A Florida teenager will spend decades in prison after waiting for her mother and her mother’s boyfriend to walk through the front door before opening fire and killing them both.
Julia Egler, now 18, was sentenced Friday to 50 years behind bars after pleading guilty to second-degree murder in the deaths of her mother, 38-year-old Kelley McCollom, and 22-year-old Matthew Szejnrok, Brevard County prosecutors said.
Authorities say Egler killed the pair because she disapproved of her mother dating a much younger man. McCollom also disagreed with Egler’s gender transition.
Shortly after midnight on July 7, 2024, a frantic Egler called 911 claiming a man had broken through a sliding glass door at her Palm Bay home, according to a probable cause affidavit. Responding officers found McCollom and Szejnrok dead inside.
Egler, then 16, initially told police she’d locked herself in a bedroom with her dogs after hearing an intruder break in, leaving her phone behind. She said she heard five or six gunshots and screaming, then waited roughly an hour before emerging to call 911.
Investigators quickly poked holes in her story. Bloody footprints found beneath the broken glass contradicted her claim that the intruder shattered the door before the shooting, and the footprints matched her own shoes. The murder weapon was recovered in the backyard.
Egler eventually admitted the truth: she had broken into her mother’s bedroom for a gun and ammunition, then waited for McCollom and Szejnrok to come home. As they walked through the door, she said “welcome home” and opened fire, shooting her mother first before turning the gun on Szejnrok as he begged her to stop.
McCollom died in the living room. Szejnrok, still alive, stumbled into the bathroom and collapsed. Egler went back for more ammunition, reloaded, then followed him and repeatedly stabbed him with a kitchen knife. She said Szejnrok “essentially asked her to take him out of his misery,” and she shot him in the head, killing him. She later staged the scene to look like a home invasion.
“Julia advised that she had reached her boiling point with her mother following many disagreements in the previous weeks,” police wrote. “Julia was not happy with the fact that Kelley was not very accepting of her gender transition (pronouns he/him), and she also did not like that Kelley was dating Matthew, who was 22-years-old.”
Szejnrok’s brother, who still lives next door to the crime scene, said he was home at the time but mistook the gunshots for fireworks.
“I was 75 feet away from my brother and had no idea he was fighting for his life,” David Szejnrok told the court, according to prosecutors. He said the house is now a painful reminder: “Her actions didn’t just take my brother, they ruined our home. There isn’t a sentence that will bring my brother back.”
Egler was originally charged with first-degree murder before pleading guilty to the lesser charge. She graduated high school while incarcerated.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m haunted by grief every day. I have shown that I can be rehabilitated. Please give me a chance to reintegrate back into society.”
She will be eligible for release after 25 years.