Justice for Kristin O'Connell
In the summer of 1985, twenty-year-old Minnesota college student Kristin O'Connell traveled to a small town in the Finger Lakes to visit a young man she met on Captiva Island over Spring Break. The day after she arrived, Kristin called her mother from a payphone and told her she was cutting her trip very short and planned to leave for home the following day. That same night, Kristin disappeared. Thirteen hours later, the young man she came to visit would report her missing to law enforcement. He alleged that at around 11:30 the night before, Kristin left his trailer to take a walk alone down an unlit road, in an unfamiliar town, without shoes or a purse. A team of local firemen would find Kristin's rain-soaked naked body two days later in a nearby cornfield, less than a quarter of a mile away from the trailer where she was staying. Kristin had been stabbed multiple times, and her throat had been slashed. Testing would prove her body was free of alcohol at the time of her death, and the coroner would find no signs of sexual assault.
State Police have long asserted that Kristin's murder was a crime of opportunity committed by a random stranger passing through town.
In the thirty-six years since Kristin's death, State Police have not made a single arrest in connection with her murder.
The State Police have recently rejected an offer to participate in a documentary series about Kristin's murder and refuse to make a comment to the media about their decision. Seneca County District Attorney Mark Sinkiewicz has never returned a phone call or responded to an email from the victim's mother.
Rumors have persisted for over three decades in the small town where Kristin was murdered that her death was not a crime of opportunity. Some claim to know precisely what happened to Kristin and who is responsible for her murder. The O'Connell family wants to raise reward money to entice anyone with information that would lead to an arrest and conviction in Kristin's murder to come forward.
Please support our efforts to bring justice to Kristin.
