Jennifer Sweeney, a Tinton Falls woman convicted of shooting and strangling her girlfriend to death then burying her body, has been sentenced.
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Jennifer Sweeney sentenced
Sweeney, 38, has been sentenced to 95 years for the murder of 41-year-old Tyrita Julius, the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office announced Saturday.
Horrific murder
This true crime story all unfolded on November 24, 2015 when officers from the Linden Police were called to a home on Middlesex Street on a report of a shooting.
Tyrita Julius, Crime Feed
Responding officers found Julius, who had been shot eight times, sitting in her car, which had crashed into a utility pole not far from her home, reported ABC 7 NY.
The woman’s 15-year-old daughter was in the front passenger seat of the car, also having sustained a graze wound.
Julius and her daughter were hospitalized and recovered from their injuries.
The investigation into the shooting was still in progress when on March 9, 2016, Julius’ mother reported her missing.
Authorities learned that the night before, Julius had been with Sweeney, whom Julius had met through a motorcycle club.
While Julius was recovering from being shot, Sweeney visited her in the hospital.
Six months after Julius was reported missing, her body was discovered buried in a shallow grave at a home on Joline Avenue in Long Branch.
Julius had been strangled with an electrical cord and wrapped in two garbage bags, according to the authorities.
During the course of the investigation, detectives determined that Andre Harris, 37, was the gunman who shot Julius and her daughter in 2015 and that Sweeney set up the hit on her.
Arrests
Sweeney and Harris were arrested in August 2016 and charged in connection with Julius’ murder and failed attempted murder.
Jennifer Sweeney and Andre Harris indicted for Tyrita Julius murder Photo Credit: New Jersey News 12
Harris later reached a plea deal with prosecutors in exchange for a 16-year sentence in state prison and agreed to testify against Sweeney.
During Sweeney’s trial, Harris testified that the defendant was a “jealous lover” who suspected Julius of cheating on her.
Harris said Sweeney told him: “If I can’t have her, no one can.”
Harris accused Sweeney, whom he knew from high school, of threatening his life and the lives of his children if he did not kill Julius with the gun she had given him.
Six months after the failed attempted murder, Harris said Sweeney drove to his house in Long Branch with Julius dead in her Jeep Cherokee, and forced him at gunpoint to help her dispose of the woman’s body.
Sentence
Jennifer Sweeney must serve 85 percent of both the 75-year life term for the murder and the 20-year term for the shooting, under the provisions of New Jersey’s No Early Release Act, meaning she will not become eligible for parole until she is more than 100 years of age.
