“They took away my life, my grandchildren, my dreams”
I. A Life Interrupted
Kristin O’Connell was twenty years old in the summer of 1985 — a college student from Burnsville, Minnesota, studying hotel and restaurant management, with a quiet dream of one day building a life in Hawaii. That August, she traveled to Ovid, a small rural town in New York’s Finger Lakes region, to visit a young man she had met months earlier during a spring break trip to Florida. It was meant to be a brief, carefree interlude before the school year resumed. It became the last trip she would ever take. The day after she arrived, Kristin called her mother, Phyllis, from a payphone. She was cutting the visit short, she said. She’d be home the very next day. She never made it. On the night of August 14th, Kristin left a party and was seen walking alone around 11:00 p.m. — barefoot, without her purse. Witnesses later reported seeing her speaking with one or possibly two men in a car between 11:30 p.m. and 12:15 a.m. Roughly ten minutes later, neighbors heard a scream cut through the quiet night. Two days later, her nude body was discovered in a nearby cornfield. She had been stabbed in the chest. Her throat had been cut. Kristin O’Connell’s life — full of promise, full of plans — was extinguished in an act of savage violence. Her death left a silence so profound it still echoes today.
II. The Crime: A Summer That Turned Cold
From the outset, investigators faced serious obstacles. A storm swept through Ovid on the night of Kristin’s murder, potentially washing away critical physical evidence at the scene. Forensic science in 1985 bore little resemblance to what it is today — DNA analysis was in its infancy, and many techniques now considered standard simply did not exist. Witness accounts were inconsistent, and some in the community were reluctant to speak. What investigators did piece together was fragmentary and troubling. Kristin’s clothing, purse, and shoes were never recovered. An anonymous 911 call received days after the murder referenced a green Chevy parked in nearby Waterloo, suggesting its trunk might contain something relevant to the case. The tip led nowhere. In the years that followed, investigators pursued more than 2,000 leads. Not one resulted in an arrest. The case grew cold. But for Phyllis O’Connell, nothing about it ever would.
III. A Mother’s Grief
The call came on August 15th, 1985. Phyllis O’Connell’s world collapsed. Her younger son Kyle, then fifteen years old, never forgot the moment his mother received the news — the shrill, piercing scream she let out, a sound that needed no words to convey the depth of what had just been lost. It was the sound of a mother confronting the unthinkable. Losing a child to homicide is a categorically different experience from other forms of grief. Research consistently shows that parents in this situation face elevated risks of PTSD, prolonged grief disorder, depression, and anxiety. The trauma is not abstract — it is visceral and recurring. An ordinary scent, a flash of color, an old voicemail — any of these can trigger a collapse years, even decades, later. And unlike grief that softens with time, the grief of an unsolved homicide has no natural endpoint. Every passing year without answers is its own fresh wound. For Phyllis, grief and resolve became inseparable. The pain never left. Neither did the determination.
IV. Forty Years of Unwavering Advocacy
On the day she learned Kristin was gone, Phyllis made a promise to her daughter. She would not stop. Not until there were answers. Not until there was justice. She has kept that promise for four decades. Every year, Phyllis has returned to the Finger Lakes region — a pilgrimage to the place where she last knew her daughter to be alive. She has maintained persistent contact with investigators, appealed repeatedly to media outlets, collaborated with journalists, podcast producers, and documentary filmmakers, and fought bureaucratic resistance at every turn. Her most concrete battle came when she sought to have physical evidence tested using advanced “touch DNA” technology by a renowned Dutch forensic laboratory. The New York State Department of Health blocked the effort — not on scientific grounds, but because the Amsterdam-based lab was not certified in New York State. A mother’s best chance at a breakthrough was stopped by paperwork. She has also encountered resistance in accessing records from the New York State Police, a frustration shared by the documentary crew she collaborated with in hopes of bringing wider attention to the case. None of it stopped her. As Phyllis herself has said: “She was my daughter, and they’re not going to kill my daughter and walk away.” She is writing sabook about her journey. She has spoken to anyone willing to listen. And in July 2023, nearly 38 years after Kristin’s murder, billboards appeared along roads near Ovid displaying a tip line number — a renewed, visible call for anyone with information to come forward. Then, on the 40th anniversary of her death, a memorial walk was held in Ovid, NY and Burnsville, MN to remind the community that Krsitin has not been forgotten and that justice should never go cold.
The New York State Police continue to list Kristin’s case as an active investigation.
V. How CCAH Has Supported the O’Connell Family
Over the past five years, Cold Cases Advocacy has walked alongside Phyllis O’Connell as both a resource and a partner in her fight for justice. Supporting the Kristin’s Law petition effort, providing advocacy guidance, helping facilitate media connections and offering emotional support when the journey to justice encountered a road block. For me, the O’Connell case is the embodiment of why this organization exists. To support the O’Connell families latest funding drive for DNA evidence testing, please click here.
VI. The Fight for Reform: Kristin’s Law
Phyllis O’Connell’s personal battle has grown into something larger than one case. It has become a movement. According to the Murder Accountability Project, there are currently 30,309 unsolved homicide cases in New York State alone. These are not abstractions — they are families living in the same suspended anguish Phyllis has endured for forty years. In response, the family has launched a petition calling on New York State lawmakers to propse a new bill we are calling Kristin’s Law — a NY State Homicide Victims’ Family Rights Act modeled on federal legislation. To learn more about this legal reform effort and to support Phyllis, go here The petition calls for:
- Families’ legal rights in cold case investigations, including the right to updates and the right to request review
- Access to accredited private labs for evidence testing when state resources are insufficient or unavailable
- A dedicated, state-funded cold case investigative unit staffed with experienced investigators approaching cases with fresh eyes
- An Independent Review Board to prioritize and re-examine cases that have gone cold for five or more years
- Mandatory annual training for investigators in current DNA methods and forensic technology
These reforms reflect what Phyllis learned the hard way: that without enforceable rights, families are at the mercy of systems that are under-resourced, inconsistent, and sometimes actively resistant to outside scrutiny. Sign the petition for Kristin’s Law here 
Help Phyllis Keep Her Promise:
- Sign the petition: We need your support
- Share this story: Awareness brings pressure—and pressure brings action.
- Contact your lawmakers:Demand cold case reform be made a legislative priority.
- Explore Kristin’s digital case file and timeline. You may have a tip that can help solve the case!
- Listen to the podcast series on her cold case brought to you by Method and Madness
- Visit our first ever campaign page Campaign Advocacy: Support The NYS Cold Case Reform Effort in NY State and learn more about supporting the families legislative efforts.
References
- New York State Police — Homicide Victim: Kristin M. O’Connell
- CBS News Minnesota — Cold Case: Kristin O’Connell
- Finger Lakes Times — Police Seek Help on Cold Case (2009)
- Auburn Citizen — Health Dept. Blocks DNA Test in Old Murder
- WHAM 13 — NY State Police Reject Outside Help with Cold Case (2021)
- WENY News — Community Gathers to Remember Kristin O’Connell (2025)
- NY Senate — Senator Nozzolio Backs Touch DNA Testing
- Murder Accountability Project
- Project: Cold Case — Cold Case Homicide Stats
- Kristin’s Law Petition — Change.org
- PMC — Prolonged Grief Disorder in Bereaved Parents
- PMC — Losing a Loved One to Homicide: Mental Health Correlates
- ScienceDirect — Rates of Prolonged Grief Disorder by Cause of Death