A pregnant Indiana woman was denied a protective order against her estranged husband 10 days before she was killed in an apparent-murder suicide, WLKY reports.
Authorities found the bodies of 36-year-old Julie Yow-Schmidtke and 41-year-old Charles Schmidtke on Dec. 19, inside their home in Columbus, WishTV.com reports.
“Julie was found to have multiple gunshot wounds to her body and Charles died from a single gunshot to the head. The investigation is ongoing,” the Bartholomew County Coroner’s Office said in a statement obtained by The Republic.
Police believe the couple – who had been in the process of divorcing – had an argument prior to the deadly shooting, which loved ones claim happened in front of her two sons, WLKY reports.
The Columbus Police Department did not immediately respond to PEOPLE’s request for details.
Julie’s sister Lori Griffin told WLKY that everything “went sour” after Julie and Charles married. “She was scared, very scared,” Griffin said, adding that her sister’s unborn baby also died in the tragedy.
“She started changing the locks on her doors, she started concealing. She got cameras put up all around the house,” Griffin claimed, per the outlet.
Griffin alleged that Charles attacked Julie early on in their marriage, and that she’d thought “that that was going to get [Julie] a protection order,” the outlet reports. Griffin said the order was denied by a judge, however, just 10 days before the fatal incident.
On Dec. 14, Julie filed paperwork with Bartholomew Superior Court 1, seeking a divorce, according to court records. The court set a hearing for Jan. 5, 2023.
A GoFundMe page has since been established to provide financial support for Julie’s funeral.
“We are all in shock. We are all devastated. We are at a loss for words. We are hurt. We are confused. We are angry. I’m hoping we can all come together to relieve some of the stress of paying for a funeral for the family,” reads the fundraising page, launched by Morgan Ping. “Pray for the family, pray for the boys, pray for peace.”
The victim was remembered as someone with “the brightest smile, contagious laugh, and the biggest heart.”
“Julie loved her family more than anything in this world. Especially her boys. Her boys were everything to her.”
