NEW SMYRNA BEACH — The precocious 5-year-old who calmly called 911 after an accused stalker shot her parents three days ago in the family’s home is now an orphan.
Late Tuesday night, Aeneas Hernlen, 29, died at a Daytona Beach hospital. His wife of nearly a decade, Julie Morgan-Hernlen, had died Monday after an acquaintance — David E. Johnson — shot the two of them in the bedroom of their house with a 9mm pistol in the early hours of the morning before returning home to kill himself, police said.
Friends said the couple’s daughter, Tia Skye Hernlen, was the center of the surf-loving couple’s world. When the couple went to the movies, they always picked a show Tia could watch so they could bring her along.
Now Tia is staying with family members, many of whom are outraged that police and the court system did not do more to protect the young family. Morgan-Hernlen had sought help from authorities and even predicted Johnson might kill the couple. He incorrectly thought they had told authorities about his marijuana-growing operation, officials said.
People close to Morgan-Hernlen described the 31-year-old woman, a tall blonde who loved water sports, as a mom who sacrificed to give Tia the world while keeping the little girl sheltered.
“She was very generous, very outgoing. She’d do anything for you,” said younger brother Ryan Morgan, 28, of St. Augustine. “Sometimes if you’re a boy, you don’t want your older sister to stand up for you. But she was always there for me.”
Morgan-Hernlen was poised to graduate with honors in May from Daytona Beach Community College as a paralegal. She studied often, bringing Tia to the library on a regular basis. She had earlier attended Winter Park High School and Flagler College, where she studied psychology and deaf education. DBCC professors described her as a vibrant student who was always willing to help classmates.
Close friend Michelle Reddick said Morgan-Hernlen wanted to become a paralegal to give people the help they deserved when coming into a law office.
“She had very serious thoughts on a lot of different stuff, and she wanted to bring that into the law office,” Reddick said.
Aeneas Hernlen worked in construction and also was an installer for a sign company, family members said. The pair — both fun-loving, avid surfers who decorated their yard with half a longboard and a smattering of white seashells — met when she worked at a Daytona Beach concession stand near one of his surfing spots. Both were children of police officers.
Seeking new experiences, they moved to the Virgin Islands, where Hernlen had family.
They were married there and moved back to Florida several years ago. They worked hard to get their little bright-yellow house with lime-green trim and a pink door, purchased in 2002 — and they didn’t think they should have to pack up and leave because of a stalker.
“New Smyrna has always been her favorite place,” Ryan Morgan said of his sister.
According to court records, Morgan-Hernlen kept meticulous records since December of every time Johnson drove by the house, called or made a threat.
She jotted down dates, times and descriptions and then filed for a restraining order, which a judge denied.
After the order was denied, Morgan-Hernlen called her friend Reddick crying.
“Friday afternoon, she knew this was going to happen,” Reddick said. “She told me . . . ‘If I’m not here next week, this is the reason why, and this is who killed me.’ The thing that hurts me is that the police did nothing, basically.”
Morgan-Hernlen did exactly what Volusia County sheriff’s investigators and experts around the country recommend.
But all of her efforts failed to protect her family from a man who officials say was bent on revenge.
In an e-mail message sent to the Orlando Sentinel, Morgan-Hernlen’s father and several other relatives said Volusia County authorities didn’t do all they should have to protect the woman.
“One of her last conversations with police was, ‘What has to happen, he has to kill me before you do anything,’ ” the family wrote.
Sheriff Ben Johnson said the case was tragic, but he defended his investigators’ actions, saying they warned David Johnson (no relation to the sheriff) to keep his distance from Morgan-Hernlen and her family.
“It’s a bad situation and something we sure don’t like to see happen,” the sheriff said. “But when you take someone, just this side of possessed, that’s someone that’s awfully hard to stop.”
David Johnson was charged with a misdemeanor count of stalking earlier this year, but he was never arrested.
The sheriff said Johnson had newspaper accounts of his November arrest on drug charges tacked to his refrigerator next to documents detailing his upcoming trial.
According to court records, Johnson blamed Morgan-Hernlen and her husband for his arrest.
“It’s almost like it was obsessing him,” the sheriff said. “What can you do? It’s a tough situation.”
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