Ep 62 | Aaron Stimus Part 1

Before we begin this podcast, please be advised that the following episode contains language that some listeners may find offensive and inappropriate. The opinions expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not reflect the views of the podcast producers. Listener discretion is advised. In this week's episode of Voices of a Killer.

We talked to Florida native and convicted killer Aaron Stim. In July, 2002, Aaron woke up in a hospital bed after a coma to discover two sobering facts. One, he had just survived a gunshot wound to the head, and two, he was being charged with first degree murder. But as Aaron grappled to recover his patchy memory, he insisted that he knew one thing for certain.

He was innocent. He had not intended to kill his wife Julianne. Today, we hear Aaron's account of that fateful summer's evening. We'll hear about the hostile divorce proceedings, the life ruining painkillers, and the police oversight that culminated in one chaotic and emotionally fraught July day. As we scrutinize the plausibility of his account, we'll ask the tough questions.

Who really shot Aaron Stimus? Does his story hold up against the hard evidence in this case? And above all, is this a man living in denial or a man who's been wrongfully accused of premeditated murder for the past 20 years? Join us as we get to the bottom of a complex crime on this episode of Voices of a Killer.

So Aaron, where are you from, Florida? Well, I was born in Rochester, New York, and I moved to Florida when I was 14 in 1976. How old are you now? I'm 62. Okay, so you're not a spring chicken anymore. What was it like as a kid growing up in New York and where at in New York? Well, that was in Rochester. I lived there till I was seven, so I don't remember a lot.

Yeah. And I lived in Dan Danbury, Connecticut from seven years old to 14, and then, like I said, moved to Florida when I was 14 years old in 1976. Are your parents, did they stay together all that time? Well, growing up, they divorced after I was of age. What did your parents do growing up? What kind of work did they do?

My dad, he was an executive in a high tech company making impact printers. Did he have a good income? Yes, sir. The last job he worked as an engineer for Bell Helicopter on the B 22 Osprey project. Wow, so y'all live pretty comfortably? Yes, sir. Was there any kind of like abuse or substance abuse or anything in the family when you were a kid?

Well, my parents, they were more like weekend warriors. They used to like drinking, you know, going to parties. Yeah. How'd you do in school growing up? Oh, I did good. Got A's in art and physical ed. I was Cape Coast champion wrestling in 1980. I got good grades. Got, I think, a 910 on my SAT, so I qualified for any university in the state of Florida.

Did you aspire to be an engineer like your father? Nah, because he told me he'd disown me if I became an engineer. Oh, he would disown you? Yeah. That's what he used to joke around saying, he'd disown me if I became an engineer. Was he trying to, trying to say that it was difficult? Well, he just said that he, he didn't think I'd be happy and that, I guess, so I became a carpenter.

Do you think your dad was unhappy? Well, he, he seemed like he was a hard worker, I wouldn't say was unhappy. He got cancer. What was it, like 40 years old, he died with lymphoma cancer. That's when things all changed. How did you take that as a kid? Well, I wasn't a kid, I was of age when that happened. How old were you?

Oh, I think I was like 19 or 20. So, Aaron, whenever you got out of your parents house, you know, you finally grew up and became of age, did you go to college? Yes, sir. What'd you go to college for? I got an AA degree in business administration. Did you graduate? Yes, sir. From Brevard Community College. Then I have over a year, almost over a year, I was well into my senior year at the University of Central Florida.

Then when my dad got cancer, I moved back home, helped my mother out with the bills, helped, cause my dad left. Was your mom bitter about him leaving? Yes, I'd say she was. Did he stay in contact with you after he left? Yes, sir. Did you get into any kind of substance abuse or anything through college? Or as a kid?

Well, when I was a kid, started out, well, we used to smoke a lot of marij**na. We'd go to junior high and high school, and there were keg parties every weekend, so we'd mostly drink beer and smoke marij**na. Just the typical stuff, and you didn't get into anything hard? No. No. Well, I did later on, after college, I did.

Okay, after college. You realize that you're a minority in prison with a college education, right? Yeah. You know, it's a huge statistic that, you know, most people that are incarcerated aren't educated. Right. Talking down the line from a Florida jail phone, Aaron Stimus doesn't fit the typical profile of someone incarcerated for murder.

Broadly speaking, those convicted of serious crimes in the US often have low levels of education, dysfunctional childhoods, and early-onset substance abuse. Aaron Fitts none of these criteria. He paints a rosy picture of his childhood, one marked by comfort and financial security and void of substance abuse. Despite relocating from New York to Florida, Aaron thrived at school, earning good grades and excelling in the sport of wrestling.

By graduation, he had easily secured a place in college and looked poised to build the same kind of stable and successful life his parents had provided for him. Aaron might have grown up in relative privilege, but appearances can be deceiving. Beneath the ostensibly happy lives around us lurk dark secrets and family politics.

What challenges did Aaron face, I wondered, in the years that followed? So you had a pretty, pretty seemingly normal life with the parents that had pretty good income. Of course, you know, always behind the scene, you know, marriage is a lot more difficult than what we see it. And you know, the typical, you went through college.

What did you, what was your pursuit after college? Oh, I got into construction and I became a carpenter by trade. I was self employed. Yeah, pretty good at it. I became self educated. A lot of, you know, a lot of my colleagues called me a master carpenter. I did a lot of work for up at Patrick Air Force Base and Cape Canaveral Air Force Station, so I did a lot of government...

worked for a lot of government contractors. How was your love life? Well, I was married 18 years and lived with her 2 years before we got married. Who is she? That was my wife, Julianne. That's who my victim was. Yeah. So how did you meet Julianne? Through her boyfriend. Through her boyfriend? Yeah. Now that's kind of unique.

Tell me about that. Well, he took off with her car and she came over and one thing led to another. Interesting. Did you basically win her over? Yeah, more or less. Well, he'd take off in their car and leave her stranded, so. Okay, so you were kind of the, the savior that night? Well, we just, you know, we had mutual, had a mutual friend that used to sell coc**ne, and so I kind of, me and her ended up doing some, and one thing led to another.

Whenever you met Julianne, were you into drugs then? Yeah. Was she? Yes. So did y'all do drugs together? Yes. And you said y'all were together for a couple years and then y'all got married? Yes. And did y'all have kids together? Somewhere in that. Yes, sir. How many kids did y'all have? Two, son and a daughter. Do you still have a relationship with them?

I have one with a little Well, I just talked to my daughter a little while ago when she came to visit my sister, so What about your son? Yeah, I haven't talked to him in 20 years. How come? But, well, he's, I guess, he got, he's got a problem with opiates, too, and I believe he's been diagnosed as a schizophrenic, so he doesn't have a place where I can contact him.

He doesn't have a stable living environment. That's unfortunate. What is your daughter, how does she feel about what you did to her mother? Well, she got really disgusted a whole lot. Yeah. How was the relationship before, prior to getting married? Did it seem like it was turbulent or was everything great?

Nah, everything was pretty good. Whenever you got married, when did things go sour? Oh, after I got hurt in a construction accident, was put on a prescription oxycontin and Lortad, Lorset. So, you got hooked on pain pills while you were, when you got hurt? Well, I had a disability insurance, well, money got tight.

Well, hold on a second, I'm asking if, I'm asking if you got hooked on pain pills whenever this happened? Yes, sir. And do you feel like that being hooked on the pain pills like changed the dynamic of you and the relationship? Absolutely. How bad did it get with the opiates? Those were bad. Yeah.

Yeah. That's a lot where a lot of that starts is somebody, you know, having surgery or major accident and they're, in order to, you know, help them out, they're fed a lot of pain pills, but in the end, those pain pills become a, kind of a little mark in their life to where it's just a good feeling. They want to continue that feeling.

What year did this happen? 2001. Yeah, and that's whenever opioids stuff was really bad around Florida, like, it was just being flooded in that area, am I right? Right. Yeah. The whole state really. Yeah. They, they were going through a bunch of law changes and like people were just traveling from across different states to go in and there was, I, I remember now, and I know that also that usually opiates can really change the person to where they can start having some pretty

serious side effects of getting angry and things like that. Did you have these episodes where you'd get really angry? Yeah, definitely have mood swings from it. That probably, I bet that gets you really amped up where you get aggravated real easy, doesn't it? Yeah. Did you have outbursts with anger whenever you would take them?

Not always, just occasionally that your moods would swing. Yeah, I mean that's pretty normal with opiate use. Did she start to get to where she was coming to the end of her rope with you, threatening divorce or what? Yeah, we were going through a divorce. So she actually filed for divorce on you? Yes, sir.

How long were you married? Up until she said, "Hey, I want a divorce." How long were y'all married? Let's say 18 years. 18 years in the Stimus marriage was on the rocks. By 2002, the affair had deteriorated to the point that Julianne Stimus demanded a divorce from her estranged husband. Cut forward to later that year when, in the wake of the unfortunate events that would follow, Julianne's siblings shared memories of their beloved sister.

It's from these accounts that we can piece together a picture of Aaron's wife. Fondly known as Julie, Julianne was the eldest child and well known for her fierce courage and determined will. Those who knew her described her as vivacious and tough, never one to back down, and eager to embrace all life had to offer, according to her sister, Julie was a colorful storyteller who could tell tales that were, quote unquote, so rich and vibrant in detail that if you were to repeat it, you'd have to ask yourself, "was I there?"

When Aaron and Julie had fallen in love in their early 20s, they had moved to the Satellite Beach area and started a family. Cue Aaron's construction accident, however, and the marriage irrevocably broke down. The accident not only put financial strain on the family of four, but also led to Aaron's addiction to the painkillershe was perscribed.

At first, Aaron used the pills for legitimate pain management. But gradually became addicted to their mood altering side effects. His mood became erratic, punctuated by sharp mood swings, which drove a wedge between him and his wife. The new Aaron was no longer the man Julie had met at 27 years old, and she wanted out of the marriage.

The divorce proceedings were bitter. Assets had to be divided, custody matters agreed upon, and the couple found themselves locked in a months long court battle to settle the terms of their separation. But with both parties striving to cut the better deal from the divorce and neither willing to back down, the situation was about to turn ugly. We'll hear how after the break.

 Tell me about the week or two leading up to your crime. Was it really turbulent? Did you have a protection order put against you? Yeah, we both had restrainting orders against each other. Were you on pain pills at the time? Yes, sir. Do you think that was making matters worse for you? Absolutely. So, would you say that she was scared of you?

Nah, I wouldn't say that. It's somebody that puts a protection on somebody, usually that means they're scared of them, right? You don't think she was scared of you? Well, I filed for this restraining order against her and then she, to get back at me she filed one on me too so the judge granted the two of them we had one against each other yeah it's more hers was more of a retaliation type. Right so what are you scared of her? I wasn't physically afraid of her but she was like when i was in my house I had two houses across the street from each other and I'd be asleep in the house and she come in at a house and start doing crazy stuff, mashing curtains.

Where did you live at the time? And where did she live? Oh, I lived across the street from my wife. I own two houses that are street names after me. Was Aaron's way. Was it actually named after you? Yeah, because we're like four Arlington streets in a close proximity. Well, my wife asked if we could get the street name changed.

They said, please. So it was real easy because I own both houses on the street. And she got it changed for my birthday, like two, three years before the incident. That was nice of her. So y'all are actually going through this big dispute. You have protection orders against each other and you actually live directly across the street from one another?

Yeah, but after that happened, they changed the state law. They made it mandatory in Florida that you have to live, I forget what is it, two, three hundred feet or more apart because we're only like 85 feet door to door. Well, and the protection order probably says something like stay a thousand foot away from each other, but then if you live, you have to live there.

Then it probably gives you that leeway to do that, but you're saying that it's been changed. Was it changed because of your murder? Yes, sir. Then they made it mandatory that the judge has no discretion. It has to be like a thousand feet or whatever the state statute is. So you basically set a precedence for the Florida courts.

Sounds like. Yeah, and I forget exactly what it was, but a judge has no discretion, now they used to have discretion. Yeah. And what the term in the distance, but now they have no discretion in some case law. It was no secret that Aaron and Julie Stimus were going through an acrimonious divorce. They were embroiled in a spiteful legal battle that had dragged on for months.

Both had obtained protection orders against the other. In practice, Aaron admits, these were ineffectual since the couple lived across the street from each other on a road aptly named Aaron's Way. By July, Aaron was fed up with this long, drawn out legal dispute with his wife. On July 16, 2002, when a civil process official delivered new court papers from Julie to Aaron's house, Aaron was visibly upset.

Talking to police after the crime, the server recalled Aaron saying that, quote unquote, he had had enough and was going to end it all. Over the course of that day, Aaron took eight times his prescription of OxyContin and drank six to twelve cans of beer, which left him heavily intoxicated as he stewed in his anger.

The court injunction that was part of the protection order against Aaron made it illegal for him to possess a gun, but Aaron had disregarded this and kept a nine millimeter handgun at his house. That evening, he took the gun, walked over to Julianne's home and shot her on the street while their year-old daughter watched. Witnesses then saw Aaron shoot himself in the head too, completing what appeared to be a planned murder suicide.

At least this is the official version of what took place that day, the one recorded in the court documents. But as I talk to Aaron, he takes issue with the facts I've just stated, disputing the official narrative and casting doubt into what is generally regarded as fact. Over 20 years later, it's time for Aaron to tell his side of the story.

We'll hear that on the next installment of this story. On Voices of a Killer.

If you want to find out what happens next, right now, you can sign up at patreon.com/VoicesofaKiller. There you can find bonus content, early access, ad free listening, and access to our chat community. So go to patreon.com/VoicesofaKiller to sign up now. Your support is what keeps us passionate about bringing these stories to you.

That's a wrap on this episode of Voices of a Killer. A big shout out to Sonic Futures who handled the production, audio editing, music licensing, and promotion of this podcast. If you want to hear more episodes like this one, make sure to visit our website at voicesofakiller.com. There you can find previous episodes, transcripts, and additional information about the podcast.

Lastly, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Your feedback helps us improve and reach new listeners. Thank you for your support and we can't wait to share more stories with you in the future. Thank you for tuning in. I'm your host Toby and we'll see you next time on Voices of a Killer. 

Ep 62 | Aaron Stimus Part 2

Before we begin this podcast, please be advised that the following episode contains language that some listeners may find offensive and inappropriate. The opinions expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not reflect the views of the podcast producers. Listener discretion is advised.

Welcome back to part two of Aaron Stimus's story. Last time, we heard about Aaron's bitter, drawn out divorce with his estranged wife. According to the official record, in July 2002, Aaron was so exhausted by the legal dispute that he shot his wife and himself in an attempted murder suicide. But how accurate is the state's version of events?

We give Aaron the stage now to tell his side of the story in this episode of Voices of a Killer. Yeah, so Aaron, you're sitting in prison right now for the murder of your wife, Julianne. Are you guilty? Am I guilty? Yeah. If I'm guilty, I don't believe I'm guilty of what I've been charged with. So you were charged with first degree, which means it was premeditated, you thought it out, and you did it.

Is that right? That's what I've been convicted of. Right. Do you think you're convicted of a lesser second degree? Well, let's say I was, to make a long story short, first degree premeditated murder is a fully conscious purpose to kill, being that I was on prescription Oxycontin at the time, I couldn't form the intent at the time because of the medication I was on.

And you know, I actually read the appeal where you tried to use that argument that medication, you know, that was basically the cause of what happened, and I actually believe that argument, however, the legal verbiage, you know, the language, it didn't have any effect on the ruling or the appeal. So Aaron, bring me back to the day that this crime went down.

What was that very morning like? Oh, it wasn't a bad morning. I had a job that I was going to go up to the panhandle of Florida that this one contractor that I subcontracted through was going to do some work up at the Air Force Base. So just a normal day? Yeah, it was, you know, a normal day. Well, I kind of find it hard to believe that it would be completely normal because you're going through a divorce and you both have a protection order against each other.

Certainly there's a lot of turbulence. What was your wife doing that day? She went to work and then came, I guess, came back, she's been drinking a little bit. She went to work, where did she work? She was a barber, she was rented a chair, so she was self employed, we were both self employed. What year was this?

This was in 2001. So there was no texting yet, did you have a cell phone? Yes, sir. Were you calling her a lot that day? No. I wasn't calling her at all. If you would have called her, you think she would have called the cops, said, you know, violation of protection order? Oh, possibly, depending on what kind of mood she was in.

So at some point, you finished work, right? Or did you leave early and come home? Oh, I didn't work that day. I was, I thought you said you went to some kind of air, like air force base. No, I was going to start a new job in like a few weeks. Well, I asked you what you did that morning. You said it was kind of normal.

You went into the air force base. I thought you were talking about work. I was out of work. I was getting ready to start a new job up in the panhandle. So the day started out, I was happy that work was going to start coming my way because I was out of work. Okay, so you just spent the day being happy about a job, is what you're telling me.

Right. So, you're not doing much, but you say you're, this is the time that you're hooked on pain pills, right? Right. And you said you were doing Oxycontin and stuff, like that day? Yeah, I was in and out. I went over to a friend's house. You said you're in and out. Did you ever come across her while you were in and out, or she's at work all day?

Well, what happened was, after I took several Oxycontin, I was knotted out sleeping in my house, and my daughter came over. She was crying. She told me that my wife's boyfriend was stealing her birthday money. My, she was 11 and stealing my 9 year old son's birthday money, that he was hurting her. And I took it that he was sexually molesting her, that's how I took it.

How old is she? She was 11 at the time and my son was 9. So what did you do? My daughter told me that he was at, my wife's boyfriend was sleeping with my wife and she didn't like it. That was like the first proof that I had that, cause my wife swore up and down she wasn't cheating on me. So you became probably, you went into the defense mode?

Yeah, I got very angry then after hearing that. Yeah, so did that make you pretty jealous that you're still married to this woman? And she's had somebody sleeping over? Well, you know, upsetting that she swore up and down that she wasn't cheating on me. Yeah. That she was, I come to find out if she actually was.

And then I find out. That my wife's boyfriend said that my daughter said he was hurting her, and I take it that she was sexually molested. Whenever she told you this Did she have any kind of physical marks on her or anything that indicated that she was hurt or she just told you this? She just told me this and she was crying.

So, whenever she told you this, did you immediately walk across the street to their house? Did you call them? What did you do? No, my wife came over across the street. She came over to your house? Yeah, to get my daughter. That was like throwing gasoline on the fire. So, your ex wife came over, did she knock or did she just walk right in?

She just walked in the house. What did you do whenever she just walked right in? She's got a, you got a protection order against her. But she didn't worry about that. She was drunk anyway, so she wasn't worried about that. What did she say or what did you say? We started arguing over her boyfriend. Did she deny it?

No. Or did she rub it in your face? She kinda rubbed it in my face. So I said "well, I'm gonna go have a talk,"grabbed my gun and said Ï'm gonna go have a talk with him." So Aaron, I want to stop for just a second, cause this is a really serious part of your life right here. And this is, obviously, everything that unfolds from this point on is so, so serious that you actually put a gun to your head and pulled the trigger and shot yourself in the head, right?

That's what they say. Well, that's what they say. Did it not happen? Well, it didn't exactly happen like they'd testimony, but. So, are you trying to, before we get on to the story, I mean, I just want to know, do you say that somebody else shot you? I'll put it to you this way, even though it wasn't brought up in court, I'm left handed.

I got shot on the right side of the head. We're not talking about that. I want to know what you think. Do you think somebody else shot you? I believe so. Aaron says that the day of his crime unfolded very differently from the official record. He insists he had no premeditated intent to shoot Julie that July evening.

What he describes instead is a sudden outburst of anger after he heard his daughter's allegations against Julie's boyfriend. Rather than a planned and calculated act. One of Aaron's most surprising claims is that he didn't shoot himself that night. Rather, Aaron suggests that somebody else shot him amidst the chaos of that evening.

This switches up the narrative completely and contradicts just about every report I've read about this case. Is it possible that the news articles and detectives got this significant fact wrong? If true, this could be either a huge error by the investigators or a deliberate conspiracy against Aaron.

But if Aaron didn't shoot himself, then who did? More on that, after the break.

What did she say whenever you went and grabbed your gun? Did she say, "oh no, don't do that," or did she like think you weren't serious, or what? I just grabbed it, stuck it in the small of my back. Hey, wrong question. I'm asking what she did. What did she do? What was her reaction whenever you said, "I'm going to get my gun?"

I didn't say anything, I just grabbed it. Okay, well you said I was going to grab my gun, so you just went and grabbed it. Was she still in the house when you grabbed it? Yes. Where was your daughter at? She was standing right there. And what was your daughter and your wife doing? They were just standing there and kind of arguing with each other and arguing.

My wife was arguing with me. And you went to get your gun, whenever you came back, you actually tucked it in your pants so nobody could see it? Yeah, it was just in the small of my back. Okay, so you walk in there and nobody knows you have the gun. What was your next thing you did? Walked across the street.

Was she trying to stop you? No. What was she doing? She stayed inside of your house? She was following right behind me. So she's following behind you? She's not saying anything? She's just following you? Yeah, she walked, I walked back across to my other house. Yeah, yeah. To confront her. I understand that. What is your daughter doing?

I really wasn't. She was, I think, foul on both of us. Was she saying, "no, daddy, don't do this?" Even without them seeing the gun, they probably don't want any kind of fight or anything like that. Certainly your daughter at 11 years old, she's saying, "daddy, please don't go over there," right? No, she didn't say anything.

Okay. Okay, fair enough. So you, you walk into the house or you knock or is he waiting at the door knowing what's going on or what? I said, I'll go to walk, go into the front door, open the door with my right hand, and I got, I pulled the gun, and it was in my left hand, and then the door was locked, and then, and if you can imagine having a gun in your left hand, and then trying to open the door with your right hand, Because the knob was on the right side of the door, and then the door was locked and when I turned around, the gun went off accidentally and hit my wife in the abdomen.

So, let me ask you a question. Did you ever go to the military? Nah, I was never in the military. Did you ever own guns growing up? Nah, not growing up, but I used to shoot, my grandfather used to have 22 pistols I used to shoot. So you've been around guns, that wasn't like the first time you've ever been around a gun?

Right. It's kind of, for somebody that, you know, you know, Somebody that's around guns, usually it's really difficult for them to point and pull the trigger. Did you have a hair trigger on the gun? Yes, sir. So you're saying you accidentally shot her in the stomach? Right. What did she do whenever you shot her like that?

Did she fall immediately to the ground? Did she say anything to you? Yes, she fell to the ground. Then I went to talk to her and then I got shot in the head. I don't remember the other shots. You do know that the news and prosecutors, they're saying that you shot yourself in the head, right? Right. Well, the one witness that... the one witness swore I shot myself twice in the head, that's on the record, in one of the trial transcripts.

So there is a witness that said you shot yourself in the head? Twice, after everything was done. Right. So they got the number wrong, but they saw you shoot yourself in the head? That's what she swore she did. You think that somebody else shot you with your own gun? Possibly. So, I mean, you understand that's very hoarded, because they did determine it was your gun, right?

Well, they never found any projectiles at the crime scene. They only had empty shell cases. So at one point, did you get shot in the head when you went over there to talk to her and all of a sudden you got shot in the head, as you were saying? Yeah. Where did you get shot in the head? I got shot in the right side of the head, above the ear, at a downward, kind of downward angle.

And it came out through the temporal lobe. Right above the eyebrow. Did your daughter witness all this? Yeah, she, I think, believe she only witnessed the first shot and she ran off. Still, I mean, gosh, you know, that's that poor girl, 11 years old. I mean, I hope she's got, my heart goes out to her. That's a big deal, man.

That's, I can't believe that the pain pills are not, why? That poor little girl, man. Well, she just got her RN, and she, her RN license, and she got a job at Maine Medical up there in Portland, so she's not doing too bad for herself. Yeah, that's good, I'm glad to hear that. I'm sure you feel bad about that all happening.

Although Aaron admits he's responsible for shooting Julie, he maintains that it was a careless gun accident, not premeditated murder. Aaron claims that the intended target was not Julie at all, but her new boyfriend. Thrown into a blind rage over his wife's infidelity, Aaron went over to confront the boyfriend at the next door house.

While fumbling with the door, Aaron accidentally discharged the gun, wounding Julie in the abdomen. What happened next is uncertain. Aaron blacked out only to wake up in a hospital bed, to learn that he had sustained a gunshot wound to the head. While the prosecutor's narrative is that Aaron shot himself, he has no recollection of anything that happened after Julie was shot and speculates that somebody else shot him.

Frankly, Aaron's story stretches the limits of my believability. Of course, stranger things have happened and major head injuries can cause memory loss, which could account for the incoherence in Aaron's story, but his account only injects more uncertainty into what reasonably could have happened that day. How did the gun discharge so easily?

Why would an eyewitness lie about Aaron shooting himself? I'm left with more questions than answers, making it difficult to determine what actually happened that night. I confront Aaron about the holes in his story in the next installment of Voices of a Killer.

If you want to find out what happens next, right now, you can sign up at patreon.com/voicesofakiller. There you can find bonus content, early access, ad free listening, and access to our chat community. So go to patreon.com/VoicesofaKiller to sign up now. Your support is what keeps us passionate about bringing these stories to you.

That's a wrap on this episode of Voices of a Killer. A big shout out to Sonic Futures who handled the production, audio editing, music licensing, and promotion of this podcast. If you want to hear more episodes like this one, make sure to visit our website at voicesofakiller.com. There you can find previous episodes, transcripts, and additional information about the podcast.

Lastly, if you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving us a review on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you You get your podcasts, your feedback helps us improve and reach new listeners. Thank you for your support and we can't wait to share more stories with you in the future. Thank you for tuning in.

I'm your host, Toby, and we'll see you next time on Voices of a Killer. 

Ep 62 | Aaron Stimus Part 3

Before we begin this podcast, please be advised that the following episode contains language that some listeners may find offensive and inappropriate. The opinions expressed by the host and guests are their own and do not reflect the views of the podcast producers. Listener discretion is advised.

Welcome back to the final installment of Aaron's story. In the last episode, Aaron described the accidental shooting that killed his ex wife and his suspicions about how he was shot. Now we look at the inconsistencies and gaps that riddle Aaron's account, seeking to figure out what is the truth of what happened that night.

Let's find out on this episode of Voices of a Killer.

You do know that It's really hard to believe, you know, that everything was an accident, plus, you know, just from hearing it, I'm not saying anything's possible, but, you know, that accidental shooting and somebody else shooting you in the head, I don't know, man, that's a tough one. Did you actually go all the way up to trial arguing that you didn't shoot yourself and everything?

Yes, I testified in trial to it, that I got shot in the head and I don't recall, I said I don't recall anything after that. How many times was your wife shot? Three times. Three times, well we certainly missed two of those shots, didn't we? Okay. So Jesus Christ, dude, Aaron. Yeah, but you know, what's even more bizarre, they have gunshot residue on my left hand, but none on my right hand.

How do I shoot myself on the right side of the head? Man. I think the fact that you literally just told me the whole story without leaving two shots out to some damning information. I mean, so you just told me the whole story, Aaron, and left out two shots. Why? You left out two shots. Your wife got shot three times.

Yeah. So, you shot her once, you go over there, and then all of a sudden you got shot in the head. Well, there was two more shots somewhere. Where'd those happen? They happened after I got shot in the head. With what gun? I said, I don't know. Did they get the bullets out of her and figure it out? Nah, they never found any, but they never found any projectiles.

What kind of gun was this? They were, no, it was a Steyer nine millimeter. Is it just regular rounds? Yeah, they were just regular, I think just standard federal, public. I mean, are you telling me that all these bullets that were shot and none of them were recovered? I mean, I don't feel like this is just kind of, it's just kind of weird that all this.

Your argument is, I don't know man, I would have liked to have been in the trial. Yeah, I mean, it's a convoluted case for sure. Well, I mean, it's a, yeah, it's definitely a convoluted story. I'm just kind of taken aback by the fact that you, there's like three shots in her and I don't know man, this is just nutty.

So, you're shot in the head, where is the boyfriend when this is going on? Well, the front door was locked, and then all of a sudden, I suppose, they said the front door wasn't locked. I don't know. So, who do you think the boyfriend shot, you and your wife? Well, I don't know. I mean, we gotta think from a rational position here.

If somebody shot you, it's probably the same person that shot your wife two times. You shot your wife on accident. There's, I mean, it's your 11 year old daughter? No, it can't be her. Why would the boyfriend shoot her? So this is just, dude, come on, man. Nah, well, it said if I did shoot her, it said I wasn't conscious of the last two bullets because I was shot in the head.

So you're thinking maybe that you accidentally shot twice after you were shot in the head from nerve action or something? Yeah, sure. So when did you wake up in the hospital? How long? Because that's a pretty serious wound through the head. Well, they, I said after I was, after I, they arrested me, they airlifted me to the hospital, and they... Do you remember that?

Nah, they induced me, I don't know if they put me in a, not a induced coma, but I forget what they called it. They did something to that, I think I woke up like two, three days later. You wake up, is there basically a cop waiting right there, or is, or what? Yeah, they had me shackled with a weight and an off police officer in the room with me.

Yeah. How long did it take for you to recover? Oh, they took me, they had me back in population probably after about four weeks, if that. Wow. That's a pretty quick turnaround. How old were you? Like 40s? 41. Yeah, I mean, that's, that's a quick turnaround for a headshot. Those doctors really did a good job saving your life, but what they did was they saved your life so it could be taken by the state of Florida.

So after you recovered from being shot, did somebody try to tell you the narrative of what happened? Well, nobody said anything, and then I was interrogated by a deputy. And how much do you feel, like, Has anybody ever told you, like, how much, you know, cognitive ability you've lost, or what? I haven't lost any cognitive ability.

Okay. Did it, it didn't mess anything up? Like any kind of, you basically came right back to where you were? Well, they had me on some psychotropic medication, like, like Paxil. Yeah. And Travazodone. And then when I came to prison, I got off of it. My cognitive abilities came back. Few people can claim to have survived a gunshot wound to the head.

Whether Aaron's injury was self-inflicted or not. His recovery at the Holmes Regional Medical Center was remarkable. Today, Aaron tells me his cognitive ability is intact, though his memory of that July evening is broken and unreliable. The memory loss has left many unfilled gaps in his recollection of events, and although he repeatedly disputes the official line of what happened, Aaron can't offer up a rational alternative to replace it.

What Aaron did know, after waking from his near death experience, was that life as he knew it was now over. Charged with first degree Aaron was facing a long time ahead in jail. A crime like this can scar a victim's family deeply. Julie's death impacted not just her children, but her siblings too. Since 2002, her siblings have advocated publicly for domestic violence victims and they have also been vocal about the police oversight in Julie's case.

Soon after Julie's death, it emerged that she had filed a police report months earlier, complaining that Aaron kept a firearm. As per the terms of her protection order, Aaron wasn't allowed access to a gun as a safety measure. The Deputy who looked into Julie's complaint, however, misunderstood the legal wording in the documents and denied her request for the police to seize Aaron's gun.

In hindsight, this institutional failure had fatal consequences. Julie's sister in law later wrote, quote unquote, "If Aaron Stimus had not had a gun that hot July evening, he might have watched his beautiful daughter graduate from high school last June, a sight her mother, too, would have witnessed. Instead, Aaron had to answer for Julie's death in a court of law."

After the break, Aaron faces his judgment.

It's really hard to deny the scenario that you believe might have happened. The thing is, anything's possible, we all know that. But it sounds like your defense did not work. Was that a jury trial you had? Yeah, I had a jury trial, but they, the first trial I had used the heat of passion defense and that was prejudiced by the, on the discovery violation.

That's how I got the second trial. Really? So you got a new trial, you appealed and won a new trial? Right. And I had my second trial and obviously read the opinion on the second trial. Yeah. How come you didn't use the same defense? Well, I wanted to use the involuntary intoxication defense. But they, we had an evidentiary hearing.

Then they allowed the defense to go forward. The state Assistant State Attorney threatened an interlocutory appeal and then the judge wrote an order striking the defense. And my lawyer used the, I didn't like the defense, the accidental shooting defense. That's like next to impossible, the prejudice aspect of the defense.

Well, I'll tell you Aaron, now that you're basically holding, you know, your defense stance is that you were intoxicated. That means you're telling me that you believe that you were intoxicated and you shot your wife and then you shot yourself, right? Well, I said I got shot. I didn't try to commit suicide.

Sure. I got. Did you accidentally shoot your wife? The, the first one was accidental. Right. What about the other two? I don't remember those. Do you think that you were just drunk and you actually meant to shoot her and it was, you know, because you were intoxicated? Well, it could've been a struggle, or it could've been, it's kind of weird the way the entry wound is, on the right side of my head, it's about two inches above the ear duct, at a downward angle, coming out about a half inch above the eyebrow.

through the temporal lobe like a down or shot like being shot from above. You know, it is strange, but I mean, there's so many little things that can happen in this. I'm sure this whole, the whole situation was a panicked, very hostile, emotional experience. Well, whether if it was a struggle with the gun or whatever, because the sequence of shots, if I was shot before she was killed, then I wouldn't have been fully conscious and then I don't meet the men's ray or have the specific intent to commit first degree premeditated murder.

Aaron's case has been heard at two separate trials, both times the jury has landed on the same verdict. Guilty. Looking for a way to justify his actions that night, Aaron's defense team switched up their argument at each trial. First, they relied on a heat of passion defense, claiming that Aaron was blinded by a spur of the moment anger.

That didn't work, and a guilty verdict followed. But, Aaron caught a lucky break when his first conviction was overturned after a technicality was found in his trial. Tried for a second time, Aaron's second defense was that he was intoxicated against his will. that his prescription of Oxycontin had impaired his ability to think rationally, which led to Julie's death.

But the judge ruled that this defense was impermissible in court, as Aaron had taken the opioids voluntarily, so he was fully responsible for his actions while under their influence. The last pillar of defense Aaron ran with, was that the gun had been discharged by accident. The jury found this scenario to be unlikely, and finally, at the end of a long legal process, Aaron Stimus was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole.

Looking ahead, Aaron's chances of being released are very slim. Of course, there are legal exceptions, but for the most part, the rest of Aaron's life will be spent behind bars. I wanted to hear about Aaron's hopes for his future as he faces the reality of a life imprisonment sentence. Where are you at now in your appeals?

Well, I only have one left to be newly discovered evidence. That's pretty hard 20 years later. How do you resolve yourself knowing that you're probably going to die in prison? Well, they just have to come with a fact of living that that's the, what I've been dealt this life and to just have to accept it, but right now.

I got, I don't know if you heard of that Purdue Pharma bankruptcy lawsuit, you heard about that? Possibly, it sounds kind of familiar. Well, the Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy, and it's the Sackler family had controlling shares, took 12 billion out of the company and left the company. 10 billion in the company and they went into bankruptcy and I went and filed a claim and that, it's been, they, the court accepted the claim and put me on the docket, the claim.

Then I started writing letters to these law firms up there in New York and I couldn't get, because it was New York State federal bankruptcy court, I couldn't get the local federal rules to file the proper motions and use the right format. And I, they hooked me up. I got lawyers on the case now, so I'm under contract.

What do you get out of this? Well, what, what happens is that they, if it's adjudicated that it was a defective drug, they used unfair marketing practices and got people purposely addicted to their drug. Ah. Okay. Using unfair marketing practices, then that would make my addiction and use involuntary by definition, I would think.

Yeah, that would... for it to trickle down that far, I see what you're saying. One mechanism leads to, you know, some change in the law for you, but... right. Or one thing's changing that, yeah, I get you. Yeah. That's just something, you know, it might be a long shot, but every, at this point, I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.

Well, you told me at the beginning that, you know, had a relationship with your daughter. I think that's pretty good for you. I'm sure she has, you know, obviously she cares about you, so you have that. Yeah, well, like I got four grandkids, I got three granddaughters. Grandson, and I'd like to meet, may be able to meet him someday.

You think maybe it's possible that you were extremely emotional in those drugs that, you know, you didn't have a grasp on had you shoot her on purpose? But did they effected me to do that? Yeah. Do you think that's possible? You just don't remember? Cause you were so, you know, out of it that you actually shot her in an emotional rage?

Yeah, it was, yeah, I was in a, I was in a very emotional state after my daughter told me that my wife's boyfriend was hurting her. And that was, you know, that was kind of like the straw that broke the camel's back, you know? Well, yeah, Aaron, I appreciate you reaching out to me and telling your side of the story.

And that's crazy that you got shot in the head like that and just fully recovered. Oh, I got, there's a lot that I can tell you more stuff that you'd probably, you'd freak out about. Well, you know, it's bad. My case, my case has a lot of weird things that happened in it. Well, I'll tell you what, if if something happens, a big change or whatever in your case, I'd like to hear about it. Call me back and let me know. Alright, have a good one. Alright, bye. On the next episode of Voices of a Killer: Gosh, man, this is so intense. So after your mother killed this girl, she came out breathing hard, probably in, blood all over her. She said, you said she started crying? Yeah, she was crying. And then she told him that if we told anybody that she would kill us. Did y'all go back there and look at the body?

Like check everything out? Was, did y'all, were y'all allowed to do that? She actually moved her in the hallway and we can see the body. That must've been scary for an 11 year old girl. It was. I just want to say on behalf of myself and my sister and my brother that I'm sorry for what my mom did to cause them any pain.

I want to thank Aaron for sharing his story with us today. His ability to be open and honest is what makes this podcast so special. That's a wrap on this episode of Voices of a Killer. A big shout out to Sonic Futures who handled the production, audio editing, music licensing, and promotion of this podcast.

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Your feedback helps us improve and reach new lsiteners. Thank you for your support, and we can't wait to share more stories with you in the future. Thank you for tuning in. I'm your host Toby, and we'll see you next time on Voices of a Killer.