A Mother's Lies Unravel

On a routine traffic stop in Warner Robins, Georgia, an officer noticed something deeply wrong with a silver Volkswagen Polo: the back window was shot out, the trunk was damaged, and the driver—a woman named Julissa—seemed frantic. She told police she'd been the victim of a gang attack, that her ex-boyfriend's associates had threatened her, that she'd been up all night doing Instacart deliveries and then attending an AA meeting. But when officers opened the trunk, they found the body of a six-year-old boy. His name was Eli. He was Julissa's son.

The interrogation that followed, captured on audio, became the central piece of evidence in one of the most disturbing child murder cases in Georgia history. Over the course of hours, Julissa Welsh told a series of shifting, contradictory stories—each one collapsing under the weight of surveillance video, forensic evidence, and her own changing timeline.

The Interrogation Begins

When officers first brought Julissa in for questioning, she presented herself as a frightened victim. She claimed her ex-boyfriend Rob had violated multiple protective orders, that his gang associates had been harassing her, and that she feared for her life. She told detectives she'd been at the Alano Club parking lot when a group of men—a tall blonde kid and a Black kid—attacked her, shot out her window, and threatened her.