WHITE CO.—Friends and family of a young man who reportedly died by his own hand in mid-July are questioning authorities’ versions of events that resulted in his death.
Ryan O’Neil, 30, originally of Mt. Vernon, Ind., but most recently living in the Dogtown area of White County (near Maunie, by the Wabash River), died from what’s being termed a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the chest in the early morning hours of Saturday, July 13, 2013.
What has family concerned is that there was a confirmed second wound to O’Neil’s leg, just below the groin area.
How the man could have shot himself twice, say his family, isn’t so much at issue as the sequence of the wounds: how would O’Neil have been able to inflict the second, deadly wound to the chest while suffering from the first, no doubt very painful, wound to the leg, is what they question.
However, White County authorities believe that’s just what happened, despite the family’s questions.
Exacerbating the situation is the woman O’Neil was seeing, and her situation in the area, which neighbors say is questionable at best.
Official story is suicide
The official story is that O’Neil, at the residence of Rebecca Miller Phelps, 39, shot himself while lying in bed at 4:20 that morning.
According to authorities, there were “others in the residence at the time of the shooting” and that there was “one other person in the room when O’Neil allegedly took his own life.”
Further investigation found that it was Phelps herself who was “in the room” with O’Neil, and, according to Phelps herself, she was on the bed with him.
Phelps ultimately told family (at an inappropriate venue—the funeral in Mt. Vernon, Ind.) that she “didn’t hear the first gunshot” because she was asleep.
Apparently, her allusion is that she did wake up as a result of the second, fatal, gunshot.
There has been no information available as to what kind of weapon was used.
A report that Phelps’ 11-year-old son was also either in or on the bed with the two has been refuted by authorities, but the indication that this was the case continued to persist in the form of information coming from those close to Phelps.
Inappropriate comments at funeral
The funeral, according to family, was very revealing as regards Phelps’ character and what’s going on in her life.
Witnesses advised that she was “talking a mile a minute” and when she first entered the funeral home for the visitation, she was sobbing loudly, then broke into erratic laughter, which was then followed by more sobbing, and so on and so on.
She discussed inappropriate subject matter with relatives of O’Neil’s, including his grandfather (a former law enforcement officer in Mt. Vernon). The subjects she insisted on discussing with the older gentleman were her sex life with his grandson, and the fact that she had “slept on the bed last night where he killed himself.
“It didn’t bother me a bit,” Phelps was overheard by many people telling the gentleman, who appeared horrified but had enough dignity to not make a scene. “I’m going to have to have someone get me another top mattress, but I slept on the same sheets” where the blood still was, she was overheard stating. Whether the sheets had been washed or not remained unclear.
Quite the mess in Dogtown
Sources who are familiar with Phelps advise that what’s going on at the residence and the properties surrounding it remains questionable at best, as well.
Phelps and her children live in a two-bedroom trailer on the property, which also intermittently houses up to three more people depending on the day, this according to those intimately familiar with the residence.
Phelps, the source advises, tends to have 20-something boyfriends whom she meets in area bars.
A 17-year-old daughter has recently returned to the trailer in Dogtown to console her mother; this daughter, state sources who know her well, had been living with a 23-year-old boyfriend in Kentucky until this incident.
There is also a 15-year-old daughter, then the 11-year-old son. The absent father, Troy Hildenbrand, lives in Evansville and does not come to Illinois frequently as there is a warrant in this state for failure to pay child support, this dating back to 1993.
Sources indicate that the trailer is a rental, and that the landlord comes to the property frequently, along with any other errant person who ends up crashing in the trailer.
They also state that Phelps’ parents are on the same property in a house; Phelps’ brother and his wife live in a trailer on the property; and campers are also out on the property, oftentimes occupied, but by whom is unclear as it changes frequently.
“Kids run amok constantly,” said an eyewitness in the days after the shooting. “Parents and kids drinking all the time. There is NO parental supervision.”
“On any given weekend night,” said a second source, “they are usually having a big bonfire party with plenty of booze and toddlers running around.”
As regards Phelps herself being unaware of the gunshots, this source reports that “all the kids who were on the property said they heard two gunshots.”
How Phelps could have missed the first one is unknown.
Family continues search for answers
Into this mess was inserted Ryan O’Neil, who, family and friends insist, was a “really good guy” and was “caught up in all that.”
So concerned were the O’Neils about the situation that they had his body autopsied a second time, by an Indiana doctor, before preparing him for burial.
White County Coroner Chris Marsh advised Disclosure that he himself didn’t test O’Neil’s hands for gunpowder residue, but was unclear as to whether ISP, who had called in Crime Scene Investigators, had tested for same, on either O’Neil or on Phelps’ hands—or anyone else’s in the residence, for that matter.
Calls to ISP’s Master Sergeant Jay Hall went unreturned as of press time, as they usually do.
The family continues to pursue requests for information about the situation, which, they say, doesn’t make sense, doesn’t add up, and may be more than it appears.