A 24-year-old Ashburnham woman is currently standing trial in Worcester Superior Court for allegedly killing 20-year-old Brandon Chicklis in 2018 and dumping his body in Rindge, N.H., according to legal filings and published reports.
Jurors heard opening statements Monday in the trial of Julia Rose Enright, who’s charged with first-degree murder in the June 23, 2018, slaying of Chicklis, her former boyfriend and classmate at Montachusett Regional Vocational Technical School.
Enright’s pleaded not guilty and is being held without bail.
During opening statements Monday, prosecutors said Enright had grown increasingly obsessed with blood and murder when she lured Chicklis to a treehouse near her home and stabbed him to death, while the defense countered that Enright stabbed Chicklis in self defense after he sexually assaulted her, the Worcester Telegram & Gazette reported.
Advertisement
The trial resumed on Tuesday.
An affidavit prosecutors filed in April 2019 laid out an array of chilling details connected to the probe.
The affidavit said Chicklis was stabbed 10 to 12 times and that his body, discovered by a jogger on the side of Route 119 in Rindge on July 10, 2018, was wrapped in a blanket and placed in two dark trash bags that were duct taped.
Cell phone data placed Chicklis in the vicinity of Enright’s residence on the day of the killing, the filing said, and Enright gave conflicting accounts of what happened in her statements to investigators, asserting the two had made plans that day to drink and “party.”
Enright, the filing said, initially told authorities Chicklis never showed up before later indicating they had stayed in his car when he arrived and smoked marijuana and drank alcohol. She said they also “fooled around” in the back seat before Chicklis left to get cocaine for them and never returned, the affidavit said.
Advertisement
Investigators, the filing continued, discovered electronic correspondence the day before the killing in which Enright asked Chicklis if he was “free sometime this weekend,” telling him she had a “surprise idea in mind but it could only be done if no one knew we were hanging out.”
Also on the morning of the killing, the filing said, she texted the man she was then dating and said “I have to attempt some things and then I should hopefully have the surprise.”
Authorities located the treehouse referenced in the texts between Enright and Chicklis and saw that it appeared to have been recently cleaned, according to the filing. The document said “numerous stains” tested “presumptive positive” for blood, and that handles on the walls near the floor were “presumably used to attach restraint devices.”
In addition, Enright’s boyfriend at the time of the killing told authorities the couple had spent time in the treehouse in the preceding months. He said they would cut one another other and “smear blood” over each other’s bodies, the affidavit said.
Law enforcement found additional items when they searched Enright’s residence.
Those items, the filing said, included “various skeletal remains of animals” in a room adjacent to Enright’s bedroom.
And, the filing said, a search of her bedroom turned up “numerous vials of blood” labeled with individual names; a glass pitcher partially filled with a red substance consistent with blood; a beaker-type object containing what appeared to be a small heart, most likely from an animal; and business cards indicating she offered services as a dominatrix.
Advertisement
In addition, authorities recovered some of her writings, the affidavit said.
“I daydream about it on occasion,” she wrote in one notebook, according to the filing. “I just have this insatiable curiosity to kill a person.” The note also suggested Enright wanted to cure the world of overpopulation, the affidavit said, and while she acknowledged authoring it, she told investigators it was for a creative writing class.
Material from prior Globe stories was used in this report.
Travis Andersen can be reached at travis.andersen@globe.com.