i heard a scream. i actually think i heard two. i was like, joel. where is joel? and then -- they said that he was dead. >> we have these true crimes, these murder mystery on every week. but you know what makes this one different? it was broken wide open by one of our viewers just watching "20/20" at home. >> joel --

joel had been stabbed to death. >> this would be joel's room where he was sleeping. this would be julie rea's room where she was sleeping. she encounters this dark figure. they begin fighting. >> there wasn't any overturn furniture. >> they decided that julie decided to stage the crime scene and had just not done it very well. >> what could be worse than being wrongfully convicted? being wrongfully convicted of the murder offure only child. >> i didn't commit this imkroo. i did not. >> but if julie didn't do it, who did? i'm at the home of alan berkshire. alan, do i have your permission to videotape your statement

>>, u mo certainlyo. i had encountered a person in the lawrenceville drive-in on friday night, just a couple of days before joel kirkpatrick was murdered. and he come in and he looked around, and he kind of almost seemed disoriented. he sat down and started talking. you know, is this your son? i said, yes, this is my youngest son. and he tapped him on the shoulder one time. he said, i bet you're a pretty good boy, or something. he made a very unusual comment that really upset me. he said, i'll bet you're afraid of me, aren't you?

and the guy did a funny -- [ laughs ] you know, i guess maybe everybody ought to be an afraid of me. >> that is about the happiest face you have ever seen. his plan was to be a programmer and video-game tester, but, you know, the intentions of a 10-year-old boy. joel was brilliant beyond my wildest imagination. i'm not saying that because he is my kid. everybody loves their kid, but every teacher told me that he was the smartest student they ever had. what is your sunday school teacher's name? >> carla. >> carla? is she nice? >> yep. >> can you describe him to me?

what kind of kid was he? what was he like? >> the funniest kid in the world, and i am not just saying that because i am his mother. joel was sensitive and kind and caring and perceptive, but he was also a little boy. he didn't like to have to take a bath. i mean, everybody kind of wanted to be armed joel. he was just really fun. >> i do remember joel. he's just a very nice kid. he didn't have anything malicious about him. he's just a very happy and smiley person. >> i can remember the last time i saw joel. it was his weekend to be with his mother. >> jlie and len were married for eight years but divorced when joel was 7. >> but the one thing they both were totally consistent on was this was an exceptional boy, a beautiful boy, and that they both loved him more than anything else.

>> it was a long weekend. columbus day, i think. since he was going to be out of school on monday, julie asked if she could have an extra day. i said yes, and i go in to say good-bye to joel. he gave me that -- that bear hug that he liked to do. i kissed him good-bye. >> joel said he wanted to be with me that day and we had a blast. we went to a park with a blanket look at the clouds and -- see that? that's a this or that's a that. do you see this? do you see that? >> they were very affectionate. lots of hugs and just good communication. he loved being with her and doing things with her. >> we had gotten a milkshake and went home.

>> julie had a house in lawrenceville. it was a tiny, little ranch-style home in kind of a subdivision there in town. and this is where she would be when joel would come for his visits. >> i remember being at their house that evening actually. >> touch nothing but the lamp. >> i remember watching "aladdin" while the moms were talking, doing their thing over at the dinner table. >> julie was always a wonderful hostess and, you know, made you feel really comfortable in her house. we sat down at the table and worked on our scrapbooks and talked about hopes and dreams and life and just things that we normally talked about. >> after a while, joel said that he wanted to go to bed. he didn't feel good. i went and tucked him in and

prayed with him and -- told him i loved him and we said good night like always. >> she made sure she locked the front door. she has never been able to say for sure whether she locked the door from the garage into the kitchen. >> around midnight, i crashed. i was exhausted. >> she was asleep, and at some point, she was awakened. >> i heard a scream. the scream didn't really sound like joel because it sounded so horrible. >> i was really groggy, and i really don't want to talk about this. >> but it's kind of important for us to have it in your own words. >> i know. it's just really hard. i didn't say i wouldn't. i'm just having a hard time. i just remember thinking, oh, my god, i wonder if it's joel. >> he was not in his bed.

>> i know i screamed his name. i was like, joel. >> and the next thing she knows, a man jumps across the bed toward her. >> the person had on a ski mask. >> they scuffle. she's trying to stop him from getting away. >> he was obviously trying to get out of there. h broke out the door. >> she's hanging onto his legs. >> the person was hitting my face into the ground. >> she said that he removed his mask, and then just sauntered off into the night. >> i -- i was scared. i didn't know what to do. i thought, oh, my god, they've kidnapped joel, because the person was walking away. it's like, where is joel? i ran to the closest house and started pounding on the door and screaming to get let in to call the police. >> she was in shock.

her eyes were big. she had a big knot over her eye. >> julie said, somebody has taken joel. and then she said, will you please go find him? >> about 4:30 in the morning, a call went in from a neighbor's home, and the lawrenceville police arrived. >> two officers that came to the scene. one stayed with julie. and then the deputy went into the house. >> when he did so, he made his way to the back bedroom and found joel lying in a pool of blood next to his bed. >> between the bed and the wall. >> he had a t-shirt on. and it was covered with blood. that's when i saw a big hole in his chest. he was already gone.

it was just a real bad scene. >> and then they said that he was dead. and i said, no. he wasn't in the house. he would have heard me. i screamed for him. he would have come. i said -- maybe they were wrong. maybe he was still alive. >> when 10-year-old joel kirkpatrick was found stabbed to death, his mother told police both she and her son were attacked by a knife-wielding intruder, but a search for this suspect turned up no leads. >> one of the things that made police begin to focus on julie rea was a series of odd observations made the night of the crime. >> and i looked at her knees, and she pulled her knees up like a little child and said, i have a boo-boo on my knees. .

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lawrenceville is, i would say, a quintessential midwestern town. it's a rural community. it's a farming community.

>> miles and miles of cornfields. less than 5,000 people. i think at that time we probably had three stop lights. >> it has a small town square, coffee shops and an occasional bar, a grocery store and it's a friendly little quiet little place. >> 10-year-old joel kirkpatrick was found murdered here in his lawrenceville home early the morning of october 13th. >> i could see them drive up plain as day. you can tell by the look on their face that they didn't come here with good news. they sat down with me and told me -- that joel had been stabbed to death.

>> julie and len married very young. they were both children of missionaries. >> we met when we were 16 years old. we got married when i was -- one month after think 18th birthday. she was 17. her parents sign for her. >> joel came along very quickly after they got married, less than a year. julie was pursuing a ph.d in educational psychology, and len was pursuing law enforcement. but they divorced by the time he was 7 or 8. >> it was a pretty bitter divorce, and they had joint custody of joel, but len had just won physical custody. >> there was a long battle of custody of joel, and the final decision was that august, two months before his death. >> the difference came down to the fact that julie was single, while len kirkpatrick had

remarried. and so his home would be a two-parent home. >> julie was not happy about that, to say the least. >> i'm john miller, deputy commissioner of the new york city police department for intelligence and counterterrorism. and at the time this happened, i was with "20/20". i was the co-anchor with barbara walters, and this was the story that i was assigned to. investigators were looking at the crime scene and they're looking for the story the crime scene will tell. >> the police didn't have a lot of experience investigating cases of this magnitude. so, pretty quickly, they called in the illinois state police. >> what the officers found in her house did not fit their mental image of what they would find had there been an intruder. >> julie had claimed that there had been this terrible struggle with an intruder, and yet the house was not in the kind of condition where you would expect a house to be after that.

>> this is a scale model representing the house where julie rea and joel were the night of the crime. this would be joel's room where he was sleeping. this would be julie rea's bedroom where she was sleeping. in this vestibule in between the two, she encounters this dark figure. they begin fighting. that fight, according to her, through the dining area, towards -- there's a door that leads to the garage. it goes through the garage to another door. and that is where the struggle in the rear yard starts. >> the house itself was very neat inside. there wasn't any overturned furniture. there wasn't any pictures on the wall that had been knocked askew. there wasn't any broken chairs. >> there were no signs of anything stolen and no apparent

forced entry. >> she became a suspect the very morning of october 13, 1997, because the crime scene technicians that arrived saw that the scene did not fit her story. >> i went up to the funeral home. i wanted to be alone. and see him for myself. i went to the table, pulled back his cover. and it just suddenly hit me, he was killed with a knife that came from the last gift i ever gave her as husband and wife at christmas. >> they would discover that the murder weapon was a steak knife that was in the butcher block in the kitchen. so, in other words, the story becomes he came into the house without even a weapon. >> the murder weapon was found on the floor in the hallway between the two bedrooms. >> the knife is found on the carpet. the evidence seemed to suggest

that it had been placed there as opposed to thrown down. you don't see any blood spatter around on the knife. >> when she ran next door barefooted and in her underwear and t-shirt, even to the neighbor, she made strange comments. >> here was this lady who's just been distraught, and i'm looking at her arm and she says, you don't have to worry about me. i don't have aids. almost a total change of personality there for that brief moment. then i looked at her knees and she pulled her knees up like a little child and said, "i have a boo-boo on my knees." >> these were just comments made within minutes of this woman supposedly discovering that her child had been abducted from her home. >> julie's shirt had traces of blood on it. >> on the back of her shirt, that appeared to have been a spatter. >> dna testing would later reveal that it was joel's blood on the shoulder and back of julie's shirt. >> her account doesn't have her

in contact with joel at any time during that crime. she thinks he's been kidnapped. so how would blood from him have transferred onto her when she didn't have that contact? >> the more investigators looked into it, the more they became convinced that julie was the suspect and nobody else. >> the question that the police officers immediately had was, who does this? who breaks into a home for no reason, kills a kid for no reason, and then leaves an adult essentially unharmed? it doesn't make any sense to them. >> they told me to meet them at the police station. i thought they were trying to do their job. they said they thought i did it. they said that they were sure i did it. i said you're wrong. i didn't commit this crime.

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10-year-old joel kirkpatrick was found murdered. his mother told police she was awakened by hearing her son screaming. >> people woke up and were just stunned. the shock of an ugly murder like this in a small town. >> you think everybody's safe, and then something like that happens, it's frightening. >> just 'cause it's a small town, that's no sign it's not gonna happen here. >> she says she was then attacked by an intruder. a lawrence county sheriff's deputy found 10-year-old joel dead a short time later. >> julie had seen the intruder's face without a mask. she sees him for just a few seconds, and then he takes off after that. >> i looked over my right shoulder and saw the person

walking away, and they had the mask off at that time. >> julie worked with a sketch artist, and they came up with a sketch. >> she described the assailant as thin, about 5'9" to 5'11", wearing camouflage pants. >> and this was circulated in the hopes of finding who she was talking about. >> as for the people of lawrenceville, it's the community rumor mill that's fueling their own stores as to just what may have happened to joel kirkpatrick. >> there was a woman who sold a greyhound bus ticket to somebody who she felt matched the description based on this sketch. p>> the woman called the police and said, that man was at the bus station. >> someone else said that they saw a man over by the railroad track wearing camo fatigues. >> there were a group of kids at a party who said that some kids had shown up at the party saying we just killed somebody. and some of them said that those

kids had blood on their clothes. >> supposed to have been three teenagers, i guess, broke in there. >> a kid that we went to school with killed joel. >> to a group of boys tripping on methamphetamine. >> none of this checked out. >> there were other leads coming in and other leads being looked at, but in the end, they kept coming back to her. >> julie cooperated with the investigation. she was interviewed by the state police three times. >> conducting this test, there are a couple of issues i have to explore. one is that everything happened exactly the way you said it happened. another is that you harmed joel. >> i remember julie took a polygraph test to prove she had nothing to do with it. >> what i would like to do now is to get you attached to the instrument. >> okay. >> i have to put this around behind you. during the early morning hours of 13 october, 1997, were you

assaulted by a masked intruder you did not know? >> yes. >> julie took two polygraph tests from -- not from the state police, but from independent polygraph examiners. >> did you deliberately cause any of joel's injuries? >> no. >> julie passed both of them. >> after really a small number of leads, the police ran out of other suspects. the case went cold. julie was still suspect number one. >> i said, well, do you still think i'm a suspect? you know, are you wasting your time on that? and he said, well, yeah, you're a suspect. you were there. and i said, okay. and so who else are you looking at? and he said, you're our main suspect. >> they didn't have enough

evidence to indict her, and so the case kind of just languished for a few years. >> no one has been identified as the suspect or -- and there's not enough evidence that we've evaluated for us to make that decision at this time. >> the case just went nowhere almost immediately. i -- i pity the investigators just because this -- this would happen every time i called them. and they had to have got sick of it. for years, nothing happened. ♪ how do you keep your head above the water when you never learned to swim ♪ >> julie tried to move on with her life. she remarried to a man named mark harper. she moved to bloomington, indiana. >> julie's family put up a reward on the one-year

anniversary of joel's death for any information leading to the killer, and the reward was never paid out. >> she continues working on her ph.d, but all the time she kind of knows that this could crop up again. >> it's now 2000. an appellate prosecutor gets the case. he is convinced that julie rea is guilty. so he takes the case to the grand jury, and he gets an indictment. >> ed parkinson is appointed to prosecute this case. >> the fact that this is a circumstantial case for the most part doesn't make it any less the case. very few murders are witnessed. this was a strong circumstantial case. >> this is not the first time julie kirkpatrick has been rumored to be involved in her son's murder, but it is the first time she has been officially labeled as a suspect.

>> i was shocked, going to appoint a grand jury for her. i can't imagine a mother doing something like that to a child. >> to believe her, you would have to believe that this assailant came into her home in the middle of the night, forgot to bring a murder weapon along, and after he accomplished his result, he then pulled off the mask to reveal his identity to her. total nonsense. >> she had invited me to spend the night there, and why would she invite me to be there if she had planned on killing joel? it didn't make any sense at all. knowing where you came from, it gives you a sense of “this is who i am”. oh my goodness... wow, look at all those! you get hungry for more and then you're just like, “wow, i'm learning about my family.” yeah, yep. which one, what'd you find? lorraine banks, look, county of macomb, michigan? look at grandma... hey grandma! unbelievable.

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the grand jury handed down two counts of first-degree murder against julie. there hadn't been any movement on the case in three years, so it was, wow, we couldn't believe this was happening. >> it just feels so surreal.

like, how in the world did this even happen? she surrendered. she hugged each one of us and then was taken away into the jail. >> when she was arrested, she still had a belief that the truth would come out, that the legal system would prove her to be innocent. >> i didn't commit this crime. i said, i could not. i'm not capable. i would not. i have no reason to, and i did not. >> attorneys tell news 25 she is anxious to now have her case go to trial so a jury can hear the truth. >> julie's trial took place in wayne county, illinois. the judge granted a change of venue case because of all the pretrial publicity. >> the courtroom was small. it had benches in it that looked like pews. julie had a public defender because she couldn't afford anything else. and you had the whole entire resources of the state against her. >> and so it's a total mismatch in the courtroom.

>> the prosecution's case is there was no other explanation. they reject her explanation that there was a masked intruder who entered her house and killed her son with a knife that he found in the butcher block. it sounds too preposterous. >> to believe her, you would have to believe that this assailant came into her home in the middle of the night in dark clothes, hiding his identity by the use of a mask for the sole purpose of killing a 10-year-old boy. and yet he took such care to hide his identity by wearing a mask, he also forgot to bring a murder weapon along and used her kitchen knife to do it with. and after he accomplished his result, according to her, he then pulled off the mask to reveal his identity to her. total nonsense. >> the best evidence against julie was that she survived. >> during the trial, prosecutors presented to the jury that julie

had, essentially, setup, staged, the whole scene. >> they look at the two doors where there were breaks, and there's glass broken, but it's fallen on the outside. so the prosecution made an issue of this, which is if the person broke the glass to break into the house, the glass would be on the inside. >> they decided that julie had tried to stage the crime scene and just not done it very well. >> the house was in complete neatness. and if there was a struggle throughout a long hallway, out through the kitchen, past furniture, past plaques on the wall, as she described fighting and wrestling with this intruder, there would have been some disturbance, some blood trail, something knocked ajar. there was none. >> they want a jury to believe that because the furniture

wasn't torn up, there must not have been a struggle. >> i keep coming back to, where's the blood? where's the bloody clothing? where's the blood on her? they want to say that she had blood on her, she got rid of it. where is it? they dug up the septic tank the drains are dry, the traps have no blood in it. >> she stabbed him, threw a quilt, threw blanket threw a sheet down, into his shirt and into his chest. so each time the knife was brought back, it was being wiped by the cover. >> the case against julie rae was entirely circumstantial, and a big part of it was based on expert testimony about blood spatter. >> i'm matt steiner. i'm a certified senior crime scene analyst. >> we're going to cover the container of animal blood. and now we're going to take the knife and put it through the sheet and comforter to see what happens. >> so it did wipe it off somewhat, but there's still visible blood on that blade. as you see from photographs at the crime scene, we have bloodstain patterns on the

headboard, the wall, and the carpeting. so i think the whole theory of not getting blood on julie because of this wiping action here is false. if she had killed joel, we'd expect to see a lot more blood on the shirt, and there is not. >> julie's shirt had traces of blood on it. joel's blood. the prosecution claimed that the blood traces on her shirt spattered there directly while she was killing her son. >> how did the little boy's blood get on her shirt? >> well, if julie did scuffle with this intruder, who would have had blood on him from stabbing this child, it's entirely plausible that she would have a little transfer stain on her. >> also there was the question of the knife. >> the knife was found on the floor between the two bedrooms and the investigators said there were no signs that the knife had been dropped or the knife had been tossed. >> we say it was placed because there was no evidence that there was blood spatters immediately

around the blade of the knife. >> but what they didn't realize is that often in crime scenes killers that use a knife will wipe the knife off on their clothing. and then if i take that knife and i just drop at our scene, we're not going to see spatter from that knife. >> even in the backyard, investigators said there didn't seem to be any indication of a struggle. >> they had an officer testify that that there were no footprints in the grass because they would have been seen in the dew of the grass. >> to this day one of the things i can remember most clearly about the trial are some of the autopsy pictures they showed of joel. i mean, he was just a kid. it was just awful. >> one of them was joel's body

lying between the bed and the wall. i've been a reporter for decades, and that was the only picture that stuck with me in a really bad way. >> the prosecution made julie's character the central argument in their case. julie, herself, never testified. her lawyer did not want her to testify. >> brad told me absolutely not to. i argued with him about it. and i said, brad, i want to. this jury has not had a chance to hear me talk. and he's like, no, no. our experts have said that parkinson will use everything you say and try to twist it around. and i'm thinking, well, that's different than what he's done so far how? because he's done that with everything. >> i did not think that she would bear up well under cross-examination. not because she wouldn't be telling the truth, but because her demeanor, the way she answers questions, she doesn't answer them directly. >> i was asked to testify in

julie's trial that she had invited me to spend the night there, and why would she invite me to be there if she had planned on killing joel? it didn't make any sense at all. >> why would a mother kill her child? we don't know. we do know, though, that there was a long battle for custody of joel, and she disliked her ex-husband so much that whether this was to punish him or whether, in her own twisted way, she thought joel would be better off than growing up with her ex-husband. >> i know it's an oversimplification, but i believe it's as simple as if i can't have him, you can't either. >> when they announce the verdict, it was just so unbelievable. >> i don't think mr. parkinson or i either one knew what the result would be. >> i literally cried in my chair.

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the jury didn't seem to deliberate that long. i think they were only out five hours, maybe a little more, and they came back with a verdict that same day. >> the verdict, julie rea was guilty of first-degree murder of her son, joel. >> julie turned around, started crying and was looking at all of us. it was just so unbelievable. >> i don't know how they came up with a guilty verdict. i really have no clue. >> there was really an overwhelming sense of -- of anger, shock, disbelief. >> she was found guilty of murder and was sentenced to 65 years in prison. >> this is julie rae moments after a jury found her guilty of stabbing her son, joel, to death

in his bed. >> i can't tell you there's any science as to how juries come to the decisions they come to. stronger people win out, and people who aren't so strong in their convictions or in their persistence will give in. >> the more i talked, i really felt like she was guilty. there was no logical explanation on how she couldn't have done it. >> she said he just stopped beating her head on the ground, he walked off and pulled his mask off. >> under a security light. >> calmly, too. >> and it just didn't have the ring of truth? >> no. >> and my thought was, why didn't he kill her? >> to me, it was the fact in her statement, she says that she wrestled in the backyard with this man and he beat her head violently in the ground. deputy york testified that there was not dew disturbed in the backyard. >> the fact that they said that there was no sign of forced entry, no blood trail, all of it added together. >> and the prosecution said the murderer came in the house and he throwed up his hands and say,

oh, i forgot a murder weapon. if he had intentions to kill somebody, you would think he would have brought his own weapon. >> julie had this story that -- i mean, honestly it doesn't make sense, and parkinson said she was convicted by her own ridiculous story. >> in talking to those jurors, the key difference, according to the people who were on the fence, was she didn't get up on the stand. >> i looked at her for two weeks, stared her in her eyes for two weeks. i wanted her to tell me that story, what happened, see if she -- how upset she was, how she felt. >> the prosecution didn't have to move any motive, but the jurors were convinced that julie wanted to do anything to keep her son, joel, away from her ex-husband, len. >> i feel it was hatred toward her husband. >> you know, if i can't have him, no one will. >> i just felt she snapped. i truly do.

>> i'm very satisfied that this jury spent two weeks listening to the evidence and they didn't take very long to find her guilty unanimously. >> not for one second do i believe that she could've ever even thought about murdering her son. she loved that child so much. >> not long after she's convicted, we get to the town in illinois and we arrange the interview. >> julie was allowed out briefly. she had a very moving reunion with her new husband and with her parents. it is genuine love. it is relief, if only for a short period. they hug.

she's in tears. it's quite a moment. >> the kind of reunion she was having with her loved ones really got her over the top emotionally, and you can kind of almost see her recovery occur on the video before the interview starts. the woman who had not testified at trial was about to testify to the whole world through "20/20" for the first time. >> tonight on "20/20" john miller with a story that turned up lots of leads. >> did you kill your son joel? >> no. no, no, no. why would i? i wouldn't hurt anyone. the last person in the world i would hurt is my son. >> i have interviewed every kind and form of criminal. you can't tell who's telling the truth and who's a very good liar. there's no human lie detector, but she gave every sign of

someone who was willing to answer every question and didn't seem to have trouble coming up or constructing those answers. are you hoping people will hear this, that something will change? >> yes, i do hope that. at a very survival-oriented level, i am praying to god. my son knows i didn't hurt him. my son knows i would have never hurt him. >> it was a desperate call, one that was just made of hope. you know, can someone hear this? and what happens next is truly remarkable. >> she was interested in getting this storyut there and hoping that someone might be able to corroborate it. and as it turns out someone could. >> the "20/20" show becomes a pivotal turning point. >> i sat down to watch "20/20." i didn't expect that i would blow a case apart. >> a serial murderer sitting on death row says, "i did it."

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it was a horrifying story that rocked this tiny town in southern, illinois. the intruder breaking in without any apparent motive, killing her son and running away, which sounded unlikely enough she was convicted. >> but who could ever imagine a "20/20" view e a true crime writer watching one night would make a complete u-turn in. >> i had justice in my hands and i had to do something. >> did you commit the murder of the boy in lawrenceville? yes, this is another one of my murders. >> that guy would confess to anything. >> the prosecutor completely dismisses the tommy lynn sells

confession. he calls it fiction. they have a serial murder sitting on death row who says, i did it. >> you think that would get julie rea out of prison, but not so fast. ♪ how do you keep your head above the water? ♪ tonight, on "20/20" with barbara walters and john miller -- >> abc "20/20" does the story of julie's case. within a few months after she's convicted, and for the first time, julie tells what happened in her own words. >> somebody jumped on me or at me, um, and i didn't know what was going on. >> one of the people watching that night was diane fanning, who's a crime writer. >> did you kill your son joel? >> no.

no, no, no. >> i think julie agreed to talk to us because she was out of options. >> at the time, dianne fanning is working on her first book, which is about a serial killer named tommy lynn sells. >> tommy lynn sells is on death row for attempting to murder two small girls. i mean, these girls are not much older than joel. >> tommy lynn sells is on death row for the slashing murder of 13-year-old kayleen harris. also attacked with a knife, a 10-year-old girl sleeping in the same room. >> i woke this girl up. she tried to come over here, and i stabbed her, and this little girl up here, i walked over here, and i went like this. >> after he slit my throat, i just laid there, and then he left. >> i decided to write about

tommy lynn sells because of the last little girl he tried to murder. she survived and she became my hero. >> i got up and went down to the neighbors. i just went as fast as i could. >> diane fanning was sort of pen pals. she'd gone and interviewed tommy lynn sells many times but in between, she wrote letters. >> i was almost finished writing my book, when i sat down to watch "20/20." so i'm listening to julie rea herself talking about how she did not kill her 10-year-old boy. and then the prosecutor came on. >> to believe her, you would have to believe that this assailant came into her home for the sole purpose of killing a 10-year-old boy. and yet he also forgot to bring a murder weapon along and used her kitchen knife to do it with. total nonsense. >> sells had done that on more than one occasion.

he often didn't bring weapons with him. >> so after watching "20/20," diane sits down and writes sells a letter. >> the other night i was watching a story on tv about a woman who claimed someone broke into her house. and listen to the prosecuting attorney, a person does not come into someone else's home without a weapon and then pull a knife out of the kitchen drawer in the house and use it. i thought that the crime could have been committed by somebody who was very much like tommy lynn sells. and i did not tell him the name of the prosecutor, the name of the case, the town where it occurred, the time when it occurred, nothing like that. >> tommy lynn sells writes back, and diane fanning is just absolutely blown away. >> tommy responded by writing, about that woman claimed someone broke into her house, was that,

like, maybe two days before my springfield, missouri murder? maybe on a 13th? i was shocked. joel was murdered on the 13th. and stephanie mahaney in springfield, missouri on the 15th of that month. >> this serial killer on death row nails the exact date of joel's murder, october the 13th. that's two days before he's believed to have kidnapped, sexually assaulted, and killed stephanie mahaney. >> he described stephanie mahaney had a bugs bunny night shirt. the texas rangers consider that a corroborated confession because he had given details that only the killer would know. >> when i read that letter, my hands started shaking. i felt i had justice in my hands and i had to do something. the first thing i did was call

texas ranger johnny allen. he knew sells well, and he said that what i was telling him made it sound like it was very possible that sells killed joel. i thought, maybe someone who had more ability to get information than i did would be able to track this down. >> so she just kind of eludes to it in her book. >> anger drove him. he picked up a knife and headed straight for the first bedroom door. there, 10-year-old joel kirkpatrick dreamed his last dream. >> diane fanning publishes her book, and clearly "20/20" had to go back and look into the story again. clearly, i was going to interview tommy lynn sells. did you commit the murder of the boy in lawrenceville?

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it's never pleasant to interview someone in jail. people who are incarcerated are

difficult sometimes. it's not the kind of assignment i've ever looked forward to. i'm lynn scherr, and i was a "20/20" correspondent, and i covered julie rea's story. the idea of a mother and a father losing his child is as sad as it gets. i walked into this interview, a maximum security prison in texas --- she me where you want me. and there i was facing serial murderer tommy lynn sells. >> an ex-con and a known drifter, sells is linked to murders in at least 11 states. >> his victims died from gunshots, blunt trauma, throats being cut, strangulation. >> he preferred, he's told me,

strangulation because then he could watch the light leave their eyes. >> i was very grateful for that barrier between us. this is a man who was pure evil. tommy, you know why we're here. >> mm-hmm. >> so, let's get right to it. he seemed mild-mannered. he seemed a little coy. he was playing with me. what were you wearing on your feet, do you remember? [ laughs ] >> what was you wearing three years ago, four years ago? >> but he essentially confessed. did you murder -- >> yes. >> a child in lawrenceville, illinois. >> yes. this is another one of my murders. >> so much of what tommy lynn sells told me that day sounded exactly like what julie rea had described. >> it was around midnight. i checked on him. he was sleeping. he was fine.

>> i know it was late, and that's the time i -- i -- i mostly strike, is late. >> why would you go to a house intent on killing someone and not bring your own weapon? >> i guess you ain't never seen me kill with my bare hands then. >> do you remember the actual moment that you killed this other person and how you did it? >> well, with a knife. >> um, i heard a scream. >> and, uh, i hear someone in the house. >> and i jumped up and ran in there. >> and i get up and that's when i noticed it was a woman. >> somebody jumped on me or at me. >> i went to cut her but i didn't have the knife no more. i'm not sure what in the hell happened to it. >> he broke out the door. >> she tried to follow me. >> the person seemed really angry with me at this point.

>> i finally just hit her. >> hitting my face into the ground. >> and that's when it stopped, and i went ahead and disappeared. >> i've met awful people. i've met awful people who don't necessarily murder children. do you, in fact, recall that it was a young child? >> uh, maybe i just don't like to say that. >> why not? >> living with what i done is a hell of a lot harder than doing it. >> he just had a calmness about his body and a look in his eyes that i found terrifying. sells confession sparked new interest in julie's story. >> all of this publicity caught the attention of the illinois innocence project, and they took

up julie rea's case. >> to find what other evidence there may be to connect tommy lynn sells to this case. turns out there's a lot. >> sells described that the house, it was brick, and so that was one of the details he knew and was accurate about. my name is bill clutter. i'm a private investigator that investigates wrongful conviction cases. i am in lawrenceville looking north on highway 1. >> when clutter goes down to lawrenceville and starts asking around, little pieces were starting to add up to corroboration with julie's story. >> one of the key pieces of investigation was the sighting of tommy lynn sells both in lawrenceville and then across the border in indiana. >> jane rea, julie's mother, told me that i should pay particular attention to the greyhound bus ticket agent.

>> sandra, would you please state your full name? >> my name is sandra june wirth. >> sandra wirth was a greyhound ticket agent in princeton, indiana, who sold the ticket to the person she felt matched the description of the assailant after seeing that she contacted the illinois state police. >> it was just odd. someone coming in like that and being nervous and needing a ticket right away. >> he wanted to buy a bus ticket to winnemucca, nevada. >> the reason it stood out to me is we don't see very many tickets to winnemucca, nevada. >> had you ever heard of winnemucca, nevada, before that? >> no. >> i got thinking about that. where have i seen winnemucca, nevada? i went to diane fanning's book, i read it once, and i reread it

and there it was. on december 13, 1997, the texas rangers put tommy lynn sells in winnemucca. and of course the bus transfers at st. louis. >> where do you think of when you think of home? >> st. louis. >> st. louis? >> yeah. >> we know that sells lived in st. louis. that's where his mother lived. >> what do you remember him saying about his mother? >> he said his mother was sick and he had to get to her. >> the state police had detectives board the bus, but the person that bought the ticket wasn't on the bus. >> sells probably got off at st. louis, traveled on to springfield, missouri, where he killed stephanie mahaney two days after joel kirkpatrick was killed. >> and it turns out there was something in sells' criminal history that sheds some light on a part of julie's story that baffled police.

why would someone break into a house and target a kid instead of an adult? >> my name is fabienne witherspoon, and i'm a survivor of tommy lynn sells. [sfx: radio being tuned] welcome to allstate. ♪ [band plays] ♪ a place where everyone lives life well-protected. ♪ and even when things go a bit wrong, we've got your back. here, things work the way you wish they would. and better protection costs a whole lot less. you're in good hands with allstate. click or call for a lower auto rate today. ♪ every moment together is a with gift.ate. la vie est belle. lancôme. at macy's, the fragrance destination. ♪ i'm chi lan, i am a mom, and a real estate agent. after having a kid, everything that you used to do

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i had encountered a person in the lawrenceville drive-in on friday night. just a couple of days before joel kirkpatrick was murdered. >> i follow up on this tip that came in from alan berkshire. i conducted the video interview in his home. so he has about a 45-minute opportunity to lay eyes on this guy. he matched the description of the assailant that julie gave. >> he was 145 pounds, maybe 155 pounds. about my height, about 5'9", 5'10." there was something definitely wrong with him. he was either drunk or high. he was telling me that he wasn't from around here, and that he'd been living in st. louis.

>> and he says that this drifter seems to be preoccupied with his son. >> tapped him on the shoulder one time. you know -- he said, i'll bet you're afraid after me, aren't you? and the guy did a funny [ laughs ] i guess maybe everybody ought to be afraid of me. >> he sees this drifter walking south toward the railroad tracks. if you keep walking it would be in the direction of the neighborhood where julie rea was living at the time. >> 10-year-old joel kirkpatrick found murdered here in his lawrenceville, illinois home. the boy had been stabbed multiple times. >> on the morning that i heard there has been a little boy brutally murdered, i kept thinking, wow, maybe it was him. >> the remarkable thing about this is that alan berkshire went to the sheriff to report

encountering this drifter at the lawrenceville diner. i said, i have a possible suspect that i think you should try to find out. he said, okay, i'll have deputies and stuff check into this. >> he takes alan berkshire's statement but never documents it. >> he never took any written information. >> and did any deputy contact you? >> nothing. >> bill clutter begins to compare julie's statements with the interview tommy lynn sells gave to the state police, and many of those details match up perfectly. >> sells described getting the knife from a butcher block. >> i remember the knife i pulled. i want to say butcher block, but a swear thing. >> julie described the assailant backhanded her.

>> tommy lynn sells was interviewed six years later. >> there wasn't no punching. i backhanded her. >> julie describes following the intruder out into the backyard, where he turns and again knocks her to the ground. >> i hit her at the back of the house. >> those are details that sells couldn't fabricate. >> and it turns out there was something in sells' criminal history that sheds some light on a part of julie's story that baffled police and the prosecutor. why would someone break into a house and target a kid instead of an adult? >> tommy lynn sells had sort of shifted away from attacking adults after he attacked a woman named fabienne witherspoon. >> i was 19 years old. walking back to the house over the bridge, and i saw a man holding a sign that said "hungry, will work for food."

he had showed me a picture of three small children. and he said, we are very hungry. he didn't look scary. i felt more sorry for him than anything. >> she brought him home. she filled up a bag of food and another of clothing. >> i had him wait on the porch outside and asked him to stay there. while i was doing that -- he had come in the house and gotten a knife from the kitchen. he took me to the bathroom, and he closed the door. he held a knife and started telling me things to do. that was, i think, the point where i said, no, i am not going to do anything anymore. i am going to fight. i saw on the back of the toilet was a ceramic duck. and i picked the duck up and --

>> smashed it into his head. >> i'm thinking in the movies you get hit over the head with something, they pass out. and he was still standing. >> she managed to get control of the knife, and she stabbed him, and stabbed him, and stabbed him. >> and then, i felt something come crashing down over my head. and that's the last thing i remember until i came to. i remember the detective asking me, who did this to you? and i said, he had told me his whole name. tommy lynn sells. >> they are trahad tracked him . he had a nicked kidney, a nicked liver. his testicle was sliced. he was cut up and bleeding profusely internally. >> so that attack didn't just injure him physically. he also ended up in prison for about five years. >> he decided, never again will i attack a man or a woman who is

my size. >> when he's released in the spring of 1997, just a few months before joel kirkpatrick was killed, he starts targeting the most vulnerable of victims, children. >> there had been corroborating evidence to place him in lawrenceville. >> these corroborations, these eyewitnesses, that description of tommy lynn sells -- to us, that's pretty strong evidence. >> with mounting evidence of tommy lynn sells' connection to joel's murder, julie's supporters are hoping this might prove her innocence. >> you really don't buy into any of the tommy lynn sells argument at all. >> no, i quit reading fairy tales when i was about 9. >> but a surprise no one could have predicted might give julie a second chance, and it has nothing to do with tommy lynn sells. i told you i was gonna win. with windows 11 gaming performs to another level let's go!

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julie rae has been in prison for two years when, surprisingly, a technicality sets aside her conviction. >> it just couldn't be true. are you sure? pinch. yeah. are you sure? okay. this is real. but then it was, like, too good to be true. >> prosecutor ed parkinson refiles charges. julie will have to face a second trial. >> her family thought this day may never come, but after receiving the bond last week, today they raised the necessary $75,000 to bail julie

rea harper out of jail. >> she's let out on bail and then she reacts pretty much the way you would expect anyone to react who's just gotten out. >> i'm a little embarrassed. i -- i guess i w the grass on my feet. oh, it felt so good. yeah. incredible. it fell like, um -- like i was home. >> she will still face charges on the murder of her 10-year-old son, joel kirkpatrick, a crime she contends she did not commit. >> her second trial was moved because of publicity surrounding her case. >> this trial happened in carlyle, illinois. another very small town. >> i spent two years -- eager

for a new trial. pent up, nervous, scared. you know, just all these emotions all at the same time. >> in this case, a literal dream team was formed. starting with the innocence project, leading to the center for wrongful convictions. >> and they put together, i called it, the best defense team money couldn't possibly buy. >> she had a defense team that was really extraordinary. the lead person on that defense team, ron safer, had actually at one point been a federal prosecutor working with one of the most prestigious law firms in chicago. >> i had not been nervous leading up to the trial. i was not nervous at all. and then i heard parkinson stand up in front of the jury. and he put up the crime scene photo of joel, which is horrific.

and i looked at the jury, and i saw these people are angry. and she's the only one in this courtroom to vent their anger. >> the prosecutors in the case had not changed their minds at all. they still believed that they had the killer, that the killer was julie rea. >> the evidence was virtually the same from the prosecution's standpoint. we had a 10-year-old boy stabbed in his own bed with his mother's knife in the middle of the night with no forced entry and for no reason. >> the defense in the second trial called attention to shoddy police work. that the police decided so quickly that they already had their killer that they didn't have to go to any lengths whatsoever to rule out the possibility that she was telling the truth. >> there were lots of questions raised about, um, the fingerprinting process and what was and was not fingerprinted. >> this was a house that was, you know, the suspect herself lived in.

this was not a fingerprint case. >> and then they said, well, there's no evidence of an intruder. of course. you didn't investigate the evidence of the intruder. >> the classic example f what we call tunnel vision in the innocence movement. >> they dusted around the doorway and on fragments of glass, and i think they made efforts at that. i don't believe they had tunnel vision. >> i remember pictures of the officers holding up the bed linens to display the rips that had been made by the stabbing. to a crime scene investigator, they were pictures of officers destroying evidence, because any kind of hair or other fibers were just falling off. >> our police investigators said that the bottom part of that was, which isn't shown in the picture, was still folded, was still there, and after which they folded it up. >> one of the things that comes out later, is that one of the

officers claims that there were no footprints in the dew on the grass. therefore julie's story about the intruder walking off couldn't be true. both our students and julie's second husband, mark harper, did a very clear investigation and found out meteorologically there could not have been dew on the ground. so one has to ask themselves, how do you explain that? >> the glass was broken from the kitchen outwards to the garage in a way that appeared to our expert that this was -- appeared to be staged. >> other experts counter that by saying you can break the glass but it's actually the door swinging open and hitting the apex that causes the glass to fall. >> the blood spatter becomes very critical. when we get to the second trial -- >> there is blood spatter on the walls, on posters, on pictures,

on the floor, on shoes all the way across the room. julie, not one single bit of projected blood from joel. >> there was some of joel's blood on her t-shirt, which could have included joel fighting for his life, pushing back. and in fact, our expert says that's what it was. it was like a handprint. >> i remember very vividly where he holds up this nightshirt to the jury, and he points at it and he says, see? can't you see the imprint of a hand on this nightshirt? that was joel's hand trying to keep his mother away from him as she was stabbing him. and the fact of the matter is, you couldn't even begin to see that. >> she has transfer stains of joel's blood on her back. transfer stains.

how does that get on her back? a third person. innocent beyond any doubt. >> both the sheriff's office and the illinois state police declined to comment on the case. >> of course, the biggest difference between this trial and the first trial is someone has confessed. they have a serial murderer sitting on death row who says, i did it. >> tommy lynn sells recanted. i think it was a made-up distraction, fabrication, complete b.s. ♪ things you start when you're 45. coaching. new workouts. and screening for colon cancer. yep. the american cancer society recommends screening starting at age 45, instead of 50, since colon cancer is increasing in younger adults. i'm cologuard®. i'm convenient and find 92% of colon cancers... ...even in early stages. i'm for people 45 plus at average risk for colon cancer,

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one of the huge differences between the first trial and the second trial is that julie's story all of a sudden made sense. >> looking back on it, if somebody's going to invent a story of an intruder, you would think she would've also invented a burglary or something to make it more believable. instead she stuck with this unlikely story that just happened to be the exact m.o. of a serial killer. >> they introduce a who and that's tommy lynn sells. so that, in the reasonable doubt world is an alternative suspect. >> the same prosecutor from the first time around, ed parkinson,

isn't buying any of the new evidence from tommy lynn sells. he still believes she did it, that she murdered her son. >> the defense interjected the myth, in my opinion, of tommy lynn sells, a serial killer out of texas, and they threw that in there to derail the jury's focus on julie rea. >> she has rug burns on her knees. she has scrapes and cuts on the top of her feet, where she was dragged through the grass. she has a big black eye when he slammed her head into the ground. these wounds perfectly matched what sells says happened and what she says happened. >> one of the key pieces of evidence introduced at the trial

is part of the transcript of myl where tommy lynn sells confesses to me, to our audience, is now heard by the jury. did you murder a child in lawrenceville, illinois? >> yes. this is another one of my murders. >> the defense team tried to convince the jury by playing his videoed interviews that he did it, and that's smoke and mirrors. it's a fairy tale. >> the prosecution maintained repeatedly that tommy lynn sells had nothing to do with this. >> that guy would confess to anything just to get out of a cell on death row, in my opinion. and besides, he was 33 years old at the time, and julie described the assailant as a young kid. it doesn't even match that. >> the person julie described was thin build. 14 to 17 years old.

look at the driver's license. although sells is in his early 30s, his weight is 130 pounds. he could have easily been mistaken for a much younger person with that low weight. >> a lot of the work that bill clutter did on tommy lynn sells becomes the basis for the evidence that gets used in the second trial. >> there was independent evidence that somebody like tommy lynn sells was there in the town. >> tommy lynn sells did not have a pristine memory of this murder. there's plenty of reasons that he got some things wrong. um, but he got a lot of things right. >> i mean, when you kill that many people, it's hard to keep all the details straight. they kind of mingle together in your head, i would think. >> tommy lynn sells later recanted. i think it was a made-up

distraction, fabrication and complete bs. >> he did recant certain parts of his story. he told different details at different times. but it would almost be more suspicious if he had every detail exact. >> tommy lynn sells confessed. he recanted. tommy lynn sells is a psychopath. you do not have to reach tommy lynn sells or his confession to know that julie is innocent beyond any doubt. but tommy lynn sells is the embodiment of reasonable doubt. >> in the second trial, the lawyers going in know some things that the first jury said we needed to hear from her, and she does testify. >> they got to hear her explanation of events, and, uh, they got to hear how much she loved joel.

>> it seemed to go quick. >> how do you think you did? >> i told the truth. >> again and again i remember she began sentences sort of calmly and then would gradually sort of break down into crying then have to compose herself. >> i don't know if it was an act, but it didn't appear -- we didn't see tears like that in the first trial. >> if i were that talented, surely, i would have done it during the first trial. >> even though it was a circumstantial case, i was still confident, because from my view, i thought that this tommy lynn sells nonsense was so out there that i thought the jury wouldn't buy that. >> i prayed that they would see the truth. >> there was no worse moment in my life professionally than waiting for that verdict.

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he left. >> the other prosecutor went in. i had a bad feeling about it. >> the foreman handed the envelope over to someone who took it to the judge. and i heard ---his words. ♪ >> jury came back, they said, not guilty. julie collapsed. >> it was over. finally. finally. >> she cried out, literally fell to the ground. i've covered a lot of trials, but i've never quite seen anything like that. >> and i just felt like joel was right there with me and he was just so happy. it was incredible. >> tears fell from the eyes of

julie rea harper minutes after she heard the jury's not guilty verdict. >> i almost wanted to cry with her. i mean, my heart was just beating a mile a minute, and i just -- it just -- we freed this woman. >> this has been a nightmare that nobody should have to live through. >> legally, she's not just acquitted, she's not just not guilty. the state of illinois gave julie rea a certificate of innocence. >> the special prosecutor, such as the one in my case, need to be held accountable. >> if someone like julie, who led an exemplary life, can be swept up and accused of a crime she did not commit, that means all of us are vulnerable. >> when the wrong person is arrested, tried, and ultimately convicted, the real perpetrator

is allowedo remain freare y ful. >> my son deserves to be respected. he deserves justice to be sought. >> a serial killer, tommy lynn sells, has been executed. >> tommy lynn sells was never convicted of joel's murder. he was however, executed. there are those who will say, justice has been served. ♪ we could be together again ♪ >> now, i freely admit that this has broken me. nobody teaches you how to be -- to survive this. i miss him so bad to this day. he was just truly, truly special.

>> this was a mother who went through the worst thing any parent could go through, losing a child and then actually serve prison time for that and essentially prove your innocence. that's as much a definition of hell as i think anyone could come up with. will it cause future prosecutions to perhaps be a little more diligent about at least considering what sound like unlikely alibis? it should. >> even though her strong faith has sustained her, she is still and will continue to suffer for his murder. >> joel's always going to be a part of my life, and he's with me every day. wherever i am. ♪ and hooked up to your life support, so don't let me go ♪ >> we should note since her exoneration, julie rea has become an advocate for women who

feel they have been wrongly convicted. >> she is working with organizations who are fighting to prove their innocence. that's our program for tonight. i'm amy robach. >> i'm dm david muir. for all of us here, thanks for watching. good night.

>> breaking news, a shooting in

sacramento and now the search in the east bay for this man and a missing child. >> the big announcem