The Controversial Death of Michelle O’Connell

Michelle O’Connell

Some of our Patreon supporters might hear this case and think that they’ve heard it before, recently.  That’s because it bears a striking resemblance to a case that we covered as a mixtape that was released on 04/17/2024 over Jessica Boynton.  It’s crazy how similar these cases were, but while Jessica did survive her ordeal, Michelle wasn’t so lucky.  

Who was Michelle O’Connell?  She was a mother, daughter, sister, friend, caretaker, and many different things to many other people.  She was the youngest of six siblings.  She was the baby of the family, and all of her older brothers and sisters always looked out for her.  One of her sisters remembers her as an amazing athlete, and that she loved to swim.  She was able to climb a tree faster than anyone else growing up.  She was very fun loving and outgoing.  Her family says that she just embraced life and everything that came with it.  

Michelle was a single mom, and even though it was difficult, she loved being a mother to her daughter, Alexis.  She almost always worked two jobs, sometimes three.  Alexis was one of Michelle’s main focuses in life, and she always made sure that she was taken care of.  When Michelle was going skydiving one time, she made sure to write a letter to Alexis, just in case something happened.  Michelle worked part time at a daycare, and in the weeks before she died, she had actually been promoted to a full time employee, with benefits.  The director of the daycare center remembers the day that they gave her a key to the building, because it was a big deal.  To be given the responsibility and respect to watch out for all of the children was a big deal, especially to Michelle.  Her boss joked that Michelle told her that she was going to go to the doctor, not because she was sick, but because she finally had health insurance. 

In St. Augustine, the Sheriff is a prestigious position, and the sheriff’s office is one of the largest employers in the area.  Michelle had family who had worked there, including one of her brothers, Scott, and even her mom, Patty, worked there as a file clerk.  David Shoar was the sheriff of St. Johns County for several years, having been elected three times, twice unopposed.  It was through her brother Scott that Michelle met Jeremy Banks, about a year before she died.  When they started dating, everything seemed great.  It felt to many like Michelle had finally found someone she could rely on.  Her family members were all happy because he was a deputy.  Patty has said that she first noticed the uniform and thought that Michelle saw in him someone that would protect her.  

After dating for a little while, Michelle moved in with Jeremy.  It was also around this time that some people began to see signs that things were not as they seemed.  Jeremy was very disrespectful and controlling towards Michelle.  Over time, her family heard less and less from her.  About a month before she died, Michelle told her mom that things were getting bad at home.  Patty told her to just come home.  

Everyone in Michelle’s life had an idea of what was going on.  That there was abuse happening in their home.  But…. Jeremy was part of Law Enforcement, Michelle felt like there was no where she could go to report him.  She was being very careful, thoughtful, and deliberate with her actions in the days and weeks leading up to her death. 

On September 2nd, 2010, Michelle, Jeremy, and some others, including her brothers, had plans to go to a Paramore concert.  Michelle was a huge fan of the band and had been looking forward to the show for a long time.  One of her sisters was going to watch Alexis that night, and Michelle went to her house that day to have lunch and just hang out.  While there, Michelle told her sister that she was going to leave Jeremy that night.  Her sister tried to talk her out of going, but Michelle told her that she had bought the tickets; she was going to go and have a good time.  But after the show, her plan was to break up with Jeremy.  

That night, they went to the concert.  Sean, one of her brothers was there with her and he remembered that Jeremy was just in a bad mood and not having a good time.  He says that about an hour into the show, he told Jeremy to scoot down and that he was going to sit by his sister and have a good time with her.  They switched seats and he and Michelle started rocking out, singing, dancing, just having a good time with one another.  

During the concert, Michelle started to send what were described as cryptic text messages to a few people, including her sister who was watching Alexis.  

• “Promise me one thing.  Lexi will always be happy and have a good life.”
• “That no matter what.  Lexi will always be safe and loved.” 
• Her sister told her “What’s going on? I’m scared.”
• After the concert, Michelle texted her that she would be to her house soon. 
• Michelle’s final text went to her brother Scott and read “Lexi, never forget.”

After getting the messages, her sister was worried, because she knew that Michelle was planning on breaking up with him that night.  Jeremy later told investigators that on the drive home, Michelle broke up with him. She told him that she would have all of her stuff out of the house by the weekend.  He asked if they were breaking up and she told him yes.  He says that they argued back and forth, both raising their voices, but when they got back home, things had calmed down and they were fine.  

Just over an hour later, Michelle was dead.  A 911 call was placed by Jeremy, which can be heard in the YouTube video linked above. 

Investigation

The call came over the air that there were shots fired and a deputy was involved and other deputies rushed to the scene.  Deputy Debra Maynard arrived on the scene and went into the home with others.  She saw Banks crouched near the bathroom and then saw Michelle’s body on the floor with blood coming from her mouth.  She had died from a gunshot wound.  To the left of her body, Bank’s work belt was there with his service weapon leaning against it.  There was a tac light attached to the weapon, with the light turned on.  Beside Michelle, there was a bullet hole in the carpet and floor.  Nearby, there were spent shell casings, also on her left. 

Their sergeant ordered Maynard to get Jeremy out of the home, and she detected a strong smell of alcohol on his breath.  She says that in addition to the alcohol that Jeremy was just angry, not sad or anything, just very very angry.  Maynard went to Michelle’s purse to get her ID to make a positive identification and saw two empty pill bottles in her purse, with Bank’s name on them.  In Michelle’s pocket, they found 50 pills including hydrocodone.  

More and more deputies showed up, some were off duty.  Some went up to Banks and asked how he was doing and let him know that they were there for him.  Over the next two hours, Banks was with family and friends outside the home, then he was taken to a squad car and interviewed by Det. Jessica Hines.  His sergeant, who was off duty at the time, sat in on the interview as well.  

Banks said that he was in the garage, sitting on his motorcycle when he heard a loud pop.  He ran inside and started screaming Michelle’s name.  He then said that he tried to get into the bedroom, but it was locked and he heard a second pop.  Then he ran to the living room and grabbed the phone before going back and kicking the bedroom door in.  He entered and found her lying on the floor.  Immediately, amongst all of the officers and deputies that were on the scene, the talk was that Michelle had died by suicide.  Det. Hines later said that she didn’t have any suspicion that it was anything other than that, and they were all discussing it to make sure that they covered all the bases.  She described it as a CYA (Cover Your Ass) thing, just in case it’s not what it appeared to be. 

Deputies were then instructed to go to Michelle’s family and make the death notifications.  They were immediately suspicious of what happened simply because of the love that Michelle had for Alexis.  They all agreed that Michelle would never leave Alexis alone like that.  She was supposed to start her new position at the daycare the next day.  Within four hours of Michelle’s death, the investigators were already telling the family that she died by suicide.  One of Michelle’s friends said that Michelle was planning her future, not suicide.  Michelle had plans to go see another friend later that night and had texted her and they confirmed the plans were still on.  

When Michelle’s brother, Sean heard about her death, he got a ride to the house and was immediately confronted by four deputies who told him that he needed to go home immediately.  He told them that the family wanted an outside investigation, they didn’t want the Sheriff’s office dealing with it because of Jeremy’s position.  They said they wouldn’t do that and he needed to leave. 

The next day, the medical examiner, Dr. Frederick Hobin performed an autopsy.  There was alcohol in her system but no drugs.  She was shot in the mouth, and the bullet severed her spinal cord.  There was a cut and bruise over her right eye.  Hobin said that was caused by an ejected shell casing from when the gun was fired.  The manner of death was recorded as suicide. 

Twelve days after Michelle’s death, Banks talked again with Det Hines in the sheriff’s office.  He described their relationship as rocky.  Towards the end, they were constantly arguing over stupid, petty shit.  Hines asked him if Michelle had ever mentioned suicide before.  Banks told her that one time when they were fighting about a month / month and a half before she died, they got into a big fight and he told her to pack her shit and get out. He claimed that as she was doing this, they were still arguing and she rushed him, trying to hit him. So, he “put her on the ground,” and she said that “sometimes you make me want to kill myself.”  Banks continued and said that since that time, she hadn’t said anything like that, and that she later admitted to saying it just to bother him.  

After Michelle’s death, the sheriff’s office never talked to her family about how she was in the weeks and days leading up to her death.  They never asked if any of them had seen anything that would have caused alarm or if they had talked to her that night.  Several weeks after her death, a detective finally sat with the family.  He said that he hoped it would provide them with closure and that all indications they had was that she was contemplating suicide based on text messages.  They disagreed, and talked about different instances when Michelle had told them about Banks choking, hitting, sexually abusing her.  Her sister said that the night Michelle died, she asked to submit a statement to the detectives about everything Michelle told her, but she was told that was all hearsay.  Scott, the one who was a deputy himself chimed in and said that the family felt like if it was the sheriff’s daughter, everything would have gone much differently, and if he wasn’t prepared to answer their questions, he should just leave and bring the next person in. 

The Lt. then says “Ease up bro. I’m doing the very best I can to show y’all what happened.” He goes on to say that he didn’t do anything wrong and that the sheriff’s office didn’t either, but he feels like the family had a massive conspiracy theory going on, but there wasn’t one.  When questioned about what the conspiracy theory was, he said “that Jeremy is the murderer of Michelle.”  In the sheriff’s office eyes, the case was closed and it was time to move on. 

Who Watches the Watchmen?

Over time, Michelle’s family kept pressuring the sheriff’s office for more of an investigation, and after four months, Sheriff Shoar asked for a new investigation to be done by the Florida Dept of Law Enforcement (FDLE), citing the family’s questions and his own questions about the case. FDLE is usually called in when a conflict of interest arises in investigations.  At the time, Patty still worked at the Sheriff’s office and she remembered Shoar walking into a meeting and saying that FDLE wouldn’t find anything.

FDLE appointed Agent Rusty Rodgers to investigate everything.  He talked with members of the Sheriff’s dept, including Michelle’s brother, Scott.  Scott said that he and the family felt like investigators rushed everything and they had their mind made up from the start that it was suicide. Scott continued, saying that Banks knew that Michelle was going to report his abuse and that it would all come out that he wasn’t the person he was portraying himself to be.  Pretty much each deputy agreed with the Sheriff’s office that it was suicide.  But some disagreed. One said that he doesn’t believe it happened like Banks said it did.  He said that with the gunshot in the floor and where the gun was it didn’t sit right with him.  He was in the homicide unit for a few years and it just didn’t add up in his mind. 

Another deputy said that it was strange because Banks said they were arguing and then Michelle pulled the gun from the holster and shot herself.  But, they used retention holsters, and most people don’t even know how to use them and wouldn’t be able to get the gun out.  There are various types of retention holster, but they are basically designed to have an extra level of protection against an assailant being able to quickly grab an officer’s firearm if the opportunity presents itself.  There are different things that must be done before the gun will release from  the holster.  He goes on to say that Banks has an explosive temper, especially when he drank.  He would just get pissed and throw things around. 

FDLE contacted Jerry Findley, a crime scene expert to go over the evidence in Michelle’s case to see if he could find a manner of death.  He went over all the evidence, including the evidence that was collected, but never sent in for analysis after it was ruled suicide.  There was no blood found on the weapon, which Findley says is extremely unusual for the type of injuries that Michelle had.  Also, he was confused when there were no traces of DNA from Banks, given that his service weapon was used.  Only Michelle’s DNA was found on the gun.  Where the shell casings were in the photos indicated that the shooter fired the run with a left hand, but Michelle was right handed.  Banks is left-handed.  Findley went on to say that he believed that injury above Michelle’s eye was caused by the sight of the weapon and not an ejected shell casing, as Dr. Hobin, the medical examiner, had stated.  He says that based on the evidence he has seen, everything is more consistent with homicide than suicide. 

As FDLE continued to investigate, they found further evidence.   Two women who lived nearby were out in their garage having a cigarette when they heard arguing.  They walked out and tried to see where it was coming from and later stated it came from the direction of Banks’ house.  They heard a woman scream help, then a gunshot.  Then another yell for help, and another gunshot.  Followed by silence, then minutes later, there were lights and sirens.  She said that they didn’t call the police or 911 because the police had already shown up so quickly.  They weren’t sure if it was an accident or what happened.  FDLE reached out to the Secret Service to give the women lie detector tests, which they both passed with “no deception indicated.”  

Agent Rusty Rodgers then presented all the evidence to Dr. Hobin again, and Hobin then changed his mind and amended the death certificate to show she was shot by someone else and the manner of death was homicide.  FDLE handed everything over to the local prosecutor’s office, who then asked the O’Connell’s permission to investigate further and possibly exhume Michelle’s body.  They agreed and waited.. But nothing further came from the prosecutor’s office.   

Dr. Hobin said that after FDLE turned everything over, the prosecutor asked him to hold off on filing the amended report because the case was about to “take a new direction.”  Then, the prosecutor asked to be recused from the case because of the close relationship his office had with the Sheriff’s office. Why wait so long in this case and not recuse yourself day 1? 

Then governor Rick Scott appointed a special prosecutor, even citing the potential prosecution of Banks. Brad King was the man appointed.  He used the opinions of three different medical examiners in his personal investigating, all of which concluded it was a suicide.  One of the MEs was… Dr. Hobin, who had once again changed his mind.  King also spoke with a new medical examiner, Dr. Predrag Bulic, who had taken over the case from Dr. Hobin.  This Bulic said that the cut above Michelle’s eye was because the gun was upside down when she shot herself, and the recoil from the shot caused the tactical light to hit her. One small thing though, recoil doesn’t work this way… Recoil causes the gun to go backwards, not forwards, which would have to do in order to cause the injury.    To support this, the new ME submitted a report that contained a picture of Michelle’s face, along with a picture of the gun cut out and taped to it.  It was lined up to show how it could happen, but none of it was to scale, it was just something thrown together to help make a point.  Bulic would sit down with FDLE, and at the start of talking with them, he said that he had met with Sheriff Shoar several times, but that had no bearing on his ruling in this case.  Yea… Right….

There’s a NY Times article written by Walt Bogdanich, who also did an investigation with Frontline.  Bogdanich’s article covers Michelle’s case and so much more.  It’s a great read and if you want to dig further into this case, that’s a fantastic jumping in point.  

But, Bogdanich actually sat down with Dr. Bulic to talk about the case and how he backed up his suicide conclusion.  He presented Bulic with the image he produced about the case and asked if he had written any real reports about the case and he said no, he was only asked his opinion and presented this crudely put together image.  Bogdanich then tells him they have a replica of the gun and asks if he can demonstrate how he thinks Michelle shot herself.  He hands the gun over in a holster, and Bulic tries to take it out… then fumbles with it for a while longer before giving up, saying he can’t pull it out.  Bogdanich says he thinks it’s a retention holster, like the one the Banks used as he demonstrates how to take it out.  Then he asked what made Bulic think Michelle would be able to do any better at getting it out of a retention holster than he just did…  stutters and stammers and says that eventually he would have figured it out.  He then demonstrates how he thought it happened, and you can see clear as day that the tac light doesn’t line up anywhere near where the injury to Michelle’s face is. 

Further review of the document that Bulic submitted was described as amateurish at best.  The scales were off and the error was huge.  There was no way the injury was caused by the tac light and recoil from the gun. 

After three months of investigation, Brad King called in the O’Connell family to go over his findings.  They were excited because they thought that the state attorney was going to rule in their favor and bring charges against Banks.  But, that didn’t happen.  He said that there wasn’t sufficient evidence to believe that crime had been committed.  They were devastated.  Scott O’Connell said it was Effing ridiculous.  He shouted and asked King how he would feel if he had a daughter and something like this happened to her.  Following his outbursts about his sister’s case, Scott was fired by the Sheriff’s Office. King declared Michelle’s case as closed saying that “when you talk about this case, yes there is a visceral sense of oh what if she was murdered and this guy gets free. There ought to be some visceral sense of what if she did commit suicide, and he’s in prison for the rest of his life.”  

Exhumation

The O’Connell family never heard anything further about exhuming Michelle’s body, so they took matters into their own hands.  They contacted Dr. William Anderson, a forensic pathologist.  He was asked to go over Michelle’s first autopsy and then perform a second.  While going over the first autopsy, he saw an x-ray that caught his eye.  Michelle’s jaw had indications that her jaw was fractured.  When they did the 2nd autopsy, they confirmed this.  

Once this news is out, Sheriff Shoar released a statement regarding the exhumation of Michelle’s body, in part it reads: 

“On January 12th, 2016 media reports circulated that the body of Michelle O’Connell was removed from her place of rest by certain members of her family.  At the time, no one was certain exactly why this was done but the speculation was that a paid expert witness would be hired by these family members to produce a report that of course would support their belief about the case.  Today we learn that this speculation was accurate. ….  [continued]… Molesting Michelle from her place of rest using some freelance type approach is beyond unconventional, it was reprehensible.”

He also says that Anderson was just taking money from the O’Connell family, but Anderson later confirmed that they took on this case completely pro bono.  

Sheriff Shoar DOES agree that there are were a couple mistakes made in the investigation, such as…

• They should not have interviewed Jeremy banks in a police car on the scene (with another off duty officer “sitting in” on it)
• Neighborhood should have been canvassed
• O’Connell family should have been interviewed 
• Evidence on the scene should have been analyzed (but who really could have known that needed to happen 🫠) 
• But he says even with allllll this, their conclusion was right 

Some claim that the fracture was caused by the gunshot, which is possible and has been seen in cases that are similar to Michelles.  Dr. Anderson says that the only reasonable conclusion he can make is that there was another force, a blow to the chin, that broke Michelle’s jaw before she was shot.  He goes on to explain why he doesn’t believe the gunshot caused the fracture, saying that the shot put a hole in Michelle’s tongue.  But it did no other damage to her teeth, gums, or the floor of her mouth.  The soft tissue of her mouth would have been destroyed from the force of the blast if it was strong enough to break her jaw.  Others say that if she were hit, there would be bruising or something.  Anderson says that he’s found in the over a thousand autopsies that he’s performed, that if you die quickly enough after a blow, it will not bruise.  

Another thing that sticks out to Michelle’s family is the location of the shell casings.  At the scene, the casings were found to the left of Michelle’s body.  Testing performed while firing the gun upside down as the investigators say happened showed all the casings going to Michelle’s right.  

In 2017, the Florida ME’s Commission reprimanded Hobin and Bulic because of the handling of Michelle’s case.  Hobin because he brought material home and hadn’t kept it in the ME’s office, including Michelle’s amended death certificate. Hobin was also called out for his poor record keeping and failing to document the jaw bone fracture.  They cited Bulic for showing autopsy photos to non family members, which he wasn’t supposed to show.  

In 2013, Banks filed a civil lawsuit against FDLE Agent Rusty Rodgers claiming he violated his civil rights.  In the suit, they claimed that Rodgers “purposefully withheld vital, exculpatory information and advanced false information to the court [including a county judge when pursuing a search warrant], the SJSO, witnesses and others associated with the case in an effort to have Jeremy Banks charged with murder.”  As a result, Rodgers would be suspended pending an investigation.  A judge found that Rodgers had probable cause to detain Banks for homicide and dismissed the lawsuit in 2018.