No One Heard a Thing ////// 657 | Forensic Files

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

No One Heard a Thing ////// 657

Part 1 of 1

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In the middle of the night someone shot and killed Eli Washtock inside his third floor condominium. Eli was spending a lot of time and money working on an investigation into the suspicious death of Michelle O’Connell. Eli was living in St. Augustine, Florida and was working with O’Connell family and blood and crime scene experts. Many have said that Eli’s murder had everything to do with the O’Connell case cover up. This week we take a look at the still unsolved homicide case of Eli Washtock.

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Brief Summary

The episode examines the suspicious deaths of Michelle O'Connell and Eli Wasto, highlighting investigative flaws and potential connections between the cases.

Key points

The Mysterious Death of Michelle O'Connell. Michelle O'Connell's death was ruled a suicide, but her family believes it was a homicide.
Eli Wasto's Suspicious Murder. Eli Wasto, who investigated Michelle's case, was murdered under mysterious circumstances.
Eli Wasto's Identity Complications. Eli's identity raises questions in the investigation, complicating the case.
Mystery of the Gunshots. Despite multiple gunshots, no one in the condo complex reported hearing anything.
Motive Behind the Murder?. Speculation arises about possible motives related to Eli's investigation into another death.
Blood Evidence on the Shirt. Eli's investigation reveals blood on a shirt in a location that raises questions about its origin.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It's good to be seen and good to see you.

1:56WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

60/ 100Some tension

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