2. During 2018, I mentored and encouraged Eli Washtock, who accumulated a five inch binder of investigative material from multiple investigators, surveillance and computer experts, whom he hired at a cost of tens of thousands of dollars.
3. Circa March 2018, Eli watched three-time Pulitzer Prize winning New York Times reporter Walt Bogdanich's PBS Frontline documentary on Netflix one night.
4. Eli then read Ms. Nancy Shaver's December 2013 letter to the editor.
5. Eli then contacted Nancy Shaver, elected in 2014 as our St. Augustine Mayor.
6. Mayor Shaver then referred Eli to me for information on how to reach the O'Connell family.
7. Eli owned several body shops in Wisconsin. Eli once stated to me, "I've got money for days," and was willing to spend money and do what it takes to prosecute the Michelle O'Connell homicide.
8. Eli was a uniquely courageous whistleblower, a resident of World Golf Village, who hailed from Wisconsin.
9. Eli Washtock told Patty O'Connell and me that Jeremy Banks once ran him and his son off the road while Banks was driving an SJSO vehicle.
10. Last year, Eli visited me at my table in the back of the St. Johns County Commission Auditorium last year, watching me speak on the Michelle O'Connell case. Eli was preparing to go public, watching the procedure for public comment. Eli was nearly finished, with new facts to be disclosed from the experts he hired (from out of town, to avoid local corruption).
11. I introduced him to at least one person at the Commission meeting, but I pointedly did not disclose what he was working on when I was asked.
12. Someone wanted Eli dead, and killed him. 13. The FBI must investigate, not a neighboring Sheriff's Department handpicked by Sheriff DAVID SHOAR.
13. I wrote Governor Ronald Dion DeSantis on February 2, 2019 and May 7, 2019, asking him to request an FBI invitation, order an independent forensic audit and investigation, and suspend Sheriff DAVID SHOAR from office under Florida Constitution, Article IV, Section 7.
14. Governor DeSantis has already removed from office Broward County Sheriff, the Okaloosa County School Superintendent, et al.
15. I will print Governor DeSantis' response here, upon receipt.
16. "Be not afraid," as Saint John Paul II said on the balcony in Vatican City, his first words upon being elected Pope.
17. "We SHALL overcome," as LBJ told Congress after Selma. It is up to us. Justice for Michell O'Connell. Justice for Eli Washtock. Now.
18. Only 26 minutes after my May 7, 2019 letter to Governor DeSantis, the lawyer for Deputy JEREMY BANKS wrote me and called me a "toothless dog."
19. In the words of a Bible verse contained in a newspaper ad affixed above the keyboard of the IBM electric typewriter of veteran Knoxville newspaper reporter Jim Dykes, one of my late mentors: "WHY DO THE HEATHEN RAGE?"
20. Let justice be done. Now.
21. Florida Governor Ron DeSantis needs to request an FBI investigation, an independent forensic audit, and suspend lawbreaking St. Johns County Sheriff DAVID SHOAR from office under Article IV, Section 7 of our Florida Constitution.
22. Governor DeSantis has already suspended the Broward County Sheriff and Okaloosa County School Supt. earlier this year.
23. Justice for Michelle O'Connell.
24. Justice for Eli/Ellie Washtock.
25. Enough Flori-DUH law enforcement corruption, incompetence, flummery, dupery and nincompoopery, conflict of interest and chicanery.
From The New York Times:
Investigating One Fatal Shooting, a Florida Sleuth Dies in AnotherInvestigating One Fatal Shooting, a Florida Sleuth Dies in Another
The shooting death of the girlfriend of a Florida deputy sheriff has haunted and divided the community of St. Augustine, Fla., for going on a decade. Shortly after the woman, 24-year-old Michelle O’Connell, was killed by a bullet from her boyfriend’s service weapon, the authorities ruled the case a suicide, without examining crucial forensic evidence.
Now, one of the people captivated and troubled by her story — a local resident who became something of an amateur sleuth on the case — is dead. And last week, the authorities ruled the latest death a homicide, igniting speculation that the shooting could somehow be connected to Ms. O’Connell’s death in 2010.
A spokeswoman for the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office said this week that there was “no reason to believe” that the two deaths were “necessarily related.”
Just the same, the spokeswoman, Allison Waters-Merritt, added, “We leave all options out, until they are 100 percent ruled out.”
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The resident, Ellie Washtock, 38, had requested records in the case and had been in touch with Ms. O’Connell’s family in the months before being fatally shot in January of this year.
Washtock was not the only one who had searched for answers in Ms. O’Connell’s case, which drew the scrutiny of state investigators. A 2013 examination by The New York Times and the PBS program “Frontline” raised questions about forensic evidence and found shortcomings in the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office’s handling of the case, which involved one of its own deputies, Jeremy Banks. Ms. O’Connell, a single mother, had been in the process of breaking up with Mr. Banks when she was found fatally shot, with his service weapon by her side.
Both the sheriff’s and the medical examiner’s offices for Putnam County declined to release records related to Washtock’s death, citing a continuing investigation.
It is unclear how Washtock, who had at various times identified as male and female, identified at the time of death. Although court records indicate a name change to Ellie in 2009, some who knew Washtock more recently knew Washtock as Eli. The Times is using Washtock’s surname.
Washtock, who had two children and a background in auto mechanics, moved to Florida from Wisconsin several years ago, according to Nick Uttech, a childhood friend.
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“He pretty well kept to himself,” particularly after moving to Florida, said Mr. Uttech, who added that he had not been aware of his friend’s interest in the O’Connell case.
Washtock reached out to Ms. O’Connell’s family last year after learning about her case on television, said Ms. O’Connell’s mother, Patty O’Connell. The two went on to email dozens of times, she said, and met in person on occasion, including as recently as December.
Washtock had a binder several inches thick full of documents related to Ms. O’Connell’s death, and had also offered to hire private experts to work on the case, Patty O’Connell recalled.
In one email exchange from September, Washtock wrote that “I am still anxiously waiting for additional findings from the private investigators,” according to a copy provided by Patty O’Connell.
“You and your family are in my prayers,” Washtock wrote, signing off as Eli.
On Jan. 31, Washtock was found dead at home in a condominium complex. Washtock’s teenage son called 911 around 8 a.m., according to the Putnam County Sheriff’s Office.
At first, deputies with the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office responded, but after learning from someone at the scene that Washtock had been researching the O’Connell case, the office recused itself, said Chuck Mulligan, a spokesman for the St. Johns County Sheriff’s Office.
Walt Bogdanich contributed reporting.
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