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Freedom calls we're here to answer call us at 1 888 [Music] [Music] freedom [Music]
00:01:42
welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you are doing thanks for listening I'm your host Nick and
00:01:47
with me as always as a man that firmly believes that your bracket is already busted here is the captain better get a
00:01:55
good bracket if you can hack it it's good to be seen and good to see you thanks for listening thanks for telling
00:02:01
a [Music] friend hold on to them horses because this week we are featuring Order and
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Chaos from one of the very best Brewers and all of the land tactical Brewing Company down in Florida this week we are
00:02:21
featuring ordering chaos this is a pina colada hazy IPA with pineapple toasted coconut sabro and Lotus hops
00:02:32
6.2% ABV garage grade we're going to go with 4 and A2 bottle caps out of five and we want to give some praise and
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thank you to our friends for helping us fill up the fridge this week first up a big shout out to yavon and glasow and a
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big we like your jib goes to Heather in Norcross Georgia and last but certainly not least we have Elizabeth and Jeremy a
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double cheers Elizabeth and Jeremy are in done eaten in Florida everybody we just mentioned went to True Crim
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of the business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
00:03:31
[Music] [Music] right it was a normal bommy Florida night in September of 2010 three St John's County deputies
00:04:09
were getting coffee at a h station in St Augustine When A call came over the radio signal 18 shots fired the 911 call
00:04:21
came in just after 11:20 p.m. on September 2nd the caller was screaming and panting his girlfriend Michelle was
00:04:31
unconscious on the floor he sounded hysterical to the point that the operator assumed he was a woman please
00:04:41
get someone to my house my girlfriend I think she just shot herself there's blood
00:04:48
everywhere when the operator addressed him as ma'am the caller calmed down and his voice changed modulated and lowered
00:04:58
he said let me me tell you the truth I work with you all he identified himself as Jeremy Banks a St John's Sheriff
00:05:08
Deputy but he quickly lost it again and started screaming at the operator to get
00:05:14
someone there now the deputies at the H station sped to 4700 Sherlock Place arriving at 11:25
00:05:26
p.m. Deputy Maynard said when they pulled up to the house the door was open walking into the kitchen she glanced
00:05:34
through an open door on the left and saw feet lying on the floor Deputy Jonathan Holly was already
00:05:43
at the scene he was in the room with the feet a bedroom crying oh my God for he knew the woman lying on the
00:05:52
floor they all did she was Michelle oconnell Jeremy Banks's living girlfriend of over a year she Lay Dying
00:06:02
on the bedroom floor a gunshot wound into the roof of her mouth having penetrated her
00:06:10
brain this is screams for help a close look at the suspicious death of Michelle oconnell and this is true crime
00:06:23
[Music] garage [Music] as we heard in today's trailer Captain the sheriff's department is already on
00:06:43
the scene Deputy mayard stated that when she walked in she witnessed fellow Deputy Jeremy Banks huddled crouching
00:06:53
down and about 3 ft from Michelle's body cell phone and hand he appeared almost catonic then the sergeant at the scene
00:07:05
said quote we have a pulse Jeremy's affect changed immediately according to Deputy Maynard he snapped to it and
00:07:16
became almost angry she took him outside and tried to calm him down this is from
00:07:22
The New York Times which did two long exposes about this case it reads quote M Maynard quickly escorted Mr Banks who
00:07:33
had been drinking out of the house all of a sudden he started growling like an animal she said with his fist Mr Banks
00:07:41
pounded DSE in a police car manard called another deputy over to help her Corral Jeremy quote I grabbed him and
00:07:52
tuned him up another deputy Wesley Grizzard recalled I told him I don't care if you're in intoxicated or not you
00:08:00
better sober up very strange actions for somebody that girlfriend just shot herself very strange indeed captain now
00:08:09
we need to give a little background here Jeremy Banks is a member of the sheriff's department
00:08:17
he's only 23 years old and from what I can see he appears to be a bit of a hot head uh and his actions not always
00:08:26
making sense in other situations let alone this one obviously Deputy Maynard later said that the
00:08:34
change in Jeremy's affect when a pulse was found she found that to be very alarming she said that she noticed he
00:08:42
smelled like booze but also smelled like soap and appeared to be clean paramedics
00:08:48
tried to save Michelle for 23 minutes but it was a lost cause and unfortunately she was pronounced dead at
00:08:58
a 11:48 p.m. that night well just to be clear Jeremy is a deputy as well so he has all the training that these deputies
00:09:08
had but when they came into the house and saw Jeremy there he wasn't trying in any manner to use his training to save
00:09:17
his girlfriend Now spoiler alert eventually Jeremy banks will lawyer up and that same scenario that same line of
00:09:26
questioning was asked of his lawyer and his lawyer says look in that moment I do
00:09:33
not believe that my client Jeremy was behaving or in Deputy mode at that moment he was in boyfriend citizen mode
00:09:44
in probably unsure of what to do those are not his lawyers exact words but on many levels I can agree with what his
00:09:53
lawyer is stating but if your girlfriend is dying and you have training to help her you would help her as her boyfriend
00:10:04
doesn't matter if you're in Deputy mode or boyfriend mode both people have the same training this will bring us to what
00:10:12
we are going to refer to as Jeremy's first interview this takes place an hour and a half later this is now September
00:10:21
3rd at23 a.m. and we have detective Jessica Hines who is interviewing Jeremy in a
00:10:29
squad car outside of the house and this is all being recorded on tape Jeremy is telling the detective that he and
00:10:37
Michelle were at the amphitheater for a concert earlier that night and saying that they did argue a little bit while
00:10:45
they were there he says we you know argued a little bit earlier today but nothing terrible just we were both fed
00:10:54
up with each other's bull crap that we've been going we've been dealing with we've been together a year in some odd
00:11:02
months I enjoyed the show she enjoyed the show and in the car we were talking about it we had decided that we were
00:11:08
going to break up she was going to move out then on this tape we have about 25 seconds that are missing and it's noted
00:11:17
that those 25 seconds have been deleted now in all fairness it could be just silence radio silence during that 25
00:11:26
seconds we don't know he goes on to say that we came home and we weren't arguing
00:11:31
when we got home we got home and we talked about it we just said you know enough's enough we've been fighting
00:11:39
we're done and we're tired of each other's [ __ ] and I told her that I do love her and I love Alexis her little
00:11:47
girl but I just don't feel like we're best friends anymore we're just it's not working out and she agreed and then he
00:11:56
says this is when he goes and he sat on his his motorcycle which is located in the garage and that's when he says I
00:12:04
heard the gun pop the detective asked him to clarify you were outside in the yard question mark the driveway question
00:12:14
mark Jeremy's response my motorcycle was in the garage I was sitting on it with my head down just upset about you know
00:12:22
the breakup I heard it pop I knew exactly what it was just Instinct I said quote Oh [ __ ] and I ran inside I started
00:12:32
screaming her name and the bedroom door was locked and I screamed her name again
00:12:37
and I heard it go off again for the second time he's referring to the gun I ran into the living room I grabbed the
00:12:46
phone and I kicked the bedroom door in and I found her meaning Michelle lying where she is in this moment they've not
00:12:55
removed her from the scene they try to save her life for approximately 23 minutes or so were
00:13:03
unsuccessful and now they are I'm using air quotes here processing the scene obviously Jeremy is upset but to kind of
00:13:12
break down this evening from what Michelle's friends and family have said that she told people hey I think we're
00:13:20
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
00:13:27
time so I'm just going to take him to the show and I might actually break up with him that night so like Jeremy's
00:13:34
story they start heading back from the concert they start talking about their differences they decide mutually this
00:13:40
isn't working out and she's going to have a week or so to move her stuff out of his house but the rest of the story
00:13:50
obviously we don't know how true this story is because we only have one side and then there seems to be some kind of
00:13:57
contradictions like when he says oh well we we're both kind of tired of our [ __ ]
00:14:02
and then but I'm going to be sitting on my motorcycle upset uh basically with my
00:14:07
head in my hands when he hears this gunshot go off yeah and then we have this interview if you want to call it
00:14:15
that that continues on and I thought that the the parts that I could hear and have included here in our telling of
00:14:25
this True Crime Story I look I get it that their colleagues and they've probably known
00:14:31
each other for a handful of years or so I thought that the detective was incredibly over-the-top
00:14:41
casual in the questioning of Jeremy Banks now maybe that's a good thing maybe she's trying to put on this
00:14:49
Persona and give off this vibe that hey you just experienced the worst thing possible I'm going to keep it kind of
00:14:58
like in in this moment while we're recording but I just I don't know I found her to be a little too casual it
00:15:07
was it was a little uncomfortable for me to listen to to the conversation to be frank I agree with you on some level but
00:15:14
we have evidence of this Jeremy guy acting like a lunatic they show up there he is basically on top of the body once
00:15:24
they get a pulse he starts becoming angry and punching the to according to Deputy
00:15:33
Maynard yes those are actions of somebody that like you said I mean he has this known temper so maybe her
00:15:39
strategy was I'm going to try to remain as calm as possible so I can keep him as
00:15:46
calm as possible in the detective's vehicle detective Hines asked if Jeremy was drinking that night Jeremy is
00:15:53
forthcoming saying yes I was drinking beer Hines says what kind Jeremy says Bud Light Hines goes uh and laughs um
00:16:02
this is kind of what I what I meant here Jeremy responds big ones you know I'm assuming he means the big cans which you
00:16:10
get at at the uh concerts Hines goes on to say how many do you think you had Jeremy says four five maybe when he says
00:16:19
big ones I don't know if he's talking about 16 oers or 22 oers well that's what she said 522 O is a lot of beer
00:16:27
yeah asked Jeremy to describe what he did when he kicked the door open Jeremy is crying during his
00:16:37
response or at least that's what I believe I'm hearing he says I kicked the door open and I kind of veered in and I
00:16:46
saw her feet I ran in and by this point he's he's crying hard he says I saw blood coming out and I just grabbed her
00:16:57
hand and I started I dialed 911 now we need to point out here Michelle was found with a gun lying next
00:17:08
to her and this gun is Jeremy's service weapon so we have a 911 call we have the
00:17:17
deputies showing up they see one of their own over the victim the victim appears that she shot herself it's with
00:17:26
his gun and then once they get a pulse of the victim the deputy that they know the boyfriend he starts acting erratic
00:17:35
and now they're doing this interview correct and and I hate to keep kind of underlining this but I think that it's
00:17:41
important to do so that that behaving erratically is according to one Deputy I couldn't find anybody else backing up
00:17:50
that statement the closest I could find was the other Deputy saying that he grabbed Jeremy up and told him I don't
00:17:57
care if you've been drinking but you need to sober up yeah but there should be some evidence of this if he put dents
00:18:04
in the cop car well exactly and maybe that's part of the problem right that that evidence is not available to the
00:18:13
general public that that evidence is being withheld or covered up right it's worth noting that for most of the
00:18:20
interview in my humble garage opinion here that while we can hear or I believe I can hear Jeremy crying at times during
00:18:28
this interview for large portions of this interview Jeremy does not sound sad at all to me uh he I never hear him say
00:18:38
Michelle's name at any time he does admit that he did not try to perform CPR or anything of that nature he did say
00:18:48
that he held her hand a little but when First Responders came in he was not doing that he was about 3T from shell he
00:18:59
also very strangely admitted to detective Hines that he initially tried to obscure his identity in the 911 call
00:19:08
now this is weird this is very strange red flag yeah it's it look I've heard the 911 call and that's what I thought
00:19:16
he may have been doing or again in the moment maybe he's not thinking clearly look I thank God in heaven that I've
00:19:25
never had to find myself in a situation like this so I do not know how I would respond how I would behave I don't know
00:19:34
that there is a common or typical way to behave in this scenario but what's weird is that he is openly
00:19:45
admitting this to the detective in this interview in her vehicle an hour and a half later well I think a lot of people
00:19:54
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
00:20:01
people that call 911 that are possibly guilty of a crime they almost act hysterical because that's what they
00:20:10
think they should be acting like and look I can't say for certain but if one of my loved ones died and they have the
00:20:18
911 tape of me calling 911 I'd probably be criticized for being overly calm but that's because in any of these emergency
00:20:30
type situations the best thing you can do is to try to stay calm right the other thing too is don't kill your
00:20:38
girlfriend right so then you don't have to figure out how to act on the 911 call
00:20:43
I'm not saying that that's 100% what happened here we want to go through all of the information first before we give
00:20:49
an opinion but yeah it's I think in in any scenario where people are suspicous icious I don't I'm to the point Captain
00:21:01
where I think I've heard enough of these 911 calls and I don't think it matters if you're over the top hysterical if
00:21:07
you're completely calm somewhere in between I think if people are suspicious of you they're going to be suspicious of
00:21:14
you hearing that call having said that I think now is a good time to play that 911 call oh 911
00:21:24
hey please get some into my house it's 4700 WR pleas what's going on please to my girlfriend I think she just shot
00:21:31
herself in blood every please she what she shot herself please pleas ma'am ma'am I need you to
00:21:39
calm down it's sir listen to sir it's sir listen hang on let me tell you the truth I'm Deputy banks at the St scy
00:21:46
Sheriff office I'm I work with y'all get someone here now okay I need you to calm
00:21:51
down then you know how it goes what's the address I don't 4700 shock place okay what's going on there my girlfriend
00:21:58
just shot herself with my weapon please get someone here now please sir sir we're doing that while I'm talking to
00:22:04
you is she still breathing no there's blood coming out of everywhere please please okay she she's not breathing call
00:22:11
dispatch on Tac two get them here now I are on the phone I need to calm down coming as fast as we can okay calm
00:22:20
down for me okay you don't understand please get some here to me this is somebody making a
00:22:29
9911 call and going how am I supposed to act because he comes in you can't understand a word he's saying he's
00:22:39
shouting the address and when they start calling him ma'am it's almost like it pissed him
00:22:47
off and then he's like and then he he's it's a fraudi and slip but he says let me tell you the truth and he says and
00:22:56
then he's like I'm one of you and he calms down now he's telling you the information you need to know now here's
00:23:03
my problem if you're not in law enforcement and you and you are hysterical and you don't know how to
00:23:09
calm yourself down that would make some sense but this [ __ ] is trained he is trained as a deputy he has to call in
00:23:18
how many times has he showed up to a scene that there's an emergency and he has to be professional and get the
00:23:27
information to the people and he knows how important that information is so he has training in CPR into in in medical
00:23:37
things that he could have done to help save his girlfriend or ex-girlfriend however you want to look at it but he
00:23:44
also has training on how to give information to dispatchers and he doesn't it's like he
00:23:50
doesn't use any of that training but I think it's on purpose that he's not using any of that training agree I mean
00:23:58
you don't want if he is guilty of shooting his girlfriend and ending her life he doesn't want to save her or help
00:24:07
her or or provide help to her be it through somebody else right because then he's got we we now have a living witness
00:24:18
who can tell us okay Jeremy may be telling you this story but here's my story and by the way I'm the one that
00:24:24
took the bullet so the thing that's incredibly weird to me there's a few things that
00:24:32
jump right out that tape right off the tape there first off I think my girlfriend just shot herself is the way
00:24:41
that he first explains it yet when he talks to detective Hines an hour and 25 30 minutes later he's saying I heard the
00:24:51
pop and I knew what it was immediately right he then tells detective Hines that he kicked in the door and he finds her
00:25:00
after hearing a second pop and there's blood coming out of everywhere according to what he says on 911 so it look I know
00:25:10
he lives on a street named Sherlock place it does not take Sherlock Holmes to figure out if you knew what that pop
00:25:15
was immediately like you told the detective later and you kick down the door and she's on the floor and bloods
00:25:22
coming out of everywhere it's not I think my girlfriend shot herself it's my girlfriend sh not herself so that's a
00:25:30
weird way of of kind of delivering or not fully delivering the information like you're saying Captain but then can
00:25:38
I'm not the only one hearing how drastically his voice changes when he's called ma'am a couple of times Bing go
00:25:45
and it's like his it's like he was he using a different voice on purpose in the beginning he was acting was he acting
00:25:55
I'm an actor and and then his voice changes completely when he's called ma'am it's
00:26:02
almost like you hear the bonad meat head 23y old dude coming out in this guy douche and it's almost like Eric Cartman
00:26:12
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
00:26:22
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
00:26:31
telling us the truth earlier or you were purposely concealing this which we now know is fact he was purposely concealing
00:26:42
his job his job title and who he works for in that call per what he tells detective Hines his friend who's being
00:26:53
extremely casual and um cordial with him in the moment he tells her that he was attempting to conceal his identity in
00:27:06
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00:29:41
on to the edge of your seats this is going to be a wild one the attempting to conceal his identity is very fishy
00:29:49
incredibly strange to me it's just it like and here's here's where my head goes with it that is he thinking
00:29:58
that if I don't say that on the 911 call if I don't let the operator know who I am what job I hold I know that somebody
00:30:09
from the sheriff's office that I work at will be responding to the scene and likely may be the very first person on
00:30:17
the scene can I tell them what what went down according to me Jeremy Banks and they buy hook line and sinker
00:30:27
and then tell it to the other people that respond and now I've just controlled the narrative and by the way
00:30:34
I've controlled it in a controlled environment that is not outside of the people responding and showing up to my
00:30:41
home on this night instead he slips and he lets out his job and now maybe this became something
00:30:50
bigger than he wanted from Jump Street what we do know that does happen 100% is that St John's
00:31:01
County Sheriff's Office kept the investigation in house very quickly they are saying it was not an
00:31:10
officer involved shooting this situation was a suicide yeah I don't have a problem with them staying on the
00:31:18
investigation but maybe bring in a separate entity right away to double check your
00:31:27
work even if it's just one or two officers from another department they can come in and and
00:31:34
double check the work but I think there's enough contradicting storylines and narratives
00:31:42
that Jeremy Banks is telling the officers and his erratic behavior when she seems to be and the erratic behavior
00:31:51
when it seems like there's a chance that she could live I think that's enough red
00:31:55
flags and then if you go back and listen to the 911 tape and he told you he's concealing his identity but then you can
00:32:02
hear it so drastically so he's put in up a front he is lying to the dispatchers for what reason you have no reason to
00:32:11
lie to the dispatchers if your girlfriend actually shot herself and I also thought it was an interesting line
00:32:18
two lines you pointed out when he said I think she shot herself and then he says
00:32:24
she shot herself with my gun correct me if I'm wrong Captain but the end of that 911 call he has asked a
00:32:33
direct question of is she breathing and he says no there's blood coming out of everywhere right is that is that what he
00:32:40
says is my recall correct there I believe you're correct so you're correct sir again he's trained and even if
00:32:48
you're not trained I can tell you this from my day working security and responding to accidents and sit certain
00:32:57
situations a lot of times you do not need to hear or check to see if someone's breathing to know that they
00:33:04
are breathing because in a situation where somebody is severely injured they sound different than when they are not
00:33:11
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
00:33:18
going up and down now it's very interesting to me that he says no she's not breathing there's blood coming out
00:33:25
of everywhere all right okay give the wounds and we'll go through some of the autopsy information here as we continue
00:33:31
on I would expect some blood to be coming out of everywhere what I'm getting at here Captain is giving where
00:33:39
given where she was shot or shot herself I could give him the benefit of the doubt if he just did not know that she
00:33:45
was breathing I'm not saying that she was what I am saying is that when EMTs arrived on the scene what do we know
00:33:52
that they did they attempted to save her life for 20 23 minutes right what is missing from the public information
00:34:01
about this investigation and all by the way if you don't rule it a homicide if you rule it a suicide then all of this
00:34:09
should be public knowledge this should be public information that that we all have access to what's missing from this
00:34:15
investigation I want to know from that EMT from that that paramedic the first one on the scene when you got to
00:34:22
Michelle was she breathing because if she was he tells the 91 one operator no she's not breathing there's blood coming
00:34:29
out of everywhere guess what where she was shot there would be blood coming out of her nose in mouth because of her
00:34:36
breathing and attempting to breathe and he would know that per not just his training but any human with eyeballs
00:34:46
would recognize that well no and and to be fair maybe he's just in a State of Shock okay give you that one and I can
00:34:54
give him this idea that look we all have been trained to do things I've brought it up many times on the show you're
00:35:04
trained as a banker what to do when robbed most of the time when you are robbed you do nothing that you were
00:35:11
trained to 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
00:35:20
doing CPR or any um emergency measures to try to save her life but then you called 91 1 because you're like I can't
00:35:28
help her I'll call 9111 okay fine but then when you call 911 you have training of how to talk to dispatchers how to try
00:35:36
to remain calm during an emergency and you didn't do that and you actually try to hinder the
00:35:44
process it's uh and I would like to know roughly what the time of death would be
00:35:51
because I wonder did he pause did he walk around the house did he um did he sing 99 bottles of beer on the
00:35:59
wall before he called 911 to make sure by the time that by the time that the EMTs got there that she wouldn't be
00:36:07
breathing right she was pronounced dead at 11:48 p.m. and remember the call came
00:36:13
in at approximately 11:20 p.m. that night and we have deputies arriving on the scene at
00:36:22
11:25 p.m. we have Deputy Maynard who says that she was there by that time and when she arrives on the scene there's
00:36:30
already Deputy Jonathan Holly who is present on the scene at that time so very quick and a very decent response
00:36:40
time there uh the other thing too Captain you're hitting on some things here may have been trying to control the
00:36:48
narrative a couple things I want to point out about his interview with Detective Hines is in that initial
00:36:55
interview he says Jer he tells detective Hines and this is where he may have been trying to control
00:37:04
the narrative because again we only have one person to tell us what was going on
00:37:09
in the scenario and maybe he's trying or attempting to present evidence of a suicide or her suicide so for example he
00:37:19
tells detective Hines that the last thing he said to Michelle before he went out and sat on his motorcycle quote I
00:37:27
love you please don't do anything stupid now he said earlier that evening when they were
00:37:37
fighting that Michelle had told him or said to him quote you make me so mad I want to kill myself yeah to me that's
00:37:46
sounds like he's controlling the narrative or trying to let's just talk about it look
00:37:53
statistically women are less likely to kill themselves by gunfire so and I'm not saying that it's
00:38:01
impossible but it's also strange that he is drunk or at least heavily intoxicated
00:38:11
where is he going to ride his motorcycle to he was not going to ride the motorcycle anywhere he was just sitting
00:38:19
on the motorcycle so he's just sitting outside trying to chill out trying to cool off according to yes according to
00:38:25
what he was saying but even statement when he walks out and he says well don't hurt
00:38:30
yourself or don't do anything stupid or whatever his comment was to me that almost implies that he
00:38:39
was heading off to go somewhere so the death scene quickly became chaotic and confusing as we can imagine here
00:38:47
everyone from the St John Sheriff's Office showed up to offer condolences and moral support to their fellow
00:38:55
officer Jeremy his family and friends arrived as well he talked quietly with his stepfather who is a deputy sheriff
00:39:03
from the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office this before he was interviewed about what happened that night and when he was
00:39:11
he was interviewed in a Cop Car by a colleague detective Hines as we already pointed out now after Michelle's body
00:39:18
was cleared the house was sealed up for Crime Scene text to pour over but they didn't do much in the way of
00:39:27
investigating as far as I can see Jeremy said that it was a suicide officers at the scene said Michelle had a gunshot
00:39:34
wound through the mouth and the gun was found right next to her they noted a bullet buried in the floor right next to
00:39:43
where Michelle's right arm had been and this and these parts of what they're seeing at the scene is and was
00:39:51
consistent with Jeremy's story that he had heard two shots now crime scene photos show Michelle lying sprawled on
00:40:00
the floor and the positioning and the details of the gun are of Interest the gun a Heckler and cotch 45 caliber
00:40:09
pistol is lying on the carpeted floor it's got an attached tack search light the tack light is on the St John
00:40:20
Sheriff's Office concluded that Michelle may be unfamiliar with weapons and not used to handling them had accidentally
00:40:29
turned the tack light on as she used the gun on herself further disciplinary records
00:40:37
show that Jeremy was known for failing to secure his gun in the past he openly has admitted that
00:40:46
sometimes after work he just dropped his gun Bel on the floor where anyone could
00:40:52
get at it well that's safe I want to point something out here regardless of what happened in this
00:40:59
situation if Michelle did kill herself if Jeremy is not responsible for her death leaving your service weapon
00:41:09
unsecured in a house that has a child in it this is not a good police officer no
00:41:16
he's a douchebag and on top of that just think think about this for a second you
00:41:21
you have this conversation on the way home you guys are talking about ending the relationship she has made some
00:41:29
comments to you that you think are alarming that you're L you're later going to tell people about in these
00:41:35
interviews so in instead of walking out to the garage and sitting on your motorcycle when he says oh don't do
00:41:43
something stupid or don't do something to harm yourself you'd think at that point he would go figure out where his
00:41:49
gun was and Mak sure that it was locked away and secure very quickly the Sheriff's Office wrapped up the in
00:41:56
investigation at the scene Michelle despondent over the breakup had taken her own life I guess would be the
00:42:03
conclusion here now we do have some of the detectives that are backing up that conclusion so we have one that says
00:42:10
quote for her to stand still and allow someone to put a firearm in her mouth is ridiculous that came from Eugene Tolbert
00:42:17
who was one of two detectives on the case Tolbert said every time anything came up that looked inconsistent with
00:42:26
suicide there was something to explain it his partner detective Hines said in a recorded interview quote I didn't have
00:42:35
any suspicions that it was anything other than suicide I think that's what we were all kind of discussing but just
00:42:43
making sure that we covered our bases end quote Yeah but their investigation that night is roughly 3
00:42:51
hours it takes them roughly three hours to state that this is a suicide and again if it
00:42:59
is a suicide then the case is closed and all that information should be released
00:43:04
to the public but if I'm in charge and everybody at the crime scene or my co-workers are saying Look chief this is
00:43:16
looking like a suicide to me I'd go yep okay well let's wait till the coordinator report let's keep the
00:43:24
scene on under locking key and then let's if that's our finding let's bring in another
00:43:33
department and have them double check our work and then if we still rule a suicide again then we can take our
00:43:40
information and the information from the other law enforcement source and release
00:43:46
that information because that's what you owe it to Michelle's family well and you
00:43:53
could also go into Eric Cartman mode in respect my authori it's not Chief it's Captain all
00:44:00
right right it's sir godam it there are so many ways and keep in mind here the sheriff in charge of St John's he's been
00:44:10
around the block he's been he's been elected Sheriff time and time again he can call in a favor he knows people he
00:44:18
knows the other sheriffs in the surrounding jurisdictions he could call in and say you know what can you send a
00:44:24
couple people out here we even if he wanted his team to work the case or work the scene right send some people out as
00:44:33
Witnesses or send some people out to get involved or be a part of the investigation the proper thing to do
00:44:41
would be to hand it completely over as quickly as possible as you can to another agency yeah but I could see
00:44:48
because you're are the responding officers I could see why you would just stay in stay in charge and bring in some
00:44:58
outside uh sources as uh as basically uh checks and balance system I'm going to continue on with the information that
00:45:08
they the sheriff's department the sheriff's office has put out there in regard to the situation and their ruling
00:45:17
of a suicide they go on to say that Michelle had no bruises on her body there was no disarray in the house or
00:45:23
evidence of a struggle obvious ly anybody that's dove into this case knows that there was a cut over Michelle's
00:45:33
right eye but this is explained Away by the Sheriff's Office saying that it could have happened as she fell after
00:45:40
shooting herself which does not go with even the initial autopsy findings the initial autopsy findings state that she
00:45:47
was either kneeling down sitting or lying on the floor when she shot herself her falling I guess maybe even if she
00:45:53
was kneeling or sitting up that that that's what they're saying where the the right eye cut could have come from and
00:46:03
we're we'll get into this cut a little bit more because there are some scientific findings that change
00:46:10
throughout this case but this is their initial reaction to that their other reaction to that cut is also that it
00:46:17
could have been the result of the positioning of the gun which one expert is telling us may have been upside down
00:46:26
and you talk about statistics Captain where they say that it is less likely for women to use a gun to commit
00:46:35
suicide one stat that is weird is that it is very common that when a gun is used in a female suicide that they tend
00:46:45
to use both hands and so this other expert is saying that the he believes that she was holding the gun
00:46:55
with both hands and one argument that the family has always had was that look she she was
00:47:01
right-handed the guns found near her left hand well this might explain away that scenario because they're saying she
00:47:09
would not have used her weaker less dominant hand and the experts are saying well she probably used both hands and
00:47:17
the gun was upside down now they go on to say that the recoiling of the gun after the shot could have created that
00:47:25
cut which is very difficult to believe because a gun doesn't recoil forward it recoils backward away from where the
00:47:36
shots fired so that doesn't ring true it rings less true to me than than uh the idea that it would have moved forward
00:47:45
and created this bruise SL Cut Above her right eye the other thing too that I want to point out and make perfectly
00:47:53
clear if if we were rev viewing a homicide case yes sir or a child abduction case which we do a lot of
00:48:01
those here right we always talk about motive even if we know who the perpetrator was or even if we don't know
00:48:09
who the perpetrator was right we talk about what could be the possible motive in those scenarios well let's talk about
00:48:16
what could be the possible motive for her to commit suicide I couldn't I couldn't find it
00:48:22
yeah my issue here too is like if her friends and family are telling us what's correct and now this is not information
00:48:29
that the deputies got right away and this is not in their report of them claiming it's a suicide because they
00:48:36
just didn't do their work to interview and and talk to everybody but when you talk to the F friends and family and
00:48:43
they say well yeah she was planning on ending this relationship and but going to the
00:48:51
concert anyways so the fact that she would be so distraught over this breakup that she was planning to
00:49:02
initiate doesn't make a lot of sense to me it's almost like I mean take another suicide
00:49:10
scenario man loses his job he's distraught goes home and kills himself most of the time a man doesn't quit his
00:49:18
job and is so distraught that he quit his job to start a new life that he goes home and kills himself yeah if it
00:49:26
doesn't add up if it's reactionary it's reactionary because it's something that is out of your control right right being
00:49:33
fired from your job opposed to willingly quitting your job where here it doesn't
00:49:40
make any sense even the wording that he says she told me you make me so mad that
00:49:45
I want to kill myself okay let's set that aside for just one second and examine that in in just a minute that's
00:49:52
one of the dumbest statements ever first of all she told people in advance I'm breaking up with him this night tonight
00:50:01
after the concert I'm breaking up with him how do we know that happened because several people told her you know what
00:50:07
maybe you probably shouldn't go to the concert right this seems like a big deal maybe you shouldn't go to the concert
00:50:13
fill in the blanks here for people that don't know the case I get why she went to the concert she paid for the tickets
00:50:18
concerts aren't cheap and on top of that it wasn't just Jeremy and Michelle going
00:50:23
to the concert it was three couples yeah very good point so this was like a group
00:50:28
event why not go and have a good time or at least attempt to you've you've only been with this guy for his own words a
00:50:37
year and some odd months living girlfriend for over a year this is not like love ofy life scenario well and and
00:50:48
again she knows that not that she's going to break up with him it's not something that is
00:50:54
out of her control she could have chose to do that at another time she has a daughter she's a good mother there's no
00:51:05
I could see no reason for her to kill herself and then let's say that let's say that for some reason she did say to
00:51:14
Jeremy you make me so mad I want to kill myself well doesn't that sound like a vengeful angry
00:51:22
thing wouldn't you do that in as much of a way possible to hurt him right out of
00:51:30
anger I'm not going to sit here and pretend to be an expert on suicide but I would think that that
00:51:37
would involv something a little more up close and personal than locking yourself
00:51:42
in a bedroom while your ex significant other is who knows where yeah I I get people's argument of if you're going to
00:51:53
break up with Jeremy that you you don't go to the concert with him but if he's planning on that going to that concert
00:52:00
with you and then you then tell him hey I'm going to take somebody else we know that this
00:52:09
guy has been vient or physical towards her based on what her friends and family have said we know that they've had very
00:52:19
heated arguments that people when when she's talking about her relationship to friends and family they all know that
00:52:27
it's more argumentative than a positive it's more of a negative relationship than a positive relationship if you
00:52:34
don't go to the concert with Jeremy and you go with somebody else or just go by yourself you're running the risk of him
00:52:42
calling harassing you and ruining your experience when you spent the money on these tickets now I will say there are
00:52:50
some weird text messages from Michelle's pH phone that night and nobody is disputing that these
00:52:59
texts come from Michelle herself and these to me would make me call into question the idea of suicide here so she
00:53:11
had sent some texts to her friends and some of her family that night this is on the way and on the way to and from the
00:53:20
Paramore concert that she and Jeremy went to so she text her friend Mindy Fox at 8:14 p.m. saying quote I'm stressed
00:53:29
out she texts her sister Christine shortly before 900 p.m. saying promise me one thing Lexi which is her
00:53:37
daughter will be happy and always have a good life now we should note here because I'm
00:53:44
sure some people were asking this question Lexi is her daughter from a previous relationship not Jeremy Banks's
00:53:52
daughter right I believe she's 8 years old at the time her sister responding to the
00:53:57
text comes back with promise you what question mark and Michelle responds that no matter what Lexi will always be safe
00:54:06
and loved Michelle responded make sure Lexi is number one not like us her sister responds what's going on I'm
00:54:15
scared so I'm not the only one that thinks that these texts are weird clearly her sister does as well now a
00:54:23
text to her brother Scott Michelle wrote at 10:06 p.m. Lexi never forget now to some of the investigators
00:54:35
these texts were as good as a suicide note I think you can make an argument either way I think you could say that
00:54:42
these sound suicidal and that she's possibly going to do something to herself and I think you can make the
00:54:49
argument that they sound like somebody that's now in a a difficult situation or maybe abusive situation and she's afraid
00:54:57
for her life yes I wonder here if this while it sounds like she may know that the end is near for her so that would
00:55:05
Point toward suicide you could flip the coin and it land on the other side to me which would
00:55:12
say maybe she's experienced some physical abuse from Jeremy Banks or was concerned that that's the level that
00:55:19
this thing could get to and escalate to tonight and I'm just doing the motherly thing and making sure that I've circled
00:55:29
the wagons and my friends and family have my back and my daughter's back and I know that no matter how this ends for
00:55:38
me or what comes of tonight that my daughter will be taken care of Hell who knows a lot of times in these situations
00:55:48
yes we do have an abuser but there are sometimes where we have situations where people just physically fight each other
00:55:57
and that to me is very different than abuse who's to say that it's never come to that for them who's to say that these
00:56:06
strange texts don't mean well if I end up in jail tonight because I got to defend myself or because he and I
00:56:14
sometimes get into it in the worst way will my daughter be taken care of tomorrow and the following day and the
00:56:22
day after that until I can figure this thing out as said the investigators believe these texts were as good as a
00:56:28
suicide note we know that based off of what uh the sheriff in charge said in his report and then we also have the St
00:56:36
John's County Medical Examiner who seemed to agree because the cause of death was a ruled a
00:56:44
suicide and an intral oral gunshot wound this was the ruling by Dr Frederick hobin who issued the determination and
00:56:55
on the autopsy worksheet the doctor's notes say under how injury occurred quote deant shot herself with an HG
00:57:04
meaning a hand gun one thing that is weird we keep citing statistics here but one thing that is weird that we should
00:57:14
know is that an intraoral gunshot are almost exclusively suicides so just within hours of the
00:57:23
shooting a St John's Sheriff's Office Deputy went to Michelle's sister's home and said
00:57:31
well the investigation is done it's a suicide and no other explanation was [Music]
00:57:51
given want to thank everybody for joining us here in the garage so much more to get to join us back here in the
00:57:57
garage tomorrow same bat Time same bat Channel and until then be good be kind and don't
00:58:04
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