Delaware: The Killing of Joe and Olga Connell

04/10/23 • 29 min

After Joe Connell was released from prison, he was a changed man who wanted to settle down and start a family. Pretty soon, he found his true love, a mail order Russian bride named Olga. Joe was successful; he ran a successful auto body repair shop in Wilminginton, Delaware with his partner, Christopher Rivers. He also had a side hustle selling sterioids out of said body shop.
Joe and Olga had only been married for 107 days when they were gunned down in front of their apartment building in the early morning hours of Sunday, September 22nd, 2013. It was obviously a hit job, but who could have wanted them dead? Turned out, plenty of people. Joe and Olga had plenty of enemies, including his co-workers and his own sister, Kelly Connell. But who would have hated them enough to kill? The case went unsolved until one year later, when police realized the murderer had been right under their noses the whole time.
Show Notes:
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1S7lXNDa1EwaFRpjl2tyCo

Previous Episode

Connecticut: The Unsolved Murder of Suzanne Jovin

Suzanne Jovin was a 21-year-old senior at Yale University in New Haven, Connecticut, when her life was cut mercilessly short. December 4th, 1998 started out just like any other day for Suzanne. She woke up early, went to classes, turned in an assignment to her professor, and then attended a Best Buddies volunteer organization pizza party. After that, she returned to her apartment, shot off a quick email to a friend, then set out on foot toward campus again, into the unseasonably warm winter night, to an undetermined location. On her walk, she stopped to chat with an acquaintance and then continued on. Suzanne was found brutally stabbed to death 13 minutes after the conversation with her friend, on a sidewalk in a nice part of town 1.8 miles from where she was last seen.
Police had so many questions. How did she make it almost 2 miles away in under 15 minutes from the last reported sighting of her? Why were her fingerprints and her fingerprints only found on a Fresca soda bottle near to where she was killed? Where had she been going at 9 pm at night with no backpack and just a sheaf of papers in her hands? And, most importantly, who would have wanted to kill Suzanne Jovin, when she had not an enemy in the world?
Show Notes:
https://www.vanityfair.com/magazine/1999/08/yale-murder199908
https://open.spotify.com/episode/2PUUzSViIg2r3gDOV5aDBM

Next Episode

Florida's Deadly Dancer

When 24-year-old Ashley Byers met 54-year-old Doug Benefield on August 25th, 2016, at party in former President hopeful Ben Carson's mansion in Palm Beach, Florida, it was love at first sight. Literally. The two started texting and said "I love you" within days. In under 14 days, they were married, much to Doug's 15-year-old daughter Eva's chagrin. But the two were very much alike; both were gun-toting supporters of the 2nd amendment and right wing-leaning. In fact, Ashley Byers had worked on soon-to-be President Trump's campaign in Sarasota, Florida, and Doug was deeply religious.
Soon after they married, they decided to go into business together. Ashley had been a ballerina in Maryland where she grew up, and had big plans for a ballet company that would cater to a more diverse troupe. So the Benefield's started the American National Ballet Co., or ANB in Charleston, South Carolina where they were living at the time. But pretty soon, it became apparent that ANB would not survive, and allegations of fraud were swirling. Besides that, the Benefield's were fighting a lot, Ashley soon became pregnant and ran back to Florida to live with her mother.
Not long after that, ANB shut it's doors, Ashley became increasingly more volatile and unstable, claiming that Doug was poisoning her and her unborn baby, and after she was born, ugly custody battles ensued. Until one night in September of 2020, Ashley flew off the handle, and an unspeakable tragedy would befall the Benefield's.
Show Notes:
https://archive.vanityfair.com/article/2021/11/last-dance
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-black-swan-murder/id965818306?i=1000534933710