Shawn O'Brien
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To get this episode of Forensic Tales ad-free, please visit patreon.com/forensictales. Forensic Tales discusses topics that some listeners may find disturbing. The contents of this episode may not be suitable for everyone. Listener discretion is advised. When Sean O'Brien mysteriously died inside his Rhode Island apartment, his family was left with so many unanswered questions. At first, his death appeared to have been medical.

But the more they uncovered, the more they realized something else might have happened to Sean. Something not even forensic science can explain. This is Forensic Tales, episode number 194. The mysterious death of Sean O'Brien. ♪

Welcome to Forensic Tales. I'm your host, Courtney Fretwell-Ariola.

Forensic Tales is a weekly true crime podcast covering real, spine-tingling stories with a forensic science twist. Some cases have been solved with forensic science, while others have turned cold. Every remarkable story sends us a chilling reminder that not all stories have happy endings.

As a one-woman show, your support helps me find new compelling cases, conduct in-depth fact-based research, and produce and edit this weekly show. You can support my work in two simple ways. Become a valued patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales and leave a positive review. Before we get to the episode, we have one new supporter that I want to thank this week.

Thank you so much to Andrew G. for becoming the show's newest supporter on Patreon. Now, let's get to this week's episode. On Saturday, July 22nd, 2006, 13-year-old Natalia wrote a letter that no girl her age should ever have to write. While sitting inside the Rhode Island hospital, she put these words to paper, quote,

I'm waiting for the miracle to happen now, for you to open your eyes and be okay, for all of us to snap awake and say, oh, it was only a bad dream, but the doctors are telling us otherwise. It's hard, Dad. Jen keeps telling me that they need a roofer in heaven, but why does God have to take my roofer? There's still so much that you haven't seen yet. It's just not fair. I'm not ready to say goodbye, but I know you wouldn't want to live like this, through tubes.

End quote. The letter 13-year-old Natalia was writing was to her father, Sean O'Brien. When Natalia sat at that Rhode Island hospital to write that letter, she had no idea what happened to her dad. Why did he suddenly die? Just one day before, they had lunch at one of his favorite spots. And now, he was lying in a hospital bed. Rewind to earlier that morning on Saturday, July 22nd, 2006.

Natalia's mom Amy was surprised that she hadn't heard from Natalia's father Sean. Although Amy and Sean had ended their romantic relationship years earlier, they had recently reconnected to co-parent their daughter Natalia. It was around 6.30 in the morning when Amy was expecting to get a phone call from Sean, a ritual they performed almost every single morning.

Sean would call Amy around 6.30 a.m. before she headed out the door to work, but she didn't hear from Sean that particular morning. Sean got off work from the roofing company where he worked around 3 o'clock p.m. on Friday the day before. It was payday that day, so his first stop was to go to the bank to cash his check. He then met up with Amy and their daughter Natalia at a local sandwich shop.

Later on that day, Amy, Natalia, and Sean all planned to go to the summer festival in town. It was a big event that the city hosted every year, and everyone in town attended.

But when Amy and Natalia drove to Sean's duplex to pick him up for the festival, Amy told Sean that their daughter wasn't feeling well. She had a headache and they couldn't go to the festival. Instead, they would go home and Natalia could sleep it off. And then they would try to go to the summer festival the next day on Saturday. Sean then asked Amy if she could drop him off at a local bar called Billy's Frosted Mug.

But Amy didn't want to. Sean had a long history of drug and alcohol abuse and was trying really hard to stay sober. But Sean assured Amy he wasn't going to the bar to drink or do drugs. Instead, he wanted to play the game Keno for a couple of hours. Plus, his roommate's girlfriend was staying over and he didn't get along with her. So by going to the local bar and playing a couple hours of Keno, he would stay busy.

So Amy reluctantly agreed, drove Sean to the bar, and then went home with their daughter. The following morning, Amy didn't hear from Sean for their usual morning chat. She simply thought at this point that maybe Sean had stayed late at the bar. Although he said he was trying to stay sober, he might have slipped up and now was hungover and still asleep. A plausible explanation.

After missing her daily phone call with Sean, Amy headed to work around 7 a.m., and she didn't think much about it, or at least not until later that afternoon. Since they weren't able to make the summer festival the day before, they were going to try again today, but they never heard from Sean like they were supposed to. Later that evening, around 6 o'clock p.m., Amy received a phone call from Karen, one of Sean's sisters. She said,

A phone call that made her heart sink and confirmed her earlier suspicions. Karen said that Sean was in an ambulance and headed to the hospital. She said she and her 16-year-old nephew went to Sean's apartment around 5.30 p.m. that evening to go check on him. When they got there, Sean's roommate said that she needed to get in there as soon as possible because Sean had been having a seizure for at least an hour.

When she finally got inside, Sean was lying on the floor in a pool of blood, only wearing his boxer shorts. His skin was clammy and he was covered in sweat. His roommate kept saying he had no idea what happened. Once paramedics arrived, they immediately rushed him to the emergency room. He was barely breathing, but he was still alive. Doctors inside the Rhode Island Hospital emergency room performed a CAT scan on Sean's head to look for internal bleeding.

If he had experienced a seizure, he might have fallen and hit his head on the ground. When the doctors analyzed the results, they found a lot of blood pooling in his brain from what they believed was some type of blunt force trauma. Again, maybe he suffered a seizure, fell and hit his head on the floor. Within just a few hours of being at the hospital, Sean underwent brain surgery to help get rid of the blood.

The procedure was a relative success. They had managed to stop the bleeding, but the brain damage was already done. If Sean managed to wake up, he would never be the same person. By 4 o'clock p.m. on Sunday, doctors at the hospital broke the news to Sean's family, including his daughter and her mom, Amy. He was brain dead and had virtually no chance of ever waking up on his own.

Thirty minutes later, his family decided to take him off life support. And two days later, on Tuesday, July 25th, 2006, 34-year-old Sean O'Brien passed away. The least complicated explanation is that Sean suffered a fatal seizure. While seizing, he fell and hit his head on the ground, causing massive blunt force trauma.

Not only did the authorities suspect a seizure because that's what Sean's roommate said had happened, but also because he had a known history of seizures due to his heavy drug and alcohol use. The seizures wouldn't happen immediately after using drugs or drinking too much alcohol. Sometimes it was hours or even a few days later. And Sean knew that he had these seizures.

Two of the paramedics who transported him that very night had been there twice before for his seizures, so they knew he was prone to it as well. Next was the toxicology report. Sean tested positive for three things. One, cocaine. Two, opiates. And three, barbiturates. But the only real concern was the cocaine, because the other two drugs were administered to him at the hospital.

But still, it's important to note that Sean did have cocaine in his system when he died, and that may or may not have contributed to the seizure. So that's the simple explanation, a seizure induced by drug use. And while he was seizing, he fell and hit his head on the floor, causing a fatal brain bleed. Before we go on, I want you to consider this. Is the simple explanation the right explanation? What does the forensic evidence say?

Stay tuned as we dig deeper into the clues and unveil the truth that may just change everything. This episode is sponsored by BetterHelp. What are some of your self-care non-negotiables? Maybe you never skip leg day or therapy day. When your schedule is packed with kids' activities, big work projects, or podcasting like me, it's easy to let your priorities slip.

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But despite all of his jokes and all of his pranks, he was what many people considered a good kid. He was the kind of person who would give his shirt off his back to a complete stranger. Sean dropped out of school in eighth grade to start working full-time. Years later, his hard work paid off and he became a talented contractor with two different building companies. But life's struggles quickly caught up to Sean. He developed an addiction to alcohol and drugs.

These challenges caused him several arrests, including DUIs and drug possession charges. But Sean never once denied or lied about his problems. He was open and honest about his addictions. Although he relapsed several times over the years, he was always looking for ways to stay sober.

His addiction also didn't stand in his way when it came to his family. No matter what he was going through or how bad his drug addiction had gotten, he always made time for his family, especially his children. When Sean was 21, he and his girlfriend at the time, Amy, had their daughter, Natalia, in 1992. But they broke up when Natalia was only two and was primarily raised by Amy.

It wasn't until Natalia turned nine years old that she remembered meeting her father for the first time. But when they finally did meet, Sean worked hard to establish a relationship with his daughter. He also worked really hard to rebuild a strong relationship with Amy. So when he suddenly died, both Amy and Natalia were heartbroken.

From the moment Sean arrived at the hospital, his family thought something seemed off. Yes, Sean was prone to seizures. Yes, he struggled with drugs and alcohol. But they questioned whether that's what really happened here. At the time, Sean was living in the basement of a duplex-style apartment that was owned by a man named Armand Rouleau.

Sean lived in the basement part of Armand's place, which he subleased for $675 a month, which just so happened to be about 75% of Armand's total rent, despite only living in a small portion of the entire duplex. Even before Sean's death, there were reports that Sean and Armand had a rocky relationship.

According to a June 2006 police report, authorities responded to a report about a disturbance between Sean and Armand regarding noise. At the time, Sean told the cops he wanted to file a police report that would help him in the eviction process. But it's unclear if anything was done after that report was created. Sean also had a bad relationship with Armand's girlfriend Lynn.

Earlier in the story, I mentioned that Amy dropped him off at a local bar the night before he was found unresponsive. He told Amy that he wanted to play Keno for a few hours and didn't want to be at home because Armand's girlfriend Lynn was there. He figured if he went to the bar for a couple of hours, he wouldn't have to see or talk to her. One of the reasons why Sean didn't like Lynn was because she had allegedly made threats against him in the past.

On one heated occasion, Lynn flipped over Sean's table and told him that she would kill him while he was downstairs in the basement watching a game. And this happened more than once. A couple of months before Sean died, Armand told Sean that he needed to move out of the duplex. That's because Armand said he wanted to move his girlfriend in instead. So during this time, Sean was frantically looking for a new place to stay.

But before he found anything, Armand came back and said he was just kidding. Lynn wasn't moving in and he could stay. Now, it's unclear why exactly Sean and Lynn weren't getting along. But no one in this story seems to dispute that. No one says that they did like each other. Everyone seems to suggest that they weren't getting along. And tensions between them were incredibly high in the months leading up to Sean's death.

The living situation grew so bad that Sean had allegedly told Amy that he was looking for somewhere else to live. He said he had had enough with both of them and didn't want to be around either of them. But before he could move out, he was dead. Armand's duplex had a backdoor entrance that led to the stairwell to Sean's basement, a door that anyone coming over to the duplex would use.

You went downstairs if you wanted to go to Sean's part of the place, and then if you wanted to go to Armand's part, you went upstairs. Sean would frequently go upstairs to use the only shower, and then his roommate Armand often went downstairs to the basement to use the washer and dryer. But when Amy and Sean's sister Erin went to the duplex after Sean's death, they noticed some weird things. The first was the amount of blood.

When paramedics arrived, Sean was lying on the ground in a pool of blood. But the amount of blood didn't seem consistent with a typical fall. There was an unusual amount of blood. And the blood wasn't just around Sean's head like you would expect. Five days after Sean's death, the police finally declared the apartment a crime scene. And the only reason why they did this was because Sean's family kept pressing them to do so.

Up until that point, the apartment was open and free for anyone to come and go and wasn't secured as a crime scene. To them, it was simply just a place where Sean died. But when the police finally did get in there, they also noted blood in several spots in the basement where Sean lived.

But, and this is an important point to make, it's impossible to say if that's all the blood that was there originally because it took so long for the cops to finally secure the crime scene. Some of the blood there on Saturday evening when Sean's body was discovered might have been cleaned up or even contaminated by that point.

Amy and one of Sean's sisters also returned to the duplex to pick up some of Sean's items a few days after he died. And according to them, blood was almost everywhere. They immediately pulled out a phone and started taking photos. Although the images are grainy and poor quality, the photos showed that there was a lot of blood inside this tiny basement.

Blood on the carpet near the door to Sean's part of the apartment. Blood on the door itself. Blood on the carpet inside the bedroom. And blood on the wood-paneled wall at the head of the bed. Blood was virtually everywhere. But the most notable bloodstains were found on Sean's bed. Both his pillows and sheets had blood on them. And there were at least three large bloodstains on the mattress itself.

One of the stains on the mattress was so big that according to his sister, it measured about 15 inches in diameter. Now let's talk about Sean's body. When the paramedics arrived, a fresh cut between Sean's toes was bleeding, but they had no idea where or how the cut originated. There was also dried blood found between Sean's mouth and right ear without any plausible explanation, but that's not all.

Not only did he have brain bleeding and a small cut between his toes, but according to Amy, he had many more injuries when she saw him at the hospital. According to Amy, he had cuts and bruises on his upper chest, bruising on his knees, cuts and rug burns on his nose and forehead, and a missing part of a tooth.

None of these injuries were visible the previous day. So all the injuries seem to have happened sometime in the last 24 hours before he died. But Amy's memory is different than the paramedics. According to the paramedics report, they didn't see any other injuries on Sean's body when they got there. Maybe they didn't see him, or maybe they forgot to write them in the report. But if you ask Amy, they were definitely there when she saw him at the hospital.

Besides blood, Amy and Aaron claimed that several items were missing from the apartment, including a lamp, Sean's hammer that he used every day at work, an alarm clock, and a dumbbell set. These items weren't inside the apartment when the cops arrived and were never found. His sister and Amy also have no idea why they've gone missing. And to this day, they're still missing without any logical explanation as to why.

After Sean's death, the police wanted to speak to two very important people, Armand and Lynn, Sean's roommate and his girlfriend. They were the only other people at home when Sean supposedly had the seizure. Plus, they also had something else weird about them. When Amy and Sean's sister Erin went to the apartment and spoke with Armand, they said that he seemed nervous and anxious. He didn't really want to answer any of their questions about what happened.

They also said that he had at least four cuts on his face and a bandage on one of his fingers, like he might have been in a fight. Strange timing to have cuts on his face right after his roommate is found dead. To add to the mystery, their dog Floyd also added doubt. When Amy and Aaron went to speak with Armand, they noticed that a part of the dog's tail had been shaved off.

Amy and Aaron knew that in the past that Floyd would usually bark when Sean was having a seizure. It was almost like the dog knew that something was wrong and he would bark to get someone's attention to come help. But on that particular day, Floyd didn't bark, or at least that's what our mom said. He claimed he never heard the dog bark, so he had no idea what was going on and he didn't know that his roommate needed any help.

But maybe Floyd did notice that Sean was having a seizure and got close enough to him that he got blood on his tail. But that was just a guess because we don't know if that's what happened. If so, why would Armand or Lynn shave his tail? Were they trying to hide the fact that the dog really did get blood on him? The police also spoke with Armand and Lynn, but they didn't do a very good job about trying to keep the facts straight.

That's because when Armand was brought to the police station, he told the officers that he was just too upset about Sean's death to talk about it. So his girlfriend Lynn was allowed to make his statements for him. So the statement that he gave to the police about what happened that day didn't even come from Armand himself. His girlfriend wrote it.

Later on, the cops went to the duplex with Lynn and Armand. But instead of talking to them, Armand said that he didn't want to say anything about what happened until he had a lawyer. And Lynn wasn't cooperative either. When the cops kept asking her about the details from that day, she either kept saying that she didn't know or she just simply didn't remember.

Armand eventually waived his right to have an attorney present and started talking to the cops. And the first thing he addressed were the cuts and scrapes on his face. Armand told investigators that he got into his fight with his girlfriend on Friday night. He said the cuts had nothing to do with Sean and it was Lynn who scratched him. But he never mentioned anything about his dog's tail or the missing items from Sean's part of the duplex.

According to Lynn's statements to the police, she went to Armand and Sean's duplex on Friday night. That's when she and Armand got into a physical fight causing cuts and bruises to his face.

She told investigators she didn't want to spend the night because of the fight, but she would have had to have been there at least until 7 o'clock p.m. because that's when Amy dropped Sean off at the duplex. And when Amy dropped him off, she told investigators that she saw two cars in the driveway. One of the cars was Lynn's and the other was Armand's.

Lynn said she returned to the duplex sometime Saturday afternoon, but left around 5 o'clock p.m. before Sean's body was discovered. But one of Sean's siblings, Charlene, said that when she drove by the apartment, she saw Lynn's car in the driveway around 11 a.m., which seems to contradict her timing and her story. But maybe Lynn was just a little mixed up about her times.

Well, if you asked Sean's family, they might point to Lynn's background, which argues she had quite the past. In January 2005, Lynn was arrested for domestic assault after getting into a fight with her then 69-year-old live-in boyfriend. In the police report, she was accused of grabbing him by the throat and throwing a cup of boiling water in his face.

Another incident occurred in early 2006, where Lynn was accused of flipping over Sean's table and threatening to kill him. And that wasn't the only incident. According to Sean's family, there were many more fights between Sean and Lynn. That explains why he wanted to be dropped off at the bar that Friday night instead of going home when he knew Lynn was there. Now, what did Armand have to say about what he remembered? Sadly, this depends on who you ask.

Sean's sister Karen, who went over to the duplex that Saturday night, said that Armand knew all about Sean's condition when she arrived. Armand was the one who took her downstairs to the basement where Sean was lying on the floor. But when the first responding officers took Armand's statement that evening, he said Karen was the one who discovered Sean all on her own. He didn't mention anything about already knowing what was going on.

He also told the cops Sean was watching a baseball game on TV in his bedroom that Saturday afternoon. But Sean didn't even have a TV in his bedroom. So was he mistaken about where he said Sean was watching TV? Or could there be some other explanation?

Even after speaking with both Lynn and Armand, it's still unclear about what exactly happened to Sean between Amy dropping him off at 7 o'clock p.m. on Friday and when he was discovered on Saturday around 5 o'clock, despite both of them being home. So we have Sean's family's version about what happened and what they saw. And we have Armand and Lynn's stories.

Now, what did the police and medical examiner have to say about what caused Sean's death? Was this simply a seizure with a deadly fall? The Rhode Island medical examiner initially reported Sean's death as, quote, blunt force trauma to the head. In his report, he explained that Sean's skull was fractured and there were several other injuries to his head. But in his report, he also noted the strange location of the skull fracture.

Typically, when someone has a seizure and falls, they either land forward or backward, and the injury is either to the front or back of the skull. But Sean's fracture was to the right side of his head, like he had fallen completely sideways, which isn't common for most seizure victims. But the medical examiner couldn't deny the drugs found in Sean's system either, the cocaine.

He also knew about the history of drug and alcohol-induced seizures. So this wasn't the first time that something like this had ever happened to him. Once the medical examiner looked at all the forensic evidence, everything was said and done. He decided to rule on Sean's death. The moment of truth is here. What did the medical examiner decide? Was there enough evidence for a conclusive decision? Stay tuned to find out.

He couldn't say definitively whether this was simply a medical accident or something else caused the blunt force trauma injuries to Sean's head.

Yes, he had drugs and a history of seizures, but some of his injuries weren't necessarily consistent with a seizure-related fall. Plus, the blood all over Sean's part of the duplex and the fresh cut between his toes. None of that seemed to line up with a typical seizure. The conflicting reports about what happened between 7 o'clock p.m. and around 5 o'clock p.m. Saturday were also unsettling.

Everyone that was around Sean, including his roommate, had a different story about what they remembered and what exactly was going on with Sean. What can explain the cuts and scrapes on Armand's face or Sean's missing items? Did the police's delay cause severe issues with the investigation? One year after Sean's death, the Crankston Police Department publicly announced that Armand and Lynn were considered persons of interest in the case.

But that announcement alone didn't lead to any arrests. Both Armand and Lynn are out there living their lives. As of today, Sean's case remains open, and his death is still listed as undetermined. Despite his family's pleas over the years for the police to look harder at Sean's death and consider it a homicide, there has been virtually no progress in the investigation.

Over the years, Sean's family has contacted dozens of independent forensic pathologists to review the autopsy report. Some of them believe his death should be considered a homicide. In one statement, an independent forensic pathologist said, quote, Sean's cause of death was a skull fracture due to a strike by another person, end quote. Independent forensic pathologist Dr. Timothy Gallagher also weighed in.

He said the original medical examiner couldn't 100% rule out the possibility that this was an accident. There weren't any witnesses supporting exactly what happened in those final moments of Sean's life. And Dr. Gallagher is right. There weren't any eyewitnesses, or at least not any who are willing to come forward with the truth.

There are several theories out there to try and explain Sean's death. The first theory is the simple theory. Sean died from a fatal fall after he suffered a seizure. His death is either an accident or natural. But Sean's family completely disagrees. They believe that he was murdered. Sean's family believes he went to sleep after he got home from the bar. At some point during the night, he was struck in the head while in bed.

After that, he was left to die in the basement until his sister came over hours later around 5.30 p.m. According to the family, this theory explains almost everything. The amount of blood in the basement and the location of Sean's injury. Why was he only wearing boxer shorts when his sister found him? According to the family, he would have never walked around the apartment in just his boxers.

so they think that he was probably sleeping when he was attacked. This theory might also help to explain the inconsistencies in Armand and Lynn's statements to the police and, and this is important, why Armand had the cuts and scrapes on his face. But without any eyewitnesses or definitive forensic evidence, it's hard to say exactly what happened in that basement to Sean O'Brien.

Was this a fatal seizure or was this cold-blooded murder? Anyone with information about Sean's death is asked to contact the Crankston Police Department at 401-942-2211 or send your tip to an email at justiceforshawnobryan at gmail.com.

Sean's daughter Natalia is even offering a $1,000 reward from her own money to give to anyone with information leading to an arrest or conviction in her father's case. To share your thoughts on the story, be sure to follow the show on Instagram and Facebook. To find out what I think about the case, sign up to become a patron at patreon.com slash forensic tales.

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