Julia Enright: Treehouse Killing, Trial, and Sentence

Julia Enright is a Massachusetts woman serving a life sentence for the June 2018 stabbing death of her former boyfriend and high school classmate, Brandon Chicklis, inside a treehouse on her family’s property in Ashburnham. A Worcester Superior Court jury convicted her of second-degree murder in November 2021, and in March 2022 Judge Daniel M. Wrenn imposed the maximum parole restriction available, requiring her to serve at least 25 years before she can seek release.¹ She is held at MCI-Framingham, the only women’s prison in Massachusetts.

The Night in the Treehouse

Chicklis, 20, of Westminster, and Enright had dated after graduating together in 2015 from Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical High School in Fitchburg. A family member said the two “remained friends even after breaking up.”²

On June 23, 2018, Enright invited Chicklis to a treehouse on her family’s property at 171 Packard Hill Road. Prosecutors said she lured him there under the guise of a “surprise.” A neighbor, Leanne Roy, testified she was awakened after midnight by a “blood-curdling” scream that was “absolutely human.”³

Afterward, Enright contacted her boyfriend, Jonathan Lind. Prosecutors said the pair wrapped Chicklis’s body in a blanket, a tarp, and a canvas sheet, sealed it in duct-taped garbage bags, and drove to Rindge, New Hampshire, dumping the remains along Route 119. They also moved Chicklis’s Honda Civic to a Hannaford supermarket parking lot in Rindge. According to prosecutors, they went out for sushi before disposing of the body.¹

Chicklis was reported missing that same day. His car was found June 29. A jogger discovered his largely skeletal remains on July 10, 2018.⁴ For 17 days, Enright kept the location secret.

What Investigators Found

Massachusetts State Police Sergeant Matthew Prescott led the investigation. In a July 13, 2018 interview at the Ashburnham Police Department, Enright shifted her account and acknowledged Chicklis had come to her house that night, claiming he then left to buy cocaine.⁴

Chicklis’s blood was on the stairs leading to the treehouse, inside the structure, and underneath it. The treehouse had been cleaned and a new rug laid down, but blood had seeped through the floorboards. Blood matching Chicklis also turned up inside Enright’s Toyota Prius.⁵ Cellphone records tracked Lind’s phone moving from the treehouse toward Rindge overnight on June 23 into June 24.

Searches of Enright’s home and computer produced striking material. Her bedroom contained wet specimens of dead animals preserved in jars, animal bones, four vials of blood from acquaintances, knives, and a collection of used condoms. The treehouse had been fitted with metal handles drilled into the walls and a restraint system. Investigators pulled documents from her MacBook, including a June 27, 2018 entry reading, “I would do anything for you. I would destroy anything for you,” and a June 28 entry: “It was a form of a present. I did it just for him. That was my intention.”⁴

The Prosecution’s Case

Prosecutors argued Enright killed Chicklis as a “gruesome gift” for Lind, pointing to a shared fascination with darkness and violence. They introduced journal entries in which Enright wrote, “I have an insatiable curiosity to kill a person,” and text messages to Lind including, “Do you think we could add bubbles to a blood bath?”⁶ Other entries showed Enright expressing disappointment that Lind “didn’t seem to like” the “gift.”

The prosecution also introduced evidence of Enright’s work as a professional dominatrix under the name “Mistress Jasmine.” Business cards in her car advertised bondage services with the tagline, “Come to crave what it feels like to give me all control.” Sergeant Prescott testified about a list of services and a contract found on her computer. Judge Wrenn admitted the evidence with a limiting instruction that jurors could weigh it only on motive or state of mind, not as proof of guilt.⁷ On cross-examination, Prescott acknowledged that no evidence linked Chicklis to that work.

New Hampshire’s chief medical examiner, Jennie Duval, listed the cause of death as “homicidal violence including multiple sharp injuries of the chest.” Because of the decomposition, Duval could not definitively classify the wounds as stab injuries, measure their depth, or identify which was fatal. She observed at least two sharp injuries to the chest, and a forensic anthropologist found additional cut marks in the rib cartilage. The victim’s T-shirt had at least a dozen slit marks consistent with stab wounds.⁸

The Self-Defense Claim

Enright took the stand and admitted stabbing Chicklis, but said she acted in self-defense. She testified she had invited him to the treehouse intending to have sex, changed her mind, and was then sexually assaulted. She said she pulled a knife she routinely carried on her belt. “I kept screaming for him to stop … that’s when I pulled my knife off my belt,” she testified. “I swung my arm. I stabbed him.”⁹

She described the darker journal entries and messages as “fantasy” and an attempt to cultivate an “outrageous persona” modeled after the musician Marilyn Manson. The “gift” in her journal, she said, was a skeleton she had stolen from a crypt, not Chicklis’s killing.² The defense also called forensic psychiatrist Jhilam Biswas, who testified about brain development at age 21 and the prefrontal cortex.¹⁰

Defense attorney Louis M. Badwey argued prosecutors had unfairly painted Enright as a “dirty girl” over her dominatrix work and interests, and that those interests did not make her a killer. He noted police found no evidence of sexual activity between Enright and Chicklis in the treehouse, and called the body’s disposal “helter-skelter,” inconsistent with a planned murder.¹¹

Verdict and Sentence

On November 29, 2021, after roughly two days of deliberation, the jury found Enright guilty of second-degree murder.⁶ At sentencing on March 4, 2022, Judge Wrenn imposed life in prison and used his discretion to set parole eligibility at the maximum 25 years.

Chicklis’s mother, Trisha Edwards LaMarche, told the court, “She’s broken us all,” and said Enright “murdered him and then tried to destroy his memory,” referring to the sexual-assault allegations the family called slander. His grandparents told the court, “Brandon Michael Chicklis was not a rapist.”¹ Enright told the court she was “sorry” and wished she “could go back and change what happened,” but made no specific admission of guilt. Her attorney said she planned to appeal.

What Happened to Jonathan Lind

Lind, Enright’s boyfriend at the time, was charged with perjury, misleading a grand jury, accessory after the fact to murder, and disinterment of a human body. Prosecutors said he helped wrap the body, drove it to New Hampshire, moved Chicklis’s car, and then lied to a grand jury in October 2018 about their movements on June 23 and 24.¹²

In December 2024, a Worcester Superior Court jury convicted Lind of perjury after about five hours of deliberation. On February 21, 2025, Judge Wrenn sentenced him to seven to nine years at Souza-Baranowski Correctional Center in Shirley, an upward departure from sentencing guidelines. The judge noted Lind had tried to create an alibi for himself and Enright in a “brutal, violent and senseless murder.”¹³

At sentencing, Assistant District Attorney Shayna Woodard played jailhouse calls from Enright’s trial in which the two were recorded laughing at the self-defense narrative. Lind’s attorney, Kevin C. Larson, argued Lind had been manipulated by Enright, whom he called a sociopath.¹⁴

On March 13, 2025, Lind pleaded guilty to the remaining accessory-after-the-fact and disinterment charges. Judge Wrenn imposed six to seven years, to run concurrently with the perjury sentence, followed by two years of probation, mental health treatment, and stay-away orders covering both the Chicklis family and Enright. Lind has appealed the perjury conviction and indicated he intends to appeal the sentences, which his attorney called “excessive and greatly in excess of sentencing guidelines.”¹⁵

Where Enright Is Now

Enright is incarcerated at MCI-Framingham.¹⁶ Under her sentence, she will not be eligible to seek parole until roughly 2047.

In September 2023, she testified virtually before the Massachusetts Joint Committee on the Judiciary in support of “An Act for Second Look,” a bill that would allow inmates serving lengthy sentences to seek resentencing review. “This would be a tool to judge people on their progress, their behavior, which is exactly what prison and parole are supposed to do,” she told the committee.¹⁷

1
Telegram & Gazette. Julia Enright Gets Maximum Penalty for Second-Degree Murder
2
NBC Boston. Woman Sentenced to Life in Prison in Ashburnham Treehouse Murder
3
Union-Leader. Treehouse Murder Trial: Former Neighbor of Julia Enright Awoke to Blood-Curdling Scream
4
Union-Leader. Treehouse Murder Trial: Was Julia Enright a Rape Victim Who Fought Back, or a Murderer
5
Boston.com. Julia Enright Brandon Chicklis Murder Trial
6
NBC Boston. Julia Enright Found Guilty of Second-Degree Murder in 2018 Killing
7
Law & Crime. Julia Enright’s Alleged List of Dominatrix Services Takes Center Stage in Grisly Massachusetts Murder Trial
8
Telegram & Gazette. Medical Examiner Testifies at Julia Enright Murder Trial
9
CBS News Boston. Julia Enright Treehouse Murder Trial
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MassLive. Treehouse Murder Trial: Julia Enright Says She Wrote About Robbing a Grave
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MassLive. Treehouse Murder Trial Closing Statements
12
NBC Boston. Boyfriend of Ashburnham Treehouse Killer Sentenced to 7–9 Years for Lying to Grand Jury
13
Worcester County District Attorney’s Office. Jonathan Lind Convicted of Perjury in Homicide Investigation, Sentenced to 7–9 Years
14
Telegram & Gazette. Lawyer: Jonathan Lind Essentially Confessed in Julia Enright Murder Case
15
Telegram & Gazette. Jonathan Lind Guilty Plea in Julia Enright Case
16
MetroWest Daily News. MCI-Framingham Inmates Say New Shower Curtains Lead to Lack of Privacy
17
The Shoestring. State’s Longest Sentences Could Get a Second Look