![]() She had divorced Joel’s father three years earlier and was leading a quiet, uneventful life in the wake of a turbulent marriage. Her son, 10-year-old Joel Kirkpatrick, had been stabbed to death.Īt the time of the murder, Rea was a single mother working toward a doctorate in educational psychology. She told police that she struggled with the man, who fled. She discovered an intruder, but saw no sign of her son, in her Lawrenceville, Illinois, home. 13, 1997, Rea was jolted awake by a scream. The story remains, still, almost unspeakable. As she tries to say more, she breaks down. That is all she can muster about the worst night of her life. “I tucked Joel in, but I feel so guilty I didn’t hold him longer,” Julie Rea said, her voice welling with emotion.
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