What Did Eli Harts Mom Do To Him? Julissa Thaler

What Did Eli Harts Mom Do To Him? Julissa Thaler

Police officers noticed a silver Chevy Impala that was driving down the road, and it was missing a front tire, and the back window had been shot out. When they pulled the car over, they saw a live shotgun shell and a spent casing inside the vehicle, and what appeared to be a bullet hole in the back seat. There was also blood on the driver’s hands. What on earth had happened in this car?

Oh, welcome or welcome back. I’m Cassie, and this is A Wicked World. If you’re new here, thanks for checking out the channel, and if you’re already a subscriber, thanks for coming back.

And if you thought that you were frustrated with Child Protective Services before, wait till you watch this video. You’re gonna be infuriated. At least I was as I was putting this case together; the more and more I read about it, the more enraged I got. They failed this child miserably, miserably. Just like they do with so many of the other cases we talk about, this one for some reason was just extra infuriating because there were so many warning signs and so many red flags, and they just didn’t listen. There was so much that could have been done to protect Eli, but wasn’t. This is the story of Eli Hart.

Eli Hart was born on December 15, 2015, in Mound, Minnesota. His family says about him that his smile and laugh would always light up the room. He was a happy, silly, and caring young boy; he didn’t have a mean bone in his body. He also loved playing with Matchbox cars and he wanted to be a firefighter when he grew up. Eli was born with a rare genetic disorder, it’s called Townes-Brocks syndrome. This can cause abnormalities in the organs. He, however, was a pretty active and healthy little boy besides that. He did have to wear hearing aids, and he also needed to follow up with doctors on a regular basis to make sure that his condition wasn’t worsening.

Eli’s parents were Julissa Thaler and Tory Hart. They both met in 2013 when they were 19 years old. Now, Julissa had experienced mental health problems since she was only 13 years old. Tory said Julissa was fine, that’s until she got pregnant in 2015 with Eli, and she stopped taking her medication and never went back on them. Needless to say, their relationship started to deteriorate, and Tory ended up moving out of the home that they shared in 2016.

When he did, Julissa filed a domestic abuse complaint against him, and this was the second one she had already done so previously while he lived there. Julissa told police that Tory hurt her during an argument and had threatened to shoot her with a shotgun. There were no charges filed by police though because there was insufficient evidence that any of this had happened.

After Tory and Julissa broke up, Julissa moved in with her grandmother, Linda Genrich. Linda said she at first believed all of Julissa’s stories about Tory abusing her, but then she later found that Julissa lied about a lot of things and she was super manipulative. Another time, Julissa had told police that Tory had threatened to kill her if she ever left him. She withdrew that complaint three days later, though. She told police that because of her ongoing mental health issues, she would often blame Tory for things that he never did.

So, Julissa was troubled from early on in her life. She started drinking when she was only 13 years old. She also started to abuse opiates at the age of 16, as well as sedatives at the age of 20. She was repeatedly hospitalized and sent in for treatments. She was diagnosed with at least two personality disorders, and when she was only 21, she said that she used LSD on a daily basis.

So in 2015, the same year that Eli was born, Child Protection got their first report about Julissa. She was suspected of exposing Eli to drugs even before she gave birth to him. Now, in Minnesota, unwed fathers have no custodial rights, so Julissa had full custody of Eli. Even though she now had a case open with Child Protective Services, Tory did not. She did, but she gets to keep full custody because she’s the mom, and that’s all that Minnesota cares about, I guess. Tory was able to visit Eli, that’s up until 2019.

Julissa decided to show up at the wedding of Tory’s sister completely uninvited. She then also claimed that Tory put a nail bomb in her car, and she called the police. And this is funny: all the police found was a water bottle full of nails. I guess that’s Julissa trying to put together something that looks like it could be a nail bomb. Even though Tory lived hours away, Julissa was still able to somehow use this report to get a restraining order against him. Poor guy had nothing to do with it. She took a bottle of water, threw nails in it, put it in her car, called the police, blamed him, and he gets punished. Holy [__]. So Tory couldn’t contact her, which means she was also keeping Eli from him. No charges were filed because, like I said, Tory very clearly lived two hours away and had nothing to do with it. However, a judge ordered him to stay away from Julissa for two years.

So in 2021, Eli was removed from Julissa’s care again, but he was put into foster care this time. Why the courts didn’t put Eli with his father, you ask? Well, it’s because Julissa kept making allegations against him of abuse. She wrote a letter to one of the judges protesting that she was an amazing parent who always put her son first.

In 2020, Julissa moved to Farmington, Minnesota, where she continued to have many mental breakdowns throughout 2020 and 2021 and beyond. One time, she left Eli naked in the house, surrounded by a ton of broken eggs that had been smeared everywhere, and the upstairs bathroom was flooding. Not a single clue what was going on in that house. The house was also extremely cluttered and full of rotting garbage. Only a few months after this incident, she had voices in her head telling her to kill herself. Another time that social workers came to visit Eli, he was home alone with cuts, matted hair, and without his hearing aids.

So in January of 2021, as I said, Eli was placed into foster care, which luckily moved him in with family. It was Julissa’s cousin Stephen Kronberg and his wife Nikita, and they loved the little boy. They said he was the sweetest thing. So, in order to get Eli back, Julissa had some things that she needed to get in order and some requirements that she had to fulfill. It was simple: she needed to treat and stabilize her mental health, she needed to make sure she could meet Eli’s medical needs, and she needed to maintain clean and stable housing, as well as a steady job. She also needed to remain drug-free and submit to random drug tests.

Poor Tory was trying to get custody of Eli, and he had even gone through parenting and psychological evaluations and drug tests, none of which showed any concerns. Meanwhile, Julissa did absolutely nothing to improve her situation. Over the next 11 months, she would deny any wrongdoing, and she fixated once again on the fact that Tory wanted to hurt her, not the other way around. Tory wanted to hurt her? He just wanted his son. He doesn’t care what happens to you.

Julissa often would ignore instructions from the social workers, lie to them, and beg them to give her Eli back. Julissa had supervised visits with Eli, and at one of these supervised visits, she told him that she’s living off Mountain Dew and cigarettes and that she just couldn’t function and she didn’t know what to do. She was telling this to her young son! He doesn’t need to know any of that, he doesn’t need to be a part of that. He has no idea what you’re talking about, and it makes him feel unstable in a home with you.

The police had been visiting Julissa’s home as often as two times a week. Ambulances were also requested to her address several times after she had fainted or complained of other health problems, I assume to avoid getting into trouble. The police also showed up a few times because the neighbors had complained of banging and screaming coming from Julissa’s apartment.

Eli could tell there was something going on with his mom. He was very wary of Julissa. During the supervised visits, he would hide behind furniture and refuse to talk to her. After their visits were done, he would often have bathroom accidents. Julissa was also either missing or tampering with the drug tests that she was instructed to get. A child protection worker by the name of Beth Denner took over the case in July of 2021.

By this point, Julissa had stopped going to her therapy as well. She had also repeatedly moved to four different homes in only four months. Caseworkers were suspecting that she was probably homeless at that point. Then in November, she was kicked out of her drug testing because she was being so disruptive. She still continued to accuse Tory of things as well. However, her caseworker Beth knew that she had often lied about this exact same thing, so she didn’t believe Julissa. Caseworkers could tell as well that this was made up because Eli loved his father. When he got visitation, they had a strong bond, and Eli was a much happier child after he got to see his father. Sometimes at these supervised visits, Julissa would also sit for long periods of time just staring off into space and ignoring Eli.

So, when children are put into foster care in the state of Minnesota, there’s a ticking clock that comes with it. The children must be reunited with their caregivers within one year or be on track to be placed in a permanent home. By November of 2021, the child protection worker Beth still had some concerns, but she said that she felt like Julissa was meeting some of her plan. She said that Julissa had picked up her son on time for the unsupervised visits, she also made it to Eli’s therapy appointments, and she had dropped him back off at his foster parents’ house on time, and Julissa had also restarted her drug testing. So even though Beth had some concerns, she seemed to think that Julissa was doing good because she made it on time to a few appointments and went to the drug test that she was sabotaging anyways.

So the judge ruled that Eli was to return to Julissa on a trial home visit. He would live with her, but the county would still have legal custody, so they could take him away at any point (and should have). That decision alarmed his foster family. Uncle Stephen said to Child Protective Services, “So we’re just gonna forget all the bad things that she’s done within the last 10 months?” And I agree, why would you?

Beth said that at this point, she had told Julissa that if things didn’t go well with the trial home visit, they would place Eli with Tory and file for a transfer of custody. According to the state statute, a trial home visit may end in order to protect the child’s health, safety, and welfare; it does not need to rise to a level of endangerment. The county decided to set the start date for this as December 22nd of 2021. This was so Eli wouldn’t miss any school. Until then, he had occasional overnights at Julissa’s house.

Though one night that Julissa brought him back to his foster parents, she came flying around the corner in her car going 20 miles an hour over the speed limit, and then Eli got out of the car sobbing. So, the reason why Eli was taken out of Julissa’s care in the first place was because of a decline in her mental health. I’m gonna go ahead and say that her mental health has not gotten any better, so why are we going forward with giving Eli back to her?

On another night in December, Julissa and one of her friends decided to park outside the house of Stephen and Nikita, Eli’s guardians. They sat there with binoculars in hand and watched the house the entire night. I’m not sure what they were looking for, absolutely no idea. Nikita actually got up early for work that morning and saw them sitting out there and called the police. Nikita then emailed the Child Protective Services agent Beth repeatedly, saying that she was worried about her family’s safety and well-being because now Julissa was sitting outside their house for hours on end.

Instead of worrying about this behavior, Beth decided to email Eli’s school to let them know that Eli was actually going to be moving in with his mom a few days sooner. How does that make sense to any grown adult? Julissa is now getting rewarded for the crazy things she’s doing. They’re rewarding this behavior, and of course, the trial home visit started off rocky.

The very first day that Eli was back with Julissa, Child Protection was warned by Eli’s school that Julissa was driving recklessly when she both picked up and dropped off Eli at school. Eli also had a court-appointed guardian who was supposed to look out for his well-being, and on December 30th, she recommended that Eli be taken back from Julissa. She said in an email to Beth, “I feel like we need to stop the trial home visit as she doesn’t appear stable to me and she is putting Eli at risk.”

Sherry also said that Julissa had been calling her to try to get the visitations with Eli’s father canceled. When she couldn’t cancel the visitations, she decided to take out an order of protection against Tory instead, and of course, she used many of the same false accusations again, saying that he was hurting her. The same day that Julissa filed that order of protection, Beth and her had a video call. When Beth told her that the county had no worries about Tory, Julissa got irate, and Beth ended up needing to hang up on her many times.

When Eli was picked up or dropped off at Julissa’s house for his visits with his father, she would quickly pull him in or push him out and slam the door in the social worker’s face because she clearly did not want them to see what the inside of her house looked like. It was probably an absolute mess. And by mid-January, Julissa had missed so many required parenting classes that she was actually kicked out. However, she still retained custody.

So unfortunately, nothing came of what Sherry recommended they do, which was take Eli out of Julissa’s home. It just got ignored, I guess. Nothing happened, he remained there still. Also in January, Julissa lied to Child Protective Services about her mental health program. She said that she had graduated and no longer needed the services. Wow, that was fast. A few days later, the program director told Child Protective Services that this was not true. Speaking of not true things, Julissa was also not being truthful with her therapists and kept switching therapists so that nobody would know her history; she could keep bouncing around.

Despite all of this, the trial home visit still continued. To Child Protective Services, there was no indication that Eli was unsafe physically in Julissa’s care, so that’s why they decided it was okay for him to stay. Don’t worry about him being neglected or mentally abused, no, that stuff is okay. She can get away with that as long as she’s not hurting him. So you’re gonna wait until she does hurt him to take him out of the home? Why would you wait until a child got hurt? She’s showing so many signs of being crazy.

In late January/beginning of February, Beth decided that Julissa could come off of drug testing because she tested clean for two months. But keep in mind, she had abused drugs for 10 years now, so two months, she could definitely still slip up again. Around the same time, Eli’s behavior had started to change as well. At school, the teachers started to report that Eli was being aggressive and punching other students. A teacher also wrote to Child Protective Services saying that she had spoken to some kids on the playground and asked them about times someone had been mean to them. Eli told the teacher that his mom had been mean to him and she often pushed him.

But when the teacher sent this email, do you know what Beth’s response was? You’re not gonna like it: “I appreciate the update and it is interesting that he would make that statement. It’s not something that CPS would take as a maltreatment report. However, I do want you to continue documenting everything.”

A couple of weeks later, Eli’s therapist also emailed Beth. In this email, she said that there was a time that Eli had hidden in a cabinet after his mother started to get confrontational with the therapist. Then in early March, there was another report from Eli’s school. Eli had told his teachers that his mom had grabbed his wrist and squeezed it really hard. But Child Protective Services didn’t do anything about any of these.

So, she was trying to get custody back of Eli; you’d think she would be on her best behavior, but instead, Julissa was emailing Beth saying that Eli will not be seeing Tory once she gets custody back. Nothing’s changed. Nothing’s improved, except maybe she went drug-free for two months or bought fake piss, I don’t know. Nothing else has changed. So why did Eli’s custody change then? Great question, Cassie.

In early March, Tory filed for custody of his son in the Hennepin County Family Court. Julissa responded to this by filing yet another order of protection against him, again with many false accusations. In the protection order, Julissa cited that Tory would tell Eli that he would make Mommy disappear if he ever got custody, and of course, she blamed Tory for Eli’s behavioral problems at school. These claims were rejected by the court; however, just the filing of it meant that Tory could no longer receive public assistance on his custody case.

Now, Beth had admitted that Julissa was very mentally ill, but in another email to a coworker, Beth said, “The kid has been going to school, she cooperated with a visit with Dad last week, the kiddo is still going to therapy. That’s basically what she’s required to do at this point.” No, it’s not! She was good on a visit with his dad once. This basically is only like half of the requirements, if that. What do you mean “basically”? I wouldn’t think “basically” would be good enough for you to get custody.

But there was a hearing on March 30th to see if they could close out the case yet, basically give Julissa back custody and be done with the situation. At that hearing, a DCF worker expressed concern that Eli was not safe in his mother’s care. Beth, on the other hand, was urging the judge to go ahead and close it. The judge decided to not close it and keep it open, and there would be another court hearing in May. However, keeping this child protection case open was both a good thing and a bad thing. Julissa didn’t have permanent custody back yet; they could still take him at any time. However, Tory, who was trying to get custody of Eli, was unable to do so until the child protection case was closed out.

In early May, Beth filed another report with the court. Although they listed ongoing concerns regarding Eli’s mental and emotional well-being, she also cited that Tory’s stalled attempts to gain custody was another reason to close the case. I’m not sure I understand the reasoning there. So pretty much by then, Beth wanted nothing to do with Julissa.

Before the next custody hearing in May, she was supposed to have one final visit with Julissa and Eli, but Julissa decided to cancel it, and Beth never rescheduled. Julissa was also supposed to have restarted her parenting classes, but Beth never checked to see if that was the case. Beth didn’t even want to pick up Eli anymore from his mother to bring for the visits to his father because Julissa would always get so angry, she just didn’t want to deal with it. So she sent somebody else from Child Protective Services to go pick up Eli, and her name was Amy Horn.

When Amy got there, she said that Eli had dark circles all around his eyes and he looked like he hadn’t showered in days. Eli also told her that he and his mother drove around in the car all night long. Amy also met Julissa at a McDonald’s instead of at her house, which made her concerned that maybe Julissa was homeless again. But since Beth had already filed reports with the court, she was, I guess, too lazy to go ahead and update them with all this new information. The judge accepted Child Protective Services’ recommendation to close the case, and Eli’s case was closed out on May 10th. Julissa now had full custody of Eli.

Now, just 10 days after the child protective case had been closed, and exactly five months since Eli had started his trial home visit, police stopped Julissa as she was driving without a tire on the front driver’s side. It was just the rim. When police stopped her, she looked very disheveled, and they noticed that she had blood on her hands, face, clothing, and hair. There was also a lot of blood visible in the back of the car, and when the police asked her why she was covered in all this blood, she said because she had to take out a tampon. So, did you just fling it around the entire car? Gross.

The officers also noticed that there was a meat-like substance in the car, and they asked her about it. She said that she had just gotten some deer meat from a butcher, but she couldn’t remember which one, even though she had just bought it. The police also noticed that the back window of her car was shot out. When they asked her what happened there, she said, “Oh, some kids just used a BB gun and shot out my window for some reason or another.”

The police did not detain her at this point. She was driving very close to her apartment, so they let her walk back home, and they were gonna wait there with the car until it had gotten towed. Well, in the meantime, the police decided to check out the trunk to make sure there was nothing of hers in there, and when they did, they found something absolutely horrendous.

“Because they were shooting at my car.” “What looks like blood in there?” “It’s not blood, it’s deer meat. I had a big bag and there’s a farm around here that does deer meat and hamburgers.” “Shotgun shells all over the side. Yeah, holy… we got a body. All right, let’s cover it.”

It was Eli’s body, riddled with gunshot wounds. Sometime in the early morning hours of May 20th, 2022, Julissa Thaler had pointed a shotgun at her six-year-old son and repeatedly fired while he was strapped helplessly in his car seat. She then took his mangled body and put it into the trunk of her car and drove around.

As soon as they found this, the police called for backup and went to Julissa’s apartment to find her. She wasn’t there; however, the washing machine was running, and the clothes that she had just been wearing had been thrown into there. The officers soon located her, however, trying to sneak out the back, and were able to arrest her. They also observed that she had what looked like chunks of human flesh in her hair. She was brought in and charged with second-degree murder.

At that point, the investigators started talking to witnesses, and they were also able to track where Julissa’s car had come from because of all the damage that the rim had caused on the road as it dragged. In various dumpsters, they found some human remains, a child car seat damaged by bullets, and a backpack with Eli’s homework still in it. The results of the autopsy confirmed that Eli had been shot as many as nine times.

Now, during Julissa’s trial, a gun shop owner took the stand and testified that Julissa had come in and bought 40 shotgun rounds—ammunition “to blow the biggest hole in something.” A few days prior, Julissa had also bought a shotgun, and she had gone to the shooting range to try it out. She told her boyfriend at the time that she just wanted it for protection, and that was it.

Prosecutors also found out that Julissa had been researching life insurance policies for Eli, and she had actually submitted an application for a $400,000 life insurance policy for the child. It had never gone through. Before any of this, though, she had also Googled things such as: “how much blood can a six-year-old lose”, “how to keep child away from other parent”, “how to fake being home to the cops”, “qualifying accidental deaths”, and “how much does life insurance pay for a dead child”. The only strategy that the defense could come up with was, if she had done it, why wouldn’t she have concealed her identity? Um, mental health issues, that’s why.

This past January was when Julissa’s trial was held. Julissa’s ex-boyfriend, though, testified at her trial; he had been dating her at the time of the incident. His name was Robert, and he and Julissa had known each other since high school. They, however, hadn’t reconnected until 2022 to use drugs together. So, see? She wasn’t staying clean. After she was taken off those drug tests, she was using again, or she was using fake pee.

He was originally arrested along with Julissa in connection with Eli’s death. However, he was very shortly after released, as all the evidence was against Julissa. Robert said that he had gone with Julissa to pick up six-year-old Eli from school the day before. He said that when they got home, they had eaten pizza and played with some kittens that Julissa had at the apartment, and they were getting ready to play the Xbox when things all of a sudden took a turn.

Robert was very emotional and struggling to give out this information at the trial. He said that it was 11 p.m. on a school night, and Eli was still up. As they were playing with the kittens, Eli started to get a bit rowdy, and Julissa got angry about this. So, she started hitting him, and Eli started hitting her back. They were both fighting each other. Julissa was fighting a six-year-old. So, Julissa put the shotgun in the car and then came back up to the bedroom where he was laying down. She then grabbed Eli and just went downstairs.

Robert didn’t think anything of it, and he fell asleep. He then woke up the next morning between 8:00 and 8:30. At that point, Julissa had returned home. Robert asked her where she had been, to which she simply replied, “I had to go do something.” Robert assumed that Eli was at school. He said that at that time, Julissa had mentioned something about the police, and he asked her what she was talking about. They eventually left the apartment, and as the police were coming towards her, she still wouldn’t tell Robert what was going on.

Robert claimed that he had gone with Julissa when she bought the shotgun as well as to the shooting range, but like I said, she had just told him she only wanted it for protection, and he had no reason to not believe her at that point. I am curious why Robert decided to stay there when Julissa started hitting Eli, and/or why he didn’t do anything about it. But Robert had also told police previously that he thought there was no way Julissa could ever hurt Eli because she was a sweet person. She’s very cunning and manipulative, is what she is.

At Julissa’s trial, the family members got to go up and read their Victim Impact Statements. Tory Hart said, “He just really liked being social, talking, and playing with others. He was always really happy, outgoing, and always full of energy, always. Eli loved to blow bubbles, go fishing, swing on the swings at the park, and eating meatballs at Carbone’s. He was everything to me. He completed my life. He just loved spending time with me, and I loved spending time with him.”

Nikita Kronberg, Eli’s former foster mother, also stood up and told everyone just how much Eli had meant to her. A jury ended up convicting her of first and second-degree murder. When Julissa was asked if she wanted to address the court: “Go ahead… um, I’m innocent. [Expletive] you all. You’re garbage.” Interesting, coming from a heaping, steaming, smelly-ass pile of garbage yourself.

Tory Hart also filed a wrongful death suit against the Dakota County Child Protective Services employees, the ones who had awarded Julissa custody of Eli. That case is scheduled for trial in federal court in 2024. In Tory’s wrongful death lawsuit, he laid out tons of disturbing incidents involving Julissa’s care of Eli.

For example, in February of 2021, a social worker noted bizarre behavior. The lawsuit says that the mother showed cat feces to Eli on the video call, and then the video became increasingly chaotic as Julissa attempted to cook chili while grabbing her cat by the neck and muttering to herself. A February 2022 report says that often Eli arrived to school without his hearing aids and also told teachers several times that he had not slept the night before. Also, during Eli’s last Christmas, he was with Julissa, and Tory noticed on a FaceTime call that was on December 27th that Eli had not been changed out of his pajamas that he was wearing on December 23rd. He also told his dad that Santa didn’t come to his house that year.

Even Julissa’s own father, George Thaler, spoke at a November 2021 court hearing, warning the judge to not return Eli to Julissa’s care. He said, “I’m very, very, very concerned for Eli. I’m terrified about Julissa. She’s got many arrests for assault and dangerous behavior, and she’s put Eli in dangerous situations.” So the lawsuit claims that even though Julissa was the one to pull the trigger, the failures of the Dakota County Child Protective Services were, and I quote, “a proximate cause” of Eli’s death.

After Julissa received her sentence and court was over, the family decided to focus on something positive, such as fundraising to build a playground in Eli Hart’s memory. This is another huge failure of Child Protective Services; all the warning signs were there, and they were all ignored. Now, a year later, communities around Mound where Eli went to school, and in Western Wisconsin where his father lives, are turning their grief into action. Adam Duxter shows us their plan to ensure Eli Hart is always remembered:

“We thought we had a whole lifetime with Eli ahead of us, and in one night, it was gone.” For Josie Josephson and her husband, Tory Hart, memories of Eli are still right there every single day. “Every day, every day, all day long. There’s not a day we don’t talk about him. Even while sleeping, yeah, you dream about him. It’s difficult to believe life doesn’t slow down when something like this happens. It’s already been a year. Everyone else’s life that doesn’t know you or passes you on the street, their life still keeps going. You kind of feel like you’re lost, like you are broken and in pieces, and you’re trying to find those pieces and put them back together, and everyone’s still just rushing by you on their day-to-day life. But this story… we’re just kind of in awe of what they’ve done… is just as much about the people who didn’t pass by.”

“I couldn’t stop myself from doing something, from stopping to help. I just had to do something. I still feel that way when I think about it. We needed an outlet to say we’re doing something proactive, we’re going to make a change.” Strangers prior to Eli’s death, Tiffany Butler and Ben Coliani are now part of a small group, founders of the Eli Hart Foundation. In less than a year, they’ve registered as a non-profit and have plans to take this park in Mound and transform it into one Eli would have loved.

“Hopefully those kids that knew Eli will be able to heal at that park, and hopefully it will help us heal.” If they can raise another $120,000 by the end of July, this park will be ready by the end of October. It’s hope. “There are so many thank yous that we want to say, and thank you is just not enough. In a time where hope and memories are everything, you lose your child, and you don’t want them forgotten. And it’s really nice to know that he won’t be.”

It wasn’t just one time that Julissa messed up; it was over and over and over, and she kept getting away with it. It’s especially upsetting knowing that Tory, his father, was a loving and caring parent who Eli wanted to be with, and Tory wanted to be with him. But unfortunately, the law just wouldn’t allow it.