You might think I seem to have a morbid fascination for true crime, judging by one of my previous posts, but I wanted to write here about a book I’ve been reading recently. I can’t remember when, if ever, a book has ever made such an impact on me emotionally, I really can’t. It’s a truly incredible read and I really recommend it as a story of courage and tenacity.
‘For the Love of Julie’ is written by Ann Ming, whose daughter Julie suddenly disappeared from her home one night in November 1989 after finishing work delivering pizzas. Ann, who had been babysitting Julie’s toddler son, was due to meet Julie the next morning but Julie had completely vanished. Because mother and daughter were so close, Ann knew immediately that something terrible had happened.
But after police searched Julie’s house, there was still no sign of her. Three months later, Ann was in Julie’s bathroom when she smelled a terrible stench coming from the bath. Noticing the bath panel was coming loose, she took it off and found herself staring at her daughter’s body, bundled up in blankets.
It didn’t take long for the police to track down her killer, a local man well known for violent crime, Billy Dunlop. He went to trial but the jury were unable to reach a verdict, because there was no official cause of death, due to the body being so badly decomposed after being hidden for three months. After a further re-trial, the jury were yet again unable to decide on his guilt, so Dunlop was formally acquitted, despite evidence such as his fingerprints on Julie’s keys and fibres from his jumper being found on her body.
It wasn’t long before Billy Dunlop was boasting to anyone who would listen how he had committed ‘the perfect murder’ and got off scot free. And because of the law of Double Jeopardy, which means the same person cannot be tried for the same murder case twice, essentially – he had done just that.
Ann Ming, frenzied with grief and anger, began what would be a fifteen year campaign for justice for Julie – she battled furiously to change the law of 800 years that had been enshrined in the Magna Carta. Year after year, she met with MP’s, Home Secretaries, judges, wrote dozens of impact statements, went directly to the House of Lords and gave impassioned pleas – she stopped at nothing. And eventually, it paid off. The law of double jeopardy was finally changed in 2006, to allow criminals to be re-tried for a crime they had previously been acquitted of.
Billy Dunlop had made a big mistake in bragging about his ‘perfect murder’. Seventeen years after Julie Hogg was strangled in her living room and stuffed under her own bath, her murderer was found guilty and sentenced to life.
Reading the whole story, of how Ann found her daughter’s body and how she never ever gave up her tireless campaign for justice for her daughter, makes you go cold. I can’t stop thinking about this story – a moving story of a mother’s complete love for her child. And tragic as the story is, with everything she has done, Ann has ultimately ensured that something positive has come out of Julie’s death, and that she did not die in vain.
READ THIS BOOK!!!!!!
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