Criminology - Heather Bogle

Episode Date: October 13, 2024

In 2015, 28-year-old Heather Bogle was employed at the Whirlpool factory in Clyde, Ohio. After clocking out in the early morning hours of April 9th, 2015, Heather left the facility, but she never made it home that morning.  Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the case of Heather Bogle. Heather's body was found inside her trunk the next day. The investigation to find her killer saw several people wrongly accused and a detective found guilty of criminal acts. All of this delayed the identification of Heather's killer. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology   An Emash Digital production

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Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 329 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Morph, how you doing, buddy? I'm doing good. I'm doing good other than the fact that every time we start to record now, I've got issues and stuff going on last week. You know, my, you know, our poor dog passed away and we had a flood in the house. So now we're dealing with a hurricane that's going to land in the next day or two. So it's been hectic.

And I'd like to have a nice calm couple weeks going forward if we could do that. Well, you know, you're down there in sunny Florida. You get the weather. You get a lot of nice stuff. But man, that hurricane season is scary. Yeah. It's the tradeoff. And we live on the west coast of Florida.

So that's where the hurricanes hit. And I guess, you know, know some people try and equate it to what's the equivalent of dealing with blizzards and that kind of stuff up north but it can be scary and you know i just hope everybody's safer but it's listening in the florid area you know batting down and and i hope when we meet up again that everything uh was on the lighter side yeah me too yeah we always hope for that let's go ahead and give our patreon shoutouts we had kim moldenhower and chris fletcher decide to support the show so we really appreciate it.

Yeah, thank you to everyone that takes the time to help the show by supporting it. It means a lot to us. For anyone else that would like to, you can head over to patreon.com slash criminology to get started. Right. No delays. We're jumping right into this episode. In this week's case is a shocking one. And not only due to the brutal nature of the crime that we'll be discussing, in the process

of trying to solve a murder, one detective created more victims through his action. which were an absolute injustice that kept the truth delayed for years. All of the cases we discuss involve senseless loss and needless pain. But it's not usually made worse by the quest for justice. We're talking about the case of Heather Bogle. In 2015, 28-year-old Heather Bogle was employed at the Whirlpool factory in Clyde, Ohio. Whirlpool is a very popular brand of home appliance here in the United States. it's a big operation that requires work around the clock.

Heather was one of the employees who worked the night shift there at the plant. After clocking out in the early morning hours of April 9, 2015, Heather left the facility, which was her normal routine on the night shift. She was captured by the surveillance camera walking away from the building at 6.17 a.m. She never made it home that morning. But due to her odd work schedule, no one noticed that she was missing until later that afternoon. Every day, Heather would pick up her five-year-old daughter, McKenzie, from school.

On this day, though, she didn't. No one had heard from her, and she didn't make any alternate plans. She just didn't show up. This was unusual and immediately put those who knew Heather on alert. Her sister, Jennifer, told NBC News. Her life was her daughter. And for her not to show up was not her. Heather's mom tried to call her, but her phone was off.

and she didn't answer any text. So a missing person's report was filed that day. And more if we see this in many cases, you have people who have normal daily routines. We all do. And so when there's a break from that routine, and then along with that, people can't get in touch with someone.

Well, that's when they begin to worry. And I think here especially, you know, when someone has a young child, and part of that routine includes picking that child up from school and they don't show. That is a major cause for concern. Yeah, I agree. I think a lot of times, especially when they're kids involved, you know, you have parents that are having to have them home and out of school by a certain time. They need to be picked up. And this isn't a case of, you know,

somebody that's running off to go to a casino or just have fun and forgot about their kid. This seems like more of something serious is going on here, and that's why they jumped into action and got that missing person's report filed. At first, people were hoping that Heather was just taking a little breather from the stress of her life and that she would come back. Even though being unreliable, especially when it came to McKenzie, was out of character. Heather had recently received some upsetting news. she had failed one of her nursing exams.

She was trying to improve not only her life, but her daughter's future, and becoming a nurse would have gone a long way toward achieving that. So Heather attended nursing school. She worked hard, but for whatever reason, she didn't pass one of the final exams, so it must have felt like it was all for nothing. Her brother certainly didn't help the situation, because according to CBS News,

he reportedly texted her that she failed the exam because she was too stupid to be a nurse. That wasn't all. According to the Fremont News Messenger, he also called her a dumb hoe and said that she was typical trash like her mom and dad. It's not clear why her brother sent her messages like this, but it's easy to see that maybe these types of messages after failing the exam might have sent Heather away to clear her head. And like you said, more, if we don't have all the details around the why, you know, why her brother is sending her these texts. but my first thought was how awful is that coming from your brother bad enough that you know you're working your rear end off and you happen to fail an exam okay that type of stuff happens

but when your brother is calling you names telling you that you're too stupid to be a nurse that's got to hurt i don't care how tough you are that's going to cut you down a little bit And unfortunately, in some of these cases, we don't know all the family dynamics or the relationship, what it's like between them, but certainly doesn't seem supportive towards Heather. It would soon become clear that Heather hadn't just run off the next day just before 8 p.m. Her Oldsmobile, Alera, was found parked at an apartment complex in Kly. Not far from the Whirlpool plan, Heather's body was found inside the trunk, clothed in an old. oversized Mickey Mouse t-shirt, curled up in the fetal position. She had been very badly beaten and possibly tortured, but it was two gunshot wounds that ultimately

took her life. The case shifted very quickly from a missing person's case to a murder case, and police began sorting through the clues. It was clear that Heather had been killed at a different location and then placed into the trunk of her car afterward. it because there were no casings or bullet holes in the trunk, the area where she was killed would have been much more bloody. Adorty's felt that this murder was personal because it was just so brutal. Heather's hair had all been haphazardly chopped off. Her killer had cut her fingernails

all the way down to the cuticles. Her body was covered in bruises and there were marks from restraints on her wrists and ankles. injuries to her hands showed that at some point Heather was aware she was being attacked and was able to try to defend herself. It appeared that Heather's killer had cleaned her body and that cutting her hair and fingernails was a sloppy attempt at getting rid of any of their own DNA. The much too large shirt she was wearing had no bullet holes. I think this is an interesting case because we see that the killer has removed her fingernails because they didn't want to have their DNA found. And I think that's indicative of this being a fresher case.

You know, had this been in the 60s or 70s, that probably wouldn't have happened. But this person that did this was obviously aware of the forensics and DNA and stuff like that. And they wanted to take steps not to be identified. Yeah. To me, there's no doubt. The killer went out of their way to try to clean the body, cut fingernails, cut hair. You know, to me, it's, it's almost like the post-CSI effect, if you want to call it that, right? We have seen so many TV shows, procedural.

We've heard so many podcasts and watched so many true crime documentaries that everyone is somewhat aware. of DNA. Now, does everyone know how to really cover their tracks? No. The answer is absolutely no. And so a lot of times I think what you find is people doing things that they think are going to help them, get away with the crime. It's certainly interesting to see as police technology and investigative tools evolves and things like DNA, the, killers out there that commit these crimes, they're evolving with it and sort of using the same thing police are using to help cover their tracks. They know about those things and they're, they're taking steps to prevent police from IDing them.

Detective spoke to residents living at the Summerton Apartments to see if they had seen the person who parked Heather's car. Samantha Honaker, who lived in the unit closest to Heather's parked car, mentioned seeing her at the complex a few days earlier. and stated that she had seen the car park there on Thursday night with someone inside of it, and that it was still there at 10.30 the next morning, empty. Investigators worked to figure out who she may have been visiting there. One resident stood out. The day that Heather walked out of work and disappeared,

Keanu Boer made a post on Facebook about committing a murder, pleading insanity, and serving as few as eight years behind bars for it. Detectives learned that Keana hadn't been alone on that day, that Heather's body was found. A man named Omar Satchel had been visiting her. Omar had a criminal record and had gone to prison once on charges of a home invasion involving a firearm. These two certainly piqued police interest. On May 26, 2015, Keana and Omar were publicly named as persons of interest in the case.

They were officially named as suspects. Five months later, Adortes believed that Omar's friend, Karee Jaffrey, helped him and Keanu get rid of the gun that they used to kill Heather and then they named him as a third suspect. Keanu was questioned multiple times but never charged. She finally hired an attorney because she felt that she was being harassed and unfairly targeted as part of the investigation. Her apartment was searched multiple times but no evidence was recovered. Investigators actually visited her place of work to obtain a DNA sample from her.

In February 2016, Keanu Bura was arrested on unrelated charges of theft and the misuse of a credit card. Though she hadn't been charged with any involvement in Heather Bogle's murder, Detective O'Connell told the Fremont News Messenger that her being in jail was a good thing, which would give the public a chance to come forward with information. He also pointed out that her being arrested just shows what she is capable of. Just months later on June 2, 2016, Detective O'Connell was placed on administrative, street of leave by Sheriff Kyle Overmire. Three months later, he resigned. This was before a disciplinary hearing could be held regarding his actions in this investigation. For instance, O'Connell leaked the

entire investigative file on the Heather Bogle case to an employee at the Sandusky County Job and Family Services Office. It would only get worse, and we'll get into that part of it a bit later in this episode. The Sandusky County Sheriff Kyle Overmire ended up facing legal issues of his own though it didn't involve the investigation into Heather's murder, he was indicted by a grand jury and faced 43 counts, including theft in office and tampering with records. He pleaded guilty to three counts of deception, to obtain drugs,

a count of filing a false financial disclosure statement, three counts of theft in office, two counts of tampering with records, and five counts of theft of a dangerous drug. Apparently in 2015, His legal prescriptions for opiate pain killers were stopped, and this is when the thefts began. It's fair to say that some of the personnel in this case were preoccupied with other things at best, and that Heather did not get the investigation she deserved.

So we have Detective O'Connell, we have Sheriff Kyle Overmire, both of them get in trouble. And we're going to talk about O'Connell more later in the case. the episode, but already you can see that, you know, here we have people in positions of power doing things that they shouldn't be doing. In Overmire's case, it sounds like, you know, he got addicted to painkillers, which happens to many people, but he was in a position where he could use his authority to obtain, you know, these painkillers and ultimately it caught up to him. But I think the key here is, you know, how did all of this stuff, some of which was directly tied to Heather's investigation? Some of it not, but, you know, all of this has to have an effect

and not in a good way, right? It has to be detrimental to the investigation into Heather's murder. how could it not have? Yeah, if you're Heather's family and all this stuff is going on in the background, you have to be asking yourself, how good is the investigation into her murder when, you know, all this stuff's going on in the background. It's not fair to them. And we've talked about cases before that were the investigators of those cases

were involved with, you know, whether it was a forced confession or doing illegal stuff, you know, as they were investigating a case, it's never a good situation. And any of the cases we've talked about it, it always seems like it somehow spills into, you know, an investigation of somebody's murder and that it's just not fair to the families. In July 2016, the investigation in Heather's murder started over with fresh eyes. The Sandusky County Sheriff's Office requested the assistance of the Ohio Attorney General's office, who took over the case.

Detectives took another look at Heather's girlfriend, Carmela Badeo. Heather and Carmela met at the Whirlpool Plant where they were co-workers. They had been dating for about a year when Heather was killed. On Wednesday, April 8, 2015, the two got into a pretty big argument. They had many spats during their relationship, but this one seemed to signal the end for them. Despite the argument, there was no indication that Carmela wanted Heather dead, and there was no evidence at all linking her to the crime. In December 2016, former Sheriff Overmire was sentenced to four years in prison and three years of probation after that.

He was also stripped of his law enforcement certification in order to pay $24,000 in restitution. While Overmire's issues made headlines, New Sandusky County Sheriff Chris Hilton, who was elected in November 2016, was determined to not let it be a distraction in solving. the case. He felt that the key to the case was not where Heather's body was found, but rather answers would be found by looking at where Heather was last seen a lot. And this was the Whirlpool factory. Looking through Heather's Google account history, including her location data, authorities were able to see that just 13 minutes after leaving work, Heather went to a mobile home at Emerald Estates on County Road 224, just miles away from the Whirlpool plant. Her device was there for about an hour before it was turned off for the final time.

Detectives discovered that one of Heather's coworkers, Daniel Myers, lived at that mobile home. Looking through the case file, they also realized that he had never even been questioned. Myers claimed that he didn't really know Heather, but they worked not only the same shift, they were on the same production line. When he was asked to provide a DNA sample, Myers refused. Though it was his right, it didn't sit right with detectives who hadn't had anyone else not cooperating. in the case. They were able to get a warrant to force him to provide his DNA, and it wasn't very surprising to them when it turned out to be a match to the DNA found under what little was

left of Heather's fingernails. So there's a couple of things that jump out at me here, Morp. One is that, you know, obviously they were able to find DNA from under Heather's fingernails. And we talked about this kind of what appeared to be a sloppy attempt to try to clean up the crime scene or her body especially to lower the chances of police finding DNA. Well, obviously that didn't work because they found some. And then you have Daniel Myers win question. Say, you know, I don't really know Heather all that well or really at all. That's tough to say when you not only work the same shift, but you're on the same.

line. Yeah, I think to police, when somebody doesn't want to help the investigation, and that could be for any number of reasons, it doesn't always mean they're involved in it, but it certainly probably gets the attention of police. So they scrutinized him, you know, even further at that point. And in the end, that DNA that he tried to get rid of was still there linking him to the crime. So just goes to show you that a lot of times these criminals, they think they have a plan that's going to the police catching them, it doesn't always turn out that way. Hey there, it's Wayfair here,

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Visit Wayfair.com or the Wayfair. Wayfair app. Wayfair, every style, every home. In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency. We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved, until new technology allowed investigators to do what had once been impossible.

A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, Blood and Water. Listen now, wherever you. you get your podcasts. It turns out that after Heather's murder, despite claiming not to know her very well, Myers was very involved in the morning process. He attended her funeral and not as an unnoticed casual observer. Instead, he took the time to make an entry in the book of condolences. Myers even donated $125 to a GoFundMe that was set up to benefit Heather's daughter.

He wrote a comment with his donation. According to CAA News, it read, Heather, you are such an amazing person. Although we have only known one another for such a short time, I have came to appreciate our talks about our kids. I am distraught that there will be no more of your smile at work. You will always be in my thoughts. Your daughter will always be in my prayers. God bless you, little Missy. So much for him not knowing her and, you know, saying that story that he, you know, despite working with it on the same line that he barely had any connection to her.

Yeah, I think it kind of blows that out of the water. But, you know, we have seen this time and time again where, you know, someone linked to a murder or some other type of crime doesn't shy away, doesn't, you know, lock. themselves in their house, which is what you would think they would do. Sometimes they insert themselves into the investigation. They ask a lot of questions. You know, here we have this guy, not only attending Heather's funeral, but seemingly kind of going out of his way to, you know, write in the book of condolences, to donate and make a big write up on the donation page.

You just wonder, you know, kind of what is going through these people's mind when they're doing this? Do they think that they're deflecting police suspicion away from them as if, well, no one would donate to a go fund me and write all of these flowery things if they had anything to do with the murder? Yeah, it seems like a lot of times, too, these killers will get involved in the aftermath, whether it's going to funerals, you know, talking to the family,

maybe just to sort of take it all in or get a sense of what's going on. So it is interesting when you see this kind of interaction after the fact. Following the DNA link in the case, Daniel Myers was indicted by a special grand jury. All three of the trailers he owned at the Emerald Estates were searched. While Heather and Myers had worked together and may have interacted, there was little doubt in investigators' minds that his DNA found under her nails came from the attack on her when she was killed and not through some casual or innocent way through work. Daniel Myers also replaced the floorboards on the subflooring of his trailer and purchased a brand new mattress right after Heather was killed. Officers also found women's underwear in a safe inside one of the trailers.

That wasn't all police found. Authorities found photos and videos of his sexual encounters and his sexual encounters. detailed journal about his sexual partners. Investigators also recovered multiple firearms from one of his trailers, but they were unable to pin down the actual murder weapon because they didn't have any bullets or casings. In Heather's case, to compare to his guns through ballistic testing, also found in the search was a pair of handcuffs that had been used to restrain Heather's wrists. It's believed that a rope was used on her.

ankles. GPS data from Daniel Meyer's truck showed that in March and April, he would take routes that took him directly past Heather's home on East State Street. But after she was killed, he changed his habits and suddenly stopped driving past her house. GPS also put his truck at the Summerton Apartments in Clyde, where Heather's Oldsmobile was abandoned, with her body inside it. The Summorden apartment complex is less than a three-mile walk from Myers' home, and would have been even shorter if he cut through any of the fields were vacant. land instead of sticking to the main roads. He could have easily made it home on his own

after parking Heather's car there. According to his dentist, Daniel Myers had work done to fix a broken tooth about three months after Heather was killed. A second broken tooth had been shotally repaired at home with super glue.

Defensive wounds on her body were evidence that Heather had vigorously fought back against her attacker. These broken teeth were just one more clue to police. that it had been Daniel Myers. She was trying to fight off. Someworth is we look at, you know,

the evidence mounting against Daniel Meyer. Some of it seems to be very damaging to him. First and foremost, you have the DNA found under her fingernails, but then you have some stuff that is a little more subtle. You know, replacing of flooring, buying a new mattress, this GPS data, all of a sudden he stops driving by her house. Now, do those type of things directly point to the fact that he was Heather's killer? No, but you just add those to the list, you know, along with the DNA, including, you know,

a pair of handcuffs that they determined to have been used to restrain Heather's risk. and these broken teeth, right again, people could break a tooth or a couple of teeth for various reasons, but when you're building a case, some evidence points directly, but, you know, a lot of it is circumstantial. But when you add it all up, it really seems to point to Daniel Myers. Yeah, I think there's a slew of things, you know, the evidence, you know, the handcuffs, the things, physical things that can connect him. Then you have the proximity of his home to the, to where the car was found at that apartment complex.

You have him changing up his, his route to go to work. You know, and that some of that stuff is circumstantial, but at all, you know, to a jury might look powerful. And, you know, just all the things that he said about her that weren't true that he didn't know her. You know, you add that all together. and it really demonstrates how he's not to be believed. And I just want to say, too, I've heard of some people that are really opposed to going to doctors or dentist

and they try and do things that are on their own. But I don't think I've ever heard of someone fixing their own teeth with super glue. That was a weird thing that jumped out to me. Yeah, it's a great point. You can make the argument that someone's scared of the dentist. They don't want to spend the money to go to a dentist. But I think you could also make the argument. argument that, you know, here's someone who is panicking a little bit.

If you have just killed someone and in the process of that murder, you got some of your teeth knocked out. Do you panic and try to put them back together using super glue? And I think there's a chance. That's what Daniel Myers did. Yeah, I think because if you are involved in a crime, you know, if you're stabbed or shot because somebody was defending themselves. You don't want to go to the hospital necessarily

and raise a red flag and present an injury and people started asking questions. So it may be that Myers just didn't want to go to the dentist with this mouth injury because he was afraid it would come back to haunt him. Finally, Daniel Myers was arrested for Heather's murder on June 1st, 2017 at the Wooded Acres Campground in Lindsay, Ohio. Bond was set at $2 million.

Once Myers was in close, custody, the arrest made the news. This prompted 10 women to come forward to authorities with their own stories. Myers had attacked them all in very similar attacks. Each woman said when they rejected his advances, he grabbed them by the hair, threw him to the ground or into a wall, and sexually assaulted them. One woman reported that Myers punched her so hard for trying to say no to him that the injury was so bad she was out of work for two weeks, but he forced her to lie about how she got hurt. Another woman an experience that was strikingly similar to what we know happened to Heather. When Myers began to rub her leg suggestively, she tried to reject him, only to be grabbed by the

hair, thrown to the floor and handcuffed. After the assault, once the handcuffs were off, she took her chance and slashed Myers in the arm with a knife. Perhaps Myers murdered Heather because of these thwarted attacks that stopped him when his victims stood up to him. Daniel Myers' involvement in Heather's murder cast an older case in a new life. In 2009, Myers was dating 37-year-old Leanne Sluder, who also worked at the World Pool Plan. She had one son from a previous relationship, and she had one son with Myers, who turned four that year. On March 1, 2009, Myers called 911 after finding Leanne dead in her mobile home. at the Emerald Estates in Green Creek Township, which was next to Myers' trailer.

She was in her bed with a 22-caliber rifle lying beside her. The day before she was found dead, Leanne sent a text to Myers. It read, you went, do what's right. Her death, caused by a single gunshot wound to her chest, was officially ruled a suicide. Prosecutor Tim Braun admitted to CBS News that Leanne's trailer was not a properly processed crime scene in a sense that it was not photographed well. Evidence wasn't collected. And he added that, in his opinion, it wasn't done correctly. Daniel Myers admitted that the rifle found with Leanne belonged to him, but claimed to have

given it to her for protection. Lori Ann Haley, Leanne's sister, told CBS News, I'm thinking to myself, protection from what? She explained that Leanne hated guns, and she added, it was hard for me to move mom because I knew Danny had killed her. Relatives of Daniel Myers who were gathering up his belongings after his arrest found an undated letter written by Leanne. Multiple sources called this a suicide note, but it was only addressed to Myers. There was trouble in their relationship. Leanne felt that he was using her for her money and was sure that he would kick her to the

side when the next best thing came along. She talked about not letting those around her know how she was truly feeling. According to the Toledo Blade, she wrote, No one really knows how it was for me because I put on a happy face at work. So they all thought I was happy, happy, joy, joy, Leanne. She also wrote, all I ever wanted was to just die for that the hurt would stop. Lorraine found it odd that Daniel Myers held on to that note for all those years. it certainly wasn't a love letter.

She believes that Heather Bogle would still be alive today. If the original investigation into her sister's death had not been botched, investigators believe he hid the note because it wouldn't have made him look very good to family, friends, and probably most importantly, the responding officers. According to the courier.com, she had written, I was the one who was always there for you without, question, even when you said some of the meanest things. Even investigators were curious about Leanne's death because it was hard to believe that

Heather Bogle was Daniel Meyer's first victim. Prosecutor Tim Braun told the Sandusky Register, Danny Myers rationally and meticulously attempted to cover this case up. That usually takes experience. Before Daniel Myers faced trial for Heather's murder, former Detective O'Connell was handed down a prison sentence. On July 30th, he pleaded again. guilty to one of eight charges of tampering with evidence. Seven of those were in the

Bogle investigation. In exchange for his guilty plea, seven charges, including the unrelated charge, were dropped. At his sentencing in September 2018, O'Connell addressed the judge saying, it was my primary goal and objective to find those persons responsible for Heather's murder, and I apologize if maybe I had taken the wrong approach. It's hard to see what happened here is simply the wrong approach. O'Connell 's actions delayed justice for Heather Bogle and left a dangerous person free for years, while smearing the names of three innocent people, those three being Kianna Boer, Omar Satchel, and Karee Jeffrey. These were the three people. O'Connell had been rushing to point to

as suspects early on. Weeks after Heather's murder, Detective O'Connell received a tip about Daniel Myers. The tipster accused him of sexually abusing women. Despite this claim and his proximity to Heather, at the last moment she was seen alive, 6.17 a.m. walking out of the plant they both worked at, O'Connell never even looked into this tip, further demonstrating the failures in the case. Witnesses who were at the apartment complex the night that Heather was found in her car recall a man in a truck who was acting weird. According to the Fremont News Messenger, he apparently wanted to know if Heather was wearing specific articles of clothing,

asking, is she still wearing her yellow sweater? But no one ever followed up on this either. Former Sheriff Overmire would later explain that he thought it had been looked into by other members of the Sheriff's Office. O'Connell's attorney, Chris Fiegel, stuck up for his clients in action. According to Fremont News Messenger, he said, it could have been thousands of people at Whirlpool that was the killer, as if this was a good reason to not pursue a lead. Fiegel says, it's very easy three years later to Monday morning quarterback an investigation. When looking at

former Detective O'Connell's actions in this investigation, it doesn't seem like equating it to Monday morning quarterbacking is a very fair description. It's more like uncovering huge mistakes. if this had been a matter of not making the best decisions, he wouldn't have been facing any charges. The issue is he actually tried to fabricate evidence, proving the guilt of his only suspects, and went as far as to withhold evidence that would have cleared them. Another issue came to light that involved Samantha Honaker,

the resident who lived in the unit closest to Heather's parked car and spoke to authorities. She was later involved in O'Connell's plan to frame Keanna Bore. The detective reportedly encouraged resident Daniel Pickering to record himself speaking to Keanu and get her to say something incriminating. And if the voice of Keanu just happened to actually be Samantha Honaker speaking, well, that would be just fine.

Pickering and Hanuker would later state that O'Connell threatened to take their children away if they didn't cooperate with his investigation. which included creating false evidence. When DNA from Heather's fingernails proved that none of O'Connell's suspects was a match, he just didn't turn that information over to prosecutors, the same ones he was asking to build a case against Boar, Satchel, and Jeffrey. O'Connell was sentenced to two years in prison, which he served at the Lorraine Corrections Facility.

When O'Connell was convicted, the judge in the case said, when you look at a case, look at all of it, the good, the bad, and the ugly, and when you present it to justice to our citizens, present all of it so a fair result and a speedy result of a crime can be resolved. Not only have you dishonored yourself, but all the thousands of police officers across the country. As O'Connell was taken out of the courtroom, Keanu Boer and Heather's sister, Jennifer Bogle, hugged each other. And, you know, to me, as the full actions of Detective O'Connell come to life, they are appalling. You know, I get how sometimes police could have their favorite suspect or suspects in mind, right? In this instance, he had three people that he believed were suspects in the murder of,

Heather Bogle, but even when information and evidence came out that pointed away from him, he either ignored it, didn't turn it over, or in some instances, tried to fabricate his own evidence pointing to the three suspects. And I think the judge said it well. You know, you not only dishonored yourself, but the thousands of police officers across the country. You know, it's people like Detective O'Connell that cause citizens to lose trust in their police officers. Yeah, and I think, you know, for Heather's family, they wanted justice. They wanted the right person held accountable. They didn't want somebody, I'm assuming, just thrown into prison just to say,

okay, we got somebody. You know, if it was myself in their shoes and I was seeking justice for a murdered family member, I'd want the right person in jail. I'd expect the detectives to work hard and try and find the person, but I wouldn't want them making up evidence to frame somebody to throw them in prison. It wouldn't be real justice to me. And I think these types of examples are very scary. You think about how the system is designed to work. The end goal is justice, right? So law enforcement is collecting evidence. They're doing all of this work to try to find the killer. And the way that it should work is that they go where the evidence leads them. But in some cases, we see that that's not

how it happened. They get locked in on someone and it's almost as if they're trying to make the puzzle pieces fit and only the pieces that would point to the guilt of the person they believe has committed to crime. Now, most of the time it doesn't rise to the level of Detective O'Connell, but even the tunnel vision can really, you know, throw an investigation into chaos, let alone what this guy did, which was criminal. At the end of the day, you know, for a pride factor, as a good detective, you think you'd want to find the right person and not have to resort to trying to frame somebody and making evidence up or making things fit that don't fit. Yeah, I think that's how we all expect it should go down.

It just time and time again, we see examples of where that doesn't actually happen that way. On February 13, 2019, Heather Bogle's real killer, 49-year-old, 49-year-old Daniel Myers entered a plea of guilty for the five charges he was facing, two counts of aggravated murder, and one each of kidnapping, aggravated robbery, and tampering with evidence. If he had refused the deal and gone to trial, he could have faced the death penalty. Instead, Daniel Myers was sentenced to life in prison with no possibility of parole plus 20 years. He was also registered as a Tier 3 sex offender. Myers knew that Heather was very upset about the text from her brother that evening, and he had been comforting her about it.

This is likely how she ended up back at his trailer. What exactly unfolded and how remains unknown. But it's clear that Myers attacked her and Heather fought back but was eventually overpower and killed. There were warning signs about Daniel Myers. Others who worked at the plant were creeped out by him. And another co-work at Whirlpool, who claims that Myers sexually assaulted her, told authorities that she would tell all new female hires, including Heather Bogle, to stay away from Myers.

This coworker recalls that Myers had a thing for Heather. According to the Fremont News messenger, he told her once that Heather was a sweet girl, but she wouldn't give him the time of day and she was stuck up. At his sentencing hearing, Meyer simply told the judge, I have nothing to say. But plenty of other people had a lot on their minds. While Daniel Myers didn't have much to say, many others did. Heather's cousin Pat Harder also worked at the Whirlpool plant.

He knew Myers much better than Heather did. He told the Fremont News Messenger, he drove the same tow motor I did and walked by me for a month, knowing what he did. In a statement written by Heather's mother, Renee McLaughlin, she admits how much she prayed for Heather to come home and to come home safe. Carmela Badeo, the woman Myers, was dating at the time of the murder, told him, you should not see the light of day.

Though he didn't feel like talking at the hearing, Daniel Myers wasn't always silent. An inmate who was in the Sondesky County Jail at the same time as Myers claims that he admitted killing Heather because she laughed at him. The inmate knew about the broken teeth and about the text from Heather's brother. This inmate stated that Myers told him he pulled her hair, beat and cut her hair, but did not sexually assault her. Myers told the inmate that he shot Heather because he got tired of hearing her. Sandusky County Sheriff Chris Hilton called Myers a monster.

One of Daniel Myers' children, now an adult woman, told investigators that he had a long history of abusing women. As a child, she was so terrified of passing her father's bedroom at night that she would pee in her bed and suffered from nightmares about what she saw him do. She recalls one time he got angry at a woman for removing her nail polish. He took the woman into his room and she could hear the woman crying. She also heard thud sounds. According to the Fremont News messenger, Meyer's daughter said that he ripped this woman's fingernail off. She said this was because she wasn't looking like a woman without an alpals. As a child, Meyer's daughter also found her father's collection of homemade tapes,

featuring him having sex with tied up women. When she turned 16, she stopped visiting her father and even refused to call him dad, which enraged him. Heather's mother, Renee, told Myers, I thank God every day that Heather fought you so that no one will ever have to feel this pain again. Of course, Daniel Myers being guilty meant that Keanu Boer, Karee Jeffrey, and Omar Satchel were innocent. Though their names have been officially cleared, it didn't erase the pain and loss of everything that they had gone through. Kiana explained that she had been commenting on the state of the justice system when she made that Facebook post.

It had nothing to do with planning to commit a murder or bragging about getting away with one. She was angry that murders can get as little as eight to ten years behind bars just because they plead insanity. It's important to note that the father of Keanu's children was incarcerated, but claimed that Detective O'Connell framed him. It's also important to note that O'Connell faced charges for cases unrelated to Heather Bogle's murder and also face civil lawsuits from people he put in prison. Was this just a chance to shut Keanu up about that other case involving the father of her children? It certainly doesn't seem like an honest mistake. Yeah, I don't think that you can say that, you know, these things that detective, or former detective O'Connell did were honest mistakes.

They weren't. He went out of his way to commit criminal acts to try to frame people. There's no way to paint that stuff as an honest mistake. And the problem is it opens up a can of worms because now they have to go back and say, hey, how many other cases did he do stuff like this on how many prisoners in Ohio there are trying to get their cases looked at again because he had some involvement in it. Yeah, it absolutely does, especially when you have people claiming that he framed them. On March 6th, 2019, exactly 10 years after Leanne Sluder was laid to rest,

Sheriff Hilton and prosecutor Tim Brown announced that her case was now closed again. Once again, they confirmed that she had taken her own life. Agent Gary Wilgus with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation concluded that the rifle was not too long for Leanne to have pointed it at her own chest and pulled the trigger. The blood spatter and flow at the scene were consistent with a self-inflicted wound. Prosecutor Braun spoke to WTOL.com about whether Daniel Myers could have been responsible for Leanne's death. He said, the tough part about all of this is that you're looking at him and you know he is a guy that's

capable of it. However, Braun said, this time around, I don't think he did it. Jennifer Bogle told the Fremont News Messenger that Heather's daughter looks just like her and acts just like her. Hopefully she's adjusting as well as possible life without her mom. Daniel Myers, now 55 years old, is still incarcerated at Lorraine Correctional Institution where he belongs. unable to hurt anyone else. And as we wrap this case up more, you know, one of the things that I want to talk about is how many people Daniel Myers heard before he was incarcerated,

it didn't surprise me at all that after he was arrested, a large number of women came forward with stories of their own about how he had assaulted them. I have a feeling that that is probably just the tip of the iceberg. I believe Daniel Myers, over his lifetime, hurt a large number of women. Now, I don't know how many he may have killed, but his own daughter talked about hearing and witnessing him being very violent with women. So my assumption is that his crimes go back many, many years. And the number of his victims is probably much higher than we'll ever really know about.

Yeah, we had that slew of women that came forward telling the authorities what happened to them at his hands. And rape is a very underreported crime. So it is definitely a safe assumption that he could have a lot more victims, even if they weren't murder victims, that he could have raped and attacked. And the death of Leanne Sluder. I get it multiple times. Investigators have deemed it a self-inflicted wound.

I'm dubious about that. Knowing what we know about Myers, would it surprise you at all if he murdered Leanne? And to me, it wouldn't be surprising in the least. You know, her sister came out and said, Leanne hated guns. Now, does that mean that she could not have shot herself? No, it doesn't mean that. But his story about her having this gun that he gave to her for protection kind of goes

against that. Most people who either don't like guns or afraid of guns are not just going to take one from someone and leave it lying around. the house. Also, you know, it occurred to me that you're shooting yourself in the chest with a rifle is not the most common way of someone shooting themselves in their life. Now, I get it. They deem that the rifle wasn't too long for her to be able to do it, but I don't know. You know, given what we know about this guy. It just seems to me more likely than not.

He had a hand. I think it's natural to look at somebody that's connected to, you know, this terrible guy and they die under these mysterious circumstances. So it's only natural to be looking at him with serious suspicion. But it seems like the police and the authorities just don't have anything that they found that physical. that physical evidence-wise connects him to the crime. So if you're in his family,

I wonder if that leaves you always wondering and always second-guessing what really happened. Yeah, I know if I was one of her family members, that's exactly what I would be thinking. But I understand. Police don't always have, you know, the evidence they need to come out and say, yeah, we think this is a murder,

or we know it was a murder. you know, all the signs kind of point to this being self-inflicted. But that doesn't mean it was. I think, you know, the one thing you would have to say about Daniel Myers is that it was a really nasty guy, especially when it came to women. He hurt a large number of women. We know he killed Heather. Bogle. What we don't know is how many more women he hurt that never came forward and whether or not

there are other murders that he committed. And I would say the chances are high that he had other murder victim. And thankfully, he's in prison for the rest of his life where he belongs. And then, you know, the other thing that was kind of intertwined. with this case, you know, the actions of Detective O'Connell. And I just go back to that being a really scary thing. You think about our system of justice. Someone does something wrong. They commit a crime. The evidence against them is gathered. It's presented in court and their fate is decided. What you don't want to believe is happening, although we know it does from time to time, you know, are people being railroaded, whether it's through a coerced confession, manufactured evidence, falsified

evidence, stuff like that, you know, that scares the you know what out of me, that you could lose your life either literally or lose it because you're spending the rest of your life in prison for a crime you didn't do based on evidence that wasn't real. It'll be interesting to see what comes out in the future if there are more cases O'Connell's attached to that go back to court and with people saying that they were framed, that things were altered in their case. You know, there could be other shoes to drop here. Yeah, absolutely. But that's it for our episode on Heather Bogle. If you love the show, but haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a five-star rating, leave a review.

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