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of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true crime
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[Music] thank you [Music] [Music] it was a normal balmy Florida night in September of 2010.
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three St Johns County deputies we're getting coffee at a Hess station in St Augustine
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When A call came over the radio signal 18 shots fired the 9-1-1 call came in just after 11 20
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p.m on September 2nd the caller was screaming and panting his girlfriend Michelle
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was unconscious on the floor he sounded hysterical to the point that the operator assumed
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he was a woman please get someone to my house my girlfriend I think she just shot herself
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there's blood everywhere when the operator addressed him as ma'am the caller calmed down and his voice
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changed modulated and lowered he said let me tell you the truth I work with you all
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he identified himself as Jeremy Banks a Saint John's Sheriff Deputy but he quickly lost it again and started
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screaming at the operator to get someone there now the deputies at the Hess station
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sped to 4 700 Sherlock place arriving at 11 25 pm Deputy Maynard said when they pulled up
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to the house the door was open walking into the kitchen she glanced through an open door on the left and saw
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feet lying on the floor Deputy Jonathan Hawley was already at the scene he was in the room with the feet a
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bedroom crying oh my God for he knew the woman lying on the floor they all did she was Michelle O'Connell Jeremy
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Banks's living girlfriend of over a year she Lay Dying on the bedroom floor a gunshot wound into the roof of her
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mouth having penetrated her brain [Music] this is screams for help a close look at
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the suspicious death of Michelle O'Connell and this is true crime garage [Music]
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[Music] thank you as we heard in today's trailer Captain the sheriff's department is already on
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the scene Deputy Maynard stated that when she walked in she witnessed fellow Deputy Jeremy Banks huddled crouching
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down and about three feet from Michelle's body cell phone in hand he appeared almost catatonic
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then the sergeant at the scene said quote we have a pulse Jeremy's affect changed immediately
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according to Deputy Maynard he snapped to it and became almost angry she took him outside and tried to calm
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him down this is from The New York Times which did two long exposes about this case it reads quote Ms Maynard quickly
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escorted Mr Banks who had been drinking out of the house all of a sudden he started growling like an animal she said
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with his fist Mr Banks pounded dents in a police car Maynard called another deputy over to help her Corral Jeremy
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quote I grabbed him and tuned him up another deputy Wesley Grizzard recalled I told him I don't care if you're
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intoxicated or not you better sober up very strange actions for somebody that girlfriend just shot herself very
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strange indeed captain now we need to give a little background here Jeremy Banks is a
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member of the sheriff's department he's only 23 years old and from what I can see he appears to be a bit of a hot head
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and his actions not always making sense in other situations let alone this one obviously Deputy
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Maynard later said that the change in Jeremy's affect when a pulse was found she found that to be very alarming she
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said that she noticed he smelled like booze but also smelled like soap and appeared to be clean paramedics tried to
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save Michelle for 23 minutes but it was a lost cause and unfortunately she was pronounced dead at 11 48 PM that night
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well just to be clear Jeremy is a deputy as well so he has all the training that
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these deputies had but when they came into the house and saw Jeremy there he wasn't trying in any manner to use his
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training to save his girlfriend Now spoiler alert eventually Jeremy banks will lawyer up and that same scenario
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that same line of questioning was asked of his lawyer and his lawyer says look in that moment I do not believe that my
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client Jeremy was behaving or in Deputy mode at that moment he was in boyfriend citizen mode in probably unsure of what
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to do those are not his lawyers exact words but on many levels I can agree with what his
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lawyer is stating but if your girlfriend is dying and you have training to help her
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you would help her as her boyfriend doesn't matter if you're in Deputy mode or boyfriend mode
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both people have the same training this will bring us to what we are going to refer to as Jeremy's first interview
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this takes place an hour and a half later this is now September 3rd at 1 23 a.m and we have detective Jessica Hines who
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is interviewing Jeremy in a squad car outside of the house and this is all being recorded on tape
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Jeremy is telling the detective that he and Michelle were at the amphitheater for a concert earlier that night
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and saying that they did argue a little bit while they were there he says we you
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know argued a little bit earlier today but nothing terrible just we were both fed up with each other's bullcrap that
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we've been going we've been dealing with we've been together a year in some odd months I enjoyed the show she enjoyed
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the show and in the car we were talking about it we had decided that we were going to break up she was going to move
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out then on this tape we have about 25 seconds that are missing and it's noted that those 25 seconds have been deleted
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now in all fairness it could be just silence radio silence during that 25 seconds we don't know
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he goes on to say that we came home and we weren't arguing when we got home we got home and we talked about it we just
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said you know enough's enough we've been fighting we're done and we're tired of each other's [ __ ]
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and I told her that I do love her and I love Alexis her little girl but I just don't feel like we're best
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friends anymore we're just it's not working out and she agreed and then he says this is when he goes and he sat on
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his motorcycle which is located in the garage and that's when he says I heard the gun pop
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the detective asked him to clarify you were outside in the yard question mark the driveway question mark
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Jeremy's response my motorcycle was in the garage I was sitting on it with my head down just upset about you know the
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breakup I heard it pop I knew exactly what it was just Instinct I said quote Oh [ __ ]
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and I ran inside I started screaming her name and the bedroom door was locked and
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I screamed her name again and I heard it go off again for the second time he's referring to the gun I ran into the
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living room I grabbed the phone and I kicked the bedroom door in and I found her meaning Michelle lying where she is
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in this moment they've not removed her from the scene they tried to save her life for approximately 23 minutes or so
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were unsuccessful and now they are I'm using air quotes here processing the scene obviously Jeremy is upset but to
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kind of break down this evening from what Michelle's friends and family have said that she told people hey I think
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we're going to break up but I have these concert tickets I already asked Jeremy to go I think we're going to have a good
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time so I'm just going to take him to the show and I might actually break up with
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him that night so like Jeremy's story they start heading back from the concert they start talking about their
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differences they decide mutually this isn't working out and she's going to have a week or so to move her stuff out
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of his house but the rest of the story obviously we don't know how true this story is
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because we only have one side and then there seems to be some kind of contradictions like when he says oh well
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we we're both kind of tired of our [ __ ] and then but I'm going to be sitting on
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my motorcycle upset uh basically with my head in my hands when he hears this gunshot go off yeah and then we have
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this interview if you want to call it that that continues on and I thought that the the parts that I could hear and
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have included here in our telling of this True Crime Story look I get it that they're colleagues
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and they've probably known each other for a handful of years or so I thought that the detective was
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incredibly over the top casual in the questioning of Jeremy Banks now maybe that's a good thing maybe she's
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trying to put on this Persona and give off this vibe that hey you just experienced the worst thing possible
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I'm Gonna Keep It kind of light in in this moment while we're recording but I just I don't know I found her to be
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a little too casual it was it was a little uncomfortable for me to listen to to the conversation
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to be frank I agree with you on some level but we have evidence of this Jeremy guy acting like a lunatic they
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show up there he is basically on top of the body once they get a pulse he starts becoming angry
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and punching according to according to Deputy Maynard yes those are actions of somebody that like you said I mean he
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has this known temper so maybe her strategy was I'm gonna try to remain as calm as possible so I can keep him as
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calm as possible in the detective's vehicle detective Heinz asked if Jeremy was drinking that night Jeremy is
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forthcoming saying yes I was drinking beer Heinz says what kind Jeremy says Bud Light Heinz goes uh and laughs
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um this is yeah kind of what I what I meant here Jeremy responds big ones you know I'm assuming he means the big cans
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which you get it at the uh concerts Heinz goes on to say how many do you think you had Jeremy says four five
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maybe when he says big ones I don't know if he's talking about 16 ounces or 22 ounces well that's what she's 522 ounces
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is a lot of beer yeah Heinz asked Jeremy to describe what he did when he kicked the door open
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Jeremy is crying during his response or at least that's what I believe I'm hearing
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he says I kicked the door open and I kind of veered in and I saw her feet I ran in and by this point he's he's
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crying hard he says I saw blood coming out and I just grabbed her hand and I started I dialed 9-1-1
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now we need to point out here Michelle was found with a gun lying next to her and this gun
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is Jeremy's service weapon so we have a 9-1-1 call we have the deputy showing up
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they see one of their own over the victim the victim appears that she shot herself it's with his gun and
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then once they get a pulse of the victim the deputy that they know the boyfriend
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he starts acting erratic and now they're doing this interview correct and I hate
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to keep kind of underlining this but I think that it's important to do so that that behaving erratically is according
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to one Deputy I couldn't find anybody else backing up that statement the closest I could find was the other
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Deputy saying that he grabbed Jeremy up and told him I don't care if you've been
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drinking but you need to sober up yeah but there should be some evidence of this if he
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put dents in the cop car well exactly and maybe that's part of the problem right that that evidence is not
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available to the general public that that evidence is being withheld or covered up right
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it's worth noting that for most of the interview in my humble garage opinion here that while we can hear or I believe
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I can hear Jeremy crying at times during this interview for large portions of this interview Jeremy does not sound sad
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at all to me uh he I never hear him say Michelle's name at any time he does admit that he did
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not try to perform CPR or anything of that nature he did say that he held her hand a little but when First Responders
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came in he was not doing that he was about three feet from Michelle he also very strangely admitted to detective
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Heinz that he initially tried to obscure his identity in the 9-1-1 call now this
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is weird this is very strange red flag yeah it's look I've heard the 911 call and that's what I thought he may have
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been doing or again in the moment maybe he's not thinking clearly look I thank God in heaven that I've never had to
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find myself in a situation like this so I do not know how I would respond how I would behave I don't know that there is
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a common or typical way to behave in this scenario but what's weird is that he is openly
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emitting this to the detective in this interview in her vehicle an hour and a half later well I think a lot of people
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assume that when you find a loved one that you're going to be hysterical and that's what I think a lot of these
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people that call 9-1-1 that are possibly guilty of a crime they almost act hysterical because that's what they
00:19:08
think they should be acting like and look I can't say for certain but if one of my loved ones died and they had the
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911 tape of me calling 9-1-1 I'd probably be criticized for being overly calm but that's because in any of these
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emergency type situations the best thing you can do is to try to stay calm right
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the other thing too is don't kill your girlfriend right so then you don't have to figure
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out how to act on the 9-1-1 call I'm not saying that that's 100 what happened here we want to go through all of the
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information first before we give an opinion but yeah it's I think in in any scenario
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where people are suspicious I don't I'm to the point Captain where I think I've heard enough of these 9-1-1 calls and I
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don't think it matters if you're over the top hysterical if you're completely calm somewhere in between I think if
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people are suspicious of you they're going to be suspicious of you hearing that call having said that I think now
00:20:16
is a good time to play that 9-1-1 call [Laughter] is she still breathing no there's blood
00:21:04
coming out of everywhere please okay she's not breathing call dispatch on tattoo get them here now
00:21:17
calm down again to me this is somebody making a 9-1-1 call and going how am I supposed
00:21:31
to act because he comes in you can't understand a word he's saying he's shouting that address and when they
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start calling him ma'am it's almost like it pissed him off and then he's like and then he he's it's
00:21:48
a Freudian slip but he says let me tell you the truth and he says and then he's like I'm one of you and he calms down
00:21:56
now he's telling you the information you need to know now here's my problem if you're not in law enforcement and you
00:22:05
and you are hysterical and you don't know how to calm yourself down that would make some sense but this [ __ ]
00:22:11
is trained he's trained as a deputy he has to call in how many times has he showed up to a scene that there's an
00:22:20
emergency and he has to be professional and get the information to the people and he knows how important
00:22:27
that information is so he has training in CPR into in in medical things that he could have done
00:22:36
to help save his girlfriend or ex-girlfriend however you want to look at it but he also has training on how to give
00:22:44
information to dispatchers and he doesn't it's like he doesn't use any of that training
00:22:50
but I think it's on purpose that he's not using any of that training agreed I mean you don't want if he is guilty of
00:22:59
shooting his girlfriend and ending her life he doesn't want to save her or help her
00:23:05
or or provide help to her be it through somebody else right because then he's got we we now have a
00:23:15
living witness who can tell us okay Jeremy may be telling you this story but here's my story and by the way I'm the
00:23:22
one that took the bullet so the thing that's incredibly weird to me there's a few things that jump right
00:23:31
out that tape right off the tape there first off I think my girlfriend just shot herself is the
00:23:39
way that he first explains it yet when he talks to detective Heinz an hour and 25 30 minutes later
00:23:47
he's saying I heard the pop and I knew what it was immediately right he then tells
00:23:53
detective Heinz that he kicked in the door and he finds her after hearing a second pop and there's
00:24:01
blood coming out of everywhere according to what he says on 9-1-1 so it look I know he lives on a street
00:24:09
named Sherlock place it does not take Sherlock Holmes to figure out if you knew what that pop was immediately like
00:24:14
you told the detective later and you kicked down the door and she's on the floor and blood's coming out of
00:24:20
everywhere it's not I think my girlfriend shot herself it's my girlfriend shot herself so that's a
00:24:27
weird way of of kind of delivering or not fully delivering the information like you're saying Captain but then
00:24:35
can I'm not the only one hearing how drastically his voice changes when he's called ma'am a couple of times Bingo and
00:24:43
it's like his it's like he was he using a different voice on purpose in the beginning
00:24:51
he was acting was he acting I'm an actor and then his voice changes completely when he's called ma'am it's almost like
00:25:00
you hear the bonehead Meathead 23 year old dude coming out in this guy douche and it's almost like Eric Cartman
00:25:10
you will respect my authority yeah situation where it's like hey not only am I a man you know it's sir it's sir
00:25:20
and not only is it sir but I'll tell you the truth I work with y'all I'll tell you the truth so you weren't
00:25:28
telling us the truth earlier or you were purposely concealing this which we now know is fact he was purposely concealing
00:25:39
his job his job title and who he works for in that call per what he tells detective Heinz his friend who's being
00:25:50
extremely casual and um cordial with him in the moment he tells her that he was attempting to
00:26:01
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betterhelp today thank you [Music] all right we are back the cheers mates hang on to the edge of your seats this
00:30:46
is going to be a wild one the attempting to conceal his identity is very fishy incredibly strange to me it's just
00:30:54
it like and here's here's where my head goes with it then is he thinking that if I don't say
00:31:03
that on the 9-1-1 call if I don't let the operator know who I am what job I hold I know that somebody from the
00:31:13
sheriff's office that I work at will be responding to the scene and likely may be the very first person
00:31:20
on the scene can I tell them what what went down according to me Jeremy Banks and they buy Hook Line and Sinker and
00:31:30
then tell it to the other people that respond and now I've just controlled the narrative and by the way I've controlled
00:31:38
it in a controlled environment that is not outside of the people responding and showing up to my home on this night
00:31:46
instead he slips and he lets out his job and now maybe this became something bigger
00:31:54
than he wanted from Jump Street what we do know that does happen 100 percent is that St
00:32:04
John's County Sheriff's Office kept the investigation in-house very quickly they are saying it was not an officer
00:32:14
involved shooting this situation was a suicide yeah I don't have a problem with them staying on the investigation but
00:32:23
maybe bring in a separate entity right away to double check your work even if it's
00:32:31
just one or two officers from another department they can come in and and double check
00:32:38
the work but I think there's enough contradicting storylines and narratives that Jeremy
00:32:46
Banks is telling the officers and his erratic behavior when she seems to be in the erratic behavior when it
00:32:54
seems like there's a chance that she could live I think that's enough red flags and then if you go back and listen
00:33:00
to the 9-1-1 tape and he told you he's concealing his identity but then you can hear it so drastically so he's putting
00:33:08
up a front he is lying to the dispatchers for what reason you have no reason to lie to the
00:33:15
dispatchers if your girlfriend actually shot herself and I also thought it was an interesting line two lines you
00:33:22
pointed out when he said I think she shot herself and then he says she shot herself with my gun correct me if I'm
00:33:32
wrong Captain but the end of that 9-1-1 call he has asked a direct question of is she breathing
00:33:39
and he says no there's blood coming out of everywhere right is that is that what
00:33:43
he says is my recall correct there I believe you're correct so you're correct sir again he's trained and even if
00:33:51
you're not trained I can tell you this from my days working security and responding to accidents and certain
00:34:00
situations a lot of times you do not need to hear or check to see if someone's breathing to know that they
00:34:07
are breathing because in a situation where somebody is severely injured they sound different than when they are not
00:34:15
injured when they are breathing so it's it's a gurgling noise it's it's a very obvious situation that their lungs are
00:34:21
going up and down now it's very interesting to me that he says no she's not breathing there's blood
00:34:28
coming out of everywhere all right okay given the wounds and we'll go through some of the autopsy information here as
00:34:33
we continue on I would expect some blood to be coming out of everywhere what I'm getting at
00:34:39
here Captain is giving where given where she was shot or shot herself I could give him the benefit of the doubt if he
00:34:47
just did not know that she was breathing I'm not saying that she was what I am saying is that when EMTs arrived on the
00:34:54
scene what do we know that they did they attempted to save her life for 23 minutes right what is missing from the
00:35:04
public information about this investigation and all by the way if you don't rule it a homicide if you rule it
00:35:10
a suicide then all of this should be public knowledge this should be public information that we all have access to
00:35:16
what's missing from this investigation I want to know from that EMT from that that paramedic the first one on the
00:35:24
scene when you got to Michelle was she breathing because if she was he tells the 911 operator no she's not breathing
00:35:32
there's blood coming out of everywhere guess what where she was shot there would be blood coming out of her nose
00:35:38
and mouth because of her breathing and attempting to breathe and he would know that
00:35:44
per not just his training but any human with eyeballs would recognize that well no and and to
00:35:52
be fair maybe he's just in a State of Shock okay give you that one and I can give him this idea that look we all have
00:36:01
been trained to do things I've brought it up many times on the show you're trained as a banker what to do when
00:36:10
robbed most the time when you are robbed you do nothing that you were trained to
00:36:15
do because you're in shock okay fair so that's why you didn't go to her Aid and you didn't try to start doing CPR or any
00:36:26
um emergency measures to try to save her life but then you call 9-1-1 because you're like I can't help her I'll call
00:36:32
9-1-1 okay fine but then when you call 9-1-1 you have training of how to talk to dispatchers how to try to remain calm
00:36:40
during an emergency and you didn't do that and you actually tried to hinder the process
00:36:48
it's uh and I would like to know roughly what the time of death would be because I
00:36:55
wonder did he pause did he walk around the house did he um did he sing 99 bottles of beer on the
00:37:02
wall before he called 9-1-1 to make sure by the time that by the time that the EMTs got there that she
00:37:10
wouldn't be breathing right she was pronounced dead at 11 48 p.m and remember the call came in at
00:37:17
approximately 11 20 p.m that night and we have deputies arriving on the scene at 11 25
00:37:26
PM we have Deputy Maynard who says that she was there by that time and when she arrives on the scene there's already
00:37:33
Deputy Jonathan Hawley who is present on the scene at that time so very quick and
00:37:41
a very decent response time there uh the other thing too Captain you're hitting on some things here may have been con
00:37:50
trying to control the narrative a couple things I want to point out about his interview with Detective Heinz is in
00:37:57
that initial interview he says he tells detective Heinz and this is where he may have been
00:38:06
trying to control the narrative because again we only have one person to tell us
00:38:11
what was going on in the scenario and maybe he's trying or attempting to present evidence of
00:38:19
a suicide or her suicide so for example he tells detective Heinz that the last thing he said to Michelle before he went
00:38:27
out and sat on his motorcycle was quote I love you please don't do anything stupid
00:38:35
now he said earlier that evening when they were fighting that Michelle had told him or said to
00:38:43
him quote you make me so mad I want to kill myself yeah to me that sounds like he's controlling the narrative or trying
00:38:52
to let's just talk about it look statistically women are less likely to kill themselves
00:38:59
by gunfire so and I'm not saying that it's impossible but it's also strange that he is drunk
00:39:11
or at least heavily intoxicated where is he going to ride his motorcycle to he was not going to ride the motorcycle
00:39:20
anywhere he was just sitting on the motorcycle so he's just sitting outside trying to chill out trying to cool off
00:39:27
according to yes according to what he was saying but even his statement when he walks out and he says well don't hurt
00:39:32
yourself or don't do anything stupid or whatever his comment was to me that almost implies that he was
00:39:43
heading off to go somewhere so the death scene quickly became chaotic and confusing as we can imagine here
00:39:51
everyone from the St John Sheriff's Office showed up to offer condolences and moral support to their fellow
00:39:58
officer Jeremy his family and friends arrived as well he talked quietly with his stepfather who is a deputy sheriff
00:40:06
from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office this before he was interviewed about what happened that night and when he was
00:40:14
he was interviewed in a Cop Car by a colleague detective Heinz as we already pointed out now after Michelle's body
00:40:21
was cleared the house was sealed up for Crime Scene texts to pour over but they didn't do
00:40:29
much in the way of investigating as far as I can see Jeremy said that it was a suicide officers at the scene said
00:40:36
Michelle had a gunshot wound through the mouth and the gun was found right next to her they noted a bullet buried in the
00:40:45
floor right next to where Michelle's right arm had been and this and these parts of what they're
00:40:52
seeing at the scene is and was consistent with Jeremy's story that he had heard two shots
00:40:59
now crime scene photos show Michelle lying sprawled on the floor and the positioning and the details of the gun
00:41:07
are of Interest the gun a Heckler and Koch 45 caliber pistol is lying on the carpeted floor
00:41:16
it's got an attached attack Searchlight the TAC light is on the St John Sheriff's Office concluded
00:41:25
that Michelle may be unfamiliar with weapons and not used to handling them and accidentally turned the TAC light on
00:41:34
as she used the gun on herself further disciplinary records show that Jeremy was known for failing to secure
00:41:43
his gun in the past he openly has admitted that sometimes after work he just dropped his gun belt
00:41:53
on the floor where anyone could get at it well that's safe I want to point something out here regardless of what
00:42:01
happened in this situation if Michelle did kill herself if Jeremy is not responsible for her
00:42:08
death leaving your service weapon unsecured in a house that has a child in it this is not a good police officer no
00:42:19
he's a douchebag and on top of that just think think about this for a second you
00:42:24
you have this conversation on the way home you guys are talking about ending the relationship she has made some
00:42:32
comments to you that you think are alarming that you're you're later going to tell people about in these interviews
00:42:39
so instead instead of walking out to the garage and sitting on your motorcycle when he says oh don't do something
00:42:47
stupid or don't do something to harm yourself you'd think at that point he would go
00:42:51
figure out where his gun was and make sure that it was locked away and secure very quickly the Sheriff's Office
00:42:58
wrapped up the investigation at the scene Michelle despondent over the breakup had taken her own life I guess
00:43:06
would be the conclusion here now we do have some of the detectives that are backing up that conclusion so
00:43:13
we have one that says quote for her to stand still and allow someone to put a firearm in her mouth is ridiculous that
00:43:19
came from Eugene Tolbert who was one of two detectives on the case Tolbert said every time anything came up
00:43:27
that looked inconsistent with suicide there was something to explain it his partner detective Heinz said in a
00:43:35
recorded interview quote I didn't have any suspicions that it was anything other than suicide I think that's what
00:43:43
we were all kind of discussing but just making sure that we covered our bases end quote Yeah but their investigation
00:43:51
that night is roughly three hours it takes them roughly three hours to state that this is a suicide and again if it
00:44:02
is a suicide then the case is closed and all that information should be released
00:44:08
to the public but if I'm in charge and everybody at the crime scene or my co-workers are saying look
00:44:18
Chief this is looking like a suicide to me I'd go yep okay well let's wait till the
00:44:25
corner report let's keep the scene under lock and key and then let's if that's our finding
00:44:34
let's bring in another department and have them double check our work and then if we still rule a suicide again
00:44:42
then we can take our information and the information from the other law enforcement source
00:44:49
and release that information because that's what you owe it to Michelle's family well and you could also go into
00:44:57
Eric Cartman mode and respect my authority it's not Chief it's Captain all right
00:45:04
all right but sir there are so many ways and keep in mind here the sheriff in charge of St John's he's been around the
00:45:13
block he's been he's been elected Sheriff time and time again he can call in a favor he knows people he knows the
00:45:22
other sheriffs in the surrounding jurisdictions he could call in and say you know what can you send a couple
00:45:27
people out here we even if he wanted his team to work the case or work the scene
00:45:34
right send some people out as Witnesses or send some people out to get involved or
00:45:41
be a part of the investigation the proper thing to do would be to hand it completely over as quickly as possible
00:45:47
as you can to another agency yeah but I could see because you're the responding officers I could see why you would just
00:45:57
stay and stay in charge and bring in some outside uh sources as as basically uh checks and balance
00:46:08
system I'm going to continue on with the information that they the sheriff's department the sheriff's office has put
00:46:15
out there in regard to the situation and their rolling of a suicide they go on to
00:46:22
say that Michelle had no bruises on her body there was no disarray in the house or evidence of a struggle
00:46:28
obviously anybody that's dove into this case knows that there was a cut over Michelle's right eye but this is
00:46:38
explained Away by the Sheriff's Office saying that it could have happened as she fell after shooting herself which
00:46:45
does not go with even the initial autopsy findings the initial autopsy findings state that she was either
00:46:51
kneeling down sitting or lying on the floor when she shot herself her falling I guess maybe even if she
00:46:57
was kneeling or sitting up that that that's what they're saying where the the right eye cut could have come from
00:47:06
and we'll get into this cut a little bit more because there are some scientific findings that change throughout this
00:47:14
case but this is their initial reaction to that their other reaction to that cut
00:47:19
is also that it could have been the result of the positioning of the gun which one expert is telling us may have
00:47:27
been upside down and you talk about statistics Captain where they say that it is less likely
00:47:35
for women to use a gun to commit suicide one stat that is weird is that it is very common that when a gun is used in a
00:47:46
female suicide that they tend to use both hands and so this other expert is saying that
00:47:53
the he believes that she was holding the gun with both hands and one argument that the family has
00:48:02
always had was that look she she was right-handed the guns found near her left hand
00:48:08
well this might explain away that scenario because they're saying she would not have used her weaker less
00:48:15
dominant hand and the experts are saying well she probably used both hands and the gun was upside down now they go on
00:48:23
to say that the recoiling of the gun after the shot could have created that cut which is very difficult to believe
00:48:31
because a gun doesn't recoil forward it recoils backward away from where the shots fired so that
00:48:41
doesn't ring true it rings less true to me than than uh the idea that it would have
00:48:47
moved forward and created this bruise Cut Above her right eye the other thing too
00:48:54
that I want to point out and make perfectly clear if if we were reviewing a homicide case
00:49:00
yes sir or a child abduction case which we do a lot of those here right we always talk about motive even if we know
00:49:09
who the perpetrator was or even if we don't know who the perpetrator was right we talk about what could be the possible
00:49:16
motive in those scenarios well let's talk about what could be the possible motive for her to commit
00:49:22
suicide because I couldn't I couldn't find him yeah my issue here too is like if her
00:49:28
friends and family are telling us what's correct and now this is not information
00:49:32
that the deputies got right away and this is not in their report of them claiming it's a suicide because they
00:49:39
just didn't do their work to interview and and talk to everybody but when you talk to the fan friends and family and
00:49:46
they say well yeah she was planning on ending this relationship and but going to the concert anyways so
00:49:56
the fact that she would be so distraught over this breakup that she was planning to initiate
00:50:06
doesn't make a lot of sense to me it's almost like I mean take another suicide scenario man
00:50:15
loses his job he's distraught goes home and kills himself most of the time a man
00:50:20
doesn't quit his job and is so distraught that he quit his job to start a new life that he goes home
00:50:27
and kills himself yeah if it doesn't add up if it's reactionary it's reactionary
00:50:32
because it's something that is out of your control right right being fired from your job opposed to willingly
00:50:39
quitting your job where here it doesn't make any sense even the wording that he says she told
00:50:46
me you make me so mad that I want to kill myself okay let's set that aside for just one second and examine that in
00:50:54
in just a minute that's one of the dumbest statements but ever first of all she told people in advance I'm breaking
00:51:02
up with him this night tonight after the concert I'm breaking up with him how do
00:51:06
we know that happened because several people told her you know what maybe you probably shouldn't go to the concert
00:51:12
right this seems like a big deal maybe you shouldn't go to the concert fill in the blanks here for people that don't
00:51:18
know the case I get why she went to the concert she paid for the tickets concerts aren't cheap and on top of that
00:51:23
it wasn't just Jeremy and Michelle going to the concert it was three couples yeah
00:51:30
very good point so this was like a group event why not go and have a good time or
00:51:34
at least attempt to you've you've only been with this guy for his own words a year in some odd
00:51:42
months living girlfriend for over a year this is not like love of your life scenario
00:51:49
well and and again she knows that not that she's going to break up with him it's not something that is out
00:51:58
of her control she could have chose to do that at another time she has a daughter
00:52:04
she's a good mother there's no I could see no reason for her to kill herself and then let's say that let's say that
00:52:14
for some reason she did say to Jeremy you make me so mad I want to kill myself well doesn't that sound like a vengeful
00:52:24
angry thing wouldn't you do that in as much of a way possible to hurt him right out of anger I'm not going to sit
00:52:35
here and pretend to be an expert on suicide but I would think that that would involve something a little more up close
00:52:43
and personal than locking yourself in a bedroom while your ex-significant other is who knows where yeah I I get people's
00:52:53
argument of if you're gonna break up with Jeremy that you don't go to the concert with him
00:53:00
but if he's planning on the going to that concert with you and then you then tell him hey I'm going to take somebody
00:53:08
else we know that this guy has been violent or physical towards her based on what her friends and family
00:53:18
have said we know that they've had very heated arguments that people when when she's
00:53:25
talking about her relationship to friends and family they all know that it's more argumentative than a positive
00:53:33
it's more of a negative relationship than a positive relationship if you don't go to the concert with Jeremy and
00:53:39
you go with somebody else or just go by yourself you're running the risk of him calling
00:53:45
harassing you and ruining your experience when you spent the money on these tickets now I will say there are
00:53:53
some weird text messages from Michelle's phone that night and nobody is disputing that these texts
00:54:03
come from Michelle herself and these to me would make me call into question the idea of
00:54:12
suicide here so she had sent some texts to her friends in some of her family that night
00:54:18
this is on the way and on the way to and from the Paramore concert that she and Jeremy went to so she texts her friend
00:54:28
Mindy Fox at 8 14 PM saying quote I'm stressed out she texts her sister Christine
00:54:35
shortly before 9 pm saying promise me one thing Lexi which is her daughter will be happy and always have a good life now
00:54:45
we should note here because I'm sure some people are asking this question Lexi is her daughter from a previous
00:54:53
relationship not Jeremy Banks's daughter right I believe she's eight years old at
00:54:58
the time her sister responding to the text comes back with promise you what question mark and Michelle responds that
00:55:07
no matter what Lexi will always be safe and loved Michelle responded make sure Lexi is number one not like us
00:55:15
her sister responds what's going on I'm scared so I'm not the only one that thinks that these texts are weird
00:55:23
clearly her sister does as well now a text to her brother Scott Michelle wrote at 10 06 pm
00:55:31
Lexi never forget now to some of the investigators these texts were as good as a suicide note I
00:55:41
think he can make an argument either way I think you could say that these sound suicidal and that she's possibly
00:55:48
going to do something to herself and I think you can make the argument that they sound like somebody that's now
00:55:55
in a a difficult situation or maybe abusive situation and she's afraid for her life yes I wonder here if this while
00:56:04
it sounds like she may know that the end is near for her so that would Point towards suicide
00:56:10
you could flip the coin and it land on the other side to me which would say maybe she's experienced some physical
00:56:18
abuse from Jeremy Banks or was concerned that that's the level that this thing could get to and escalate to tonight
00:56:27
and I'm just doing the motherly thing and making sure that I've circled the wagons and my friends and family have my
00:56:36
back and my daughters back and I know that no matter how this ends for me or what comes of tonight that my daughter
00:56:46
will be taken care of hell who knows a lot of times in these situations yes we do have an abuser but
00:56:53
there are some times where we have situations where people just physically fight each other
00:57:00
and that to me is very different than abuse who's to say that it's never come to
00:57:06
that for them who's to say that these strange texts don't mean well if I end up in jail tonight
00:57:14
because I gotta defend myself or because he and I sometimes get into it in the worst way
00:57:20
will my daughter be taken care of tomorrow and the following day and the day after
00:57:25
that and so I can figure this thing out as said the investigators believe these texts were as good as a suicide note we
00:57:32
know that based off of what uh the sheriff in charge said in his report and then we also have the St Johns County
00:57:40
Medical Examiner who seemed to agree because the cause of death was a rule to suicide
00:57:48
and an intro oral gunshot wound this was the ruling by Dr Frederick Hoban who issued the determination and
00:57:58
on the autopsy worksheet the doctor's notes say under how injury occurred quote decedent shot herself with an HG
00:58:07
meaning a hand gun one thing that is weird we keep citing statistics here but one thing that is
00:58:16
weird that we should know is the an intra-oral gunshot are almost exclusively suicides
00:58:24
so just within hours of the shooting a Saint John's Sheriff's Office Deputy went to Michelle's sister's home and
00:58:34
said well the investigation is done it's a suicide and no other explanation was given
00:58:41
[Music] thank you I want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage so much more to get
00:58:59
to join us back here in the garage tomorrow same bat Time same bat Channel and until then be good be kind and don't
00:59:06
litter [Music] [Applause] foreign [Music]