Episode 659: The Unsolved Murder of Kristin O’Connell

Hey, weirdos. Elena here.
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I'm Ash.

And I'm Elena.

And this is Morbid in the Morning.

We haven't done one of these in a little while. I know.
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I had a strange dream last night and I don't remember the dream itself.

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solve an equation.

Oh my God.

Parentheses, exponents, multiplication subtraction addition subtraction addition subtraction yes and I woke up and I said what is the e in PEMDAS that was the first thought I the first thought I had this morning I rolled over and I looked at John I said do you remember what the e is in PEMDAS and he he was like, you just opened your eyes. Like, what do you mean? And I was like, how dare you assault me? He literally was like, what are you talking about? And I was like, PEMDAS.
You know how you like solve big. Oh, yeah.
But it was literally he had just opened his eyes. And he was like, I remember what PEMDAS is.
And I was like, exponent. And he was like, what is happening? Like, he was like, we're not even out of bed yet.
To the power of i was like exponent i remember it now and then i got really happy that i remembered it and then i was like that was the weirdest set of events one thing i was really good at in school was math weirdly yeah that's i mean i was not great at math i fucked heavy with pub das i'm struggling i'm trying to help the girls with their math well that's not our math but even like the the basic shit like they started learning fractions and i was like oh fuck me right up i'm pretty all right with fractions it's not my favorite i'm figuring it out honestly i just think of baking well that's honestly i think baking has helped me because i'll like just be but the problem is when you're baking i have like a google home thing so I'll just be like hey google what's like yeah how do I make like blah blah blah out of blah blah blah so you don't do like you don't exercise that part of your brain yeah see and they're doing like full on yeah like you know right but you know we're getting there we're learning math there you go and oh I have something to tell you guys um that's just like a fun little thing i'm not we're not being paid by this company i just really like this thing say i do too they can be a sponsor if they want to but like they're not i mean we're both very passionate they yeah so this is i found this in case i feel like a lot of people could use this right now just with the state of the world um it's this app that's like described as a self-care tamagotchi which it literally is which immediately drew me into it i said yes and it's called finch f-i-n-c-h it's so cute and you literally take care of this little bird by doing things for yourself for yourself and like you let and it's a very good app like's really good. I've been using it for two full weeks now.
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And one of those things is get out of bed. So it's like you, you don't have to shoot for the stars.
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And so like, I have like, you know, drinking a certain amount of water and making sure I do that. Like read for 10 minutes, write for 20 minutes, like make sure I have all these little like, you know, and you can say like, you know, brush your teeth.
Yeah. Some of mine are like home cooked meal.
Yeah. Eat dinner at dinner at home some of them are like i have put one item away that is not in its place because like with kids things just get wild and you know and so doing that is like something that can start you on like organizing somewhere one of them is smile at yourself in the mirror i love that which actually really cute though.
And it sounds crazy, but it can bring you up a little bit. Yeah.
And not just like smile at yourself in the thing. Definitely not.
It won't do anything. Look at yourself and genuinely smile at yourself in the mirror.
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check off some little things that you would like to make habits out of or try to try to just you know make yourself feel good I also highly recommend it yeah I feel like it's good for like kids too like you know like if you're like 13 year old or whatever however old your kid is that has a phone it's like a good app to like teach them you know like do things for yourself self-care exactly and turning like healthy things into routines yeah i literally like work out for 15 minutes yeah on there that's literally like just move for 15 minutes so i i highly recommend it and again we're not being sponsored by then this is just this is just one of those recommendation moments that i think would benefit a lot of people yeah no elena told Elena told me about it and I've used it every day since. Oh, and there's also a little thing.
This made me happy. Yeah, there's like even more stuff than just the goals.
There's a lot of, yeah, there's a lot of things that you can do on here. So I recommend you download it and kind of explore it a little bit.
Yeah, just go check it out. Because there's something called like, like they have like breathing techniques.
Those are nice. They have movements, like they'll give you little things to get yourself moving for 10

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Oh, I did the rant zone the other day. Yeah.
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one? And it's directing compassion inwards towards yourself. It's really beautiful.

I can be mean to me. So it was very helpful because sometimes, you know, people can trigger

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And sometimes you're your own worst critic anyway yeah and it helps you like not take in all the yuckiness on the outside yeah and it helps you like work through it if if some leaks through yeah so hey finch if you want to sponsor finch we're kind of obsessed with you pretty good good and we forgot to tell you the best part you get to name your little bird oh yes mine's name is Gatsby and mine is Big Ann thank you so guys download it I just highly recommend it if you're looking for something yes to help yourself there and it it's been helpful to me I like it it's very cute it's great and it's made me more mindful yeah things like certain things because I'll look and I'll be like you haven't read for 10 minutes like when can you schedule that in I should put that on mine because I've been not keeping up with my reading lately yeah and it's really helpful yeah I love that so Finch everybody hell yeah yeah that's my little recommendation for the day all right well moving on into the case of the day the case of the day I have an unsolved case today which really infuriates me because there's kind of no reason that this should be unsolved. Yeah.
So this is the unsolved murder of Kristen O'Connell. So let's get into it.
Kristen Marie O'Connell was born January 12th, 1965. She was one of two kids born to Michael and Phyllis O'Connell, who raised her and her brother Kyle in Burnsville, Minnesota.
According to Michael O'Connell, his daughter was a really fun a really fun really easygoing outgoing child but he said she also had a very serious side he said she was somewhat religious and had put a lot of thought into becoming a nun oh wow and you can find like some evidence of kristen's faith throughout her early life when her grandmother who she was really really close with died in 1975 10 year old kristenin turned to her faith to help her kind of cope with this loss in a letter written after her grandmother's death she said as she wrote death is a subject pushed aside never talked about i think it should be talked about it's a part of life some people die fast others die young some old it all depends when god wants us with him wow which is like pretty fucking profound for a 10 year old it is and if that like it sounds like it was like a comfort yeah exactly now while kristen would always take her faith pretty seriously she was also in most respects a pretty typical midwestern girl and a very ideal daughter for her parents her mother phyllis told a reporter in 2023 we had a great relationship and she was she the one all the boys wanted to marry, which I just think is so sweet. Like a lot of girls her age and where she was from, she had a deep love of horses and she worked part-time at a stable near Burnsville and she boarded her own horse there.
She also was remembered as being a very kind, very open person. She trusted people without reservation.
Her Aunt Barb said she was the type of person that wanted to sit and chat about anything and everything going on with her life. She sounds just cool.
Yeah, she just sounds like a good person, like someone you would... She was beautiful too.
She was gorge. Yeah.
And just someone you'd want to be friends with, you know? Yeah, she just seems like a cool chick. Yeah.
So after graduating from high school, Kristen was accepted to the University of Wisconsin Stout, where she majored in hotel and restaurant management oh which i feel like that'd be like a pretty fucking fun career and also that's really smart really smart because that's not like you you're really setting yourself up for like a career yeah and also you have to be like so organized yeah you have to be a level of organization that i don't even think i could ever acquire yeah i can't even comprehend it and you also have to be a real people person yes like really good with people and have a good demeanor which it sounds like she was kind of perfect for that definitely she sounds like she was like very bubbly you know but in the spring of her sophomore year she took a vacation to I think it's Captiva Island near Fort Myers Florida and she was just celebrating spring break with some of our friends. Very typical.
Yeah. While she was there, she met 18-year-old James Vermeers Jr., who was working on the island as a waiter at the time.
He had recently graduated high school where he'd grown up in Ovid, New York, and he was planning to go back home to Ovid in a few months. So Kristen and James headed off immediately.
And actually, even after Kristen went home to Minnesota at the end of spring break, they were keeping in touch through letters and phone calls. Now, after months of this kind of like long distance relationship of sorts, they weren't boyfriend and girlfriend, but it was it seemed like it was like kind of heading down that road.
Yeah. Kristen decided that she wanted to visit James in New York to get to know him better.
Because, you know, they've been contacting each other through letters and phone.

She's like, let's spend some time together.

They're going up the steps of the relationship ladder.

Yeah, exactly.

Also, remember when people wrote letters?

I know.

Crazy.

It's so cute.

It is.

It is really cute.

I like it pen pal-ish.

I know.

So since she wanted to get to know him better, she planned a visit for mid-August, just a few weeks before she was going to go back to Wisconsin Stout for her junior year. Initially, Kristen's mom, Phyllis, was kind of apprehensive about her daughter visiting a boy that she didn't really know too well several states away and unaccompanied.
I get it. In fact, according to Kristen's brother, Kyle, his parents actually were arguing about it for a few days before Kristen actually did leave.
The dad, Michael, eventually convinced his wife that, quote, it was time to let Kristen be a woman and make her own decisions. So Phyllis obviously eventually agreed to let her go, reasoning that Kristen had always been a really responsible girl.
She'd always been very trustworthy. So there was really no reason not to let her go other than her own apprehension.

Yeah, of course.

What an impossible position.

Yeah.

And it's hard.

I mean, she's an adult technically.

Well, you want to give her the independence and the freedom to make choices and you can't tether them to you for the rest of their lives as much as we want to.

Well, I think as soon as your kids turn like 17, 18, 19, that's a really hard age. really hard age i can't even fathom because it's just like uncharted territory for you your whole up until then you have been able to tether them to you pretty much and it's your your role like you have to you know you get to make the rules and it's like at that point you do feel it's like it must be this weird feeling of like well i have to kind of give them a little freedom but i don't want to at the same time like i want to just keep them, it's like, it must be this weird feeling of like, well, I have to kind of give them a little freedom, but I don't want to at the same time.
Like I want to just keep them. And it's like a loss of control and control is not always a bad thing, you know? Yeah, it's true.
But she was so excited when she left that day. She came in, kissed me and said, mom, don't worry.
Everything's fine. It'll be fine.
So with her parents' consent now, Kristen traveled from Minnesota to Boston where a family friend picked her up and then drove her to Syracuse, New York, where James Vermeers and one of his friends picked her up. Okay.
So Kristen arrived in New York on the night of Monday, August 12th, and her plan was to stay until that Friday. So not a super long time.
Yeah. She was really, really excited about this trip.
Super excited to see James, like I said, get to know him better. Yeah.
But her enthusiasm started to wane almost as soon as she arrived in New York. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.
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That's simplisafe.com slash morbid. There is no safe like Simpli like simply safe initially james told kristin that he that she was going to stay at his parents house where he also lived so like very normal situation there but when she arrived in ovid he told her that the plans had changed unexpectedly and that instead they were going to be staying in a trailer on his parents property nah so that would like freak me out a little bit and i think me out she definitely was a little put off by it yeah i feel like that would make your like flight or fight senses kind of kick in a bit yeah you know yeah so she was like okay like sounds good and she told her mom and the change of plans was concerning for phyllis who believed her daughter would be staying in a home with adults present yeah but she was like you're already there and i already told you you could go i trust you and you know you're still on their property so you'll be safe and again hard position and again not a lot she can do her daughter's technically an adult exactly so it's unclear how the two spent their day on tuesday but by the next day kristin reportedly went swimming with j and his friends, and then the group went to a local bar slash restaurant where they shot a game of pool.
On the way back to the trailer, James stopped at a store to buy some sandwiches, get some beers, and then the group of eight went back to James's trailer to hang out. And it was that afternoon that Kristen received a second piece of unwanted and unexpected news.
For several months, she and James had been corresponding, like I said, with, you know, phone calls and letters. And, you know, he had even invited her to come visit him, giving the impression that he had some kind of romantic interest in her, obviously.
But according to Michael O'Connell, Kristen's dad, while James was talking with Kristen, he also had been dating a girl in New York. Oh, so he's an asshole.
Yeah. And he, quote, planned to tell Kristen about it when she arrived in Ovid.
So you invited this girl to another state so you could tell her that you're dating someone else? It's like, why are you allowing her to come to, like, there's obviously nothing's going to happen between the two of you or like that's how you're making it seem. That's a dick move.
And nothing should happen because you have a girlfriend. And obviously Kristen's a very respectable girl so she's like fuck you nothing's gonna happen between the two of you or like that's how you're making it seem that's a dick move and nothing should happen because you have a girlfriend and obviously kristen's a very respectable girl so she's like fuck you nothing is gonna happen but you let her get all the way out there no that makes literally no sense that you have her travel to another state so you can tell her that you have a girlfriend and two of she went from minnesota to boston and then from boston to new york like this was a lot of told her in a letter yeah what's wrong or a phone call yeah this was so much effort put into this trip for you to just kind of like that feels like there yeah that feels like a an exercise in humiliation yeah it feels like and I'm angry it does it's just shitty yeah so it appears that James did finally tell Kristen about his straight-up girlfriend at some on the afternoon or the evening of Tuesday, August 14th, after they got back to the trailer.
Also, how'd your girlfriend feel about that, that you invited a girl two states, like, states away to come see you? Who you've been corresponding with? Like, I'm sorry, that's weird as fuck. It is weird.
And also, like, were you telling your girlfriend? Are your friends going to say something to her? Like, what is going on here? It's a very strange situation. So upon learning about James's relationship, Kristen called her mom in Minnesota and told her the trip really wasn't going as well as she hoped it would.
And she was going to cut it short and actually come home the next day. Oh, I just want that.
Like, everything in my soul is like, I just want you to come home. Yeah.
Same. So according to Phyllis, Kristen, quote, sounded upset but wouldn't say if anything was wrong.
She was just like, she was upset and she wanted to come home early. Phyllis was probably wanting to just, like, reach over and grab her.
And it sounds like, you know, like, it could have been very much the, like, you know, like, she's having a hard time because she's an adult and she can't stop her from going but you wonder if she had some kind of maternal instinct there she probably did and then like everybody else made her second guess that kind of thing yeah you know or and she you know even she might have just second guessed it yeah because you're taught to be like let them do what they want and it's like no sometimes in this world you can't just yeah you have to trust sometimes you know what i mean like the world just tells uh people like this like oh you're just being crazy you're just being overprotective you're being overprotective and it's like no she wasn't she's sometimes you just know yeah so the group continued hanging out until late into the evening remember they're all hanging out at james's trailer and around 11 p.m james said he was going to go pick up a pizza and he left and and Kristen announced to the rest of the group that she was going to go out for a walk like shortly after he left. According to 17 year old David Chamberlain who was at the trailer that night neither Kristen nor James seemed upset.
There was no fights or arguments that broke out at the party. He said she just went out for a walk and didn't come back.
When she left nobody figured anything was wrong. So back home in Burnsville, Kristen actually often took late night walks by herself.
Her and her family lived on a subdivision, so it was like a little safer to go for a late night walk. So she mostly most likely didn't think twice about going for a walk to clear her head out here.
But when Kristen still hadn't returned after two hours, the group at the party started to get concerned. So they set out on foot to look around the area for her.
And when she still hadn't been found by the following afternoon, James called the state police to report her missing. I'm sorry, what? So she goes out for a walk at around like a little after 11 p.m.
She doesn't return by 1 a.m. They go out and look for her and they don't find her.
And then presumably everybody just goes to sleep and wakes up the next afternoon and then calls the police. That's weird.
That is weird. That's weird.
I'm sorry. I'm not.
I'm not pointing fingers at anybody. I'm not pointing fingers's fucking weird yeah like if my if I'm at a party and it's not even like my friend it's just like somebody at the party and I hear that they're missing and we go look for them and don't find them when we don't find them that's when we call the police yeah we say okay we got to call the cops now because something's awry and there was plenty of people there that like at least one of them should have been like, hey, I think we should call the police.
Yeah, we say, okay, we got to call the cops now because something's awry. And there was plenty of people there that like at least one of them should have been like, hey, I think we should call the police and followed through with that decision.

For sure.

Weird.

Yeah.

So after receiving the very late report that Kristen O'Connell had gone missing, a search team of about 90 police officers and firefighters from four towns set out from the Vermeer's house to look for Kristen. About 90 minutes later, the team found Kristen's body.
She was not alive. They found her body about 300 yards into a cornfield along Route 139, which is a rural road about a quarter mile from the trailer where she'd last been seen.
Ovid Fire Chief Robert Favreau said, I know that's what you go on searches to find, but this is an awful way to end it. Usually when you go out on these things, you find out the person you're looking for is hundreds of miles away, but you never know till you find it.
That's awful. Yeah.
When she was discovered, Kristen was fully nude. Her throat had been slashed and she had also been stabbed several times in the chest.
Oh my god. Yeah.
The scene had the hallmarks of a sexual assault, but it would quickly be determined that she had not been raped. Oh, wow.
Major Richard Tonsi told reporters, The apparent intentions may have been a sexual attack, but it may not have taken place, eventually ending instead with murder. A few days later, the medical examiner would label Kristen's death's death obviously a murder a homicide and there was evidence that she had quote put up a tremendous fight for her life and it was also determined that at this at that time she had no drugs and no alcohol in her system so she was fully sober a cursory search of the scene didn't really turn up as much as far as evidence and there was no sign of a murder weapon anywhere in the area.
Investigators took soil samples, blood samples, and what little physical evidence they could find and sent it to a state lab in Binghampton for testing. In the meantime, the press and public became very concerned that there was now a killer amongst them.
A few months earlier in may convicted murderers hugh column and bernard welch had escaped from a chicago correctional facility and were believed to have fled to the northeast so that was very concerning for people they were like oh shit did these two have something to do with it welch was arrested in philadelphia in early august but at the time of kristin's murder Col Cologne was still on the loose. And Tonsi told reporters, we've got an idea that the murderer could have been in the area and we've got a murder.
But he clearly stated that Cologne was not a suspect, which is interesting. That is interesting.
A few months later, they actually did arrest Cologne after he robbed a bank in Mississippi. So he was definitively ruled out as a suspect at that point.
So after Kristen's body was removed from the field and all the evidence was gathered, Tansy and the other state police investigators started interviewing witnesses and just conducting like door-to-door canvases basically. Everybody at the party was quickly ruled out as a suspect.
Tansy told reporters everybody at that party came from well-to-do families in this community oh they are respected in this area okay um good to know while being from a wealthy family is hardly evidence of innocence because as we know wealthy people kill people too and people from wealthy families kill people too quite frequently actually the group had been together all evening and with the exception of james going out for pizza shortly before Kristen left on the walk, none of them had left the trailer other than to go look for her. Okay.
And the medical examiner did place the time of death somewhere between midnight and 1.30 a.m., and that was after James had already gotten back to the party. Okay.
So. So there's that.
Yeah. And this time of death was also supported by what neighbors described as a quote-unquote horrific scream heard in the direction of the cornfield between 12 15 and 12 30 a.m now here's my call the police it doesn't sound like it call the police when you hear a blood-curdling scream in a cornfield okay well and also if neighbors of this family heard the scream why didn't the group why didn't the group on the in the trailer valid that's a valid question any sense to me yeah or did they hear the scream and then that's when they went out looking but also she was found not too far from the property yeah and they all went out looking for her for hours it's just weird it's just all they got very interesting they got ruled out as suspects but but there's just still some like lingering questions yeah and it also happened quickly in my opinion yeah so even though they had been ruled out as suspects in her murder it remains unclear why kristen left the party near midnight to go for a walk in an area very unfamiliar to her well that's I think that's the thing it's like we're not pointing fingers at anyone it's just like there's some unanswered questions that it doesn't seem like had enough attention yeah that could be missing pieces to a puzzle that may not include them being part of it yeah it's just like why weren't all the pieces put together yeah and also just like in retrospect don't let somebody go for a walk alone when they're not familiar with this area that's i'm not understanding it's just sad that she didn't have a friend yeah like that makes me sad and the one person who was supposed to be her friend had like kind of turned this trip into shitty yeah very shitty for her but state police investigator jeffrey arnold said in 2009 she did not do drugs it was not a drinker she may have been uncomfortable at the party because alcohol was involved and decided to take a walk yeah that makes sense others suggested that you know kristen was probably upset that james had just told her about his girlfriend and she maybe wanted to go clear her head and then other people say you know maybe she just wanted to get some She didn't plan to be gone long.
And also she was barefoot when she left the party, which suggests that she didn't plan to be gone for very long. Yeah, if she was barefoot, she was not planning on being gone long.
No, it was a quick little little straw. Yeah.
Wow. Interesting, right? Very interesting.
So whatever her reason for leaving the party, investigators soon learned that Kristen might not have been alone for the duration of her walk. Despite being a rural route, Route 139 was commonly used by locals as a shortcut across town.
And it also tended to be busy with traffic going to the Seneca Army Depot and the Golden Buck, which is a popular restaurant and bar in Ovid. Sergeant Thomas Warren said, a couple of passing motorists have told us they saw people in two cars talking to Kristen along the road at about 11 45 p.m.
Other witnesses reported seeing a late 70s greener blue sedan on Route 139 right around the time of the murder with one or possibly two male occupants. And some of the witnesses told police they believed the occupants may have been trying to lure Kristen into the car.

Oh, no.

I mean, that's scary.

It's terrifying.

That she's just walking by herself in the dark.

Yeah.

Barefoot.

Yeah.

Like, that's scary that someone would.

In an unknown area.

Yeah.

Several witnesses reported seeing the car with two men inside, but others told investigators they saw, quote,

two young white males walking behind O'Connell shortly before police believe she was killed.

Oh, that's so scary.

So there might have been two

people in that car. And then later people said they saw two people walking behind her.
Oh, that's really scary. Yeah.
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The two individuals were described as being young, slender, with shoulder-length hair, wearing blue jeans, and one was wearing a jean jacket. One was described as being around six feet tall, so very tall, and the other was shorter than that person.
And you have to remember, like, again, like the the stuff at the party is very like strange, and some of it is questionable. But you look at this and you say, look the alice and bolsa story yep and it's like these yeah two people might have things can happen that tonight they were gonna do this like you know what i mean like i if i've learned nothing from that i've learned that yeah they can just decide to yeah and we know i mean serial killers pick yeah pick victims at random and when yeah i don't want to say like opportunity strikes no it's it's true.
They're opportunistic. They are opportunistic.
When they see an opportunity that they feel like they can get the upper hand in, they will take that opportunity. So it does.
And this was very much, unfortunately, a situation where two males would absolutely have the upper hand over a young girl who's smaller than them. Barefoot.
Barefoot and doesn't know her way around here. In the and who knows they may have stopped her struck up a conversation found out that she wasn't from around here and that makes it 10 times more yeah you know opportunistic opportunistic her mother also said that she was very trusting and very like to chat with people yeah disarming she was very disarmed and very like would kind of let stuff out like that because she believed the best in people and she may have even you know like said something about the fact that this wasn't a great night it wasn't going well yeah like i'm i want to i'm going home yeah like she's at a party where she doesn't know a lot of people yeah like who knows what was said who knows that's the thing so it's like we can look at the party goers and the party situation is like yeah there's some unanswered questions there but like this is also a very distinct possibility that somebody did take that opportunity absolutely there was so sad that's also the unfortunate part of this case is there's just so many variables at play yeah that there was it's hard to yeah pin it all together right and these two people are people are still unknown.
So it's like. Yeah.
You know. Yeah.
The investigation was tough. But based on the information learned from witnesses, investigators did start putting together a theory of what could have happened.
After leaving the party at James's trailer, Kristen walked about a quarter mile down Route 139 when she was approached by those two men in the sedan who pulled over to talk to her. After that interaction, she was seen continuing her walk in a western direction around 1210 a.m., but the next witness to see her around 1215 a.m.
reported her walking in the opposite direction, indicating that she was heading back to the party. Okay.
Investigators theorized that the driver may have gone a short distance down the road, turned around at an abandoned gas station and went back in kristin's direction and they believe she either saw the car the car turn around or just sensed that something wasn't right so then she turned around and started heading back to the party okay so that makes you so sad because that makes you realize that like she was probably in fear at that moment

yeah you know absolutely and when she started turning in the direction of the party they believe that the men in the car started pursuing her on foot at that point oh yeah that's so fucked up it is really fucked up in fact one witness like i said reported seeing those two young men walking about 50 yards behind her around 12.15 a.m. Around 1.15 a.m., so an hour later, witnesses reported seeing two young men who matched earlier descriptions walking eastward away from the cornfield toward the center of town.
Oh, this sounds scary. The two suspects were seen again 15 minutes later, this time walking in the opposite direction back toward the cornfield and that was the last time either suspect was seen what the fuck yeah and the fact that there's like a cornfield involved in this just makes it even scarier yeah because i mean this is think of upstate new york yeah and this is like i don't know why cornfields just free i mean i know why yeah popular culture has made me fear cornfields but i mean yeah it yeah, it just gives it like a way more chilling.
There's a lot of opportunity for cover. Conceal, yeah.
Concealment. Exactly.
And Ovid, New York, just like so people know, is like super upstate New York. Really rural.
It's not very far from Canada. Yeah.
I'm looking at it right now and I'm like, damn. Like my, yeah, family that lives in upstate new york and they don't even live as upstate as this and that felt rural to me when i would visit and it's very like small town super small town i mean we're literally just talked about an abandoned gas station a second ago you know like that's the vibe here yep so the initial flood of tips and witness statements was very useful actually this time in establishing a timeline and developing a theory as to what might have happened.
But it did little to point investigators in the direction of a viable suspect. In fact, within a week of the murder, investigators had yet to find anybody who even remotely matched the suspect seen talking to Kristen before the murder.
And of course, that contributed to the growing sense of fear in the community. Yeah.
Because people are like, oh, there's two suspects here, but they're incognito. Are they among us? Do they live here? Are they from here? Who are these people? Right.
And it wasn't Kristen's death alone that made county residents uneasy, but the fact that Kristen's murder was the fourth unsolved murder in Seneca County in a little over a year. Wow.
Yeah. Chief Ferdinand Nincondri, I hope I said that right, told reporters, I don't remember it ever happening here before in my 28 years as a police officer.
And then suddenly they had four unsolved murders. Damn.
Yeah. So homicides in that part of New York were very rare, actually.
And the fact that there was no common link between the ones that had taken place was equally troubling because it suggested that these were random crimes. Yeah.
And like we just said, crimes of opportunity. The growing fear in the community and the lack of progress in all of these unsolved cases prompted several community meetings and the formation of a neighborhood watch program.
So at least people got together and were taking care of one another yeah but after a frustrating week of little progress in the case the state police finally did catch a break on august 23rd when an anonymous person called with an unexpected tip the caller said i'm getting out of town because i told him not to do it i told him not to do do it. You look at behind the Chevy, the green Chevy on Main Street in Waterloo, and you'll find him.
And if you open the trunk, if you open the trunk, you'll find what you want. What the fuck? Chilling.
What the fuck? Yeah. The officer who answered the call, Trooper D.C.
Ryer, tried to keep the caller on the line by engaging him in in conversation but the voice on the other end just simply repeated himself insisting they would quote find what you need to solve the case if they looked in the trunk and then he repeated his earlier insistence saying i'm getting out of town because i told him not to do it i told him not to do it i'm heading out of town before hanging up what the fuck which does it one feels like this could be the two suspects and one is like freaking the fuck out or this could also just be a hoax we know people do this shit we know people love to do that so and now it's you know gotten kind of known community-wide that they are looking for two suspects so who knows but given that several witnesses had described seeing the dark colored sedan on route 139 on the night of the murder, it seemed likely that the call was not some kind of hoax and that the voice on the other end did belong to one of the killers. The problem, however, was that while investigators knew about the unknown suspect's car, there was also countless dark sedans in this county.
And even narrowing it down to a green Chevy sedan was little help. Of course.
so with little to go on and no new evidence forthcoming investigators turned to the public for help and they placed an ad on the front page of the local newspaper the ad said our concerns are what have been seen either wednesday or thursday august 14th or 15th during the night the day or night and the ad urged seneca county residents to come forward if they, among other things, anyone hitchhiking or had picked up any hitchhikers, saw any strangers or suspicious individuals in the area, or if they, quote, saw any cars that aroused their curiosity. Okay.
So aware that such an advertisement was unusual, state police investigator Thomas Warren was upfront with locals about the frustrating nature of this case. He said, we're at the point where we need answers to those questions for the case to move forward.
The fact that she was not from this area and had little contact with the people around here makes this a difficult case. Yeah.
And it does. Yeah.
His comments might have been frustrating and probably sounded like defeatist to some, but he wasn't wrong about the difficulty of this case. No, unfortunately Kristen she'd only been in town for a couple of days and she had never been there before and the only people she knew in this area were all in the same room at James's trailer on the night of the murder.
Damn. That meant whoever had killed her was a stranger to her and strangers are obviously among the more notoriously difficult types of murders to solve.
Yep. Because there's no connections.
There's no connections. No social ties, nothing to trace victim to killer.
Yeah. So equally problematic was the lack of evidence found at the scene.
Like I said, there was no murder weapon and there wasn't really any forensic evidence that could point them to a suspect. All they had at that point were some blood and soil samples and they did have some skin cells discovered on Kristen's body.
Oh, okay. But DNA testing was still several years in the future.
We didn't have that yet. Where's that DNA now? We'll get there.
Okay. We'll get there, and we'll get frustrated as a group.
Oh, no. Yeah.
So at this point in the investigation that I'm talking about now, those samples weren't likely to be of much use for a long, long time. Yeah, of course.
So at the end of August, Major Richard Tanzi told reporters, we've had between 220 and 230 leads of various types, and I've assigned several investigators to the case. But we have no one we term a suspect at this point.
That's awful. That many leads and no suspects.
And nothing. It's unclear whether local police were confident or even hopeful that they'd eventually find the killer, but what is evident from the statements made in late August and early September is that without any new information, the case was in danger of going cold.
Yeah. In the few months after Kristen's murder, investigators struggled to make anything resembling progress, much to the disappointment of the public and to Kristen's family.
Fire Chief Robert Fivreau said, People are pretty upset about this murder. It's changed their lifestyle to being more security conscious.
And he was among the handful of locals who worked to establish a $5,000 reward for information leading to the arrest of Kristen's killer, which they hoped would spur the investigation back into high gear, but it didn't do much. He said maybe this reward will prompt someone who, for whatever reason, has not come forth with vital information to do so.
But like I said, the reward would go unclaimed. Leads just kept drying up and the case got colder and colder.
So now, desperate for information, investigators took to local television stations in upstate New York to urge residents to come forward if they knew anything that could lead to an arrest. They even went as far as filming a reenactment of the murder, which aired on Crimestoppers.
Wow. It was a long time ago.
It's a different time. Yeah, different time.
Warren said, that got some calls, but nothing significant. There's been no breakthrough and, again, no weapon found yet.
So within six weeks now of Kristen's murder, the story had slipped from the front pages of the papers, as we've heard so many times before, disappeared from locals' minds, the front of locals' minds at least. But an article in the Democrat and Chronicle reported in late September, it's been less than six weeks since Kristen O o'connell's nude body was found in a nearby cornfield but over people don't talk much about it anymore wow it's sad that's wild sad and it just like it really speaks to the state of the world at all times yeah that in six weeks you can forget about a teenager being found in a cornfield murdered in the nude.
Yeah. Like you're just on to the next thing.
Society has always been that way. Yeah.
Always been that way. It's sad.
It really is. I think everybody gets swept up in it.
Well, and it's gotten much worse now. With social media and the internet.
Because there's just always something new. The attention span to these kind of things, it's blink and you miss it.
Yeah, it's so true. But the desire to move on for the murder was obviously deeply frustrating for those who were involved in the case heavily, like Robert Favreau.
He said, I can't understand how people could forget so quickly. To me, there are so many questions.
Someone out there is a person who committed murder. Who is it? Why? Where are they? Yeah.
And it was a brutal murder. Brutal.
Her throat was slashed and she'd been stabbed multiple times and she was stripped at some point, you know? But for many of the residents of Ovid and the surrounding towns, Kristen's murder aroused serious fears that they would much rather not have to confront. So I think that's why people just push that to the back of their mind.
A nice pattern of avoidance. Yep.
Local resident Bonnie Palmer told a reporter, there's an awful lot of people here that are still scared. It's something that's very ugly and you want to forget it.
So you put it in the back of your mind and you don't talk about it. Yeah, it's human nature.
It is. So while the public had begun moving on from the murder, investigators with the New York State Police continued to follow up on every tip they received.
In early 1986, Richard Tonzi and one of his fellow investigators actually got approval to travel out of state and re-interview some of the early witnesses. After they got a new lead, that new information may have come to light.
Tonsi was very hopeful that this could have been their best lead yet but that lead and the supposed new information ultimately led nowhere

and he found himself right back to where they were in August 1985. I hate this.
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After six months of investigation, police became decidedly less optimistic than their prospects of catching the killer. Senior investigator Robert Fainor said in February of 1986, we've got very, very little to go on.
The physical evidence is almost nothing. We've got no fingerprints, no suspects, no identification, no leads, and no witnesses.
Damn. By that point, investigators had traveled to six different states to interview potential witnesses and review similar cases even but after doing so they were still no closer to cracking the case wow this is brutal and it really isn't a lack of effort it seems yeah it seems like they were really trying right in the months and now years that followed kristen's death the investigation lost steam of of course.
But throughout that period, her parents, Phyllis and Michael O'Connell, kept their own investigation going of their daughter's murder in hopes of finding the killer.

Yeah. Almost immediately upon learning of Kristen's death, they hired a private investigator.
But the result of that investigator's report has not been made public. In August of 1986, a year after Kristen's murder,

Phyllis and Michael actually traveled to Ovid in the hope that their presence might inspire somebody to come forward. On a visit to the crime scene, Phyllis told a reporter, you always hope that you can see something nobody else has noticed.
Of course. I can't imagine being like in that position.
They must have been so frustrated. Yeah.
They must still be so frustrated. And just like desperate for anything.

To the O'Connells, the lack of progress in the case was unfathomable, which obviously. Michael said, it might not have been a person who lives in Ovid, but someone who lives 20 or even 100 miles away, but knew the area around here.
It's just very hard for us to grasp the concept of this being a random thing. Yeah, of course.
Investigators did acknowledge that it was possible that Kristen was the victim of a serial killer,

and they insisted that they were checking similar crimes reported around the country,

but still, they weren't getting anything.

Jesus, really?

I know.

So the following August 1987, the O'Connells were back in Ovid on the second anniversary now of Kristen's murder, and this time they were in the company of two psychics that they hired back home in Burnsville. I don't believe them.
I don't either at that two years of unanswered questions I would be going to psychics myself. Michael told a reporter the information they have supplied us with thus far has provided a couple of very strong leads and we hope this will be resolved in a short period of time, man, the hope.
I know. The psychics agreed with Michael O'Connell's sentiment, though.
One of them said, The feelings and psychic impressions in this area are as strong as they were two years ago. My impression is that there are people who have substantial knowledge of this murder.
I mean... I don't think that was like a...
You know how I feel about psychics at crime scenes.

I think that's a little.

I could also say that.

That's the thing.

Yeah.

It's like, OK, that wasn't.

I don't know if that was a prediction so much as a commentary.

It's just something that is common knowledge.

Yeah.

Yeah.

But the psychics who came to Ovid with the O'Connell's may have given them hope that their daughter's murder would be solved.

But as we know, we're here today talking about it.

Years passed without an arrest or even a suspect.

And I think that's a good thing. to Ovid with the O'Connells may have given them hope that their daughter's murder would be solved but as we know we're here today talking about it years past without an arrest or even a suspect and this is awful in 1993 tragedy struck again when Michael O'Connell died unexpectedly oh no at the age of 51 oh super young super young he never obviously learned who was responsible for his daughter's death damn yeah so now for years kristen o'connell's case was shelved as investigators shifted their attention to new and more pressing matters but then in early 1996 a hair sample found on kristen's body led investigators to a man named gary harris oh he was a former ovid resident who was 15 at the time of the murder okay according to seneca County District Attorney Donna Caffey, Harris was, quote, seen in the area where O'Connell was staying on the night of her murder.
Huh. At the time of the murder, the Harris were only identifiable as belonging to a black male.
But Harris came to the attention of investigators after he was arrested for an armed robbery in New York in 1996. Unfortunately, though, a month after announcing Harris as a suspect, the lab results came back as inconclusive on the hair sample, and investigators were forced to rule Harris out as a suspect.
Fuck. Although nearly 15 years would pass before the O'Connell case was back in the news, the testing of the hair sample in 1996 was a strong indication that forensic evidence could very well be the thing that solved christian's murder absolutely and i still believe it could be oh man by the time the case was back in the headlines 25 years had passed and in that time like we know scientific and technological advances had made it possible to solve cold cases with the evidence that had just been sitting on shelves for decades.
Yeah. I've seen it happen so many times.
Look at the Golden State Killer. Yeah.
In Kristen's case, like I said, blood samples and skin fragments had been collected from her body that could lead to her killer. But as it turned out, things wouldn't be quite as easy as submitting the samples for DNA testing.
Why? In August 2009, New York State Police had received approval of funds for up to $40,000 in order to hire a Dutch forensic lab known for their pioneering work in touch DNA. Let's go.
And that's a type of analysis that can identify an individual from a tiny smallest sample. But problem was that the new york state health department refused to allow investigators to contract with the amsterdam-based company because they weren't certified in new york come on in his statement to the press district attorney richard swinehart told reporters we feel this is our last best effort to solve case.
We are very frustrated with the bureaucracy of the Department of Health and that they won't take a world leading lab where the lab people have testified in other states in our country as experts on homicide cases and won't let them at least examine the evidence while they're being certified. Yeah, that's New York.
Get it fucking together. That's weird.
Get it fucking together. That's suspicious.ork get it fucking together that's get it weird together that's suspicious that's real fucking suspicious yeah why the fuck why yeah are you kidding me that doesn't make any sense that's infuriating it doesn't make any sense kristen's family was equally frustrated with the state's decision to deny the testing until the lab applied for and received certification in new york kristin's brother kyle o'connor said they're railroading for their own purposes there could be no other reason yeah why the fuck would you stop that and he said there and this is a quote from him they're covering something up they haven't come up with a good viable reason why this should not be allowed and it's wild to me that they're like you know you look shady so if they're if you're not covering something up guess what you look like you're covering something you look shady so it's like you should probably move this forward so that you can stop everybody from thinking you did something fucked up yeah exactly because right now i think you did something fucked up well the family was again disappointed in 2010 when they learned that a forensic scientist who had been named in an evidence falsification case possibly handled evidence in Kristen's case.
Shut the fuck up. This scientist is said to have falsified data in multiple cases and then went on to falsify records to cover up that fake data.
I am speechless. Which, like, why? Like, why? Why? You are fucking with people's lives.
Like, just do your job. Phyllis said, I mean, my God, this is an important job they're doing.
And how could they allow this and not be supervised properly? It's just beyond me. Yeah.
But what I will tell you is that there's a petition we are going to share on socials and in the show notes and it surrounds all of the dna testing in christine's case and it goes into more detail about the issues that the family has faced trying to get the dna tested okay and importantly most importantly is asking the new york state health commissioner to approve that lab let's go motherfucker i'm gonna share it and we are all gonna sign the shit out of it. Honestly, everyone annoy the shit out of them until they do this because like, what are you doing? Come on.
Like, come on. This literal DNA, like, what are you doing? And it's degrading the more it sits.
Exactly. It's like, you're just waiting for it to degrade? That's it.
Well, that's exactly it. But also this specific lab, like...
They're pioneers in this. They are, exactly.
Like, they know what they're doing with this. So it's weird that you're not...
Allowing them to even look at it while they're getting certain. Like, come on.
Not even really giving a valid reason. No.
It's shady. And if you don't want to look shady, let them test it.
Yeah, if you don't want to look shady, then let them do it. Despite the best efforts let them do it despite the best efforts of the o'connell family though investigators even and several high-profile politicians actually uh it appears that the skin fragments discovered on kristin's body still have not been submitted for that's shameful as fuck yeah that is shameful many many like even politicians have been calling on the new york state health department being like just this.
Just sign off on it. Can't let up on that.
Yeah. Can't let up.
Can't. But now 40 years after her daughter's death, Phyllis O'Connell worries that her daughter's case will never be solved because of this.
Oh, we can't let that happen. And soon she worries that there will be nobody left to advocate for Kristen.
In 2023, she said, I promised Kristen until the the day i die i will be after who killed her and after four decades her message remains the same as it did the day she learned her daughter was murdered she said don't keep secrets don't keep something like this going because maybe the next person might be your daughter and you will know the kind of pain it is to lose a daughter and especially through murder oh that just like destroys my soul everyone go sign that petition i'm gonna we're gonna put it in the show notes and we'll share it on socials as well um it's a long link so if i read it here it's just it'll get lost yeah so i'll put it in socials and again on the show notes yeah so it'll be right at the bottom of this episode in the show notes you'll be able to see it and and link it. There'll be a link.
Well, literally, like you can click the link. Yeah, so you can click it.
And then also, again, like Ash said, in the socials, we'll do it because I... We're sharing that shit everywhere.
I want this. I want them to have to move on this.
I want them to have to move on this. And I want Phyllis, at least, to be able to...
I want Phyllis to see the movement on this. Right.
And not have to live every day worrying that, worrying that like she's gonna pass away someday without knowing what happened to her and that she's gonna that this dna is just sitting there right that must be the most frustrating thing in the entire world the dna is sitting there and the lab is sitting there who has the technology and at least try to do this right right just give it a shot and it's the fuck are we doing stopping murders from being solved through red tape? Fuck that. Yeah.
It shouldn't even be a thing. Fuck that.
It shouldn't be a thing. So definitely sign that petition.
And also anybody with information about this case because somebody out there knows something. Somebody saw something.
Heard something. Somebody knows something.
Yeah. Yeah.
Any information, anybody with any information is asked to contact the new york state police and that number is 585 398-4125 again 585-398-4125 damn i want this case to be solved i want them to submit that dna I want that to at least be put into motion. Yeah.
It's got it.

Nobody's saying that it's like that 100 it's gonna work but why the fuck not try why not try why not try and like hey politicians and everybody and whoever's like red taping this if you're listening her dad died without knowing what happened to her her mom shouldn't have to die without knowing what happened to her daughter and what if this was your kid like her mom said what if this would you want that dna sitting on a shelf and just because a red tape and bullshit bureaucracy yeah it doesn't get submitted to a pioneering lab that could potentially give you the answers you need come would you be fine with that because you'd be like well like was that what you would do no like no you wouldn't if it was

for you you'd be like well like was that what you would do no like no you wouldn't if it was for you you'd be slicing through that red tape exactly because it's not yours you're you don't give a shit but put yourself in somebody else's shoes empathy people it's so frustrating i know it really is i really i hope that we get news soon i just want this to move forward it's. It's gotta.
40 years and our family has no fucking answers. Like, come on.
Like her parents lost a child. Her brother lost a sister.
Yeah. Come on.
Let's go. And somebody is just out there walking around.
Let's go. Who did it? Let's go.
Let's get this moving. Come on.
You guys are fucking powerful. You are.
the way yeah you are powerful go sign this petition

everybody yeah because we asked if you were able to to share and donate to the alice and botha um fundraiser you guys she blew it up surpassed her goal yeah you blew it up you blew it up you're powerful as fuck we can get this shit to happen you get shit moving and you get shit done and we've seen you do it before.

One thing about morbid listeners,

they get shit done.

So we... shit to happen get shit moving and you get shit done one thing you do it before one thing about morbid listeners they get shit done so we know you guys can do this you're badass motherfuckers and you give a shit so do it exactly and with that being said we hope that you keep listening and we hope you keep it weird keep it so weird that you sign the shit out of this petition and you get everyone in your

goddamn life to sign that shit too.

Let's go.

Sign it.

Bye.

Bye. Thank you.
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