00:00:00
[Music] is it possible to predict the unpredictable could surgeons use a patient's own Anatomy to create 3D
00:00:07
printed life-size organ models to map out challenges ahead of time making surgery more precise efficient and less
00:00:15
invasive is it possible it already is because every day we're doing what's never been done learn more at
00:00:23
mayoclinic.org Sloss mayoclinic you know where to go when it comes to Quality sleep Ashley
00:00:33
has you covered with top mattress brands at winning prices and with special financing options available you can
00:00:39
snooze now and pay later plus your mattress purchase helps give the gift of better sleep to children in need and US
00:00:47
Special Operations forces visit your local Ashley store or shop online today and make every snooze count financing is
00:00:57
subject to credit approval C store or ashley.com for [Music] [Music] details [Music]
00:01:42
welcome to True crb garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and with me
00:01:48
as always is a man with a reminder that life does not start and stop at your convenience here is the captain it's
00:01:56
good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling a [Music]
00:02:05
friend today we are drinking Horizon Lines by the good Folks at foam Brewers this is a triple IPA very crushable for
00:02:15
a triple and that is because Horizon Lines is brewed with Peach and tangerine ABV 11% so drink this at home in your
00:02:24
garage and I think you will agree garage grade four out of five bottle caps and here's some cheers to our friends first
00:02:32
up a big shout out to Andy and St Michael Minnesota and a big we like your jib to Patrick in Lake Mary Florida and
00:02:40
last but certainly not least we have my friend Robin over wat's edge here in Delaware Ohio everybody we just
00:02:47
mentioned went to True Crim garage.com and hooked us up this week with some beers for the fridge and for that we
00:02:54
think yeah BW R you in beer run we got some new shirts in stock so you want want to check those out at true Crim
00:03:01
garage.com and Colonel that's enough of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's
00:03:08
talk some true [Music] crime we're digging deeper into a private investigator's 92-page
00:03:28
investigation into the death of Michelle oconnell oconnell died four years ago on
00:03:32
September 2nd 2010 in what was ruled a h a suicide but some of her family members
00:03:38
have insisted it was a homicide Channel 4 Scott Johnson has been looking into this and he's joining us now live
00:03:45
Scott Mary tomorrow here in St John's County the family along with their attorney holding a vigil four years
00:03:51
since Michelle oconnell died well tomorrow they are also having a news conference with an announcement they
00:03:57
want the governor to open this case again they say they have new Witnesses and I talked to a guy tonight on the eve
00:04:03
of this announcement who's been investigating this case himself he thinks some things were left out clue
00:04:10
right questions the validity of the criminal investigation into the death of Michelle oconnell and questions whether
00:04:16
it was a suicide or perhaps investigators got it wrong and someone killed the St John's County woman you
00:04:22
know it's not about my review and Analysis into this case it's about the evidence and it's about you know the
00:04:27
evidence getting submitted and getting looked at one thing Wright points to is an interview FDLE conducted with OK
00:04:33
connell's boyfriend at the time St John's County Deputy Jeremy Banks here's an excerpt from wri's report that says
00:04:39
he implies Banks staged the scene where OK connell's body was found quote agent Rogers asked J Banks if he agrees that
00:04:47
the location of the gun could not have fallen in the position found and forensic experts have stated the gun was
00:04:53
staged or placed agent Rogers goes on to say do you agree Jay Banks replied uh-huh agent Rogers asked Jay Banks do
00:05:02
you see the logic in that response Jay Banks response was yes and do you agree with that though Jay Banks response
00:05:09
again yes by shaking his head Wright says this strongly suggests the way her body was found had been tampered with
00:05:18
well I think it's a mismanagement of of the case I think it's an injustice because when when you go into
00:05:24
investigated case no matter what type of investigation you do it's a systematic process and you have to rule out any any
00:05:30
Criminal Intent to that case one other thing Wright points out that's interesting concerns the black glove we
00:05:37
first told you about at 10 it was found on the hood of bank's car well Wright says bank's patrol car also happened to
00:05:44
have a box of black medical gloves in the back and he says detectives never tested to see if they were the same type
00:05:50
of gloves now he's sending this information to anyone who will listen I'll send it to the uh the uh the
00:05:56
station attorney for the fifth circuit the seventh circuit the eighth circuit I sent it to the governor I sent it to
00:06:01
everybody that sheriff sha sent it to that was on his list I sent it to channel 4 the FBI so tomorrow the family
00:06:08
will be gathering to talk about this also they have a petition going trying to encourage the governor to reopen this
00:06:15
case and look at the state's findings we're live in St John's County Scott Johnson Channel 4 the local
00:06:28
station [Music] interesting stuff you heard it there that investigator that you heard
00:06:37
speaking is a man by the name of clue wri it does not get much better in the way of interesting name for investigator
00:06:46
than clue wri when he was named as a baby they knew exactly what he would be doing as a grown-up unless he named
00:06:54
himself that's true that's true then it's just it just looks good on a business card but clue Wright my friends
00:07:01
was not the only person investigating the incredibly suspicious death of Michelle oconnell someone in Michelle
00:07:08
City St Augustine Florida a citizen was looking into the Michelle oconnell case and depending on who you talk to well
00:07:18
that person Eli wasto was making some Headway in the oconnell case but that would all come to an end sadly because
00:07:27
sometime between taking his son out to dinner and taking his son to school the next morning someone murdered Eli wasto
00:07:37
depending on who you talk to some say Eli was Talk's murder has everything to do with the suspicious death of Michelle
00:07:45
oconnell so let's figure out who Eli was talk was Eli was talk was a man in his late 30s who was living in St Augustine
00:07:55
Florida he's originally from Wisconsin and at some point he and a former girlfriend or maybe they were married at
00:08:04
one time lived down in St Augustine Florida together these two had two children a son and a daughter now at
00:08:14
some point this family splits up Eli decides to go home to Wisconsin because the mother of his children took the
00:08:24
children back to Wisconsin he wanted to be near his children then after about a year so he decided look Florida is much
00:08:32
more for me than Wisconsin is I'm moving back down to Florida when we catch up with Eli Wast where our case starts in
00:08:41
2019 in January we have Eli Wast who is living in St Augustine Florida and by this point his son is 15 years old and
00:08:52
living with him down in Florida this because you know at some point in a young man's age age or teenage boys's
00:09:01
age there sometimes becomes this point where you need to go live with Dad and you need to be raised by dad and that
00:09:09
was the situation here we want to look into Eli's case not as a part three to our Michelle oconnell coverage that we
00:09:18
did last week but rather as a standalone to look into Eli was Talk's murder now you know one thing that I hate Captain
00:09:26
is an incomplete timeline un fortunately that is what we will be dealing with here today in this homicide
00:09:35
investigation on January 31st 2019 a 15-year-old boy came home at 7:30 a.m. to find his father Eli wasto then
00:09:47
aged 38 dead of a gunshot wound to the Head this took place at was Talk's residence which was the Lera
00:09:55
Condominiums he was killed in his condo which was located at World Golf Village at 945 registry Boulevard St John's
00:10:05
County Florida in an interesting turn of events here Captain the 15-year-old son
00:10:12
who found his father dead was not residing in the condo with Eli wasto at that time this is because it's reported
00:10:22
that Eli was talk had some concerns for his safety for his son's safety and in fact we had one neighbor that told the
00:10:31
news that his son was staying in a condominium on the first floor level Eli was Talk's condo was on the third floor
00:10:41
of his building and that Eli had made these arrangements to keep his son safe or he was at least
00:10:49
concerned for their safety and made these Arrangements yeah depending on who you ask there's different reasons some
00:10:57
say that he was renting this place and they were going to move into this into that condo from the upstairs condo other
00:11:05
people said that while he was trying to protect his son other people said well maybe they were just not getting along
00:11:11
at the time so this was just a temporary solution as I think the apartment downstairs was only rented out from that
00:11:19
Monday to that Friday for one week there's a lot of things to talk about here just with this one aspect of the
00:11:27
case so first off what we're going to find when we looked into Eli watch Talk's murder is that there is very
00:11:35
little in the way of detail available in this case the details just certainly just are not there and that is
00:11:45
because the putam county sheriff's office has chose not to release hardly any information at all in Eli's case and
00:11:54
then you take that a step further and his family keep in mind they're all in Wisconsin when Eli is murdered so
00:12:04
they've not been extremely forthcoming with details about Eli's life they don't know 100% how much those details about
00:12:12
his life could in fact provide answers or Clues to who may have killed him and again they are states away all the way
00:12:21
up in Wisconsin this takes place down in Florida I will say this it looks to me like his family has concerns about the
00:12:30
investigation into Eli's death and it sounds like where they have asked the putam county sheriff's office for
00:12:38
answers they don't seem to be getting any answers now that could simply be that the Sheriff's Office itself may not
00:12:47
have much in the way of answers to provide to the family in this investigation well to be clear I don't
00:12:54
think his family had a great deal of knowledge or details about Eli's life when he was in Florida we'll try to fill
00:13:03
in some of the blanks about his life as we go through what information we do know about Eli's case so the time in
00:13:11
question here is roughly about 1 p.m. January 30th to 7:30 a.m. January 31st 2019 so that's Wednesday night going
00:13:24
into Thursday morning one odd fact here Captain is that Eli we don't know when he was murdered it's sometime in that
00:13:33
window but his birthday is January 31st something that we have not encountered very often here in reviewing hundreds of
00:13:44
Unsolved homicide cases again the time in question is 10 p.m. January 30th to roughly 7:30 a.m. January 31st
00:13:53
2019 Wednesday night going into Thursday morning his 15-year-old son finds him dead in his bedroom a 911 call is placed
00:14:03
and made at that time where his son requests an ambulance yeah so like we said his son is staying at a condo
00:14:11
that's on the ground floor so what would happen is he has school that week so his
00:14:17
father would come down wake him up and take him to school well that morning what his son claims is my dad never came
00:14:25
down to wake me up so I went up to see what was going on and when he walked into the apartment it's a one-bedroom
00:14:31
apartment he sees that his father has been shot and there's multiple shots there's M there's multiple bullet holes
00:14:39
in the walls and so he ends up calling 911 there is evidence that a lot of gunfire took place in Eli's bedroom
00:14:47
sometime in the middle of the night a couple things that are strange here one we talked about the rumor mill that Eli
00:14:56
wasto was in fear for his safety and and potentially his son's safety and that is
00:15:01
why Arrangements were made to rent this other condo why would Eli wasto be afraid for his safety well that's
00:15:09
because he was looking into the Michelle oconnell suspicious death investigation
00:15:14
and it sounds like he was shaking some trees some things were falling out he might have been finding some breadcrumbs
00:15:21
in that case and ruffled some feathers along the way now whose feathers may have been ruffled obviously would be
00:15:27
Jeremy Bank the individual that has been suspected by many as the trigger person in
00:15:34
Michelle OK connell's death there's a few weird things in the Jeremy Banks eliw talk world one is that there was
00:15:46
statements by Eli that Jeremy Banks who is a St John's County Sheriff's deputy had run him off the road at some
00:15:57
point I say that that's weird not because of Jeremy Banks's personality we can gather from events in Jeremy Banks's
00:16:07
life that he's a hotthead that he he Springs into action before thinking things through he's had a record of that
00:16:16
so hearing that Eli was talk was run off the road by Jeremy Banks did not come as
00:16:22
a surprise what came as a surprise is to then hear from other people saying that
00:16:29
no that is not the case there was some kind of encounter between the two but that Jeremy Banks did not run Eli was
00:16:38
talk off of the road so what we know about Eli was talk is involvement or wanting to solve this case is obviously
00:16:48
he's a local he hears about the information that is being released to the public it's ruled a
00:16:57
suicide then there's other people that believe that it was a homicide so Eli starts looking into this collecting
00:17:05
notes and and basically starting a whole binder and reaching out to lawyers and reaching out to other people that could
00:17:14
run test for Eli to maybe prove his hypothesis that Jeremy Banks is responsible for Michelle's murder these
00:17:23
two cases are very different as far as law enforcement and how they will View these two cases so with Michelle's case
00:17:31
being ruled a suicide that means it's somewhat of an open door open book policy when it comes to getting
00:17:37
information and getting reports in Michelle's case in Eli's case they ruled this a homicide keep in mind it took
00:17:45
them about four months to make that determination but they ruled Eli's case of homicide and therefore it's looked at
00:17:54
much differently where those records are not available to the public it's not an
00:17:59
open door open book policy now in the Michelle oconnell case I don't know exactly when the exact date or week that
00:18:08
Eli got involved in this case but his involvement was significant he was in communication with Michelle's mother and
00:18:17
family and he had told them that with their permission he would like to look into the suspicious death of Michelle
00:18:24
oconnell and like I said from what I could see Captain he was shaking some trees and some things were falling out
00:18:31
he was finding things that could be potential Clues into what really happened that night in Michelle oconnell
00:18:38
and Jeremy Banks's residence well a couple things that are strange is one Eli didn't have a clear motive other
00:18:46
than just wanting to solve this case he seemed to take a personal interest in this case but nobody really knows
00:18:54
exactly what the motive was it wasn't like he had plans to make make a documentary or make a podcast or
00:19:00
anything about the case and he wasn't telling people back home anything about this investigation or or his involvement
00:19:09
in it after Eli's murder his family was that was news to them that he was investigating this Michelle oconnell
00:19:17
case now one thing we do have one of his friends who is on record a lifetime friend that says Eli his personality was
00:19:27
if he saw somebody getting picked on or bullied he would go and stand up for them he did this at a young age he did
00:19:34
it all of his life and this friend suspects that maybe that's what Eli thought was going on here he saw the
00:19:42
death of this young woman single mother Michelle oconnell and he didn't feel that her family or the case was getting
00:19:51
any kind of Justice or getting a real true investigation and so he decided to seek the family's permission to step in
00:19:59
get involved and maybe potentially write a wrong that he thought was going on well like you said we don't have a clear
00:20:06
timeline of the murder but we also don't have a clear timeline of what what he was up to that year we don't know we
00:20:15
don't know if was talk was working for the first six months of that year or what kind of job he had as far as his
00:20:24
son was concerned he had no job but I guess he was receiving some money from his mother and his father yeah this is a
00:20:32
weird part but I also think that this is interesting when looking into his murder
00:20:37
so Eli was killed with his own gun in his bedroom in the middle of the night and as the captain pointed out there was
00:20:46
plenty of evidence in that bedroom to suggest that multiple shots had been fired the police have never released to
00:20:54
the public exactly how he was killed other than to say that it was a gunshot they don't say how many times he was
00:21:01
shot or where he was shot so we don't even know those details but based off of what the family has stated and again we
00:21:10
know his son was in that room because his son found him and reported it to 911 that there were multiple shots fired and
00:21:18
people have said that have seen the room itself have stated that it almost looked
00:21:25
like somebody was just kind of firing around room firing this gun around the room that it was into several different
00:21:32
walls into the ceiling through a lamp one of his relatives even stated that they believed there were so many shots
00:21:39
fired that the gun may have been reloaded at some point when I hear that we have gunshots all over the place
00:21:46
Captain the first thing that my mind goes to is we probably have some kind of struggle right maybe Eli and whoever
00:21:53
went there to kill him yeah a little tussle little wrestle and or under bruise were fighting over the gun and
00:22:00
the gun was going off and fired into these different walls into the ceiling into the lamp because you've said it a
00:22:07
100 times here in the garage Captain you don't want to be the guy that brings a knife to a gunfight no sir well Eli was
00:22:14
talk he had a 9mm gun he knew how to use it he kept it in his nightstand in his bedroom did somebody come in there with
00:22:23
the intention of shutting this guy up and shutting him down with a KNE attempting to do it quietly in the
00:22:30
middle of the night only to discover a man who was there ready to defend himself with a gun and now we have a
00:22:37
fight a fight and a struggle for that gun and whoever gets that gun is going to be the
00:22:44
[Music] [Applause] winner this show is sponsored by better help do you look forward to the holidays
00:23:01
maybe you struggle with seasonal Blues this time of year can be a lot and it's natural to feel some sadness or even
00:23:08
anxiety about it but adding something new and positive to your life can counteract some of those feelings
00:23:14
therapy can be a bright spot something to look forward to to make you feel grounded and to give you the tools to
00:23:21
manage everything going on if you're thinking of starting therapy give better help a try it's entirely on line
00:23:28
designed to be convenient flexible and suited to your schedule just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with
00:23:34
a licensed therapist and switch therapist at any time for no additional charge find your bright spot this season
00:23:41
with betterhelp visit betterhelp.com garage today to get 10% off your first month that's better help
00:23:50
hp.com garage is it possible to predict the unpredictable can 3D printed life-size
00:23:59
organ models help to map out complex surgeries ahead of time is it possible it already is right here Mayo Clinic you
00:24:08
know where to go Rosetta Stone is the language learning program with a lasting impact
00:24:14
I've been using the W to learn French and it's not just about memorizing words but actually having real conversations
00:24:20
and it's not just French they offer 25 languages right now Rosetta Stone has an awesome holiday deal 50% off their
00:24:27
lifetime membership every language unlimited access forever for anyone keen on diving deep into a new language check
00:24:34
out rosettastone.com it's a GameChanger want to grow your business in the next 12 months it starts with
00:24:42
your culture Insperity a leading HR provider since 1986 can help your business create a culture that drives
00:24:48
growth download their free ebook the future of business is culture at insperity.com with the right people
00:24:55
processes and values in place your company can realize its full potential set your business up for growth download
00:25:01
the free ebook at insperity.com Insperity HR that makes a [Music] [Applause] difference all right we are back two
00:25:21
weeks in a row where a case delivers some details but that just lead leads me to more questions exactly and don't
00:25:30
forget everyone out there we still have some tickets left for the April 29th brewog live event go to True Crim
00:25:39
garage.com go to the store Page and you can find more information about tickets or purchase your tickets there so when
00:25:46
you find out that Eli was killed with his own gun you start going well how's this possible but like you said oh a guy
00:25:56
comes in there's a struggle there some shots go off that would make sense why we have bullet holes all over the
00:26:04
apartment and then that also makes sense on why he would have been killed by his
00:26:08
own gun yeah because the other option then becomes well somebody must have known where the gun was went into his
00:26:17
condo with the intention of retrieving that gun and then shot and killed Eli was talk that seems to me a lot less
00:26:25
likely than somebody showing up and being surprised that they have to fight off the homeowner that has a gun but we
00:26:32
don't know if Eli was shot one time or multiple times but we know because of the bullet holes and we have a dead
00:26:39
victim here that there was multiple gunshots the problem is we have no ear Witnesses this is not just a single
00:26:46
family home in in a neighborhood this is a condo complex these are condos on top
00:26:53
of condos beside condos so you would think with all the these multiple shots happening that we'd have at least
00:27:00
somebody reporting this or calling 911 and saying that they heard shots fired there are two really good sources that I
00:27:08
found in this case and I was surprised how few good sources we had to at our disposal in this case well not just good
00:27:18
sources but there's just few sources in general exactly so you have the Sheriff's Office who has not released
00:27:24
hardly any information at all in was talks murder Cas and then you have his family who again live many miles away
00:27:33
and it sounds like they're not getting the answers that they want from the Sheriff's Office and therefore they have
00:27:38
little to add the two sources that we found that were the best for this case was the criminal conduct podcast season
00:27:47
1 back from 2020 they did a deep dive on the Michelle oconnell case and devoted a
00:27:53
couple of episodes to the Eli was talk portion of that story story which you cannot I think it would be irresponsible
00:28:00
to talk about one and not the other that is in large part because of the suspicions surrounding both of these
00:28:07
cases could they be connected there are a lot of people that believe that yes they have to be the other good source
00:28:13
was CBS 47 Action News Jacks uh that did a great article now they did this article just days after Eli was killed
00:28:25
and the title of this article is Michelle O Connell seven things to know about suspicious death of person looking
00:28:33
into case so they noted seven different things that they found interesting that they were able to report on in some form
00:28:42
again some of it included some speculation so following their good lead here Captain I thought I would write
00:28:48
down seven interesting things about the Eli Wast talk case first off was iding the victim
00:28:58
now we know that his son calls in to 911 roughly at 7:30 a.m. that morning saying
00:29:04
that he found his father dead that his father had been shot the sun sounds incredibly calm on 911 again we don't
00:29:13
know it's it it's difficult to say what that means he's almost uncomfortably calm to me in the portions that I've
00:29:20
heard this 911 call has not been released by the sheriff's office however I bring that up in all fairness right
00:29:30
because we reviewed the 911 call from Michelle's case regarding Jeremy Banks calling in emergency services and we put
00:29:38
in our own opinions about his actions and his statements and and how he conducted himself on that call so I
00:29:46
think it's only fair to do so in the Eli case as well but one problem became iding the victim this was very
00:29:54
interesting to me for a couple reasons because we do not know exact L what that means okay so Eli wasto had changed his
00:30:01
name at some point he was born Craig wasto and then legally changed his name to Ellie Marie wasto now that gets a
00:30:11
little bit complicated here Captain because some have said that Eli identified as a woman some have say that
00:30:20
he identified as a man and a woman some say he identified as a non-binary sexual
00:30:26
preference and some some say that this has overshadowed the investigation of his murder yeah and we keep on saying
00:30:34
Eli and saying he but this is out of respect for his friends and family because this is how they identify him
00:30:43
and this is also how his son identified him as well yes as said W's death has been ruled a homicide the autopsy report
00:30:52
has not been released to the public despite the homicide ruling police quick stated that they were confident that
00:30:59
there was no danger to the community which we'll get into that here in a second but the police also quickly
00:31:05
released a statement that was identified as both a man and a woman and again some
00:31:10
have said that that has overshadowed the case we certainly want to be very respectful to Eli what we do know is he
00:31:18
identified himself as Eli so short for Ellie Marie I'm guessing we do know from a statement from his family that he
00:31:26
changed his name and then regretted that at some point and as the captain said according to his family and according to
00:31:33
his neighbors he identified as Eli and as a man in a perfect world Eli would be sitting right here next to us and would
00:31:42
tell us how Eli prefers to be identified well like you said the the sheriff hasn't made a lot of comments about this
00:31:50
case but he has made some I think questionable comments when it comes to Eli you know basically
00:31:58
viewing him as some kind of uh transgender freak and being very dismissive of Eli
00:32:07
as a person and at the end of the day whatever Eli identified as maybe none of our business but he's a human and we
00:32:18
should treat him as such and we should treat him with some dignity and respect which I just don't think law enforcement
00:32:25
did in this case yeah there's one statement where I believe the sheriff from now in all fairness this is the
00:32:32
sheriff from St John's County not putam County St John's County brought in putam
00:32:38
County to do the investigation and rightfully so now they did this because they were made aware that Eli was
00:32:46
looking into the death of Michelle oconnell and they should have brought in another agency to investigate her death
00:32:55
right from Jump Street but they never did they they waited months and months and
00:32:59
only begrudgingly brought in FDLE Florida Department of Law Enforcement to conduct an investigation into Michelle
00:33:08
OK connell's death and when they didn't like what FDLE found they pushed them out the door so in this case they bring
00:33:15
in putam County Sheriff's Office which again I'm glad that they did it's right full that they did so keep in mind
00:33:23
though St John's Sheriff's Office was on the scene they're the ones that are going to respond to the 911 call they
00:33:31
are there on the scene for hours before it's determined that they should bring in putam County to conduct this
00:33:39
investigation now I said that iding the victim was complicated and it was it wasn't until five or six days later that
00:33:47
they they identified the victim here as Eli was talk what's interesting to me there is does that tell us something
00:33:55
about the crime scene at itself does that tell us something about the injuries to our victim we know that they
00:34:02
needed to do dental comparisons to determine that it was Eli was talk the problem here though and what is weird is
00:34:12
we have the son who's calling it in calling it into 911 it's his father who's found in his residence was this a
00:34:20
situation where they needed dental records to identify Eli based on injuries that he suffered led to his
00:34:27
death or was this the complications that he had changed his name and then was going by an alias at the time of his
00:34:35
death it could be both and I've seen it suggested and there are there are things
00:34:40
at the crime scene that suggest maybe this was a head shot that killed Eli and that would make sense that we need to go
00:34:48
the route of dental records to identify him well let's dive more into the crime scene this is very interesting here
00:34:54
captain and you pointed this out and I'm glad that you brought this up earlier so
00:34:59
what's so strange to me is that no one heard a thing no one seems to have heard anything we already talked about the
00:35:06
amount of gunfire that took place in that room and so much gunfire that it was speculated by one of Eli's family
00:35:15
members that the gun may have had to have been reloaded at some point and continued firing now
00:35:22
this condo complex this is a a gated community so you need to check in with a guard at the gate to get into this
00:35:34
community right there presents some ways of excluding potential suspects and including potential suspects somebody
00:35:45
had to have the ability to not only get into Eli's condo but also get into that community so was this a stranger was
00:35:55
this a Rogue Deputy that that was tired of being investigated and decided to come in to that Community or was it
00:36:04
somebody that was already there yeah so basically to get into this complex you're going to be ided and they're
00:36:11
going to take the your information down for your license plate it's either somebody that lives there or somebody
00:36:18
that checked themselves in or is there another possibility that somebody got through
00:36:26
security without having to be checked yeah I'm not going to sit here and pretend like this is impenetrable
00:36:32
security measures that were installed here it looks to me like somebody if they were stealth enough could figure
00:36:38
out a way into the community the first thing I was looking for was if somebody could take a
00:36:44
Waterway and use it as essentially a back door into the community because we've seen this in other homicide cases
00:36:51
ones that are still unsolved to this day that they go how could this happen in a
00:36:56
at Community nobody could get in but people do get in delivery drivers get in and if you have those waterways you can
00:37:04
avoid security completely and get in there using watercraft instead this from everything I could see
00:37:12
and find online does not appear to be a possibility in Eli's case what is interesting though is the criminal
00:37:19
conduct podcast reported that a law officer would not be requ ired to check in to the gate would not be required to
00:37:29
show ID or really even identify themselves that they could pull up and would be likely be granted full access
00:37:37
to go straight into the community again we do not know what they found in their investigation because so little has been
00:37:46
released what we do know is the statement that no one heard a thing that was the original statement that came out
00:37:52
no one heard a thing later the statement then changed to No One heard any gunshots somebody one neighbor believes
00:38:01
they may have heard some kind of scuffle or argument but we do not know if it's related to the shooting itself now this
00:38:08
is incredibly curious because of one the amount of gunfire and two given the living situation Eli's
00:38:17
living in a single bedroom condo his son was sleeping on a pullout couch in the living room at the time of his death his
00:38:25
son is staying in a a couple floors down according to at least one neighbor this was due to
00:38:31
safety precautions which doesn't make a lot of sense to me no it doesn't let's get into that in just one second but I
00:38:38
want to make sure that I include here that in this condo the the latera condos where Eli lived there's 149 units spread
00:38:47
out over the course of three buildings so there's potentially 50 units in Eli's building
00:38:56
and no one hears a thing with that amount of gunfire which also again like anytime there's a apartment complex or a
00:39:04
condo complex then you get a a very long list of possible suspects and people that you have to question and what the
00:39:13
captain was getting to there is that the fact that we have Eli's son living in a
00:39:19
different condo or or staying in a different condo would be the more appropriate way to word it because it
00:39:25
sounds like was a temporary solution if a solution was even needed but this could be have ju just been for a week it
00:39:34
was not cheap to do this is my understanding but several people have pointed out that that doesn't make a
00:39:40
whole lot of sense if you are afraid for your situation and Afraid for your son's
00:39:48
safety or your own safety you are a responsible gun owner why not have your son stay with
00:39:57
you rather than staying overnight by himself a few floors away it would seem to me
00:40:05
like he would be safer to stay with you where you're sleeping in the master bedroom with a gun loaded and ready in
00:40:15
the nightstand yeah and like I've said there's also speculation that maybe the sun was staying there because they were
00:40:22
having difficulties but when people bring up the fact that well this this rental would have cost him about
00:40:28
$161,700 just for the week money really isn't that big of a deal when you're living off of other people's incomes
00:40:38
from everything we know Eli didn't have a job at the time and he was asking his father and mother for money so when
00:40:47
you're basically living off their their money then what does it matter that you spend $6 $1,700 it's not your money
00:40:55
anyways well and what's unique about that situation is Eli's parents were separated so they have stated he could
00:41:06
ask his dad for money and get money from his father without his mother knowing and then go to Mom and ask for more
00:41:14
money without his father knowing and the amount of money that they were sending him is reported to be substantial it's
00:41:24
it's a significant amount of money however I want to point out something here too in this
00:41:30
case when we talk about things like a motive well really on the surface all I can see Captain is three potential
00:41:42
motives one him investigating Michelle OK connell's case somebody didn't like that maybe it was the deputy that we've
00:41:51
talked so much about the last two weeks or was it money because he was spending a lot lot of money he was asking for a
00:41:57
lot of money and he was spending a lot of money on the Michelle oconnell investigation he was filing for reports
00:42:04
and for crime scene photos or photos from the scene he was paying experts for their opinions and for them to review
00:42:14
things that he thought was of evidentiary value and people have suggested they don't know exactly 100%
00:42:21
how he was covering his bills his living expenses the living expenses of his son
00:42:28
and paying for this investigation without having a job where was all that money coming from we've talked about his
00:42:33
mom and dad but could there have been someplace else could there have been some other kind of stream of income some
00:42:40
kind of other stream of money that we are not privy to that he was getting money from somebody else because if he
00:42:48
was and he was not paying that that person back that could be the motive that we should be honing in on well and
00:42:55
just to be clear we don't know how much Eli was actually spending on This research all we have is he had this
00:43:04
notebook supposedly that was either taken by the murderer or was taken by police but we don't have again the
00:43:13
police coming forward and saying that they found this notebook but supposedly he had this notebook and he had copies
00:43:19
of the notebook in a safety deposit box so just because we have these notes and these experts that he had contact
00:43:29
information from and maybe even notes that he contacted them we don't know which ones he actually hired and how
00:43:36
much they charged if they charged anything cuz you know sometimes when you're looking into a case and you
00:43:43
present the case to somebody they might do the research and and and do some work
00:43:48
on the case just pro bono so we have no clue what he was spending on this but his son makes it pretty clear that he
00:43:57
one didn't think he was staying in the condo because his father was afraid for his safety or that his father was afraid
00:44:06
for his own safety he also says that there was just nobody else in my father's life it was
00:44:12
just me and him and that was it and he didn't have a job so other than this case it's like what the heck was this
00:44:21
guy doing yeah and the thing about the safety again and I'll move past this here
00:44:29
Captain but forgive me get let me get one more shot at it it's if you're concerned for your son's safety moving
00:44:36
him to another condo that suggests to me that you are concerned about your safety
00:44:42
or your son's safety and that would be coming from the threat would be you or your son that they weren't getting along
00:44:48
maybe it had erupted into violence that we don't know we're not saying that that's happened but that's the only
00:44:56
thing that registers that seems to make any sense to me it also does make sense something you said earlier maybe they
00:45:02
were going to move into this condo eventually that seems like something that could be but that's very it's often
00:45:11
not reported that way so I wonder if that how How likely that could have been we know that Eli's condo was a
00:45:18
one-bedroom unit I don't know if this other unit was multi bedrooms because that would make some sense okay well
00:45:26
well we're having some difficulty but I'm just going to have my son stay here and we're going to eventually move into
00:45:31
that unit anyways because it's a two-bedroom and he'll have his own bedroom and that will be better for
00:45:36
everybody but again how are you going to be upgrading to a condo when you're not
00:45:41
even paying for you're not even paying the rent of that condo his investigation into Michelle OK connell's death was
00:45:48
bearing fruit because we know that we don't know when he stepped into the investigation
00:45:55
but when we know that in August so roughly 6 months before Eli was killed he had filed a request for photos from
00:46:03
the scene of where Michelle oconnell died and that request was granted and he received those photos and
00:46:12
Eli really working this case very hard which you heard our coverage we don't think St John's Sheriff's Office worked
00:46:20
the case very hard at all one thing he did was he was able to identify a shirt in one of those photos that had transfer
00:46:29
blood evidence on the shirt this is very interesting because one of the expenses
00:46:36
that he had that Eli had was providing this information to a blood expert to get their opinion on how
00:46:46
Michelle O connell's blood ended up on that shirt where when it's seen in a picture from the crime scene it's seen
00:46:55
in a location that would that it's not easily explained why there would be transfer blood on that
00:47:02
shirt yeah it's basically impossible to get blood on that shirt in the location that it is in during the photos one of
00:47:11
the other parts of his investigation that he was working on was the water usage records for Jeremy Banks's house
00:47:18
on the night of Michelle's death and this is really interesting because remember we had one of the officers that
00:47:27
said when they showed up and confronted Jeremy Banks they believed that he wasn't you know he wasn't sweating he
00:47:36
appeared to be very clean and even smelled like soap so some have wondered did he take a shower between the time
00:47:44
that Michelle was killed and calling 911 and Eli knew that one of the biggest water usages a single family dwelling
00:47:56
will'll have in the course of a day is somebody taking a shower and so he wanted to get the water usage for that
00:48:04
day the day in question in Michelle ell's death yeah and I don't know how much you could actually
00:48:09
prove like when the water usage happen so I think it'd be easily explained away like well I took a shower in the morning
00:48:19
or or whenever but um but I think it shows it shows his creativity when looking into this investigation yes Captain and
00:48:32
the the report the thing that that is huge here and potentially links the oconnell case to Eli's case is that
00:48:41
blood evidence this was information that Eli was talk had told others he considered this to be bombshell level
00:48:50
type information and he commissioned a report by a bloodstained pattern analyst we'd already mentioned this but her name
00:48:59
is Anna Cox Eli was talk hired her to review the evidence in the crime scene photos that he had obtained in August 6
00:49:07
months before his murder Cox spoke with the criminal conduct guys on their podcast and told them that the bombshell
00:49:16
evidence was a shirt that we have already discussed that was found in the photos it was lying on a day bed just
00:49:23
above Michelle's head it had a saturation blood stain on it about the size of a coaster Michelle was lying on
00:49:31
the floor below a blanket on the dayb bed the shirt was not at all in contact with Michelle's body and would not have
00:49:38
gotten blood on it based on where the shirt was found so it must have come into contact with a wound possibly the
00:49:47
cut on her lip perhaps her head and then was moved the shirt was not collected by
00:49:53
the original investigator s Anna Cox also found a spot of Blood on the gun's tackl light the spot is visible in the
00:50:03
photos of the weapon now remember Rusty Rogers who took over the oconnell investigation for
00:50:10
FDLE his lab report found no blood on the gun but Anna Cox observed this Blood on the tackl light but not on the barrel
00:50:19
or the side of the gun so then this led her to conclude that that blood was likely a transfer stain from someone
00:50:30
handling the gun after it was fired think about that after it was fired in Michelle's death right that would
00:50:38
suggest that Michelle either didn't pull the trigger and somebody else did or if
00:50:46
she did somebody handled the gun before it was photographed in those pictures well in
00:50:53
one of the interviews with j Jeremy Banks he basically admits that he moved the gun after she was killed or somebody
00:51:03
moved the gun after she was killed because it shouldn't have been found in the location that it was let's go back
00:51:09
to the condo appearance in Eli was Talk's case the door there's a big question mark about the front door to
00:51:18
his condo so it was early in the early reports stated that the door may have been broken into but then there's other
00:51:26
reports that state that there was no sign of forced entry into Eli was Talk's condominium and then it was reported
00:51:34
well the door had to be replaced so reporters reached out to the putam county sheriff's office and
00:51:41
said the door has been removed and has been replaced why we've seen in other cases where a door a front door is
00:51:52
removed from a crime scene because they're going to take it to test it for ballistics you know if somebody used a
00:51:58
gun to force their way in right if somebody use some kind of weapon or pry tool to gain access through that door
00:52:09
they'll remove the door and take it to their crime lab they also will do this for fingerprint purposes so the
00:52:16
reporters did their due diligence they asked the Sheriff's Office was this door removed for any of those reasons it was
00:52:23
it removed to try to find some evidence in the wash talk murder case the answer no comment we can't comment on that
00:52:30
because this is an open murder investigation right but the evidence that we do have is that his son calls
00:52:37
911 he is the one that goes into the apartment he claims that he used his key to get into the apartment and so when he
00:52:45
leaves the apartment he locked the door behind him and that police had to bust down the door or paramedics somebody had
00:52:54
to bust down that door when responding to the call right which again would require them to replace the door yeah
00:53:02
which would make everything makes sense but also why wouldn't you just ask the kid could you let us into the
00:53:09
apartment you know I I I don't see the need for busting down the door when you have his son that called and obviously
00:53:19
he got into the apartment so there's just there's this little weird Inon consistencies there's
00:53:26
things that seem very simple in this case that could be done that I'm guessing were not done in
00:53:34
this investigation so well and I'm going to stop you there because I agree but just because we're not being told this
00:53:42
information by law enforcement doesn't mean that they don't have this information and just because they gave
00:53:48
no comment about the situation with the door doesn't mean there's they're being uh Shady or nefarious uh about their
00:53:58
answers the crime scene evidence is pretty basic that's what's been reased and it's pretty simple and it's multiple
00:54:06
shots fired potential that he was shot in the head and at a low trajectory meaning he could have been on the floor
00:54:15
or on his knees or sitting up when the Fatal shot was fired right we don't know how many shots were fired in that room
00:54:24
we don't know how many gunshots our victim took we do know that there was money missing from the condo and this
00:54:32
money was in a bowl or a jar and hidden in a cabinet in the kitchen it's described as such that
00:54:43
somebody would have to know that that money is there to have taken that money now I ask you does this mean that we
00:54:53
should be looking more in the direction of a motive for money or is this a situation where maybe
00:55:02
someone stag the scene to take the money simply to make it look like it has something to do with Eli's
00:55:10
homicide yeah this money thing I kind of feel is a nothing Burger because when somebody is living off of
00:55:20
other people's incomes and he has no income that we know of that it's very possible that he used this money himself
00:55:29
and his son just never knew that he used that his father used this money and that
00:55:34
the money was gone like we said he there was multiple days that he wasn't staying
00:55:40
at that condo unit so is it possible that his father took that money for some reason and where was he staying when he
00:55:47
wasn't staying there the other thing too he could be cashing checks for Mom and or dad and rather than putting it in the
00:55:55
bank and rather than carrying around a large sum of money and cash he may be stashing it in this jar Bowl in the
00:56:01
kitchen area hidden away so the money thing doesn't really offer up any thing strong that's suggestive
00:56:10
anyway there was a footprint a partial footprint that was found near Eli's body in that bedroom now it's been reported
00:56:18
that that footprint is such that it's more of a smudge when we talk about finger prints in more of a smudge this
00:56:26
appears to be a smudge type print where they're not able to determine the size of the
00:56:32
shoe of the person that left the print or what type of shoe that person was wearing a couple possibilities it could
00:56:39
be a First Responders footprint smudge that they left at the scene it could be Eli son's
00:56:46
foot we do know that he found Eli we do know that based off of that 911 call Eli
00:56:53
is found on the floor in uh a large pull of blood around his head yeah and so it could be just as
00:57:02
simple as either the killer left that print there the footprint there his son did or
00:57:10
one of the First Responders did now I know it seems unlikely but the fact that Eli is killed with his own gun it makes
00:57:18
you wonder if it's possible that this is a suicide where Michelle's case is ruled
00:57:24
a suicide but most likely a homicide is it possible that this is a suicide that was ruled a homicide yeah and that's one
00:57:33
thing that's hard to shake too Captain because based off of what his family has stated they said that a lot of the line
00:57:41
of questioning in the investigation seemed to be focused around and the words they
00:57:47
were using the questions they were asking the family seemed to point that the investigators May thought may have
00:57:55
thought that this could be a suicide well think about it though and it took four months for them to make the
00:58:00
determination to to officially rule it a homicide well and think about it it makes some sense because one we know he
00:58:07
has money issues we know he doesn't have a job we know that he is having some issues with his son and his son's
00:58:13
Behavior but then also it would make a lot of sense of why I'm going to rent a place to have my son stay
00:58:22
there because now that's for my son's protection only and the protection is from me CU I believe I'm going to harm
00:58:31
myself then also a lot of suicides happen around anniversaries or dates that are of importance and like you said
00:58:40
this would have happened on his birthday MH so and then we also know and sadly it's just uh horrible statistic that in
00:58:51
the trans Community there is a very high High rate of suicide what doesn't make sense with
00:58:58
suicide is all the other bullet holes right right and that's where look Le let's dive into the world of fiction for
00:59:10
a little bit here and make believe right like we would on Mr Rogers show but you
00:59:17
sit here and you have to wonder did he become so obsessed with this case did he fly off the rails did at some point did
00:59:25
he think you know what if I do take my own life for whatever reason at all whatever reason that may be right do I
00:59:34
make it a confusing suicide do I make it mere Michelle O connell's Death in some
00:59:39
way well and let's stay on this point for a second because when you say that Eli told
00:59:46
people that Jeremy Banks the boyfriend of Michelle oconnell people suspect him him of
00:59:56
killing her when he states to her family and to other individuals that Jeremy Banks ran
01:00:04
me off the road in his Cruiser everybody believes him but the thing that he tells them is
01:00:13
well not only did he run me off the road but my son was in the car well when his
01:00:18
son is questioned about this he says no that never happened right but there's some evidence and and I
01:00:28
don't know exactly what it is but I've heard from people that there are some EV there's some evidence out there that he
01:00:35
did have some kind of encounter encounter but now is that Eli confronting Jeremy Banks and you can't
01:00:44
put that on Jeremy Banks if this guy that's investigating this uh suspicious death if he comes knocking on your door
01:00:53
and and there's a weird encounter and you have Eli's father who said something really
01:01:00
interesting he says he didn't he didn't believe the idea that Eli thought he was
01:01:07
in some kind of trouble that there was some kind of threat to Eli or to Eli's son because he said if if my son was
01:01:18
scared he would have grabbed his son hopped in the car and drove North right they would have got out of Florida they
01:01:24
had places to go in in Wisconsin they had family there that wanted them there wanted a relationship with Eli so much
01:01:34
that they were willing to send their son large sums of money to help him just about the day-to-day stuff yeah there's
01:01:44
issues I have with if you bring up that this was a suicide one because of the random bullet holes in the apartment but
01:01:53
also if you really wanted to protect your son and you knew you're going to kill yourself why not send your son up
01:02:00
North but again if I'm law enforcement and again I don't know if they did this or
01:02:11
not but Eli's son was having some issues is it possible the struggle was with Eli's son and they could have done some
01:02:22
simple tests to figure out if the sun fired a gun that day and I don't know if they did that but they should do that
01:02:30
not only because not only because the case deserves that but the son deserves that
01:02:38
too it's it's like I said in the Michelle oconnell case there's things that they misstepped in the
01:02:45
investigation that they should have done to rule Jeremy in or out and because they didn't do do those
01:02:54
things you leave those questions on the table so I don't I'm not trying to point
01:03:00
the finger at his son to be disrespectful I'm actually pointing the finger at his son to be respectful and
01:03:06
to question the investigation exactly the but as you pointed out I'll remind you what you pointed out earlier just
01:03:12
because we don't have the proof that those tests were conducted doesn't mean that they weren't conducted and does not
01:03:20
mean that they do not know the results of those tests I sit here and I share the same belief
01:03:28
captain that I don't think those tests were conducted I don't think that they looked for trace DNA or touch DNA on the
01:03:38
gun itself I'm sitting here scratching my head I would love to know where in that
01:03:45
bedroom in relation to Eli's body was the gun found where did they find that gun was it in another corner was it up
01:03:55
close and right next to his body yeah and the sad the sad reality is that I believe and again I could be completely
01:04:07
wrong but I believe that we live in a pretty sad world where some people come in and go well here's a a guy that
01:04:17
changed his name that identified as a man and a woman and they just don't care as much and they just don't view that
01:04:25
individual with the same dignity or respect that they would somebody else yeah the the for the St John's Sheriff
01:04:34
to refer to Eli watch talk as a I think a nutcase or a nut job is is the word that he chose to use right I find that
01:04:45
infuriating we did as much as we could to look into Eli's life now I'm going to be 100% honest his life life is
01:04:55
confusing his life in some of the actions don't make sense and again we're sitting here trying to review this many
01:05:04
miles away years later and we're left with a lot of questions about Eli's life but I didn't see anything to suggest
01:05:13
that he's a nut case or a nut job as the sheriff chose to word it what I see here
01:05:21
and I hate to have to be the one to remind the sheriff of this first and foremost this is a citizen that was
01:05:29
killed in your county on your watch so show a little bit of concern and a little bit of respect for that citizen
01:05:38
of your county and let's just address the elephant in the room here Captain where was Jeremy banks on the
01:05:48
night that Eli wasto was murdered right well it's been stated publicly and in the news that Jeremy Banks was in
01:06:00
training during the time that Eli wasto was killed there's going to be some push
01:06:06
back here because training typically would take place during the daytime it does make some sense because
01:06:15
this murder occurred in the middle of the week but Eli wasto most certainly was not killed during the daytime he was
01:06:23
killed between 10 p.m. after his son his son says the last time I saw my father was 10 p.m. the night before then at
01:06:32
7:30 I go to his condo because he didn't come to wake me up to go to school and that's when I found him so if we are to
01:06:40
believe everything that his son says they went to Burger King to get some dinner that night he last sees his
01:06:46
father at 10: finds him at 7:30 there's our window there's our window of 9 and a
01:06:54
half hours and during that time frame Eli was talk was killed yeah and so if you want to make a statement that you
01:07:02
have in Alibi make a statement that actually makes sense again with everything in this case
01:07:09
unfortunately it's vague every piece of information that comes out most of it anyway is simply vague and unclear
01:07:18
information yes Jeremy Banks could have been in training what I can tell you is he was not actively training during the
01:07:25
time of Eli's murder however I can say that based off of what I know about the state of Indiana state of Ohio and the
01:07:34
state of Kentucky and those three states it's not uncommon for a person working in law
01:07:43
enforcement be it for the state or the county they have reoccurring training all the time and it is not uncommon for
01:07:51
them to have to go out of town for that reoccurring training so a little more detail is needed in this
01:08:00
situation if this is a good Alibi well where was he exactly during this time well again I think there's just so many
01:08:10
different avenues that could be looked into and there's some statements that they might know who
01:08:18
killed Eli they just don't have enough evidence to Pro Ute that individual or believe that they know who killed right
01:08:28
this case reminds me a whole lot of the Steven Spina case that we covered a couple months ago we got a single father
01:08:39
living on the third floor attacked and killed in his residence yeah nobody hears a
01:08:48
thing killed with a weapon that came from within the home right and look I know that in the Steven Spina
01:08:59
case I know 100% those detectives work that case very hard I can say that I can't say that in Eli's
01:09:08
case but one thing that I was upfront about when speaking with the detectives in the spa case was we don't like when
01:09:18
there is information that could be helpful to the public for crowdsourcing some information that could lead you to
01:09:25
your suspect and in the spa case they likely held back some information too long that they were able to come up off
01:09:33
of years later and hope that it would help the investigation once it went cold I believe that there's information
01:09:41
in Eli's case that they've held back that they could present to the public and ask them to crowdsource this
01:09:48
information that could lead them to their suspect or further Bol their investigation and evidence surrounding
01:09:56
the person that they quote believe did it but don't hold on to that information forever because this case is just from
01:10:04
2019 and here we sit in 2023 and the case is cold it is frigid cold if you have anything now is the time to present
01:10:14
it to the public when you can still get some information I and I know a lot of people out there are big Believers in
01:10:22
transfer Theory they're very likely in the spa case and in the Eli was talk case and so many
01:10:30
other unsolved homicides out there transfer Theory needs to be used and needs to be investigated simply put
01:10:38
transfer theory is the idea that the killer either knowingly or unknowingly left something at the crime scene and or
01:10:48
took something from the crime scene knowingly or unknowingly with them and that piece of information is
01:10:55
how you connect victim to perpetrator perpetrator to Crime Scene evidence to perpetrator and that's how
01:11:05
you get a [Music] [Applause] conviction want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage onward and
01:11:20
upwards do we have any recommended reading for the beautiful listeners this week Captain we have another good one we
01:11:27
are recommending a book called urges a Chronicle of serial killer Larry Hall this is by Christopher Holly Martin and
01:11:36
you know what we talked about Larry Hall quite a bit in our Denise flum episodes
01:11:42
just a few weeks ago so if you want to learn more about the man that was the inspiration for the Apple TV hit
01:11:52
Blackbird check out this book called urges it's going to answer a lot of questions for you questions like how was
01:11:59
this mild mannered Jan janitor able to kill with impunity for years and what psychopathy drove Larry Hall to sadistic
01:12:08
sexual murder check out urges a Chronicle of serial killer Larry Hall by Christopher Holly Martin you can find
01:12:17
that title and many others on our website on our recommended page true Crim garage.com and until next week be
01:12:27
good be kind and don't [Music] [Applause] litter is it possible to predict the unpredictable could surgeons use a
01:13:11
patient's own Anatomy to create 3D printed life-size organ models to map out challenges ahead of time making
01:13:18
surgery more precise efficient and less invasive is it possible it already is because every day we're
01:13:27
doing what's never been done learn more at mayoclinic.org Sloss Mayo Clinic you know where to
01:13:36
go