Daniel Myers: Heather Bogle Murder and Botched Investigation

Daniel Myers is the Ohio man who killed Heather Bogle, a 28-year-old single mother and his coworker at a Whirlpool plant in Clyde, Ohio. He kidnapped her the morning of April 9, 2015, shot her twice in the back, and staged her body in the trunk of her own car. He pleaded guilty in February 2019 to aggravated murder, kidnapping, aggravated robbery, and tampering with evidence, and is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole.¹ The case became notorious for a second reason: the detective who ran the original investigation chased three innocent people while ignoring a tip that named Myers within days of the murder.

What Happened to Heather Bogle

Bogle worked the overnight shift at the Whirlpool factory in Clyde and had recently finished nursing school. She was raising a five-year-old daughter, McKenzie. Security video captured her clocking out at about 6:17 a.m. on April 9, 2015. She never picked her daughter up from school that afternoon, and her mother reported her missing.²

Around 8:00 p.m. the next evening, her body was found in the trunk of her Oldsmobile Alero, parked at the Somerton Apartments in Clyde, about a mile from the plant.³ She had been shot twice in the back at close range. She was dressed in an oversized Mickey Mouse T-shirt that was not hers. Her hair had been cut off at the scalp and her fingernails trimmed to the cuticles, which investigators later concluded was an effort to destroy DNA evidence.⁴ There was no blood or bullet damage in the car, so the killing had happened somewhere else.

The Detective Who Chased the Wrong Suspects

Sandusky County Sheriff’s Detective Sean O’Connell led the original investigation and quickly built a theory around three people who had nothing to do with the murder: Keyona Bor, Omar Satchel, and Kayree Jeffrey. Bor was a single mother who lived at the apartment complex where Bogle’s car turned up. O’Connell latched onto her because of her demeanor, a Mickey Mouse shirt she owned, and a Facebook post referring to “8 to 10 years for murder” that was actually about the prison sentence of her child’s father.⁴ Satchel and Jeffrey were pulled into the same theory with similarly thin evidence.

DNA recovered from under Bogle’s fingernails did not match any of the three. O’Connell knew that and withheld the exculpatory results from prosecutors. He also ignored a tip emailed to his office on April 12, 2015, three days after the murder, in which a Whirlpool employee named Daniel Myers as a potential suspect.³

The damage to the innocent suspects was severe. Bor lost her job, her apartment, and her standing in the community after O’Connell publicly identified her as a suspect. She later said she had “lost time with my children… lost friends… lost family.”⁴

O’Connell was placed on leave in June 2016 and resigned that September. He was indicted on four felonies and pleaded guilty to one count of tampering with evidence for omitting the DNA results. Visiting Judge Patricia Cosgrove sentenced him to two years in state prison in September 2018.² He was released on July 2, 2020, several months early on earned credits.⁵

How Investigators Identified Myers

A new sheriff, Chris Hilton, reopened the case in January 2017. His team pulled Google GPS data from Bogle’s email account and traced her phone’s last known location to a trailer in Emerald Estates in Green Creek Township. The phone was there at 6:30 a.m. on April 9, 2015, thirteen minutes after she clocked out. The trailer belonged to Daniel Myers.⁴

Myers and Bogle worked the same factory line and had left work at the same time that morning. When investigators questioned him, he claimed he barely knew her and had “very, very limited conversation” with her. A warrant produced his DNA, and it matched the trace amount taken from under Bogle’s cuticle.⁶

A search of Myers’ trailer in May 2017 turned up more. He had installed new floorboards less than a week after the murder and replaced his mattress by the end of April 2015, which investigators read as an effort to hide blood and bullet evidence.⁷ He had also visited a dentist to repair two damaged teeth. Prosecutor Tim Braun said Myers had “one cracked tooth and one broken tooth that he repaired with super glue,” which investigators believed came from Bogle fighting back.⁴ A collection of women’s underwear was found in a safe inside the trailer. The gun was never recovered.

Witnesses at the Somerton Apartments described a man with “messed up” teeth acting strangely near Bogle’s car the night her body was found. He asked whether the victim was wearing “shoes with the pink stripe,” a detail only the killer would have known. Investigators concluded Myers drove Bogle’s car to the apartment complex, parked it, and walked roughly 2.8 miles home along a bike path.³

Motive and a History of Violence Against Women

Prosecutors described Myers as a sexual predator driven by “control, domination and humiliation.” Braun said Bogle was going through a rough stretch, including a recent breakup and failing her nursing board exams, and that she went to Myers’ trailer thinking he was a friend. Investigators believe he assaulted her when she rejected his advances.⁴ Myers later told a jail inmate that he had “wanted to console her” after the exam failure and became offended when she laughed at his romantic interest.¹

Myers had prior arrests for domestic violence, child endangerment, and assault. A domestic violence charge was dismissed in 2001. He pleaded no contest to an assault charge in 2004 and served jail time from September through November of that year.⁸ After his arrest for Bogle’s murder, women came forward with more accounts. A 138-page investigative report includes one woman’s statement that Myers raped her, choked her until she “turned purple,” and restrained her with cable ties. Another said he forced her to have sex after she told him no. His own daughter told investigators he had been violent toward women throughout her childhood.⁹

After the murder, Myers attended Bogle’s funeral and donated $125 to a GoFundMe campaign for her daughter. Braun described this as behavior of “the kind of guy who’s trying to look normal.”⁴

Guilty Plea and Life Sentence

Myers was formally charged in June 2017 and indicted by a grand jury on June 12, 2017, with sexual predator specifications.²¹⁰ He is held at Lorain Correctional Institution in Ohio.¹¹

The Leigh Ann Sluder Question

Myers’ arrest also prompted a second look at the 2009 death of his ex-girlfriend, Leigh Ann Sluder. Sluder, 37, was found with a gunshot wound to the chest in a trailer at Emerald Estates on February 28, 2009, with a .22 caliber rifle beside her. Myers found the body and said he had last seen her two days earlier. Her death was ruled a suicide.¹²

Sheriff Hilton reopened the Sluder case in June 2017 and publicly criticized the original work: no gunshot residue tests, no documentation of the rifle’s position relative to the body, and no interviews with neighbors or follow-up on concerns raised by Sluder’s father and ex-husband.¹² Sluder’s sister, Loriann Haley, has said Sluder hated guns and did not know how to operate firearms.¹³ In February 2019, Myers’ family gave investigators a note they said was written by Sluder and found in one of his trailers, and Braun said handwriting analysis and the paper’s physical characteristics suggested it was authentic. A state forensic examiner concluded the blood flow and wound patterns were consistent with self-inflicted injuries and that it was “possible” for Sluder to have reached the trigger. DNA testing on the rifle was inconclusive because the weapon had not been properly secured during the original investigation.¹⁴ Hilton closed the case in March 2019 with the suicide ruling in place. Sluder’s family continues to dispute that conclusion. Myers has never been charged in her death.

1
Toledo Blade. Daniel Myers Pleads Guilty to Murder in Heather Bogle Case
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The News-Messenger. Timeline of Events in Heather Bogle Murder
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The News-Messenger. Myers Seen at Heather Bogle Crime Scene
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CBS News. Heather Bogle Murder Investigation
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Sandusky Register. O’Connell Released From Prison
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The News-Messenger. Man Pleads Guilty to Heather Bogle’s Murder
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CBS News. Heather Bogle Daniel Myers Evidence Photos
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The News-Messenger. Myers Indicted on Aggravated Murder Charges With Sexual Specifications
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The News-Messenger. Money, Power, Sex: Daniel Myers’ Biggest Vices
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Review Times. Heather Bogle’s Killer Gets Life in Prison
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Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Offender Search – Daniel R. Myers (A760861)
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Review Times. Sluder Investigation Not Really
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CBS News. Heather Bogle Murder: Could Daniel Myers Have Killed Before
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The News-Messenger. Sheriff Says Leigh Ann Sluder Suicide Ruling to Stand