Hi
if you were a jury member and you had been told about Julie Mugfords criminal activity would ypu have thought differently about her testimony and did the jury have a right to know
No because the way the jury found out about them was because she admitted to them. The most important thing to look at is her claims with respect to the case. To evaluate whether her claims make sense, whether the claims are something that would be made up, whether the claims have support...
Jeremy calling her the night of the murders was a big mistake.
Jeremy calling her before he called police was an even bigger mistake.
Jeremy lying and claiming he called police before her and thus being caught in a lie is an even bigger mistake still.
Why would he be calling her at all let alone before police? This supports that he called her to tell her he killed them like she claims he did. This is the kind of thing jurors look at.
He also called her around 6AM (well prior to police going inside and finding the bodies) telling her not to go to work because he was going to need her to speak to police to help him. This is supportive also of her story.
In looking at her story in great detail one finds she provides a lot of detail that is difficult to make up and not likely to be made up. Furthermore, if she wanted to get him in trouble by pretending he killed them she would not make up a hit man account. She knew he had no alibi so had no reason to make up a hitman doing it.
The most important thing though is that the physical evidence corroborated her story and so did the fact that Jeremy called police.
The easiest way to prove her a liar would be if the physical evidence established Sheila were responsible. But the evidence proves she wasn't responsible but rather was murdered and framed thus supporting Julie's account that Jeremy admitted he had them all murdered and framed Sheila. That he called police to report it means he had to be responsible for the murders because he had no innocent way to find out.
Julie's testimony was credible based on the totality of the circumstances.
Jeremy's claims are evaluated on the same basis- by looking at his claims not by saying simply that since he had a criminal past it means nothing he says should be believed no matter what. The problem with his claims is most were not credible. For instance, his claim the gun was often put away without the scope and moderator attached is not credible, he removed the scope himself because it would inhibit his ability to shoot people at close quarters. His claim he got the gun out to shoot rabbits and left it and spare bullets out is not credible. In fact, he left out too many bullets for his story to be true. His claim he received a call from Neivll is not credible, apart from the fact Sheila didn't do anything so there is no reason why Nevill would call to say she had, Nevill would not have needed to call Jeremy to help disarm her even if she did grab a gun. Worse though, Jeremy removed the phone from the master bedroom so there was no phone to use to call Jeremy with. The murders started in the master bedroom. The killer entered and fired 4 shots into Nevill and 6 into June. There was no phone to use before the shots were fired. After the shots were fired Nevill's voicebox was severed and he could not speak. A call to Jeremy was impossible.
All of this plays into whether to believe Julie. The evidence convicts Jeremy independent of Julie's testimony but her testimony and the evidence complement one another. That is extremely powerful when it comes to how a jury looks at things.
