Julia Katherine Cvicker, a 25-year-old White/Caucasian woman, was killed on June 17, 2025, in a shooting at the Aspen Square Apartments on North Pontiac Drive in Janesville, Wisconsin. Julia was a mother of two young children and had devoted much of her working life to caring for others. She had earned her CNA certification and later created Guiding Hands Living Support Services, a business providing assistance to seniors and hospice patients while also helping military veterans obtain
benefits. Her family described her as someone who routinely put other people’s needs before her own and said her willingness to help another woman escape an abusive situation ultimately placed her in the circumstances that led to her death.
Shortly after 11:00 a.m. on June 17, Janesville police were called to the Aspen Square Apartments after authorities first received information about what was described as a family problem. A 911 report of gunfire followed. Officers responded to an apartment in the 2600 block of North Pontiac Drive and encountered a scene involving four people who had been shot. Three people were already dead or were pronounced dead at the scene, including Julia, her boyfriend Scott Minot Roberts, and Jahvarius Wicks. A fourth person, Haylee R. Lounsbury, was found critically wounded. Officers and emergency personnel provided lifesaving treatment before she was taken to a hospital.
Lounsbury survived for several days but died from her injuries on June 23, bringing the death toll from the shooting to four. She had been employed by Guiding Hands, the caregiving business Julia founded. Julia’s family later explained that Julia and Roberts had gone to help an employee leave an abusive relationship and retrieve belongings. Police independently reported that one of the victims had previously been in a relationship with Wicks and had come to the apartment to collect personal possessions. Investigators characterized the underlying circumstances as involving a domestic relationship between two of the people involved.
During the initial investigation, police recovered a firearm near one of the deceased individuals. Authorities initially withheld the identity of the person believed responsible while detectives, the Rock County Medical Examiner’s Office, and other investigators worked to reconstruct what had occurred inside the apartment. By July 18, 2025, Janesville police announced the conclusion of that portion of the investigation: Jahvarius Wicks was determined to have shot Julia Cvicker, Scott Roberts, and Haylee Lounsbury before turning the gun on himself.
The findings established Julia’s death as part of a triple homicide followed by the gunman’s suicide rather than an attack involving an unidentified offender who remained at large. Police said there was no continuing threat to the public after the shooting. Because Wicks died at the scene, there was no arrest and there could be no criminal prosecution, trial, or conviction arising from the killings.
Julia’s death was particularly painful to those who knew her because helping people in difficult circumstances had become a central part of her life. She was herself described by her family as a survivor of domestic violence and had developed a strong desire to assist women and children facing similar situations. What began as an effort to help someone retrieve belongings and leave a troubled relationship ended with Julia and Roberts being fatally shot, Lounsbury suffering injuries that claimed her life days later, and Wicks dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound. Julia left behind her two children and a family who remembered her as a compassionate caregiver whose effort to protect and support another person placed her in the path of the violence that took her life.
