Forensic Files (HD) - Season 13, Episode 28 - Needle in a Haystack - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] up next an unexplained death had medical experts baffled at the end of the
autopsy I didn't find anything slightly wrong whatsoever each new clue raises more questions betrayal is getting
warmer and warmer until a microscopic clue reveals the ultimate betrayal no one would ever expect someone would do
this sort of thing to to another human being [Music] [Music] fall means football at the University of
[Music] Florida it's also time for thousands of students to get back to their studies 24-year-old Michelle hearnden
was entering her senior year after graduation she hoped to do volunteer work she wanted to go join the p core
she had a very long list of of dreams and hopes to accomplish to pay her way through school Michelle worked as a
personal trainer between classes and her job Michelle kept to a predictable schedule but one day shortly before
Thanksgiving she didn't attend any of her classes or show up for work this was so unlike her not to return their calls
or not to show up and I guess their Sixth Sense was that something is very very wrong Michelle's fiance Jason Doyle
immediately drove the 400 miles from his home in Miami to Michelle's home in Gainesville to see what was
wrong he finds Michelle's house is it's locked up all the doors are locked all the windows are locked the outside
lights are still on as they would had been left on from the night before her dog was inside and the TV was
on through a crack in the blinds Jason could actually see what later turned out to be Michelle's
foot when police arrived they found Michelle's body in her bedroom face down it was clear she'd been dead for some
time she was in a somewhat awkward position with her left arm folded up underneath her body at first glance
there was no trauma to the body no bruises no wounds no blood we had no indication of what would have caused her
death the medical examiner thought the position of Michelle's Body Face Down was unusual if somebody is sick and in
the process of dying most folks tend to end up either on their side or on their back there were no foreign fingerprints
in the apartment no signs of forced entry and no valuables were missing her VCR her television set her
radio jewelry it was all intact and there was no indication this was a suicide if it's going to be a suicide
there's going to be pill bottles lying around them frequently in note there was none of that on this
case there was a half full bottle of beer next to Michelle's body only Michelle's fingerprints were on the
bottom there was no indication that she had gotten drunk off the one beer that was
lying on the bed um there was either beer in the refrigerator there was just nothing to indicate that she had passed
out drunk they wanted to see if perhaps something had been inside of the beer bottle perhaps a foul play a substance
place in the beer bottle that may have contributed to her death but no foreign substances were found inside the bottle
it was baffling wow how could this healthy 24 4year old young lady have died and is it even possible that she
would have simply died of natural causes in most cases the medical examiner doesn't have much difficulty
determining the cause and manner of an individual's death but Michelle hen's case was different at the end of the
autopsy I really had no idea I didn't find anything anything slightly wrong whatsoever to find somebody that's
deceased without any indication of what what caused him to die especially somebody that's that young was highly
unusual the medical examiner estimated that Michelle died about 24 hours before her body was found so investigators
interviewed everyone who was with Michelle during that time frame they also checked the Alibis of those closest
to Michelle including her fiance say Jason squeaky clean Jason had an alibi of being at work and was quickly removed
as a potential suspect then the medical examiner took a closer look at something
on Michelle's left arm a tiny Mark smaller than most needle marks we needed to find the explanation for that
puncture wound and there could be a very legitimate explanation for it but Michelle's personal physician said she
didn't have any blood drawn before her death or receive any injections so the medical examiner told
investigators to widen their search at the crime scene looking for possible evidence of drug use or an overdose in a
case like this where we have no clues every clue is significant investigators noticed that
the trash cans inside Michelle's apartment were empty on a hunch they looked looked outside the apartment to
see where the trash was Kept For disposal we went over to where the trash bins for that particular little
Community are stored and on the ground in a small plastic bag I could see what was visible was a bottle a
pharmaceutical bottle and I called the investigator over and said we got to look at this the bag contained two vials
of a drug labeled propol some syringes and a pach Patric butterfly IV and it obviously had come
from Michelle's house cuz contained within the bag was some maale that had been addressed to her to use a pediatric
butterfly IV is Tiny it would leave a tiny little pin prick that would be very hard to
discover the items were dusted for fingerprints but none were found investigators needed to know what
propol was used for propofol is in a nutshell the world's most powerful anti- breathing drug in the medical setting
it's used by anesthesiologists to essentially put people to sleep propol a prescription sedative is an intravenous
medication administered by medical professionals the kind of anesthetic that when it's administered the
anesthesiologist says count backward from 100 and you get to about 99 very powerful stuff to too much
propol can cause death within seconds investigators asked that Michelle's Toxicology test be screened
specifically for propofol it's highly unusual we wouldn't typically see propofol in our drug screen so we've
never detected it in other cases as expected tests were positive for propol I can't say with specificity how
much drug she got but one thing was clear the dose was Lethal the amount of drug that was administered was
sufficient to cause someone to fall unconscious and to stop breathing to the medical examiner it all started to make
sense whoever it was used a pediatric sized needle to make the tiny puncture wound in Michelle's left arm since there
was virtually no hemorrhaging all of those things were highly suggestive of somebody who has a
lot of skill in this the medical examiner believed that this was the work of a medical professional most likely
someone who worked in a hospital and probably someone Michelle knew whoever had injected Michelle hearnen was
someone that for whatever the reasons were she had trusted enough to offer that person her left arm she would not
have been able to administer the dose and then clean up and take the medical waste the 60 ft from her body where it
was located but who was this person to find out detective Mark woodmancy came up with an idea that
changed the course of the investigation he told analysts to test the syringe caps found in Michelle's
trash I can remember seeing medical staff hold needle caps in their mouth while they were giving an injection and
I thought that there was a potential there for saliva DNA I thought that was um rather brilliant in fact DNA analysts
swabbed the needle caps and found biological material on the needle cap or cover there was an unknown male DNA
profile and scientists also found DNA inside the syringe I was able to determine that
Miss hen's DNA was present in one of them proof it had been used on Michelle the substance that was found in the
catheter was a mixture of Michelle's blood and propal Michelle's death was now classified as a homicide and the murder
weapon was propol I've never seen a propal related death um ever but who wanted Michelle
[Music] dead Michelle hen's death had been ruled a homicide the cause of death an
overdose of the prescription drug propofol propal is a short acting intravenous sedative used in general
anesthesia but it's also used to treat other medical conditions propal has been suggested as a medication to treat
migraines it's not a clear indication or definitive indication to treat migraines
but it has been reported to be helpful to treat migraines detectives learned that Michelle hearnden had been a
lifelong migraine sufferer from what I understand they were bad I've never had one but people who suffer from these
things tell me they're just absolutely horrible they would go to the ends of the Earth to get some relief from the
pain was it possible that Michelle had sought pain medication from someone other than her doctor they just wanted
to know if Michelle knew anybody in the medical field only person I knew was Oliver Oliver was 30-year-old Oliver Oak
Quinn an intensive care nurse at Chan's Hospital on the campus of the University
of Florida a background check revealed Michelle and Oliver were casual friends I describe him as cooky and OD
is definitely a good adjective there was just something about him something that
he felt like he had to go the extra mile to prove himself where most people would
just be themselves the way he acted about Michelle I kind of knew from when he first met her that he had had a crush on
her I think she made comments to both her friends and her mother that he was weird and that she felt sorry for him
then police discovered some troubling information a review of Michelle's record showed that o'quinn's interest in
Michelle bordered on harassment he had called Michelle hearnen 43 times in less than a month and he had called Michelle
hearnen every single day for nine straight days preceding her murder he never calls her again he knows there's
no one there to answer o'quinn's job in the Intensive Care Unit would have given
him access to Pediatric butterfly IVs like the ones found in Michelle's trash investigators wanted to see if they
could link O'Quinn to the two bottles of propol the important thing to me at this
point is to track these drugs where did they come from how can I put them in an individual's hand the vials of propofol
have a National Drug control number and a lot number those specific bottles of propa fall were shipped by messen
Distributors out of Lakeland Florida from there the they were shipped to the shans hospital at the University of
Florida they were shipped during the time period of when Oliver o Quinn was employed there specifically they were
placed in an automated dispensing machine in the hospital ICU I traced it to a machine that operates kind of like
a soda machine you punch in the patient number and it drops a bottle of a pharmaceutical in your
hand to get the propol from the the dispensing machine a Hospital employee had to enter his employee number and
whose code was entered to get these two vials registered nurse Oliver oquinn so I actually had that propile all the way
from the manufacturer in Massachusetts to Oliver o'quinn's hand in the Surgical Intensive Care Unit the hospital all
investigators needed now was a sample of a Quinn's DNA to compare to the DNA on the needle caps found in Michelle's
trash when police went to question him they learned he had fled the country and was in Ireland where he had applied for
a nursing license he doesn't ever intend on coming back to the US it's very difficult to extradite someone back from
Ireland I spoke with a lady who is in charge of just extradition from the Republic of Ireland and I told her look
I've got a warrant in my hand I want to arrest this man and she said to me and to the effect you know slow down Columbo
we've it's it's going to be it's a very long process but what was o' Quinn's motive to kill
Michelle and would investigators find a way to get him back to the United States investigators had two problems in
the murder of Michelle hen first they couldn't understand why their Prime Suspect Oliver O'Quinn would
kill her and second O'Quinn had fled the United States to Ireland in order to avoid
prosecution to smoke him out investigators contacted the Irish Times newspaper and emailed them a picture of
Michelle a picture of Oliver and a synopsis of the homicide investigation telling them he is wanted for murder in
the United States and they published it on three separate occasions facing increasing pressure
O'Quinn left Ireland and flew to the West African country of Sagal where he was immediately turned over to us
authorities once in custody investigators got a court order to obtain o' Quinn's DNA sample which was
then compared to the DNA found on the syringe cap it matched to me I would equate that with getting the
suspect's fingerprint off the trigger of the murder weapon Oliver made a great many mistakes
thank goodness Oliver O'Quinn was charged with first deegree murder the only remaining question was
motive I know he tried very hard to infuse himself into Michelle's life and mostly out of pity and feeling sorry for
him she would bring him along to do things with to go out to watch a band to meet in the morning and have
coffee but in custody Oliver told a fellow inmate he grew angry with Michelle because he overheard her during
a telephone conversation saying something unflattering about him she made some comments of a derogatory
nature about Oliver oquinn comments that she didn't expect for him to hear but he
did hear he heard Michelle refer to him as an annoying little man and we believe
because of that that sent him into this mindset that if you're never going to be
mine then you're never going to be anybody's and the inmate stated that Oliver confided to him that she needed a
long sleep prosecutors believe O'Quinn hatched a plan he told Michelle the next time she had a migraine headache he'd be
willing to come to her apartment and give her something that would get rid of the pain
quickly the evidence shows he got the propol from work typing his employee number into the medication control
system designed specifically to prevent this very abuse then he waited for Melle to
call when she did Oliver put his plan into action on the night Michelle had the migraine Oliver stopped by her apartment
on his way home from work he injected Michelle with a lethal dose of propol using a small pediatric syringe but he
did something medical professionals often do used his teeth to pull the plastic a cap off the syringe and Left
Behind the DNA that later identified him Michelle was dead within seconds he positioned her arm underneath
her body so the needle Mark wouldn't be easily noticeable he threw the syringes and
propal bottles into a plastic B bag which he tossed into the dumpster behind Michelle's rented home not realizing the
obvious that those serial numbers could be traced I believe that the pain was such that she entrusted Oliver O'Quinn
to administer the pain reliever and I think that he took advantage of that trust and intentionally took her life
with the prop of all Oliver O'Quinn went on trial for first-degree murder his defense claimed he gave Michelle the
propal to help relieve the pain from her migraine headache but accidentally gave
her too much there's no way that the administration of propal to Michelle hearnen was an accidental death this was
an action consistent with homicide the jury didn't believe it either O'Quinn was convicted of first-degree murder and
sentenced to life in prison without parole this is the first reported case ever involving Murder By the use of
propol so this entire case was driven by and solved by forensics there is no eyewitness so how do you put a person
there without evidence I mean without the evidence I don't think it would have worked
everybody did their job and they did a great job and it all came together I've never had a case
where the Small Things mattered so much where something as small as a needle Mark or the amount of DNA left on a
needle cap played such a pivotal role in the resolution of the case [Music]

This series profiles intriguing crimes where science catches the bad guy. Follow coroners, medical examiners, physicians, law enforcement officials, journalists and legal experts as they put together the pieces of the crime puzzle.

Brief Summary

Michelle Hearnden was murdered by nurse Oliver O'Quinn using propofol, leading to his conviction for first-degree murder.

Key points

The Mysterious Death of Michelle Hearnden. Michelle Hearnden, a 24-year-old student, is found dead under baffling circumstances. What happened?
The Discovery of Propofol. Investigators uncover that Michelle's death was caused by a lethal dose of propofol, a powerful sedative.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

Betrayal is getting warmer and warmer.

0:14WatchMar 5, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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