Chapter 1: How can you enjoy Morbid without ads?
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Hey, weirdos, I'm Ash. And I'm Alayna. And this is Morbid in the Morning.
We haven't done one of these in a little while. I know. I had a merch idea this morning, actually, when I was driving here. I was like, oh, I get to say that it's morbid in the morning. We should just do, like, a shirt that says, like, morbid in the morning. Like, maybe, like, embroidered on, like, the shirt with, like, a little coffee cup. Yes, bitch.
Yeah, that's how I pictured it, too. Yes.
I love that. Yay. We'll do that.
We'll do that someday, yeah. We'll do that. Someday.
I love that idea. Thank you.
I had a strange dream last night, and I don't remember the dream itself. This is going to sound so random, but I remember in the dream, someone was using PEMDAS to solve an equation. Oh, my God.
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Chapter 2: Who was Kristin O’Connell and what happened to her?
All right. Well, moving on into the case of the day. The case of the day. I have an unsolved case today, which really infuriates me because there's kind of no reason that this should be unsolved. Yeah. So this is the unsolved murder of Kristen O'Connell. So let's get into it. Kristen Marie O'Connell was born January 12th, 1965.
She was one of two kids born to Michael and Phyllis O'Connell, who raised her and her brother Kyle in Burnsville, Minnesota. According to Michael O'Connell, his daughter was a really fun, really easygoing, outgoing child. But he said she also had a very serious side. He said she was somewhat religious and had put a lot of thought into becoming a nun.
Oh, wow.
And you can find like some evidence of Kristen's faith throughout her early life. When her grandmother, who she was really, really close with, died in 1975, 10-year-old Kristen turned to her faith to help her kind of cope with this loss. In a letter written after her grandmother's death, she said, as she wrote, Death is a subject pushed aside, never talked about. I think it should be talked about.
It's a part of life. Some people die fast, others die young, some old. It all depends when God wants us with him.
Wow.
Which is like pretty fucking profound for a 10 year old. It is.
And if that like it sounds like it was like a comfort.
Yeah, exactly. Now, while Kristen would always take her faith pretty seriously, she was also in most respects a pretty typical Midwestern girl and a very ideal daughter for her parents. Her mother, Phyllis, told a reporter in 2023, we had a great relationship and she was she was the one all the boys wanted to marry. I just think it's so sweet.
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Chapter 3: Why did Kristin travel to New York?
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I also sleep even better knowing that I got a panic button in my room.
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There is no safe like SimpliSafe. Initially, James told Kristen that she was going to stay at his parents' house where he also lived. So, like, very normal situation there. But when she arrived in Ovid, he told her that the plans had changed unexpectedly and that instead they were going to be staying in a trailer on his parents' property. Nah. So that would, like, freak me out a little bit.
Yeah, that would freak me out.
And I think she definitely... Sounds like she was a little put off by it.
Yeah, I feel like that would make your, like, flight or fight senses kind of kick in a bit. Yeah. You know? Yeah. So she was like, okay, like, sounds good. And she told her mom. And the change of plans was concerning for Phyllis, who believed her daughter would be staying in a home with adults present.
Yeah.
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Chapter 4: What led to Kristin feeling uncomfortable during her trip?
So they set out on foot to look around the area for her. And when she still hadn't been found by the following afternoon... James called the state police to report her missing. I'm sorry, what? So she goes out for a walk at around like a little after 11 p.m. She doesn't return by 1 a.m. They go out and look for her and they don't find her.
And then presumably everybody just goes to sleep and wakes up the next afternoon and then calls the police. That's weird. That is weird. That's weird to me. I'm sorry, I'm not... I'm not pointing fingers at anybody.
That's just weird. Objectively, that's fucking weird.
Yeah. Like if I'm at a party and it's not even like my friend, it's just like somebody at the party and I hear that they're missing and we go look for them and don't find them. When we don't find them, that's when we call the police.
Yeah, we say, okay, we got to call the cops now because everything's awry.
And there was plenty of people there that like at least one of them should have been like, hey, I think we should call the police and followed through with that decision. For sure. Yeah. So after receiving the very late report that Kristen O'Connell had gone missing, a search team of about 90 police officers and firefighters from four towns set out from the Vermeer's house to look for Kristen.
About 90 minutes later, the team found Kristen's body. She was not alive. They found her body about 300 yards into a cornfield along Route 139, which is a rural road about a quarter mile from the trailer where she'd last been seen. Ovid Fire Chief Robert Favreau said, I know that's what you go on searches to find, but this is an awful way to end it.
Usually when you go out on these things, you find out the person you're looking for is hundreds of miles away, but you never know till you find it.
That's awful.
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Chapter 5: How was Kristin O’Connell's body discovered?
shut possibly fuck up this scientist is said to have falsified data in multiple cases and then went on to falsify records to cover up that fake data i am speechless which like i'm why like why why you are fucking with people's lives just do your job phyllis said i mean my god this is an important job they're doing and how could they allow this and not be supervised properly it's just beyond me
Yeah. But what I will tell you is that there's a petition we are going to share on socials and in the show notes. And it surrounds all of the DNA testing in Christine's case. And it goes into more detail about the issues that the family has faced trying to get the DNA tested. Okay. And importantly, most importantly, is asking the New York State Health Commissioner to approve that lab.
Let's go, motherfucker. I'm going to share it and we are all going to sign the shit out of it.
Honestly, everyone annoy the shit out of them until they do this.
Yes.
Because like...
come on what are you doing come on like come on this literal dna like what are you doing and it's degrading the more it sits exactly it's like you're just waiting for it to degrade that's it well that's exactly it but also this specific lab like they're pioneers in this they are exactly like they know what they're doing with this so it's weird that you're not allowing them to even look at it while they're getting in like come on not even really giving a valid reason no
It's shady. And if you don't want to look shady, let them test it.
If you don't want to look shady, then let them do it.
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