When Was the Shot?

I'm sixty-one years old. I was probably twenty-four or twenty-five and living in Germany at the time this went down in the state of Georgia.

I had a baby in November 1989 and we returned to the US on Halloween just short of his second birthday. I no longer recall if he was a newborn or a year old when I told my sister one December something like "I've known for some time your marriage is oppressive."

My sister majored in psychology and because of that likely knew some tricks for jerking me around when I was fourteen and she was twenty or twenty-one, but she's never been very socially savvy. She's one of several psychology majors I've known who majored in psychology trying to get a clue.[1]

So when her 6.5 years younger sister who was a full-time homemaker with no career and less college than her told her an opinion about her marriage, my older sister was so shocked by this brilliant insight and life changing epiphany she physically dropped the phone. And PROMPTLY decided to get divorced, but put off filing until after the Christmas holidays.

So after Christmas which means probably in January of either 1990 or 1991, she filed for divorce and on Easter Sunday -- so either April 15, 1990 or March 31, 1991 -- Julius brutally assaults her and dies by gunshot wound without a suicide note and it's declared a suicide.

I am ten million percent certain it was Easter Sunday because I attempted suicide at age seventeen on Easter Sunday and between these two events, I had PTSD and DREADED Easter Sunday for many years.

I was told she slept with hubby number two for the first time just as soon as it was legally okay because of where the divorce proceedings stood. So sometime in the three or three and a half months between filing for divorce and Easter Sunday, she gets involved with a computer programmer at work with health issues still living with his mommy in his mid to late twenties because he's five years younger than her and eighteen months older than me.

And some guy she's JUST gotten involved with in the past few weeks lets her spend the night at his place following a brutal assault while she looks like hell and is covered in bruises instead of going "Woah! I didn't think I was signing up for THIS when I asked you out for dinner!"

That's the story I'm supposed to believe. I'm supposed to believe it wasn't already a long-standing illicit affair prior to that or something that somehow makes logical sense of him taking her home with him on that particular night. He's just a stand-up guy who stood by her during this crisis.

I've seen no evidence that's a reasonable characterization of the man. He's lazy and selfish and married a woman five years older than him for her money and he has expensive tastes and yells out the car window shit like "Yeehaw!!" as he's driving by and feels immune from consequences to mock lower class people on their riding mower.

He drove to see Hoover Dam as a once in a lifetime opportunity while visiting me while I sat in the ER with my sister in a small town forty miles from my house on an isolated military base because she was beginning yet another miscarriage. He also went out with "the boys in his band" during another of her miscarriages because it was too much stress for him.

If I were her, I would have called a locksmith on a Saturday and had the locks changed while bleeding out his baby AGAIN. He's never done one single goddamned thing that fits with this claim that "He's good in a crisis and that's why I put up with his shit."

She called him at like 5am to tell him she needed to go to the ER because she had Stevens-Johnson Syndrome AGAIN and he hung up on her rather than rushing over to take care of her. She was bedridden for months during her pregnancy and he would go pick up takeout and couldn't get her order right with a cellphone in his pocket. Too fucking lazy to CALL the bedridden wife pregnant with his child and check when his memory failed him.

So decades after the fact, this is what I recall being told repeatedly about events that occurred while I was living on another continent:

The weekend before, Julius bought a gun and called several people who knew my sister, including our parents, trying to find her. She and her new man were elsewhere, probably camping that weekend in the Atlanta area to see some car race.

So probably the Monday prior to Easter Sunday, my sister gets phone calls from multiple people who know her advising her of this unusual behavior where Julius is frantically trying to find her because she's not at her house with no explanation for why this is urgent.

On Sunday, Julius comes to her house to pick up dining chairs or something like that as part of the divorce settlement. He tells her their divorce isn't really final. There's some stupid typo in the paperwork like a misspelled name and it's not legally binding because of this technicality.

His sister is a LAWYER. She may have reviewed the paperwork for her brother and he's a couple quarters shy of a master's degree from UGA, so this is a credible claim and she doesn't think he's just making shit up.

She's already sold the house that she got free and clear in the divorce settlement due to him having atrocious credit, so he signed away his legal rights to the house at the time she bought the house in her name and got a mortgage solely in her name in their gender swapped marriage where he supported her career and kept the house spotless, though he didn't cook.

It sold in record time, like seventeen days, and she's got a job lined up elsewhere in another city and if her divorce isn't really final, she's got a big headache on her hands. Does this interfere with her leaving town and starting life over elsewhere?

Somehow picking up chairs leads to brutal assault for the next four hours. I've never heard any explanation for how we go from talking while moving chairs to choking and RAPING.

The start of this doesn't sound like Julius really planned to assault her for the next four hours. The way to bet is he's needling her about her plans to shaft him having a hitch and she says something that provokes him, knowing he's already emotionally on cliff's edge about going from cushy life to having nothing to show for supporting her career for years very suddenly and in a short timeframe with no warning.

Because prior to my discussion with her in December, there was no indication she was thinking of leaving because she wasn't thinking of leaving until I said that. So this was like lightning out of a blue sky.

She said she had never lied to him, so "when his eyes stopped being black and turned blue again" -- in other words when there was physical evidence he had calmed down some and was no longer temporarily insane in a fit of rage -- she convinced him she wouldn't call the police if he would just let her go.

The assault happened at her house in their master bedroom. I'm certain of this because he died in her bed and this is the reason she donated her bedroom set to Goodwill and bought a new one.

It was our parents old bedroom set handed down to her. It was a family heirloom. She would have never given it away had it not been emotionally poisoned by a four hour brutal assault.

And unlike some parts of this story, my mother corroborated that they gave it to Goodwill. My mother is the person who met Goodwill at the house when they came to pick it up.

There appeared to be nothing wrong with the bedroom set. They were astonished this was being donated. There was very little blood on a blanket or bedspread from his death. The furniture was not damaged in the assault nor in his death.

Goodwill employees were like "Are you sure???" And without explaining why, Mom instructed them to haul it away, we're sure.

And of course when I visited my sister, she had a different bedroom set. So the old one was gone. That part is certainly absolutely TRUE.

So she convinced him to LEAVE supposedly? Or to LET her LEAVE...HER house where she lived?

I guess the story is she convinced him to physically leave and she immediately goes to the police to report the assault and when she returns home, after dark, his car is in the front driveway, the backdoor is damaged where he broke in.

My sister talked trash about this being stupid. Like he's apparently trying to hide the break-in by going in the backdoor but he stupidly parks in the driveway, like she will be fooled.

I'm fairly confident by now it's after dark because the story is his car is out front, there's a light on in the house and a figure is visible in one of the windows, so she knows he's in the house because he's too stupid to keep it dark.

The figure is SUPPOSEDLY Julius.

So "conveniently," she's so traumatized that a friend picked her up from the police station and drove her home, they are approaching the house with Julius's car parked out front and there's a light on and a man visible from the street in one of the windows. 

She tells the friend "Don't stop! He's here!" They drive past, go to a phone somewhere and call the cops and the cops show up, apparently to a dead body because they tested her hands for gunpowder, which implies the police never heard a gunshot.

When was the shot? Why was the shot? Who made the shot?

Supposedly, he was ALIVE when she left for the police station and alive when she drove home and he's such a stupid idiot there's circumstancial evidence convincing her friend he's alive and was standing in the window when they drove past.

The court scene from Legally Blonde comes to mind. Julius shooting himself in the time between her driving by the house and the police showing up doesn't make sense.

It's always been implied but not stated that the cops showed up and then he shot himself. 

But if that's true, why did they test her hands for gunpowder? If the cops showed up, announced their presence and had a screaming match with an armed nutcase who chose to shoot himself rather than be arrested, shouldn't the police be certain my sister couldn't have possibly shot him?

And if he shot himself prior to the cops showing up, WHY??? What triggered it?

Why not jump in his car and leave to avoid the police? What is so threatening about seeing a vehicle that isn't hers, that belongs to her friend, which he may or may not recognize, drive past the house while he waits for her to return home?

Surely, he didn't see my sister in a van driving down the street in the dark which never stopped? So what caused him to commit suicide without a suicide note suddenly and apparently without prior plans to do so? 

I spent DECADES suicidal. There's lots of known patterns of behavior of suicidal people that immediately precedes the suicide if it's planned.

Picking up chairs and assaulting your divorcing wife is not one of them. They give stuff away and wrap up details, like a living will "Here, I want you in specific to have this cherished item when I'm gone. Don't read too much into it. Don't infer I've got the means of my death lined up and the time of my death planned."

And my sister insists it wasn't planned or there would have been a suicide note. She says he shot himself in the heart "poetically" to say "look what she's doing to me emotionally" and accidentally killed himself. She claims both that he killed himself to avoid arrest and also claims it was dirt of an accident.

So what triggered him to put a gun to his chest and pull the trigger and either intentionally or accidentally kill himself? There's NO real explanation for why he supposedly shot himself and killed himself sort of accidentally.

It sounds like she's trying too hard to leave no loose ends in her story. If she's innocent, she doesn't need to explain it. She can be all "I don't know! Why are you asking ME?" instead of making sure everyone understands his state of mind at the time of his death when she supposedly wasn't there when the shooting occurred.

The story suddenly makes a lot more sense if the boyfriend drops by the house, let's himself in with a key or breaks down the backdoor because he hears something, picks up the gun Julius bought and shoots Julius. Then they concoct a cover story and cover it up.

The boyfriend turns a light on and stands in the window to convince the unwitting friend driving her home that Julius is alive and well at that point in time, not already a dead body under a blanket trying to delay cooling in a bed in the back bedroom.

She drives by and the boyfriend is watching for a vehicle he will recognize and goes and uncovers the body, walks out the backdoor and hoofs it to wherever his car is parked and is gone before the police arrive to a dead body and plausible "suicide" and they test the hands of the only plausible murder suspect and rule it a suicide even though there are holes in that theory.

So she gives away the bedroom set perhaps to hide or destroy evidence. She doesn't want me or anyone else to see it and go "Wait a minute, this doesn't add up. It conflicts with something you said about the assault."

My sister told me her second husband's mother said repeatedly "She killed her first husband and she's going to kill you too!" I've explained previously that for years I just kind of assumed it was wild speculation and I've changed my mind. His mother almost certainly saw my sister that same day.

I've never heard one word that suggests her second husband was ever concerned about what is probably a credible claim from his own mother that "I think she killed him!" It's always been framed like Mom had issues and it's crazy talk and no one takes her seriously.

If her second husband was her accomplice and the shooter, that would explain the lack of gunpowder on her hands and also explain why he's so certain his mother's concerns are unwarranted.

Because he knows "No, Mom. She didn't kill him. I did. So there's nothing to worry about here."

Also, the first husband was a little guy, like 5'6". The second husband is bigger, maybe 5'8".

My sister made sure to emphasize what a deranged fit of rage Julius was in that he stupidly parked out front and then tries to hide his presence by breaking in the backdoor -- this supposedly occurred after his eyes turned blue again and the fit of rage was over.

And she made sure to emphasize that his deranged state and fit of rage explains how her small first husband came up with the physical strength to break in. You don't need that explanation if it's her larger boyfriend/second husband breaking in via whatever door he believes to be easiest to break down based on his engineering degree and familiarity with the house.

The men are not that far apart in height and both had dark hair. Through a window in the dark, close enough to play body double for the dead man in the back bedroom.

Also, the boyfriend likely knew about the frantic phone calls the weekend before and likely knew she was going to meet Julius at her house. So either it's premeditated murder or he showed up at her house because she is running late or something for meeting him.

I know the assault was four hours and began in like early afternoon during daylight hours. I know she went home after dark following filing a police report. I've never heard specific times listed, which leaves wiggle room for covering time gaps she can't explain.

So I've never gone "Wait a minute. How long does it take to file a police report? What happened during this missing hour or two?"[2]

Having said all that, I'm now wondering why she was conveniently out of town the weekend before. Did she know Julius would get really bad news and left to be out of harms way? Did she intentionally social engineer her first husband providing the weapon used in his own murder?

She certainly has a track record of manipulative shit involving ME, such as offering to pay for therapy sessions and getting her best friend to volunteer to drive me knowing neither of them would ever have to come through. It was an empty promise thatade them look heroic with no risk of any cost to either of them and her friend probably was told it's not something she actually has to do. Just pretend you are willing.

This is her best friend dating to eighth grade whom she stayed friends with for life. The way to bet is she has been an accomplice on other occasions and knows a lot about my sister's life no one else knows.

This would explain the persistent close friendship that survived living in different cities for years and where my sister talks ENDLESS trash about her friend's inability to keep a man, her multiple abortions and other "stupid shit" she endlessly does that makes it seem odd they are still friends.

This may have been staged well before that week. If my sister laundered large sums of money by paying off the mountain of student loans he had and her second husband discovered the crimes and blackmailed her into a relationship with him, then Julius was someone capable of turning them both in to the federal government for serious crimes at her job where she had a security clearance for doing super secret stuff.

Footnotes 

[1] In GIS school, I had a classmate trying to change fields from psychology. She went into psychology because Daddy was schizophrenic and she desperately needed to sort her life, then decided there's too many nutcases working as mental health professionals.

That clinched it for me. It actually was a pattern and I wasn't an egomaniac IMAGINING things. A LOT of people study psychology because they don't innately understand people and why their lives don't work.

[2] I'm not certain I'm using these online tools correctly, but the Internet suggests on April 15, 1990, sunset was at 19:02 and it wasn't really dark until probably 8pm.

If she meets Julius between noon and two pm, which is my impression, and the assault lasts four hours, what happened after that -- after 4pm or 6pm and before 8pm -- that it's definitely dark and not twilight when she goes home with a third party witness who can swear on a stack of Bibles "There was definitely a man standing in the window who plausibly could have been Julius, though of course I didn't get a clear view because it was dark"?

For that matter, as far as I know, my sister is the ONLY still living person who can say for certain when they met and how long the assault was.

I have never heard four hours worth of details about the assault. She did tell me that four hours is the average length of time a violent rape typically lasts.

If the assault lasted a mere thirty minutes or an hour, enough to leave choke marks, bruises and semen as evidence, and then the boyfriend shows up like they planned, that gives them multiple hours of free time to stage the cover up.

If she meets him at noon and it's all over by one pm and she and the boyfriend proceed with the cover-up while carefully keeping the body warm with an electric blanket as was done in a Columbo episode -- and police type stories and mystery stories were her favorite genre -- they can grill the neighbors to their heart's content and not be able to put together information that points to the boyfriend as the shooter.

"Oh, officer, I'm pretty sure the boyfriend left about 12:30pm because I was just coming home from lunch at the usual place I stop on the way home from church and I can tell you without checking a clock that's about 12:30pm because that's been my routine for ten years. If nothing unusual happens like a car wreck causing a traffic jam, I'm always back in time for my favorite pregame sports show of blah blah blah blah blah."

Which is something my sister could have known about long-time neighbors. She could have known if we are here and visible at x time, he will see us as he comes home and can tell the cops you left and then he won't come outside again for hours. You can hear him hollering about his losing team every Sunday.

So if the police are asking "Did you see anything between 2pm and 6pm?", there's nothing anyone can point to. The crime is already over. 

Listing four hours -- the average length of time of a typical sexual assault -- is plausible and doesn't require four hours of gruesome details to back up. They have heard that figure before. 

He's dead. He won't be tried for rape. We don't need to document that in detail and if the cops aren't sexual deviants themselves, they would probably rather not bother if it's not necessary. She says choked. We can see choke marks. She's bruised. There's semen. SEEMS LEGIT!!