Crime Junkie - MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Michelle O’Connell

Episode Date: October 26, 2020

When a young mom is killed by her boyfriend's service weapon, local law enforcement treat her death as a terrible tragedy and rule it a suicide. But her family believes the truth is much more sinister.For current Fan Club membership options and policies, please visit https://crimejunkieapp.com/library/. Sources for this episode cannot be listed here due to character limitations. For a full list of sources, please visit https://crimejunkiepodcast.com/mysterious-death-michelle-oconnell. 

Hi Crime Junkies, I'm your host Ashley Flowers, and I'm Britt, and the story I have for you today is a real roller coaster. When a bright young woman dies from a gunshot right after landing her dream job, the local sheriff's office is quick to declare that she died by suicide. But with unanswered questions and issues around the investigation, others aren't so sure. This is the story of Michelle O'Connell. In early September of 2010, a young woman in St. Augustine, Florida named Michelle O'Connell is over the moon excited because at 24 years old she's just gotten her dream job at a daycare

center. Michelle's a single mom raising her four-year-old daughter Alexis, who she calls Lexi, all on her own, so she's spent the past few years working multiple jobs at a time to support them both. But now she'll be able to have just this one job working full-time with one of her old high school teachers. The best thing, though, is that this job has benefits. So for the first time in her life, Michelle's going to have health insurance, and she'll

be able to get coverage for Alexis, too. And she's literally, like, actually bragging to her new boss that she's not even sick, but she's just going to go to the doctor anyway just because she finally can. Now, even though her professional life is on this upswing, Michelle knows that her personal life needs some work. She's been having issues with her boyfriend, this guy named Jeremy Banks, who's a deputy in the St. John's County Sheriff's Office. They've been dating for about a year, and she and Alexis live with him at his house.

But Michelle's been pretty honest with her family that their relationship just isn't going to last much longer. According to Denise Martinez-Ramundo and Lauren Efron's reporting for ABC News, Michelle has lunch with her sister Chrissy on September 2, 2010, and actually tells her that she has a plan to break up with Jeremy that very same night after this Paramore concert that they had tickets to and that she was planning to attend with Jeremy and her brother Sean. Now, as they're talking about this, something in Chrissy's gut starts kind of warning her about this whole situation.

Like it feels to her like a bad idea. And she tells Michelle like, listen, I don't think you should go to this show. But Michelle's like, listen, I already bought the tickets. What's done is done. I'm going. So she ends up going and during the show, Michelle starts sending her siblings kind of these weird cryptic text messages. But after the show, she texts Chrissy like normal and things seem okay.

And she tells her that she'll be over to get Alexis soon. But she never comes to pick up her daughter. At 11.25 p.m., 911 Dispatch gets a frantic phone call from Michelle's boyfriend, Jeremy. The New York Times published part of the call in 2013. And here I want all of you to take a listen. 911. Hey. Please get something to my house and force 700 strong.

Please. What's going on? My girlfriend, I think she just shot herself in the blood, please. She what? She shot herself. Please. Okay. It's ma'am.

Ma'am, I need you to calm down. Ma'am, listen to me. Ma'am, listen to me. Ma'am, listen to me. Ma'am, listen. Hang on. Let me tell you the truth. I'm deaf.

You guys have to take those kind of share phones. I work with y'all. Get someone here now. Okay. I need you to calm down. Then you know how it goes. What's the address? I don't.

4,700 Sherlock Place. Okay. What's going on there? My girlfriend just shot herself with my C-weapon. Please get someone here now. Please. Sir, we're doing that. What I'm talking to you.

Is she still breathing? No. There's blood coming out of everywhere. Please. Okay. She's not breathing. Call dispatch on tact two. Get them here now.

Sir, they are on the phone. I need you to calm down. Please, please, please. Ma'am, listen to me. Ma'am, listen to me. We're coming as fast as we can. Okay? Calm down for me.

Okay? You don't understand. We're coming as fast as we can. Ma'am, listen to me. Get someone here. Ma'am, listen to me. Okay. So, when I first listened to this 911 call, I was like, okay, this guy making the call

seems pretty hysterical. Oh, yeah. You know, it seems to be emotion and panic, fear in his voice, but you know what else there is that I didn't catch at first till I re-listened while reading the statement analysis blog on this call? What's that? There is a suggestion as to what happened. He says, I think my girlfriend just shot herself.

Yeah. I assume what you think is strange about that is that he's like 20 seconds in and basically telling the operator what happened. Is that what you found strange? Yeah. And especially like offering it up. The operator didn't even ask, you know, like, he's just like, uh, I think this is what's going on.

Yes. But to be fair, like, so when I first heard this call and I haven't gone through the analysis like you have, you're right, like I first hear like what sounds like genuine panic. And to me, there's things, trust me, that stood out to me in this call, but that actually wasn't one of them because, you know, if we're to believe the series of events that unfolded, I mean, he was in the house with her. Like it would be pretty obvious to him and I could see myself if I was in that situation, that being the thing that I say 20 seconds in, like I'm in a house with my partner, they've

shot themselves. So a little strange, perhaps, but I also don't think it points to guilt necessarily. Yeah. But he does kind of center everything around him, like get someone to my house. That's true. He never really says she needs help. Someone needs help, et cetera. And again, like you said, for only 20 seconds into this call and like any 911 operator would

have to do with me, they're trying to calm him down, which makes 100% sense because like I said, you can hear this heightened emotion in his voice in this call. But what they do is they, I mean, you heard the call. It's a high pitched voice. It's someone who's having a hard time expressing what's going on. The operator actually calls him ma'am, ma'am, please calm down, ma'am, you need to listen. And that is where everything kind of completely changes for me because I agree. That was the moment in the call that I think things shift for sure.

And statement analysis blog mentions how the caller says, you know, it's Mr. It's Mr. It's sir. It's sir. And it's more than just correcting the mistake. The blog even says it's demanding his respect. He wants to be called sir. He wants to be the masculine force in the situation. Well, and what I thought was so strange about that, I didn't read so much into it like the

statement analysis blog did, but even just like the fact that it took you out of the moment so much, like again, if my partner had just taken their own life in our house that we live in together and someone were to call me sir on the phone, obviously I identify as a woman. The most important thing to you in that moment would not be, I don't care. Call me whatever you want as long as you get someone in my house to help me kind of thing. Exactly. Yeah.

And then this is what kind of kicked it for me when I was reading the post about this call. He says, listen, hang on. Let me tell you the truth. The truth. I heard that too. And so statement analysis is like, okay, what does that mean? Whatever he said before maybe wasn't the truth.

Yeah. That line stuck out to me like a sore thumb and I mean, he could be trying to kind of just like bolster whatever he's about to tell them, like I like give some kind of weight to it. Yeah. It just makes like another qualifier for what he's saying, I guess. Yeah. But I mean, again, I can see both sides of it because again, if I'm making this call,

I would assume like everything I'm telling you, I don't think that would be a phrase that would come out of my mouth, granted. We say it all the time. You have no idea what's going to come out of your mouth, but yeah, like why makes a special note to say what I'm about to tell you is the truth. It almost disqualifies everything he said before that to me at least. Yeah. I don't know.

I don't know. And when you say like bolstering what he's about to tell them, I think we also need to go back to the fact that he doesn't use his name when he tells the operator who he is. He says deputy banks, not Jeremy banks. So he's kind of using his authority, his sense of duty, respect, honor to make this more important than maybe the operator is taking it. And I noticed too, he's now demanding that someone gets there now. And at the beginning of the call, he says, you know, please, please, please.

He's very like urgent and begging. And on top of that statement analysis points out that he doesn't think she shot herself now. He is now saying that she did shoot herself and not only that, but with his service weapon, which is a big difference than I think she shot herself in the first 20 seconds of the call. Yeah. And this is where there's kind of a shift, right?

Like you said in the beginning, he's like, please, please help me asking for stuff. And then he kind of starts demanding stuff and telling the dispatcher a little bit like how to do. Almost giving her orders. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Giving her orders.

Oh, and the blog definitely points that out. Once that is all out, his calmer, more straightforward demeanor switches off and back to the hysterics of the beginning of the call. Yeah. And again, I can see this both ways, right? Like I think somebody who's super skeptical will look at this and say, you're clearly putting on a show and you're turning it on and off when you need to or when you, you know, when you can't keep the show going or you know, someone upsets you and no, it's

Mr. It's Sir. Right. Right. I also kind of look at this again as someone who is very type A. Some might call me controlling. Oh, really? Yeah. Yeah. Crazy, right?

I think that's how, if I was in this situation and panicking, like I'm already like making a plan and thinking 10 steps ahead. And if I don't feel like I'm getting the response that I need, like the urgency that I need. You will shift gears to try to achieve that. Yeah. I'll shift gears and I will start giving orders. Like, so I understand, I don't know if that's his personality type, but I can understand being panicked and being terrified.

And when no one is giving me the help, I think that they like should be. I can imagine being like, listen, like you need to do X, Y and Z to make sure we like get this done. And I can see myself like going into that mode and once I feel like someone else can take it from there, like then kind of letting go and going back to panicking. Right. Right. And I can, like you said, like I can see that side of it too.

But something else that stuck out to me and I think you and statement analysis is he never once says Michelle's name. Yeah. Yeah. I noticed. And every single time he talks better and just like statement analysis, other posts about the call says he only talks about Michelle as she relates to him and kind of uses language that distances him from her.

Like she's his girlfriend or just she never Michelle or even my girlfriend, Michelle. Nothing like that. No, no connection. Right. Like you would think it would be if it's something you cared about, it's their name, you know, it's their individuality potentially, right? And again, both sides of it devil's advocate here. It also could be maybe part of like the training he's had on the job, maybe that separation.

Yeah. Yeah. Where I understand that it's happening to him at this point and it's in his home. I don't know that that's the reason I don't know this guy, but that could that be a reason for not saying her name is it's more just like, here are the facts I need you to get here. There's a woman. It doesn't matter that her name is Michelle.

She needs help. Now, obviously, you know, this is the call that comes in. We could continue to spin on this for days, but they do get help to the house. So some of the very first responders on the scene are actually Jeremy's coworkers. So they're familiar with both him and Michelle. Just like Jeremy said, there is Michelle on her back bleeding out from a gunshot wound. According to Walt Bogdanich and Glenn Silber's reporting in the New York Times, Jeremy's service weapon is laying near Michelle's body with the tactical light still on, which

matches up with Jeremy's claim that we heard on the 911 call that she shot herself. Her open purse is sitting in the kitchen and first responders can see two prescription pill bottles inside, but when they look for the pills themselves, those are actually found in Michelle's right pocket. Despite the EMTs trying to take life-saving measures, it's no use. All is pronounced dead around 11.48 p.m. that night, right there at the house. While the scene is being processed, the St. John's Sheriff's Office really rallies around Jeremy.

I mean, there were even officers who weren't assigned to the case who were like showing up to support him. I mean, even his commanding officer, whose off duty comes over. Now, instead of taking him down to the station to interview him about what happened here, they actually turn a squad car into like this makeshift interview room so Jeremy can tell his story comfortably with his CEO up in the front seat listening in. As he tells it, they did actually break up that night in the car on their way home from the show, just like Michelle told her sister she was planning on doing.

And Jeremy says that they argued about it before coming to a mutual decision to end things. Well, at least that's how he first positions it. If you go to the New York Times piece I just mentioned, they've actually got a full transcript of his interview. And what's really interesting is how he shifts from saying it was mutual, like this breakup was, they decided it was like best for both of them, to kind of hinting that it was his idea for them to break up.

Wait, but don't we know that it was Michelle's idea? We at least know that that's what Michelle was telling her sister, you know, what Jeremy may have thought before or told people before. I don't know. But I would say at a bare minimum, even if he were thinking that mutual is probably the best way to describe it. Right. At that point, if they were both thinking it, then it actually is mutual.

Right. Anyway, he says they'd calm down by the time they got back to his house where Michelle went inside to start packing up some of her stuff. Then Jeremy says he asked her for one last kiss. When Michelle said no and asked him to leave, he went out to the garage to sit on his motorcycle. And he says, while he's out there, he hears an all too familiar popping sound. Jeremy says he ran into the house looking for Michelle and found the bedroom door locked. Then there was another horrible popping sound.

At which point he says he kicked down the door and found Michelle on the floor bleeding. Where exactly was she shot? Was he able to do CPR or anything? So she was shot basically in the mouth from the front. And she did still have a pulse according to an ABC News piece I read from April of 2018. But Jeremy didn't try any kind of life-saving measures, which to be fair, even for law enforcement, there's a huge difference in reacting to a wounded stranger versus a loved one. But no.

I don't know if he even checked for a pulse. I don't know if the first thing he did was call 911, but he did not try any kind of life-saving measures. So at this point is when he says he dials 911 and that's his story of what happened to Michelle. Michelle died by suicide, this terrible tragedy. And the St. John's Sheriff's Office seems to kind of just take Jeremy's word at face value here, even though Michelle didn't leave a note and there are no witnesses to corroborate

this story. But even though Jeremy's adamant about how Michelle died, not everyone believes this story, including Michelle's family. Right from the second they're notified, they have serious doubts. Like they are notified on the night Michelle died. And according to her mom and her oldest sister, Jennifer, when they were interviewed on Frontline, that night they're told Michelle died by suicide. So within a few hours of her death, before any kind of, I would imagine, real investigation

can be done, and before the medical examiner makes an official ruling. Yeah. I guess my question is why are they even saying that if that's not even been ruled her official manner of death yet? I don't know. I mean, the O'Connell family is totally shocked by what they're being told. And they absolutely do not believe that Michelle was capable of taking her own life. In fact, they think Michelle was in danger that night.

Because to her family, this wasn't just any kind of breakup. Because Jeremy and Michelle's private life may have been much darker than it appeared in public. The O'Connell's believe Michelle and Jeremy's relationship was more than just unhappy. They think it was violent, and they firmly believe Michelle was a victim of domestic abuse. And you know, we touched on this at the top of the month when we did our episode specifically on domestic violence. When there is domestic violence in a relationship, that period of breaking it off, we said is

often the most dangerous time for survivors. So again, we know that Michelle was planning on breaking up with Jeremy the night she died. And we know from Jeremy that they did actually end their relationship. Now I think it's important to point out here that Jeremy Banks has never been charged with committing domestic violence against Michelle O'Connell. And he's always denied being violent towards her. But multiple members of her family do make some pretty disturbing allegations about his behavior.

Her mom told PBS's frontline that Jeremy was very controlling and that Michelle was getting isolated from her family, which again, we just did this this month, that is a huge red flag in any relationship. And according to Michelle's sister, Chrissy, in a recording from that same frontline episode, Michelle told her about specific things Jeremy did to her, like choking her, hitting her in the head and unwanted sexual behavior, as well as quote unquote, play wrestling that once got so out of control that Michelle allegedly suffered vaginal bleeding. Again, these are all allegations and have never been proven in a court of law, but you

can totally see how hearing about things like this happening in Michelle's relationship would terrify her family and make them fear for her safety. According to the O'Connell's though, when they try and tell the St. John's Sheriff's office about this and try to give statements the night Michelle dies, Chrissy says the department claims the allegations of abuse are basically just hearsay and not useful to them in their investigation. So they don't take statements from her family or ask them anything about how Michelle was acting in the days before her death.

What? Yeah, which again, seems totally strange to me. I would think that as part of any kind of true investigation into something. Especially into a possible suicide. Yeah, you want to know about what's going on in that person's life as a whole in the days leading up to their death. And specifically like how are their relationships, I mean, more than anything, I'd want to know about the relationship of the man she lived with because she died in his home with his

service weapon seems relevant to me. But what do I know? According to Denise Martinez, Ramundo and Lauren Efron's reporting for ABC News, it takes just two days for the medical examiner Dr. Hoban to declare Michelle's death officially a suicide. The autopsy finds she died from a severed spinal cord. And when they do the rest of the autopsy, they also notice that there is a cut above her right eye that the medical examiner attributes to the shell casing basically being ejected

when she fired the gun. And when they looked at her toxicology, they found that she did have alcohol in her system. But there's no trace of any pills in her system, which if you remember, she had those two empty pill bottles in her purse that were actually prescribed to Jeremy and then just like a bunch of pills in her pocket. Now, some of the pills were hydrocodone, which again, those weren't found in her system. Nothing was found in her system. And when they actually look at what was prescribed and what was found, basically all of the pills

from Jeremy's bottles are accounted for. So it would seem that she didn't consume any of them. Well, and finding alcohol in her system doesn't really surprise me. She was at a concert. Right. I definitely drink when I go to shows and I would imagine that she did too. And so I don't think that that was surprising. Now, I said there didn't seem to be much of an investigation, but there was some.

Because the sheriff's office, you know, they're getting the autopsy done, but they also get Michelle's phone records. And I had mentioned that when she was at the show, she was sending some strange text to her siblings. And here, I want you to read me some of the messages, specifically this one that she sent her sister at 8.53 PM on September 2nd. Okay. The text says, quote, promise me one thing.

Lexi will be happy and always have a good life. End quote. Kind of ominous. Right? Yeah. Really ominous. Like it's one thing to be like, Hey, I know you're taking care of her right now. Can you make sure she gets a bedtime story or something?

But this is something much different. Yeah. It's much bigger. It's not just this night. It's like her whole life. And yeah, why won't you be there to ensure that I think it's the question I have instead. And why are we talking about this now while you're a concert? Like this is a conversation, even if it is just like, Hey, you know, always look out

for her. Like a godparent conversation. Yeah. Like if something were to happen to me. Yeah. This is in the middle of a concert. Like you said, this is not the time to be having this conversation. And this isn't just standalone because the records show that she sent her brother Scott

this message at 10.06 PM. So just a little over an hour later, she said, quote, Lexi, never forget end quote. So according to an internal report from the sheriff's office, they believe that these messages show a clearly upset person, one who is feeling low enough to potentially end their own life. And I mean, I have to say like the texts that she's sending are consistent with someone who isn't planning on being around. I mean, I don't disagree, but I also in the situation feel like maybe she was feeling

threatened, not like ready to end her own life, you know, I think that's a great point to make. Because when I see that, I see someone who thinks they potentially might not be around, but that gives no insight into why they think that. Right. Right. Like you said earlier with the devil's advocate thing, like we can't say either way where her emotions were in making these, these communications.

Now the O'Connell family is devastated and they vow to keep the pressure on what they feel is an incomplete investigation, but little do they know they're about to get help from an unexpected source. All the way across the country, out in Washington state, a blogger going by the name cloudwriter comes across this tiny news article that grabs her attention right away. Cloudwriter runs a blog called behind the blue wall, which focuses on police officer involved domestic violence. And she herself is a survivor.

So when she sees a small article in a newspaper mentioning an unnamed deputy's girlfriend in St. Johns County, Florida, dying by a parent suicide with the deputy's service weapon, her curiosity is instantly peaked and she decides to blog about it. In her first version of the post, which is made on September 13th, 2010, cloudwriter cites the whole article on her website, but she doesn't list where she got it from. So I'm not sure what news outlet it actually came from. She just repost it. But in this blog, she mentioned she's looking for both the woman's name and the deputy's

name. And after some digging online, cloudwriter learns their names and updates her post. And she says the woman's name is Michelle O'Connell. Now the blog post blows up. Cloudwriter's super careful not to pass judgment about what might have happened that night. But she's saying the same things that the O'Connell's are saying, that the investigation just wasn't good enough. I wasn't able to find in my research how exactly Michelle's family gets to cloudwriter's blog,

but they eventually do find it. And the comments section becomes kind of like their rallying point to spread awareness and galvanized readers into reaching out to the St. John County Sheriff's Office to request a second investigation. I mean, basically this is like their form of a petition or a call to action. It's like, on our behalf, if you think this is as shady as we do, we're not asking for someone to get arrested. We're asking for a better look into this.

And the pressure pays off. According to the St. Augustine record, in January of 2011, four months after Michelle's death, St. John County Sheriff David Shore reaches out to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the FDLE, and asks them to do an independent investigation. Ashley, I'm going to be honest. This is like the best news I've heard in this entire story. Yeah. But it does make me wonder, why didn't this happen day one?

We know that St. John County Sheriff's was biased in this case. Why not reach out to a third party to investigate this from day one? Well, and not even that they had to have been biased, right? But I think at a minimum, there was a conflict of interest there. One of their deputies was found in the home. So this was something, at least according to the New York Times, that could have been done day one. But as I understand it from my research, it's not a requirement to call in FDLE in cases

where like one of your own... It's like up to that like individual department to make the judgment on whether or not they should. Exactly. And I don't know why they didn't feel like they should do this day one. It's one of the biggest questions I have in this case. But whatever the logic behind not getting the FDLE in right away, I mean, we're here now, right?

The lead on the investigation now for the FDLE is a man named Rusty Rogers. And it doesn't take him long to start gathering evidence that the St. John County Sheriff's Office didn't collect during the initial investigation. And what he turns up is startling. According to Frontline, Rusty finds two witnesses, Jeremy's neighbors, who say that on the night Michelle died, they were out in an open garage having a cigarette when they heard a disturbance. Both women say they heard a female voice scream for help, then a gunshot followed by the woman screaming for help again, and then another gunshot.

After that, it was silence. Why didn't this come up in the first investigation? Well, here's the thing. After one of them was interviewed by the Sheriff's Office during the first investigation, none of Jeremy's neighbors were interviewed. What? That seems like the first thing that you would do. Yeah.

Canvassing a neighborhood is like crime investigation 101. 101. Yeah. Again, if a podcaster knows to do it, it's probably something you should be doing. Now Frontline also mentions that both women passed polygraphs from the U.S. Secret Service. So just finding these two witnesses that had been overlooked for like the first time is huge. Yeah.

But it also like sets up a theme that runs throughout the whole course of Rusty's reinvestigation. He keeps turning up things that somehow got neglected the first time around. The New York Times reported that officers didn't do the required paperwork about what they saw at the scene. They didn't get Jeremy's cellphone records. They didn't isolate him and get pictures like they were supposed to. And they didn't take one of the shirts that he was wearing into evidence. According to Matt Doran's reporting in the Huffington Post, police photos from the scene

even show a bloody shirt with what looks like a bullet hole near Michelle's body. But even that wasn't taken into evidence. I'm sorry. What? Yeah. And here's the thing. None of the forensic evidence that was collected from the scene, like clothes and the gun that was used, none of that was turned over to the labs for testing until after the FDLE came

in and Rusty started investigating. So basically all this stuff has just been sitting there for four months without any DNA tests, no checks for fingerprints, nothing. An internal report from the St. John County Sheriff's Office actually confirms this. But it doesn't say what caused the holdup. But now that the FDLE is involved, all of the forensics that haven't been analyzed finally do go out for testing. Once the forensic test results start coming back, they raise even more questions.

And it's not so much what's there, but really what's not there that raises the questions. Like for example, you would think that since this is Jeremy's service weapon that was used, tests would show his fingerprints and his DNA on both the gun and his gun belt, right? Yeah. I mean, at least on the gun belt because he would be putting it on every day. There isn't any. What?

Michelle's DNA is on the gun, but none of Jeremy's. Even though, according to that Huffington Post piece I mentioned, he wore the belt and the gun to work the same day Michelle died. And Jeremy does deny cleaning his gun before any responders got to the scene. Now in the same vein of missing DNA, where you'd expect to find some, the tests don't find any of Michelle's fingerprints or DNA on Jeremy's pill bottles, even though the bottles were open in her purse and the pills were in her pocket. Okay.

And along those same lines, I read in the St. John County Sheriff's Office report that there were 50 and a half pills in Michelle's pocket and there's no DNA on the pills themselves. Now the report doesn't clarify if that's none of Michelle's DNA, none of Jeremy's DNA or both, but I have to maybe assume both since they say no DNA on any of them. Which to me, if there's no DNA on the pills, it's one thing because you could say she just dumped the pills straight into her pocket from the bottles and didn't put her hands on them. But like you said earlier, we know that her prints and DNA weren't found on the bottles

either, so that doesn't make sense at all. Right. Right. Did they do gunshot residue? Did they do any testing on Michelle and Jeremy? Oh my God. So I got super curious about this one because when I was first researching this case, it sounded like the gunshot residue test didn't happen until months later after the FDLE came

in. You know, when maybe they don't even count. Well, I was gonna say, you can't do that. That's just not how the tests worked. Like I was like, listen, I've seen enough TV, whatever, but I was even like, you know, maybe TV lies. So I went and talked to one of my contacts who's a former homicide detective and I was like, okay, break it down for me.

How would it be possible to test for gunshot residue four months later? And he basically said there are two types of tests. Both tests are like swab where you like swab someone's hand. One is instant and the other you have to send off to a lab. So I did a little bit more digging into that same report from the sheriff's office and it does clarify that they say the tests were done at the scene like they should have been, but that the results aren't analyzed until February of 2011, which is five months after Michelle's death.

So the best I can put together is that we're talking about that second kind of test where they swab, but again, And send it to a lab for analysis. Yeah, just for whatever reason, didn't send it off. According to the report, there's significant gunshot residue on Michelle's hands, which is consistent with the theory that she died by shooting herself. Now the report also says that the test turned up trace amounts of gunshot residue on Jeremy's hands that quote may not be forensically significant and quote.

So what does that mean? Well, on the outside, I mean, both of these things seem pretty straightforward, but here's where the results start to kick up some questions because as Walt Bogdanich and Glenn Silber's New York Times piece mentions, gunshot residue tests can come back positive just from going into a room after a gun's been fired or from touching a person who's been in that room. So Jeremy claims that he was cradling Michelle in his arms right after she was shot. And he also claims that he did not wash his hands before the test. So just because he has some on him doesn't mean he necessarily handled the weapon.

But I kind of take that to mean the same thing, even though she has someone hurt, obviously she was in the room where she was shot. I don't know enough about this testing. Right. If it's true one way, it can also be true the other way as well. Yeah. And that's what I'm saying. I don't know enough about the testing to make some kind of determination either way.

And I don't feel like anyone has picked this apart far enough, at least in anything that I could find to make me feel sure of anything. So aside from getting this forensic stuff that somehow got overlooked, Rusty also digs deeper into Michelle and Jeremy's home life. He gets a University of Florida child protection team to talk to the one person who lived with them and may have some insight, Michelle's daughter, Alexis. According to ABC News, Alexis, who's five years old now, seems to indicate that there was, in fact, violence in Michelle and Jeremy's relationship.

She says he fights with Michelle and that she saw him hit Michelle one time with a belt. According to Alexis, Michelle would say, stop, stop, but Jeremy would not stop. Now again, Jeremy's always denied ever getting violent with Michelle, but during an interview with Rusty, he says he did put his hands on her once, but only to restrain her after she allegedly charged at him. Jeremy's coworkers at the sheriff's office all tend to echo what he's saying when Rusty interviews them. They say they never have seen him get violent.

But according to Frontline and The New York Times, at least one deputy, this guy named Michael, who used to room with Jeremy, mentions that Jeremy has a bad temper. Michael actually calls it uncontrollable, and he claims that alcohol makes it worse. But again, Michael reiterates that even though he's seen Jeremy get drunk and he's seen him throw things, he's never seen him turned to violence. Now obviously, you have to get this background info, but you can see how it becomes a bit of a he said, she said, they said kind of thing. And at the end of the day, what's going to close this case once and for all is some kind

of physical proof of what happened. So Rusty turns back to the physical evidence and something Rusty's super interested in during his investigation is how exactly Michelle could have shot herself, like why she would have fired two shots instead of just one, how she was holding the gun, stuff like that. So as we can see in the photos taken at the scene, which have been made public and will have up on our website, the gun is next to Michelle's left hand, suggesting that she used her left hand to hold the gun and fire the shots. First the so called test shot, then a second shot to her mouth with the bullet traveling

from front to back. The second bullet is buried in the carpet on Michelle's right side, like we can see in the photos, it's like up in the space between her like armpit and her side. But there's a problem with this whole scene. She was right handed, wasn't she? Yep, she was. So it's weird then to be finding the gun on her left side. Why would she be using her non dominant hand to take her own life?

As to the second bullet, according to ABC News, the sheriff says it's actually not all that weird for a suicidal person to fire a test shot. So I mean, none of this is impossible, right, but just like everything else that we've seen and that I've told you about in this story, like everything you find just raises more questions. Is it possible she fired a test shot? Yeah, is it possible that she took her own life using her left hand with the gun? Yeah, is it likely?

I don't know. To help find answers, Rusty calls in a crime scene reconstruction expert, this guy named Jerry. He's super experienced because he's been doing this for 40 years. And Jerry comes back with a different conclusion than the St. John County Sheriff's Office. He says Michelle died by homicide. To back up his belief, Jerry mentions how the shell casings were found to the back and to the left of Michelle's body as if the shooter was left handed.

And again, we know Michelle isn't, but what was interesting is in a lot of the sources I read, they mentioned that guess who is left handed. It's Jeremy. Jeremy. Now, he doesn't find anything to indicate that the gun would have been held any other way than basically like right side up with the magazine pointing towards every way that basically if you imagine someone holding a gun. And I know that seems crazy now, but just remember that because he's saying like the

gun is in a very normal position. Now in Jerry's view, it's suspicious that there was a none of Jeremy's DNA on his own gun. In addition to all that too, Jerry points to how the cut on Michelle's face is the same size as the gun sight on Jeremy's service weapon. And he believes that Michelle got that cut before the gun was fired, which would indicate that she was essentially beaten with the gun before it shot her. So how does he know that it happened before with the cut bleeding or had it started healing?

I don't know. My sources don't clarify why he thinks this. I mean, again, we are not forensic experts, but I know there are certain things you can look for in a wound. Exactly what you're saying. Like was your blood pumping at the time? Was it not? But for whatever he's looking at, he thinks it happened before she was actually shot.

So not as a result of being shot or something that came out of the gun or whatever. So in the spring of 2011, Rusty starts distributing his findings to the appropriate people like a state attorney's office and the medical examiner, Dr. Hoban, who remember initially concluded that Michelle died by suicide and that he didn't find any signs of battery. The state's attorney's office starts doing their own investigation in April and they actually talk about exhuming Michelle's body. The O'Connell's are totally on board with it. They'll sign all the forms, do whatever they have to do, and Dr. Hoban agrees to change

his findings from suicide to homicide. But get this, according to Frontline, the state prosecutor tells him, like, hey, before you like file anything, like, can you just hold off a minute, like, let's not file an amended death certificate just quite yet. What? Why not? Dr. Hoban tells Frontline that the state prosecutor wants him to wait because the case is about to go in a new direction.

He doesn't give any more detail about whether or not the prosecutor told him what direction that might be or why he should wait, though. In October of 2011, after months of working on Michelle's case, the state prosecutor then recuses himself due to his office's relationship with the sheriff's office. So he's like, hold on a minute, a couple months go by, then he's recusing himself. And then, after he recuses himself, a second medical examiner gets involved with the case and he comes back with a shocking new theory. This second medical examiner, Dr. Bulic, says that he believes now Michelle died by suicide

and that she used her non-dominant left hand to hold and shoot Jeremy's gun with the gun upside down. According to him, when he's being interviewed by Frontline, this explains everything. He says holding the gun upside down made the recoil action force the tactical light into Michelle's face, which he says is what causes the cut on her face and accounts for why the cut is the same size as the gun sight. Now Walt Bogdanich is actually the person interviewing Dr. Bulic and he asks him to demonstrate what this would look like because it sounds bizarre and I'm going to show you

a screenshot that I took from Frontline so you can really get the full impact of what he's saying. Okay, I'm looking at the picture and I'm going to be honest, this whole theory sounds ridiculous and kind of like they're just trying to make things match to what they want to be true. Right, that's why I made such a point earlier of saying like, yeah, the gun was held like anyone would hold a gun, I don't know, it just keeps getting more and more ridiculous, right?

Like, okay, if we're going to say she held it with her non-dominant hand, like that's already kind of weird enough. But then to hold it upside down is even more unnatural even if you are using your dominant hand. Yeah, it seems like what's happening is instead of looking at the scene and having the physical evidence give you clues as to what's happened, this is like the worst case scenario we talk about, right, where someone goes in with a theory and it's like, okay, what ridiculous thing do I have to come up with to make the physical evidence fit this idea I already

have? Right, exactly like you said, how do we make this fit what we want, essentially? Right. According to the New York Times, Dr. Bulloch also puts the brakes on exhuming Michelle's body and I wasn't able to find from my research exactly when in 2011 Dr. Bulloch comes on board or when he reaches his conclusion about how he believed Michelle died, but I do know that after the state prosecutor recuses himself in October of 2011, the governor of Florida appoints a special prosecutor in December that same year to take over the investigation.

Three months later in March of 2012, the special prosecutor gives Michelle's family some devastating news. The Jeremy Banks won't be charged with homicide, the case is closed and still officially a suicide. Now, obviously the O'Connell's are beyond heartbroken. To them, this is a grave injustice by a system more interested in protecting its own than finding out the truth. On the opposite side of the coin, the St. John County Sheriff's Office won't let it

go either. According to the St. Augustine record, in February of 2013, Sheriff David Shore orders a review of the whole investigation, including everything his department did and everything Rusty and the FDLE did. Now keep in mind, he only does this after he learns the New York Times is investigating. A month later, his office puts out this huge report over 150 pages long and it's a doozy. The report does list out things that it's concluded the Sheriff's Office messed up during their investigation, like how they never canvassed the neighborhood for witnesses, didn't interview

Jeremy properly, didn't establish a formal timeline of events, didn't get Jeremy or Michelle's cell phone records, stuff like that. So it's definitely acknowledging that they could have done better, but a lot of the report is spent criticizing Rusty's methodology, his findings and the FDLE's whole investigation. One piece of this that really stands out is the bit about the two witnesses that Rusty found, those women who say that they heard screaming. The report alleges that both of the witnesses had admitted that they smoked pot together regularly and they couldn't remember if they'd been smoking on the night of Michelle's

death. But here's the thing. Both women say, wait a minute, we never said that. And according to the New York Times, an investigator backs them up. And mind you, this allegation comes after both women passed their polygraphs. And even though one of them actually reaches out to the Sheriff to have the report corrected, as of the time that I'm recording and as of the last update I could find on this request, which was 2013, he wouldn't update it.

So I don't know where they got that information if the women who were interviewed are saying, we never said that. And I even did go back and look for this in my copy of the report, which I got off the wayback machine crawl from like 2015. And there's nothing in there about marijuana, but there's a whole block of redacted text in the section talking about the witnesses. So I wonder if it got redacted at the time of release or maybe that was like their version of taking it back as they went in and redacted it later.

But redacting for public viewing is not the same as amending a statement that the witness claimed to be false. Ultimately, Sheriff Shore himself is so displeased with Rusty's handling of the investigation that he gets the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to investigate Rusty. And he makes some pretty serious accusations that could change everything. According to the St. Augustine record, Sheriff Shore alleges that Rusty coached witnesses and falsified information so he could get search warrants and sway medical authorities. He believes that Rusty stopped being impartial and started acting like an advocate for the

O'Connell family instead. And in April of 2013, the FDLE agrees. Rusty's placed on administrative leave and doesn't get reinstated until 2016. Okay, but shouldn't Rusty be an advocate for the family? I guess I'm confused as to why that's a bad thing. I, you know, I actually had the same thought. I was like, gosh, like I would hope that someone investigating, you know, my sister's death was an advocate.

Would also want to find justice for my family. Yeah. Yeah. I think though, the point that they're trying to make, which I do see is that is the same when I was right. Like I don't want anyone trying to fit something into a theory. If you're truly doing an investigation properly, you have to go in impartial. You aren't advocating for a family.

You aren't advocating for a deputy. You're advocating for the... You're advocating for justice. And for the truth. Right. So I think that that was their point. Not that like someone shouldn't be there for the family, just shouldn't... You maybe got too like emotionally involved and connected.

Right. Okay. That makes sense. Cause I was like, I would also want an advocate, but maybe I'm crazy. Right. The advocate just isn't the person who's there to find the truth. I mean, they can be, right, cordial with you. They can be, you know, like a teammate with you, they can share information with you,

but it doesn't mean that they're trying to like prove what you believe. So then what happened to Jeremy? So he was actually put on routine administrative leave back in September of 2010 and I won't bore you with all of the other like back and forth in 2013, but you should know that Jeremy actually sues both Rusty Rogers and the FDLE in November of that year, claiming that his civil rights have been violated and basically saying that he's been wrongly accused of killing Michelle O'Connell. Now even though this feels like the case has hit a wall, Michelle's family doesn't give

up. Time goes on, but interest in Michelle's case doesn't ever fully disappear. PBS frontline and the New York times do this huge joint investigation that comes out in November of 2013. And one of the things they make public is that Jeremy got access to the sheriff's office's investigative report less than two weeks after Michelle died. How did he get his hands on that? He doesn't say.

The New York Times has a link to the videotaped second interview that he did at the station 12 days after Michelle's death. And he straight up just admits like, yeah, I've read the file, even though I know I probably shouldn't have. So this project from the New York Times and frontline puts a lot more eyes back on Michelle's case, but it stays kind of dormant into 2014 when suddenly that fall, a new witness emerges. According to Matt Guttman's reporting for ABC News, a man named Danny comes forward and tells police that Jeremy came into his bar the night after Michelle died and made

some pretty disturbing comments. He claims that Jeremy told him that all Michelle did was make him feel bad about himself and that he wasn't going to let her hold him back anymore. The Huffington Post reported that allegedly Jeremy said, quote, the got what she deserved. End quote. Jeremy denies ever saying this or even being at Danny's bar, but the allegation is enough to change everything. On October 3, 2014, the governor of Florida puts out an executive order to reopen Michelle's

case and assign a special prosecutor to investigate. It feels like the answer to the O'Connell family prayers like, what are the odds this gets open again? But their hope fades as time goes on. And on July 29, 2015, this special prosecutor finds that there's not enough evidence to support a murder charge. Finally in 2016, the family decides to do what investigators so far have refused to do, exhumed Michelle's body and have an independent medical examiner do another autopsy.

The findings are an absolute bombshell. According to Matt Doran's piece in the Huffington Post, the new medical examiner finds that Michelle's jaw had been broken before she died. In a way, that's consistent with blunt force trauma. Beyond that, he also finds that her tongue is in this position that is super abnormal for people who die by gunshot that's suicide. Instead, it's like in a position that shows Michelle almost would have been like gagging before the gun went off.

So like the gun was jammed into her mouth by force as opposed to her choosing to put it there. That's exactly what this is alleging. Yes. Nothing in the original autopsy report from Dr. Hoban mentioned anything about Michelle's jaw being broken. Jeremy's lawyer tells ABC News that Dr. Hoban didn't miss it and that it's mentioned in his field notes.

Would the gunshot be able to cause the broken jaw? According to this new medical examiner, no, because the only damage he saw from the gunshot was a hole in Michelle's tongue. If the shot was strong enough to break her jaw that he believes it would have pretty much obliterated all of the soft tissue and done a lot more damage. Now, as I'm sure you can imagine, these findings ruffle a lot of feathers in the St. John County Sheriff's Office. Sheriff Shore is furious about the whole thing.

And actually, here, will you read me the statement that he puts out about this? The statement says, quote, For his part, the medical examiner who did the second autopsy tells ABC News that contrary to what Sheriff Shore says, he did everything pro bono. Once again, though, even with these new findings, no charges are brought against Jeremy Banks and, again, the public eye eventually starts to move on. Jeremy's lawsuit against Rusty and the FDLE gets dismissed in 2018, but interest in Michelle's story never quite goes all the way away and it skyrockets when another death in St. John's

County raises even more disturbing questions. Sometime in 2018, a 38-year-old person in St. Augustine going by the name Eli Washtok learns about Michelle's story from a TV show. I want to clarify that we know from various sources that Eli identified as multiple genders throughout their lifetime, but since we don't know how they identified most recently and we definitely don't want to misgender anyone, we're using very gender-neutral pronouns and the name Eli. So, anyway, when Eli first hears about Michelle, they're fascinated by this case and they have

a lot of questions, so they start to look into it and see what they can find out. Nothing in my research tells me if Eli starts off more casual and gets, like, super interested along the way or if they jump, like, right into it, head first, full steam, but either way, they're serious. They start collecting articles and getting public records from the sheriff's office for their research, like the whole nine yards, and one of the things Eli does over the course of their investigation is reach out to Michelle's mom. Sarah Mirvosh reported for The New York Times that they actually develop a really good relationship

and meet up in person more than once. Another thing Eli does is hire private investigators to do their own digging into Michelle's case, like, I think they can pretty safely say that Eli is a crime junkie, even though they were like focused on just this one case. On, like, another level, though. Yeah. Like, they are intense. I love it.

Yes. At some point during Eli's research, they noticed things happening that really worry them. Like what? According to The Daily Beast, Michelle's mom made a Facebook comment alleging that Eli had told her that a person she calls the suspect ran Eli and their son off the road. This comment alleges that this person was in a sheriff's patrol car at the time. By January of 2019, Eli is seriously afraid to the point that they tell their neighbors

they think someone is going to kill them. More than their own safety, they're afraid for their two kids, so Eli goes to the effort and expense to rent out a second condo on another floor of their building so the kids can sleep there. Both Eli's son and daughter spend the night there in that second condo on January 30th 2019. And Eli wasn't being just paranoid because the next morning, on January 31st, before school, Eli's son goes upstairs and right away he sees something is wrong.

The lock on Eli's condo is broken. The boy goes inside only to stumble into a nightmare because there inside is Eli shot to death. Michelle's mom is devastated when she learns about Eli's death and she has no doubts about what she thinks happened to them. She believes Eli learned too much about Michelle's death, got too close to the truth, and paid for it with their life. Nothing in my research shows exactly what Eli believed they knew about Michelle's death,

but I did read in Russell Coburn's piece on CBS 47 Action News that about a week before Eli was shot on January 23rd 2019, a forensic expert hired by Eli made a records request from the St. John's County Sheriff's Office. They wanted Jeremy's full 911 call and some specific photos from the scene in 2010. In May of 2019, Eli's death is formally declared a homicide, but to date, no suspects have been named in the murder and no arrests have been made. Michelle O'Connell's death is still officially a suicide and Jeremy Banks has never been charged with a crime related to her death.

Even though this story feels like an endless stream of questions and loose ends, some facts are indisputable. Michelle O'Connell is dead. Her daughter Lexi has grown up without a mother, and many members of the O'Connell family still firmly believe that Michelle's death was not caused by suicide, despite what the official ruling says. Ten years on, they are still holding on to hope that eventually they'll get the closure that they feel they have been denied.

If you or someone you know is experiencing suicidal thoughts or showing warning signs, please talk to someone you trust. In the United States, you can call the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline 24 hours at 1-800-273 8255 or text HELLO to 741741. We've included links to these and other suicide prevention resources on our website, along with our source material and pictures for this episode, just go to crimejunkiepodcast.com. We'll be back next week with a brand new episode, but hang around for a profit of the month. The crime junkie is an audio chuck production, so what do you think Chuck, do you approve?

Okay Ashley, the people have spoken, we cannot have another sad profit of the month. That's fair. We've had some rough news. Yeah, I can't say that I disagree. So today I'm going to tell you a little bit about Benny the Border Collie, which let me pause and write that children's book right now, and his human, Megan. So about 10 years ago, Megan was a month out from completing her nursing degree, and her then-boyfriend and her were helping his mom do some volunteer work, and as a thank you,

his mom was like, what can I give you in return? Megan, as a joke, was like, a puppy, which is all of us, I think. And again, she was trying to wrap up her nursing degree, she and her partner actually lived in different cities. She was totally illogical, but regardless, her boyfriend's mom set them up with an appointment at a local shelter. She was serious. She was like, down to do this, I love it.

With those famous last words, just to take a look, you guys are all lying to yourselves. Megan's mom dropped them off at the shelter, and she was like, again, just looking. And Megan was like, yeah, totally, 100% agree. They walk in, they see some like kind of rough and tumble little puppies, which honestly just exhausts me, just the thought of it. One big, older, fluffy white dog, which heartstrings, and a border collie. And Megan was like, absolutely not. They have so much energy, are so smart, need so much training and stimulation, like that's

not for me. I can't do that right now. But they go into the fenced-in area in the back, and all the dogs are around, whatever. And Megan kind of looks over at the border collie and taps her leg like, hey, come here. And in an instant, this guy was at her side. So she was like, okay, so she walks away and did it again. And of course, he flew to her. And they literally did this for like 15 minutes.

And they, during this time, like found out that he had some other tricks up his sleeve. He was super smart, super well trained, even though she knew she couldn't take him back to her apartment because he didn't allow dogs. The person at the shelter, as they were leaving, was like, here's the deal. Here's a collar. Come back and put it on him. If you don't decide to take him, bring the collar back. Which like, that is some mind games.

I love it though. I just like to say. I love it. Can you imagine leaving a shelter without a dog, but the guy is like, just take the collar. Yeah. And then you're just like staring at the collar. Yeah. I love this, this shelter worker.

100%. So they go home, no dog, but collar in hand, and Megan's mom was like, here's the thing. If you really want this dog, how about I just keep him here until you can take him home. And that was pretty much it. They brought Benny the Border Collie home and he stayed with Megan's mom for about six weeks before Megan can move into an apartment that allowed dogs. And he moved in right away. And here's the wild thing to me is, you know Border Collies, right?

Oh yeah. Like they just like, in my imagination, they just spin in circles. That's exactly how I was picturing when you were like, yeah, they're super smart and high energy. Like I imagine them like, we're going to round up all the dogs. I'm going to do this, like just go in circles all day long. Yeah. He was super chill.

Oh. He never barked. He never had an accident in the house. And he really only takes like one walk a day. Like again, like this is. I can't say anything like any of these things about my dog. Oh, 100%. Like I have a pit mix and she seems more high energy than Benny does.

And Megan said that she loves training him because again, Border Collie is super, super smart. He would learn a trick in like a day and he now has this huge repertoire of tricks. But his favorite is one that he learned kind of by accident. So when they were training him, they taught him to sit pretty and he would sit down and do this cute little thing where he'd flip up one paw and then it kind of became instead of sit pretty. It's who's cute.

You are Benny. And he would do the exact same thing. And this is kind of his party trick. So whenever people come over, he like rushes up to them, sits down and sits pretty and looks cute. And it's just like, hi, I'm here. Would you like to give me a delicious treat by chance? And I'm sure they all do.

That's like when Chuck comes to the office, he literally has like bamboozled all of us because he goes up to each and every one of us and like looks as though he hasn't eaten in weeks and like how dare no one give him a treat. And we all connect and find out that like he's gotten 10 treats in a matter of like minutes. No, the last time I was there, I was in your office and you gave him like one or two treats and then like Alyssa walked by and like tossed something in your office. I go downstairs and he somehow has like half a muffin in his mouth and someone's giving

him another treat. And I was like, this kid has eaten more than I have today. It's so true. But yeah, Megan said that no one can resist Benny's charm. So Megan and her boyfriend actually broke up, but Megan got to keep Benny winning in the split. And he was obviously the best remedy for her during that time, a companion, a travel buddy. She went from Canada where they lived to Florida and then met a new person and moved to New

Zealand. Oh girl. And Benny went with them, but he had to survive 10 days of quarantine during the travel. I was just going to ask you. Why are all of this? This is like the thing that keep, well, cause we take Chuck literally everywhere. We don't go everywhere. That's why I, well, you know, that in quarantine, but like why before I hadn't gone anywhere

overseas since I got Chuck is because we take him everywhere and my husband had even gotten offered a job overseas and we turned it down because I was like, I, I took Chuck to like this beautiful boarding place one time for a week when we went on vacation and it's like literally he had like cuddle time at night. He had doggy play time. Oh yeah, like when I bought like the two times I've ever boarded my dogs, it's been like they have their own room together with separate beds. They have a TV, their special blankets.

They get nighttime treats. It's honestly better than I treat my kids sometimes like it's luxury at its finest. But when I took Chuck, he literally lost 10 pounds and had clumps of hair falling out. So to even think about having to quarantine him, like, oh, I like, I am, I'm so happy they're happy in New Zealand. I just like, I wish I could, I wish I could go and like skip that part. Yeah. So are you crying?

No, I'm really not. I'm actually good. Okay. I was like, I was like, we are, we're doing a happy one. I already said that. So they've been in New Zealand for a while and you know, Benny is always down for an adventure. So this is like totally his life.

And her and her new person actually adopted another dog, another border collie named Sika who I want to honor and say, but she did pass too quickly. And I'm just kind of going to float over that because again, focusing on happy things. But within two months of Sika's passing, they brought home Chika, who is Benny's constant playmate. Chika is almost two years old and Benny just turned 13, which I also want to add Megan said in quotes, which I fully support because dogs are ageless. Oh yeah.

They're going to live forever. And by the way, Sika and Chika sounds like your sequel to Benny the Border Collie. Exactly. I love it. I'm obsessed. And he is slowing down, he always has time to play with Chika, even if Chika is doing most of the running and Megan actually went through a recent breakup with her partner, but she made sure that I knew that Benny continues to be her most faithful man in her life.

And she got to keep Chika and the house. Listen, I was just going to say when you said that earlier about the first breakup, I was like, listen, partners come and go, proppets is forever. Dogs are forever. Yeah. And so that is a story of Benny the Border Collie and his human Megan and his friends Sika and Chika. And her true life partner soulmates.

Truly. And Megan actually, when I was talking to her, she said that if we want to highlight a shelter like we always do at the end of these episodes, she recommends second chance animal rescue in Alberta, Canada, because that is actually the rescue society that she got Benny from where, evidently, people just hand you empty collars and say, I'll see you later. I love the mind control there. They're onto something and I hope everyone who runs a shelter listens to this and just

like buy some extra collars to send people home with. Totally. So we will have Benny's story and pictures of Benny and the link to second chance animal rescue society on our website. So be sure to check that out.