Husband charged in death of Milwaukee woman Tomitka Jurnett-Stewart

Tomitka Jurnett-Stewart, 41, wanted out.

The mother of 10 had grown weary of the fighting and arguing with her husband. She also had enough of explaining to coworkers the origin of the bruises and black eyes that weren’t there the day before.

To hear her father tell the story, her ambition may have gotten her killed.

“She was ready to move on,” Tommy Jurnett told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. “And that future didn’t include him.”

Prosecutors filed charges Tuesday against her husband, Jerrod Stewart, accusing him of first-degree homicide.

Stewart was in custody in Minneapolis, where Milwaukee police investigators traveled to interview him.

Police found Jurnett-Stewart's body inside the trunk of her car April 17 on the 4500 block of North 29th Street. She had been stabbed 49 times and sustained blunt-force trauma to her head.

Prosecutors also charged Stewart with felony bail jumping; he had been released from custody on GPS monitoring in a domestic violence case involving Jurnett-Stewart.

Stewart appeared on the inmate logs Tuesday at the jail in Hennepin County, Minnesota. It was unclear immediately when he would be returned to Milwaukee County.

In a criminal complaint released Tuesday, Jurnett-Stewart's red Dodge Avenger was seen on surveillance video from North Division High School, near 11th and Clarke streets, on the night of April 14. The school is around the corner from where she was last seen.

The footage showed the Dodge parked on Clarke. A gray Mitsubishi pulled up behind it around 7:15 p.m. The driver of the Mitsubishi is seen getting out and into the front passenger seat of the red Dodge.

According to the complaint, what "appeared to be movement" in the Dodge is seen on the video around 8 p.m. The passenger who arrived in the gray Mitsubishi then got out, entered the driver's seat of the Dodge and drove off.

The original driver of the Dodge, later identified as Jurnett-Stewart, never emerged from the vehicle.

The next day, the camera recorded footage of a white Ford. According to the complaint, the Ford parked, and a passenger got out and got into the gray Mitsubishi across the street.

Jurnett-Stewart's Dodge was fitted with a GPS device. Its data showed her car was on the 4400 block of Hopkins at 9:52 p.m. It was driven at 6 a.m. April 15 to 29th and Glendale streets and was parked there.

Police found the Dodge on April 17 with Tomitka Stewart dead in the trunk, the complaint states.

A family member told investigators that Jerrod Stewart had previously "threatened to kill" his wife, the complaint said.

Milwaukee County court records shows Stewart has a criminal history connected to domestic abuse. Some of the cases name Jurnett-Stewart as the victim.

Stewart was most recently arrested in January. At that time, he was charged with strangulation and suffocation with domestic abuse enhancements, intimidation a victim of a domestic abuse crime, disorderly conduct and battery.

Online court records show he posted a $5,000 bond in February and was required to wear an electronic monitoring device.

Stewart failed to show for a court hearing on April 18 — the day after Jurnett-Stewart’s body was discovered — and an arrest warrant was issued that day.

Tommy Jurnett said he first learned his daughter was missing April 14. That day, his 22-year-old grandson called to say Jurnett-Stewart hadn't come home.

That wasn’t like her.

Jurnett, a former Nashville police officer, said he told his grandson to check in the following day. She still hadn’t surfaced. That’s when Jurnett told his grandson to call the police.

Other family soon started spreading the word, turning to the internet for help finding Jurnett-Stewart or her red vehicle.

Employees at the Jersey Mike's where she worked also grew concerned when she failed to show for work.

Jurnett said his daughter recently was notified she would soon be promoted to a supervisory position, potentially earning her enough money to move to a better neighborhood and make other life-changing decisions.

One of those decisions, he said, was to start fresh with a new life that no longer included Stewart.

"She had made her decision. She was moving on up," Jurnett said. "She may have gone there to meet him, knowing that was going to be her last ride. But getting through that meant getting on with her life."

This article originally appeared on Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: Husband charged in death of Milwaukee woman Tomitka Jurnett-Stewart