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FEBRUARY 1997 · ST. JOSEPH COUNTY — AFFIRMED 2001
The Indiana Supreme Court's own first sentence states the case: Leif O'Connell “was convicted of one count of murder and five counts of attempted murder and sentenced to 175 years imprisonment in connection with a series of random shootings of African-Americans in St. Joseph County.” On 28 January 1997 O'Connell, with Jerred Kahlenbeck, had visited the Midwest Gun Exchange in South Bend, where O'Connell made a deposit on a Lorcin .38 semi-automatic pistol; he purchased the gun on 11 February. From 12 to 26 February he shot at six people, injuring four and killing one. Robert Wardlow was found dead in the snow on 12 February 1997, a gunshot wound to the abdomen. The five attempted-murder convictions name the surviving victims in the court's account: Jackson, Jones, Jennings, and John and Michael Reese. Kahlenbeck was convicted of one count of murder and four counts of attempted murder.
A jury in the St. Joseph Superior Court convicted O'Connell on all counts in 1999, and the trial court imposed consecutive sentences totaling 175 years. On direct appeal the Indiana Supreme Court affirmed the convictions but found the sentencing statement insufficient to permit meaningful review, and on 2 March 2001 remanded for a new sentencing order — O'Connell v. State, 742 N.E.2d 943. On remand the trial court entered a new sentencing order and imposed the same aggregate sentence of 175 years, and the Court of Appeals affirmed the sentence on 30 November 2001. A first petition for post-conviction relief was denied in 2014. The case stands in this record as the county's documented case of a racial shooting series tried to a conclusion: six people shot at in fifteen days, one man dead, and a sentence the state's courts examined twice and left at 175 years.
Sources:
- O'Connell v. State, 742 N.E.2d 943 (Ind. 2001) — the direct appeal, read first-hand
- O'Connell v. State, No. 71A04-0105-CR-224 (Ind. Ct. App. 30 November 2001), and No. 18A-PC-372 (Ind. Ct. App. 17 December 2018) — the resentencing affirmance and the later course, as recited in the 2018 decision