The American Injustice System
“Seek Justice. Ensure Victims’ Rights. Inspire Hope.”
This is the slogan of this year’s 2020 National Crime Victims’ Rights Week.
Has a nice ring, doesn’t it?
But for someone like me, these words are hollow, written to appease the victims. It’s like the Pledge of Allegiance and Star Spangled Banner, both songs with words rich in patriotism and justice. “…one nation, under God, with liberty and justice for all.” I grew up naively believing that I lived in a country that would pound the gavel of justice in a courtroom. if anything unjust ever happened to me, surely my country would come to the rescue and, being a true patriot, everything would be made right.
Right?
Wrong.
Here’s my story.
First they took my daughter’s life with a date rape drug.
Then they stripped her of her dignity through a police report.
Then her mother’s pain deepened, as blood seeping out of a fresh wound with nothing to stop it and no balm to bring relief.
“Marie, it’s as if we just found your daughter’s body today. Nothing was done. Her case could have been solved in the first 24 hours. You’ve been victimized twice.” (Joe Matthews, nationally recognized criminal investigator and analyst)
It was a Monday night, March 15, 2010.
I bolted up from a deep sleep and stared at the clock. It was 10:48pm. “Dan, please come down with me. Someone’s knocking on the door, and I don’t want to go alone.”
He followed me down the steps. We saw police uniforms through the window to the left of the door. With trepidation, Dan opened the door. Two policemen stood on the porch. One of them asked, “Is Julia your daughter?” Dan said, “Yes.” They asked if they could come in. The four of us walked through the study into our den where we sat down. As we walked, I started feeling tense. Maybe Julia was in jail or some kind of trouble? The police officers took the two chairs across from us. I sat on the smaller couch, and Dan was adjacent to me on the larger couch, a few feet away. I wasn’t prepared for their words.
As soon as we made eye contact with the police officers, one of them said, “We found your daughter’s body.”
Those were the last words from a life I would never experience again. All the facades I had clung to shattered and lay in a heap. The reality of what I was now experiencing and long held beliefs collided, begging for raw truth and something to hang on to in the midst of a free fall. Suddenly, there was nothing to grasp.
I don’t remember much after those words were spoken. My heart, soul and mind suddenly froze as I tried to make sense of their words. The shock effect of their statement made it impossible to comprehend. I visualized Julia laying on a beach, physically hurt by someone or something. Then they told us they’d found her body in a bed with no visual signs of trauma.
Surely the police will find out what happened. Besides, my state of mind was in no condition to ask questions or to think clearly.
My brother-in-law called a year after her death, “We feel from what you’ve told us, that you know who Julia was with and may know who was responsible for her death. We would like to hire an investigator to help you figure out how she died.”
Hope surged through me.
On April 13, 2011, at about 5pm, private investigator Chris Catania met us for the first time at our home.
Chris discovered that Julia was universally loved by everyone she knew. She was a wonderful, outgoing, and caring person who was so fun to be with. She was not a drug user and cared about her body. She was also smart, as is attested to the fact that she was not drinking the night she was taken away. She had little to no alcohol in her system. She had no “wingman” that evening, so she was smart.
It’s true. Julia cared more than the average person about what went in her body. Although she was a social drinker, she was also the kid who asked me if I was serving salad for dinner or if I would cut up an apple for a snack. And although she may have had the typical high school moment of trying drugs, she was NOT a drug user.
When first responder Detective Kenny Matthews called me after six long months of waiting, he told me they found a drug called GHB in her system. I asked if it was like a date rape drug, and he said yes. I researched GHB and found that what appears to be relatively harmless – a tasteless, odorless, clear substance – is actually made with very harsh, toxic chemicals. Having found three times a lethal amount in Julia’s body, I knew someone needed to be held accountable.
“Since this has happened, I see why people make things a mission. This is not a game. To the people actually using and giving out these drugs, this is what has happened to our family. Leaving a huge hole in our hearts, in our lives, and literally changing our lives forever. People need to be aware of these consequences.” (A few of my statements made on the CBS Early Show in 2011)
I was fortunate to have connections that allowed me to share my story on the front page of the Miami Herald on September 5, 2015. Part of the article reads:
“It was like a bomb had been blasted in my house and in my life,” recalled Marie Sumnicht, Julia’s mother and a schoolteacher.
Julia Sumnicht had no history of drug use or heavy drinking, according to interviews. She liked to go out one or two times a week and had visited Miami before, but rarely had more than a couple of drinks, said childhood and college friends. Craig Smith said she had never done drugs and only drank a little with him.
I later learned the cause of my daughter’s death and that no alcohol had been in her system, she suspected foul play, she said. Discouraged by the progress of the police investigation and searching for answers, Sumnicht hired private investigators at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars over the years, buoyed by fund-raising and extra tutoring work. But while Julia Sumnicht’s last night has slowly come into focus, the police investigation has stalled. And Marie Sumnicht’s grief has turned to indignation.
‘I’ve been very angry in the last couple of months, paying for someone else to investigate it, when the police are supposed to do their job,’ she said. “It’s tiring and it’s frustrating.’
Records related to the investigation as well as interviews with homicide experts and others familiar with the incident raise questions about how the case was conducted. For instance, key witnesses who were with Sumnicht hours before she died have never been interviewed — a result, some say, of early misjudgments by police investigators.’ (Miami Herald, September 2015)
Joe Matthews, criminal investigator and analyst, points out significant elements of the case that were botched.
-
“They didn’t follow any of the standards. It’s really embarrassing,” said former homicide detective Joe Matthews, no relation to the Miami Beach detective who investigated Sumnicht’s death.
-
In an analysis of the case, Joe Matthews said Kenny Matthews also erred by not attending the autopsy, which could have provided early clues about her death. Critical evidence was not taken from the scene where Sumnicht was found, like water bottles and bed sheets that could have been tested for GHB or semen, he said.
-
“This case wasn’t solved because it wasn’t investigated,” he said. “They never followed the leads they had in the first place.”
For more, go to The Miami Herald
Since the Miami Herald article, a couple different investigative summaries have been written by the MBPD, both filled with lies, omissions and many questions about the truth of her investigation and death. The most recent summary, written in the summer of 2019, included interviews of people who later told me of the gross inaccuracies in the record of their interview. This report left me reeling with deep pain, hurt and anger for weeks, almost as if I was reliving my emotions after her death. Except this time it was mixed with lots of anger.
Shortly after the Miami Herald article was published, the FDLE (Florida Department of Law Enforcement) was requested to work alongside the MBPD on Julia’s case. Unfortunately, the agent chosen was a criminal profiler (not an experienced homicide detective), and she was close to retirement. So the choice to put her on my case seemed like more wasted time and an effort by the MBPD to give the appearance of “working on her case”.
But there was one statement she made on the phone that I’ll never forget.
“You want to know my personal opinion? I believe he(Jason Itzler) is a liar and a murderer. And I believe he is responsible for drugging your daughter,”
At one point I paid $200 for a Green Bay attorney to tell me if there was cause for charges against the perpetrators. He assured me there was, at least according to the Len Bias law. Even though I knew that the MBPD had stubbornly dug their heels in and would refuse to work her case, this was important for me to know.
“Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.” ~Martin Luther King, Jr.
It was during those weeks of emotional pain and trying to give it to God that a faith based movie producer reached out for the third or fourth time, this time telling me that he had found a faith based screen writer who was one of the best he’d ever seen. The movie producer and I had conversations about making a movie based on the book I had written, Beyond Broken. How would I get the money to support the screenwriter? I had decided that if God wanted a movie, he would provide for the movie. And that’s what He did. He miraculously provided through a friend of Julia’s who had contacted me the night I was going to close the fundraiser. He said, “Someone as sweet and special as Julia deserves justice.”
Today I wait patiently for justice. I know in my heart that God is our ultimate judge.
“For the Lord is a God of justice; blessed are all those who wait for him.”(Isaiah 30:18)
However, I also believe that God calls on His people to act justly and expose evil.
“Learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression…”(Isaiah 1:17)
“He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:8)
So I wait.
I know justice is just around the corner.
Living Beyond Broken
