All language subtitles for True.Crime.Story.It.Couldnt.Happen.Here.S01E03.720p.AMZN.WEB-DL.DDP2.0.H.264-NTb_Eng_sdh

[melancholy music]

♪

[dramatic music]

♪

[light guitar music]

♪

St. Augustine is apparently
the oldest town in America.

There's clearly
a Spanish influence here.

It's got really similar vibes
to Miami and to New Orleans.

It just feels like
you're visiting

a really cool
historic small town.

My family has lived
in St. Augustine since 1595.

A lot of families
in St. Augustine

that have been here
a long time,

and a lot of people
related to one another.

Everybody knows everybody.

Everybody knows
what's going on.

We are all connected,
and word does travel.

Mini golf, man.

Not a vacation town
unless you've got mini golf.

The beach is amazing.

You have all the fun stuff

without having to deal with
the crime of the big city.

Live from studio five,

this is
"First Coast Connect" on 89.9.

First this morning,

a controversial investigation
in St. Augustine.

It centers around the 2010
death of Michelle O'Connell.

This is a long-running drama

that has divided
the nation's oldest city

and the law enforcement
community there.

So on the surface,
there's this beautiful,

bright, shiny little town.

How do you go
from this fairy tale life

to a tragedy like
Michelle O'Connell's death?

My name is Debra Maynard.

On September 2, 2010,

I was a deputy sheriff

for the St. Johns County
Sheriff's office.

There was a call on the radio
that got all of our attention.

A signal 18,
which was shots fired.

We heard a badge number
come out.

We knew it was
another deputy involved.

[siren wailing]
Took off down US 1 South.

My sergeant beats me in,
and the corporal and I

are in the doorway
at the same time,

and another deputy was there.

We were first on scene.

I remember the front door
being opened

and one light on outside.

Walked in the door.

First thing I saw on the floor
was the legs of a female.

I saw little black
ballerina shoes,

a pair of jeans.

Deputy Banks was just to her
right side,

kind of holding on to her.

Michelle O'Connell
appeared to have a--

some type of serious injury,

which I assumed to be
a gunshot wound

to the head or face.

My name's Chrissy O'Connell,

and I am Michelle O'Connell's
sister.

We come from a large family--
six siblings.

Michelle was the baby.

Michelle's spirit
was just wild.

She said what she felt,

but she also cared
about people at the same time.

When she was little,
she was very independent,

but she brought a lot of joy
into our life because she was,

you know, just a cutie pie.

She was so adorable.

I'm on my way to meet
with Michelle O'Connell's

older sister, Chrissy.

She can shed light
on who Michelle was,

what she was going through.

What's amazing
about the O'Connell family

is that they've never
given up this fight.

It has been over 10 years,
and they are still

demanding justice
for their little sister.

The O'Connell family is not
going to bend to the narrative

that was presented
to this community.

♪

Michelle meant so much
to our family, you know,

and she was taken.

I cry for my niece.

She looks a lot like her.
- Yeah.

And she had that
little spitfire in her,

and so I see a lot of Michelle
in her daughter.

That seems to be the word

that a lot of people
use for Michelle,

that she was, like,
feisty, the spitfire.

Oh, yeah.
The baby of six kids, you know,

so you had to fight, you know,
to be heard and seen,

and she was.

Michelle was a single mother,

and she just loved her daughter
more than anything.

When Alexis was about 3 1/2,

Michelle met Jeremy Banks,

the deputy sheriff.

She met him
through our family.

My mom and brother worked
at the sheriff's office.

My mom, Patty,
was a file clerk,

and my brother,
he was a sheriff's deputy.

Working in law enforcement,
there's definitely,

like, a sense of pride,

and there was, like, a sense of
we're a part of the family.

[chatter]

Everybody hug.

I met Michelle
at Treaty Park.

Jeremy was in his uniform.

He was pushing her
on the swing,

and I just felt like,
"Oh, my gosh.

Here's someone that's gonna
to take good care of her."

- Goodbye, then.
- All righty.

You have our cell phones,
all right.

Before she met Jeremy,

had she ever lived
with anybody before?

Jeremy was the first person
she ever moved in with.

- Yeah.
- And it was a big step

for Michelle.
- Bye-bye.

- You want me to go bye-bye?
- No.

No.

When we showed up on scene,
I walked into the room.

Jeremy was crouched, holding
the house phone in his hand,

just looking.

The gun
was Jeremy's duty weapon,

and the tactical light
on top of the gun was on.

Fire Rescue would be there
shortly, and the firearm

would have to be moved
for them to work on her.

So quickly before we moved
anything, including that gun,

another deputy
took some photos.

Once he took
the photographs,

I then took the firearm

and placed it in the bathroom
on the counter.

My sergeant said,
"Get Jeremy out of here."

I get Jeremy outside,

and he starts pacing
like a wild animal.

He kept going--
[grunts]

He went over to the front of my
sergeants car with double fists

and hit it so hard
he put dents in the hood.

Fire Rescue is in control
of the scene now.

They called that she had died.

My sergeant and lieutenant
come out.

They say, "Okay.

We need to secure the scene.
No one else in."

We were standing out front
discussing it,

and from what I understood,

it was a self-inflicted
gunshot wound.

My lieutenant said,
"We need you to go

make family notifications."

I get the call.

One of my brothers said,
"Come now,"

and I flew over
to my mom's house,

and there were about six
or seven deputies

with their lights on,
and I got out of the car.

I said to one of the deputies,
"Just tell me, who is it?"

And he said,
"Your sister, Michelle,"

and I just collapsed.

The deputy said,
"It appears Michelle

has died by act of suicide,"

and I thought, no.

No, she didn't.

This isn't a suicide.

Michelle's story--
you got it wrong.

[light music]

♪

Tell me what was going
on that night

before you got the call.

Michelle was at a concert
with some of my brothers

and Jeremy.

I was watching her daughter.

She said,
"You keep her for tonight,

and I'm coming
to get her from you."

Michelle offered me a ticket
to join her and Jeremy

in their seats at the concert.

Michelle was happy
and dancing,

and I was hugging her,
taking some selfies,

Jeremy was quiet, and I could
just read his body language.

Something was bothering him.

At one point in the concert,

she shared that she was
starting a new position

at work tomorrow.

That was something that she was
extremely excited about

and proud of.

After we left the concert,
we were parting ways,

and Michelle and Jeremy were
heading home for the night.

When I was babysitting Alexis,

I got some texts from Michelle,

but they were not like
her regular texts.

Can you walk me
through what those were?

Yeah.

She said something
along the lines of, like,

"Promise me one thing.

Promise me Alexis
will be loved."

And I'm like, "What?"
Promise you what?"

Depending on who's looking
at them,

Michelle's text messages
can be seen as alarming.

Then I later got a text
that said,

"I'll be there soon."
- Mm-hmm.

So I thought, "Okay.
Something happened.

She's going to tell me
about it later,"

but then she never came.

And now, here are deputies,
not even detectives,

telling me that my sister died
of a suicide.

She had texted me, "Is Alexis
okay? I'm on my way."

I was trying to show anyone
that would listen

to me Michelle's story,

but we were not listened to.

My name is Clu Wright,
and I'm private investigator

here in the state of Florida.

The night Michelle O'Connell
died,

Detective Hines interviewed
Jeremy Banks

at the scene
in the back of a patrol car.

After the concert,
about 10:30,

they got in a car
and drove back home.

They arrived at Jeremy's
house about 10:45, 10:55 p.m.

Jeremy said that Michelle
was inside the house

packing her clothes
to move out of Jeremy's house.

Jeremy also said
that he said,

"Well, can I have
one last kiss?"

And Michelle told him, "No,
you cannot have a last kiss."

After that, he left to go

sit on his motorcycle
out in the garage.

That night, my neighbor
gave me a ride over

to Jeremy's
and Michelle's house,

and I said, you know,
I just want to go be with her.

I just want to, like,
hold her hand, um--

As soon as I got there,
the deputy, who I know, says,

"You can't go any further.
You can't go into the house.

There's really nothing else
that you can do right now."

Earlier when we were
at the concert,

Michelle was laughing
and smiling.

What was a great day
turned into, like...

the worst day of my life,
and nothing will ever--

Nothing has ever
compared to that,

that pain and that loss.

I knew in my heart
and in my gut

that Michelle
didn't kill herself,

and instead of going
and sitting down with my family

and accepting what they had
been told, I raised my voice.

I said, "I demand
an outside investigation.

I want you guys to stop
whatever you're doing right now

and bring in the FBI or FDLE
or whoever isn't you.

I want them to come in.
I want them to take over."

[dark music]

My brother is just, "I demand
an outside investigation,"

at the top of his lungs.

But he was told,
"It's a suicide.

Sit down, son."

That was the tone.

And they stopped doing
basic police work.

They didn't canvass
the street.

They didn't talk to neighbors.

They didn't talk
to friends, family,

anything about what happened
leading up to the event.

When we come through
training, as new deputies,

every crime scene

where there's a decedent,
it is a homicide.

It's not a suicide.

The medical examiner is the one

that makes the determination
of how they died.

The medical examiner,
Dr. Hobin,

did conduct an autopsy
on September the 4th.

During the autopsy,
they found an injury

above Michelle's right eye,
a small cut.

Hobin said that it could
have been the cause

of the ejected shell casing
that came out of the gun.

At the scene,
they found pills,

in Michelle O'Connell's pocket

and pill bottles in her purse
that belonged to Jeremy Banks.

They did a test to find out if
any of them pills were taken,

and there was nothing
in her system,

and his cause
and manner of death

is that it was a self-inflicted
gunshot.

She committed suicide.

When I came back on duty,
my sergeant said,

"You guys need to do your
supplement from that night."

If you go up
into a police report,

you can see everybody listed--

victim, suspect,
other person--

which means maybe
they conducted interviews

in the neighborhood.

Really didn't see anybody.

Just Jeremy Banks

and of course the deputies
that were on scene,

but that was it.

Detectives were done.
They were done.

So how long after that night

before they spoke
with you guys again?

I want to say it was, like,
a couple weeks later.

We had this debriefing.

We were cautiously optimistic

that science would be
on our side

or someone would see
through this

and stand up
and do the right thing.

The text messages
are the big thing

that they're latched onto.
- Uh-huh, but they didn't

reach out to the family
to find out what we knew.

We were shut down, and even
though we had family members

that worked
for the sheriff's office,

we're not from one of these
families like Jeremy Banks,

from a well-established family
in the community,

and the sheriff is on record
saying he's known his parents

for a long,
long, long, long time.

So here, this almost godfather-
like person to Jeremy Banks.

"Let me just take care of him,
and let's just shut this down."

Before that night, were there
any other red flags?

She'd say, you know,
"He tells me

that I can't wear these things.

I can't go out
with certain friends.

He goes through my phone.

He wants to know
what I'm spending."

She told me about Alexis'
behaviors at school changing.

She was regressing
with potty training,

and then she told me,
you know, he has a temper.

So little bit by little bit,

Michelle is telling us things
are not good at home.

I wanted her to be happy,
but Michelle was telling me

that Jeremy was becoming

physically violent,
verbally abusive.

It was Alexis' birthday,
and I remember seeing Jeremy.

He's eating pizza,
and he starts grilling Alexis,

"Why is so and so crying?
What did you do?

What did you do?"

And Alexis is just petrified.

He takes my little niece
by the arms,

and he says, "Answer me."

He, like, pulls her up.

She's so little,
and I'm sitting there,

like, paralyzed,

and he shakes her
and slams her to the ground.

Like, he puts her down so hard.

and I grab Michelle, and I
said, "I got to talk to you.

Jeremy is out of control."

She's like, "I know. I know."

What happened the night
of the murder?

On September 2nd,
we met for lunch,

and she told me,
"I'm leaving him."

We talked about her plan,
and she said,

"Well, there's going
to be trouble tonight

because he wants to go out
after the concert,

but I start my new position
in the morning,

and I gotta be ready."

Michelle was a student
of mine

since ninth grade--
September 2010.

I got to hire her
as a full-time employee

for the child care center.

She had a natural talent
for working with the children,

and finally, she had
what she called a real job.

She said, "Now I can get
my own apartment,"

a place for just
she and Alexis.

She was excited
about her new life,

and the only thing wrong
in her life was Jeremy.

There seemed to be
a lot of arguing,

and he wasn't very respectful.

From things
that Michelle had told me,

he seemed to have
quite a temper.

She said,
"No, I'm getting out."

I was so happy.
I was happy, and I was afraid.

The most deadliest time
for a victim

is when they choose to leave.

She had a plan.
She was leaving. He snapped.

He killed her, and then
this sheriff protected him.

September 2010, Jeremy Banks
called 911,

saying his girlfriend Michelle
O'Connell shot herself.

He's been forthright.

He has not been
hiding anything.

St. Johns County Sheriff
David Shoar, Banks' boss,

says after a thorough review
of the evidence,

his conclusion--

If there was any doubt
at all in my mind,

we would still be
investigating this case.

Here, we have this idyllic
seaside town,

and this terrible tragedy happens.

A young woman is dead.

Her boyfriend says
that she killed herself,

but there are members
of the sheriff's department

that doubt that narrative.

Michelle's family members

adamantly deny
that's what has happened,

and members of the community
are split.

When we realized what
we were up against,

Michelle's friends
and our family kept pushing.

Social media petitions,

rallies, I e-mailed
the sheriff endlessly.

More and more, we started
demanding justice for Michelle

and not going away.

Our voice was not
going to be dismissed.

I reached out to
the Florida Coalition

Against Domestic Violence,

the National Domestic Violence,
and it was in the news.

We would think that the St.
Johns County Sheriff's office

would like some transparency
also and show

that by ordering
a coroner's inquest

if they have nothing to hide.

The investigation
should continue.

There is something suspicious.

There's got to be
some more evidence,

something that
hasn't been uncovered.

I'm on my way
to meet Clu Wright,

a private investigator.

Clu, pro bono, has decided
to focus on Michelle's case.

Clu Wright is a local.

Knows everybody in town.

Knows the folks who are
in the positions of power.

He is making this analysis
as a member of this community.

Clu's assessment of everything
will help clear up

a lot of my questions.

How are you?
- I'm doing great. how are you?

I'm well.
It's so nice to meet you.

You too.

There is a ton
to just dig into.

Well, the family was strongly
against the sheriff's office

investigating this case
to begin with

because it was a a deputy
involved service weapon.

There was a lot of support
from the outside, too,

that the sheriff's office

should have never investigated
one of their own.

Why didn't an independent investigator

immediately take charge
of the case?

That's a good question,

and I probably should have
called them in earlier.

I think there was a mindset
that it was a suicide.

We didn't secure statements

from some individuals
we should have.

Four months after
the incident, Sheriff Shoar

requested the Florida
department law enforcement

to conduct
an independent investigation.

When our family learned the
FDLE was getting involved--

an outside investigation--
we definitely felt

we were on the path
to justice for Michelle.

The investigator today
assigned to her case,

to this case was Rusty Rogers.

During his investigation,

he is starting
to collect evidence.

He is interviewing
numerous people

and coming up
with a hypothesis

of how Michelle O'Connell
died.

I met Agent Rogers,

and he wanted to do
a victimology on my sister,

and I said, "Finally."

He was actively
asking me questions,

and challenging me,
"Well, what about this?

And what about that?"
and really investigating,

"Oh, she was getting
a promotion?

"Oh, he took her phone
sometimes?

"Oh you saw Jeremy hurt Alexis?

Okay."

And my niece, Alexis,

was interviewed
by a forensic psychologist

that authored an opinion
that Alexis was abused

at the hands of Jeremy Banks,

and Alexis' mother was abused
at the hands of Jeremy Banks,

and Alexis witnessed it.

The sheriff's office reports

the night
Michelle O'Connell died,

detectives did not do
a canvass of the neighborhood.

Agent Rogers came in
to the neighborhood

where Jeremy Banks lives at,

and he finds two witnesses.

Oswald says she was in
her garage with another friend

and heard a couple arguing.

And then we heard a woman
yell for help.

Then there was a gunshot,

and then there was
another yell for help

and another gunshot.

And you definitely heard
a woman call for help

not once but twice?

Twice.

He finds two earwitnesses
that say they heard

a woman scream and gunshots.

What else does Rogers uncover?

He tested for DNA of the gun.

They said they found none of
Jeremy Banks' DNA on the gun.

The service weapon
was Jeremy's.

What does it tell you

that there isn't
any of his DNA on this weapon?

Somebody wiped that gun clean.

Jeremy Banks' DNA
should be on that gun.

Okay. The location of the gun

becomes another very important
piece of evidence.

Tell me about that.

Michelle O'Connell
is a right-handed person.

The gun was found
on her left side.

If she's right-handed, how did
the gun get to her left side?

How did the sheriff's
department

explain all of the issues?

Explain to me what the second
medical examiner's theory was.

How did Michelle shoot herself?

Well, Dr. Bulic is the chief
medical examiner,

forensic pathologist.

They asked him to revisit
the case and render an opinion.

Dr. Bulic, he come up
with a different theory

of how he thought Michelle
O'Connell committed suicide.

He copy and paste some stuff

on a piece of paper
with some measurements.

Mm-hmm.

But in this picture,
you'll see Dr. Bulic,

how he thinks she received
the injury above her eye.

He holds a gun upside-down.

Michelle sticks the gun
in her mouth,

and when she fires,
the tac light went forward

and caused the injury
to her eye.

Well, anybody that has any
knowledge in service weapons

know that when fire that gun,

it doesn't matter what position
you have, it recoils backwards.

Yeah, I've never heard
of a gun jumping forward.

Dr. Bulic gave his opinion
and ruled it a suicide,

and that's what
the sheriff's office ran with.

But other experts
disagreed, right?

Yeah, Agent Rogers hired
a forensic expert, Mr. Findley.

They did a lot of forensics on
the gun, the firing of the gun.

He shoots it
with the left hand,

the right hand, upside-down.

Dr. Findley says there's no
way that Michelle O'Connell

could have shot herself
in this position

with this gun upside-down.

Also, my question would be,

if somebody was to
shoot herself,

you would expect
a large amount of blood

would be visible somewhere
on the carpet,

on the floor,
on the shirt, on the bed.

There's no blood
from her neck down.

All the blood flow is running
down the side of her face.

As facts of the case
came out,

as told to us by Agent Rogers,

everyone on my shift walked out
and said,

[exhales]
"Are you kidding me?

He killed her."

I was devastated.

Agent Rogers presents
a PowerPoint show

to the medical
examiner's office

and the reason why he thinks
Michelle O'Connell did not

shoot herself,
and during that presentation

is when Dr. Hobin
changed the death certificate

from a suicide to a homicide.

[somber music]

♪

Agent Rusty Rogers does
the investigation.

What happens next?

What happened was the FDLE
did their investigation.

It was presented
to the state attorney,

who at the time
was R.J. Larizza.

It felt good. It felt like
someone's gonna listen.

This is now in the right hands,
and I was very hopeful

that there would be,
you know, charges.

An investigator who works

for the state attorney's
office called me,

and they want to talk
about Michelle.

"We know something terrible
happened to your daughter.

We need permission
to exhume her."

I broke into tears,
and I was shaking,

and I thought, "They're gonna
see what really happened.

They know something's up.
They really do."

I heard while I was working

that there was
a warrant for Jeremy.

And I thought Rusty Rogers
had gotten enough evidence

to go ahead and arrest him
for this homicide.

For the exhumation,

they were gonna send me
a form to sign.

For 2 weeks,
nobody sends me no form.

My mom never heard
from them again.

And then R.J. Larizza,
the state attorney,

writes a letter
to our then governor and says,

"I need to recuse myself

because I'm too involved
with the sheriff,"

and all the information was
sent to another state attorney,

Brad King, who ordered
his own investigation

and had a former medical
examiner review the case,

and this medical examiner says,
"I think it was a suicide."

And that was the second
worst day of my life.

Brad King,
in our family meeting,

said something along
the lines of, "You know,

it'd be terrible to accuse
a man of a crime he didn't do."

Did you have anything to do

with Michelle's death?
- No, sir.

- Did you kill Michelle?
- No, sir.

I remember visiting her grave.

A friend of hers showed up,
and we sat and talked,

and she asked me
that question too.

My answer is always
going to be the same, no.

After the Florida Department

of Law Enforcement investigation,

it gets shut down.

And I went in, and I talked to
the detectives,

and I said,
"Why was I just informed

that this case
is going nowhere,

that you are not arresting
Jeremy Banks?"

I was livid.

This is a copy
of an e-mail I sent Brad King.

"There's a code of silence
in law enforcement.

"We don't tell on each other.
We don't rat each other out

"because you might be running
into that gunfight alone.

"The blue or green line,
it's not thin.

It's really thick,

and when you're on
the wrong side of that line--"

I sent Mr. King this e-mail.

Dr. Hobin made a statement

that when he changed
the death certificate,

he was convinced
it was probably homicide.

He said those words.

What would it hurt

to at least
let this go in front of a jury?

I would write this again.

We have Jeremy Banks with us
and his parents.

I've known both of them
for many, many, many years.

This guy right here
came so damn

close to being charged
with homicide, it's scary.

We then get introduced
to Clu Wright,

and he reaches out
to our family and says,

"There's something wrong.

I'm going to do my own
personal investigation."

He said, "Patty, I need
permission to exhume Michelle,"

and he said,
"I'm going to have

a medical examiner
do another autopsy."

And I said, "Okay."
He just wants the truth.

You ask Michelle's family
if you can exhume

Michelle's body
four years after her death,

and that was the autopsy

that you guys have been
fighting for for years.

Now we have the opportunity
to do it.

I found a forensic pathologist,
Dr. William Anderson,

and he agreed to conduct

the second autopsy
of Michelle O'Connell for free.

- That's huge.
- It is huge.

I am Dr. William Anderson.
I am a forensic pathologist.

I've probably done
about 9,000 autopsies.

Suicides, in the thousands,

many of which are gunshot
wounds, and many homicides.

Clu Wright contacted me
because he wanted me

to look into this case

to see whether or not
this was a suicide.

The first thing I did
was to look at

all the information I had

to see if there's anything
that's unusual, and right away,

there were a couple
of red flags that came up.

There was, on the x-ray,
it looked like a fracture

of the mandible,
or the jaw bone.

That was a problem because
it had not been reported

in the medical
examiner's report.

I felt we needed to go ahead
and do an exhumation.

♪

We had to get
with the cemetery

and get everything signed

and done in accordance
with the laws of Florida.

The body was exhumed.

We wanted to keep this a secret
from anybody and everybody

until after the autopsy
was done.

It took a little while,
but I kept aggravating him.

I said, "Listen, Dr. Anderson,
I'm an impatient person.

Come on.
You got to do this report."

So finally he got it back
to me, you know,

and when I looked
at that report,

I'm like, "That's great news."

What does the new autopsy
report show?

Dr. Anderson told me
that her mandible,

straight down the middle
of her jaw bone,

and it was fractured
all the way through

So her chin
was broken in half.

Her chin was broken
in half, yes.

That's a really, like,
strong bone.

It's, like, the strongest bone
in your head, right?

Yes.

So he was saying it would take
a significant amount of force,

you know, like a boxer
or getting in a wreck

or some type of kicking force
to really break that.

And during this autopsy,
my conclusion was,

looking at all
the patterns of injuries,

the blow to the jaw,

which enough to incapacitate
her, stun her at least,

and then the gunshot is fired.

The gunshot is fired in a way
that strongly indicates

that she did not have
reflex capability

to prevent her tongue

from being forced
into the back of her mouth,

which would mean
she was unconscious

or at least areflexive
at the time.

This feels like a bombshell.

It is a bombshell.

I--you know,
in domestic violence cases,

showing that there's an attack,
showing that there's an abuse

is such an important part
of creating what happened,

the story of what happened,
like, the victimology.

The report from Dr. Anderson

showed that Michelle's jaw
was fractured.

Michelle was battered,
and there was a struggle,

and Michelle was murdered.

There was a crime.

It was not a suicide.

We continue an I-Team
investigation

of new autopsy findings
in the controversial death

of a St. Augustine woman,
Michelle O'Connell.

Since this came out,

St. Johns
County Sheriff David Shoar,

who has for years
stood by the initial findings

that this was a suicide,

penned a lengthy
and scathing letter saying,

"The information presented
today is nothing new

"and all was reviewed
during the initial autopsy.

"Molesting Michelle
from her place of rest

"using some freelance-type
approach

is beyond unconventional.
It was reprehensible."

♪

You get to a point, you know,
you got to tell yourself

to slow down because
you're overlooking things.

I started looking into
the crime scene photos.

There's eight photographs
that were taken by a deputy

before anything was moved.

There is a shirt
that's on the bed.

It's right above her head.
So I zoomed in on that shirt.

I jumped up.
I'm like, "What the hell?"

It appears to have
a gunshot hole in it.

You can see the jagged edges
with gunpowder, blood.

You can almost tell that
there's an outline of a gun.

This shirt was never tested.

I submitted this photograph
to a forensic photographer

to look at this shirt.

The St. Johns
County Sheriff's office,

state attorney's office,

they use this same person
on their cases.

In his professional opinion,

there's a bullet hole
in that shirt.

My theory is that shirt was put
over Michelle O'Connell's face.

That gun was shoved into her
mouth, and that gun was fired.

That's why you see
no other blood on the floor

or anywhere else except running
down the side of her face.

This is a massive
piece of evidence.

This is the most
important forensic evidence

at that scene.

I think it would break
this case wide open.

I never realized
how powerful

the sheriff in a town could be

and how people
can misuse that power,

but this experience
with my sister,

watching all these twists
and all these mishandlings,

it's changed
how I look at people.

The new sheriff
is Robby Hardwick,

and I hope he is motivated
to do the right thing.

I'm glad that she has you.
You have such a strength,

and I don't know how you do it,
and I'm sure there are days

that are worse
and better than others.

I have perpetual hope
that the right information

will get in the right hands
and the right person will care,

you know,
and be moved by the story,

and I think someday
I'll come out here,

and I'll say, "I did it.
You know, we did it."

I will because it's just,
like--

Yeah, I know. I know.

Thank you.
It's just, like, a promise.

The only two people
that really know

what happened that night
are Michelle and Jeremy,

and yet there are members
of the sheriff's department,

members of the community
who have very really concerns

about how the investigation
played out.

So at the very least,

put the information
in front of a grand jury.

Hope lies with good people
coming forward

and doing work that is hard.

When you know something
is wrong,

there's no one else
to come in and fix it.

You have to do it.

♪