Julia Martin: Stabbed to death trying to return engagement ring to ex
Julia Martin, a 27-year-old woman from Detroit, Michigan, who was about her business.
She worked in Chicago as a human resources supervisor at an ad firm. She was a Michigan State University graduate.
She wasn't one who played games so she knew that when she met up with her ex-boyfriend, who she broke up with about six months earlier, she needed to be about business. The couple had been having problems and there was no hope for their relationship. They agreed to meet at her Chicago residence.
She wanted to return the engagement ring he had given her. The ties would be severed. Friday, October 7, 2016 would be the night. Instead, her boyfriend pushed his way into her apartment and attacked her, slashing her repeatedly with a knife, according to the Chicago Tribune.
The man, who was 35 years old, then jumped to his death from her upper-level apartment.
Martin, badly injured, was a quick thinker: After the attack she immediately called police, told them to send an ambulance and she even was able to tell them the name of her ex-fiance. Then she called her father.
Just so happens, her dad did'n't pick up. “Call me ASAP,” the message read.
“Not only did she call me, she texted me while she was going through all this,” Derrick Martin told the Tribune. “She was calling everybody, saying that she wanted help."
Martin did all she could to save her life. She wanted to live. She wanted to desperately live.
"She called another friend and she was panting over the phone, trying to get her breath," her father told the newspaper. "He thought it was a prank and he hung up on her. He feels so bad.”
Derrick Martin said that his daughter had recently begun a new relationship with a man. He just didn't think in a million years that her old flame, whom he knew so well, would be accused of butchering his daughter.
“There was no indication he was dangerous … I never would’ve thought that in a million years,” Derrick Martin told the Tribune.
Still, he believes his daughter tried to tell him a while back that things weren't so rosy between her and her former boyfriend.
“She never went into that much detail about how bad it was, she was just telling me that they had broke it off and that she was planning on giving the ring back,” Derrick Martin told the Tribune.
As the story circulated around social media, it seems the ex-boyfriend's family started a GoFundMe to help pay for his burial. They withheld how the young man died, and this has infuriated those who knew Julia Martin. Many have reported the man's GoFundMe page as a reported violation of the terms of service. As of now, the page is still active though.
Rodney Harvey's brother, Nick, told the Tribune that his sibling was dealing with some issues and things just spiraled out of control.
Nick Harvey said Rodney "has had lifelong issues with diagnosed mental health problems. My mother has devoted so much of her life to trying to make sure he was happy. If you have kids … you know, you fight tooth and nail for your children."
Nick said that he is aware that people have been criticizing his mother's GoFundMe page she made in order to raise funds for his brother's funeral. He said that the critics are wrong.
“I don’t want it to seem like were searching for any sort of sympathy or anything like that at all,” he told the Tribune. “We understand people are hurt behind this, as they should be, because you’re talking about … a tragedy.”
The campaign has been deleted from GoFundMe.
