A 6-year-old boy was returned to his mother in the state of Minnesota by a social worker after a year in foster care, despite the fervent protests of his father, only to be brutally murdered with a shotgun by the woman who gave him life. These kind of people deserve the death penalty, no questions asked. Justice is supposed to be restorative in nature, but there’s no way to restore a human life. Therefore, the price that must be paid is the life of the murderer. This is true justice.
The woman who committed this crime, Julissa Thaler, 29, obviously had pure evil in mind when it came to her son because she asked a store clerk for ammunition that would “blow the biggest hole,” before she shot and killed her child, Eli Hart, back in May of 2022. Thaler, who suffers from mental illness, shot her child nine times before packing his body in the trunk of her vehicle. According to local law enforcement authorities, Thaler purchased the shotgun not long after the child’s father, Tory, filed paperwork requesting full custody of his son.
Young Eli had been in foster care since January of 2021 under the guardianship of Nikita Kronberg.
Eli Hart was 6. His mother is on trial for his murder. Eli’s father told the jury in Hennepin County “..he was everything to me..he completed my life.” Eli’s dad add that he liked bubbles, playing with toy cars, and fishing. @kstp pic.twitter.com/GrSekOUSZ0
— Eric Chaloux (@EricChalouxKSTP) February 3, 2023
An exhausting day of testimony is over in the Julissa Thaler trial. This image may stick with me forever. Little 6-year-old Eli Hart's backpack was thrown in the trash, his homework still inside. His dad testified that Eli loved going to school. Loved being social. Senseless. pic.twitter.com/O0DQs4JOxh
— Lou Raguse (@LouRaguse) February 3, 2023
“During that time, Eli and Tory were able to start a relationship, and their bond was powerful from the start,” Kronberg went on to say on a GoFundMe page set up to help pay for the funeral costs. “Eli fell in love with his father and loved spending time with him. Tory was excited to make up for all the lost years and was thrilled to start teaching his son how to fish and ride a bike with no training wheels.”
“At the end of December 2021, Eli returned to his mother’s house for a home trial,” Kronberg said, according to the Daily Wire. “Due to many red flags, Eli’s mother was showing, Tory tried extremely hard to get custody of Eli. Unfortunately, more false Orders of Protection were filed, which postponed custody hearings. Numerous parties made many statements to CPS, fearing that mom would harm Eli if full custody were returned. Sadly full custody was returned on May 10, 2022.”
“Eli’s brutal murder is one of the most horrific cases I have encountered in 30 years working in the criminal legal system,” Hennepin County Attorney Mary Moriarty remarked. “Nothing will ever fill the emptiness Eli’s father and other loved ones now live with every day, but I’m hopeful this verdict will make it just a bit easier to remember Eli as the toothless, happy, smiling little boy we have seen in photos.”
The trial for Eli’s murder was so troubling and disturbing that those on the jury were offered crisis counseling. That should give you a proper glimpse of just how dark and twisted this crime was. Prosecutor Dan Allard spoke with the jury and informed them they would be seeing graphic pictures of Eli, who was strapped into a seat in the car when his mother shot him to death. Allard then said to the judge, “We are self-editing because I don’t want to see them again. They are horrid. The jury doesn’t want to see them. They are as bad as I’ve seen in any case.”
Robert Pikkarainen, Thaler’s former boyfriend, stated that the night before he was murdered, Eli didn’t want to go to bed. He said to the court, “We started playing with the kitties and Eli was getting rowdy and Mom didn’t like it. She was hitting him. Then Eli was hitting her — they were fighting. So she put the shotgun in the car and she came back up. I was lying in her bed. She grabbed Eli and went downstairs.”
Thayler wanted to purchase a $400,000 insurance policy on her son, according to broker Mathias Martin’s testimony. He said that she was very adamant about the $400,000 policy, but informed her that their policies for kids only went up to $50,000.
Tory’s fiancee, Josie Josephson spoke with reporters from Fox 9 where she said, “Not only did we express concerns to multiple people, multiple times…every time the response was, ‘This is something for family courts.’ (CPS) said laws do not allow us to address this, unless (they) see physical abuse, (they) have no grounds to remove him from her home.”
Eli’s father has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Dakota County as of August 2022.
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