Matthew Szejnrok

Matthew Szejnrok, a 22-year-old White man, and his girlfriend, Kelley McCollom, 38, were killed inside their Palm Bay, Florida, home in an attack that began late on the night of July 6, 2024. The couple was ambushed by McCollom’s 16-year-old daughter, Julia Egler, who had armed herself with a .38-caliber handgun and a chef’s knife she had stolen from her mother’s bedroom. Police said the motive centered on longstanding conflicts between Egler and her mother, including disagreements over Egler’s gender transition and her disapproval of her mother’s relationship with Szejnrok.

Egler waited in the kitchen for the couple to return home. When they walked through the front door, she greeted them with the words, “Welcome home,” before drawing the gun and shooting McCollom several times. Egler then turned the gun on Szejnrok, who pleaded for her to stop as she shot him repeatedly. After running out of ammunition, she followed him into a bathroom where he had fled and stabbed him multiple times with the knife. According to police reports, Szejnrok then asked Egler to “take him out of his misery,” prompting her to retrieve another bullet from her mother’s room and shoot him once in the head.

Just after midnight on July 7, Egler called 911, hysterically claiming a man had broken into the house and attacked the couple while she hid in her bedroom with her dogs. When officers arrived, they found McCollom and Szejnrok deceased. Investigators quickly grew suspicious of Egler’s account, as evidence at the scene contradicted her story. They found a gun under her bedroom window, a bloody knife on the bathroom counter, and bloody footprints throughout the home that matched her shoes. After being brought in for questioning, Egler confessed to the killings, telling detectives she had reached her “boiling point.”

In August 2024, a grand jury indicted Julia Egler on two counts of first-degree premeditated murder, and the state attorney’s office announced she would be tried as an adult. At a court hearing, Szejnrok’s brother, Dustin, gave a victim impact statement, telling the court that his family lived next door and that he had heard the gunshots, mistaking them for fireworks. “I was 75 feet away from my brother and had no idea he was fighting for his life,” he said. “Her actions didn’t just take my brother, they ruined our home.”

On September 25, 2026, Egler, then 18, accepted a negotiated plea agreement that was approved by the victims’ families. She pleaded guilty to two counts of second-degree murder and was sentenced to 50 years in state prison. As of September 2026, this sentence concluded the court proceedings in the case.