A Minnesota mother was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of her six-year-old son in 2023. She reportedly killed him just days after social services returned the boy to the woman. The boy’s father even filed for custody of him, and both parents were in a custody battle. However, the child was always eventually returned to live with his mother, with the last time being 10 days before his death.
According to the investigators, Julissa Thaler shot her son, Eli Hart, nine times with a shotgun while he was sitting strapped in his car booster seat.
Police bodycam footage posted by VigilantCam on YouTube shows officers in Minnesota pulling Thaler over during a routine traffic stop in May 2022 after noticing her car was missing a window and driving on a damaged tire rim. Officers later discovered the young boy’s body hidden in the vehicle’s trunk.
She refused to show her driver’s license at first. When one officer noticed a shotgun shell inside the vehicle, Thaler calmly responded that she had no weapon on her. She claimed that some kids shot her car with paintball guns and broke the tire and that she was rushing home to get a new one. The officer noticed that her fingers were bloody.
When he questioned her about how she got blood on her fingers, she started to mumble. “I’m really having a female issue, I need to get home,” she said.
After the officers pulled her out of the car, her body language seemed strange to them. At first, they suspected that she had been dealing with some mental health problem. However, Thaler claimed that she had a note from her psychiatrist for the custody court. However, the officer present at the scene was not satisfied with her answer.
“I’m being rude because this looks really bad. And kids shooting paintball guns doesn’t do this a do this much damage to somebody’s car,” one officer chimed in. “I’m worried about you. I’m concerned for you. You’ve got blood on you.”
“You guys need a warrant to search my car,” Thaler said in a desperate attempt to stop the officers from looking into the vehicle.
Just then, one officer noticed something strange. He discovered blood on the shattered glass of the car’s back window.
“It’s not (blood). It was deer meat,” she intervened. “I’ve got a whole bag of ravioli and groceries over here.”
“It smells like like death in there,” one officer can be heard saying while inspecting the inside of the vehicle.
“I had bags of groceries there. I had some deer meat. I had some ravioli cans. I had some veggies. And then those people broke my window, so I had to throw all my groceries away… What do you need to look into? It’s not a It’s not a crime to get vandalized. I’m cold. I want to go home,” she said.
After close observation, officers in Minnesota discover more dents and blood. When asked about the empty shotgun shells, Thaler said they were for practice. The police ended up impounding the vehicle.
Inside the trunk, the officers found a shotgun and something wrapped under a blanket that looked like a child’s leg. When they took off the blanket, they found a dead body inside. The body had missing parts and looked like it belonged to a small male child.
After reaching Thaler’s residence, officers discovered that she and a male had already left the home. However, they were able to locate them and take Thaler into custody.
Dashcam footage from the police car shows Thaler still denying knowing anything. “I’m just not seeing what was it worth arresting us over what was in the car,” she could be heard saying to herself.
She kept up her act before the officers as they questioned her. “Did you find the people who did this? Was it DNA on me,’ she said. And I’m here telling you who did it. But I didn’t know he was dead. You’re telling me my baby boy is dead?”
“…You’re making assumptions. How do you know that I know? I want you to know that this baby boy is the most important person in the world to me. I would never hurt him. I would never do anything to him. I protect him.”
Thaler received a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole following her first-degree premeditated murder conviction.
Disclaimer: The Inquisitr could not independently verify the facts of this incident and is reporting based on the information available within the public video record.
