The House on Badger Lane

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1:26I started pushing back. He grabbed me. I was shaking. I said, stop, stop. What are you doing? Stop. They had a charmed life by the beach. Surfer dad. He was stud, you know. I'm not going to lie to you. Do-it-all mom. She would do family-oriented things. And a picture-perfect home tucked away on Badger Lane. This is our little American dream. He wanted a lifestyle where he could be there for his family, for his kids. That's what made what happened so startling. It was dark when they got there. They found a body upstairs in the master bedroom. The victim was clearly shot with a handgun. The kids were missing.

2:14Julie was missing. was this a case of murder? This is our neighborhood. These are our friends. You're just in utter shock. There were secrets in that house. Who would unlock them? I didn't want my family to know. I didn't want my neighbors to know. Devious and manipulative. This is our best friend. It didn't have to end like this. I'm Lester Holt, and this is Dateline. Here's Keith Morrison. Grief, like the ocean, rolled into their lives in waves. Ride the waves or sink, it seemed to say. Ride them again and again. Just a shot through the heart. Once there were four fast friends. Four tall men.

3:02Before it all went down and the waves took on their new meaning. It didn't have to end like this. No, except it did. And when it did, it just felt like someone hit you in the stomach really hard and you wanted to cry. What could they do? Ride. It's what Harp would have wanted after all. Harp. Jason Harper. Sports-loving, outdoors-loving California boy. With a childhood best friend named Paul Severins, who as they grew became Tall Paul. We were always together. In the early years, he was always taller than me, but then I caught up to him. We were both the two tallest guys in school. So when they got to high school, there was one sport they were very well suited to play, volleyball.

3:53Harp was a stud, you know. I'm not going to lie to you. I'm not going to sugarcoat it. He was, you know, MVP on the team. Yes, and went on to play at UCLA, where he met Jeremy Brandt. Here they are together on UCLA Bruins Talk on Public Access TV. Everybody came back and goes, we're not going to lose or whatever, and came back and they haven't lost since then. We can beat a lot of teams out there. We could definitely be a Final Four contender. I always said we ran the same speed, and so we would run the warm-ups the same speed, and we would end up talking together, and we became roommates throughout college, and just a great guy, a great friend.

4:33Quiet, mind you. Shy. At least around the girls. He wasn't quite the ladies' man. You know, I'm not going to lie to you. And then one night back in 2000, four years after he graduated from college, Harp met a girl at a party. Tall Paul was there, too. The girl's name was Julie Syhack. She kind of zoned in on Harp right off the bat and started talking to him. So I get the impression she picked him. Yeah, exactly. Went pretty fast after that. And why not? Julie was pretty and smart and from a well-to-do family. Still, when Harp proposed just three months after he met this first real girlfriend...

5:14I felt like it was the first girl that he really loved, and there's a lot that goes with that, and I just didn't want him to have the wool pulled over his eyes. But they stood up for him, and the marriage at San Diego's historic Hotel Del Coronado was a great happy party. I remember their first dance. They were in this giant ballroom, and they did a very nice ballroom dance, you know, and Harp had a big old smile on his face. They moved to the seaside, to Carlsbad, California, just north of San Diego, and Jason Harper signed on as a math teacher and volleyball coach at a local high school. Jason was your typical Southern California surfer, beach volleyball, public school teacher.

6:01where he met the third of those tall friends, Andy Tomkinson. Andy and his wife Kristen taught at the same school, Carlsbad High. On a campus of 3 ,000, 2 ,500 students, you tend to notice other people who are at the same eye level as you. And Jason being 6 '6", and myself being 6 '9". There aren't too many people at the same eye level as you. No, no. So you do notice after a while who they are. The two became fast friends. Surfing, pickup basketball, poker, guy things. And then Jason and Julie started a family. Jake first, then Jackie. J names. Even if that meant not playing cards with the boys or going on a surf trip, those kids always came first.

6:45Hmm. So were there times when you wanted to do something with them? And he said, no, sorry, I've got to stay on. Absolutely. Absolutely. Home was here in the terraces at Sunny Creek, a brand new gated place not far from the beach. These were their neighbors. So many neighborhoods now, you don't even know who your next door neighbors are, but that's not like this place at all, right? No, not at all. Julie ran the mother talk group in the neighborhood, so she would actually organize all those activities. She was a good mom. She was really involved with her kids. And hard to know exactly why things changed.

7:23After Joshua III was born in 2011, Julie just didn't seem the same. And as time went by, you would see less and less and less of her. She would say hi and get in her car and drive away really quick. Like she was hiding from everybody. Yeah. But Jason? He was part of the permanent landscape of our neighborhood. He was there every day. I mean, literally every day. Very hands-on father. Well, I look out my door to see if he's out there and wave, you know, and we walk over. bring the kids over and walk in the driveway, and the kids would start playing right when we got home from school. And then it was an August morning in 2012.

7:59You don't know what's happened, but you know it's not something good. Your stomach kind of sinks. Didn't take a rocket scientist. Something was awfully wrong. There was crime tape. My house is inside the crime tape, and there's a police officer stationed at the base of my driveway. And so I asked the police officer, is everything okay? And he said, no, no, it's not. What had really happened that morning? When we come back... They say that they found a body upstairs in the master bedroom. The kids were missing. Julie was missing. We're all in shock. What are you talking about? Do you worry about their kids?

8:35Absolutely. Their safety. Number one, their safety. Are they okay?

8:53At 7.30 in the morning on the 8th of August, 2012, Michelle Cullen gazed on the police cars, the crime scene tape, and asked the cop in her driveway, what's happening? You need to go inside, you need to turn on your television. And so I went inside. The policeman told you this? He told me that, yes. What are you talking about? That was apparent soon enough when they wheeled out the body bag. One of our colleagues and friends called us and said, I think something really bad has happened. They say that they found a body upstairs in the master bedroom, and it looks like it's Jason's house. Bit by awful bit, Andy and the rest of them heard the details.

9:35The body had been hidden under a blanket, another debris. One bullet still lodged in the chest. Death was at least quick. The victim was the beloved member of that tall quartet, The neighborhood dad, Jason Harper. That was terrible enough, but it wasn't all. The kids were missing. Julie was missing. And as details unfolded, we were in complete shock. Officers continue their investigation at the Harper residence. They still have... We're all in shock. Jason's dead. We're flipping out. And they're saying, we've seen this woman and flashing her plates and her picture. Wow. On the news. So, what happened?

10:20Home invasion? Kidnapping? Murder? Suicide? Did you worry about their kids? Oh, that was the worst part. Absolutely. Absolutely. Their safety. Number one, their safety. Are they okay? But the Carlsbad Police Department had one piece of information the neighbors lacked, which came in a strange phone call at 11 p.m. the night before. Sergeant Jeff Smith was the lead detective. The watch commander, working that night, got a phone call from an attorney asking him to go, or the police department, to go do a welfare check at a residence. A welfare check? Seemed like an odd request. Who was this lawyer who called?

11:00It was attorney Paul Finkst. That Paul Finkst? He just happened to be the ex-DA, and now criminal defense attorney, who knew the police department very well. He called an internal extension that, unlike a 911 call, was not recorded. The cops went to the house, and they found Jason's body, but not Julie and the kids. They were gone. So police talked to Paul Finkst again, who said not to worry, Julie and the kids were fine. Julie was not a victim. She was his newest client. He arranged the safe return of the children to a local children's hospital, and then, 15 hours after the cops discovered Jason's body, Finkst orchestrated Julie's surrender at her father's house.

11:52Did she talk to you? No. But her attorney spoke with local reporters. She's very upset. She's upset about her children. She's upset about her health. She's upset about seeing basically at this point her life is in shambles. It's a catastrophe all the way around. So it was. But what happened in the bedroom? Neither Julie nor attorney Finkst would say. So the police launched an investigation to figure out what was Julie guilty of, if anything. To begin, they had specialists interview the two older children, ages 8 and 6, who said their day started out like a typical summer morning. And then sometime between 8 and 9 a.m.

12:39When you were watching cartoons yesterday morning and you heard the loud clunk. A thud. That's all we could tell you. A loud thud. Did they know at that point that their father was dead? I don't believe so. They must have been very confused. Yes. Frightened? Yeah. Young children. And the only things you know are there's a guy with a bullet hole and the kids heard a thump. Yes. Not a lot to go on. Not a lot. So what did you do next? We talked to neighbors who had possibly seen things. One neighbor said that they saw Ms. Harper leaving right around 9.05 in the morning and exiting their gated community.

13:24So now you know when they left the house anyway. Roughly. Now the detectives did what they could to retrace Julie and the kids' movements. During their interviews, the kids said their mom took them to a coffee shop first. From that point, they went to a local playworks or jumpy-type house place. And from the kids' accounts, that's where they stayed for a short period and played. And we were able to cooperate with that with cell phone analysis. Which led to a disturbing thought. If the thud the kids heard was Jason being shot, then the coffee run and the play date happened afterward, while he lay wounded or already dead on the bedroom floor.

14:07On August 9th, two days after the shooting, a medical examiner conducted an autopsy and recovered the bullet that killed Jason. It came from a.38 caliber handgun. We did find a gun in the home where Mr. Harper was found. But it was not the gun that killed Jason. So, no murder weapon, and the only suspect wasn't talking. We believed that there was an argument between the two, and a gun was produced, and she shot him, and we didn't know why. Not an easy question under the circumstances. Oh, there was an answer. But do you think anyone intended to reveal that? Coming up. I don't understand why any of it happened.

14:59You know what I mean? New clues. She was preparing for a change in her life. Private journals and secrets in the attic. My wildest dreams. I would have never expected that. When Dateline continues. Protecting your home shouldn't be a headache or break the bank. Many security companies lock you into multi-year contracts with huge cancellation fees if your needs change. SimpliSafe does things differently. With SimpliSafe, you get award-winning 24-7 professional monitoring for a fraction of the cost at around a dollar a day. There's no waiting for technicians or drilling into your walls. Customize your system online in minutes, ship it to your door, and set it up yourself in under an hour.

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17:47By the time Julie Harper's attorney arranged for her to turn herself in, her husband Jason had been dead for a day and a half. For reasons nobody could understand, they appeared to be a solid couple. Why would she shoot him? That's what Carlsbad detectives were determined to figure out. Julie wasn't talking. So they interviewed friends and family and peeled back the layers, and Sergeant Jeff Smith learned that a whole year earlier, Julie sent a friend some envelopes for safekeeping. What was in the envelopes? Journals, writings, bank statements, personal history. In that personal history, signs of a marriage that wasn't as perfect as it seemed.

18:27Julie wrote that Jason yelled at me, and maybe divorce is the answer. It appeared that they were not happy with each other, and that their marriage was going towards an end or a divorce. Whatever was going on, Jason tended to keep to himself, said his teacher friends, Andy and Kristen. He would never say any ill words or bad things. He kept it very personal and private. But it was pretty clear, they said, the marriage was winding down. Arrangements were being made. Jason's parents actually bought a house down here, and it had enough room for Jason and all the kids. I mean, they were preparing for him to be able to leave.

19:09Julie seemed to be getting ready to get out too, said Sergeant Smith. In fact, she filed for divorce five days before the incident. And that same week made some unusual financial transactions. Days prior to, Ms. Harper had taken out about$10 ,000 in cash out of a dormant account that was under her daughter's name. And she had written two$4 ,500 checks to herself, and it was against a credit card in Mr. Harper's name. Julie had pulled out nearly$20 ,000. Cash. We found that to be very suspicious. Deputy District Attorney Keith Watanabe was assigned to the case on day one. Did it suggest to you that she had been hoarding money in anticipation of something?

19:53She was preparing for a change in her life. But did the change involve divorce or murder? Julie's father, John Syhack, lived here, 30 miles or so from Jason and Julie's house. Now, this apparently was where Julie and the kids spent the night after the shooting. So, Sergeant Smith got a search warrant for Dad's place and found nothing useful. There were other guns, but none of them fired the bullet that killed Jason. Perhaps a little frustrated, eight days later, he got a second search warrant. At this time, there was something new. Tucked away in the garage attic in a spot they searched the first time around.

20:35A blue backpack must have been hidden between searches. They opened up this blue backpack and they discovered Julie Harper's wallet, credit cards and ID, her passport, a different gun, and Jason Harper's last will and testament. Also, Jason's cell phone, its batteries removed and call and text history cleared. The backpack gun was also clean, not the one used to shoot Jason. This had to be a getaway bag, the prosecutor decided. She must have packed it up after she killed Jason. That's the only reason to take a person's last will and testament. It's because she realized he was dead. Julie's actions before and after the shooting raised all sorts of questions.

21:21The foremost for the prosecutor was, did she plan this? Was it premeditated? And if so, for how long? We believed we could prove first-degree murder not on the theory that she had planned this murder the days or weeks before the shooting had taken place. Instead, we were relying on the theory that even during this argument, she took enough steps in order to get the gun that this would have been planned and premeditated, even if it was only for a minute or two before the shooting. And that's enough. In California, that qualifies as first-degree murder. So that's what he charged her with, first-degree murder.

22:03Julie pleaded not guilty, but otherwise kept her mouth shut and sat in jail. But strange details kept coming out, like what Julie's dad said at her preliminary hearing about the blue backpack. There had actually been$39 ,000 inside that backpack. Julie's father admitted that he found the cash in the backpack and gave it to Julie's lawyer to help pay for bail and legal fees. What did you think when you heard that? In my wildest dreams, I would have never expected that. By the way, Julie's dad testified at the prelim only after being granted immunity. He initially pleaded the fifth. And even though bail was$2 million, Julie's family eventually coughed it up.

22:52And after more than a year in jail, she moved back into the house on Badger Lane, three doors down from Michelle Miller. She knocked on my door to let me know that she was back and that we're going to have a good talk someday when this is all over. What did you say to her? I was just completely shocked. I couldn't believe it. All those comfortable notions about her neighbors. Maybe Michelle didn't know them at all. I don't understand why any of it happened. You know what I mean? He was our friend and he's gone and I don't know who she is. And when Julie finally did start talking, well... Coming up...

23:36I said, stop, stop. What are you doing? Stop. On the stand, her life on the line and... Get up to the carpool, figure it out. Secret recordings from behind closed doors.

24:05September 2014. Two years after Jason Harper's death, his wife Julie, the mother of their three children, went on trial for first-degree murder. She didn't look like a murderer, if there's such a thing. And even though Deputy D.I. Keith Watanabe had never been able to talk to Julie, had never heard her story, he was confident. His theme was something he called the deterioration of Julie Harper. Her life had become a disaster, both in terms of her marriage, her children, her health, her financial state, and we believe she was seriously abusing her prescription medication. Look at this, he told the jury, pill bottles.

24:46Though Julie suffered from an autoimmune disease, he said, This made it clear she was abusing powerful medications. And, said the prosecutor, look at the mess in Julie's bedroom, as if a hoarder lived here. When Jason's body was found, it was hidden under a blanket and surrounded by debris. The bullet that killed him entered from a side rear angle, so he was shot pretty much in the back. What happened? Julie must have shot Jason between 8 a.m. and 9 a.m., said the prosecutor. while the kids were downstairs watching cartoons. A neighbor saw Julie leaving just after 9 a.m. And she was at La Costa Coffee roasting 40 minutes later.

25:29She wasn't crying. She wasn't upset. She didn't ask anyone to call 911. It showed that this woman had a calloused heart. She was capable of murdering her husband and really had the wherewithal to be able to go out into public and appear to be perfectly normal. It was clearly murder, said Deputy D.A. Watanabe. But was it? Remember, Julie did not talk, not once, to the police or the prosecutor because her attorney never allowed it. But now it was time. Defense attorney Paul Finkst called just one witness, Julie Harmore. Yes, I did. And she said, yes, she did it. She shot him. But she said it wasn't murder.

26:16Why? Because, she said, Jason Harper, so beloved by friends and neighbors and colleagues, was in private an angry, abusive husband. Did you videotape Jason telling you? And here was her proof, she said. Here was her secret recording of Jason losing it over money. I don't want to enable your horrible money waste and your poor credit score and everything else. I don't want to enable that. It's horrible. And then this. Get up, carpool bitch. Figure it out. Can't help it if you're too dumb to do it. Too lazy. Well, you know, at least I have more words in my vocabulary than you do. Seems like the B-I-T-T-H is the only word that you can use.

27:04That's right. Right now, that is darn right. That's what you are. But, said Julie, it got worse. It got physical. He grabbed my wrist and my hand so forcefully and twisted it so hard that, I mean, it was hurting into the next day. Remember, Jason was a 6 '6 athlete about a foot taller than Julie. By then they slept in separate rooms. But sometimes, she said, when he got angry, he came to her room and the abuse turned sexual. He was slamming me up against the wall, face first, and I said, stop, stop. What are you doing? Stop. Julie told the jury that Jason raped her about 30 times. She said she was so frightened, she stashed a gun under her pillow just in case.

28:00When she woke up the morning of the shooting, she said, to the sound of Jason yelling and screaming. He was, you know, using some curse words and, um,