Shawn O'Brien's Daughter Thinks Death Might Have Been an Accidental Killing -

Natalia St. Louis, the daughter of Shawn O'Brien, a man who died in 2006 under mysterious circumstances has dismissed the police's version of events.

O'Brien, 34, of Cranston, Rhode Island, was found lying in a pool of blood on his apartment floor after being found by one of his sisters on July 22, 2006. Her concern for his well-being was raised when he failed to show up for work the same day.

First responders arrived at the scene and believed the incident was a medical call as O'Brien had a history of seizures. They also did not see any signs of struggle.

Three days after being admitted to Rhode Island Hospital, O'Brien died and an autopsy by the Rhode Island medical examiner's office concluded that the cause of death was blunt force trauma to the head.

The autopsy report that followed was partly inconclusive and the Cranston Police Chief Col. Michael Winquist said authorities are not exactly clear on how the blunt force trauma occurred, Providence news station WJAR reported in 2021.

Speaking to Newsweek about her father's death, St. Louis highlighted one of the theories was her father suffered a seizure and fell, smashing his skull. She said she was not satisfied with this conclusion by the police and offered her own theory of his death.

"There was a theory that [O'Brien] had a seizure and fell down the stairs and that the injuries to his head are a result of that but if you look at where he was found in relation to the stairs it doesn't really add up," St. Louis told Newsweek.

"So my theory is that there was some type of altercation either Friday night or Saturday morning on the weekend that he was found," she said. "He was struck with something, what I don't know...a bat or a heavy object like that. He was struck and then [the person/people left], I always wondered if, whoever it was didn't mean to kill him but it was just part of an argument, so that is my theory."

St. Louis has also taken issue with the police's conduct during the initial investigation into her father's death and pointed out what she believed to be mistakes they had made from the beginning.

Newsweek reached out to the Cranston Police Department via email for comment.

"I think one of the things, one of their big mistakes, is that the crime scene was not sealed for five days," she said. "They would acknowledge that, 'yeah we should have sealed it, we didn't realize it was a crime scene.' There is DNA that has not been tested that has blood evidence on it, to me that is kind of a no-brainer.

"You look at all of these cold cases from 30, 40, 50 years ago and they get solved with DNA. Just send it away, it is not that big of a deal," St. Louis said. "They interviewed the suspects together, there is nothing they can do about this now, but they interviewed suspects together for their first interview."

The suspects St. Louis was referring to was O'Brien's roommate on the first floor, Armand Rouleau and Rouleau's then-girlfriend, Lynn Hallal.

Police did consider them people of interest a year after O'Brien's death, according to the WJAR report.

St. Louis stated that at this point she is not sure whether anyone will ever be charged in connection with the death of her father but she did note things she believes the police can still do.

She said she would like all DNA from the scene to be retested, the police to classify his death as a homicide, and for the Rhode Island State Police to step in and get involved in reinvestigating his death.

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