The gruesome details of Julia Dardar's death are almost too difficult to speak of. According to police in New Orleans, the 36-year-old mother of two was brutally beaten and strangled to death sometime last month, before being dismembered with a power saw and stuffed inside a freezer. But the most disturbing part of all might be the identity of the main suspect: 34-year-old Benjamin Beale, who was reportedly dating and living with the victim at the time of her death.
Dardar was first reported missing on December 23, 2021, by her estranged husband, Micah Dardar.
At the time of her disappearance, her ex appeared desperate to find her and claimed that the mother was struggling with both a substance abuse addiction and an unnamed mental health issue.
Micah Dardar even reached out to local news outlets in an effort to find Julia Dardar, pleading with them to cover her story and sharing many specific details about her disappearance that concerned him.
"My estranged wife is missing from New Orleans," Micah wrote in one email to WGNO. "I live in Slidell with our two teenage daughters. Her name is Julia Dardar. She is a 36-year-old white female (7/19/1985) that was staying with a man named Benjamin Beale at 2327 Pauline St."
"I was informed by a third party on December 20th that she came up missing from his house in the previous days," Micah explained. "I contacted NOPD for a welfare check on December 23rd … They determined that she was missing. The man said she had been missing for some time, possibly since December 12th or so, but failed to report it."
According to the email, Julia Dardar's car had been found at Beale's home.
For investigators, that might have been the first smoking gun — particularly when it was learned that Beale had been using the vehicle as his own until police eventually seized it.
For Micah Dardar and his daughters, however, the writing seemed to be on the wall from the beginning.
"Any help reporting this and getting her name and face out to try to be located would be appreciated," he concluded his email. "We hope to find her alive, but it’s not looking good at the moment."
Earlier this month, Julia Dardar's family was finally given some answers.
But tragically, none of them would bring them closure or peace — only heartache and further trauma.
On January 11, detectives executed a search warrant on Beale's property, which is in the Ninth Ward. There, they found a woman's headless torso packed inside a freezer attached to a school bus Beale had been working on as an art installation, according to WGNO. A power saw was also discovered hidden deep inside the man's home, which had bits of blood and flesh still stuck to its blade.
Right from the start, Beale has only given police a confusing web of stories.
According to reports, Beale initially told an NOPD officer who visited his home that he hadn't actually seen Julia Dardar since December 16. He also claimed that she was "suicidal" at that time and that she'd abrubtly moved out without taking any of her belongings or her car.
An affidavit filed after the meeting noted that it was Beale who suggested the woman should be reported missing. However, he denied any involvement in her disappearance.
When Beale eventually agreed to meet again with police on January 5, his recollection of events suddenly began to change. For one thing, he told investigators that it was actually December 12 — not December 16 — when he last spoke to Julia Dardar. He also informed them that the couple was in the process of ending their relationship over her drug habits, according to Fox 8 Live.
Once again, Beale claimed that the mother of two had been suicidal and suggested that she might have either killed herself or intentionally overdosed. In fact, he even gave a location for where they might find her — at an abandoned US Naval Support station known to street drug users as "The End of the World," reported Fox 8 Live.
As for why Beale hadn't reported Julia Dardar missing himself, he claimed that he had "lost" his cellphone around the time of her disappearance and simply had no way of contacting police.
Once a search warrant was obtained for Beale's property, many of his claims began to unravel.
Although police were initially focused on the interior of his home, a court document stated that the padlocked bus, which was sitting in Beale's back yard, soon drew their attention.
Detectives zeroed in on several extension cords, which were running from the interior of the bus to an external power source, noted Fox 8 Live. Once inside, authorities could see that the cords were providing electricity to a deep freezer. And that was when investigators made the gruesome discovery.
“Upon opening the lid of the freezer, investigators observed the headless torso of what appeared to be an adult human female,” the affidavit read. “A deep linear cut was visible along the left shoulder/upper arm area, which appeared to have been inflicted post-mortem."
A power saw, which is believed to have been used to dismember Julia Dardar, was also found nearby, inside a Coleman ice chest. In addition, investigators found a plastic face shield, a pair of goggles, and multiple garbage bags nearby, which were likely used in the crime.
Beale, who is a well-known local artist in New Orleans, was promptly arrested.
Because he refused to discuss the discovery of the dismembered torso and investigators were still collecting evidence, the New Orleans man was initially booked with obstruction of justice in a death investigation and on several drug and weapons charges.
But within days, Beale also was charged with second-degree murder, as the mounting evidence found inside his home became hard to refute.
Though an autopsy has been conducted, it could take months for the full results.
In the meantime, Beale (who is also known within the abstract art community as Kelly Kirkpatrick) remains behind bars at the Orleans Parish Justice Center.
Micah Dardar had originally called on the courts to raise Beale's bail from $5,000, insisting that the suspect did not deserve to walk free before his trial. Once the 34-year-old artist was charged with murder, however, a judge raised the bail amount to $1.4 million, WGNO noted.
Despite that, Julia Dardar's ex — as well as her entire family — strongly believe he should be held with no bond whatsoever.
"There’s a high risk to many people if he does get out because there’s no telling what he would do," Micah Dardar said recently. "He's an animal. He needs to be in a cage."
If a jury does find Beale guilty of Julia Dardar's murder, he faces life in prison.
But that's not all.
The New Orleans man may also suffer the consequences of several other charges, which now include obstruction of justice in a death investigation, illegally carrying a weapon while in possession of CDS (controlled dangerous substance), creating/operating a clandestine drug lab, possession with intent to distribute marijuana, and the distribution of methamphetamine, WGNO reported.
In the meantime, Julia Dardar's family and friends are trying to come together to honor her memory and support her two girls, who are now 13 and 17 years old. A GoFundMe page Micah Dardar launched has raised more than $2,500 to put toward her funeral expenses.
In it, he remembers his ex as a free spirit who had a positive impact on the lives of so many. Ultimately, though, he claimed the stress of the pandemic took her down a "dangerous path that ended tragically."
Source: cafemom.com
