After confessing to killing her mother and her mother’s much younger lover earlier this month, a teenage Florida girl is being kept in juvenile prison but may face adult charges, according to the police.
The 16-year-old Julia Grace Egler is charged with two first-degree murder counts, according to the Palm Bay Police Department.
Authorities assert that on Saturday night, the defendant left a menacing and poignant farewell letter for Matthew Szejnrok, 22, and Kelley McCollom, 42.
The child allegedly said to the May-December couple, “Welcome home,” as the deadly ambush inside the Benchor Road home started on July 6.
According to court documents that Florida Today was able to obtain, the victims had several gunshot wounds after multiple rounds were fired, according to the police. However, the violence did not stop right away.
Egler turned the gun on Szejnrok, who begged her to stop as he fled and attempted to find cover in the bathroom, according to the police.
Egler had allegedly killed her mother with the woman’s own silver.38 Special. There, the teenager used a chef’s knife to stab her mother’s lover multiple times. She then completed the kill by using the firearm once more.
According to authorities, a fake 911 call was placed on Sunday at around 12:06 a.m. Egler is reported to have been crying uncontrollably and reporting that a man had broken into the family’s home throughout the conversation.
The teenager was met by officers outside the house shortly after they arrived. There, she supposedly initially maintained to her account of the burglar, telling authorities that she heard “loud noises” coming from another part of the home and hid inside her room with her pit dog.
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However, the girl’s story unraveled over repeated interrogations, and authorities said she eventually admitted to the killings.
One of the initial indicators, according to detectives, was discovering the gun hidden right outside the adolescent’s bedroom window.
Additionally, there were purportedly bloody tracks everywhere, and those matched Egler’s shoes. On the kitchen counter, a bloodied chef’s knife was discovered. Additionally, there was a bloody trail that led to the restroom.
Court documents acquired by the Space Coast Rocket, a local news website covering the area of Florida around the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral Space Force Station, reveal that the defendant acknowledged breaking into her mother’s bedroom to take the gun and a few rounds of ammunition during a subsequently held interview at the police station.
She then waited for the couple to return home while putting a loaded revolver and a kitchen knife in her pockets. It was just after 10:30 p.m. when they arrived, and chaos broke out.
As it turned out, Egler supposedly told authorities that she started using the knife after running out of bullets, which is why she stopped shooting Szejnrok. Subsequently, she returned to her mother’s bedroom at the dying man’s request, took one bullet, loaded the revolver with one more cartridge, and shot him in the head.
Police said the girl sought to construct the scene to look like there had been a break-in over the intervening hour or so.
However, investigators contend that the cover-up was careless because glass was discovered on top of the victims’ bodies and there was film from several easily available surveillance cameras that refuted the burglary story.
According to authorities, Egler had a reason for the incident: “She was not happy that [Kelley] was dating Matthew, who was 22 years old, and that Kelley was not very accepting of her transition.”
It was said that those problems had been boiling for a while.
According to an affidavit, the girl and McCollom had reached a boiling point at the time of the murders due to gender issues and the teen’s age difference with Szejnrok.
The anticipated motive of the alleged killer was also communicated by law enforcement rather quickly in public remarks this week.
The 18th Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office will decide whether to charge Egler as an adult during a delinquency hearing later this month, according to Florida Today.
