- 9 hours ago
Category
📺
TVTranscript
00:00Em, let's start at the beginning.
00:03What do you remember of Julia coming into your life?
00:09I remember people calling her by different names as a child.
00:13Probably all of us have a little sense of the dark triad in us for certain things.
00:17We just don't go as far as Julia did.
00:19She wanted hugs. She wanted to be told that we loved her.
00:22There was no way she was getting the kids, and that's all she wanted.
00:26Julia Parrish, Crone Ruttle.
00:28He had invested $392,000.
00:32I think she was compelled to con.
00:34She had pretty much swindled half the businesses in this town.
00:39Yeah, but what if I'm wrong? Because apparently she's dying of cancer.
00:43There was no feeling, no emotion in her eyes. She would just...
00:46You're looking there for a second, saying, right, he shot her, he shot himself.
00:50Evil is what you call her, just pure evil.
00:54What did you know about her past life?
00:57That she told me or that I found out?
01:00That she told you.
01:00Okay, this is fun. You ready? Buckle up.
01:04That she told me.
01:32It's a beautiful feeling.
01:33I love it.
01:33I love it.
01:33I love it.
01:38On the 18th of May 2015, a gang of thieves who broke into this house in Boolaglass in
01:44Askeaton to steal scrap metal made a grim discovery.
01:50You know, burglars finding two dead bodies, reporting it to us before our knowledge.
01:56Could we have predicted who this woman would become in our investigation?
02:02There was names coming at us, different first name, different second name.
02:07Julia appeared to be the common trend.
02:09Put this lady's name into a search engine and off it comes.
02:13This lady was infamous.
02:17She was wanted by the PSNI for fraud offences.
02:20She had been convicted in the United States.
02:23She certainly burned a lot of people.
02:26Who is this woman?
02:28We had to identify what kind of footprint, and it was a big footprint that this lady left.
02:45For Cecilia Julie McKittrick, life begins in the small rural town of Castledarg.
02:51Born in 1952, there's very little known about her early years.
02:55What is established though, is that when she's 19, she marries a British soldier.
03:00She has a son with him.
03:02And then when he's six months old, she leaves.
03:05I guess the biggest date, sort of the beginning of this whole journey was the abandonment of her son in
03:101972.
03:12And then we jump forward 11 years to 1983, and she's in our mad jail, the women's prison.
03:17We think she was in there because of some issue over missing television sets.
03:23Not a pleasant place to be.
03:25You go forward another year, she's then moving her mind into America.
03:30But instead of going to America legally and getting a visa, getting the tickets, getting everything done properly,
03:36she goes into Canada, and then she skips into America, and she does that illegally.
03:43You embody the goals that guide the Republican Party, and you represent the future.
03:49The future of opportunity.
03:51Now is the time to become active.
03:54Do you remember how they met?
03:55Yes, they met through mutual friends at a party.
03:59Our parents had recently divorced in 1984, and we went from our parents being divorced to this woman.
04:06She had been with us everywhere we went.
04:09She did this thing where she would be very relatable to you.
04:12You know, I have a dog.
04:13Oh, I have a dog, too.
04:14You know, and I went here.
04:16Oh, I went there, too.
04:17Isn't it lovely?
04:18And even if it was total farce, she was definitely trying to relate to you in some way.
04:23And she wanted to insert herself in every aspect of your life.
04:30I don't believe that my dad ever saw his parents without her after that.
04:36Can you see why your father fell in love with her?
04:38Yeah.
04:39She was charming.
04:39She was sweet.
04:41We went from my dad being our caretaker when we were at his home to Julia being our caretaker,
04:47and that happened overnight.
04:49It happened in the blink of an eye, and there was no transition to that.
04:52She just was so keen on inserting herself into our lives, and I think my dad was like,
04:58this is great.
04:59It's a built-in mom.
05:00She marries this guy, poor Clyde Parrish.
05:04I'm not telling anybody that she's already married and has never divorced.
05:08So that's a big a mismarriage.
05:10That's a pretty big crime in most states.
05:19My memories of Julia.
05:22I first met Julie in March 2011.
05:29Dad said he had split up with his then-girlfriend, who I'd actually really grown to like.
05:35She just kind of came out of nowhere.
05:39His mother told him basically everything to do, and I think that's what he saw in her.
05:48He was very kind, very shy.
05:50He wouldn't be the one to put himself forward, but genuine.
05:54You know, if he said something, he meant it.
05:56You know, there was no bull with him.
05:57He was a lovely guy.
05:59Lovely guy.
05:59Sure, I was with him.
06:00He was lovely.
06:04Tom actually said he met online, dating app, yeah.
06:08She saw him coming.
06:10You know, a man with two children, having him every second weekend.
06:14Oh, this is lovely.
06:15I can go and hide in that lovely little family group.
06:19She was kind of running his life, I would say, at that time.
06:23And that was only the first time I met him.
06:27When we met her, she had constantly asked us, do we love her?
06:31And we were kind of...
06:32Now, I was 14 at the time, so...
06:37Maybe it was the first weekend that Ian came back, and he said to me that...
06:43She keeps asking me, Mum, do I love her?
06:46And she wanted hugs and everything.
06:48And Ian just said, sure, I don't know her mum.
06:51I kind of felt guilty that I didn't love her.
06:54But this is probably the second time that I met her, so...
06:57She wanted this family image.
06:59I don't understand, really, what it was about.
07:091972, her son is born and she leaves him.
07:12She's in County Down by this stage, and he's six months old.
07:15He's left to be raised by his paternal grandparents.
07:19Not much is known then about her early life generally.
07:21Very little.
07:22You wonder when the liar in her starts.
07:25Did you talk about her son?
07:27Paul died at 13 from leukemia.
07:31I was sorry I knocked the door,
07:34because the look on his face has never left me.
07:37It was shocking to me when I found Paul alive and doing very well.
07:41My heart broke for him, because he said,
07:45I don't want anybody to think I have anything to do with her.
07:48She left that child to become a professional fraudster.
07:53Dodged a great big bullet by her leaving.
07:55It was probably the best thing that could have happened to him,
07:57was her leaving him.
08:02It started in Houston.
08:05You know, she was going by Julia Holmes, Dr. Holmes,
08:07because did you know, did you guys know that she said she,
08:10she was a psychiatrist with a medical degree?
08:14Then it turned into a PhD.
08:15So I don't really know which one.
08:19The reason it's so ingrained in my brain was that she was actually
08:22seeing a little boy who was around my age,
08:25and claiming to be a child psychiatrist.
08:28She had a framed diploma.
08:30She saw patients, she took money for those services,
08:33and she provided counseling.
08:35It was a very strange thing.
08:36It was a very brazen thing to do.
08:41The adults were so charmed by her,
08:43and they were enamored by her.
08:44She was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened to them.
08:46And the kids, we weren't so much.
08:48One little mistake and one little error,
08:52she would hit us hard.
08:54It was very cunning,
08:55because she wouldn't do it in front of other adults.
08:57We would say, well, she just hit me.
09:00She would say, oh, no, no, no, they're just saying that.
09:03And she would spin it as,
09:04they don't like me because I'm the stepmother,
09:06and they're trying to push us apart.
09:08And as an adult, that sounds very reasonable,
09:11because she's a child psychiatrist, don't you know?
09:17I think there was never a time until I was a teenager
09:20that I was with her that she wasn't hitting me.
09:24My dad worked and always has worked very, very hard.
09:27He has incredible work ethic.
09:29He had a place on Corfe,
09:30and then I'm sure that the lease that he had on that place,
09:34she probably messed that up in some way.
09:36And then he had to run his shop out of our garage.
09:38It was the first sign of, well, that's a big shift.
09:41And within a year of her coming on board,
09:44he's now in a garage.
09:51Julia had made a rule that we were not
09:55to see my dad's parents anymore.
09:57I guess at some point they've realized
09:59that something's a little off.
10:00Creditors calling things that way.
10:03I remember it like it was yesterday.
10:04We had gone to my dad's, and it was a Saturday.
10:07I was sitting behind my dad, so she whipped around,
10:10and she said to me, you've been seeing your pa and granny.
10:15We told you if you saw your pa and granny anymore,
10:18you would no longer see your dad and I.
10:20And at this point, my sister's crying, I'm crying.
10:23The entire way there, she berated us, called us liars,
10:28called us everything you could think of to a small child.
10:31I don't know what my dad was thinking.
10:32I don't remember him saying anything the entire time.
10:35When we arrived back at my mother's home,
10:38Julia lunged at my mother
10:39and physically attacked her in our driveway.
10:44Very soon after that, very, very soon, they left.
10:47Looking back, I know now she had run up debts
10:49and picking a fight with me and having that reason to leave.
10:53That was just the beginning of, we have to get out of here.
10:55Oh, look at your daughters, they're so hateful.
10:57They don't even appreciate that you're here.
10:59So I've always thought she always had an idea
11:01of where she wanted to go next,
11:02and I've always felt like she had sort of pre-planned it.
11:22There was a jewelry store located next to their print shop,
11:25and it was so crazy.
11:27She somehow convinced them to allow her to borrow jewelry,
11:31and then she would go back and tell them,
11:33I never borrowed that jewelry before.
11:35I'd spoken to the jeweler, and they said,
11:37oh, yeah, she stole all of that from us.
11:52So there's this trail of crime that they're leaving behind,
11:57but she's never been convicted yet.
12:00It boggled my mind that she could continue to,
12:02and probably was the reason that gave her so much confidence.
12:12At the end of March 2011, I remember getting a phone call,
12:15and I answered it.
12:16It was Tom, and he was just, he was very different.
12:19He was very cocky, very sure of himself,
12:21and straight away I went, something going on here.
12:24I don't know what it is, but I know there's something going on here.
12:28So she came on the phone then, and she ate the face off me,
12:32and told me, I wasn't fit to be a mother.
12:35You've met your match, and all this kind of stuff.
12:38And I went, oh, my God, I don't know what is going on here.
12:40My world just tumbled down right in front of me.
12:45What was the impression of the woman shouting down the phone at you?
12:49She's crazy. She's absolutely crazy.
12:51She started telling me that they had been in a relationship before,
12:54and I knew this was all lies.
12:58Lies, lies, lies, everything.
13:00Tom had only met her for three weeks.
13:02A couple of days later, when Ian got his new card,
13:06he accepted her request, you know, to be friends.
13:10And she had put up a post about,
13:12I've met a fantastic man, and I'm really in love with him,
13:16and in the package is two lovely boys.
13:22In my head, I just saw red. That's it.
13:24I know what she's after.
13:25There was no way she was getting the kids,
13:27and that's all she wanted.
13:33I believe by the time they got to Arizona,
13:37she was no longer a doctor.
13:38So, but yeah, I remember her having all these different names,
13:42and I remember people calling her by different names as a child.
13:45Someone would call her Jay,
13:46and she had a big story when they lived in New Mexico
13:48that she could not be known to be a female business owner,
13:52so she had to change her name to Jay, J-A-Y.
13:56So the woman we got to know was Julia,
13:58Julia started life as Cecilia Julia McKittrick,
14:01but she had dozens of names throughout her criminal enterprises.
14:04Elizabeth Holmes, Parrish Watson.
14:08Jay Holmes, Jay Parrish.
14:10Julia O'Neill, Julia Hunter, Julia Greer,
14:13Julie Ruttle, Julia Ruttle, Jules Ruttle,
14:16Julie Ann Ruttle.
14:17Julia Parrish.
14:19Julia Parrish.
14:19Crone Ruttle.
14:20I think Julia Greer or Julie Greer.
14:23Silverlight Ruttle posing as a High Priestess Witch on Facebook.
14:26And she was also White Wolf Quiet Spirit,
14:29and she posed then as a shaman on Facebook as well.
14:32And people responded to her.
14:34She started saying that her name was Bonnie Parrish,
14:36so that she could say that she and my dad were Bonnie and Clyde.
14:40I think she would frequently use a different name
14:43and then have to backtrack
14:45and then try to gaslight you into believing that she never said that.
14:48She never said her name was PJ.
14:50Why would you make that up, Morris?
14:52Why would you do that?
14:53You're fibbing.
14:54That's a lie.
14:56And she was very convincing.
14:58She was gaslighting before any of us used the term gaslighting.
15:05Where do you store all that history
15:07for when you want to convince your next person
15:10that you're going to groom who you are?
15:13Do you keep a book?
15:14How do you do that?
15:16Because if you work from truth,
15:17you've only got one set of memories to deal with.
15:19But if you work from all of her lies,
15:22she had acres of lies.
15:25What did you know about her past life?
15:28That she told me or that I found out?
15:30That she told you.
15:31OK, this is fun.
15:32You ready?
15:33Buckle up.
15:34OK.
15:35She was the only girl,
15:37and she had two older brothers.
15:39They owned all this land in Ireland,
15:41and they were very wealthy,
15:42and they called her every Sunday.
15:44I don't know who she was talking to,
15:45but she would have conversations on the phone,
15:47like with someone in Ireland, supposedly.
15:49They were always coming to visit.
15:53But you heard the term, like, catfishing, right?
15:56She was doing a reverse catfish.
15:58They have two little boys exactly my sisters and my age.
16:02I mean, we are just ecstatic.
16:04These are cousins.
16:05They're coming to see us.
16:06Before we go to the airport to pick them up,
16:09Julia gets a call.
16:10The entire family is wiped out.
16:12They're all dead.
16:14They're all dead.
16:16Fiery car crash on the way to the airport
16:18to come to Houston to see his sister,
16:20his beloved sister.
16:21His wife is dead.
16:22The two children are dead.
16:23Fiery car crash.
16:24Dead.
16:24All of them dead.
16:26She had so much loss in her family
16:27of people who were coming to visit us
16:29that just died.
16:30It was the craziest thing.
16:32I remember being really upset
16:34that these people had died.
16:36And no, they weren't dead
16:37because they never existed.
16:39What was she then?
16:40She had to just go into the room
16:41and lock herself away,
16:42and she was very distraught,
16:44and, you know, oh, my goodness.
16:46The entire world has ended.
16:48She should have been an actress.
16:49She would have won awards.
16:59The only contact we had
17:03was text messages, phone calls,
17:06but it was never dad
17:07that was on the other end of the phone.
17:08It was always her.
17:13She had him controlled at that point.
17:19She had a record.
17:21Love you.
17:21Bye.
17:22Three or four months later,
17:23she kind of confronted me
17:25and asked me
17:26did I have a problem with her,
17:28and it was that same day
17:30that she told me she was pregnant.
17:31She would have been 59 that day,
17:34so I'm not entirely sure
17:36what that was about.
17:39So they were going to get married,
17:41and at this point,
17:43it was too crazy for me.
17:45It was too crazy for me,
17:46and she knew she wasn't getting the boys
17:48for this so-called wedding,
17:50which wasn't a wedding.
17:51It was a blessing,
17:52and she got very, very cross at that.
17:54So then she made up
17:55that Ian was making the dinners
17:57and he was looking after the kids,
17:59all these kind of lies.
18:01So she rang social services
18:02and said all that stuff to them,
18:05and I was taken into social services.
18:08She was doing everything in her power
18:11to get the lads.
18:16We actually ended up going up to the house
18:18a couple of months later.
18:20There was nobody there.
18:21They weren't there.
18:22Ian was really pining for his dad
18:23at this point.
18:24So I stayed in the car,
18:26and then they arrived into the yard.
18:31There was nobody there.
18:33So we went walking in the field
18:35where he usually has the bees,
18:38and then they showed up.
18:41I don't remember what they said or anything.
18:43I just remember being behind Ian,
18:46just looking at the grass.
18:49He just told me,
18:50just leave.
18:52Just leave.
18:53He said it was legal matters
18:54between him and my mum,
18:56so we just had to leave.
18:58It's a lot of funerals
19:01that you kind of push down.
19:04She didn't even look at either of us.
19:06She just walked straight into the house.
19:18There are three types of folks
19:19from East Texas.
19:21You got law enforcement,
19:23you have preachers,
19:25and you have criminals.
19:26And on occasion,
19:28there might be one or two of the same.
19:34As you look into the background of people,
19:37it's very interesting to see
19:38to what extent they will go
19:40to bolster their own reputation
19:43as being reliable and dependable
19:45and someone that you can trust.
19:47And that's essential,
19:48to be a good con artist.
19:49People have to trust you.
19:51And for Julia and Clyde,
19:53both of them claim to be ministers,
19:58people of the cloth.
19:59And in East Texas,
20:01this is not only the Bible Belt,
20:04this is the buckle of the Bible Belt.
20:06So if you are a minister,
20:08you have very high standing in the community.
20:11But to be a minister,
20:12you simply need to proclaim you're a minister.
20:15And in Julia's case,
20:17she just put it on her business card
20:19that she was Reverend Julia Parrish.
20:26She was a rock star in Athens.
20:28She hit her stride in Athens.
20:30She was part of whatever the county Republican Party
20:34group, you know, supporters were.
20:36She was very involved in community service there
20:39and bought a little piece of land in town
20:41and put some mobile homes on there
20:43and they rented them out or sold them.
20:47In East Texas,
20:48there's an organization called
20:50the Cattle Barons Association.
20:52And every year,
20:53they put together a big gala,
20:55a big ball to raise funds for cancer.
20:57And she was part of that.
20:59And she even made a large donation.
21:02The community saw that
21:03and they saw that she was willing
21:05to sacrifice her own personal funds.
21:08Little did they know,
21:09they weren't her funds.
21:10They were people she swindled.
21:14She was making very large purchases,
21:16larger than anything
21:18I'd ever seen her make before.
21:20The land, very expensive jewelry,
21:23very expensive coats.
21:25I remember going with her
21:26and her telling these young ladies
21:28she was showing off her jewelry
21:30and her saying,
21:31you know, if you get a rich man too,
21:33he'll buy you jewelry like this.
21:34And I remember thinking,
21:36my dad didn't buy her that, you know?
21:40There's something called
21:42the dark triad.
21:44Psychological traits
21:45that we often see in con artists.
21:49There's narcissism,
21:50which is where people have a very high regard
21:54for themselves.
21:57She fancied herself to be a very strong political advocate
22:03of certain groups, certain parties.
22:05She had photographs that she showed people of her
22:07with Vice President Dan Quayle, for instance.
22:10She had another photograph that she showed people
22:13where she was with actor Patrick Swayze.
22:16But that helped bolster her narcissism there.
22:20The other one is the idea that
22:23you have psychopathic tendencies.
22:25And what that is is simply
22:26you don't have any kind of empathy for others.
22:30You don't feel there's a guilt
22:32from taking their money.
22:34It's no big deal for a doctor, you know,
22:36to take money from him
22:38because he's making all this money
22:39and he's got, you know, people have insurance.
22:41So they rationalized through it.
22:42But still, she had victims there.
22:48The third part of the triad is Machiavellianism.
22:52The idea that you're cunning
22:55and you use this cunning to manipulate people,
22:59get them to do what you want them to do.
23:04There's certain levels of this dark triad
23:06that, you know, you see it in serial killers,
23:09but you see it very often in the con artists.
23:17From July 2012,
23:19the lads didn't see Tom at all from then on.
23:24The last time, very last time I met him,
23:28Dad took Mum to court.
23:30He was arrears in child support payments.
23:34One of the ways, I think, that they wanted to get out was
23:38he was thinking that I wasn't his child.
23:42So he wanted a DNA test done.
23:44He did actually try to do this paternity test three times.
23:49He wouldn't recognize him.
23:51I just remember he was very cold, very distant.
23:56Have you stooped that low?
23:59How low are we going to go, like, with this?
24:02Have you consted that the main player behind the curtain is Julie?
24:05Oh, yeah, absolutely.
24:07100% she was doing it.
24:09How can someone that looked after us and loved us so much
24:14go so cruel and cold in such a short amount of time?
24:292001 was when my second son was born.
24:30So after that, we were sort of seeing each other again.
24:33I would go up and spend a few days.
24:35And then whenever my dad was diagnosed with cancer,
24:38I think my dad really wanted us back in his life.
24:42One morning, I received a complaint from a doctor, Dennis Rose.
24:46He told me a story that was rather hard to believe,
24:50how he had been swindled out of nearly $400,000.
24:59A lot of the victims will basically say,
25:01OK, I lost it and I'm not doing anything
25:03because I don't want word getting out.
25:05And again, somebody like Dennis Rose is in a small town,
25:09small community, and word's going to get out.
25:12Dennis Rose was Clyde Parrish's oncologist
25:15and a well-known and well-liked doctor.
25:17He got to know Julia very well
25:20during the time of Clyde's treatment.
25:22I think that my dad genuinely liked them and he had no idea.
25:28So she's kind of grooming the oncologist
25:30while the oncologist is saving her husband's life.
25:34I find that kind of mind-blowing.
25:36And the opportunity was that she had inherited a large bit of land in Ireland,
25:43and that land consisted of old buildings.
25:46She and a cousin of hers, who was an attorney,
25:49had proposed to renovate these old buildings
25:52and turn them into single-family dwellings.
25:55If they would invest now, they could expect to receive
25:59up to 700% returns on their investment.
26:02Based on the fact that they were friends
26:05and the fact that Dennis Rose had basically saved her husband's life,
26:10this was a believable story
26:11and it was something that he was willing to take part in.
26:16She mentioned to him that other investors
26:20had not been able to come up with the money,
26:22so this was an extra opportunity that he had to invest more.
26:26So he continued to invest incrementally
26:29until he had invested $392,000.
26:34Julia and Clyde started working on their friends.
26:38From there on, they were able to get
26:40at least four other people involved in the scheme.
26:42So we had a total of $517,000
26:45that people had invested into this scheme
26:48before it started to come unraveled.
26:51But it was Dennis Rose that was her downfall in America
26:54because he was told that you'll get a lot of money back
26:57plus interest and everything,
26:59and he wanted his money back.
27:03So I would expect, if this was a legitimate investment,
27:06that Dennis Rose's checks would be cashed
27:10and that she would send that amount over to Ireland
27:14for the construction project.
27:15None of that was taking place.
27:17What I did find, though, was that Julia was writing checks
27:20for purchase of new vehicles.
27:22She had Rolex watches.
27:25All kinds of expenditures that were well above her means.
27:31Looking things up online was sort of the new thing to do.
27:34So I'd always been very interested in her past
27:37because her past was so variable.
27:39It just depended on the day.
27:40I managed to get ahold of the social security number she was using,
27:43and I traced her back to a young lady who had passed away
27:47who lived in Ohio.
27:48I've often wondered if me looking into all that through red flags.
27:54Once you show your hand, they're scattering like rats, you know?
27:57They're going and destroying evidence.
27:59You know, she wasn't even in the country legally.
28:01So she was a flight risk.
28:06One of the best things you can do when you're confronting a con artist
28:10is get them to lie to you.
28:12Let her lay out what this investment was.
28:16We took Julia into her office.
28:19We sat her down.
28:19I introduced myself as an FBI agent,
28:22and the color went away from her face.
28:27And I just sat there for a moment and just let her collect her thoughts.
28:32And I said, okay, tell me about Dennis Rose.
28:36She had gone 19 and a half years,
28:38and she had scammed everyone that she ever met.
28:41She had become so proficient at walking that line and playing that game.
28:47I think she believed she was untouchable.
28:49She explained the investment from top to bottom at that point.
28:53I said, Julia, I don't think that is true.
28:56I think this is a fraud.
28:57I think you've defrauded Dennis Rose.
28:59And she said, oh, no, no.
29:00I haven't done that.
29:01This is an actual investment.
29:02And then I put before her the telephone records.
29:06You don't have any calls to Ireland.
29:08And then she turned another shade of white.
29:12And then I put before her the bank records.
29:14And I said, do you see these bank records right here?
29:17There's no indication that any of the funds that you've taken in
29:21have gone over for any investments.
29:23That's when she came up with her next lie.
29:27You don't understand.
29:28I've been involved in gambling.
29:30And I have all these gambling debts.
29:33And that's what I would use.
29:33I intended to send it over there.
29:35And then I said, Julia, that's not the case.
29:39You spent it.
29:40You got Rolex watches, other investments.
29:43Clyde had an ultralight aircraft.
29:47And at that point, she pretty much said, OK, you got me.
29:50That's the point that I arrested her.
29:57Between July 29, 2002, and continuing until at least December 18, 2003,
30:04Julia Parrish, who was then Clyde Parrish's wife, devised a scheme and artifice to defraud
30:11and to obtain money by means of false pretenses, representations and promises from, among others, Dennis Rose.
30:19There wasn't a whole lot of evidence that she produced showing this investment in Ireland.
30:24You know, she was well-known in the community.
30:26She was well-respected in the community.
30:28And if she said, I have this property in Ireland and you can make money investing in it,
30:32that seemed to be good enough.
30:35The next thing is, is we got to keep her detained.
30:39We can't let her get out on bail because if she does, she's gone.
30:43So we made a case, a very strong case, that she was a flight risk.
30:46And the judge listened to our side and kept her in jail until we could be prepared for trial.
30:54As part of the scheme, Julia Parrish, on various dates, communicated via email with Rose
31:00to encourage him to invest.
31:04In the federal system, if you use the internet as, for example, send email, that's wire fraud.
31:11So she pled to that one count and got 27 months.
31:15Once it was just presented to him, he was like, oh, my God, I had no idea.
31:21Should he have known? Yeah.
31:22But we all should have known. Like, someone should have done something at some point.
31:27Clyde ultimately wound up entering a plea to what we call misprisoned felony,
31:32which in layman's terms means that he knew she was committing fraud and he helped cover it up.
31:41He ultimately pled guilty and did prison time.
31:45Clyde never went back into the dark realm of being a criminal.
31:55As far as being like a wife and doing like the home-making stuff, she was amazing at that.
32:01But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter how well-kept you are, you really have to know
32:05someone for who they are.
32:06And I don't, you know, and even if he did see those things, I think that we all have blinders
32:12on with people that we love.
32:16She was above average intelligence. And I would have thought for sure, you know, she would see the error of
32:23her ways and straighten up.
32:24But that wasn't the case.
32:45Strabann's a small town. Everyone knows everyone.
32:48So to have someone blow into town the way she did this hurricane of colour and energy and ideas and
32:54creativity,
32:55and she was going to do this and she was going to, yeah, it was fun in a sense.
32:59She was American as well, which gave her this sort of air of mystique around here as well.
33:06She was looking for an advertisement.
33:08I invited her into the office and she was there in her red coat and black hair and she had
33:12a colourful scarf on.
33:14And yeah, very confident and flirty and nice.
33:17And she says, hi, I'm JJ. And I says, OK, JJ, what's your, what's your second name?
33:22And she says, don't worry about a surname. Just JJ's fine.
33:27She's calling herself JJ now.
33:29She starts working then in Sand Mills in a spa, health and wellness centre.
33:35She had somehow talked her way into that and was talking about buying that business.
33:39And that's what the advertorial ended up being about the wellbeing spa and how she had taken it over.
33:46What's the first time you remember when things don't seem to be right with JJ?
33:53I suppose when we didn't get paid for advertisement.
33:55That was slightly alarming.
33:59There was a guy who was an Australian and had been in a really serious accident.
34:04He ended up, you know, getting compensation.
34:07She groomed him.
34:09She convinced him that she was a qualified, trained and experienced psychiatrist
34:13and that she could help him through this PTSD and help him deal with the trauma that he'd lived with.
34:19So the poor guy believed her, handed over his money and that was it.
34:25She sort of worked her magic on me pretty well.
34:29And the initial amount that went in there was approximately 54,000 euro.
34:38It was hard to get anybody to be named.
34:40I could see the evidence. I could see the proof.
34:42I could sit down with people and look through where money had gone missing.
34:46Then I would have made an approach and they would have been just mortified.
34:51She had managed to work her way into clothing businesses, furniture businesses, hardware.
34:58She'd managed to get her house furnished.
35:00She had pretty much swindled half the businesses in this town, including the Strabant Chronicle.
35:07I spoke to Denise Adams, a lovely lady.
35:10Denise suffered very badly.
35:12Tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of pounds.
35:14She'd either signed over the business or given a lot of money to Julia Holmes out of her own pocket.
35:20And I think it's almost bankrupt her.
35:24When I'd done all my paperwork and there was no more to be done, it was time now worth keeping
35:29you JJ.
35:30So then she started making excuses that this million pound was coming, a million and a half was coming.
35:35And it never did come.
35:37And she talked about receiving a letter from Julia Holmes.
35:41Just talking about, you'll be fine, you're a very strong woman.
35:45And I think she was just resigned to the fact that she had lost money.
35:48She wasn't going to let it destroy her.
35:50I think it nearly did.
35:53I first came across her, she was back in court in Downpatrick, in County Down,
35:57for another fraud of one gentleman to the amount of £18,000.
36:03She had already been in prison twice, and she was at this stage heading for prison again if she got
36:08into a trial.
36:13When she came into that huge courtroom, you could see her coming in to scan, and she scanned everybody.
36:18And I know she would have clicked onto me.
36:21I wanted her to see me.
36:22I wanted her to see, I'm watching you.
36:26She had a tag on at that stage, an electronic tag.
36:29And she had applied for the tag to be removed, because she said it didn't suit her.
36:33It wasn't meant to be a fashion statement, but anyway, she wanted that removed.
36:37And then she just skipped town.
36:46Her trail just vanished. She could have been anywhere at that stage.
37:06One afternoon, about four o'clock, I got a phone call on the shop phone from a friend of mine
37:11who was in a hotel around the corner.
37:13She said she was with this couple who were creating this honey.
37:22Could she ask them to drop around to me and to try and get the honey to the right people?
37:28She said, just so you know, Crone, the woman, is wearing a wig as she has terminal cancer.
37:35And I said, okay, well, I'll see what I can do for them.
37:38The gentleman, Tom, seemed a very nervous type of person.
37:42Not at all comfortable, whereas she was quite forward, walked straight up to the desk I was standing at,
37:49and she just introduced herself and said, oh, we're creating this, and if you can get these to maybe some
37:54of your friends in Dublin.
37:56And I said, yeah, yeah, leave them with me.
38:00I picked the phone and rang a friend of mine in Dublin, who was a senior journalist, and said,
38:07look, I have some products here. I mean, some of it has been suggested to be sent to you.
38:13But just instinctively, I feel something about this that I don't trust, and I don't know why.
38:18And she said, oh, go with your instinct, Paul, go with your instinct.
38:20And I said, yeah, but what if I'm wrong?
38:23Because, you know, apparently she's dying of cancer.
38:29I only remember when we were beekeeping with him.
38:34He even bought us the suits, the two of us.
38:40You would have a special tool that you do to uncap the honey.
38:47And it would pull all the honey out into this bucket, and then we'd just jar it.
38:54They got invited to everything and anything.
38:57I mean, they won an award for the honey, as you probably know, the Blas na Heron Award,
39:01which is a highly regarded, well-respected award for food producers in Ireland.
39:07They went to restaurant awards, you know, that everybody sort of goes to,
39:11made sure they got their photos posted with the right people in the right places.
39:18She was constantly tweeting quite a few of us, and showing photos of products,
39:25trying to get promotion and stuff.
39:26One day, this person in the UK tagged into our photos, into our tweets,
39:34and said, don't believe that woman, she's a fake.
39:53So, in May 2013, the PS&I were getting pretty desperate to find Julia Holmes,
39:59and they launched a public appeal through the media.
40:06A glamorous granny who jumped bail on fraud charges two years ago,
40:10maybe in the Galway area, police had said.
40:13Julia Holmes, who also goes by the name of Dr. Watson and Julia Parrish,
40:17vanished after being accused of an £18,000 fraud.
40:23I found out that she'd absconded, and she had gotten away,
40:26and they were looking for her.
40:27Then I was really sleuthing then, because now I'm doing international sleuthing.
40:32She had created this, like, fake company,
40:35in which she was claiming to have cancer,
40:38and she had all these bees,
40:41and this was harvesting honey from her own hives.
40:43If you all stand over here.
40:44I'll stand in front of the hive.
40:46Hello, you.
40:47Oh, you're not happy, are you?
40:49They only found one beehive.
40:51They obviously knew there was no way you could go into production with just one.
40:55And then it was discovered that they were just buying honey from a reputable supermarket store
41:02and decanting it into a sort of a posher jar, shall we say.
41:08She was entering honey contests,
41:12and this is ending up on not just social media, but media.
41:16Like, she's showing up in newspapers, so she's back to being very brazen again.
41:20You know, totally different name, of course, but it's still her.
41:23I think someone had called out the fact that she wore wigs,
41:27and that's where the cancer thing started was,
41:29oh, I have cancer.
41:32If the story had been true, if she actually had cancer,
41:35and if they were creating that honey,
41:36it was a good product, obviously, and a genius, really, you know.
41:47This particular sunlight was rather quiet,
41:49and as I said, it just landed a few days before.
41:51So we're settling in, and we're getting to know the new unit.
41:57One of my colleagues came out and said that there's a man wanted to speak with you.
42:01So I went into the public office.
42:04I saw a family that I would know locally,
42:08the leader of the family, and four young males belonging to him.
42:11They were very upset.
42:12They were blessing themselves with the holy pictures.
42:17Brought him into a room out back.
42:19The story then he started to tell us was amazing.
42:25The four lads that were with him had gone out on the Eskeaton-Ratkeel Road,
42:30down near Nanthanon Cemetery,
42:31and they knew that the place had been vacant.
42:34They reckoned that the people living in it had been gone for some time.
42:39He said that they set about looking for scrap around the sheds and the yards,
42:44and that it got the better of them then,
42:46that when they weren't disturbed,
42:48they decided to break into the house to see if they could find more.
42:57They decided to break into the house.
42:58Myself and Ian were in Limerick,
42:59and Ian was swimming heavy at the time, right?
43:01So he was inside doing a gala.
43:03So we said we'd go up the road and we'd get a paper and a sandwich,
43:06and there was splashed all over the front of the paper.
43:09Two people absconded, blah, blah, blah.
43:11Nobody knows where they are.
43:13So we saw the article in the Limerick Leader.
43:16We went to the neighbours to see if there was any movement in the last while.
43:21We just went in and had a look around.
43:24Looking back on the timeline, it would have been exactly when everything actually happened,
43:29the weekend that we were there.
43:30She obviously had a plan, and that was, that was that really.
43:41The leader of the family had said to me,
43:43the Ruttle man up from Nantonon Cemetery was the house we were looking for,
43:48and that the lady with him was wanted by the police in the north.
43:55Bear in mind, it's nearly ten to three in the morning at this stage,
43:58and we landed to the farmhouse.
44:00I suppose what was in our head was we had to keep an open mind
44:03that what the people at the station were telling us
44:05mightn't be necessarily what's going on.
44:09We climbed over this gate, myself and five colleagues,
44:13and went in to a house with no power, no light, no electricity.
44:19Scrap on the ground, placed in total darkness.
44:22We're all operating with torchlight.
44:26Straight away, even though it was May, you could feel the coldness in the house.
44:31Walked then into a kitchen, and you could see a big table
44:35with a lot of notes and letters on the table.
44:39If you find us, don't revive us.
44:42We have said goodbye, words to that effect.
44:46Got up to the top of the stairs, and the first door on the left was slightly ajar.
44:51I stood into the room, and there they were, as described,
45:00two corpses, very much decomposed, had been there a long time,
45:07and a shocking sight.
45:09It was an absolute shock for us all.
45:13They didn't get to say goodbye to him or anything or, you know,
45:17and there was a lot of things unsaid.
45:27It looked for all the world was that it was a murder-suicide,
45:31that there was a firearm used.
45:33Because of the position of the bodies, and her face had been damaged,
45:38I took it that under bad light that she may have been shot.
45:42What I did notice was there was an ash bucket at the end of the bed,
45:45and there was other bits and pieces around,
45:47but there was nothing remarkable else.
45:50Tragedy calls to a rural community.
45:53The bodies of Thomas and Julia Ruttle were discovered by GardaÃ
45:57in an upstairs bedroom at their home here just before 3 o'clock this morning.
46:02It was clear that both had died violently.
46:06Then the post-mortem took place and there was no firearm discharged.
46:12The inquest into their deaths today heard how the embers of three makeshift barbecues
46:17were found in a fireplace in the bedroom.
46:19There was a chimney in the room and there was windows and whatever else fence
46:22had all been sealed.
46:23It cancelled all the air of the room.
46:26The state pathologist Mary Cassidy said the cause of the couple's death
46:29cannot be confirmed, but the circumstances were consistent
46:33with carbon monoxide poisoning.
46:35Coroner Antoinette Simon said verdicts of suicide were the only option.
46:43It just seemed a really strange turn of events for her to go out like that.
46:49I just thought she would just continue on until she died,
46:51a little old lady at 90 still conning people out of their money.
46:56In the inquest, I really wanted to know who died first.
47:00Did she force him to do that?
47:02It's all those notes that they left.
47:04She wrote them all, you know.
47:05Most of them lies, but she wrote everything.
47:11She did it.
47:12That's what I like to believe anyway.
47:14We'll never know, obviously.
47:19Evil. Evil is what you call her.
47:21Just pure evil. Evil.
47:23Evil.
47:30She was on the run the whole time,
47:32but she didn't care about that trail of destruction that she left.
47:37You can always make more money,
47:41but the damage that she did to families...
47:46My whole personality is kind of built around it.
47:48I had to put up kind of a wall.
47:52That was Ian's birthday, and you were given out.
47:54He was vulnerable, and this person just took him over,
47:58and took over his whole life, changed it completely.
48:01And yes, I'm angry, because everything would have been so different,
48:04and the boys would have their father,
48:07and he would love to see the men that they've turned out,
48:12because he had a lot to do with it.
48:13God.
48:14Sorry.
48:16Sorry, that's...
48:17Okay.
48:19Oh, my God.
48:20I'm sorry, I didn't expect that.
48:23Anyway.
48:25Anyway.
48:27Yeah.
48:27Yeah.
48:29Um...
48:29Yeah, and if he was alive, he would be...
48:32He would be part of their lives.
48:34Sorry.
48:50Rationally, I have been assured by police
48:54that they did a DNA test, and they are 100% it's her.
49:02It just seems so unbelievable in such a strange and very dramatic end
49:06for a person who lived a very dramatic life.
49:12There are days that I think, hmm, was it really her?
49:15Good work, Peter.
49:27Bye all the time.
49:35Bye everyone.
49:37Bye everybody.
49:39Bye.
49:39Bye.
49:40Bye everybody.
49:41Bye.
49:41Bye everybody.
Comments