We're all victims

When he was investigating the murder of Heather Bogle in 2015, former sheriff's Detective Sean P. O'Connell publicly identified three people as being involved, calling them "suspects" or "persons of interest."It turned out the detective had no credible evidence that any one of them was involved in any way, or knew anything about Bogle's murder or the circumstances surrounding it.But there had to be reasons he identified three innocent people in the brutal homicide of the 28-year-old Whirlpool worker on April 10, 2015. There's a reason he did that, and it was not, it appears, because that's where the evidence pointed him. There's no evidence, whatsoever, that even suggests they were involved.O'Connell, therefore, appears to have made it up. It's either that, or he is so incompetent he could ignore the obvious — that Bogle's murder was a crime of passion — and instead identify three black suspects in murdering her and suggest it was a drug-related homicide. That's a level of incompetence too far to easily believe could occur.Hogwash.Keyona Bor, then 23, contacted the Register after the detective obtained court orders twice to search her apartment in 2015. Detectives tossed the home she shared with her two young children upside down, leaving it in shambles after they searched it, each time.After the second search, O'Connell left something for Bor to find. He lined up the pages — neatly and end-to-end on the mattress in her bedroom — from a court motion filed by Julian Kiser appealing his drug trafficking conviction.Kiser is the father of Bor's two children, and O'Connell appears to definitely have been sending him a clear and convincing message leaving that paperwork there for Bor to discover. O'Connell is the detective who helped get Kiser convicted in 2014, in Sandusky County Judge John Dewey's courtroom, where justice gets served up short-shrift like fast food out of a drive-through.Kiser won his appeal and his conviction was thrown out. But a second trial, in Dewey's courtroom resulted in a conviction after a jury deliberated just 30 minutes. There's a reason officials want Kiser to remain in prison to serve out his 10-year sentence, and it likely has little to do with the $6,000 worth of cocaine they found at his home.Bogle's brother, Josh Feasel, said O'Connell told him "he tried to charge (Kiser) before with murder but couldn't get him. So they settled for the selling cocaine (charge)."Keyona Bor said O'Connell taunted her after the two searches at her home, spoke with her employer and questioned her co-workers, family and friends. She lost everything after that, and has been rebuilding her life ever since.It was worse for a second person O'Connell identified as a suspect in Bogle's homicide. Omar Satchel was arrested in May 2015 and was kept in jail for a year before facing trial on a weapons charge.O'Connell claimed Satchel stole a gun that might have been used to kill Bogle, and sold it to someone in Detroit. There was no gun recovered, however, no ballistic evidence that it was the murder weapon, and no other evidence, yet Satchel was convicted on a weapons charge, in Judge Dewey's courtroom.Again, there was a reason connected to Heather Bogle's homicide why O'Connell targeted Satchel. He had nothing to do with her murder, that's clear, despite the detective's comments to the contrary.On Dec. 22 O'Connell was indicted and charged with three felony counts of tampering with evidence and misdemeanor charges of falsification, coercion, dereliction of duty and obstructing official business, all connected to the Bogle investigation (or lack thereof). Henry County Prosecutor Gwen Howe-Gebers, the special prosecutor willing to take the case, and take it to a grand jury, has yet to release the bill of particulars of his indictment, which might help explain why O'Connell targeted three innocent people.In the meantime, between now and when O'Connell has his trial in March, one can speculate about questions that need answered. Was he ever trying to solve the murder of Heather Bogle, or were his intentions more self-serving? Was the veteran detective investigating another homicide, as he told Bogle's brother, or was he somehow protecting himself that he would go to such lengths as to let a real killer go free to pin a murder on three innocent people?O'Connell at the Sandusky County Courthouse this morning, Tuesday, Dec. 26, 2017.