08/03/2026
LADIES READ CAREFULLY
SHOT EIGHT TIMES AND SURVIVED… ONLY TO BE HUNTED DOWN MONTHS LATER. BY HER GIRLFRIEND.
THE MURDER OF TYRITA JULIUS
Linden & Long Branch, New Jersey | November 24, 2015 – August 16, 2016
She survived what should have killed her.
Eight gunshots.
A masked gunman opened fire as Tyrita Julius sat inside her car with her 15-year-old daughter beside her.
Bullets ripped through her body.
Against all odds...
They both survived.
Most people would have believed the nightmare was over.
It wasn't.
Tyrita Julius was 41 years old.
She was a mother of two who was trying to recover—not only from devastating physical injuries, but from a relationship investigators would later describe as controlling and dangerous.
According to prosecutors, the person behind that first attempt on Tyrita's life was her former girlfriend, Jennifer Sweeney.
But the plan failed.
Tyrita lived.
Months later, on March 8, 2016, while she was still recovering from the shooting, Tyrita agreed to meet Sweeney for lunch.
She was never seen alive again.
Sweeney told investigators she dropped Tyrita off at a train station.
Surveillance video proved otherwise.
Tyrita never arrived.
She was reported missing later that same day.
For months, her loved ones searched, hoping she would once again overcome the impossible.
Instead, on August 16, 2016, investigators uncovered the truth.
Tyrita's body was found buried three feet underground in the backyard of a home on Joline Avenue in Long Branch.
She had been wrapped in garbage bags.
An electrical cord remained around her neck.
Investigators determined she had been strangled to death inside a vehicle before her body was buried.
Authorities say Andre Harris helped conceal her body after the murder. He later testified that Jennifer Sweeney forced him to participate and threatened his family if he refused.
Prosecutors said Sweeney had become consumed by jealousy and obsession, monitoring Tyrita's phone activity, watching who she communicated with, and growing enraged by the possibility that she was moving on with her life.
In September 2021, Jennifer Sweeney was convicted of murder, attempted murder, conspiracy, and desecration of human remains.
She was sentenced in May 2022 to 95 years in prison and will not become eligible for parole until she is more than 100 years old.
Andre Harris later accepted a plea agreement and was sentenced to 16 years in prison.
Tyrita survived eight bullets.
She fought her way back from injuries that should have taken her life.
But the person determined to keep her from moving forward refused to let her go.
Her children lost their mother.
Her daughter survived the first attack sitting beside her.
Months later, she lost her mother forever.
Tyrita Julius should still be here.
© The Vivid Faces of the Vanished
Photo of killers in comments
