Analyzing Michelle O Connell's Death

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The frontline video on Michelle O'Connell's death was quite interesting because my views and ideas about what happened to her changed from the beginning of the video to the end. The debate about whether her death is a homicide or suicide has compelling arguments from both sides and a lot of what seems like circumstantial evidence. Because of this It's hard to say for sure it was a suicide or homicide however, the documentary definitely highlighted the issues involved with domestic violence inside of police officer homes. Frontline showed that whether or not Jeremy murdered Michelle or not, there is definitely an issue with how the sheriff's department investigated and handled the case involving its own deputy. I immediately thought that the …show more content…

However, while all that may be true to them it does not mean she wasn’t still depressed or suicidal about her life. The majority of evidence pointed towards Michelle killing herself and it made the most sense until they attempted to show how she held the pistol to kill herself. The pistol recoiling forward and cutting her eyelid did not make sense and created enough doubt in my mind to question the nature of her death. This is because if the cut was made before she died then there may have been a struggle during a fight with Jeremy which completely changes the circumstantial evidence. However, even though my final thought about the death is that there is too much suspicion about the physical crime scene evidence to call it a suicide, I also believe that at this point and after the first investigation there is and was not enough evidence to call it a murder either specially to charge Jeremy and have it stick. There were also more disturbing facts about the crime scene that did not add up to suicide as well such as the fact that Jeremy had no DNA on his own pistol that he wore every day and that there were two shots fired, one into the floor and one into Michelle's …show more content…

This is because violence between police officers and their wives or spouses never really came to mind when I thought of domestic violence until now. It brings to light a new perspective on how difficult it can be for someone who is suffering from domestic violence to find a way out especially when their husbands are the police. The best idea to help prevent this from happening again that comes to mind is to make it mandatory for outside agencies to conduct investigations that directly involve police officers or members of another agency. There is good chance that if the FDLA had taken over the investigation from the beginning Jeremy would have been charged and possibly convicted of murder because this agency would not have been able to look over disturbing evidence just because he is their friend or fellow employee. I also feel that because the initial investigation was so sloppy and mishandled the sheriff or sheriff's department should be held accountable in some way that reflects the severity of their mistakes so they will think twice about being sloppy next

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