MUSKEGON, MI – The parents of Julia Charlene Merfeld, the Muskegon woman caught on video trying to hire a hit man to kill her husband, say their daughter isn't evil, wasn't angry at the intended victim and does have a conscience.

But, they say, she did a “stupid” thing – an action they believe she sincerely regrets -- in hopes of getting a big payoff.

Christina and Joe Antonaccio of Keyport, N.J., at the July 30, 2013, sentencing of their daughter Julia Merfeld, for solicitation to murder her husband.

“I think she saw the money,” said Joe Antonaccio, Julia Merfeld’s father. “There are a lot of things more important that she should have thought about – right and wrong,” for one.

But, both parents said, they support their now-remorseful 21-year-old daughter without excusing her crime.

In a telephone interview Friday, Sept. 6, with MLive and the Muskegon Chronicle, Joe and Christina Antonaccio of Keyport, N.J., spoke of their daughter, her still-loyal husband and their own reactions to her shocking crime.

The motive: Julia's husband, Jake Merfeld, had a $400,000 life insurance policy as a member of the U.S. Coast Guard, a career the Antonaccios said he has left.

Jake Merfeld, 27, has declined to be interviewed. So has Julia Merfeld, who's now lodged at Huron Valley Complex Women's Correction Facility in Ypsilanti.

'Absolutely horrified'

When Christina first heard about Julia’s crime and arrest, “I was absolutely horrified. I was numb for about a week, just in disbelief ... to think this was something she could be capable of doing.”

Her prevailing emotion was fury at her daughter.

“I was angry,” she said. “I was infuriated beyond belief that one of my children was not only capable of doing this but stupid enough to do this.

“My first reaction was I didn’t even want to talk to her. I didn’t want to even contact her. But after the original emotion of being angry and upset, I realized, she is my daughter, I do love her, even though I don’t condone at all what she did.”

Christina finally decided “I did want to reach out for her (and find out) was she going to be remorseful, was she going to be regretful, what was going to be her reaction? That determined my reaction.”

And, Christina said, her daughter’s reaction was genuine remorse “when she realized what a stupid thing, what an awful thing she had done ... . She even said, ‘I’m glad I got caught for trying, rather than if I had not got caught and even got away with it.’”

Christina says Julia “not once blamed anyone. She didn’t blame us, she didn’t blame Jake ... . She could have blamed him and totally made a bad situation worse. She owned up everything, it was totally her doing. She said, ‘I deserve punishment, I deserve jail. I deserve to be here the rest of my life. I don’t want it, but I deserve it.’

“At least she listened to that part of what we taught her.”

'Started out as a joke'

Julia Merfeld was sentenced July 30 to a prison term of at least five years and eight months but no more than 20 years after pleading guilty to solicitation to murder.

She was caught on video in the act of what she believed was hiring a killer. The “hit man” was actually an undercover Michigan State Police detective. The secretly recorded conversations took place April 9 and 10, 2013, in the detective’s vehicle parked outside the Harvey Street Meijer store in Fruitport Township.

Joe Antonaccio believes the idea of the contract killing “kind of started out as a joke ... the joke was always ‘you’re worth more dead than alive,’” based on the Coast Guard life insurance policy. He said he later learned Julia had spoken with others in that vein, months before she tried to hire a hit man.

At some point, he believes, the thought moved from a joke to a possibility for her.

In conversations with her parents after her arrest, Joe Antonaccio said, “she said she was sorry she didn’t listen when she was growing up. ... She said, 'If I had just listened when I was growing up I wouldn’t be here.'”

He believes part of her problem is that she married and moved away from parental influence while young, marrying at 18.

“It was just tough, 800 miles away from us. ... She really needed to concentrate on being a mom and a wife. It was not so much her thing ... that’s where she started to go wrong. How she got to ‘help me have my husband killed’ is beyond me,” Joe said.

The Merfelds have a 4-year-old daughter and 2-year-old son, who live with Jake in Muskegon.

'He's been totally wonderful'

The Antonaccios have nothing but praise for Jake, who has stood by his wife and still maintains contact with her parents. He and the Antonaccios sat together in the courtroom for Julia’s sentencing, at which Jake – speaking to the judge -- called the wife who tried to have him killed “a wonderful person ... a godly woman.”

“It doesn’t mean he doesn’t go through the emotions of anger and shock,” Christina said. “He does go through, ‘How am I going to trust her?’ ... I say, take it one step at a time. We say we’re going to be behind you no matter what you decide.

“We never once told him to stay with her, not once, that was all totally him,” Christina said. “We say, if you leave her and divorce her, we’ll totally understand ... . He’s been totally wonderful.

“I said (to Jake), ‘I’m sorry my daughter’s not who we thought she was.’ He said, ‘She is now.’”

No conscience?

The Antonaccios are still baffled about how their daughter came to do what she did.

She wasn’t angry, they said. “No, just stupid,” Christina said. “I can’t really classify it any differently.”

“Julia’s not an angry person,” Joe said. “That’s one of the things that’s so perplexing to us. She wasn’t angry, she wasn’t abused, she wasn’t drunk, she wasn’t doing drugs.”

Asked if they believe their daughter has a conscience, Christina said, “I do believe she does. I don’t know where it was when she did this.

“I look at children, especially young adults that age, they think they’re immortal. They think things aren’t going to touch them, aren’t going to faze them. ... Once she saw what was going on (after her arrest), reality kicked her right in the face.”

“I will tell you one thing about Julia,” Joe said. “If this had gone through, I don’t think she would have been able to live with this easily ... she would have eventually spilled her guts to somebody and gotten caught anyway. It would have really torn her up inside. And she’s very, very glad (she failed and was caught), and I believe that.”

That video

They said their daughter hasn’t seen the now-famous video. They have.

On the video, which went viral and made headlines worldwide after MLive posted excerpts July 8, Julia Merfeld discusses her murder plan in a matter-of-fact, almost casual manner. Occasionally she laughs. She calmly discusses possible dates for the killing, checking her calendar on her Batman-stickered smartphone.

At one point she tells the fake hit man she wanted her husband killed because “it would be easier than divorcing him.” She tells him it’s better to shoot Jake outside because a shooting indoors “would be messy in the house,” then laughs.

Joe said the laughing and the off-hand manner don’t mean Julia is “evil”; it’s how she responds to stress, he said, the same way he does. “We laugh it off,” he said. “The more stressed we are, the more we laugh. I saw that part of her coming out.”

He said the reason they’ve agreed to do news interviews – something he said Jake doesn’t like – is to try to counteract the bad impression the video made on the public.

“It brings the human side of her back,” Joe said of talking about his daughter publicly. “There’s a lot of hate out there, a lot of preconceived notions.”

They’ve seen the derisive online comments about both Julia and Jake Merfeld, and they wish people would stop judging their daughter and her husband.

'Tone the hate down'

“I would like to say to people that make judgmental statements, you know, walk in my shoes before saying anything,” Christina said. “I definitely believe that Julia needs to face her punishment, she needs to serve time, she needs to face the consequences. ... But when it’s your own child and they’re showing remorse, you support them.”

“People need to tone the hate down,” Joe said. “That’s a tall order.

“I know people look for drama, and people thrive on this stuff. ... She is a human being, Jake is a human being, and they need an opportunity to live their lives without all this judgment and criticism.”

John S. Hausman covers courts, the environment and local government for MLive/Muskegon Chronicle. Email him at jhausman@mlive.com and follow him on Twitter.