Florida Man Friday | A Family’s Decent into Madness Results in Murder of Police Officers | Julie Ann Sulpizio

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At 7:45pm on Aug. 2, 2024, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office received a 911 call reporting a woman assaulting people and trespassing on property along Brookside Drive in eustace, which is 37 miles northwest of Orlando, Florida. The caller described 48 year old Julie Ann Sulpizio physically attacking his family while making religious accusations. Welcome everyone. Welcome LaMs to love and murder, heartbreak to homicide. Your Florida Man Friday edition. If you’re new here, hi, my name is Ky and I will be your host. I do invite you to sit down, put your feet up, listen to this episode and if you like it, go ahead and hit subscribe so you don’t miss any more episodes if you’re a returning lamb. Thank you so much for your continued support. Before we begin, I want to remind you that this episode and all my episodes are sponsored by my LaMs in Patreon patreon.com/love and murder, where you get bonus episodes, case extras and so much more over there. We do have a December sale going on right now for 50 off your first month in the LaM Patreon. Patreon patreon.com forward/love and murder. Head on over there if you want to be a supporter and get bonuses.

Julie Sulpizio allegedly planned an ambush on her neighbors

Now let’s get back into your Florida Man Friday. Julie and her husband Michael were not the best neighbors. Michael had previously threatened neighbors, saying, quote, the next time I see you, I’m going to shoot you. The day of this case, Julie had launched a series of attacks on her neighbors, claiming what she called divine inspiration for her actions. She went on neighboring properties uninvited and physically assaulted them while accusing them of being sinners. Julie had come up with a plan to bring neighbors into her house where her husband and her daughters would kill them. She tried to force neighbors to walk in front of her towards the house, but they refuse because, I mean, they entrust her, which if you’re the crazy neighbor and uh, you’re constantly saying weird stuff to me or just not talking to me at all, and suddenly this day you come on my lawn calling me sinner or whatever and then you’re like, hey, come on over for some cookies. And while you’re doing that, you’re trying to push me in front of you. Yeah, we’re fighting, cuz. Uh, no. When Police arrived at 8pm they found Julie, who identified herself as, what she called, quote, Helen under God’s will and accused her neighbors of pedophilia. After taking her into custody, officers discovered two dead dogs in her yard and noticed suspicious activities in her home. Now, they didn’t really say what suspicious activities, but they noticed something either way. Julie, quote, convinced Lake County Master Deputy Sheriff Bradley Michael link, who was 28, along with deputies Harold Howell, who was 41, and 28 year old Stephano Gargano to go into her house to check on her husband and her two children. When police entered the house, they were met with gunfire from multiple locations within the house. Now who is this family? So the Sulpizio’s family isolation began years before this incident. A former acquaintance reported the family to the Florida Department of Children and Families twice, first in December 2003 and again in May 2019. The reports talked about their concerns about the children’s limited exposure to the outside world. Julie had actually taken her daughters out from middle school, choosing to homeschool them instead to prevent them from exposure to certain ideologies. The sisters also had no cell phones and minimal social interactions. The family’s anti government stance intensified during the COVID pandemic. Friends reported that the Solpezios asked them to invest in survival supplies and help them build a bunker. Quote, about three years ago they started really getting into wanting to stock up on food and other things, get the bunker built. So now back to this fateful night. At 9:03pm Master Deputy link led a team, including, uh, Deputy Howell into the house through the back door. Master Deputy Link’s body cam provided crucial evidence of the planned ambush. The footage showed Michael positioned on a couch with a rifle, wearing black body armor. Then when they opened fire, this struck Link multiple times in the back. During the standoff, deputies had tried to negotiate with the suspects so that they can go in and rescue Link, but they refused. The audio on the body cam footage captured a female voice who was one of Julie’s daughters saying, quote, my king will kill all of you. You are Lucifer’s children. End quote. And after she said that, then on the body cam you hear the sound of a weapon being loaded. So police called in backup. They got SWAT there and uh, Deputy First Class Gargano led the SWAT team’s rescue attempt with a ballistic shield to get Link. Gargano ended up being shot multiple times through a wall with a high caliber weapon. So he has a shield. This is through the wall. So imagine, imagine what kind of weapon this is. It still shot him. So police were able to get Gargano and removed him from the house under heavy gunfire. After one of the suspects mentioned suicide, police heard two gunshots followed by a third. The SWAT team then used a battering Ram to knock down the front wall of the home. Wall not door, the front wall of the home. And they ended up finding two women, 23 year old Savannah Sulpizio and 22 year old Cheyenne Silpio dead on the couch from self inflicted gunshot wounds. Officers also found Michael suffering from a self inflicted gunshot wound. He was rushed to the hospital where he was pronounced dead. All of this happened between 9:03pm and ended at 11:02pm Lake county investigators uncovered extensive evidence during their search of the house. They found more than 20 high caliber rifles, shotguns and pistols staged in the living room. Stockpiles of ammunition and body armor. Tactical equipment including gas masks and body armor. Now, I don’t know how to say this. Jilly suits. G H I L L I E. I don’t even know what that is. If you know what that is, let me know in the comments below.

Grand jury indicts Julie Sulpizio on nine criminal charges

Jilly suits and medical supplies. MREs and bottled water stockpiles. So MREs, if you’re not aware, it stands for Meals Ready to eat. It’s what soldiers eat when they’re like out at war, out in the field, stuff like that. Literally, you just open it, add water and eat it. Yes, I’ve had MREs. And you know, because you’re children, you think they’re good. Um, but I’m pretty sure if you ask the soldiers, they’re like, this is crap. So my question is how were they able to get all of this? Like that’s, that’s. I don’t know what to say because I don’t want this to become a political podcast. I have my own views on like gun controls and everything. And I want to say there, there’s so much that I want to say, but again, I don’t want this to get into the political waters. So I’m not going to say anything about that. All I am going to say is that’s insane that they were able to get their hands on all of this when you can clearly tell they have mental. And then they brainwash their children to. I, uh, wouldn’t say that children have the same mental issues, but they literally brainwash their children to believe that this is the way to go to the point that they shot themselves. They shot themselves, both of them. That’s insane. And also after child services got those calls, did they ever go and check up on the children? Sheriff Peyton Jennell reported finding, quote, anti government propaganda and conspiracy theory related media throughout the house. Investigators documented infowars material including bumper stickers, handout and various podcast related items. Ah, uh, don’t make us podcasters look bad. It’s not our fault. Julie claimed that she said that she could, quote, visualize souls and believed it was her duty to bring her husband what she called, quote, dark souls. During her post Miranda interview, Julie was rambling nonsense. The arrest affidavit states that the attack was, quote, planned, rehearsed, and executed in part by Julie Sulpizio. After her arrest, she confirmed to investigators that the goal was to bring people to her house so her husband could kill them. Throughout police interviews, as I said before, she was rambling nonsense, and she just continued rambling such nonsense. They didn’t say exactly what she was saying, but they. They called it, quote, spewing gibberish, and she just wouldn’t stop. Julie told investigators that she could communicate in what she said was a way that they couldn’t. She made several statements about her supposed role in humanity. She claimed to be, quote, helen and that she said, quote, julie is in heaven. She also said Michael was something other than what he was and said that she was trying to, quote, trick Lucy, referring to Lucifer. She also accused her neighbors of various religious transgressions. And someone said, quote, she was talking about how she was hell and we were all demons and our dogs were hellhounds. This is what one witness reported. She targeted only specific neighbors, claiming that she was told that they were pedophiles. So Julie was arrested and held without bond. Now, my question is, if this is how she’s acting, why would you just arrest her? I mean, yes, arrest her, but why isn’t she in a mental institution getting a mental health evaluation? Why are you just arresting her? This is the type of stuff I don’t understand. If people are spewing stuff like this, the first step you need to do is get a mental health evaluation and then find out if they need to be held involuntarily in a mental health ward or just go to prison. Because if you just send people with mental health problems straight to prison, they still have those mental health problems. Like, on August 7th, Julie entered an initial not guilty plea. And on August 19th, a grand jury indicted her on nine criminal charges, the most serious of which was principal to first degree murder of a law enforcement officer. This carries a potential death penalty if convicted. The indictment also included three counts of principal to attempted first degree murder of law enforcement officers and seven additional counts of attempted murder. Prosecutors added multiple battery charges of two counts of standard battery, four counts of battery strangulation, including against an officer, and conspiracy to commit first degree murder. The grand Jury also charged Julie with premeditated conspiracy to commit first degree murder. They then piled on one more charge as a principle to first degree murder of a law enforcement officer. Principles to a crime are people who intentionally help another person to commit a crime. They do not have to be present at the crime scene, but they can be punished as if they committed the crime themselves. The state attorney’s office confirmed the first degree murder charge qualifies for capital punishment, meaning death penalty under Florida law. Detective Josh Mercer noted that Julie appeared, quote, joyful during interviews and showed, quote, no remorse at all. They did end up taking her for a mental health evaluation. And while she was in the hospital under her involuntary stay, she continued these religious claims the entire time. So for an insanity defense to succeed, her attorneys need to prove that she did not understand right from wrong or comprehend her actions. So currently, the case is still ongoing. I haven’t seen any updates of this. I know she was supposed to have been in court in September, and I know on October 8th she was supposed to be back in court as well, but I don’t see any updates. The only thing I see are, uh, from August, I do know that the state attorney’s office is filing to seek the death penalty. And the reasons that they gave gave were previous felony convictions, involved in violence, what they said, creating great risk of death to many persons, disrupting governmental function, cold, calculated and premeditated manner, and murder of an officer during official duties. So these are, uh, the five aggravating factors that they brought before the court as to why they want to seek the death penalty. But I don’t see any updates to that. But as far as I know, she’s in prison awaiting trial. I don’t even think she’s in a mental health institution anymore, even though from what I saw, what I heard, she sounds like she’s mentally ill. So I don’t know what’s going to happen moving forward. I don’t know if they’re going to find her innocent by way of insanity. I’m not sure. However, I know that they’re trying to seek the death penalty and treat it as if she is mentally stable. So I’m not sure how that’s going to go. I don’t see any updates. I wish I could see updates because I want to find out in what I’m thinking. She has severe mental health issues. It seemed like both her and her husband had severe mental health issues. And they brainwashed those children, which they’re young. They were young adults when they killed themselves, but they brainwashed those children into thinking that what they thought was right. I think when it comes to mental health cases, we need to stop treating it as if people know exactly what they’re doing. I understand she, ah, helped murder people. Yes. But if she’s not in her right mind, then she needs to get treatment for this. Now, if she gets treatment and she gets to her baseline meeting, that she actually understands right from wrong, and she knows that what she was doing was kind of culty, and she still is like, nope, I’d have done it again. Even on these medications and this therapy, I’d have done it again. Then, yeah, uh, move forward with whatever you’re gonna do. I don’t know. But if, uh, she comes down to her baseline and she’s like, oh, my God, I can’t believe I did this. I don’t know what I was thinking. I was hearing voices, I was seeing stuff, whatever she says. But she, she’s like, I can’t believe I did this. And I feel really remorseful and she feels really bad about it because now she’s aware of what’s going on. Then what do you do in that case? You know, you can’t really say, well, you’re guilty of murder and all these other things and conspiracy to commit murder, and she didn’t know.

I want to hear what y’all think about this case

I want to hear what y’all think. Maybe I’m being too biased about this because I do, uh, have people that I deal with this with. So maybe I’m only looking at it from one side. So I want to hear what y’all think about this. Do you agree with that? Do you disagree with that? Let me know in the comments below. But that’s all I have for you. I don’t see any updates on this case, and as of this recording, it’s already December. But what I know so far is that the Lake county investigators are trying to paint a picture of somebody who methodically prepared for this, stockpiled weapons and rehearsed ambush positions, and that they’re just religious fanatics. But from the defense’s side, you know, they’re claiming that obviously they’re mentally ill with their claims of what they call divine communication, what they said, and religious authority, coupled with the family’s increase in withdrawal from society, especially amping that up with the COVID 19 pandemic. And so they’re saying this is just a case of mental health. So I want to know your thoughts on the case. I want to know. Maybe I’m being too biased towards the mental health aspect of it. Maybe she was just a conspiracy nut. I don’t know. I’m thinking if her stance didn’t change after you arrested her, I’m thinking mental health. But I could be wrong. So let me know your thoughts in the comments below. You could also send me a voicemail. You can actually record it on your phone and email it to [email protected] or you can go to the website murderinlove.com and hit that SOS button. I think with the SOS you only have 30 seconds to record your messages though, so basically emailing them is better. Or you could just write them out in the comments below. Definitely want to hear from you. And I know this week I haven’t read any comments, but comments are coming back next week. Don’t forget to go ahead and share this episode to everyone you know and everyone you don’t. Check out our Patreon patreon.com forward/loveandmurder if you want to get bonuses, case extras and so much more, take advantage of the December half off sale. It’s half off for the first month of your membership and I want to see you over in our Patreon patreon.com forward/love and Murder and I will see you in the next episode. Bye.