Man 'robbed' of 10 years of his life

FREMONT — It has been 10 years since the murder of Heather Bogle, and it has been eight years since her actual killer was identified. But, despite that long period of time, mistakes made by law enforcement continue to impact people's lives a decade later. That was the case for Keyona Bor, one of three individuals publicly implicated in the crime by now-former Sandusky County sheriff's Detective Sean O'Connell. Bor was eventually cleared of any wrongdoing — and Bogle's actual killer, Daniel Myers, was identified, tried and imprisoned. Myers is now a 55-year-old serving a life sentence at Lorain Correctional Institution. "O'Connell submitted false evidence and was trying to get (Bor) convicted of this murder, and she didn't even know this lady," said 49-year-old Julian Kiser, who shares two children with Bor. "And it was because of me, his hate for me." Bor previously told the Register that she believes the reason she was targeted by O'Connell was as a way to get back at Kiser for appealing his 2014 criminal conviction in his drug trafficking case. Kiser, who spent about 10 years in prison in that case, something O'Connell investigated, spoke of his numerous past interactions with the former detective and how it's taken a toll on his life. A path of destruction O'Connell served as a Fremont police officer and later as a detective with the city police for many years. He retired from the Fremont Police Department in 2012 and was appointed as a sheriff's detective by former Sandusky County Sheriff Kyle Overmyer. O'Connell's misconduct, however, dates back many years, some as far as the 90s. One notable case in which O'Connell was involved is the shooting death of 19-year-old Jacob Limberios, who was killed in a York Township home in 2012. Limberios' family blamed the former detective for failing to provide them with an opportunity to get justice as well as refusing to follow the evidence in the case. His father, Mike Limberios, who is now deceased, previously told the Register that O'Connell frequently misled him about the evidence in his son's case. On Sept. 13, 2018, the former sheriff's detective was sentenced to two years in prison after previously pleading guilty to one count of tampering with evidence, a third-degree felony. The visiting judge in the case, Patricia Cosgrove, previously said that the tampering with evidence charge stems from a letter sent to former Sandusky County prosecutor Tom Stierwalt from O'Connell concerning his investigation into the Heather Bogle homicide, in which O'Connell reportedly misled Stierwalt. In exchange for O'Connell's plea, seven other charges were dismissed. Cosgrove said that the sources listed in the letter gave O'Connell false information, including that one person allegedly failed a polygraph test. O'Connell allegedly knew this information was a lie, but still sent it to Stierwalt anyway. At his sentencing, the judge asked O'Connell about why he didn't respond to an email that he had received just days after Bogle's body was discovered inside the trunk of her car on April 10, 2015. The person who sent O'Connell the email claimed that a co-worker of Bogle's at Clyde's Whirlpool plant was "capable of doing that." In June 2017, Myers was charged with the murder of Heather Bogle. Myers was arrested months after O'Connell was removed from the case and had worked with Bogle at Whirlpool. At one point during the hearing, O'Connell claimed hundreds of people who work at the Whirlpool plant might have been capable of brutally killing someone. One of the people present at the hearing, a victim of O'Connell's misconduct, was Bor. "I've lost all credibility, I've lost numerous jobs," she said during the hearing. "I've lost every single thing I've had because of this man." O'Connell was released from prison on July 2, 2020. On his radar Kiser said that O'Connell first accused him of being involved in the May 1995 murder case of 27-year-old Jesus Rivas. "I was a teenager. I had nothing to do with this case, but he accused me and a friend of mine," Kiser said. "And he was mad that I didn't testify against my friend." On July 19, 1995, Kiser was ultimately found not guilty on all counts listed in his indictment, including two counts of attempted murder, two counts of felonious assault, one count of robbery, and one count of abduction, according to court records. Kiser said that his second run-in with O'Connell was when he was in his senior year of college at Kent State University, when he ended up serving five years in prison after he claims O'Connell falsely accused him of stealing money from a girl's purse. Kiser was supposed to take his MCATs, also known as the Medical College Admission Test, that year, a test widely used for those who want to enter medical school. On Sept. 4, 2003, Kiser was found guilty on one count of aggravated robbery, a first-degree felony, and ordered to serve five years in prison. He was later sentenced in the 2014 drug trafficking case to 10 years in prison. Kiser did prove — in multiple appeals to the state's Sixth District Court of appeals — that prosecutors made errors in his case that "prejudiced or prevented him from having a fair proceeding." He won a retrial and resentencing, but was ultimately found guilty and the 10-year sentence remained. Picking up the pieces Kiser's term expired earlier this year, and he is now out of prison on five years of probation. Despite all the pain and lost time, Kiser said he wants to be in his kids' lives and be a productive member of society. "My son with Keyona was 2 years old when I got sentenced, and he's a teenager now and is a straight-A 4.0 student. Both of my kids are straight-A students," Kiser said. "I feel like I have been robbed, 10 years of my life, for something that wasn't mine, for a personal vendetta that O'Connell had against me." Kiser said that being released from prison after 10 years has been difficult, as the world he once knew has completely changed. "It's an adjustment, I'm adjusting, I spent 10 years, a whole decade of my life behind bars," Kiser said. "I'm thankful that I got another shot, but spending 10 years in prison for something I didn't do is a hard pill to swallow. I'm a stronger person, and I'm going to get through it. I just want to be there for the rest of my kids' lives." In terms of O'Connell's two-year prison sentence, Kiser believes that O'Connell should have faced additional criminal charges, but is pleased to know that O'Connell finally knew what it was like to be incarcerated. "For 10 years of my life, I was away from my family. I lost my little brother, I lost my father, I lost two uncles, and I lost two cousins during that time," Kiser said. Part of Kiser's time in prison was during the global COVID-19 pandemic, which he said was a difficult time. "I caught COVID and pneumonia," Kiser said. "I was on a ventilator for 13 days at Marion Correctional. "There was people dying around me, left and right there," he continued. "Close to 30 people died. I almost died."