A Manatee County grand jury found that evidence in the Jan. 1, 2009 death of Sheena Morris in a hotel room in Bradenton Beach was insufficient to establish a homicide, according to a May 14 press release from 12th Judicial Circuit State Attorney Ed Brodsky.
The Statewide Prosecutor’s office took the case to a grand jury after Morris’ mother, Kelly Osborn, insisted her daughter’s death was not a suicide, as Bradenton Beach police concluded at the scene. Osborn had taken the case to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the Dr. Phil TV show and the media trying to prove Morris’ fiance was to blame for her death. He was never charged.
Jurors heard testimony from Bradenton Beach police, Florida Department of Law Enforcement officers, five medical examiners – two of them Osborn’s – her crime scene expert and two members of Morris’ family.
Osborne wrote on her Facebook page:
“I Kelly Osborn, mother of Sheena Morris am only speaking for myself… I am disappointed and exhausted from the last 12 years. It was a long fought battle to have Sheena’s case heard. It is my opinion that the “evidence is insufficient ” because the Bradenton Beach Police Department FAILED to do their jobs 12 years ago. The so-called FDLE investigation 4 YEARS LATER was exactly what they named the case, “Operation Beach Assist”. We know what they did and didn’t do.
I would like to thank Ed Brodsky for turning the case over to the Office of Statewide Prosecution and for Cass Castillo’s hard work. I would like to thank the jurors for their hard work as well.
Thank you to all the members of the media for your years of support & coverage in the death of my daughter Sheena Lee Morris. To the Bradenton Beach Police Department – You need to leave death investigations and domestic violence cases to the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office like you do with DWI’s. Stick to what you do best, loud noise complaints and parking tickets.”
BRADENTON BEACH – More than 10 years after Sheena Morris’ death was determined to be a suicide, her mother says she has new evidence that her daughter was murdered.
Morris was found dead by police, hanging in a shower by her dog’s leash in room 525 of the BridgeWalk Resort on New Year’s Day 2009 after staff reported hearing dogs barking inside. Bradenton Beach police determined that her death was a suicide.
But Kelly Osborn has never given up the fight to prove her belief that her daughter was murdered at age 22 by her then-fiancé, 45-year-old Joseph Genoese, after an argument that prompted a call to Bradenton Beach police. Two officers spoke to Morris shortly after 1 a.m., after Genoese had left, according to Bradenton Beach Police Department (BBPD) records. Later that day, around 2 p.m., BBPD responded again, this time to assist staff with an eviction due to the barking dogs. Instead, they and discovered Morris’ body. Genoese was not charged. Bradenton Beach police did not return calls Monday.
After asking the BBPD, the Manatee County Sheriff’s Office and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement to revisit the case, the official manner of death remained “suicide.” Osborn said the FDLE investigation unfairly focused on her daughter’s character, publishing information such as her previous employment as an exotic dancer, and concluding there was no evidence of a homicide.
Osborn staged a “March for Justice” in Pinellas County, where she lives, criticizing law enforcement for their conclusions.
She took the case to the Dr. Phil show, where Genoese failed a lie detector test on national television.
Joseph Genoese and Sheena Morris – Submitted
Now she’s taking new evidence to the press.
Osborne hired Pensacola-based private investigator Jan Johnson, of Forensic Pieces, a certified Senior Crime Scene Analyst who spent her career with the FBI, FDLE and Escambia County Sheriff’s Office, according to the company’s website.
Johnson asked Osborn to look at photos from the scene again last year.
“I didn’t want to go there again,” Osborn said. So Johnson narrowed it down to one photo, taken at the scene, showing marks in a geometric pattern on Sheena’s lower back that she says match the wicker pattern in a chair pictured in the hotel room.
The wicker hotel chair pattern compared to marks on Sheena Morris’ lower back, in a photo taken after her death. – Jan Johnson | Submitted
“I looked at it and I’m like, ‘Oh my God. Now I know.’ But I‘ve known all along,” Osborn said.
When the hotel redecorated, Osborn said she was able to obtain one of the chairs so that investigators could take measurements and better compare them to the photo of the marks on her daughter’s back.
What they found, according to Johnson, is that Morris must have been seated in the wicker chair after her death, indicating that she was moved to the shower and hung by someone else.
Forensic Pieces investigators say that the marks were caused by a process called “lividity,” in which blood pools in the body after the heart stops pumping at death. The marks were not detected in the autopsy because Morris’ body was moved to a horizontal position on a gurney before the lividity became fixed, or permanent, according to investigators.
The marks show that the hanging was staged, according to Forensic Pieces, which has used the case to teach law enforcement investigators about how murders can be staged as suicides.
“We’re trying to get them to take a second look at the new evidence,” Johnson said. “We would like somebody to reopen the case. FDLE has a lab; they could submit this to their lab.”
Meanwhile, Osborn, who lives about six miles from the man she suspects of murdering her daughter, is not planning any more marches for justice.
“I know that my daughter was murdered. I could only hope that justice could be served. But right now, sometimes there’s justice, and sometimes there’s just us.”
