The Murder of Joel Kirkpatrick: How the show “20/20” Exonerated His Convicted Killer

Joel Kirkpatrick and Julie Rea

Joel Kirkpatrick was like every other ten year old. His father, Len, describes his son as the smartest kid he ever met. Not just because he was his father, but because Joel truly was intelligent. He remembers how often Joel’s teachers would praise him for his academics. Joel’s mother, Julie, describes Joel as kind, sensitive, truly funny, caring and perceptive. She even remembers how much her son hated bath time, a common hatred amongst kids his age. Nonetheless, Joel frequently mentioned how he dreamed of being a video game programmer. A career that showcased his creativity and intelligence. Julie and Len married quite young. Len was 18 and Julie was 17. Due to Julie’s age, her parents had to consent to the marriage beforehand. Julie pursued a PHD in educational psychology while Len was pursuing a career in law enforcement. Eventually, Len became a state trooper while Julie’s education was stop and go. In July of 1987, the couple welcomed their only son, Joel. Sadly, their marriage slowly deteriorated. In a desperate attempt to save their marriage, the couple participated in couple’s counseling for a year. In spite of this, Julie eventually left with Joel when he was six. The couple officially divorced in 1994, Joel was seven by this time. Originally, the couple had split custody of Joel. However, after Len remarried, he was granted physical custody of Joel in August of 1997. The main belief behind this is that since Len could provide a two parent household, he could provide a better life for Joel. While this was never explicitly said, Julie was still beside herself. Being able to see her only son strictly on the weekends was nothing short of devastating.

On the weekend of October 13th, 1997, Julie had custody of Joel for the weekend. That Monday, Joel did not have school for Columbus Day. At her son’s request, Julie asked Len if Joel could spend an extra night with her. Len agreed to this arrangement, unaware that it was the worst decision he could have ever made. Sunday night, October 12th Julie took Joel out for a milkshake before heading home where Joel’s friend and his mother would meet him. The young boy, Evan Woodward, remembers watching Aladdin with Joel that night, while his mother, Trena, sat at the kitchen table with Julie scrapbooking. Later that night, Joel complained to his mother that he was not feeling well and wanted to go to bed. After tucking him into bed, Julie prayed with him and said her I love you’s before heading out of Joel’s room. She remembers locking the front door before bed, but cannot remember whether or not she locked the garage door. Around 4 A.M. the following morning, Julie was awoken to a horrible scream. Disoriented, she thought to herself that because the scream was so horrible, she did not think it was Joel. Quickly Julie began to panic at the idea that it might have been Joel. She jumped out of bed and ran into his bedroom, Joel was not in his bed. It was not long before a man stood up on the opposite side of Joel’s bed and lunged at Julie. Julie, a black belt in taekwondo, began fighting with the man and the scuffle poured out into the hallway. The struggle continued until the man broke out of the backdoor, where Julie managed to hold onto his pant leg as she was dragged into the yard. Once outside, the man began repeatedly smashing Julie’s head into the ground in an effort to escape. Finally, he stood up, took his mask off, and disappeared into the night. Believing that her son had just been kidnapped, Julie runs to a neighbor’s house begging for help. While at her neighbor’s home, the neighbor notes that Julie has a few injuries. This included a black eye, a cut on her arm and scraped knees. According to this neighbor, Julie acted quite strange while in her home. While sitting on the couch, Julie supposedly pulled her knees to her chest and said, “I have a boo boo on my knees”. When the same neighbor was treating the laceration on her arm, she claimed that Julie then said, “you don’t have to worry, I don’t have AIDS”. While this is quite strange, none of this has ever been substantiated by anyone but this neighbor. This home was where the police were originally dispatched to around 4:30 A.M. that morning. Upon their arrival, police began searching Julie’s home, a quaint ranch style house in the town of Lawrenceville, Illinois. Once in Joel’s bedroom, police made a horrible discovery. Joel’s lifeless body was found wedged between his bed and the wall. It was obvious that Joel had been stabbed to death. When Julie was informed of this, she was in total disbelief. She swore up and down that Joel was not in there, she could not understand what happened. Devastated, Julie finally came to terms with what had just happened, her only son was gone. Joel had been stabbed a total of 12 times, two of those wounds directly damaging his aorta. There was no chance Joel could have survived.

The state of Julie’s home was also quite suspicious to police. The home did not look like there had been a struggle. According to Julie, the scuffle between her and the intruder took place in the entirety of the hallway to the backdoor. The investigators did not think that the damage, or lack thereof in the home, was consistent with such a story. Additionally, the murder weapon, a knife, was found in the hallway. According to the police, the knife looked to have been placed down, not thrown during a struggle. The knife appeared to be clean and left no spatter in the general vicinity. Therefore leading them to believe it had been placed on the ground, not tossed during a scuffle. Another thing police found strange was that the knife had come from the butcher block in Julie’s kitchen. Police believed it to be unlikely that a stranger with the intention of murdering Joel would enter the home without a weapon. Another odd tidbit with ambiguous interpretation is that according to Len, that butcher block had been the last gift he ever bought for Julie. He gave it to her on the last Christmas they spent together as a couple. This is a fact that can be interpreted in many ways. It could mean a lot, or it can mean nothing. Police also noticed that Julie had traces of blood on her shirt, particularly near her shoulders. All things considered, Julie looked like a pretty good suspect to the police. Later on, the blood was confirmed to be Joel’s. They wondered how if Julie thought her son was missing, how did she get blood on her shirt?

Nonetheless, investigators treated Julie as if she was telling the truth. Once the local police realized they were not equipped to handle the case, Illinois state police were quickly called in. They asked her for a description of the man, considering she saw him without a mask before he walked off. She cooperated and a sketch of the unknown assailant was drawn. Once the sketch was released, a woman who worked at the local Greyhound bus station claimed to have sold a ticket to a man matching his description. While nothing comes of it right away, this ends up being quite important a few years down the line. Other people in the town also claim to have seen this mystery man. One person calls police and tells them they saw a man similar to the man in the sketch waiting by the train station. A group of teenagers also told police that while at a party, a few kids came in covered in blood bragging about how they had just killed someone. Unfortunately, these leads went nowhere. Each tip that was called in was followed up on by police. But they all went nowhere. Causing the police to zero in on Julie. Frustrated by this, Julie believed the police were wasting their time by investigating her. Regardless, she cooperated with police and even took two polygraph tests, both of which she passed. It should be noted that these polygraph tests were not done by the police, instead they were conducted by a private polygraph company. With no evidence to actually indict Julie for the murder, the case slowly went cold. Len, Joel’s father, was also investigated, but was quickly cleared as a suspect. He also took two polygraph tests and passed them both. His wife also told police that Len was home in bed with her all night, giving him an alibi. There was never any evidence that pointed towards Len as the suspect.

On the one year anniversary of Joel’s death, Julie’s family posted a reward for any information that led to the arrest of his murderer. Sadly, this reward went unclaimed with no new leads. Around the same time, an appellate D.A. looked into the case again. Convinced Julie was guilty, he presented the case to a grand jury. This grand jury handed down two counts of first degree murder in October of 2000, three years after Joel’s murder. Consequently, a warrant for Julie’s arrest was written up. Julie surrendered herself to police without protest. But, she continued to maintain her innocence. Ed Parkinson was set to be the prosecutor that would fight to put Julie behind bars. He claimed that the state had a strong case. Albeit circumstantial, but he believed it to still have strong enough evidence to convict Julie.

Since the murder had so much publicity, the trial was moved to a different county inWayne County, Illinois. It was here that Julie was assigned a public defender, Brad Vaughn. During the trial, the prosecution presented an array of evidence that would supposedly invalidate Julie’s story. They claimed that not only was the house neat, indicative that there was no fight, but there was no sign of forced entry. However, Julie did tell police that she could not remember if she locked the backdoor. Additionally, they had officers testify that the dew on the grass outside of Julie’s house was undisturbed. A thin statement that was supposed to disprove the claim that an intruder had entered or exited the home. Although the glass door was broken, a sign of forced entry, they said that this was clearly staged. If someone broke the door from the outside to get in, the glass would have landed inside. Which it did not, the glass was found on the outside of the house. When arguing against the idea that Julie did not have a lot of blood on her shirt, the state explained that the reason for this was simple. Obviously, all the blood had only gotten on to Joel and absorbed by his clothes. According to Parkinson, that is also why the knife had no blood on it, it was absorbed by Joel’s night shirt. A ridiculous claim that can easily be debunked. Both the state and Len believed that Julie committed the crime in order to keep Joel away from his father. Len even saying Julie’s mindset was, “if I can’t have him, you can’t either.” Though, the prosecution did not have to prove motive during the trial. Making this claim more of a matter of opinion than evidence. But, I personally cannot understand this considering she was charged with first degree murder. In order to charge someone with first degree murder, you need to prove intent or planning. This is quite difficult to prove if you do not need to prove the motive itself. My best guess is that since Joel was a child, it counted as first degree murder, regardless of motive or intent. But, I digress. The state’s strongest piece of evidence? The fact that Julie was alive. Why would someone break into a house, weaponless, not take anything, and murder the child but not his mother? The most ludacris testimony of all came from Joel’s father, Len. He claimed that during Julie’s pregnancy with Joel, she wanted to abort the pregnancy. Not only is this prejudicial testimony, but it was proven to be untrue. Following this, Julie’s OBGYN took the stand to explain to the court that Julie did everything she could to have a healthy pregnancy. She even went as far as putting herself on strict bedrest towards the end of her pregnancy in order to prevent spontaneous abortion.

The defense came back with points that tackled every point the state made. Except for the most important one, why was Julie left unharmed with the exception of minor cuts? Nonetheless, the state tried their best to fight back. They claimed that the small amount of blood found on Julie could not have come form stabbing Joel. The pattern found on the shirt did not align with castoff spatter. But, it did align with transfer spatter. Meaning, the blood got on Julie after physically fighting the intruder, who had blood on them themselves. They argued that how could blood get on the wall, the headboard, posters, his shoes on the floor and the carpet, but not on Julie? It is just not a reasonable explanation. Additionally, the knife was clean because the murderer wiped the knife on himself to clean it before the fight began. A reasonable belief considering this act is quite common amongst murderers. If Julie had in fact stabbed Joel, where was the concrete evidence? Where were her bloody clothes? There were no blood stained clothes found in Julie’s home, including the garbage. Why wasn’t there more blood on Julie? The drains, septic tanks, shower curtain and washing machine in the home were searched for blood, there was none. Meaning, Julie had not washed herself in the sink and/or shower to get her son’s blood off. Vaughn also argued that the state of the house is not enough evidence to prove that there had not been an intruder. Although Julie wanted to testify, Vaughn advised her not to. He feared what would happen when Parkinson cross-examined Julie. He did not think she was capable of properly answering his questions. While this can sound odd, it is normal for a defendant to not testify during their own trial. Cross examination can be quite tricky. Lawyers do not want to open the door for their client to misspeak and invalidate anything that the defense has worked so hard to prove. Vaughn also called Julie’s friend, Dawn, to testify. Not only did Dawn claim that Julie could have NEVER hurt her son, but she told the jury that Julie had asked her to sleepover on the night Joel was murdered. This was to prove that since Julie had asked someone else to stay in the house that evening, she was not planning to murder Joel.

When the trial concluded, the jurors were sent off to deliberate. After a measly five hours in deliberations, they had a verdict. Julie was found guilty on both counts on March 4th, 2002. When interviewed, the jurors claimed that there was simply no other explanation, it had to be Julie. Jurors who were on the fence about her guilt were put off by Julie not testifying. Once they realized she would not speak, they took this as a sign of guilt and not a defense strategy. Consequently, Julie was sentenced to 65 years in prison. Destroyed by the verdict, Julie was sent off to prison.

Still trying to prove her innocence but with no options, Julie agrees to do an interview with the popular ABC show, “20/20”. Her hope was that if she did the interview, someone would recognize the case and prove her innocence. Surprisingly, that is exactly what happened. During the interview, Julie swore up and down that she was innocent and had been telling the truth the whole time. Interviewer, John Miller, said that while it is hard to tell if the person you are interviewing is lying, Julie appeared eager to talk and answer anything and everything that came her way. This interview turned out to be pivotal in her fight for exoneration. On the night the episode aired, crime writer, Diane Fanning, decided to watch the show. She was absolutely stunned by the story. Not only did she believe Julie was innocent, she was writing a book about someone who she now believed murdered Joel, Tommy Lynn Sells.

At the time the episode aired, Sells was already on death row for the murder and attempted murder of two girls close to Joel’s age. Sells had entered the home of the Harris family in San Antonio, Texas. He then entered a bedroom where two girls, 13 year old Kaylene “Katy” Harris and 10 year old Krystal Surles were asleep in bunk beds. Katy on the bottom bunk, was his first target. He placed his hand over her mouth and sliced off her shorts and underwear with a 12 inch knife and began fondling her. When she was able to get free, Katy stood up and began to scream. Instinctively, Sells blocked the door and turned the light on. When she realized she was bleeding, she yelled at Sells that he had cut her. He then moved behind her and sliced her throat. Once one the floor gurgling, Sells proceeded to stab her 16 more times. Katie promised that she’d be quiet, but Sells didn’t care. He lunged at Katie and proceeded to also cut her throat. Pretending to be dead, Krystal laid there as Sells exited the home. She then ran to a neighbors house for help, she survived his brutal attack.

Another piece of damning evidence was that he also took weapons from where he was committing a crime, just like what happened in Joel’s case. Fanning decided that she would start writing Sells. She would talk about her book and also ask if Joel’s murder sounded at all familiar. He told her that yes, he remembered the murder. He asked if it was two days before his Springfield murder, maybe on October 13th. Chilled by this, Fanning knew he had to do the murder. Joel was murdered on October 13th and two days later he murdered Stephanie Mahoney in Springfield, Montanna. He also asked Fanning if the house the murder was committed in was a small brick house. Julie's home was in fact a small brick house. Alas, someone other than Julie had confessed to the crime. But, she was not off the hook yet. Fanning contacted a Texas state trooper, Johnny Allen, who knew Sells. He agreed with Fanning that it was very possible that Sells had also murdered Joel. Shortly after, she released her book and alluded that Sells had also been responsible for Joel’s death.

Tommy Lynn Sells has a long and disturbing history. He is linked to murders in about 11 different states. Though, not all have been confirmed due to lack of evidence. He also changed his MO each murder. But, he did admit that strangulation was his favorite because he could watch the life leave his victim’s body. After the book was released, “20/20” followed up with Sells in a Texas prison. During the interview, Sells came off as mild mannered. He confessed to the “20/20” crew that he did in fact murder Joel. He told the story of how it happened and it aligned with Julie’s almost perfectly. He said that he only attacks late at night, hence why he entered the residence around 4 A.M. that morning. He said that he took a knife from a butchers block in the kitchen before murdering Joel with it. After he stabbed Joel, he heard a woman coming down the hallway. When she entered, he attacked her. He tried to cut her but lost the knife during the fight. When he tried to leave, Julie continued following him down the hallway. During the fight, he had dragged Julie through the hall and out of the house. When the two got outside, he said he finally hit her. Up until that point, he insists he had not punched her, only backhanded her to get her away. But, when they got outside, he repeatedly slammed her head into the ground. All of this aligned with Julie’s story. Later, Parkinson will go onto say that Sells looks nothing like the sketch Julie drew. But, if you consider the attack happened at night and he had hit Julie’s head multiple times, the sketch is not far off. At some point in the interview, Sells was asked why he refused to refer to Joel as a young child. When the interviewer questioned this Sells replied that it’s “not easy to live with what I did. Harder than even doing it.” An almost remorseful statement that contradicts with his previous remark “I guess you ain’t ever seen my kill with my hands.” That was his response when asked why he would take a weapon from the home instead of bringing one.

While this all seems sufficient enough to prove Julie’s innocence, the Illinois court system did not see it that way. This was when the Innocence Project got involved. Their goal was to further tie Sells to the Joel Kirkpatrick case. Bill Clutter, a private investigator who focused on wrongful convictions, headed to Lawrenceville to investigate. Once there, he talked to people who quickly corroborated Julie’s version of events. A key statement came from someone who claimed to have seen a man matching Sells’ description near the Indiana border. During his investigation, Clutter was told by Julie’s mom to look into the woman who said she sold the bus ticket. I said before this was important, now let me explain why. Sandra, a Greyhound ticket agent in Princeton, met with Clutter to talk about the mystery man. The evening of the murder, she sold a ticket to Winnennucca, Nevada. She remembered this interaction for two reasons, one, nobody ever bought a ticket to that city before. Two, the man was acting very strange. When Sandra originally told police about selling this ticket, they boarded the bus during its route there. But, the man was already gone. While this does not sound great for Julie, it is easily explained. The bus had stopped in Saint Louis prior to the police stopping the bus. Saint Louis was like a second home to Sells. It was even where his mother lived at that time. He had also told Sandra that his mother was sick and he was on his way to see her. Meaning, it is extremely likely that Sells had already gotten off the bus in Saint Louis when the police finally got to the bus. Another alarming story Clutter was told came from Lawrenceville resident, Allan Berkshire, who had a disturbing interaction with a man hours before Joel was murdered. While at a restaurant with his son, Berkshire was approached by a man he says matches Sell’s description. The man asked Berkshire if the boy with him was his son. Allan replied that yes, this was his youngest son. The man seemed to be infatuated with the child. He told Allan’s son that he was a good boy, and told him he should afraid of him. Dumbfounded by the remark, the father and son did not answer. The odd man then chuckled and told the boy that everyone should be afraid of him. After the strange interaction, Berkshire watched the man walk off in the direction of Julie’s neighborhood. To this day, he believes the man he spoke to that night was Tommy Lynn Sells. After he heard of Joel’s murder, he went to the police and told them it had to be the drifter he saw the night before in the restaurant. But, this statement was never documented and therefore never followed up on.

Now, I know what you’re probably thinking, why did Sells only murder children? Unlike many questions you may have, I can actually answer this one. On May 13th, 1992, Sells attacked a 19 year old woman who fought him off and survived. That day, Sells approached the victim, Fabian Witherspoon, while she was walking home on a bridge. He was holding a sign that said “hungry, will work for food”. He then showed Fabian a photo of three children and reiterated that they were all hungry. Sympathetic for him in spite of the fact he did not look hungry, Fabian brought the man home. She told him to wait on the porch while she went inside to get things for him. She filled a bag with food and another with clothes for him. Before she could go back outside, the man was in the kitchen with one of Fabian’s kitchen knives. He took her from the kitchen and into her bathroom. Once in there, he started giving orders to her. When fight or flight kicked in, Fabian chose to fight. She grabbed a ceramic duck from the toilet next to her and hit Sells over the head before stabbing him with the knife. When she went to police, they asked if she knew who did it. Amazingly, she did know, he actually told her his name when they met, Tommy Lynn Sells. They tracked Sells down and found him. When arrested, Sells had a niched kidney, sliced testicle and was bleeding internally. He was sentenced to a mere five years in prison. In the Spring of 1997 when he was released, he vowed to never attack someone his own size again.

Unrelated to the new Sells evidence, Julie is released from prison in 2004 on a technicality from her first trial. Ed Parkinson quickly pressed charges against Julie once again for the murder of her only son. But, Julie was released on 75k bond and returned home with her new husband, Mark Hopper, whom she married in 2001 before moving to Bloomington, Indiana. Her new husband had also enrolled himself in law school in an attempt to learn whatever he could to free Julie. When she got home, Julie took her shoes off and stood in the grass, telling reporters that she missed that feeling while she was away.

The second trial took place in Carlyle, Illinois. This trial was also moved in order to find an impartial jury. The Innocence Project provided Julie with an absolutely stellar team of lawyers to prove her innocence. During the trial, Ed Parkinson did not do anything differently. He explained the same points and the same evidence. The only thing he did differently was attempting to pull the jury’s heart strings by showing pictures of Joel in the medical examiner’s office right off the bat. A disturbing image of a dead young boy that was certainly going to heighten the jury’s emotions.

On the other hand, the defense was armed with an array of new evidence that supported Julie. Not only did they share the confession of Sells with the court, they had many other pieces of evidence that proved Julie’s innocence. Their first target was to expose the shoddy police work done during the investigation. The police quickly developed tunnel vision on Julie, refusing to accept any evidence that pointed in directions other than Julie. They also showed the jurors a picture of police holding up Joel’s bed, gloveless. Claiming that this action contaminated the crime scene, eliminating evidence that could have pointed to a suspect other than Julie. They also called a meteorology expert to the stand. This expert explained that at the time police arrived to the residence, it would have been impossible for police to see dew in the grass, let alone dew that can prove someone was there. A point that poked holes in the already thin police account of the crime scene. They were also able to debunk the glass theory about the door. If the door had swung open violently by an intruder, the glass would have shattered outside when it hit the house. Meaning, the glass was not broken form the inside like the prosecution claimed. As previously stated, the fact that Julie had no blood on her was very telling. Even though Parkinson claimed that Joel’s shirt absorbed all the blood, they claimed this is preposterous. Especially when you consider the fact that blood had made it everywhere else in the room. Another debunked theory was that the blood on Julie’s shirt was transfer evidence, not castoff. Parkinson explained to the jury that the blood on her shirt was actually Joel’s handprint from when he tried to push her away. But, the defense quickly disproved this by pointing at the shirt and explaining that the mark on her shirt does not under any means match a handprint. In simpler terms, the blood on Julie came from contact with a third person, not from Joel himself. The one issue with their case was that by this point, Sells had actually recanted his confession. A confession that Parkinson claimed to be bullshit from the get-go. They also commented that Sell’s version of events did not exactly match Julie’s. The defense responded to this by pointing out that it must be hard to keep every crime straight if you murder that many people. Regardless of that, he still got the most important details correct. It is almost more suspicious if he everything he said had been perfect. But, the jury still got to watch the interview with Sells and see that his account of what happened matched exactly to what Julie said. She also claimed that the intruder was in his 30’s and his drivers license photo at the time matched her physical description of Sells along with the weight she guessed, 130 lbs. All new things considered, Julie’s story finally made sense according to her defense team. Today, they even comment that if she were to lie about this story, she would have made up a more believable story. Perhaps a burglary gone wrong. They then focused on Julie’s injuries. Not only did she have a big black eye that aligned with her claim of having her head smashed on the ground, she also had rug burn on her knees and the top of her feet. Indicative of being dragged across the ground, which is exactly what both Julie and Sells claimed to have occurred. The defense argues that even if Sells was not the actual murderer, he was the epitome of reasonable doubt. The jury could not convict Julie when there is evidence that conflicts with the state’s version of events.

The most drastic change in this trial was the fact Julie testified this time. While on the stand, she retold her story and reiterated how much she loved Joel. Swearing to the jury that she could never hurt him. When being questioned, Julie would be able to answer calmly only for a few moments before erupting into tears. She said that after Joel was murdered, Julie was terrified. She moved an hour and a half away into an apartment and got a large German Shepard for protection. She knew the person who murdered her son was out there and she continued to live a life of fear.

As the trial came to a close, Parkinson arrogantly believed he was okay. He reiterated that the Sells confession was all a lie made up by Sells for fun. He claimed once again that his (circumstantial) case was still strong enough to convict Julie. After twelve hours of deliberation, double what they did last time, the jury came back with a verdict. For reasons still unknown, Parkinson actually left the court room and was replaced with another prosecutor before the verdict was read. Julie was finally found not guilty. In a fit of shock and excitement, Julie fell to the ground in tears. Len quickly left the courtroom and was taken off in a car without speaking a word. He was still convinced of his ex-wife’s guilt. He was one of the few people who actually agreed with Parkinson about Sells’ confession being false. His supporters even started a petition to put Julie back in prison. These efforts were futile though and Julie was given a certificate of innocence from the state of Illinois in 2010. Officially exonerating her for the murder of her son.

Today, Julie is now divorced from former husband Mark Hopper. She is now an advocate for wrongly convicted women across the country. Julie Rea proves that anyone can be wrongfully convicted. Even a kind and grieving mother was vulnerable to this horrifying ordeal. Sadly, Julie says that she is unable to live a normal life. She has been branded as a child murderer, a scarlet letter she must wear. Her innocence means nothing to those who quickly realize who she is with a quick google search. It has been next to impossible for her to get a normal job and live a normal life. Tommy Lynn Sells was executed for his other murders in April of 2014. But, was never convicted of Joel’s murder. His case remains unsolved. But many people believe his murderer was executed.

A Full List of Tommy Lynn Sells’ confirmed victims:

• Katy Harris

• Mary Beatrice Perez

• Stephanie Mahoney (the October 15th Springfield murder)

Additional Resources:

• Click here to read the transcript of Sells’ “20/20” murder of Joel Kirkpatrick confession