Julissa Thaler, Spring Park, Minnesota mother found guilty of shooting dead her 6 year old son, Eli Hart. Mom gunned down boy, two weeks after winning sole custody amid bitter dispute with boy’s father.
A Minnesota mother was on Wednesday convicted of fatally shooting her 6-year-old son, as the boy sat in the family car, and then driving off with his body in the trunk before being pulled over by cops during a traffic stop.
Julissa Thaler, 28, of Spring Park, had been on trial for the shooting death of her kindergartner son, Eli Hart, following the mom shooting the 6 year old nine times with a shotgun inside her sedan.
A jury found Thaler guilty on one count each of first-degree premeditated murder and second-degree murder after deliberating for just two hours, Kare 11 reported.
The woman will now spend the rest of her life behind bars. Thaler automatically received a life sentence without parole for the premeditated murder conviction, KARE 11 reported.
‘On behalf of Eli’s family, Tory Hart would like to thank the jury, the court, the Hennepin County Attorney’s Office and justice partners for their good work,’ Eli’s father, Tory Hart, said in a statement. ‘This is a tragic and heartbreaking event that could have been avoided if Eli had never been returned to a dangerous home.’
Foster mom feared biological mom harming son if she won custody
Leading up to the boy’s murder, Eli’s parents had been embroiled in a custody battle, with the boy staying with a foster family for a year before a court gave sole custody to Thaler, two weeks before his shooting death, CBS Minnesota reported.
Nikita Kronberg, Eli’s foster mother would tell CBS Minnesota that she feared if Thaler won her son back that she feared the biological mother harming the boy or worse.
The murder came to light on May 20, 2022, when police in Orono pulled Thaler over after she was spotted driving her sedan on a bare metal rim without one of its tires and with a shattered a rear window.
Officers said they noticed blood inside the car.
It was upon opening the vehicle’s trunk, officers came across the macabre discovery of the boy’s body.
Upon her arrest, Thaler was initially charged with second-degree murder.
After turning down two offers from prosecutors to plead guilty to second-degree murder, including on Jan. 30, her charges were upgraded to first-degree murder, Fox 9 reported.
‘I would never do that to my son,’
‘I would never do that to my son,’ she said in court on Jan. 30 when rejecting the plea deal. ‘I want to go to trial.’
Jury selection began on Jan. 30. Opening statements began Friday and closing statements were made Wednesday morning.
Defence lawyers did not call a single witness, with the defence in closing statements saying prosecutors only proved that Thaler may have aided and abetted a murder and that there was no proof that she planned and caused the death of her son.
During his testimony on Friday, Hart said his son was popular at his elementary school and dreamed of becoming a firefighter.
‘He was always really happy, outgoing, always full of energy, always,’ Hart testified.
During the trial, jurors heard about how the upbeat, well-liked kindergartner spent his final hours.
An exhausting day of testimony is over in the Julissa Thaler trial. This image may stick with me forever. Little 6-year-old Eli Hart’s backpack was thrown in the trash, his homework still inside. His dad testified that Eli loved going to school. Loved being social. Senseless. pic.twitter.com/O0DQs4JOxh
— Lou Raguse (@LouRaguse) February 3, 2023
‘I had to go do something,’
Thaler’s ex-boyfriend, Robert Pikkarainen, testified that on the night of May 19, 2022, she let Eli stay up late and then grew frustrated when he became rowdy, KARE 11 reports.
‘She was hitting him,’ he testified. ‘Then Eli was hitting her and they were fighting.’
He said she briefly left her apartment, put her shotgun into her car, returned and ‘grabbed Eli and went downstairs,’ KARE 11 reports.
When he woke up the next day and asked her where she went, the man recalled Thaler giving a vague response. ‘She was kind of like, ‘I had to go do something,” he testified.
