Introducing: Murder on Songbird Road
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Murder on Songbird Road is a production of iHeart Podcasts. I saw a news story about murder in a rural area in Marion. And when I clicked on the article, it said Songbird Road. My heart sank because I knew that that's the road that Julie lived on. To have a murder as gruesome as Jay Beasley's

It doesn't happen very often down here. In Marion, Illinois, an 11-year-old girl brutally stabbed to death. Her father's longtime live-in girlfriend maintaining innocence but charged with her murder. I am confident that Julie Beverly is guilty. What

With this case, the more I learned about it, the more I'm scratching my head. Like, man, something stinks about it. Something's not right. Why would a 32-year-old woman with no history of violence murder an 11-year-old she considered her own child?

Sometimes people snap. That is what I believe happened in this case. She claims that as soon as she pulls the storm open, that she notices blood in the living room and somebody clad in all black comes charging at her and that he's got a knife. They had told us at the press conference that she had told them a story about a suspect that left the home that was later proven to be false. But they never explained who...

how I should have asked looking back at it now in hindsight. If you stabbed somebody that many times, you'd have blood splatter, which the change closed. They've never found a weapon.

Never made sense. Still doesn't make sense. I'm Lauren Bright Pacheco. Murder on Songbird Road dives into the conviction of a mother of four who remains behind bars and the investigation that put her there. She found out she was pregnant in jail. She wasn't treated like she was an innocent human being at all. Which is just horrific. It is unhumane.

I have not seen this level of corruption anywhere in my life. From the lying and the cover-ups, it's unbelievable. And the victim impact statement. Darkness, the light, evil. Oh, that's what I wrote down in the line. Like, darkness cannot drive out darkness. They're talking about witches. That kind of s*** is frowned upon down here. All right.

Around here, they don't solve murders. They cover them up. Join me, along with criminal defense attorney Bob Mata, in investigating the murder that ripped a rural community in southern Illinois apart, pitting families against one another in a storm of controversy, corruption, and continuing questions. The person who did it is still...

out there. He had both hands on either side of the door and he kept just talking and jibber jabbering and I was too afraid to answer the door. He just kept knocking and knocking. So a shirtless guy and he looked like he was under the influence of drugs? Yeah, he just... There's no justice for Jade. There's no justice for Julie. Nobody has gotten justice yet. And that's what I wish people would understand. Listen to Murder on Songbird Road on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get the stories that matter to you.