Funeral Home Death Mystery in Wisconsin

Feb. 6, 2002 -- The shooting deaths of a Wisconsin mortician and his assistant have baffled police, who say they have no suspects, no weapon and no motive in the slayings.

Police said O'Connell Family Funeral Home Director Daniel O'Connell and his intern, James Ellison, were found shot to death early this morning in an office in the back of the funeral home building in the small town of Hudson, a town of approximately 6,000 located about 18 miles outside of St. Paul, Minn.

Marty Shanklin, a coroner, went to the funeral home to get a death certificate signed and discovered the bodies, police said.

Police believe O'Connell and Ellison were murdered but they have no potential motive. They said they were no signs of a robbery or burglary. A murder-suicide seems unlikely because they have not found a weapon. But police have found some shell casings.

No Leads, Unproven Theory

"We really don't have leads much more than what we have at the scene right now," said Sgt. Marty Jensen of the Hudson Police Department. "We are trying to piece some things together, some indication of where we might want to take this investigation.

"We have received reports from some agencies in the city that [criminals] might be involved in taking chemicals from funeral homes and using them to soak their marijuana cigarettes or regular cigarettes in, but we have not been able to prove a robbery or anything like that," Jensen added.

O'Connell, 39, ran the O'Connell Family Funeral Home with his brother and father.

Ellison, 22, as a senior mortuary science major at the University of Minnesota. He attended two years of college at the University of Wisconsin-River Falls before transferring in 2000, his brother told The Associated Press.

Jensen said the fatal shootings were Hudson's first since 1978.