Julia Enright.
A Massachusetts treehouse murderess now knows her fate.
Julia Enright, 24, was sentenced to the maximum penalty under Massachusetts law on Friday for the 2018 murder of 20-year-old Brandon Chicklis, a former classmate and boyfriend.
Worcester Superior Court Judge Daniel Wrenn sentenced the defendant to life in prison with the possibility of parole after 25 years after hearing victim impact statements from nine of Chicklis’s family and friends, according to MassLive’s court reporter Erin Tiernan.
One after another, each of the nine described the hole that was left in their lives following the young man’s brutal murder. And, in turn, each asked for the judge to return the harshest penalty against Enright.
Chicklis’s mother, Trisha Edwards-Lamarche, explained her grim and daily predicament, according to reports from the courtroom.
“Every day when drive to work, I get to choose: Do I drive by where she dumped my son’s body today, or do I drive by where she dumped his car?” the grieving mother told the judge.
“I love you Brandon, you’ll always be my bumble bee,” the deceased man’s grandmother, Louisa Rocha, said in court.
Chicklis was stabbed at least 10 times inside the Enright family’s Ashburnam, Mass. treehouse on June 23, 2018, the trial revealed. His body was found by a jogger on July 10, 2018 on the side of Route 119 in Rindge, New Hampshire, a town just across the state line from Massachusetts. The corpse was in an advanced state of decomposition by the time it was discovered — which became a key point of discussion during the trial due to Enright’s uncontested fixation with dead animals, decomposition, and death, in general.
During trial, one witness reportedly testified the defendant would occasionally try to speed up a dead animal’s decomposition by leaving its body out in the elements and wrapped up in a tarp. Prosecutors tried to use the testimony to suggest a parallel to how Chicklis may have been treated.
In her defense, Enright told jurors her occult-adjacent interests were a side effect of her then-obsession with shock rocker Marilyn Manson.
The trial also featured some focus on the defendant’s side business as a dominatrix – much to the defense’s chagrin and prior protestations.
Enright herself lodged an unsuccessful claim that she killed Chicklis in self-defense in response to an alleged attempted sexual assault in the treehouse. Jurors didn’t accept that version of the story.
Prosecutors argued the slaying was a “gift” for John Lind, the defendant’s then-boyfriend. Lind was indicted by a Worcester County Grand Jury for accessory after the fact to murder, misleading a grand jury, and perjury earlier this year. Originally charged in December of last year, he is alleged to have shared many of the same macabre interests as the convicted woman.
Lind first made waves in the case months prior.
In October 2021, Lind pleaded the fifth during one of Enright’s pre-trial evidentiary hearings when asked to account for what, exactly, moved his girlfriend to replace part of the carpet in the treehouse. Previously, he allegedly told police the textile had been replaced due to a sex act between the two that resulted in damage from human feces.
Evidence later suggested there was never any carpet in the treehouse before the murder at all. And, in the area where the carpet had allegedly been replaced, investigators found Chicklis’s blood and DNA.
“His DNA is in your treehouse,” a state trooper told Enright during her second interview with the Massachusetts State Police on the day she was arrested. “How could his DNA, his blood, be in your treehouse?”
She got up and tried to leave at that point but, from that point on, would remain in the custody of law enforcement.
As for Lind, during trial she testified he helped her get rid of the body.
“There is not a day that goes by that don’t think about this or don’t wish I could go back,” Enright said in a bid to lessen her sentence. “Maybe you need to hear me say this: I’m sorry to everyone. His parents, his siblings, his loved ones, my parents, friends, everyone.”
According to MassLive, she never said her victim’s name and only turned to slightly address his family in court on Friday.
“I want you to know how much I’ve thought about everything,” she continued. “I need you to know I mean it. I need you to know that every night I pray for my family. I’m praying for yours too.”
“I won’t lie and pretend like being with my family and loved ones isn’t the only thing I want,” she went on.
But her plea for mercy fell flat.
[image via WCVB-TV screengrab/YouTube]
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