After 27 year old Julia Martin from Detroit broke off her engagement six months ago to her boyfriend of three years, she knew the right thing to do would be to return her engagement ring.
According to police, when Julia’s ex fiancé, 35 year old Rodney Harvey came over to her apartment on the premise of collecting the ring last Friday night, he forced open the door when she answered the door and stabbed her repeatedly before jumping to his death from her apartment window.
Chicago Tribune full report:
“Martin, a 27-year-old from Detroit, tried to save her own life. She grabbed her phone and called police about 7 p.m. She asked them to send an ambulance for her. She told them the name of the man who stabbed her.
Then she called her dad.
“Not only did she call me, she texted me while she was going through all this,” Derrick Martin said Monday. “She was calling everybody, saying that she wanted help. She called another friend and she was panting over the phone, trying to get her breath. He thought it was a prank and he hung up on her. He feels so bad.”
He’s not alone. Martin doesn’t check his phone often and didn’t see the text message from his eldest daughter until much later. It read: “Call me ASAP.”
Julia Martin was taken to Northwestern Memorial Hospital, where she was pronounced dead at 7:37 p.m. from multiple sharp force injuries.
Harvey, 35, of the 2300 block of South Michigan Avenue, was pronounced dead at 7:18 p.m. at the same hospital.
His death was ruled a suicide.
She recently told him that she had started dating again, her father said.
“There was no indication he was dangerous … I never would’ve thought that in a million years,” Derrick Martin said.
She did call her dad awhile back and ask that they connect and meet in person to talk. Just last weekend, he drove down from Detroit to spend time with his church-going, go-getter girl.
“She never went into that much detail about how bad it was, she was just telling me that they had broke it off and that she was planning on giving the ring back,” he recalled.
The pair went to a winery and enjoyed each other’s company, he said. “God works in mysterious ways,” Derrick Martin said. “He must’ve known it was going to be my last time to see her.”
“I just pray, I just ask God to give me strength,” he said. “It’s like he keeps taking people that’s close to me and I don’t know why. You can’t question God, you just figure there’s a plan. And you pray.”