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Jeremy Simko Murder: No Forced Entry, 4 Guard Dogs | True Crime · Crime Uncovered

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: A property wrapped in security cameras, a driveway sensor that
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: chimes every time anyone approaches, four German shepherds chained around
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: the perimeter like sentries, multiple firearms within arm's reach of
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: both adults who live there. This was a home built
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: to keep danger out, a fortress in the Ohio countryside
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: constructed layer by layer by a man who believed in
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: self-reliance and preparation. And yet, inside the bedroom, a man
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: lies motionless, a single wound to the back of his head.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: His wife is on the phone with 911, screaming for help,
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: her voice cracking as she tries to explain what happened.
• 0:43
  Speaker 1: The cameras recorded nothing. The dogs never barked. The sensors
• 0:47
  Speaker 1: never triggered. A revolver sits on the kitchen floor. One
• 0:51
  Speaker 1: round fired. The chamber's still warm. No signs of forced entry.
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: no broken windows, no evidence that anyone came or went
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: in the night. So if no one broke in, how
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: did this happen? And if someone did break in, how
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: did they get past all of it without leaving a
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: single trace? For the investigators who arrived that morning, those
• 1:14
  Speaker 1: questions would become an obsession, one that consumed years of
• 1:17
  Speaker 1: their careers, because the answer they eventually reached wasn't one
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: anyone wanted to believe. The truth, as they came to
• 1:25
  Speaker 1: see it, was darker than any intruder theory could ever be.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: Jeremy Scott Simcoe was born on July 7, 1973, in Lorain, Ohio,
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: a small city on the shore of Lake Erie, where
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: blue-collar values ran deep, and neighbors still knew each other
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: by name. It was a town shaped by steel mills
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: and shipyards, by men who came home tired, and women
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: who held families together through hard times. He grew up
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: in Sheffield Township, surrounded by dense woods and the kind
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: of silence that makes you notice every rustle of a leaf.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: From an early age, Jeremy was drawn outdoors. While other
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: kids were glued to the television, he was out exploring, climbing.
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: Learning to read the natural world around him. At Clearview
• 2:16
  Speaker 1: High School, he found his competitive outlet on the wrestling mat,
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: wrestling varsity at 135 pounds. Wrestling taught him discipline, how
• 2:26
  Speaker 1: to push through exhaustion when every muscle was screaming at
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: you to quit. People who knew him then remember a
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: young man with intensity in his eyes, competitive, focused, unwilling
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: to settle for second place. After graduating in 1991, Jeremy
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: enrolled at Hocking Technical College in Nelsonville, where he studied arboriculture,
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: the cultivation and management of trees. It was a path
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: that combined his love of nature with practical skills. He
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: worked for established companies first, a local tree service, then
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: a national tree care company. Those jobs were his education
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: beyond the classroom. He studied how things were run, what worked.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: What didn't? Then, in 1997, at just 24 years old,
• 3:14
  Speaker 1: he founded his own company, Simcoe Tree Service. Building a
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: business from nothing is never easy, but Jeremy attacked it
• 3:22
  Speaker 1: with the same determination he'd brought to the wrestling mat.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: He was meticulous. Every cut precise, every clean-up thorough. He'd
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: climb trees that made other arborists nervous, moving through branches
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: 60 feet off the ground with something close to artistry.
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: Within a few years, Simcoe Tree Service had a reputation
• 3:41
  Speaker 1: as one of the premier operations in Lorain County. A
• 3:45
  Speaker 1: business that started with one man and a chainsaw grew
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: into something substantial. Trucks, equipment, employees, a growing client list.
• 3:54
  Speaker 1: But there were two sides to this coin. On job sites,
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: Jeremy could be loud, strict, demanding. He expected perfection from
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: his crews and and didn't soften his criticism when they
• 4:06
  Speaker 1: fell short. Some described him as a hothead, quick to frustration,
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: unafraid of confrontation. His high standards made sense in dangerous work,
• 4:15
  Speaker 1: but they also made enemies. Not everyone appreciated his management style.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: Away from work, a very different Jeremy emerged. Friends and
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: family described an avid naturalist who could spend hours identifying plants,
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: tracking animals, simply being present in the wilderness. He loved
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: campfires and cooking outdoors. And he was a natural teacher,
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: patient in ways that surprised people who knew his workplace reputation.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: He invested heavily in his nieces and nephews. He taught
• 4:48
  Speaker 1: them to swim, to hunt safely, to drive on back roads.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: He passed down the practical knowledge that had shaped his
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: own childhood. His family was close-knit. His mother, his father,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: his sisters, his grandmother, and his in-laws Judy and Rolando
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: Maldonado had welcomed him into their family when he married
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: their daughter. That daughter was Julene. Jeremy and Julene had
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: built something together beyond a marriage. They were business partners,
• 5:17
  Speaker 1: running Simcoe Tree Service side by side. She handled the
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: administrative side, scheduling, billing, paperwork. He handled the physical work, climbing, cutting,
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: the skilled labor that paid the bills. People who knew
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: them often described them as best friends. They took long
• 5:35
  Speaker 1: hikes together with their four German shepherds, the same dogs
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: that would later become central to understanding what happened. And
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: their property, on Northridge Road in Brownhelm Township, wasn't just
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: a home. It was a compound. Let me walk you
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: through it, because every detail matters. A gate blocked the
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: driveway entrance. Even if someone got through, a driveway sensor
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: would trigger a loud tone inside the house. There were
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: door sensors on every first floor entrance. Open any door,
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: and three rapid beeps sounded throughout the house. A speaker
• 6:12
  Speaker 1: near the third floor loft made sure that even someone
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: sleeping upstairs would hear it. Security cameras covered the front
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: and back with views of the driveway and barn. The
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: footage was always recording. And then, the dogs. Four German shepherds, large, alert,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: and described by visitors as vicious-looking. At night, they were
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: chained around the perimeter, positioned to detect anyone approaching. Living alarms,
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: with teeth. Inside, firearms were never far away. Both Jeremy
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: and Julene had concealed carry permits. A 9mm pistol was
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: kept in the bedroom. A. 357 Magnum revolver often sat
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: in a holster inside a first-floor cabinet. Jeremy lived in
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: a rural area where police response times could stretch long.
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: So he'd built his security system piece by piece, layers
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: of protection that would warn him of any threat long
• 7:10
  Speaker 1: before it reached his bedroom. He had prepared for every
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: possible scenario. Every scenario except one. Tuesday, November 17, 2009.
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: By later accounts, it was an ordinary day at the
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: Simcoe house. Julene spent part of the afternoon canning pumpkins.
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: The couple watched television in the evening. Nothing remarkable. Around
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: 10 p.m., Jeremy went outside to secure the dogs for
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: the night. The security cameras recorded it. The last normal
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: footage they would capture. When he came back inside, the
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: kitchen door was locked. The security system was active. The
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: cameras were rolling. Jeremy went to bed in the master
• 7:51
  Speaker 1: bedroom on the second floor. Julene, she would later say,
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: didn't join him there. She told investigators she went up
• 7:59
  Speaker 1: to the third floor loft to sleep on the couch,
• 8:01
  Speaker 1: but her explanations varied. It was too hot, or Jeremy
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: had pushed her out of bed, or his snoring was unbearable.
• 8:09
  Speaker 1: The reason changed depending on when she was asked. That
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: inconsistency would become a focus of the investigation. But everyone
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: agreed on this. In the hours that followed, the cameras
• 8:21
  Speaker 1: recorded nothing unusual. The driveway sensors stayed silent. The door
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: sensors never chimed. The four German shepherds never barked. The
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: fortress held its breath. Until it didn't. At about 6 a.m.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: on Wednesday, November 18, 2009, a gunshot rang out inside
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: the Simcoe home. Jeremy was shot in the back of
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: the head. at point-blank range while lying in bed. The
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: barrel had been so close to his skull that investigators
• 8:48
  Speaker 1: would later call it a near-contact wound. He likely never
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: knew what was happening. He never had the chance to
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: fight back, to reach for the 9mm beside his bed,
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: to use any of the skills or preparation that had
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: defined his approach to life. He was killed in his sleep,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: in his own bed, in the fortress he had built
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: to protect himself. Minutes later, Julene Simcoe called 911. Her
• 9:15
  Speaker 1: voice was frantic, desperate, the kind of raw panic that
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: makes dispatchers lean forward and type faster. She told the
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: operator that someone had broken in, that her husband had
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: been shot, that she needed help immediately. She stayed on
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: the line, following instructions, attempting CPR on a man who
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: was already beyond saving. When officers arrived, they found her
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: still on the phone. and she explained what had happened,
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: or what she said had happened. She'd been sleeping on
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: the third-floor loft couch when she heard a loud noise.
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: At first, she thought it might be Jeremy, firing at
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: an animal from the bedroom window, something he'd done before
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: when wildlife threatened their property. But something felt wrong. She
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: went downstairs to check on him. In the darkness, she
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: felt blood. And then she heard another noise, somewhere else
• 10:09
  Speaker 1: in the house. Footsteps, maybe. Or a door. She grabbed
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: the 9mm from the bedroom and using the glow of
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: an alarm clock to disengage the safety, and fired two
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: shots into the hallway. Then she found Jeremy's phone and
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: called 911. A. 235- 7 Magnum revolver lay on the kitchen floor.
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: One round had been fired. The two hallway shots had
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: come from the bedroom 9mm, the one Julene said she fired.
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: But here's where the case took its first strange turn.
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: There was no sign of forced entry. Anywhere. The doors
• 10:46
  Speaker 1: and windows were locked, all except the kitchen door, which
• 10:50
  Speaker 1: officers found standing open when they arrived. The screen door
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: was closed but unlocked. The security cameras had recorded nothing
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: after Jeremy secured the dogs at 10 p.m. No approaching vehicle.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: No figure in the darkness. No shadow. No silhouette. Nothing
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: at all. The driveway sensor hadn't triggered. The dogs hadn't barked.
• 11:14
  Speaker 1: Four German shepherds, placed specifically to alert their owners to intruders,
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: had stayed silent through whatever happened in that house. Officers
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: searched the property and found no evidence that anyone had
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: entered from outside, no footprints leading to the house, at
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: least none that could be attributed to a stranger, no
• 11:34
  Speaker 1: DNA from an unknown source, nothing stolen, nothing disturbed beyond
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: what the crime itself had caused. If a killer had
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: broken in, they had done it without leaving a single trace.
• 11:47
  Speaker 1: Think about what that would have required. They would have
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: bypassed a locked gate, a driveway sensor, four aggressive dogs,
• 11:56
  Speaker 1: multiple cameras, locked doors. They would have navigated a dark,
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: unfamiliar house, found and retrieved a weapon from a China cabinet,
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: located the bedroom, and shot a sleeping man from inches
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: away while his armed wife was somewhere else in the building.
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: Then they'd have placed the gun carefully on the kitchen floor,
• 12:16
  Speaker 1: without dropping it or leaving marks, and disappeared into the night.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: All without waking anyone. All without the dogs making a sound.
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: Investigators looked at that scenario and struggled to believe it
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: could be true. But if not an intruder, then who?
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: As they dug deeper, small inconsistencies began to surface, like
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: cracks in a foundation. There were Julene's changing explanations for
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: why she slept on the third floor couch instead of
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: in bed with her husband. Temperature. Snoring. Being pushed out.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: Each version slightly different from the last. None of them
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: quite fitting together. There was the tight. 357 Magnum on
• 13:00
  Speaker 1: the kitchen floor. Officers noted that it showed no impact marks.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: No dents. No scratches that would suggest it had been
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: dropped by someone fleeing in panic. To their trained eyes,
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: it looked like it had been placed there deliberately, set
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: down carefully rather than abandoned in haste. The china cabinet
• 13:19
  Speaker 1: where the gun was normally stored was found slightly ajar,
• 13:23
  Speaker 1: the empty holster visible inside. And then there was what
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: happened at the hospital. A nurse who was present when
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: Julene arrived would later testify about something that stopped her cold.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: According to the nurse, Julene first said, I shot my husband.
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: And then, almost immediately, she corrected herself. Someone shot my husband.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: A slip of the tongue. Trauma-induced confusion. The kind of
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: mistake anyone might make in the worst moment of their life.
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: Or something more revealing. A truth that slipped out before
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: the careful story could be maintained. Investigators also looked at
• 14:02
  Speaker 1: the couple's finances and searching for any pressure that might
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: point to motive. They learned that Jeremy and Julene had
• 14:09
  Speaker 1: been trying to secure a bank loan to buy adjacent land,
• 14:12
  Speaker 1: an expansion that would have required significant capital. The loan
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: had recently been denied. Julene had mentioned moving the 9mm
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: from its usual spot because of an appraisal tied to
• 14:24
  Speaker 1: the loan application. But when investigators contacted the bank, representatives
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: said no appraisal had been scheduled. Another inconsistency. another detail
• 14:34
  Speaker 1: that didn't add up. And there was one more digital breadcrumb.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: On the evening before Jeremy's death, just hours before the shooting,
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: someone had accessed an online obituary for Julene's father. When
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: asked about it, Julene denied doing it and couldn't explain
• 14:50
  Speaker 1: why anyone in the household would have visited that page
• 14:53
  Speaker 1: on that particular night. A strange coincidence? Or a moment
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: of reflection before irreversible action? None of these details proved
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: anything on their own. But together, they painted a picture
• 15:05
  Speaker 1: that made investigators deeply uncomfortable with the intruder story. At first,
• 15:10
  Speaker 1: they followed every lead with an open mind. A neighbor
• 15:13
  Speaker 1: had reported seeing an unusual person walking near a church
• 15:17
  Speaker 1: in the days before the shooting. Jeremy had apparently noticed it, too.
• 15:22
  Speaker 1: Someone had texted him about it, because he was known
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: as a kind of neighborhood watchman, always alert to anything
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: out of place. Another tip pointed to a neighbor identified
• 15:32
  Speaker 1: in court records only by his initials. Investigators interviewed him
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: multiple times over the years. They examined his possible connection,
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: tracked his movements, scrutinized his alibi. Eventually, they ruled him out.
• 15:47
  Speaker 1: He died before the case ever went to trial, taking
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: whatever knowledge he might have had with him. There were
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: rumors of a drug deal gone wrong, the kind of
• 15:56
  Speaker 1: speculation that follows any unexplained death in rural America. where
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: people search for explanations that make sense of senseless violence.
• 16:04
  Speaker 1: Investigators looked into it thoroughly and found nothing. No drug involvement,
• 16:09
  Speaker 1: no suspicious contacts, no financial trail. But even as the
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: alternative theories fizzled one by one, the circumstantial evidence against
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Juleen kept piling up, like snow in winter. Forensic experts
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: examined the bullet fragments recovered from the bedrooms. The analysis
• 16:26
  Speaker 1: was consistent with the rounds having been fired from the.
• 16:29
  Speaker 1: 357 Magnum on the kitchen floor. The bullet itself was
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: never recovered. It had fragmented on impact, but the weapon
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: analysis pointed strongly to that specific gun. The gun showed
• 16:42
  Speaker 1: no conclusive biological evidence tying it to the shooter. No
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: fingerprints that could be definitively matched. No DNA under the grip.
• 16:52
  Speaker 1: But it also showed nothing tying it to any mysterious intruder.
• 16:56
  Speaker 1: No foreign DNA. No evidence of anyone else's presence. Black
• 17:02
  Speaker 1: gloves found outside the house carried DNA from both Jeremy
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: and Julene, consistent with gloves either of them might have
• 17:09
  Speaker 1: worn while working outside, not proof of any intruder. Footprints
• 17:14
  Speaker 1: in the nearby woods had no identifying characteristics that could
• 17:17
  Speaker 1: help or hurt either theory. The camera footage showed nothing.
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: And the dogs? When police arrived with sirens and flashing lights,
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: dash cam footage confirmed that the dogs barked immediately and aggressively,
• 17:34
  Speaker 1: exactly as guard dogs should. They reacted to strangers. They
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: just hadn't reacted to anyone that night. In 2013, investigators
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: interviewed Juleen again, pressing her on the inconsistencies in her story.
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Four years had passed since Jeremy's death. The case was
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: still open, still unsolved, still haunting everyone who had worked
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: on it. And in October of 2014, nearly five years
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: after that November morning, a Lorain County grand jury returned
• 18:06
  Speaker 1: an indictment. Julene Simcoe was charged with murder in the
• 18:10
  Speaker 1: death of her husband. She turned herself in, and was
• 18:14
  Speaker 1: released on a $ 500, 000 bond, returning home to wait for
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: the trial that would decide the rest of her life.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: The trial began in September 2017, eight years after Jeremy
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: died in his bed, and Julene made an unusual decision.
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: She waived her right to a jury and chose a
• 18:33
  Speaker 1: bench trial. That meant one judge alone would weigh the
• 18:37
  Speaker 1: evidence and decide her guilt or innocence. No 12 citizens deliberating.
• 18:43
  Speaker 1: No unanimous verdict required. Just one person, trained in law,
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: deciding whether the state had proven its case beyond a
• 18:50
  Speaker 1: reasonable doubt. The defense called no witnesses. Their entire strategy
• 18:56
  Speaker 1: rested on challenging the prosecution's case. Circumstantial evidence, no matter
• 19:01
  Speaker 1: how suggestive they argued, wasn't enough to prove guilt beyond
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: a reasonable doubt. There was no murder weapon conclusively tied
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: to Juleen. No confessions. No eyewitness who saw her pull
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: the trigger. Just a web of suspicious circumstances and an
• 19:17
  Speaker 1: alternative scenario that seemed implausible but couldn't be completely disproven.
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: The prosecution laid out their theory brick by brick. An
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: unknown intruder, they argued, would have had to accomplish something
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: virtually impossible. This hypothetical killer would have had to bypass
• 19:34
  Speaker 1: the locked gate, avoid the driveway sensor, pass four German
• 19:39
  Speaker 1: shepherds without a single bark, Enter through a door without
• 19:43
  Speaker 1: forcing it, which meant either picking a lock or having
• 19:46
  Speaker 1: a key. Navigate an unfamiliar house in complete darkness. Find
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: and retrieve a weapon from a china cabinet without knowing
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: it was there. Locate the master bedroom. Execute a sleeping
• 19:59
  Speaker 1: man at point-blank range while his armed wife was somewhere
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: unknown in the building, possibly awake, possibly armed, certainly dangerous
• 20:08
  Speaker 1: if discovered. Then place the gun carefully on the kitchen
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: floor rather than dropping it in flight. Exit. Escape. Leave
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: no DNA. No fingerprints. No footprints. No camera footage. No
• 20:23
  Speaker 1: physical evidence of any kind. And do all of it
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: without stealing a single thing. Not the other guns. Not cash.
• 20:31
  Speaker 1: Not valuables. The alternative explanation, prosecutors argued, required far fewer
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: leaps of logic. On October 20th, 2017, the judge delivered
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: his verdict, guilty. And in his ruling, the judge acknowledged
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: something unusual. The prosecution hadn't sufficiently proven motive. Why would
• 20:52
  Speaker 1: Julene kill her husband? The financial stress theory was incomplete.
• 20:57
  Speaker 1: A denied loan creates frustration, not typically murder. The marriage
• 21:02
  Speaker 1: itself was open to interpretation. Investigators had found certain intimate
• 21:07
  Speaker 1: materials in the home, suggesting an unconventional relationship dynamic. But
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: Juleen insisted everything was consensual and nothing proved otherwise. The
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: why remained murky, even at the end of the trial.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: But motive, the judge noted, isn't a required element for
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: conviction in Ohio. Prosecutors don't have to prove why someone
• 21:30
  Speaker 1: committed murder. Only that they did, beyond a reasonable doubt.
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: Looking at the universe of possible explanations... a random stranger,
• 21:40
  Speaker 1: a hired killer, or the spouse sleeping one floor away,
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: the judge concluded that only one scenario made logical sense
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: given all the evidence. On October 27, 2017, Julene Simcoe
• 21:54
  Speaker 1: was sentenced to 28 years to life in prison. She appealed,
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: arguing the evidence was insufficient to support the conviction. Her
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: attorneys maintained that reasonable doubt existed. that the intruder theory,
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: however unlikely, couldn't be completely eliminated. In April 2021, the
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: 9th District Court of Appeals affirmed the verdict. The judges
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: found no reversible error. The conviction stands today. If you
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: drive along Northridge Road in Brownhelm Township, you might pass
• 22:25
  Speaker 1: the property without a second glance. Just another rural home
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: among many trees, tended now by someone else, a driveway
• 22:33
  Speaker 1: that no longer leads to a fortress. The ordinary architecture
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: of what was once an extraordinary life. But for those
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: who knew Jeremy Simcoe, the loss still ripples through the years.
• 22:45
  Speaker 1: His family remembers a man who taught his nieces and
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: nephews to swim in summer lakes, to hunt responsibly in
• 22:51
  Speaker 1: autumn woods, and to drive carefully on back roads. A
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: man who could identify trees at a glance and climb
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: them with the confidence of someone born for it. A
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: man who built a business from nothing through sheer will
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: and meticulous attention to detail. Jeremy Simcoe had prepared for
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: every possible danger. But sometimes the threat doesn't come from
• 23:16
  Speaker 1: outside the walls. Sometimes the person we trust most completely
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: is the one we should have feared. And sometimes the
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: fortresses we build aren't meant to protect us from the world.
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: They're meant to hide what happens within. If this case
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: stayed with you, subscribe, share this episode with someone who
• 23:35
  Speaker 1: appreciates true crime that respects both the facts and the
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: lives behind them, and tell us in the comments what
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: you'd like us to cover next. Because remembering the people
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: behind the cases, honoring who they were before tragedy found them,
• 23:49
  Speaker 1: is how we keep their memory alive. Thank you for listening.