The Bus Freezer Killing of Julia Dardar

On January 11, 2022, New Orleans police searching for a missing woman followed an extension cord out the back door of a house in the 2300 block of Pauline Street, in the Upper Ninth Ward. It ran to a padlocked, graffiti-covered school bus in the back yard. Inside the bus was a deep freezer, kept powered. Inside the freezer were the dismembered remains of Julia Dardar, 36. The owner of the house, Benjamin Beale, then 34, was indicted for second-degree murder, which in Louisiana carries a mandatory life sentence. Four years later he pleaded guilty to manslaughter. He was sentenced to 30 years.

Julia Dardar

Julia Dardar was the mother of two teenage daughters. Her estranged husband, Micah Dardar, of Slidell, told WVUE Fox 8 they had been together since 2002, “since she was a teenager and I was in college.” He remembered the days when they worked on cars together. He said she developed a methamphetamine addiction about a year before her death and left him and their daughters after they asked her to get help in June 2021. She then met Beale, known to friends as Kelley, who Micah Dardar said enabled her addiction. He told Fox 8 that she and Beale went to California at the end of that summer and came back with the old school bus.

“She would want to be remembered as a good mother because she tried her best, we had our ups and downs,” he said.

The Missing Person Report

Micah Dardar said he had tried to get her an order of protective custody and had alerted several levels of law enforcement. He said she violated a protective order after returning from California to take tools from him, and that it was not enforced. On December 20, 2021, someone told him she had disappeared from Beale’s house a few days earlier. He reported her missing to the NOPD in December. He told Fox 8 that Beale was using her car and would not cooperate with police he sent to the house on a welfare check. According to Fox 8, Beale told police he had not seen her since mid-December but had not reported it. Her mother-in-law, Patricia Dardar, wrote on social media that relatives went to the property on January 5, 2022, to collect Julia’s belongings. WDSU reported that police canvassed the street that weekend, asking neighbors whether they smelled anything.

The Search

According to the arrest affidavit, as reported by WDSU, NOPD officers went to the house on Tuesday, January 11, about the missing person report. Beale told them he and Dardar had been having relationship problems and allowed them to search the property. In the freezer they found a woman’s remains and a reciprocating saw with flesh and fluid on it. Deep cuts on the shoulder and arms were believed to have been made after death. A face shield, goggles and garbage bags lay beside the freezer. NOPD sources told WDSU that the head had been cut off and many body parts were wrapped in plastic.

Inside the house, detectives found what they called a clandestine methamphetamine lab, with kerosene, propane, acetone, glass dishes holding white powder and a Coleman grill. The conditions were dangerous enough that the homicide search could not be completed, and the Louisiana State Police Narcotics Division was called in. In a black safe in Beale’s bedroom closet, opened with keys he handed over, detectives found a bifold wallet, a plush turtle purse, mushrooms, and Dardar’s ID and credit cards.

Beale was taken to police headquarters and refused to give a statement. He was booked that night on obstruction of justice in a death investigation, plus illegal carrying of a weapon in the presence of controlled dangerous substances, distribution of methamphetamine, possession with intent to distribute marijuana, and two counts of creating or operating a clandestine drug lab. Fox 8 reported he had no prior arrests in Orleans Parish. Bond was set at $400,000.

The Murder Charge

On Friday, January 14, 2022, NOPD booked Beale with second-degree murder, and a further $1 million bond was added. On January 19, the Orleans Parish coroner formally identified the remains as Julia Dardar and gave the cause of death as blunt force injuries of the head and neck with asphyxia due to manual strangulation.

Fox 8 reported that Beale, who also used the name Kelley Kirkpatrick, had posted online a photo with a sticker of Dexter Morgan, the fictional serial killer, in November 2021, a little over a month before Dardar went missing. Other photos showed him in a white disposable jumpsuit and goggles holding a gun.

The Preliminary Hearing

At a preliminary hearing that ran past midnight into February 9, 2022, Magistrate Commissioner Albert Thibodeaux found probable cause to hold Beale on all counts. Two detectives testified: Michael Flores of the Fifth District, who arrested Beale, and homicide detective Rayell Johnson, who led the murder investigation. Johnson testified that the saw and cleaning supplies near the freezer were traced to a purchase Beale made at a West Bank Harbor Freight store on the same December day he told police he last saw Dardar, and that store cameras recorded him buying them days before she was reported missing.

By then Beale’s charges also included simple assault of a different woman. Total bond stood at $1,405,000. The court ordered that if he made bond he would be on an ankle monitor and 24-hour house arrest, and would have to sign stay-away orders covering Dardar’s husband, children and relatives. He signed the orders but, on his lawyers’ advice, refused to answer standard questions about any history of domestic violence. His defense lawyers were Billy Sothern and Christopher Murell.

Indictment

On May 5, 2022, an Orleans Parish grand jury indicted Beale on eight counts: second-degree murder; obstruction of justice in a homicide investigation; creation or operation of a clandestine drug laboratory; operating one within 1,000 feet of a school; illegal carrying of a weapon with a controlled dangerous substance; possession with intent to distribute methamphetamine; possession with intent to distribute psilocybin; and simple assault. District Attorney Jason Williams announced the indictment the next day. “What Ms. Dardar experienced is absolutely tragic and egregious,” he said.

Fox 8 reported that the simple assault count came from Beale’s former wife, who came forward after his arrest and said he was violent when using drugs and had threatened to cut her into pieces. Beale pleaded not guilty to all eight counts on May 17, 2022. The bus was removed from the property around the same time. Sothern told the Associated Press the defense would keep investigating Beale’s mental health.

The Plea

A trial expected in August 2025 was delayed, WDSU reported. On February 3, 2026, prosecutors dropped every count except murder and amended that count to manslaughter, which carries up to 40 years. Beale pleaded guilty. Criminal District Court Judge Benedict Willard sentenced him to 30 years with credit for time served. Fox 8, reading the court record, gives the sentencing date as February 3; WDSU gives February 4. Court records listed the case closed as of February 6. Beale was transferred from the Orleans Justice Center to a state prison facility on March 24, 2026.

The district attorney’s office did not publicize the deal. Fox 8 reported it on March 24, 2026. At a press conference the next day, Williams said the defense had planned an insanity defense and there was a real risk it could succeed. “This resolution was reached in very close consultation with the victim’s family,” he said. The plea, he said, required Beale to accept responsibility aloud, and “there will be no appeals of this case.” He said his office would oppose parole if Beale becomes eligible.

The Family

Micah Dardar released a statement, quoted by WDSU. “What happened to Julia was brutal. No plea, no sentence, and no passage of time can change what was taken from her, from our daughters, and from everyone who loved her,” he wrote. “I do not believe the final outcome reflects the full weight of this crime.” He thanked the Fifth District officers, the detectives, prosecutors and search volunteers, and said his frustration was with “a system that can leave the public side under-resourced.” He ended: “Julia was not just a case. She was loved. She mattered. Our daughters matter.”

Legal Status

Benjamin Beale pleaded guilty to manslaughter in the death of Julia Dardar and is serving a 30-year sentence in Louisiana state custody. The murder, drug, weapons, obstruction and assault counts were dismissed. He was never convicted of murder. Under the plea he waived appeal. He may become eligible for parole at some point; the district attorney has said he will oppose it.

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