, I want to hear authentically how
they were, Like, were you guys screamers? Were you dropping
f bombs in each other? What kind of relationship was it?
(05:06):
I want to know, because it all matters. She was candid.
I'd start with the background. I get the history of
her and Mike, the relationship with her and Jade.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Matt and I both know that while friends and family
often paint a sympathetic picture of the accused, some questions
and doubts can only be addressed by actually sitting with
them face to face.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
What was she like physically small?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
So she's probably four to eleven diminutive, small, like not imposing.
My wife's four eleven two, so I'm used to little,
but she's She's little, sweet, very nice. I start from
the history of her and Mike from the beginning. When
did you meet? How old were the kids? Julie's got
(05:51):
Jaden and Mike had Jade. They were both four years
old when they met. She goes through kind of like
the backstory in terms of a cook.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Right, was a hostess? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
They were working at this Benny's, which is an Italian
spot that they both worked out here and Marion. In
terms of the relationship, they kind of hit it off.
They both liked the fact that they had a young kid.
They felt that that was something that was going to
make them compatible in terms of being able to, hey,
you know, we're not going to go out tonight because
we have kids, you know, that type of thing. And
so they really kind of connected pretty quickly. The relationship
(06:24):
blossoms within a year, they're moving in together. I was
asking her, you know, how was your relationship with Jade. Initially,
my parents divorced when I was young, and I'm also
a parent of step children. I used that experiences from
me being a stepchild to like what not to do
in terms of being a step parent, you know, never
forcing kids to say I love you and let them
(06:46):
just develop organically their feelings for you, and all the
things that went on with me as a young kid.
I didn't want those same mistakes, and I wanted my
kids to grow to love me on their own accord.
So she did the same thing. She was very thoughtful
about it. I'm like, how was your relationship with Jessica,
who was Mike's ex mother of Jade.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
When I said that they never really interacted much.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
They didn't. That was kind of the deal. Anytime there
were issues with Jade, Jessica would never communicate with Julie.
She would always go to Mike, which irritated Julie obviously.
She's like, we're together, they have two kids together, they're
a blended family, and just Jessica just never would really
get with her like in terms of interacting. So she
(07:35):
gave me the examples of situations that had arisen over
the years. They weren't anything that lasted for long duration,
kind of like menial type things like there was a
thing where we'd be running late. I'd give Jade a
pop tart on the run type of breakfast. Jade wouldn't
eat it. And then Jade would mention something at school like, oh,
(07:57):
I didn't eat breakfast. My parents didn't feed me, and
they were calling Jessica and Jessica's like, oh, why aren't
you feeding my kid? And she starts like for a
couple months, like bringing boxes of cereal over, like as
if they're neglecting the kid. It's like those kind of
things were going on. So it definitely was never a
relationship where they were friendly.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
It doesn't sound like justin aside, this strained, if not
non existent relationship with Jessica could shed some light on
the lack of support for Julia in the days and
hours immediately following the murder. Also know that we have
reached out multiple times to multiple members of Jade's side
of the family, and you will hear their take as
(08:37):
well in future episodes. Back to Bob and his meeting
with Beverly.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
It wasn't like a battle, which just was like a
non existent relationship, which to me is strange. I mean,
if you've got blended families, and Jessica had had another kid,
so Jade had a half sister, and what had happened
during COVID when they shut the country down. Kids eventually
started having them remote and then as it started to
phase back, giving people the choice you want to send
(09:04):
your kids back or do you want to stay remote.
And so that was a sticky issue between Mike and
Julie because Mike and Julie wanted Jade to finish the
year just remote, Jessica wantitor back in school in person.
I guess Mike and Julie ended up having a beef
about it, and where Mike's like, well, look, ultimately, it's
(09:26):
not your kid. Jessica's going to have final say so
over this thing. So I'm like, well, did you harbor resentment?
Was that something that you would bring up in arguments?
She's like, no, not really.
Speaker 5 (09:37):
I think that's really interesting because Julie was working at
home for Hyatt, right, and Mike was working out of
a house at Cracker Barrel. So if Julie wanted Jade
to do remote learning, that puts the responsibility on her, right,
(09:57):
which speaks volumes to their relationship. Right, if you don't
like a kid, you don't want that kid doing remote
learning in your house.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
You want him out of the house because you have to,
you know, police it, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
We'll be right back with Murder on Songbird Road. Now
back to Murder on Songbird Road. So, the portrait of
Beverly as a mother and a stepmother that had begun
to emerge from our preliminary interviews seems him keeping with
the fact that the state never presented a motive or
(10:36):
any testimony that painted Julia Beverly as abusive or violent. Instead,
they offered a timeline confirmed by her employer's records. Sell
signals and surveillance footage. According to the prosecution, on December fifth,
twenty twenty, Beverly was scheduled to work from home from
seven thirty am to twelve thirty pm. While she was
(11:00):
scheduled to have a break from nine thirty am to
nine forty five. Beverly was actually logged out of the
work system from nine thirty to ten fifteen am. It
is during that forty five minute window that the prosecution
contends Beverly brutally murdered Jade Beasley, meticulously removing all evidence
(11:22):
of blood from her person before returning to her home
office and typing text responses to customer inquiries and complaints
on social media for an additional fifty minutes. Beverly then
requested to end her work day early at eleven o
five am, and was granted time off at eleven oh seven,
when she logged off Hyatt's system. Beverly left the house
(11:46):
by eleven thirty six am.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
The prosecution contends that was.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
When Beverly departed with the bloody outfit she wore while
committing the murder, the materials she used to clean up,
and the murder weapon, all of this fitting into the
small bag. She was captured on video discarding at Hawk's
gas station, where she said she stopped to get gas
before realizing she'd left her.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Credit cards at home.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
There are many issues with this narrative, which we will
address in great detail going forward, but one stuck out
immediately to both Mada and myself as soon as we
started reviewing the facts of this case. No blood was
ever found in Beverly's home office, not Beverly's or Jade Beasley's.
We will get back to the importance and probability of
(12:35):
that in terms of the prosecution's theory.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
But back to Bob and I lead up.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
To the fifth of December, which is that horrible day.
I'm like to start from the minute you open your eyes,
tell me what happened. I get the background about like
Jessica had had another child, Jade's half sister, and there
was a party that was supposed to be taking place
that weekend. Juliet been told by both Jade and Mike
(13:02):
that the party was taking place on Sunday. And December
fifth is Saturday, and she's working that day, and she
had pushed up her work schedule an hour she wanted
to get off an hour earlier, and I asked her,
was there a reason in particular that you wanted to
reschedule and move that hour up. She's like, no, not
in particular. Essentially, Mike's out of the house early by
(13:24):
like seven o'clock. He's working the morning shift at the
cracker barrel, and at that point it's just Julie and Jade.
She logs in remotely, key strokes the whole nine yards.
They know when she's off, you know, they know when
she's on. They know what she's doing on her computer.
About eight o'clock, Jade wanders in and she's got like
an office. It's got a door, and I'm like, was
(13:46):
the door closed? She's a guy typically will keep it closed,
and she said, jagging him in, I'm hungry, so we'll
go make yourself bowl of cereal. He says, okay, close
to the door. Doesn't hear from her for a couple hours,
and at some point Jade apparently comes in and says,
I'm hungry again. Julie's like, why don't we wait till lunch.
(14:08):
It's an hour and a half. We'll have a nice launch,
And she said Jade was upset about it, like she
was frustrated, and she's like, I'm hungry now, I want
to eat now. Julie's like, what's really going on. You
can't be that upset because I don't want you to
eat another bowl of cereal.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
It was at this point, according to Beverly, Jade confided
in her as to a situation she was navigating with
a friend from school. We are not diving into the
specifics of that conversation because it is not our intention
to sensationalize or exploit dynamics happening within an eleven.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Year old social circle.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
But it isn't a new window that has come up
repeatedly in multiple interviews. We mention it now only because
it could explain the initial misconception that Jade was processing
something that could have prompted her to contemplate suicide. That
conversation is also what Beverly says led to the extension
(15:04):
of the break, which was supposed to last from nine
thirty to nine forty five AM.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
So what Julie tells me today is that she had
gone on break coinciding with when Jade's in the room
with her, and at some point this conversation's proceeding and
Julie feels like she's not making any headway with her,
and she stands up and she starts to usher her out.
She's like, I got to get back to work. My
(15:31):
break's over. I'm already ten minutes over. Go go, we'll
talk about it later.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Mada pressed Beverly on the dynamic between her and Jade
regarding the conversation.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
She's like, well, I got up when I was trying
to end the conversation because I couldn't get her to
leave the room, because I needed to get back on
and continue to work and get logged back in because
I'd been out for way longer than fifteen minutes. While
I'm like, do you remember what time you logged in?
She said, I think it was ten thirteen. Is when
I get logged back in and I'm like, okay. At
(16:04):
some point you stand up and she's like yeah, and
what are you doing. She's like, well, I'm walking behind
Jade like this. You know, I'm behind her and I'm
not pushing her violently. I'm just kind of like, all right,
you got to go, so you get her out of
the room. I mean, I'm like, did that devolve into
a screaming match or you're screaming at her where like
(16:25):
She's like, no, none of that. Like I was obviously upset.
I was obviously frustrated. I got her out of the room.
I told her to go to her room and she's
like I log back in.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
According to her loggin and keystrokes, we know that Beverly
then returned to working typing exchanges from ten to fifteen am,
until she asked to wrap her day early and logged
off at eleven oh seven. During that window, phone records
also show that at ten nineteen she receives a silly
meme text from Jade's father Mike, before replying Wow, ask
(17:00):
at ten thirty nine if he's already off work. He
responds at eleven twenty three, she.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Gets a response that he's scheduled till two, but probably
going to get off at one.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
An important note, Bevely does not appear to have been
forthright with the police about the conversation she had with Jade,
or the fact Jade wasn't happy about ending it when
Beverly had to get back to work and sent her
to her room. One could argue that she didn't want
to divulge the nature of the conversation, or that she
had disciplined Jade in order to protect Jade's memory. One
(17:35):
could also argue it was to protect herself. Either way,
she decides to end her work day early.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
So she says, Okay, I've decided I want to do
some retail therapy, That's what she calls it. I've got
a bunch of people on my Christmas list. It's December fifth.
I'm going to go to Walmart. I'm going to shop.
So that's like at eleven oh seven. And at that
point I asked her, well, had you text anybody that
you were going shopping.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
She's like no, So Beverly logged off from work by
eleven oh seven and sell Tower pangs have her leaving
the house by eleven thirty six am. Here's how she
accounted for those twenty nine minutes.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
To Bob.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
She's like, all right, well, I had to get dressed
because like, I don't have to get dressed to work.
I'm in my pajamas, I got my clothes on, I
brushed my hair, brushed my teeth, and I let dogs out.
They have two decent sized dogs. One's like an Australian shepherd,
the other's like a rotten mix. So the big dogs.
I'm like, okay, and then you leave and she's like, yeah,
(18:36):
I leave, and I'm like, well, did you remember to
let the dogs back in? And she's like no. I'm like, well,
if i'm law enforcement, it's extremely convenient that you've let
the dogs out in the backyard when all this is
taking place, whether it's you or an intruder. And I've
done it. I've left my dog out, you know, if
(18:57):
I'm in a rush. She claims that she'd just forgot
to bring the dogs back in when she left.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
This would become another of what Bob and I call
bad facts for Beverly, as is the fact that Beverly
left eleven year old Jade at home alone, especially since
in Illinois it is illegal to leave a child under
the age of fourteen home alone. This is the highest
age requirement in the United States.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
And so she's like, all right, well, I tell Jade,
I'm going to be gone a couple hours. Just play
on your phone and you know, I'll be back. She's like,
it wasn't unusual for us to leave Jaden and Jade.
We'd never leave the little kids. But if it was
like just a couple hours, like two hour max. We
would leave the eleven year olds if it was during
the day. So I'm like, did you invite her? She's like, no,
(19:41):
I didn't invite her. I want to clear my head,
so she says, she goes out, gets in the car,
starts driving.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Beverly says she was about halfway into her travels when
she noticed her gas light was on and the car
was on empty.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
She's at a red light as she opens her bath
and she says she's got two purses. She uses a
bigger purse when she's got the babies because she keeps
diapers in there, and she's got a smaller purse that
when she doesn't have the kids, she'll just carry the
smaller purse around where she drops her cards in there
and ID So, she says, she realizes she doesn't have
(20:17):
her a debit card there. She continues on to hawks
pulls in and then at that point she's like, sometimes
I have to change the kids in the car. I
had these diapers there, so I pull in and I
dump these in the garbage. I'm like, so you pull
up to like a pump and you're using one of
the garbage cans that they have typically between the pumps
(20:38):
and she's like, yeah, so then I obviously have to
go home and get my cards.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
This is when the prosecution contends Beverly dumped bloody clothing, shoes,
cleaning materials, and the murder weapon, even though the surveillance
footage from the gas station shows her discarding a small
bag that easily fit in one hand. It's also of
note that when her car was seized after the murder
and placed in storage, it was indeed on empty. Back
(21:08):
to Bob and what Beverly told him about returning home
and sitting in the driveway in front of the barn
situated to the side of the house, scrolling Facebook before
becoming aware something seemed off.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
She can hear the dogs barking, and not like oh,
Mommy's home, but like that deeper, deeper bark, like oh
there's a squirrel or there's another dog, like that real
deep guttural bark the dogs can get. So she's got
the dogs barking like that in the backyard and this
door is ajar. What is going on here? I don't
(21:43):
know if she's on a high alert, but she feels
like something is astray, like something seems off to her,
and she claims that she goes up, she notices that
the front door is open, the storm doors closed. I'm like,
and you did not leave it that way. She's like,
I did not leave it that way, and she claims
that it's as soon as she pulls the storm out
open that she notices blood in the living room and
(22:04):
somebody clad in all black, it's got a mask on
black gloves comes charging at her and that he's got
a knife. And I said, okay, where are you locationally,
She's like, I am literally in the doorway of the house.
Well what do you do? She's like, well, I put
my hand up because he's got the knife like above
shoulder height drawn back. Well what kind of knife is it?
(22:27):
She's like, well, I don't know. Did it look like
a kitchen knife, like a chef's knife, like what we
used to cut vegetables. She's like, yeah, it definitely wasn't
like a folding knife. So I'm like it was fixed blade,
just a regular kitchen knife. She's like it could have been.
I'm like, could it have been one of your knives?
She's like it could have been. And so she claims
that this guy comes at her, she puts her left
(22:50):
hand up. I'm like, what handed are you. She's like,
I'm right handed, but I had my little purse in
my right hand, so instinctally I put my left hand
up and got a cut. And we wrestle around and
then I get away from him and I make a
bee line to Mike's bedstand because Mike has a gun
in there. And while I'm on the way, I hear
(23:14):
the storm door slam and I'm like, well, do you
go get the gun? So I never get the gun.
She's like, I didn't. I didn't. I don't know how
to shoot it, but I thought if I would get it,
I could scare him off. I'm like, so, what stopped
you from getting the gun? I was retelling this story
to Alison again.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Alison has Mata's wife and also a criminal defense attorney.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
And Allison's like, I don't care if you heard this,
like the storm door slam or not. I'm getting the gun,
whether I know how to shoot it or not getting
the gun. So Alison had a little problem with that
part of the story that she didn't just go and
get the gun. So at that point I said, okay,
what do you do. Then she's like, well, I go
to the bathroom. Our bathroom.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
That's when definitely said she rensed her bleeding hands and
wrapped her left hand with a cloth because of the
wounds to the side of the hand that took the
brunt of the assailant's knife.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Well, did you have to walk by the bathroom that
Jay was found in in order to get to your bathroom?
She's like, no, I didn't. What's going through your mind
at this point, She's like, I have no idea. Honestly,
I have no idea. And then she says she wasn't
even thinking. And then she's walking through and then she
sees the blood in the living room. She says, oh
my god, Jay, she's walking past the bathroom and she
(24:29):
hears the water running and she opens the door and
it's like a nightmare. It's like nothing she's ever seen.
So I'm watching her reaction and she's telling me this
story and she starts crying authentically it seemed to me.
But you never know what the genesis of that is.
You don't know if it's regret, you don't know if
it's reliving it.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
What remains problematic for Beverly and was leveraged by the
prosecution is the amount of time their timeline purports transpired
between Beverly's return home, encountering her alleged assailant, discovering Jade's body,
and calling nine one one. That call was made at
twelve twenty four PM, a full thirty one minutes after
(25:14):
the state contends Beverly drove up her driveway. We'll explore
why that amount of time may be misleading later.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Back to Bob, she says the HWKS video has her
dumping the garbage at eleven forty eight. Now, she claimed
at trial that there was some evidence that came in
that indicated that the clock was off, like that the
timestamp was off for the video. Now I'm asking was
(25:43):
it giving you more time or less time? And she's like,
I can't remember. So we have eleven forty eight, So
we've got the drive back to the house again seven
to ten minutes. So that puts us like twelve one,
twelve oh two, a few minutes scrolling Facebook and then
into the house. So it's like I was putting the
(26:06):
struggle minute a couple of minutes, you know, Like it's
it's twenty eight to thirty minutes like gap from when
like she gets in there and doesn't do anything. That
is our biggest issue to me. We're gonna have to
build these timelines out like hardcore, and it's going to
have to be through things that we can substantiate.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Murder on Songbird Road. We'll return after the break. Here
again is murders on.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Songbird Roads sources if they didn't sit with that in mind.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
We head to Songbird Road the next morning, after stopping
for coffee along the way.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
So we're going to start with the field trip over
to what was formerly Mike and Julie and Jades and
the rest of the kid's house. I'm curious to see
the layout. Yeah, I want to see I want to
see where it's situated.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
I want to.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Exactly or just like how.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Close there is to anything, you know, like walking distance.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Yeah, now that we're driving out of the commercial district,
you can see that it's feeling much more rural.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
It's very rural.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
While we were getting coffee, I asked the woman behind
the counter if she'd heard of the murder that took
place on Songbird Road. I thought she made it very interesting.
She said, it's sad, it is, and it is it's
but she also had her doubts as to whether or
not Julie did.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
It exactly, And I asked her, what's your source?
Speaker 2 (27:39):
They didn't televise this trial, right, so you're going to
get people to talk in a small town and you're
going to get the local news, like those are going
to be the two sources if they didn't go sit
in at the trial, right.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yeah, And often they enter mesh.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Exactly without us product.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
At the end, I kind of asked, well, you know,
do you think that Julie did it. She's like, I.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Don't, yeah, and so she has doubts. That's the thing.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
The concept of reasonable doubt has never been properly defined.
There is no blanket definition of what that means for jurors.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
There is. Every jurisdiction has a different definition for it.
You get your jury instructions when those are always argued
between the sides prior to them getting issued to the
jury when they're getting ready to go deliberate.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
There is no uniform definition of it.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
It was Friday, October thirteenth, twenty twenty three, the same
day Julia Beverly would be sentenced. It was a cloudy,
warm day as we made our way through the winding
rural roads. Halloween decor and some early seasonal tricks were
on display.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
We get a little TP action. It's Friday night lights
down here.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Awesome.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
I mean it's essentially pink houses.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
You know John Mellencamp too. That's what we're talking about.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
A road, we're getting remote.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
We're two miles out.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
We know that the house they disassembled it.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah, it's a song Bird line. Just blow by it.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Coming out.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Okay, we're back here, getting back here alright now we're
turning on to Songbird Road.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
There's a little.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Baseball so she told me about this. They used to
actually play little league games. It's grown over at this point,
Hoviotly you guys haven't been and there's the old concession stand.
And so we're two tens of a mile away from
the house. Over to our left, we've got clearly a farmer,
(29:53):
some abandoned cars, abandoned cars, got a good another abandoned
baseball field all grown over for clearly abandoned. All right,
so this is a neighbor small house carport back.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
There about to re keep off my property sign.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yes, I mean we're here.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
You can see where the where the house was.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Okay, so that's found that that's the barn. Then should
we go walk it. I think so, I think we should.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
I think we should.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
I don't want to pull on this little driveway. All right,
all right, let's go. Let's see what's up.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
It's just like a bit of a makeshift gravel driveway.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
To the right are two.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Giant, just mine overwhelmed, really mature trees that look like
they've seen better days.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Yeah, and I mean these are one hundred plus year
old trees.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Those are old old trees. The rash kind of amazing
looking trees.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
The two distinct trees that mark the driveway were the
same trees Julia's cousin Nikki immediately recognized in the social
media post the day of the murder.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
I don't know that I've ever seen a tree over
growing vines like that.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
We walked further up the driveway.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Probably about fifty yards from the road, leads up to
where I believe Julie would have pulled up. Okay, so
this is what she referred to as the barn. Now.
She said that they used to have horses, and they
used to keep horses in this barn back in the day.
So she says when she gets back from her huck's
(31:41):
trip that she pulls up right here, and she says
that the front door is open, and she notices it.
At some point they had a fence back here for
the dogs, which they've taken down. Let's walk in and
see so and she said there was no access to
(32:04):
the backyard because there was no gate in the fence,
and so this would have been the backyard, the fenced
in the backyard where the dogs wandered and there was
no access to it. So she would have had to
have gone into the house to let the dogs in,
because I asked her, a park here, like you knew
(32:24):
that you left the dogs out, but I asked her,
did you text Jade to let the dogs in? And
she did not?
Speaker 3 (32:33):
All right, So we.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
See what used to be the modular home, the double lie,
which was obviously removed. So it looks like it was what,
I don't know, twelve hundred square feet.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Maybe, yeah, one level.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
The house is no longer there, but the outline of
where it stood is still visible, as are the remnants
of what would have been water and electrical access. So
we still got some of the piping from So this
is the foundation that they lay.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
It's literally just kind of tarped.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, it's tarped and it was cinderblocks. I mean that
was literally the foundation. So this, if this was the
front door, this is where it went down with the
masked marauder for to believe that story.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Even in the exposed confines of the former homes footing,
the area feels nestled in an isolating way. And unfortunately,
this is not the kind of neighborhood where you would
have ring cameras or no way.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yeah, I mean this is rural. We're in farmland here,
there's no question about it. So if we're looking at
Songbird Road, got the neighbor to the left facing road
is probably about the house looks to be about one
hundred and fifty yards, and it's about the same to
the right.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yeah, the three are kind of equidistant, almost the three
closest homes, and neither one is directly across.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Yeah, and we're not close to any kind of main thoroughfare.
So like the concept of somebody walking back here seems
remote to me.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
You're not getting like casual foot traffic or somebody who
is zero changed to rob because they think that there
is something of great value, and.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
The zero chance of somebody just wandering around back here
you know, because somebody would have had to have known
that Jade was home.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Almost a year later, that exchange would come back to
haunt us. But in this moment, we were walking through
the remnants of a family's former life, building materials strewn
with broken bits of dogs, toys, and children's playthings, reminders
of lives interrupted and one ended.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
So it's a pretty she said. It was about two acres,
so I'm assuming it goes all the way to the
back here. This is all their land. Looks like a
recently cut down tree. It's rural. Yeah, I mean it's
so rural that if anybody's screaming in that house, I
don't know that they're hearing it, because I'd say that
(35:18):
that closest neighbor, if you're facing the road, it's probably
about one hundred and fifty yards.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Yeah, on either side. Should stop over there.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
I feel like we kind of should stop over there.
See if the belt I just heard. I look at
that bird up there.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
It's a turkey vulture. Wow, it's kind of ominous.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
It's super ominous. Wow.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Yeah. You hear a thump and you look up and
you see that.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Yeah, Wow, that's that's interesting. I've never seen one of
class like that. It's a good eye, Lauren, you know
that it's a Turkey culture.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
It lent more than a slightly portentous tone to the
morning heading into beverly scent and sing. But we had
one more stop to make along the way.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Should we have to gas station?
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
The time it would take us to get there was
only one of the surprises we were about to encounter
on the next murder on Songbird Road.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
The great aunt ends up giving the victim impact the family,
the family. There was like an undercurrent of real animosity
that was religious based in this family dynamic between these
two different families.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
That being to say that those three children are being
raised like as if it's vindication.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Adamantly stated it, turned to Julie and said it with conviction,
raised as Christians looking directly at her.
Speaker 4 (36:52):
That made no bones about it. Darkness the light.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Oh, that's what I wrote down.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
They're talking about?
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Are they alleging that this was some kind of murder?
Speaker 1 (37:08):
On Songbird Road is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our
executive producers are Taylor Chaqoine and Lauren Bright Pacheco. Research
writing and hosting by Lauren Bright Pacheco. Investigative reporting by
Bob Matta and Lauren Bright Pacheco, editing, sound design and
original music by Evan Tyre and Taylor Chaquoine. Additional music
(37:29):
by Ashrak Kurtz. Please like, subscribe, and leave us a review.
Wherever you're listening, you can follow me on all platforms
at Lauren Bright Pacheco and email the show with thought,
suggestions or tips at Investigating Murder at iHeartMedia dot com.
(38:03):
For more iHeart podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your favorite shows.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Thanks for listening.
Murder on Songbird Road is a production of iHeart Podcasts.
Previously on Murder on Songbird Road.
Speaker 2 (00:12):
I don't think she did it.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
That's Stuart, the biological father of Jaden.
Speaker 2 (00:17):
They've never found a weapon or if the change clothes
never made sense, still doesn't make sense.
Speaker 1 (00:22):
If there was a magic wand waved and Julie was out,
you wouldn't have any reservation whatsoever about Jaden.
Speaker 3 (00:30):
Being with her. No, she loved all her children.
Speaker 1 (00:34):
Nikki says she knows Julia extremely well, even for cousins.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
Even the ones that she didn't give birth to. That
is one thing that she is extremely good at.
Speaker 1 (00:43):
Beverly suddenly recalled that she actually stopped at Hucks. I said, Julie,
you got its home, because as of right now, they're
trying to say you never left the house.
Speaker 3 (00:51):
I called and asked for Carl Gustantine personally. I told
him that Julie remembered she stopped at Hucks for gas.
He said, well, I'll have to hear that from her.
And I said, well, she's already invoked an attorney, so
you have your information. And he said okay and hung
up the phone.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
The video from the gas station, what did they claim
they'd found.
Speaker 3 (01:12):
They got Julian camera stopping at the gas station to
throw away items in the same area.
Speaker 2 (01:19):
Julie is, there is a incident and this hall was
made at ten thirty for.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
A suspicious person. In no way.
Speaker 3 (01:28):
Yes, he's wearing a black hoodie and dark pants. We're
heading to Marian.
Speaker 2 (01:34):
I'm here for it. I'm ready.
Speaker 1 (01:37):
I'm Lauren bred Pacheco and this is murder on Songbird Road.
(02:02):
Julia Beverly sentencing was scheduled for Friday, October thirteenth, twenty
twenty three, the day before Bob Matta came down from Chicago.
I flew in through Saint Louis, Missouri, and drove the
two hours to Marion.
Speaker 3 (02:14):
We connected there in person for the first time.
Speaker 5 (02:18):
Hi.
Speaker 2 (02:19):
Hey.
Speaker 1 (02:19):
In person, Mada comes across more like a slightly jaded,
tough guy than a former defense attorney. He's recording Oh
we are Yeah, I had a new kid, so it
took me a while. He's long traded ties for T shirts,
a beard and a mustache that veers more biker than
bar exam, a look much more in keeping with his
additional passion to law and his wife Alison music.
Speaker 3 (02:42):
When we finally crossed paths. In Marion.
Speaker 1 (02:44):
He had just met with Julia Beverly at the Williamson
County Jail.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
So I get down their typical small town county jail,
but big structure. It's a relatively big structure. I don't know,
have you been into a jail.
Speaker 1 (02:58):
Yeah, So Pinkneyville where Chris is it basically looks like
a nineteen sixties high school.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Yeah, this one's a little more modern. It's still probably
thirty years old. But for Mary in Illinois, which is
extremely rural down here, it was big. Clearly they have
a pretty good amount of people in there because there
were several blocks, and you walk in and every jail
in prison has that smell. There's no other smell like
(03:26):
a jail or a prison.
Speaker 4 (03:27):
It's bad.
Speaker 2 (03:28):
It's like a weird maple syrup with like combined with
dirty feet.
Speaker 3 (03:33):
I can't say. It's kind of stress and depression.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
Yeah, that's oll that's for certain, Like if that's if
that had a smell, that's exactly what it would smell like.
So I get in, give them my creds. I wanted
to be able to meet with her with suprivacy so
that we could have like a full discussion.
Speaker 1 (03:52):
Since mod is still a licensed attorney, he was able
to meet with Beverly in an area that allows a
degree of privacy, as opposed to a commune visiting space,
which was conducive to the conversation he planned on having.
Speaker 2 (04:04):
So I wanted to interview her. I wanted to get
factually what her side of the story was, where it
wasn't being read through a transcript where I know obviously
things were not addressed, where things were inadmissible. I'm always
walking in having defended some pretty awful people in my life,
and I always can pride myself and be able to
(04:24):
sense if somebody seems off, I always feel like I
can pick them out. And I wasn't getting that sense
from her, you know. And I'm asking her a lot
of questions, like I wouldn't consider it to be an
interior Geisha, But I told her, I said, I'm going
to play Devil's advocate here. I want to pick out
the things that we know were issues at trial, the
(04:45):
things that we are going to be concerned with as
we're progressing through this. We want to address them. We
can't pretend that they don't exist. And I said, look,
I don't want you sugarcoating anything, Like if you and
Mike were in arguments, I want to hear authentically how
they were, Like, were you guys screamers? Were you dropping
f bombs in each other? What kind of relationship was it?
(05:06):
I want to know, because it all matters. She was candid.
I'd start with the background. I get the history of
her and Mike, the relationship with her and Jade.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Matt and I both know that while friends and family
often paint a sympathetic picture of the accused, some questions
and doubts can only be addressed by actually sitting with
them face to face.
Speaker 3 (05:27):
What was she like physically small?
Speaker 2 (05:30):
So she's probably four to eleven diminutive, small, like not imposing.
My wife's four eleven two, so I'm used to little,
but she's She's little, sweet, very nice. I start from
the history of her and Mike from the beginning. When
did you meet? How old were the kids? Julie's got
(05:51):
Jaden and Mike had Jade. They were both four years
old when they met. She goes through kind of like
the backstory in terms of a cook.
Speaker 3 (05:59):
Right, was a hostess? Yeah?
Speaker 2 (06:01):
They were working at this Benny's, which is an Italian
spot that they both worked out here and Marion. In
terms of the relationship, they kind of hit it off.
They both liked the fact that they had a young kid.
They felt that that was something that was going to
make them compatible in terms of being able to, hey,
you know, we're not going to go out tonight because
we have kids, you know, that type of thing. And
so they really kind of connected pretty quickly. The relationship
(06:24):
blossoms within a year, they're moving in together. I was
asking her, you know, how was your relationship with Jade. Initially,
my parents divorced when I was young, and I'm also
a parent of step children. I used that experiences from
me being a stepchild to like what not to do
in terms of being a step parent, you know, never
forcing kids to say I love you and let them
(06:46):
just develop organically their feelings for you, and all the
things that went on with me as a young kid.
I didn't want those same mistakes, and I wanted my
kids to grow to love me on their own accord.
So she did the same thing. She was very thoughtful
about it. I'm like, how was your relationship with Jessica,
who was Mike's ex mother of Jade.
Speaker 3 (07:08):
When I said that they never really interacted much.
Speaker 2 (07:11):
They didn't. That was kind of the deal. Anytime there
were issues with Jade, Jessica would never communicate with Julie.
She would always go to Mike, which irritated Julie obviously.
She's like, we're together, they have two kids together, they're
a blended family, and just Jessica just never would really
get with her like in terms of interacting. So she
(07:35):
gave me the examples of situations that had arisen over
the years. They weren't anything that lasted for long duration,
kind of like menial type things like there was a
thing where we'd be running late. I'd give Jade a
pop tart on the run type of breakfast. Jade wouldn't
eat it. And then Jade would mention something at school like, oh,
(07:57):
I didn't eat breakfast. My parents didn't feed me, and
they were calling Jessica and Jessica's like, oh, why aren't
you feeding my kid? And she starts like for a
couple months, like bringing boxes of cereal over, like as
if they're neglecting the kid. It's like those kind of
things were going on. So it definitely was never a
relationship where they were friendly.
Speaker 1 (08:16):
It doesn't sound like justin aside, this strained, if not
non existent relationship with Jessica could shed some light on
the lack of support for Julia in the days and
hours immediately following the murder. Also know that we have
reached out multiple times to multiple members of Jade's side
of the family, and you will hear their take as
(08:37):
well in future episodes. Back to Bob and his meeting
with Beverly.
Speaker 2 (08:42):
It wasn't like a battle, which just was like a
non existent relationship, which to me is strange. I mean,
if you've got blended families, and Jessica had had another kid,
so Jade had a half sister, and what had happened
during COVID when they shut the country down. Kids eventually
started having them remote and then as it started to
phase back, giving people the choice you want to send
(09:04):
your kids back or do you want to stay remote.
And so that was a sticky issue between Mike and
Julie because Mike and Julie wanted Jade to finish the
year just remote, Jessica wantitor back in school in person.
I guess Mike and Julie ended up having a beef
about it, and where Mike's like, well, look, ultimately, it's
(09:26):
not your kid. Jessica's going to have final say so
over this thing. So I'm like, well, did you harbor resentment?
Was that something that you would bring up in arguments?
She's like, no, not really.
Speaker 5 (09:37):
I think that's really interesting because Julie was working at
home for Hyatt, right, and Mike was working out of
a house at Cracker Barrel. So if Julie wanted Jade
to do remote learning, that puts the responsibility on her, right,
(09:57):
which speaks volumes to their relationship. Right, if you don't
like a kid, you don't want that kid doing remote
learning in your house.
Speaker 2 (10:07):
You want him out of the house because you have to,
you know, police it, right exactly.
Speaker 1 (10:14):
We'll be right back with Murder on Songbird Road. Now
back to Murder on Songbird Road. So, the portrait of
Beverly as a mother and a stepmother that had begun
to emerge from our preliminary interviews seems him keeping with
the fact that the state never presented a motive or
(10:36):
any testimony that painted Julia Beverly as abusive or violent. Instead,
they offered a timeline confirmed by her employer's records. Sell
signals and surveillance footage. According to the prosecution, on December fifth,
twenty twenty, Beverly was scheduled to work from home from
seven thirty am to twelve thirty pm. While she was
(11:00):
scheduled to have a break from nine thirty am to
nine forty five. Beverly was actually logged out of the
work system from nine thirty to ten fifteen am. It
is during that forty five minute window that the prosecution
contends Beverly brutally murdered Jade Beasley, meticulously removing all evidence
(11:22):
of blood from her person before returning to her home
office and typing text responses to customer inquiries and complaints
on social media for an additional fifty minutes. Beverly then
requested to end her work day early at eleven o
five am, and was granted time off at eleven oh seven,
when she logged off Hyatt's system. Beverly left the house
(11:46):
by eleven thirty six am.
Speaker 3 (11:49):
The prosecution contends that was.
Speaker 1 (11:51):
When Beverly departed with the bloody outfit she wore while
committing the murder, the materials she used to clean up,
and the murder weapon, all of this fitting into the
small bag. She was captured on video discarding at Hawk's
gas station, where she said she stopped to get gas
before realizing she'd left her.
Speaker 3 (12:10):
Credit cards at home.
Speaker 1 (12:12):
There are many issues with this narrative, which we will
address in great detail going forward, but one stuck out
immediately to both Mada and myself as soon as we
started reviewing the facts of this case. No blood was
ever found in Beverly's home office, not Beverly's or Jade Beasley's.
We will get back to the importance and probability of
(12:35):
that in terms of the prosecution's theory.
Speaker 3 (12:38):
But back to Bob and I lead up.
Speaker 2 (12:41):
To the fifth of December, which is that horrible day.
I'm like to start from the minute you open your eyes,
tell me what happened. I get the background about like
Jessica had had another child, Jade's half sister, and there
was a party that was supposed to be taking place
that weekend. Juliet been told by both Jade and Mike
(13:02):
that the party was taking place on Sunday. And December
fifth is Saturday, and she's working that day, and she
had pushed up her work schedule an hour she wanted
to get off an hour earlier, and I asked her,
was there a reason in particular that you wanted to
reschedule and move that hour up. She's like, no, not
in particular. Essentially, Mike's out of the house early by
(13:24):
like seven o'clock. He's working the morning shift at the
cracker barrel, and at that point it's just Julie and Jade.
She logs in remotely, key strokes the whole nine yards.
They know when she's off, you know, they know when
she's on. They know what she's doing on her computer.
About eight o'clock, Jade wanders in and she's got like
an office. It's got a door, and I'm like, was
(13:46):
the door closed? She's a guy typically will keep it closed,
and she said, jagging him in, I'm hungry, so we'll
go make yourself bowl of cereal. He says, okay, close
to the door. Doesn't hear from her for a couple hours,
and at some point Jade apparently comes in and says,
I'm hungry again. Julie's like, why don't we wait till lunch.
(14:08):
It's an hour and a half. We'll have a nice launch,
And she said Jade was upset about it, like she
was frustrated, and she's like, I'm hungry now, I want
to eat now. Julie's like, what's really going on. You
can't be that upset because I don't want you to
eat another bowl of cereal.
Speaker 1 (14:24):
It was at this point, according to Beverly, Jade confided
in her as to a situation she was navigating with
a friend from school. We are not diving into the
specifics of that conversation because it is not our intention
to sensationalize or exploit dynamics happening within an eleven.
Speaker 3 (14:41):
Year old social circle.
Speaker 1 (14:43):
But it isn't a new window that has come up
repeatedly in multiple interviews. We mention it now only because
it could explain the initial misconception that Jade was processing
something that could have prompted her to contemplate suicide. That
conversation is also what Beverly says led to the extension
(15:04):
of the break, which was supposed to last from nine
thirty to nine forty five AM.
Speaker 2 (15:10):
So what Julie tells me today is that she had
gone on break coinciding with when Jade's in the room
with her, and at some point this conversation's proceeding and
Julie feels like she's not making any headway with her,
and she stands up and she starts to usher her out.
She's like, I got to get back to work. My
(15:31):
break's over. I'm already ten minutes over. Go go, we'll
talk about it later.
Speaker 1 (15:37):
Mada pressed Beverly on the dynamic between her and Jade
regarding the conversation.
Speaker 2 (15:43):
She's like, well, I got up when I was trying
to end the conversation because I couldn't get her to
leave the room, because I needed to get back on
and continue to work and get logged back in because
I'd been out for way longer than fifteen minutes. While
I'm like, do you remember what time you logged in?
She said, I think it was ten thirteen. Is when
I get logged back in and I'm like, okay. At
(16:04):
some point you stand up and she's like yeah, and
what are you doing. She's like, well, I'm walking behind
Jade like this. You know, I'm behind her and I'm
not pushing her violently. I'm just kind of like, all right,
you got to go, so you get her out of
the room. I mean, I'm like, did that devolve into
a screaming match or you're screaming at her where like
(16:25):
She's like, no, none of that. Like I was obviously upset.
I was obviously frustrated. I got her out of the room.
I told her to go to her room and she's
like I log back in.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
According to her loggin and keystrokes, we know that Beverly
then returned to working typing exchanges from ten to fifteen am,
until she asked to wrap her day early and logged
off at eleven oh seven. During that window, phone records
also show that at ten nineteen she receives a silly
meme text from Jade's father Mike, before replying Wow, ask
(17:00):
at ten thirty nine if he's already off work. He
responds at eleven twenty three, she.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Gets a response that he's scheduled till two, but probably
going to get off at one.
Speaker 1 (17:13):
An important note, Bevely does not appear to have been
forthright with the police about the conversation she had with Jade,
or the fact Jade wasn't happy about ending it when
Beverly had to get back to work and sent her
to her room. One could argue that she didn't want
to divulge the nature of the conversation, or that she
had disciplined Jade in order to protect Jade's memory. One
(17:35):
could also argue it was to protect herself. Either way,
she decides to end her work day early.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
So she says, Okay, I've decided I want to do
some retail therapy, That's what she calls it. I've got
a bunch of people on my Christmas list. It's December fifth.
I'm going to go to Walmart. I'm going to shop.
So that's like at eleven oh seven. And at that
point I asked her, well, had you text anybody that
you were going shopping.
Speaker 1 (18:01):
She's like no, So Beverly logged off from work by
eleven oh seven and sell Tower pangs have her leaving
the house by eleven thirty six am. Here's how she
accounted for those twenty nine minutes.
Speaker 3 (18:13):
To Bob.
Speaker 2 (18:14):
She's like, all right, well, I had to get dressed
because like, I don't have to get dressed to work.
I'm in my pajamas, I got my clothes on, I
brushed my hair, brushed my teeth, and I let dogs out.
They have two decent sized dogs. One's like an Australian shepherd,
the other's like a rotten mix. So the big dogs.
I'm like, okay, and then you leave and she's like, yeah,
(18:36):
I leave, and I'm like, well, did you remember to
let the dogs back in? And she's like no. I'm like, well,
if i'm law enforcement, it's extremely convenient that you've let
the dogs out in the backyard when all this is
taking place, whether it's you or an intruder. And I've
done it. I've left my dog out, you know, if
(18:57):
I'm in a rush. She claims that she'd just forgot
to bring the dogs back in when she left.
Speaker 1 (19:02):
This would become another of what Bob and I call
bad facts for Beverly, as is the fact that Beverly
left eleven year old Jade at home alone, especially since
in Illinois it is illegal to leave a child under
the age of fourteen home alone. This is the highest
age requirement in the United States.
Speaker 2 (19:21):
And so she's like, all right, well, I tell Jade,
I'm going to be gone a couple hours. Just play
on your phone and you know, I'll be back. She's like,
it wasn't unusual for us to leave Jaden and Jade.
We'd never leave the little kids. But if it was
like just a couple hours, like two hour max. We
would leave the eleven year olds if it was during
the day. So I'm like, did you invite her? She's like, no,
(19:41):
I didn't invite her. I want to clear my head,
so she says, she goes out, gets in the car,
starts driving.
Speaker 1 (19:48):
Beverly says she was about halfway into her travels when
she noticed her gas light was on and the car
was on empty.
Speaker 2 (19:55):
She's at a red light as she opens her bath
and she says she's got two purses. She uses a
bigger purse when she's got the babies because she keeps
diapers in there, and she's got a smaller purse that
when she doesn't have the kids, she'll just carry the
smaller purse around where she drops her cards in there
and ID So, she says, she realizes she doesn't have
(20:17):
her a debit card there. She continues on to hawks
pulls in and then at that point she's like, sometimes
I have to change the kids in the car. I
had these diapers there, so I pull in and I
dump these in the garbage. I'm like, so you pull
up to like a pump and you're using one of
the garbage cans that they have typically between the pumps
(20:38):
and she's like, yeah, so then I obviously have to
go home and get my cards.
Speaker 1 (20:44):
This is when the prosecution contends Beverly dumped bloody clothing, shoes,
cleaning materials, and the murder weapon, even though the surveillance
footage from the gas station shows her discarding a small
bag that easily fit in one hand. It's also of
note that when her car was seized after the murder
and placed in storage, it was indeed on empty. Back
(21:08):
to Bob and what Beverly told him about returning home
and sitting in the driveway in front of the barn
situated to the side of the house, scrolling Facebook before
becoming aware something seemed off.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
She can hear the dogs barking, and not like oh,
Mommy's home, but like that deeper, deeper bark, like oh
there's a squirrel or there's another dog, like that real
deep guttural bark the dogs can get. So she's got
the dogs barking like that in the backyard and this
door is ajar. What is going on here? I don't
(21:43):
know if she's on a high alert, but she feels
like something is astray, like something seems off to her,
and she claims that she goes up, she notices that
the front door is open, the storm doors closed. I'm like,
and you did not leave it that way. She's like,
I did not leave it that way, and she claims
that it's as soon as she pulls the storm out
open that she notices blood in the living room and
(22:04):
somebody clad in all black, it's got a mask on
black gloves comes charging at her and that he's got
a knife. And I said, okay, where are you locationally,
She's like, I am literally in the doorway of the house.
Well what do you do? She's like, well, I put
my hand up because he's got the knife like above
shoulder height drawn back. Well what kind of knife is it?
(22:27):
She's like, well, I don't know. Did it look like
a kitchen knife, like a chef's knife, like what we
used to cut vegetables. She's like, yeah, it definitely wasn't
like a folding knife. So I'm like it was fixed blade,
just a regular kitchen knife. She's like it could have been.
I'm like, could it have been one of your knives?
She's like it could have been. And so she claims
that this guy comes at her, she puts her left
(22:50):
hand up. I'm like, what handed are you. She's like,
I'm right handed, but I had my little purse in
my right hand, so instinctally I put my left hand
up and got a cut. And we wrestle around and
then I get away from him and I make a
bee line to Mike's bedstand because Mike has a gun
in there. And while I'm on the way, I hear
(23:14):
the storm door slam and I'm like, well, do you
go get the gun? So I never get the gun.
She's like, I didn't. I didn't. I don't know how
to shoot it, but I thought if I would get it,
I could scare him off. I'm like, so, what stopped
you from getting the gun? I was retelling this story
to Alison again.
Speaker 1 (23:30):
Alison has Mata's wife and also a criminal defense attorney.
Speaker 2 (23:33):
And Allison's like, I don't care if you heard this,
like the storm door slam or not. I'm getting the gun,
whether I know how to shoot it or not getting
the gun. So Alison had a little problem with that
part of the story that she didn't just go and
get the gun. So at that point I said, okay,
what do you do. Then she's like, well, I go
to the bathroom. Our bathroom.
Speaker 1 (23:56):
That's when definitely said she rensed her bleeding hands and
wrapped her left hand with a cloth because of the
wounds to the side of the hand that took the
brunt of the assailant's knife.
Speaker 2 (24:07):
Well, did you have to walk by the bathroom that
Jay was found in in order to get to your bathroom?
She's like, no, I didn't. What's going through your mind
at this point, She's like, I have no idea. Honestly,
I have no idea. And then she says she wasn't
even thinking. And then she's walking through and then she
sees the blood in the living room. She says, oh
my god, Jay, she's walking past the bathroom and she
(24:29):
hears the water running and she opens the door and
it's like a nightmare. It's like nothing she's ever seen.
So I'm watching her reaction and she's telling me this
story and she starts crying authentically it seemed to me.
But you never know what the genesis of that is.
You don't know if it's regret, you don't know if
it's reliving it.
Speaker 1 (24:52):
What remains problematic for Beverly and was leveraged by the
prosecution is the amount of time their timeline purports transpired
between Beverly's return home, encountering her alleged assailant, discovering Jade's body,
and calling nine one one. That call was made at
twelve twenty four PM, a full thirty one minutes after
(25:14):
the state contends Beverly drove up her driveway. We'll explore
why that amount of time may be misleading later.
Speaker 2 (25:21):
Back to Bob, she says the HWKS video has her
dumping the garbage at eleven forty eight. Now, she claimed
at trial that there was some evidence that came in
that indicated that the clock was off, like that the
timestamp was off for the video. Now I'm asking was
(25:43):
it giving you more time or less time? And she's like,
I can't remember. So we have eleven forty eight, So
we've got the drive back to the house again seven
to ten minutes. So that puts us like twelve one,
twelve oh two, a few minutes scrolling Facebook and then
into the house. So it's like I was putting the
(26:06):
struggle minute a couple of minutes, you know, Like it's
it's twenty eight to thirty minutes like gap from when
like she gets in there and doesn't do anything. That
is our biggest issue to me. We're gonna have to
build these timelines out like hardcore, and it's going to
have to be through things that we can substantiate.
Speaker 1 (26:30):
Murder on Songbird Road. We'll return after the break. Here
again is murders on.
Speaker 3 (26:41):
Songbird Roads sources if they didn't sit with that in mind.
Speaker 1 (26:45):
We head to Songbird Road the next morning, after stopping
for coffee along the way.
Speaker 2 (26:50):
So we're going to start with the field trip over
to what was formerly Mike and Julie and Jades and
the rest of the kid's house. I'm curious to see
the layout. Yeah, I want to see I want to
see where it's situated.
Speaker 3 (27:05):
I want to.
Speaker 2 (27:07):
Exactly or just like how.
Speaker 4 (27:08):
Close there is to anything, you know, like walking distance.
Speaker 1 (27:12):
Yeah, now that we're driving out of the commercial district,
you can see that it's feeling much more rural.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
It's very rural.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
While we were getting coffee, I asked the woman behind
the counter if she'd heard of the murder that took
place on Songbird Road. I thought she made it very interesting.
She said, it's sad, it is, and it is it's
but she also had her doubts as to whether or
not Julie did.
Speaker 4 (27:35):
It exactly, And I asked her, what's your source?
Speaker 2 (27:39):
They didn't televise this trial, right, so you're going to
get people to talk in a small town and you're
going to get the local news, like those are going
to be the two sources if they didn't go sit
in at the trial, right.
Speaker 3 (27:50):
Yeah, And often they enter mesh.
Speaker 4 (27:52):
Exactly without us product.
Speaker 2 (27:55):
At the end, I kind of asked, well, you know,
do you think that Julie did it. She's like, I.
Speaker 3 (27:59):
Don't, yeah, and so she has doubts. That's the thing.
Speaker 1 (28:03):
The concept of reasonable doubt has never been properly defined.
There is no blanket definition of what that means for jurors.
Speaker 2 (28:12):
There is. Every jurisdiction has a different definition for it.
You get your jury instructions when those are always argued
between the sides prior to them getting issued to the
jury when they're getting ready to go deliberate.
Speaker 4 (28:27):
There is no uniform definition of it.
Speaker 1 (28:30):
It was Friday, October thirteenth, twenty twenty three, the same
day Julia Beverly would be sentenced. It was a cloudy,
warm day as we made our way through the winding
rural roads. Halloween decor and some early seasonal tricks were
on display.
Speaker 2 (28:46):
We get a little TP action. It's Friday night lights
down here.
Speaker 3 (28:50):
Awesome.
Speaker 4 (28:51):
I mean it's essentially pink houses.
Speaker 2 (28:55):
You know John Mellencamp too. That's what we're talking about.
Speaker 4 (29:00):
A road, we're getting remote.
Speaker 2 (29:04):
We're two miles out.
Speaker 4 (29:07):
We know that the house they disassembled it.
Speaker 2 (29:12):
Yeah, it's a song Bird line. Just blow by it.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Coming out.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Okay, we're back here, getting back here alright now we're
turning on to Songbird Road.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
There's a little.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Baseball so she told me about this. They used to
actually play little league games. It's grown over at this point,
Hoviotly you guys haven't been and there's the old concession stand.
And so we're two tens of a mile away from
the house. Over to our left, we've got clearly a farmer,
(29:53):
some abandoned cars, abandoned cars, got a good another abandoned
baseball field all grown over for clearly abandoned. All right,
so this is a neighbor small house carport back.
Speaker 1 (30:08):
There about to re keep off my property sign.
Speaker 2 (30:12):
Yes, I mean we're here.
Speaker 3 (30:15):
You can see where the where the house was.
Speaker 2 (30:17):
Okay, so that's found that that's the barn. Then should
we go walk it. I think so, I think we should.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
I think we should.
Speaker 2 (30:27):
I don't want to pull on this little driveway. All right,
all right, let's go. Let's see what's up.
Speaker 1 (30:39):
It's just like a bit of a makeshift gravel driveway.
Speaker 3 (30:43):
To the right are two.
Speaker 1 (30:45):
Giant, just mine overwhelmed, really mature trees that look like
they've seen better days.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
Yeah, and I mean these are one hundred plus year
old trees.
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Those are old old trees. The rash kind of amazing
looking trees.
Speaker 1 (31:03):
The two distinct trees that mark the driveway were the
same trees Julia's cousin Nikki immediately recognized in the social
media post the day of the murder.
Speaker 4 (31:13):
I don't know that I've ever seen a tree over
growing vines like that.
Speaker 3 (31:16):
We walked further up the driveway.
Speaker 2 (31:18):
Probably about fifty yards from the road, leads up to
where I believe Julie would have pulled up. Okay, so
this is what she referred to as the barn. Now.
She said that they used to have horses, and they
used to keep horses in this barn back in the day.
So she says when she gets back from her huck's
(31:41):
trip that she pulls up right here, and she says
that the front door is open, and she notices it.
At some point they had a fence back here for
the dogs, which they've taken down. Let's walk in and
see so and she said there was no access to
(32:04):
the backyard because there was no gate in the fence,
and so this would have been the backyard, the fenced
in the backyard where the dogs wandered and there was
no access to it. So she would have had to
have gone into the house to let the dogs in,
because I asked her, a park here, like you knew
(32:24):
that you left the dogs out, but I asked her,
did you text Jade to let the dogs in? And
she did not?
Speaker 3 (32:33):
All right, So we.
Speaker 2 (32:33):
See what used to be the modular home, the double lie,
which was obviously removed. So it looks like it was what,
I don't know, twelve hundred square feet.
Speaker 3 (32:48):
Maybe, yeah, one level.
Speaker 1 (32:52):
The house is no longer there, but the outline of
where it stood is still visible, as are the remnants
of what would have been water and electrical access. So
we still got some of the piping from So this
is the foundation that they lay.
Speaker 3 (33:05):
It's literally just kind of tarped.
Speaker 2 (33:08):
Yeah, it's tarped and it was cinderblocks. I mean that
was literally the foundation. So this, if this was the
front door, this is where it went down with the
masked marauder for to believe that story.
Speaker 1 (33:25):
Even in the exposed confines of the former homes footing,
the area feels nestled in an isolating way. And unfortunately,
this is not the kind of neighborhood where you would
have ring cameras or no way.
Speaker 2 (33:39):
Yeah, I mean this is rural. We're in farmland here,
there's no question about it. So if we're looking at
Songbird Road, got the neighbor to the left facing road
is probably about the house looks to be about one
hundred and fifty yards, and it's about the same to
the right.
Speaker 1 (33:54):
Yeah, the three are kind of equidistant, almost the three
closest homes, and neither one is directly across.
Speaker 2 (34:02):
Yeah, and we're not close to any kind of main thoroughfare.
So like the concept of somebody walking back here seems
remote to me.
Speaker 1 (34:12):
You're not getting like casual foot traffic or somebody who
is zero changed to rob because they think that there
is something of great value, and.
Speaker 2 (34:24):
The zero chance of somebody just wandering around back here
you know, because somebody would have had to have known
that Jade was home.
Speaker 1 (34:36):
Almost a year later, that exchange would come back to
haunt us. But in this moment, we were walking through
the remnants of a family's former life, building materials strewn
with broken bits of dogs, toys, and children's playthings, reminders
of lives interrupted and one ended.
Speaker 2 (34:56):
So it's a pretty she said. It was about two acres,
so I'm assuming it goes all the way to the
back here. This is all their land. Looks like a
recently cut down tree. It's rural. Yeah, I mean it's
so rural that if anybody's screaming in that house, I
don't know that they're hearing it, because I'd say that
(35:18):
that closest neighbor, if you're facing the road, it's probably
about one hundred and fifty yards.
Speaker 3 (35:26):
Yeah, on either side. Should stop over there.
Speaker 2 (35:28):
I feel like we kind of should stop over there.
See if the belt I just heard. I look at
that bird up there.
Speaker 1 (35:34):
It's a turkey vulture. Wow, it's kind of ominous.
Speaker 2 (35:39):
It's super ominous. Wow.
Speaker 3 (35:43):
Yeah. You hear a thump and you look up and
you see that.
Speaker 2 (35:46):
Yeah, Wow, that's that's interesting. I've never seen one of
class like that. It's a good eye, Lauren, you know
that it's a Turkey culture.
Speaker 1 (35:55):
It lent more than a slightly portentous tone to the
morning heading into beverly scent and sing. But we had
one more stop to make along the way.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
Should we have to gas station?
Speaker 2 (36:05):
Yeah, let's do it.
Speaker 1 (36:07):
The time it would take us to get there was
only one of the surprises we were about to encounter
on the next murder on Songbird Road.
Speaker 2 (36:19):
The great aunt ends up giving the victim impact the family,
the family. There was like an undercurrent of real animosity
that was religious based in this family dynamic between these
two different families.
Speaker 1 (36:34):
That being to say that those three children are being
raised like as if it's vindication.
Speaker 2 (36:43):
Adamantly stated it, turned to Julie and said it with conviction,
raised as Christians looking directly at her.
Speaker 4 (36:52):
That made no bones about it. Darkness the light.
Speaker 3 (36:57):
Oh, that's what I wrote down.
Speaker 4 (36:59):
They're talking about?
Speaker 3 (37:01):
Are they alleging that this was some kind of murder?
Speaker 1 (37:08):
On Songbird Road is a production of iHeart Podcasts. Our
executive producers are Taylor Chaqoine and Lauren Bright Pacheco. Research
writing and hosting by Lauren Bright Pacheco. Investigative reporting by
Bob Matta and Lauren Bright Pacheco, editing, sound design and
original music by Evan Tyre and Taylor Chaquoine. Additional music
(37:29):
by Ashrak Kurtz. Please like, subscribe, and leave us a review.
Wherever you're listening, you can follow me on all platforms
at Lauren Bright Pacheco and email the show with thought,
suggestions or tips at Investigating Murder at iHeartMedia dot com.
(38:03):
For more iHeart podcasts, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you get your favorite shows.
Speaker 3 (38:10):
Thanks for listening.
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