BLOOMINGDALE, Fla — A vigil was held Wednesday night for a mother murdered Monday morning inside her home in Brandon. Her son is accused of stabbing her.
Julie Aylor’s family tells 10 Tampa Bay she never stopped loving her son, John “Jake” Aylor, and tried to help him with mental health and addiction issues; even letting him bathe and feeding him at her home earlier in August.
They held a vigil outside her home, where prosecutors say her screams for help were heard by two grandchildren who were also inside, including John Aylor’s daughter.
The family says Aylor was bubbly and the one you could always go to for help; it was her love for her son that may have proven fatal.
Wednesday night was the third night Kristina Blair was without her mother.
"My mom was a great, great person,” she says. “She was wonderful. She loved everybody. She took care of everybody. Anybody who needed anything, ever.”
Aylor’s small neighborhood off West Bloomingdale Avenue turned the home — now a crime scene — into a memorial.
“My mom was just a person that was there for you,” Blair says. “She'll feed you. She'll clothe you. She'll shower you. She'll take you wherever you gotta go. She didn't deserve this.”
While her family planned the vigil and is struggling to figure out how to pay for a sudden funeral, they also want answers from Hillsborough County officials as to why their repeated requests for help with John’s behavior went unresolved.
Blair says they tried to get help from the sheriff’s office and by calling 211, the county’s social services hotline.
“He was homeless and he was a drug addict and he wasn't supposed to be here,” she says. "I've called 211. My mom's called 211."
Calls to 211 in Hillsborough County go to the Crisis Center of Tampa Bay, which declined to directly confirm or deny the claims but its CEO said it's possible there are gaps in the system.
“I'm sorry you didn't get the help and support that you needed," CEO Clara Reynolds said. “I'm hopeful that we can learn from this as a system of care, to figure out where were the places where we could have intervened better, whether that's at the Crisis Center or any of the other agencies that may be involved with this family.”
John Aylor remains in jail; he made his first court appearance Wednesday afternoon and is scheduled to be back in court on Friday.
Court records released after his first appearance today revealed some new details in the case.
In a pretrial detention motion filed by prosecutors, they say the knife used was similar to other knives Aylor had in her kitchen and that investigators later found her phone with her son’s fingerprint on it. They want him to remain in jail until trial.
At the vigil, the family has one focus.
“I just want my mom to be remembered as a wonderful person,” Blair said. “I want everybody to know that my mom loved them and that she was full of love.”