The Minnesota mother convicted of killing her 6-year-old son was sentenced to life in prison, but not before she shared her feelings with the court.
“I’m innocent. F—k you all. You’re garbage. That is all your honor,” Julissa Thaler said during her sentencing hearing on Thursday.
Thaler was arrested and charged with first and second-degree murder of her son Eli Hart in May 2022.
Prosecutors said Thaler, who had been granted full custody of the child, shot Eli nine times with a shotgun, according to Law and Crime Network.
“Ms. Thaler, I don’t know if that’s appropriate here,” Hennepin County District Court Judge, Jay Quam said of the outburst.
“Sorry I told you what somebody else can’t,” Thaler, 29, responded.
Quam began to read Thaler’s sentencing saying “The worst thing that seems to happen to parents is to lose their child. It’s worse though when you don’t lose your child to something like cancer or an accident, it’s when someone takes that child from the world.”
“What I can’t imagine, nobody can imagine, is that the person that takes the child from the world is the person that brought that child in,” Quam added.
“Nothing I do would bring justice to this situation. Nothing I do would relieve any of the pain that you caused by doing that,” Quam said before sentencing Thaler to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Throughout Quam’s reading, Thaler sat back in her chair with her head resting on her hand looking down at the floor. She seemingly gave the judge and gallery the middle finger while being escorted out of the courtroom
Orono police first made contact with Thaler after reports of someone driving without a tire and a smashed back windshield on May 19, 2022. During the traffic stop, officers found Thaler with pieces of flesh on her body and blood in her car.
Thaler claimed the blood was from a tampon and the flesh was from a deer she had picked up from a butcher, according to documents obtained by KMSP at the time.
After 30 minutes, Police drove Thaler home, and only after was Hart’s body discovered in the trunk of the car alongside a shotgun, the suspected murder weapon.
Thaler had won full custody of her son just 10 days prior to the child’s death. Tony Hart, Eli’s father had made numerous complaints about Thaler’s history of drug abuse and mental health problems, but was ignored by the courts.
Tony Hart has filed a wrongful death lawsuit against Dakota County employees who gave custody to Thaler. A federal court will hear the case in 2024, according to CBSNews.
With Post wires