Crime Junkie: MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Shawn O’Brien

Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.

And I'm Britt.

And Britt, it's good to be back.

I know.

I know. I know there's been no interruption for listeners

because we are freaking professionals.

We're never going to miss a week for you guys.

We plan for this.

Yeah. And honestly, I like,

so I know you didn't miss an episode when I was gone in London,

and this is probably coming out actually even later than I got back.

But Britt, when you and I are here,

I have not talked to you in like a full week and a half,

which feels like ages.

Yeah. I mean, between you being gone and the time difference,

I mean, it's, hi, I miss you.

I miss you too.

And I know I wasn't there for long,

but I've literally, I swear my inner thoughts have a British accent.

And I was so tempted to just do the full show in my British accent.

Do I need to remind everybody of Australian accents and us?

And there's a...

Oh my God, that was so long ago.

We need to put...

There's a great blooper reaper.

Yes. If it's not...

I know it's in the fan club.

We'll have to post it on our Instagram.

You guys have to go check it out.

Or you don't have to.

You don't have to.

So, it's so painful and cringe,

but my British accent, I swear, is like on point.

And listen.

It's awful.

Well, I think what makes it even better is Baby David,

who by the way, I think half the listeners think

David Flowers is my husband.

David, Baby David Flowers is my baby brother.

Which is why we call him Baby David.

We were like, we knew him as a baby.

Yeah. I was his second mom more than his sister.

So I'm going to actually put this,

we're going to put two things on social media.

I'm going to put this cringy, cringy,

Australian accent blooper from years ago.

You're welcome.

I also want to see how many people thought he was my husband.

So you'll have to go to Instagram for that.

And I'm so sorry.

I know this is more banter than quite literally we have ever done.

But one more thing before we get to the show,

I do want to give a quick shout out to the crime junkies

that I got to meet in London.

I did this little meetup for some of our longest

running UK fan club members in the highest tier

because legit, they are the ones who got us here, you guys.

Yeah.

And it was an unbelievable get together.

I mean, I got to meet so many amazing people.

I got to hear all of their stories.

We laughed together.

I mean, we cried together.

I gave them the inside scoop on what's been happening

in the Darlene Hulse case since the series wrapped.

It was magical.

It was perfect.

Oh, real quick.

I know this is like so not crime junkie,

but I promised I would say hi to Barbara's mom.

Oh, hi Barbara's mom.

I'll say hi too.

I guess they listened from different countries

and it's like this thing that they have together.

Her mom's super into the show.

I think this is literally our first and only

high shout out in five years.

So you are something special, Barbara's mom.

I love that I'm going to get to the episode,

but I seriously had such an amazing time meeting people,

meeting all of you on the other end of the headphones.

And there were so many touching stories.

It was like one giant segment of the good.

And I'll just tell you one, like this one precious fan.

I don't want to name her for privacy,

but she was literally in tears telling me how our show helps her

because she suffers from panic attacks.

And when it happens in public, she puts on crime junkie

and you and I get to be her friends and keep her calm

and keep her in a good space.

I will never not be shocked at how many people out there

use this show, use us to help with issues like panic attacks

or depression or anxiety.

I mean, it's it's incredible.

Truly, I mean, we are so grateful, you guys,

that we get to be your best friends.

So thank you.

And for the crime junkie out there

who might be going through something right now, we love you.

We're here with you.

And thank you for being part of this community,

because even in your darkest times,

you are always wanting to help other people,

other families who need support

and who are looking for justice for their loved ones.

And this week, that person is Natalia.

She reached out to us because she is determined to fulfill

the promise that she made to her dad nearly 17 years ago

to find out what happened to him.

This is the story of Sean O'Brien.

Amy Kea is used to hearing from her daughter's father,

34 year old Sean O'Brien, every morning like clockwork.

They're both early risers,

and he typically calls her around 6.30 just to, like, touch base

and let her know what his plans are for the day.

So she is surprised.

Like, she's like,

she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like,

she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like,

she's like, she's like, she's like, she's like,

so she is surprised and a little concerned when she doesn't

hear from him on Saturday, July 22nd, 2006.

But she's not panicking or anything.

She knows that Sean had been out at a local bar last night.

Now, he struggles with substance and alcohol use disorder.

And even though he promised Amy that he wouldn't drink

or do any drugs, she figured that maybe he did something

he shouldn't have, and he's probably just sleeping it off.

And she'll hear from him when she hears from him.

But the day passes and there's still no word

until early that evening when she finally gets a call.

But it's not Sean.

It's one of his sisters and she's in a panic.

What she says makes Amy's heart drop.

Sean is on his way to the hospital in an ambulance.

While they're still on the phone,

his sister fills Amy in on what had happened.

She says that she and her 14 year old son

stopped by Sean's at around 545.

And when they got there, his roommate slash landlord,

57 year old Armand Roulot came running out of the house

and yelled for her to come quick because Sean had been having a seizure

for over an hour. An hour.

An hour. And he didn't think to call, I don't know, 9-1-1 or anything

during that entire time.

No, his sister was just as dumbfounded as you are.

She says that she raced down the stairs of his duplex

that they share to find him unconscious,

facedown in a pool of blood and saliva.

And so she is the one to call 9-1-1 at around 5.50.

9-1-1 is your emergency.

It's a rescue, please.

Where are you?

We're at 145 Pleasant Street in Cranston.

All right, you stay on the line.

I'll get you the rescue.

Hold on, please.

Sean!

Sean!

Sean!

Branch of Fire.

All right, we need a rescue, please.

145 Pleasant Street in Cranston.

What's your level?

My brother's had a seizure and he's been in it for a quarter of an hour.

Is that a single family home?

It's a one family home.

It's a duplex, actually.

145 Pleasant Street.

What's your level?

It's a single family home.

It's a one family home.

It's a duplex, actually.

145 Pleasant Street.

Yes.

Come on away.

Thank you.

After that call, she high-tailed it out of there

because she thought she had an outstanding warrant,

but her son stayed behind.

Now, Amy's head is spinning.

She and Sean just saw each other around 7 o'clock the night before,

and the plan had been to take their teenage daughter, Natalia,

to a local festival.

But Natalia had gotten a headache,

so Amy decided to just bring her home and drop Sean off at the bar

because he didn't want to go back to his place just yet.

And that was because his roommate had his girlfriend over,

and I guess Sean and the girlfriend do not get along.

So basically, his plan was to just hang at the bar,

play a few games of Kino, and then walk home.

And Sean had even given Amy most of the paycheck

that he had just cashed to help stave off drug and alcohol temptation.

So she and Natalia and other members of Sean's family rushed to the hospital

and anxiously set up camp in the waiting room.

By this point, Sean's been taken into emergency surgery,

and when a doctor comes to update the family,

they obviously have a million questions.

But first, the doctor has one for them.

What happened to Sean?

Because this doesn't look like a seizure.

And Sean's family is confused.

They thought Sean was here because he had a seizure and fell,

which kind of made sense because he had a history of seizures

brought on by his drug and alcohol use.

But the doctor explains that typically someone having a seizure

falls either backward or forward.

So their injuries tend to be either to the front or back of their head,

but not all the injuries that he came in with were consistent with a fall like that.

Basically, what a CT scan showed

is there was this large two-inch skull fracture on the right side of Sean's head,

not the front or back.

Blood had pooled in his brain over his ear, building pressure.

Plus, there are bruises across the left side of his brain and frontal lobe,

and he has all these cuts and abrasions on his face and his knuckles and his chest.

Yeah, that feels off.

If Sean really fell short, he'd have a major injury

and maybe some smaller ones like those cuts and abrasions,

but like you said, only on the side he fell on.

I mean, unless you're like a stuntman in a movie,

you don't just keep falling back and forth on your body.

Yeah, it's not adding up.

And to the doctor, I mean, they're saying it looks like Sean was in a fight.

And Amy sees exactly what he means when Sean is transferred to the ICU,

still unconscious and on a respirator after surgery.

Like she notices a deep cut and bruising on his upper chest.

He's got bruises even on his knees and these like cuts

or rug burns on his nose and forehead.

He even has like little cuts between his toes

and there's this dent on the left side of his head,

almost like it had been hit with something.

So is the theory that he was attacked or in some sort of fight

and then had a seizure?

Like as a result from the fight?

Well, no, this is the thing.

Natalia says that the doctor never suspected a seizure like at all,

which contradicts actually what EMS initially told the hospital

when they brought Sean in.

Okay, but EMS were probably just going off

of what the people at the scene had told them, right?

Well, maybe.

So this is where I actually want to take us back to the moment

that first responders from the Cranston Road Island Fire Department

walked into Sean's home because the more his family learns

about how he was found and the more pieces they put together,

the more questions they have.

So let me first explain kind of the layout.

Sean and Armand live on one side of a ranch-style duplex.

Like Sean is in the finished basement and Armand is on the ground floor.

And according to police records,

which Sean's daughter Natalia gave our reporter Nina,

Armand was the one who directed the rescue team downstairs to the basement.

So when the paramedics arrive, Armand is there.

And then remember Sean's nephew is there because his sister left

after she made the 911 call.

And apparently both of them tell responders that Sean had a history

of drug and alcohol related seizures,

which paramedics knew because they had actually responded here twice

before for that very reason.

So this time they found Sean on the floor of his small bedroom.

He was near the doorway, kind of wedged between his end table

and mattress and he was dressed only in boxer shorts,

which were soaked with urine.

There was also dried blood pooling in his left ear from either his nose

or his mouth and there was blood oozing from in between his toes.

Now his pupils were fixed and dilated and his skin was like really clammy.

I'm sorry, I'm stuck on blood oozing from his toes.

I mean, pretty sure that doesn't just happen during a seizure.

Not a nurse here, not a doctor.

I would love every crime junkie nurse or doctor to email us,

queue all of them doing that right now,

because I'd love your insights.

Email us, seriously, crimejunkieataudiocheck.com,

because I have a basic understanding of human anatomy

and that doesn't seem possible,

that you're just oozing blood from in between your,

like I've never heard of this happening.

Now on top of that, he was unconscious but breathing heavily,

kind of like snoring.

His jaw was clenched so tight that paramedics couldn't get the suction tool

in his mouth to clear his airway.

So they got as much blood and saliva out as they could

and they gave him Narcan, which was ineffective.

The strange thing is,

the fire department requested police backup

for a man having a combative seizure.

Combative seizure?

Yeah.

I thought he was unconscious.

He was unconscious.

Now we've got statements from first responders who say he was

and none of them describe Sean as combative.

So I have no clue where that's coming from

or what this even means.

Okay, did they actually say those words

or like, you know how they use codes for things?

Like, okay, we have a 1039, I repeat, a 1039 copy.

I don't know what a 1039 is.

I totally just made up that number,

but you know what I mean?

Like, based on the code they called it,

maybe it was implied it was combative, but...

No, based on a recording of the dispatch,

police asked the fire department what they need help with

and the response is quote,

a seizure, a combative seizure, end quote.

Now keep in mind, we've got two of the responders

just say that he was unconscious

and then the other two imply it.

And Britt, this is just the beginning of the confusion

because this was when a Cranston police lieutenant arrived

and according to him, paramedics told him

that Sean only had one injury,

that he had bitten the inside of his mouth during the seizure.

And this lieutenant said that he didn't see

any other marks or injuries.

And he also reported that Sean appeared to be conscious,

again, not what everyone else is saying.

But the contradictions don't even end there.

Paramedics noted big blood stains on Sean's mattress

and some blood and some vomit on the floor.

They described his bedroom as messy and crowded

with a sheet pulled nearly off the bed

and clothes and empty beer cans just kind of like laying around.

While on the other hand, the lieutenant reported

that the bedroom was neat and orderly

with no signs of a struggle except for a few drops of blood

on his mattress, which he figured came from Sean's mouth injury.

I mean, I guess messiness is relative.

I mean, your definition of neat and orderly

might be different than mine and between the two of us,

it is, I actually know that.

It truly is.

But regardless, Sean was either conscious or unconscious.

I mean, there's no halfway or room for interpretation with that.

Yeah.

And I mean, even when you go back like one mouth injury,

when you remember all the stuff his family saw in the ICU

and also they're saying his mouth was like clenched and they can't.

If his mouth was so clenched, you couldn't open it.

How did you know it was injured on the inside?

It makes no sense.

It was the only injury.

It makes no sense.

It still doesn't stop there.

Because as Sean was on his way to the hospital,

the lieutenant spoke with Armin,

who added some more conflicting statements to the mix,

at least compared to what he reportedly told Sean's sister.

According to the police reports,

Armin's story to the lieutenant goes like this.

He saw Sean watching a baseball game on the TV in his bedroom

at around five o'clock.

A little while later, Armin claimed that he went downstairs again.

That's when he saw Sean on the floor and thought he was sleeping.

And then when Sean's sister stopped by,

she went downstairs, saw him on the floor,

and told Armin she didn't know if he was sleeping or having a seizure.

And then he says that he then called 911.

So there were two calls 911?

Because Armin wasn't in the call that you played.

That was just Sean's sister.

No, ma'am.

Start taking notes because that's lie number one.

Lie number two, Sean doesn't have a TV in his bedroom.

So like, tell me how he's watching TV in his bedroom.

I never understand stuff like this.

Like, why lie about stuff that's so easy to go back and be like,

no, that's not true.

I mean, that's the easiest thing in the world.

Your guess is as good as mine.

Although, keep in mind, the info from Armin is from the Lieutenant's report.

Which, again, like it's not seeming super accurate so far.

Plus, that same Lieutenant reported that he went to the ER later that night

and a staff member told him that Sean was stable

and had a blood clot in his brain, possibly from a seizure.

Okay, these are massive inconsistencies.

Like, I get being in an emergency situation, like a developing situation.

There's a lot going on.

But this is more than just not being on the same page.

I mean, these people aren't even reading the same book.

I agree.

And what's so confusing is like this Lieutenant didn't even speak with Sean's family

when he was at the hospital.

So, I mean, to your point, like he could even be getting inaccurate information.

But if he would have been talking to the family,

that would have cleared things up from the get-go.

Yeah.

Regardless, even if police thought that this was some kind of tragic accident,

they must have known that things had taken a turn.

Because later that night, Amy's sister contacts them,

trying to set everyone straight and hoping to jumpstart an investigation.

And, again, there are conflicting stories.

Oh, wow.

Shocking, I know.

Specifically about whether Cranston PD went back to Armin's to question him again

later that Saturday.

And I don't know the answer to that.

All I know is that the next day, so this would have been Sunday, July 23rd,

Sean's sister, Erin.

Now, this is not the same sister who called 911.

She goes over to speak with Armin herself.

So, whether police did or not, whatever,

we've got Erin going over on Sunday to speak with Armin.

Now, as she gets there, it's obvious to her that Armin had been in Sean's basement apartment

because he tells her that he took some money that he found on Sean's table,

which after some prodding, he turns over.

But, like, whatever, Erin didn't even go there for the money,

why he took it, it's all strange.

What she wants is answers.

And Armin seems ready to supply them.

He tells her that after Sean got home on Friday night,

he didn't go out again and no one came to visit him.

Now, he says that he went to work Saturday morning.

He figured that Sean had gone to work as well.

And after he got home, he says that he went downstairs to the laundry room,

which is next to Sean's, like, little kitchenette area in his apartment.

And Armin says that he was, like, going to wash his bedding or whatever.

So, he's down there, and that's when he says he noticed Sean lying on the floor.

Now, Armin says that he didn't check on him again until about an hour later,

even though he apparently assumed he was having a seizure.

Uh, did he say why?

Not that I can tell.

And I can't tell if Erin, like, asks him or not.

Like, I'm sure she's just, like, trying to, like,

get as much information as she can out of him.

And as I'm sure they are for you,

alarm bells are going off in her head.

So, after she leaves, she calls Cranston P.D.

and so does a family friend slash lawyer.

Because they are sure that something fishy is going on here

and they want to get to the bottom of it.

But nothing happens.

And for Sean, it's too late.

Doctors tell his loved ones that he's not going to recover from his injuries.

He has irreversible brain damage.

So, at 5 p.m. on Monday,

his mom makes the painful decision to take him off life support.

And this is a tragedy that no one in the family saw coming,

especially his daughter, Natalia.

She's not ready to say goodbye.

I mean, they barely had any time together.

Because, you see, her mom and dad broke up when she was two,

because Amy didn't want their daughter around Sean

when he was deep into drinking and drug use.

Plus, I mean, he'd been in his fair share of trouble with the law.

So, it wasn't until their daughter was nine

that Sean came back into her life.

Well, now she's 13,

and they had actually grown so close in the past four years.

So, I mean, she can't believe, like, you know,

she's only had this short time with him,

and now she's already losing him.

So, what she does is she actually takes some time to write him a letter.

And in that letter, she makes her dad a promise.

A promise to find out what really happened to him,

no matter what.

And Natalia actually gave us a copy of her letter,

and it's heart-wrenching.

And I don't want to read the whole thing,

but, Britt, can you read the paragraph that I highlighted there?

Mm-hmm.

Natalia writes, quote,

Guess what, Dad?

The sun's out today.

It's been raining for a while, but not today.

God knows you deserve a good day.

He's entering you into heaven with a beautiful day.

I guess it's a sign, right?

To let you go?

I promise you, Daddy, I'll see you again.

End quote.

Sean dies on Tuesday, July 25th, at 1.24 p.m.

An autopsy is scheduled for the next day,

and in the meantime, Amy and Aaron go to the bar

that Amy had dropped Sean off at to have a beer in his honor.

And while they're there, I mean, they're asking around,

hoping that they can pull together a clear timeline

of what happened between when they dropped him off

and when he was found.

But even though the bar owner remembers seeing Sean on Friday,

he doesn't know when he left.

So after the beer, Amy and Aaron head to his house

to get some of his stuff.

And of course, who else but Armand meets them outside?

And so they give him the news that Sean died

and they tell him that it was from being hit in the head,

but Armand says that that's impossible

because who could have hit him in the head?

And at this point, he's like, oh, you know,

Sean's actually been having a lot of seizures lately.

He must have had another one and just fallen.

But to Amy and Aaron, I mean,

the seizure thing that he keeps putting forward

is just not adding up.

And it doesn't help that Armand seems nervous.

Like he won't maintain eye contact.

And as they're talking, his whole narrative is inconsistent.

At first, he says that Amy brought Sean home on Friday night.

Like, nope, that's lie number three

because we know Amy didn't.

Yeah, Amy's like, no, I didn't.

There, he's telling her this story.

And she calls BS right then and there.

She's like, no, I dropped him off at the bar

and then he was going to walk home.

So like in that moment, Armand switches it up and says that,

oh, yeah, yeah, he remembers Sean coming home on foot,

maybe possibly carrying a bag of beers.

It was around eight o'clock that night.

And that's when Armand and his girlfriend,

who by the way is 46-year-old Lynn Hallal,

and they're like sitting outside in the yard

when he gets back this time, he says.

And Lynn is the woman that Sean didn't get along with, right?

But honestly didn't get along with is an understatement.

So Sean and Armand had lived together for about a year and a half.

And when it was just the two of them, things were fine.

But everything went downhill once Lynn came into the picture

in the fall of 2005.

Because according to Sean's family, Armand and Lynn fought a lot.

And I guess the fights like spilled over onto whoever was around,

which mostly would be Sean,

since he's the only other person that lives there.

Now, Lynn has a reputation for violence.

In fact, that day, Amy and Aaron noticed

four fresh-looking cuts on Armand's face.

You're talking the day Sean was taken to the hospital

or this day that they're going back and talking to Armand?

The day that they're going back and talking to him,

which again is the same day that Sean died,

but not the day he was taken to the hospital.

Got it.

And your next question, did they have the scratches,

you know, the day that he was taken from his home?

I don't know the answer to that.

Right.

What's interesting, though, is that Lynn and Armand

both had criminal records,

including a half dozen or so previous domestic violence-related

arrests for Lynn.

And she had been arrested on a serious assault charge

in January of 2005, right before she and Armand got together.

According to a police report,

Lynn's then-boyfriend accused her of getting drunk,

jumping on top of him in some kind of rage

and like grabbing him by the throat and scratching him

and then throwing a cup of hot water on him.

And because this guy was over 60,

Lynn was charged with a felony.

Although after it went through the court,

I think it was later dropped to a misdemeanor.

Oh, okay.

Just to take a second,

I'm trying to keep Armand's story straight.

So he backtracks on Amy bringing Sean home.

And in the new version where Sean walks home,

Armand's putting Lynn at the house, too.

On Friday night, yes.

Okay.

They're, like, sitting outside.

He says, like, on the lawn when he comes home.

But what he does say is that Lynn left

when he went to work Saturday morning,

implying I think that she couldn't have had anything

to do with Sean's death either.

So, again, we're up to, what, at least three lies now.

So Armand's words aren't meaning a whole lot.

So Aaron and Amy think that maybe they're going

to get more answers if they can actually see Sean's room.

So the two women go downstairs.

And this is the first time that Amy has been

to his apartment since everything happened.

And it's the first time that Aaron is getting a good look at it.

And when they both look at it, they can't believe their eyes.

There was way more blood than they expected.

The carpet in Sean's bedroom has some blood.

There's some small blood spots on the wall by the bed,

some on the sheet, the pillowcase, on a pillow.

And all of this they find crumpled up under the comforter

on his mattress.

And on the mattress are big spots of blood as well.

And they find more spots of blood on the bottom of his dresser.

Now, when they keep looking around, they find this white T-shirt

that looks like it's been used maybe to wipe up blood.

And there's a blood splotch on the bathroom door

that maybe looks like finger marks or maybe a handprint.

There's even blood on a chair in the kitchenette.

And there's a sliced open can of beer in the living room.

Okay, I take back everything I said about messiness as relative.

This is nowhere near...

What was it? Neat and orderly, they said?

Like the lieutenant? Yeah.

This isn't even close. Not only is it not neat and orderly,

this sounds like a crime scene, Ashley.

I know. I don't know how the lieutenant looked at everything

and was like, yeah, this is totally like,

looks like someone had a seizure and fell,

like no need to secure this space.

Well, and speaking of that, they're looking no one's cleaned it up already.

I mean, it could have been in a completely different state

and they would have never known.

Well, since Erin's visit on Sunday,

what she can tell is someone started cleaning up

because like the garbage bins had been empty.

So like at least that had happened.

They hadn't, you know, how much damage they did.

And who knows what else? Right.

Now, as they're looking around,

Amy thinks that it looks like Sean had been preparing

to go to work on Saturday.

Now, he was a carpenter

and his belt and hammer holder are on the kitchen table.

But what's weird is that his hammer is missing.

And so are a few other things like a faux brass lamp

and a barbell and a radio.

And there's this other weird thing that stands out to them.

So Armin has this dog named Floyd who really liked Sean.

It was like super attached to Sean for one reason or another.

So Floyd would always be by Sean when Sean was home.

So when Amy and Erin are at the house,

they notice that Floyd has this weird patch of fur

that's just like completely shaved off his tail.

They don't know what it means. Super weird.

So they can't help but wonder if the dog had been near Sean

when whatever happened to him happened.

And like the dog got blood on his tail

and maybe someone saw it as evidence and wanted to dispose of it.

I mean, there could be a million other reasons.

Like I don't know this dog's medical history from his vet,

but it's, again, it's just something that as they're there.

It's out of the ordinary. Right.

Now while they're looking around, Armin's nephew comes downstairs.

And right away he seems defensive.

And he makes a point of saying that his uncle and Sean

didn't have any problems, which is like, okay, fine.

But also we like know they kind of did because of his girlfriend.

Like again, why lie about stuff that can be proven?

I don't know.

So this whole interaction just leaves Erin and Amy with a bad feeling.

And that's when Amy knows it's time to leave.

But first, Erin photographs everything on her camera phone,

which if you remember phones in like circa 2006, like not great pictures.

But it's something.

It's something.

I mean, they wanted to document the scene as best as they could

in case police decided that they were ever going to secure the scene

or in case they decided they were never going to secure the scene.

Like who knows?

Like they could walk away and the whole room could be wiped.

Right.

But I mean, even if they do come in and secure,

I mean, is it even going to be helpful?

People have been in and out, cleaning up, not cleaning up,

just being in there.

I mean, these people need to get their act together.

Well, and Amy is bound and determined to make them get their act together.

So the next morning, which was Wednesday, July 26th,

she goes to the Cranston Police Department and lays out her concerns to a detective.

She's like, listen, there are too many red flags for me to ignore.

And even if you discount all the blood, all the unexplainable injuries,

arm and shifting stories, and the missing items,

like Amy knew about Sean's problems with Lynn.

And listen, like I said earlier, it's not that they just didn't like each other.

She tells police that on at least two separate occasions,

Lynn hit Sean in the face and threatened to kill him.

And the last time was just a couple of months ago

when Sean confronted her about some drama that she was trying to start

in his and Amy's relationship.

Like long story short, but apparently Lynn had made a racist comment

about the woman that she claims Sean was bringing into the house

and like stated that he may be HIV positive because of her.

You know, sometimes things get taken off context.

Like it's impossible to know who a whole person is

when we just get these little snippets of them,

but I feel like I know who Lynn is and I am not a fan.

Yeah, same. I'm with you.

So anyways, she says all of this hateful and the cops get called,

which ended with Sean being arrested on an outstanding warrant

for failing to appear in court for like unpaid fines.

Now, it's a little fuzzy after this,

but apparently Armand kicked Lynn out after that

and may have gotten an order of protection, question mark,

but before long, she's back.

And Amy tells police that Sean avoided Lynn when he could,

but there was constant tension

and he had actively been looking for a new place to live.

And just hadn't found it soon enough.

Yeah, I mean, things may have been very different for Sean

if he would have been able to get out.

Now, while Amy is talking to police,

this is when Sean's autopsy is underway

and the medical examiner is suspicious too.

He tells investigators that the magnitude and extent

of Sean's injuries just doesn't match up

with his falling after a seizure.

Yeah, hi, welcome.

Yeah, we've already made it to this point,

but glad he's on board, I guess.

Yeah, basically, he's like,

I know that Sean died of blunt force trauma to the head.

Problem is, he can't explain how that trauma happened.

So between that and Amy's concerns,

Cranston PD finally starts an investigation.

By noon on the 26th, investigators are trying to question Armand.

He lawyers up, but he agrees to let them search his house.

As officers poke around inside,

and we're talking just kind of a cursory overview of everything,

they notice the same things that jumped out at Amy and Aaron,

like there's a lot of blood,

and not just in the area where Sean was found.

Which, again, doesn't align with the whole seizure theory.

Exactly.

Now, meanwhile, detectives interview Lynn outside in the yard.

They want to know if Armand said anything to her

about how Sean looked on the floor that Saturday,

but Lynn says she doesn't remember.

However, Armand, who's out there with them, would like to answer.

Whoa, whoa, whoa, hang on.

Yeah.

Why is Armand there while they're questioning Lynn?

Interviewing people separately is police 101.

Yeah, that's the right question.

You are not wrong.

Congrats, you have passed crime junkies policing 101.

An entry-level course into process and procedures

viewed only in hindsight from the comfort of your home

and no real pressure of being in the field.

I will make you a certificate.

Yes, please.

Thank you.

But anyways, yeah, they probably should have been separated,

but they're not.

And Armand, who can't seem to keep his own mouth shut

to save his life, decides that he wants to talk after all.

And he waves his right to a lawyer.

And the way that the report reads,

it sounds like detectives just get their statements together

right there in the backyard.

But there is no indication that they left the yard,

at least not in the reports that we have.

And get this.

Natalia says that police let Lynn write Armand's statement

for him.

What?

Yeah, I have never heard of this.

Armand is fully capable of writing, OK?

Like, let's just put that out there.

And the whole reason she thinks this is basically

like police show Natalia both statements.

And she's telling us that both of them

are written in Lynn's handwriting.

And so she, I mean, she's not just telling us this.

She went and asked investigators.

And they're like, yeah, we allowed it

because Armand was nervous.

OK, that's not a reason, but OK.

All the more reason, right?

Not to?

Yeah.

And also nervous about what exactly

like being interviewed by the police at all

or nervous about saying the wrong thing with Lynn right there.

Because between allegations of physical abuse

and, I don't know, her writing his statement for him.

Yeah.

I've got all the alarm bells going off right now.

Yeah, and listen, even if for some reason

the officer is interviewing them, didn't know

about all of like the domestic violence history

that makes what is happening so sketchy to you and me.

Armand and Lynn straight up tell them.

Like, actually, that is their explanation

for the injuries on Armand's face.

They say that Lynn scratched him during an argument

last Friday night.

This is the Friday night in question, right?

We were like, were those scratches there before?

They're saying they were.

They say Friday night around eight o'clock.

That's when this altercation happened.

Now, beyond that, I'm not sure what they tell police,

although it must not be anything too damning, I guess,

or we'd be having a different conversation now.

But later that day, back at headquarters,

a detective updates his supervisor on their statements.

And the supervisor's ears perk up,

because Rhode Island has mandatory domestic violence arrests.

So basically, they can bring Lynn in on an assault charge.

Unfortunately, by the time they reach out again,

she has left Armand's house, and no one knows where she is.

No.

So police start putting a warrant

and complaint together for Lynn's arrest.

And in the meantime, they apply for a search warrant

for the house.

By now, the pieces seem to be falling into place,

especially when they start taking a look

back at other statements that they have gotten

from more of Sean's loved ones.

For instance, his niece told them that late Saturday afternoon

or early that evening,

she saw Lynn hauling a gold-colored lamp out of Armand's house,

which you remember is one of the missing items.

Mm-hmm.

Or could look like something like a missing item.

Now, basically, the whole story goes that Sean's mom

and his niece had stopped by that afternoon

or early that evening,

not long before the 911 call.

And his niece says that Lynn quickly got in her car

with the lamp and just, like, pieced out.

Did Sean's mom see her, too?

No. I guess it was just the niece,

because she was waiting in the car

while his mom went to knock on Sean's basement window.

Now, I'm not sure why she didn't knock on the front door first.

Like, I had kind of a lot of confusion around this.

Like, maybe she tried, and it was locked or whatever.

But the point is, the niece sees Lynn leaving,

and the mom assumes that Sean isn't home.

Because, again, Floyd the dog is, like, always with Sean.

And when she would normally come, like, knock on the window

or the door or whatever, Floyd would bark his head off.

So she knocks. She doesn't hear Floyd barking.

So she assumed that Sean wasn't home,

which is why she left.

He's a little doggie doorbell.

Oh, yeah. And actually, what's interesting

is that Floyd also used to bark when Sean had seizures.

And he would just make a racket until someone came to help.

Okay. So was Floyd not in the house on Saturday

or just not in the basement?

I guess I'm kind of having a hard time

picturing, like, the layout of this place.

Yeah. The layout is a little confusing.

I actually have some sketches of it

on the blog posts for this episode,

which might help you get a better sense of the layout.

They're saying that Floyd is home.

Armand basically told Amy and Aaron

that Floyd was upstairs with him that Saturday afternoon.

So this is, like, one of the times we don't know why

Floyd wasn't with Sean.

Because Sean's supposed to be home at this time, right?

Like, alive and well. Who knows.

But this actually kind of plays into

what theory is coming together for the family.

Because the more they think about it,

the more they suspect that Sean was probably attacked

while he was in bed sleeping,

possibly Friday night into Saturday morning.

And that afterward someone tried to move him.

Because in their minds,

that would explain the odd position that he was found in.

It would explain the rug burn looking injuries.

And it would explain the fact that he was only wearing boxers.

Because I guess he wasn't someone who would just, like,

normally lounge around in his underwear.

Oh, and it would also explain why he never called Amy

or went to work that morning.

Well, and maybe why the dog wasn't with him that afternoon.

Right.

Now, by now, police also suspect foul play.

So on Thursday, they are back at Armand's

with the search warrant.

They take swabs.

They collect bloody clothing and bedding.

Even a container of, quote, unquote, bloody toilet water.

Along with some cleaning supplies

and bloody sections of the mattress.

Now, later that night,

it sounds like police find Lynn somewhere

because they bring her into the police station.

And detectives interview her

while officers search through her car outside.

Now, whatever comes from that

isn't enough to arrest her for anything related to Sean.

But she is charged with misdemeanor assault and battery

for the fight with Armand.

And even though the arrest isn't for Sean's murder,

his family at least feels like that's going to come next, right?

Uh-huh.

Like, Natalia even remembers detectives reassuring them

that someone would be in handcuffs

by the time Sean was laid to rest.

But the funeral is held on Saturday, July 29th,

and no one has yet to be charged with anything.

But still, Cranston PD seems to be working hard.

According to NBC10I team reporter Parker Gavigan,

detectives try to track down the missing items.

They follow a tip about the lamp maybe being in a landfill.

They also interview Sean's friends and family,

people at the bar that Sean was last seen at,

even other bars in the area.

And what they're doing is really,

I mean, again, trying to figure out what the items are,

but trying to retrace Sean's steps.

So what they piece together

is they know through Amy that he got to the bar

at around 7 o'clock on Friday night.

But they're not really sure when he got home

or what if anything he did on Saturday.

And the details of Armin and Lynn's whereabouts

that weekend are just as murky,

at least based on the reports that we have.

Now Lynn was pretty much living at Armin's again,

so she most likely slept there on Friday night,

even after the argument that they said they had.

Although according to Natalia,

Lynn tells police that she left for a little while that night.

But I don't know exactly when or for how long.

Oh, and despite Armin's story

about him and Lynn clearing out Saturday morning,

one of Sean's sisters tells investigators

that she saw both of their cars in the driveway at 11 a.m.

According to Amy, the family eventually learns

that Armin didn't go to work that day after all.

And they can't help but notice

that when Lynn lays out her schedule for detectives,

she places herself away from the house during very key periods,

like Friday night and Saturday morning

and late Saturday afternoon.

So did the neighbors overhear anything?

I mean, they're living in a duplex, right?

So yes, they are.

And the walls are thin,

but the woman who lives on the other side

actually told investigators that she was home,

honestly for like hours before that 911 call,

and she says she didn't hear a thing.

So it's a dead end.

Honestly, every lead is feeling like a dead end.

It's not until mid-August

when Sean's loved ones meet with the Emmy

that they get like any kind of update

because they're meeting with the Emmy for a status update

because the toxicology reports have come in.

This is the first movement in a while.

What they learn is that Sean had cocaine in his system

along with barbiturates and opiates

from the hospital treatments.

But none of that changes the Emmy's mind

about Sean's cause of death,

blunt force trauma to the head.

He believes that the first and likely fatal blow

might have rendered Sean unconscious,

but he tells them that without any witnesses

and without police providing a clear narrative

of what happened,

he still can't rule the death a homicide.

So now that he has everything,

like, you know, he had his exam, toxicology is in,

now he makes a final ruling

and he is classifying the death as undetermined,

which we've seen before,

but here is one of the most frustrating catch-22s

in the legal system.

Police tell the family that if the Emmy

won't rule the case a homicide,

their hands are pretty much tied

because they would be hard-pressed

to get a DA to prosecute the case

if the Emmy can't definitively say that it's a homicide.

Okay, so now what?

No one knows,

which is why Natalia is in the position she is in now.

And listen, I'm sure that there are some valid points

as to, like, why this is playing out the way it is,

but Sean's family is understandably disheartened.

Like, they think that if police took their concerns

seriously from the beginning,

maybe things would have looked different.

I mean, at the very least,

the crime scene would be more intact.

So it's kind of up to his family

to do what they can to keep the investigation moving along.

But the closest they get to justice

is when Lynn is arrested in November

for allegedly violating a no-contact order

in place for Armand.

By month six,

Cranston PD tells Amy that the case is cold.

Now, if you fast-forward to about a year after Sean's death,

NBC10's eye team does their own investigation.

Reporter Jim Terracani tries to speak with Armand,

but all he says before ducking inside his house is, quote,

I know nothing about it, end quote.

The reporter also interviews Sean's three sisters

who tell them how disappointed they are

with how Cranston PD has handled the case so far.

But the police chief tells him

that the department has been working hard,

conducting hundreds of interviews,

doing hours of surveillance,

and they're confident the case can still be prosecuted,

despite the compromised crime scene.

So, again, this is where, like,

I guess they're still investigating it.

They don't think a DA will prosecute,

but maybe they think they're going to get more evidence.

It gets very confusing for me.

Now, another important thing that the chief says

is that Lynn and Armand, who have split up by now,

are persons of interest.

But he says they are not, quote, unquote, prime suspects.

Okay, at this point,

I'm glad there's at least anyone on police's radar,

but if they're not prime suspects, then who is?

Well, I don't know if there are any.

According to Jim Terracani, Cranston PD is sure

that Sean was murdered in his apartment,

and they're sure that someone knows exactly what happened,

but they don't know who or what,

though they say that they're not going to give up

until they find out.

But the problem is,

as far as we can tell, they pretty much do,

like, for years.

That is until Natalia gets old enough

to start asking her own questions,

and what she finds moves the needle

for the first time in years.

The older Natalia gets,

the more determined she is

to fulfill that promise she made to her dad.

Once she turns 18,

she tries to connect with police on her own.

That doesn't work,

so she tries again when she's 21,

but nothing.

Tries again at 25, still nothing,

and it's draining.

I mean, to the point where sometimes

she tries to convince herself

that her dad did fall after a seizure,

because, I mean, that's better than the alternative

that someone killed him,

and nobody except her family

is trying to find out what happened.

But even in the times when she tries

to convince herself of that,

she can't stop herself from digging.

She sends her dad's autopsy

to several dozen forensic pathologists,

and she says that everyone she hears back from

agrees that it was a homicide.

One of them even writes her a sworn statement

to that effect,

and that is actually the push she needs.

She kicks her efforts into overdrive,

tracking down leads,

reaching out to reporters,

social media,

fighting for police records,

and meeting with every investigator that she can.

Listen, I hate that she's having to do this,

but I also kind of love

that she's not taking no for an answer.

I mean, we all need a Natalia in our lives.

We should be so lucky.

And the thing is, her hard work pays off,

because in 2019,

Cranston PD assigns a detective

to review the case again.

But the chief tells Natalia

while he knows there are still questions

surrounding Sean's death,

there have been significant challenges

to getting answers,

like the fact that the medical examiner

couldn't determine the manner of death.

And he tells her

that there's nothing to suggest

that Sean was killed.

He's saying now he says

he thinks the death was more likely associated

with a quote-unquote medical event and fall.

But didn't they say they thought it was murder?

That's why they kept investigating it.

That's what the reporter said.

But what I will say is

what the reporter said

and what the chief is telling,

those are two different chiefs.

One told the reporter,

yeah, it's murder.

This chief that's telling her,

like, I think it's a medical event,

different police chiefs.

So maybe that's part of the problem.

So when the I team goes back

to revisit Sean's case in 2021,

this same chief tells reporter Parker Gavigan

that they've done what they can,

but they're pretty much stuck.

And bottom line is,

they don't know how Sean got his injuries.

The attorney general's office

has reviewed the case twice,

but nothing came of that either.

So is Cranston PD saying

they don't think it was a homicide

or they can't prove it was homicide?

Because confusing, right?

To me, there's a huge difference.

Yeah, and the thing is,

Natalia says the answer depends on who you ask.

And when you ask,

she says that one-on-one behind closed doors

investigators agree that her dad was killed.

But if you get them together, the back pedal.

Now, to go back to Parker Gavigan

and his, you know, reporting,

he tries to speak with Armand again.

Armand is still living in the same duplex, by the way.

Now, he shuts the door once he hears the word reporter

and Lynn doesn't even open her door.

She just calls out that she's not interested in talking.

Now, meanwhile, an independent forensic pathologist,

Dr. Timothy Gallagher tells the eye team

that in his opinion,

the Emmy's undetermined ruling was the right call.

But Dr. Gallagher also thinks it's unlikely

that this was an accident.

He says that the injuries show classic signs of assault

and they don't align with a fall to the ground

because when a person falls, quote,

they do not hit the ground and turn over

and hit the ground again and turn over

and hit the ground again.

They hit the ground once, creating one injury, end quote.

Which is exactly what I said.

See, your certificate is already paying off.

Okay, okay, actually, though,

after looking at the sketches of the duplex

and getting kind of a better idea of the layout,

what's the chance he may be fell down the stairs?

No, okay, hear me out.

I know it doesn't explain how he got to his room.

There's definitely some other element or person involved with that.

But could a fall on the stairs explain the injuries

to multiple sides of his head

and like some of the other injuries on his body?

Well, I think this all comes back to what you're saying

about the position of his body.

So basically, okay, in 2022,

Natalia met with the Emmy who conducted her dad's autopsy

and basically what he says,

he doesn't address this whole like stairs thing.

So I understand what you're going with that.

Possible, because I mean, he says that the severity of Sean's skull fracture

would have left him on the ground.

Again, doesn't talk stairs specifically.

But the problem with all of this is,

and the key point of someone else being involved is

that if he fell down the stairs

or had some other kind of traumatic fall,

it was so bad that he would have been unable to get up again.

So if he had fallen down the stairs,

he would have been found at the bottom of the stairs.

There is no world, at least according to the experts we have,

that he could have gotten up and stumbled into his bedroom

where he was found.

Right, unless someone moved him.

Unless someone moved him, right.

Okay, so in my mind, either he went down where he did,

but the injuries don't fit with the seizure

or he went down somewhere else where maybe the injuries

fit the situation, but then he was moved.

I mean, kind of going back to what you said,

either way, someone is involved with what happened to him

on some sort of sliding scale of culpability.

Theoretically, yes.

But even with this, the Emmy says

that he still can't reclassify the death as a homicide

because he says that the detectives told him

Sean had a seizure and fell.

So I mean, what the Emmy is saying

is that there's no evidence anyone else did something to him.

But at the same time, he can't rule it as a natural death

or an accident either because the scenario

that police did lay out for him

just doesn't fit Sean's injury.

This is the worst.

Yeah, so there's just this never ending back and forth.

And you've got this combined with like a whole host of other issues.

So you can imagine this has led to a somewhat contentious

relationship between Sean's family and investigators.

And Natalia feels a distinct chilliness from law enforcement

after that I team piece airs.

They basically tell Natalia that now Armand and Lynn

won't cooperate and that that reporter knocking on their doors

was basically a heads up to them,

warning them that they might still be the focus of an investigation.

So I think their excuse is like they're saying

this took the element of surprise away

if police went to speak with them first.

And they say that when a detective tried to follow up with Lynn

after the story aired, like she wouldn't talk to him.

The detective only tried to re-interview Lynn

after the story aired?

Yeah, that's my impression.

Hadn't he been on the case for like two years by then?

I guess I don't get it.

It feels like he's saying don't have a birthday party.

It's going to mess up the surprise party that I'm not

actually going to throw for you.

Listen, this is where the nuts and bolts of law enforcement

to me gets so complicated.

Like, listen, I don't know this dude's situation.

I don't know if this was his only case.

I highly doubt it is.

It's still inexcusable.

But the one defense I will say, and there is not a lot

to defend here.

So I want to give them at least what I've experienced

or what I've seen firsthand.

And this is only taught in crime junkie 305 or higher,

but I feel like everyone can handle it.

So, I mean, what I've seen with investigators,

especially when there's no specific cold case unit,

even when there is, but I don't know the situation here.

Say there's no cold case unit.

They're getting cases, active cases in every day.

Then there have these cases from back in the day

that they need to work.

Cases are changing hands all the time.

We know that that has happened over the years

in Sean's case.

What I've heard from investigators is like,

I, when I get a case file,

I'm not just going to go start banging on doors.

Like, I don't know this case.

I don't know what's true.

I don't know what's a lie.

I'm not going to be able to catch people in a lie

or, you know, if they're telling me a different story.

Like, they're like, for me to be effective,

I really have to know everything about the case

before I go knocking on doors.

And again, if that's your only job two years,

that should have been done in like two months.

But if you've got an active workload,

a lot of the times you're having to do this

in your free time, PTO, vacate, whatever,

like this is more,

to me, this is like more of a systemic problem

with like, yes, the family absolutely deserves

for this to be happening faster.

Like, no, we shouldn't be waiting for a reporting team

to like push you into action.

Because also I think the timing of this is like

a little suspicious.

Like, oh, you just happened to be ready right after that.

Like reporters started knocking.

Yeah, shocking how like that's when it was convenient

for you to all of a sudden go interview her.

But this is like a bigger issue of like budgeting

and how many officers you have and the priority

of cold cases.

So there's a lot of wrong here.

I don't know the situation behind this.

Like, but what I do know is the system we're working with

is kind of.

So no, it doesn't seem like he had been able

to talk to her in two years.

Is there an excuse for that?

Maybe.

Does it mean it's a good one?

I sure wouldn't find it acceptable if it were my dad.

Now, to get back to like some of the other problems

we're having, it also doesn't seem like the Emmy

was given everything to work with.

So what he's saying is like it's undetermined based

on what police have given him.

So in my mind, I feel like the more the better,

like let's be giving him everything to work with.

But the Emmy told Natalia that Cranston PD

only gave him a two page report.

Now, the police chief says there's no way to know

what records they turned over, but he says he's confident

they gave the Emmy anything he requested

because it's the department's standard practice.

Okay, but the Emmy doesn't even know what to request.

Like, that's not fair.

That's not fair.

Oh, and speaking of records and department practice

and sorry, I have to back up in the timeline

just a little bit.

So a few days after Sean's death,

Amy had asked police for a copy of the 911 call

to Arman's house.

And the clerk said, which call?

Friday, July 21st or Saturday, the 22nd.

What?

How are we just now learning there were two calls

the same place on completely different days?

Okay, so here's the thing.

The family knew about some record of a second call

early on because of Amy's inquiry.

But the department shut down the request

because it was an act of investigation.

So, you know, fast forward through the months and years

to when Natalia is finally being her own Colombo.

And, you know, all this time, it was just kind of

this strange mystery that they had always kind of known about.

But it was something that always stuck out to her,

like in her mind as she's thinking about,

you know, what does this mean?

What does this mean?

She could never answer.

So years later, when she's starting to file

all of these records requests,

it's one of the first things that she asked for.

So she finally gets this log of every 911 call

to Armen's address.

Now, she doesn't get the audio for the calls,

just a summary of them, including the date and time

that services were provided, plus the reason

and the action police took, if any.

So there is a listing for a call that Friday,

a reported assault at 10.11 a.m.

But Natalia says police tell her there was no call

for service that day, that it was actually

a backdated call log entry made to coincide

with the domestic assault between Lynn and Armand.

So police made a record of a 911 call

that never actually happened.

I guess.

Maybe.

That's the best.

That's how I understand it.

Makes lots of sense.

And I guess, why the time difference?

Armand and Lynn said that fight happened at, what,

like nine that night, not at 10 o'clock in the morning?

Yeah, I think it was like eight or something.

Like that eight or nine.

But yeah, so you're right.

This is what stuck out to me too.

And it was something she remembered as well.

So she asked the department about that.

So he said, you know, this is our practice to back date calls.

So because there's a big discrepancy in the time,

that could have just been a clerical error.

But like, I mean, she's pretty skeptical at this point.

Same.

And I feel rightfully so because generally a call

for service is just that someone calls 911 or a non-emergency

police number.

They want help with something.

Now we spent so much time digging into this.

And what's interesting is that Cranston PD does not have a

precise definition expressed in writing for what they consider

a call for service.

At least they didn't as of the mid 2000s.

So I don't know if they just like lump everything in together

or what, but here's what's strange.

Natalia's got other records that seem to disprove the so-called

department practice explanation.

And her theory is that police did respond to the house on July

21st at 10, 11 a.m.

Maybe they mishandled a conflict between Armand and Lynn.

And then when everything hit the fan that weekend,

someone wanted to like cover their butts.

I mean, it's weird and shady, but none of this likely had anything

to do with Sean.

Right.

So this is what's, again, especially if it really was at 10,

11, like he was at work that Friday morning.

And also the weird part though is like for all I know Armand was

at work that Friday too.

So maybe this is a misunderstanding, but the whole thing is

just so odd.

And it's not like an arrest report where police include the date

of the crime, which might be different than the date the

report was taken.

Again, this is just like a call for service log.

So if no one called for service, why say they did?

I just don't understand this.

Why put it on the log?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Now the other thing that really stands out to Natalia,

she hones in on lab testing.

What she does is she picks 10 things off the evidence list

at random, including pieces of like the bloody mattress,

some of the bloodstained bedding, bloody t-shirt,

empty cans of soda.

And what she does is she picks these 10 random things and she

asks the department which of those items have already been

forensically tested.

And their response is none of them.

What?

So she's like, oh, so weird.

Again, I'm randomly picking.

I picked the ones that didn't get tested.

So she picks another group of random items, bloodstained pillow

case, bloody towel, tubes of roofing cement, cleaning

supplies, trace evidence from Lynn's car.

And she's like, OK, well, of these which have been tested.

And wouldn't you know it?

All of them.

Like every single one from her second list.

Could they have started testing all this evidence after she

asked about the first group?

No, no, they couldn't have because according to Cranston

PD, everything in that second group of items was tested like

back in 2006 or 2007.

I'm sorry, this feels unbelievable.

I mean, what are the odds and why didn't they test anything

in the first group?

I feel like some of that stuff sounds pretty important.

Yeah, I don't have an answer.

I don't know.

Did they share the results with her to prove when all these

tests were done?

So they did, which may have calmed some skepticism.

But long story short, they say that some of the items they did

test could be traced back to Sean DNA wise.

So I mean, to her, none of this makes sense.

She wants the case transferred at this point basically

from Cranston PD to Rhode Island State Police.

And she even made a formal request to the Attorney General's

Office, but nothing came of it, which is actually something

that I have seen lobbied for a lot.

And it's something that if you're looking like for a place

to get invested in true crime and supporting families,

lobbying for this is huge.

And it can make a world of a difference in a case if a family

can petition to have it moved.

I think you can do it in Utah and maybe a couple of other states,

but it is so few and far between because Cranston PD,

they're saying that they've done pretty much everything they can.

Except testing all the quite literally bloody evidence, OK?

Right, right.

So maybe again, maybe what you need is a fresh set of eyes is

I think what she's thinking, what I'm feeling, whatever.

Actually, in letters he wrote to Natalia, the chief said

investigators have worked diligently over the years.

They met with her and her family.

They let her see lots of the case file.

They answered her questions when they could.

And they followed up on leads that she gave them.

And it's not just them.

Like they're backed by the AG's office, who maybe this is why

they don't transfer the cases.

They're like, listen, we've seen what they have.

I don't know that another department could do better.

But basically the AG's office and the Cranston PD think that

there's insufficient evidence that Sean's death was due to foul play.

And at that point, the investigation is closed

unless new information comes to light.

And Natalia is positive that someone out there has that information.

And her hope is that that someone hears this episode

and finally decides to reach out to police.

She says that her father had demons that he fought every day.

She doesn't know how things would have gone with the two of them.

Maybe he would have let her down.

Maybe they would have kept getting closer.

But they never even got the chance to find out one way or another.

She wants justice.

But if she can't have that, she at least wants answers.

So if you have any information about the death of Sean O'Brien,

please call Cranston police at 401-942-2211

or check our blog post to see how to send an anonymous tip.

You can also email Natalia tips at justice4SeanO'Brienatgmail.com.

She's offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to an arrest in her dad's case.

To find all the source material for this episode, visit crimejunkiepodcast.com.

And you can follow us on Instagram at crimejunkiepodcast.

And we'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

But stay tuned for the good.

We've got some really good stuff to share with you this month.

Well, it's the end of June crime junkies, so you know what that means.

Time for some good.

Yes, and I know we tell you every single month,

but please, please, please, please, please keep submitting your stories for the good.

We have loved getting them, love sharing them with everyone at Audiojunk,

love sharing them with you and hope that they brighten your day as much as they brighten ours.

But we couldn't tell these stories if you don't send them.

So be sure to submit a story of your own on the Good Segments page.

You can find that on our website, crimejunkiepodcast.com,

or you can find the direct link to the page in our show notes.

So, Ashley, why don't you take it away?

Let's do it.

All right, here was a short letter we just recently got.

As the mother of a trans daughter, I know just how important it is to have public figures as yourself

speak openly and respectfully of her and everyone else on their journey.

When my daughter started her transition 10 years ago, age five,

I had no idea what transgender even meant.

With her wisdom and guidance, and thank God, the new and ongoing public awareness,

she has grown into the most beautiful and authentic version of herself.

Every time I hear positive discussion in the media about transgender issues,

I know she is not only going to have a chance to survive, but actually thrive,

and possibly have a safe and positive experience in her lifetime.

Thank you for being part of that change.

XO from a proud crimejunkie mom.

I love that.

I get all teary-eyed.

Oh, I am like weeping over here.

Oh, my God.

Oh, I think that's so great that, I mean, I just want people to focus on that last line

that like this woman was worried that her daughter wouldn't have a safe and positive

experience in her lifetime.

Like that's something that so much of us just take for granted.

And I think that that is such a beautiful thing to give people, to love people,

to let them be happy and let them be themselves and let them feel safe.

And that is, I know we're rolling up on the end of Pride Month.

It's what Pride Month is all about, but something that I hope, you know,

everyone carries into the rest of the year.

I know, you know, we will continue to and continue to talk about these issues.

But I'm just so happy that we can, even if it's just this one email, it makes my heart explode.

So thank you, crimejunkies.

You are just as a part of the change that we're trying to make and trying to instill as Britt and I.

And to prove that, I actually have one more story that can again emphasize how your support

for us has let us speak up for communities who need a louder voice.

Britt, I'm gonna have you read this one.

Awesome.

My name is Dana.

I've been a fan club member for months now because from the first episode I listened to,

I love the way you told stories and I was hooked as a newer crime junkie.

This morning, I listened to the episode released early as I usually do on Sunday mornings.

And I wanted to say, as a non-binary 40-year-old lesbian, thank you.

I have been out and proud for 25 years and it's still hard not to get emotional

when two heterosexual cisgender women become such vocal advocates and allies for the community.

I know you reach people that aren't based in places like New York City like I am.

People in small towns that may be LGBTQ and need to hear that love and support.

Or people who are not and need to understand we exist and we shouldn't be targets for crime and hate.

I just wanted to say thank you for what you do.

This is far from the first episode I've heard about the community,

and you always follow up with promotions, donations, and visibility.

Hearing you both get emotional made me emotional in a great way.

I'm happy to continue supporting as a Patreon,

not just because I'm fascinated by the stories and the dynamic you two have,

but also because I feel seen in a place I never thought I could be.

Yeah, out of here.

I love that.

Thank you.

Oh my god, thank you so much Dana and everyone.

Oh, these stories really get to me, get to the reason why we do this, you know.

Yeah, I have no idea who Jo wants to be or who she wants to love.

And I feel like now, I mean, I was always really passionate about this

because I, again, just as think people deserve to be loved and accepted.

But I am even more now that I have my own child

because I can't imagine her growing up in a world where someone tries to make her feel

like not enough or like bad for who she is.

Because she's beautiful and everyone out there is somebody's Jo.

So again, I thank you Crime Junkies for letting us have this platform

and for working with us to make a place where we can all love each other

and look out for one another and hopefully that's a better world.

Crime Junkie is an audio check production.

So what do you think, Chuck? Do you approve?

Machine-generated transcript that may contain inaccuracies.