Homicide victim’s sister on defendant: ‘Everything she said was a lie’
June was a traumatic month for Phil Campbell resident Crystil O’Kelley. Actually, as she explains, it’s been right at the top of the worst months of her 43 years of life.
On June 3rd, she was notified that Ronnie Shane O’Kelley, her brother, was found dead on the bathroom floor of his Phil Campbell home.
What made the news worse was learning he’d been there at least 18 hours without anyone checking on him, even with his roommate, Beverly Renea Dyer, at home.
Then another crushing blow came as details of Ronnie’s final hours emerged as part of a homicide investigation by the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, bolstered by Crystil and her family’s diligence to find answers to the mystery of what caused her brother’s death.
O’Kelley died shortly after Dyer, his former girlfriend who Crystil said lived in his house rent-free in return for helping take care of him, injected him with a syringe containing an unknown substance, suspected of being methamphetamine, investigators later learned.
Crystil said her brother had been clean for more than six months prior to his death, but Ronnie had recently shared with his sister that he was battling strong temptations to use again.
A former addict herself, Crystil said Ronnie came to her house two days before his death and described how his craving to use had grown stronger, almost to the point where he was ready to succumb to it.
“I told him how he was doing so much better with his breathing and his overall health,” Crystil said. “He was clean for six months, but he watched some movie that caused his craving to get worse, to the point where his mouth was watering to use again,” she added.
O’Kelley suffered from Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease (COPD) and the disease had progressed to the point where he was on oxygen 24 hours a day, his sister told the FFP.
Rumors and gossip swirled on social media about O’Kelley’s death and his character, most of which were untrue, but hurtful nonetheless.
There’s a side of her brother the world may not have known, but Crystil saw it every day. And she decided it was time to share the truth about who Ronnie Shane O’Kelley really was, beyond the callous, rush-to-judgment mischaracterizations, beyond what most folks knew about him and well beyond the vicious gossip.
“He and I have the same dad,” Crystil said of Ronnie. “He also has a sister and two brothers on his mom’s side. And Ronnie had a biological son, Zach, who was adopted by a family member after Ronnie realized he couldn’t give his son the childhood he deserved. But they still had a good relationship and he loved his son.
“Ronnie was a Godly man who opened his home to others in need. He always looked for a way to help people,” Crystil said.
“Ronnie was an experienced mechanic, having worked in tire shops. He loved music, loved his family and he was loved,” she added.
Dyer was charged with Manslaughter and Unlawful Distribution of a Controlled Substance and arrested 15 days after O’Kelley’s death. As of June 25th, she remained in the Franklin County Jail with a $60,000 bond.
On June 3rd, Crystil got a telephone call from her cousin, who lives in a camper next to Ronnie’s home.
“She told me to come over right now because Ronnie is dead,” Crystil said. “As I was going over there, I saw a deputy sitting at 243 where the auction used to be. So I pulled up beside him and told him what happened, so he followed me over there.
“When we got over there, I go in and find Ronnie face down on the bathroom floor with his pants pulled down. I knew he had a security camera in his bedroom because he said people were stealing from him. When I talked to Beverly about what happened, she told me Ronnie was alive at midnight when she took him a barbecue sandwich. I eventually found out everything she said was all lies,” she added.
The cousin told Crystil that Ronnie had video from the camera downloaded to his phone, so deputies searched through his phone trying to find the app, but were unsuccessful.
When Crystil and the deputy arrived at Ronnie’s home,Dyer’s son, Michael White, allegedly tried to leave with a backpack through the back door, but was detained. The backpack allegedly contained a meth pipe, resulting in White’s arrest for Unlawful Possession of a Controlled Substance.
O’Kelley’s death resulted from a heart attack, the Franklin County Coroner ruled.
From the deteriorated condition of her brother’s body, though, Crystilbelieved that Dyer’s version of what happened was a lie.
“We had to have him cremated. We couldn’t even view the body because the looked so bad after laying there for so long,” Crystil said.
She realized investigators could not make an arrest without evidence to support her theory. After learning a search of Ronnie’s phone showed no stored camera footage, Crystil decided to confront Beverly about the camera and its SD card that contained the stored video.
“So she comes outside and hands me the card in the camera. She said she’d been trying to watch it but couldn’t view it on her laptop,” Crystil said. “I told her I believed she was lying, and she said when I saw the video I’d owe her an apology.”
That apology never came though, as video from Ronnie’s hidden camera showed Dyer making the shot, injecting Ronnie and watching him struggle shortly thereafter, Crystil said.
“He was disoriented and fell. She walks out of the bathroom just leaving him there on the floor, where he ends up dying. For more than 17 hours she never came back to check on him even though she was living there in return for providing care. And when Beverly did find him, she started texting and picking up itemsfrom the floor, waiting another hour before calling 911,” she added.
Video showed that from the time Dyer prepared the shot and injected Ronnie and when he fell to the ground, it was less than 10 minutes, Crystil said.
“It wasn’t long before he fell to the floor face down, and she knew Ronnie was sick before she ever injected him,” Crystil said.
According to sheriff’s investigators, Dyer failed to disclose she had injected O’Kelley when she was first interviewed on the day his body was discovered. After investigators received the video evidence from Crystil, they again confronted Dyer who then admitted to injecting O’Kelley with methamphetamine. Investigators say Dyer also admitted knowingly withholding the information because she “believed she would be arrested for causing (O’Kelley’s) death.”
When investigators went to arrest Dyer, her son Michael White, it’s alleged, tried to leave with a backpack through the back door, but was stopped by officers. The backpack allegedly contained a meth pipe, resulting in White’s arrest for Unlawful Possession of a Controlled Substance.
O’Kelley said after she confronted her, Dyer took the camera from Ronnie’s bedroom and put it up in her bedroom. And Crystil isn’t sure the syringe had methamphetamine in it at all, suspecting it could have been fentanyl instead.
Regardless, Crystil thinks her brother likely did ask Dyer to help him use again.
“I do believe that, but if you’re going to get high with someone, stick a needle in their arm, then you need to stay there with them, especially when you know the person has COPD,” Crystil said.
“I think Ronnie died not long after he fell. When he fell, he hit the bathroom door, and the door slammed closed. You can see the walls shake, it slammed so hard. Beverly said she made him a sandwich at midnight, took it to him and he ate every bite. All lies. She had people in that house getting high with her after she shot him up but never went to go check on him. That’s what happened,” Crystil said.
Crystil said she will be forever grateful to the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, specifically the hard work of Kyle Palmer, Billy Burks and XXXX Bohannon, the deputy who followed Crystil to her brother’s home, in making the case against Dyer.
And in a testament to her brother, Crystil’s diligence helped law enforcement close the case against Dyer.
“People see that now—everything she said was lies. And I hope people learned something about who my brother really was,” Crystil said.
Mission accomplished