Julia Andrews was born on July 21, 1954. I could normally find something about other cases’ early lives, however; with Julia, I couldn’t find anything.
The earliest story I could find of Julia is that she was on felony probation due to a felony charge she’d gotten in Hardin County, TX. According to her, she had given someone some money to buy a, as she calls it, “prohibited substance” that she knew was going to be given to an inmate who was in jail at the time.
This story takes place in Vidor TX. Now, when I moved to Texas, I was always told never NEVER to stop in Vidor. So I’ve driven through this but I’ve never stopped. It was known as a sundown town. However, in researching the town now, it looks like they’ve had a Black Lives Matter march on June 6, 2020. Let me read this excerpt from an article tilted “Black Lives Matter Comes to Vidor – yes, Vidor” from texasmonthly.com:
““Vidor, Texas,” boomed the Reverend Michael Cooper, thin and tall in his cowboy hat, “will now be known for love!” The crowd, assembled at a dilapidated pavilion on the grounds of Vidor’s Raymond Gould Community Center, cheered. Vidor has been known for many things—among them the activities of the Ku Klux Klan in the nineties; its status as a “sundown town,” in which blacks were not allowed in city limits after dark; and an ugly fight in the early nineties over a federal effort to desegregate public housing in the city, which caused Texas Monthly, in a cover story that year, to describe Vidor as Texas’s “most hate-filled town.” The census estimates it to be 91 percent white.
So when word started to circulate that a Black Lives Matter rally was being planned in Vidor, many people on social media thought it was a trap—and expressed skepticism the event’s supposed planner, 23-year-old Maddy Malone, even existed. (She does.) To black folks with knowledge of the region, who had been told never to stop in Vidor, the idea seemed insane. “A civil rights rally in Vidor” is the punch line to a joke, not a thing that could happen in this world. C’mon” You can read the rest at texasmonthly.com. The link will be in the show notes on our website www.murderandlove.com
So, that’s the not the Vidor I’ve learned about and have never been to so – good on them that they’re changing, but I’m still never stopping there.
Anyway, back to our story. Julia’s older children were also in and out of prison, so that left Julia raising 2 of her grandkids as well as her younger children. Julia was described as being tough, but gentle. She loved her kids and her grandkids and was very supportive of them.
Julia had been married three times back to back, so she’d given up on finding another man.
But then one day, in 2010, she met a guy who was funny and seemed to be amazing. His name was Randy Peddy, born on December, 8 1969. Like I said, he was described as being funny as well as always being the life of the party. He was actually called “good time Peddy” by his peers.
But ole Good Time had had a troubled past himself. His infant child (I don’t know if it was a son or daughter) had died of SIDs. Do you know what SIDs is? According to childrenshostital.org, “Sudden Infant Death Syndrome is the sudden and unexplained death of a baby younger than a 1 year old. A diagnosis of SIDs is made if the baby’s death remains unexplained even after a death scene investigation, an autopsy, and a review of the clinical history.” Where you scared of SIDs when your son was a baby or it wasn’t really something that was known then?
Anyway, so his child had died of SIDs and the way he coped with this tragedy by drinking – a lot.
Another thing about Peddy is that he was significantly younger than Julia. At this time, Julia was 56 and Peddy was 40 – so a 16 year age difference.
But regardless of all of this, Julia was enamored by him. They got along really well, everyone said. They would laugh a lot, talk for hours, and essentially made each other happy. Others would say that when he wasn’t drinking, he was a wonderful guy. Now, I don’t care how good of a guy you are, if you’re a drunk, I’m not dealing with you. How about you?
So Julia and Peddy has an ongoing relationship where, for the most part, Julia is happy. Come 8 or 9pm though, the time when Peddy started drinking, Julia’s happy time turned miserable. Every. Single, Day. I think she stayed because of her back to back failed marriages and she finally found a man who made her smile. I also think our – and what I mean by our is women – our bad habit of wanting to fix people. I think she thought she could show him enough love so that he could deal with the loss of his kid and stop drinking. I don’t think that’s right to do, but I think that could have probably been her thought process.
Now, in 2011, Julia’s daughter Jackie ezel moved into the house after serving 9 years in prison for arson and assault. So right now her two younger children live in the house, her two grandchildren, Peddy, Julia, and now her 38 year old daughter Jackie. Good Lord! How big is this house?! I’m pretty sure it’s not that big. I would be breaking out in hives from the amount of people in my house. I think one day I might go get some cigarettes and never come back. And I don’t even smoke!
Around this time, Julia was getting tired of Peddy’s constant drinking. I think it was just too much for her with everything else going on. Now, Julia and Jackie were really close; people actually said they were best friends. Julia would confess to Jackie everything going on with Peddy. Peddy had been talking about breaking up with Julia for sometime, so one night, Julia asked Jackie for help; both to get Peddy to stop drinking and to help him get this whole “break up” idea out of his head.
In early 2012, Julie organized a family camping trip to Jasper, TX. She was turning 58 and wanted to have a nice family time for her birthday. The family was all assembled and ready to go – the only people missing were Jackie and Peddy. Julia called Jackie and was like, “we’re ready to go! Where in the crap are you? And have you seen Peddy because I can’t find him either.” So Jackie was like, “Yeeaaaa about that. So mom, I need to talk to you about something…” What do you think she had to tell her mother?
So, remember when I said Julia asked Jackie to speak with Peddy about his drinking and his mindset? Yea well Jackie helped him alright.
So on this particular day, the entire family was supposed to be at the house ready to drive to the campgrounds. Instead, Jackie and Peddy went to the beach. I looked up beaches near Vidor and the nearest one is an hour (57.9 miles) away. They really didn’t plan on going with Julia and the family! Jackie decided that she needed to speak with her mom about what had been going on because she was tired of hiding this secret from her. So she revealed to her mother that her and Peddy had been carrying on a secret relationship – really an affair. I couldn’t imagine my daughter having an affair with my husband. Like, my brain won’t even fathom it so I couldn’t even tell you what I would do if that happens. My brain is like “does not compute…” What about you? You have a son so you don’t have to worry about that, but what if you found out your sister was having an affair with your husband?
For some time, Julia didn’t speak with Jackie – which is understandable, but this didn’t last long. As Jackie and Julia were like best friends, they didn’t stay angry at each other long. So she told Jackie that she was ok with it and decided to deal with their relationship. She even let Peddy move back into her house. So now she has to watch this relationship going on, in her house, between her ex-boyfriend and her daughter – who is her best friend. This is all kinda WHAT?!
Julia’s main thing was to make her daughter happy. Like I said earlier, she was described as a good mom and loved her children. I guess you can tell that she did by this story.
I guess at some point, Peddy stopped living with Julia and her family because on the day of November 28, 2012 he’d come back to the house saying that he wanted to fix the muffler on Jilia’s car. However, Peddy had started drinking Vodka long before his normal drinking time. Julia found this out when a bottle fell out of his pants pocket. He’d actually been drinking all day so you can imagine how drunk he was. Because of this, Julia took him to his fathers house, while she came back home because she said he became very “mean, hateful, ugly, and a totally different person.” Sometimes, Julia said, Peddy would hit her daughter when he was drunk and enraged. Later on that day Peddy came back to her house and, of course, he was still drunk. At first he was only speaking with other members of her family, but then he walked over to her and said, “I’d like to have a chat with you about me and Jackie.” Julia said, “If you have anything to say about you and Jackie, maybe speak with Jackie or one of your friends; not me.” Well, this makes all kinds of sense. Can you imagine him asking his ex-girlfriend for advice about his current girlfriend – her daughter? Like wtf?! Jackie wasn’t home at this time, but Julia’s son’s wife was. He kept pushing to have this conversation so Julia tells him to leave her house and physically pushed him out the door. At around this time, Jackie called her mother and was told that Peddy was at the house. She then called the police because she was worried about her mother – which, I wonder why. Maybe she knew that Peddy had been drinking and nothing good could come out of this?
So the cops came out to do a welfare check which made Peddy angry. After they left, her and her daughter in law sat in the living room listening to Peddy yell at someone on a phone call he’d made. Anyway, next thing you know, they heard a loud noise which sounded like something hit a car. Well, the only car out there was Julia’s. So she gets up to see what’s going on and found Peddy throwing cinder blocks on her car. She told him to stop but he kept throwing the blocks on her car. They began to argue and he started pushing and hitting her. She pushed him and got to the house, ran in and locked the door. Peddy followed her and started throwing things at her while she ran into the house. Julia went into the house and got a .22 gauge shotgun. Her daughter in law was like “what are you doing?!” and Julia responded with, “I just want to scare him; I’m not going to shoot him.” and she walked out with the gun. Her daughter in law then calls the cops because, I forgot to mention, at this time she was pregnant and worried about her and her unborn child. Julia,on the other hand, went outside holding the shotgun and told Peddy to leave while threatening him with this gun. Peddy, who if you remember is drunk and angry at this time, said, “I dare you to shoot me.” According to Julia, Peddy then started coming towards her and she just “started shooting.” She fired three shots, with the last of them hitting Peddy and killing him. She then walked into the house, put away the gun and sat on the couch.
When police arrived at around 9:40pm, they saw that Peddy was dead, laying in the driveway in the fetal position, and Deputy Greg Harbison took Julia into custody. They brought her to the Orange County Sheriff’s Office to be questioned. (Yes, there’s an Orange County in TX – this isn’t California) Julia told officers her version of events, but she was arrested for Murder and booked into the Orange County Correctional Facility. They set her bond at $250,000.
The trial started on Monday, August 5, 2013. It came in front of a jury of six women and three men.
Julia didn’t want to testify in person but she did submit a testimony to police to use. She plead – what did she plead? She plead not guilty and said she was acting in self-defense. In her testimony, she admitted that she shot Peddy from her porch, but said it was accidental. She stated that she fired warning shots in his direction to scare him, but the third one accidentally hit him. She said before this happened, Peddy had assaulted her and that she was afraid for her life. She stated that even though he had been violent with her on this night, he’d never assaulted her before that day.
She submitted pictures into her testimony which showed scratches on her arms and redness on her face and neck, which the police had seen on the day she’d been arrested.
Witnesses testified that:
#1 the shots were only seconds apart.
#2 Sandra Moore-Turner said she never saw Peddy “lay a finger” on anyone in the house ever before.
#3 Kailee Hunt, her daughter in law, testified that Peddy was acting very aggressively and scary that night. She also said that she saw Peddy hit Julia many times.
So you heard the witnesses, so let’s get more into the case:
Kailee’s 911 call was played in court. You could hear her pleading with the dispatcher to send ehlp, “Please hurry, please!” She went to check on Peddy after the incident and he was gasping for air. “I was afraid he would get up and attack me” She testified. She’d told cops that when she went to check on him, he had a tire iron in his hand, but police searched the premises and never found this.
Also brought in front of the jury was a recorded phone call in the Orange County Jail from February, where Julia had told Sandra that she would be a good witness and that she should tell everyone how they feared for their lives. Funny that she did the opposite. Some people will not lie for you. I’m one of those people.
Then they showed where the bullets on the property were found. The first bullet shell was found near the front door. The second was found closer to the railing of the porch and the last one was found a few months into the investigation on the porch. Then the Assistant District Attorney, Cory Kneeland, used a tape measure to show the jurors how far Julia was from Peddy when she shot him. According to evidence, Peddy was only about 35 feet away from Julia when she shot him.
Later, autopsy reports found Peddy was shot through the heart by a single bullet that also penetrated his spine. His blood alcohol levels were at 0.261 and he had a small amount of diazepam in his system. Diazepam is a muscle relaxant. Now, is 0.261 a high blood alcohol level?
The jury deliberated that Julia was aware of her conduct, but during consideration they acted only with, what is called, “fact-finding freedom” and poopooed on her claim that she was acting in self-defense. They used her words that she “shot and killed him, but she did not murder him.” Wow what cajones. With all the facts, the jury concluded that the evidence was sufficient to support their conclusion that Julia intended to kill Peddy.
On August 8, 2013 Julia was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 44 years in prison for first degree murder. She will be eligible for parole in 22 years. A juror later said that Julia’s claim of self defense wasn’t even a part of their discussion when they were deliberating. While they were deciding her punishment, they started at 50 years and deducted years considering her health and age.
After the guilty verdict, Julia took the stand and said, “I am so sorry. I shot my best friend. I lost him too so I know what they are going through.”
So Julia is currently 67 years old and Randy Peddy is dead.
And that’s the story of Juila and Peddy.
What do you think? Was it self-defense or jealousy?
If you like that story, please visit Apple Podcast and give us 5 stars. Say whatever you want in the comments section.
Join our Fanpage at https://bit.ly/39qUG3t
Discover more from Love and Murder Podcast: Heartbreak to Homicide
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
