Charges: Northern Minnesota man accused of murdering wife sent email about killing

(FOX 9) - In a criminal complaint filed Monday against a northern Minnesota man, investigators say he sent an email on his wife's murder before the body was discovered by law enforcement.

Sixty-five-year-old Raymond Julian is now charged with murder in the case.

The Carlton County Sheriff's Office says it responded to Julian's home on Heiskari Road in Kalevala Township last Friday for a welfare check. Investigators say they were called by a person who had received the email from Julian which deputies say implied he planned to murder his wife.

When deputies arrived at his home, around 2:30 p.m., they spotted Julian walking out a door at a pole building near the home. When the deputy told Julian he was there to check on him and his wife, Julian said he was doing fine, but his wife was "ill and in bed," the complaint reads. Julian said he didn't want the deputy to check on his wife, but the deputy insisted, saying the couple wasn't in trouble.

At that point, deputies say Julian admitted to the crime, saying the deputy would have to arrest him.

"Officers continued to speak with [Julian] and he stated, ‘My wife is dead, she’s in bed,'" the charges read. When asked if there was any chance his wife was still alive, deputies said Julian said, "no."

Julian told deputies that there was a shotgun on the kitchen counter with a revolver and no one else was inside the home.

Inside the pole building, deputies found the wife's body, obviously dead, on a bed inside a partially-finished living area investigators write.

Autopsy results are still pending, but investigators say Julian's wife had been shot twice, once in the head and once in the chest.

Julian is being held on $1 million bail.