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Convenience Store Killer: The Murder of Julie Estes
The 21-year-old died in 1985 and the mystery of her death was eventually solved by forensic evidence from the most unusual of sources.
It was 1985, and 21-year-old Julie Estes had just moved to Jacksonville, Florida with her new husband Rod. He had found work driving a truck and she had taken on a role at a local convenience store to help make ends meet.
Working afternoons and late shifts at the Lil’ Champ probably wasn’t Julie’s idea of a dream career, but the couple needed the money and so she found herself serving customers until 11:00 PM some evenings out on the Kings Road South.
What Julie couldn’t have known was that taking the job would put her in the sights of one of the area’s most dangerous ever offenders — and that he would go unpunished for killing her for more than 20 years.
A mystery leads to a tragic discovery
On October 22nd 1985, an observant passerby driving near the Lil’ Champ in Jacksonville noticed that the lights on the store were all out and the parking lot was empty. This was unusual, since it was only 10:30 PM and the branch normally stayed open another half-hour.
The concerned member of the public called the police and an officer was dispatched to check things over. When the officer got there, they found the Lil’ Champ in darkness but no sign of anything amiss or disturbed. Assuming the employee on duty had simply decided to close up early, the cop left.
However, the next morning, another employee opened up to find the floor safe empty of $500 in takings and all the power shut off. When the employee contacted Julie’s home to find out what was going on, her husband Rod said she had never returned from her late shift the night before.
Once again, the police were called. They sent out a helicopter and discovered Julie’s car in a wooded area around four miles from the store, stuck in a patch of mud. When they followed a set of drag marks leading from the vehicle, they found Julie’s body.
Her hands had been bound with the laces from her shoes, which were missing, and she had been raped. Although she…
