NAPOLEON, Ohio — In the early morning hours of Oct. 29, 2022, a close friend of Oscar Sweeney Jr. spotted his white GMC Canyon pickup parked next to her Jeep in the employee parking lot of the Campbell Soup Supply Company in Napoleon.
A dense fog had settled over the region and there was a late fall chill in the air, with the temperature dipping to 41 degrees overnight. 11 Investigates has reviewed police reports and body-camera footage from Henry County sheriff's deputies that detail what happened in the parking lot in those dark hours.
Despite the near-freezing temperatures, the driver and passenger windows were down in Sweeney’s truck.
For several months, Sweeney and the woman had been in a relationship. Despite the affair, she was trying to salvage her marriage and had turned down an invitation from Sweeney to celebrate his son’s birthday the previous night at Sweetwater Chophouse in Defiance.
After declining the invitation, the woman received several disturbing texts from Sweeney, indicating that he had been drinking and hinting that he was going to kill himself. When she arrived to work, she learned that Sweeney had not clocked in for his 11 p.m. shift.
As she approached his truck, she could see he was slumped toward the center of the vehicle. She nudged him. Thinking he was sleeping, she pushed on him harder. Getting no response, she headed to the guard shack, about 100 yards from the vehicles.
At 7 a.m., a security guard went to the truck with the woman. When he opened the door, the dome light popped on and illuminated blood throughout the cab of the truck.
Sweeney, 46, was dead. Around 7:30, a Henry County paramedic poked his head into the truck and declared, “This is going to be a suicide. The gun is right there on the console.”
Nearly a year after his brother’s death, Jay Sweeney doesn’t see it that way. 11 Investigates asked him, “You believe your brother was murdered?”
He didn't hesitate. “No doubt," he said, "One hundred percent.”
A troubled man with big plans
Decades of research have proven that genetics play a large role in depression and anxiety. For Oscar Sweeney, his family battled the disorders for several decades. When he was 6 years old, his mother died by suicide. In September, 2021, his oldest son, Oscar III, took his life. 11 Investigates has reviewed medical records that show that Sweeney also was struggling emotionally before his death. He was being treated for manic depression and panic attacks and he was also drinking excessively.
But in the months before his death, he made a promise to his surviving family members, including sons Simeon, 21, and Andrew, 17. He also had two stepsons, Ethan, 26, and Quentin, 25.
“I didn’t know until afterwards, but he had promised his kids that he would never do what his son had done. That’s the one thing about us as a family – when we make a promise, we’ll do everything we can to uphold that promise,” Jay Sweeney said.
According to family members, Oscar Sweeney was in good spirits during dinner with Simeon and his son’s fiancée. And according to Jay Sweeney, the brothers had big plans for the months ahead.
“We were actually working on a project to go to Arizona. We were going out there to prospect for gold. We were getting the equipment together,” he said.
Jay Sweeney said he would have confided in him if he had been suicidal.
“We have talked about other things, about family and life in general, but there was nothing to indicate he’d take his own life.”
RELATED: 11 Investigates: Toledo police seeking tips to help solve the 1995 killing of a young woman
Questions about the scene
After Oscar Sweeney’s body was removed from his pickup, he was placed in the back of a Napoleon ambulance. He was examined by Henry County Coroner Dr. Melinda Fritz, who determined that Sweeney was shot through the left temple. The 9 mm bullet traveled upward and exited near his scalp on the right side of his head. He was wearing a red ball cap, which had a hole on the right side.
Her findings were confirmed by Dr. Jeffrey Hudson, a deputy coroner for Lucas County, who also noted that there was a muzzle imprint on the skin adjacent to the entrance wound and soot under his skin, indicating the gun was placed directly against his skin and fired.
On the night of his brother’s death, Jay Sweeney said investigators asked him, “was Oscar right-handed or left-handed?"
"He was right-handed,” Jay Sweeney said. “At that point, they both looked at each other, which gave me an indication that something wasn’t right.”
There were a couple things that were troubling about the scene. It would be unusual for a right-handed person to shoot himself with his left hand. Since the entrance wound was on the left side, the gun was likely fired with the left hand.
Jay Schramm, a retired Toledo police detective and current private investigator hired by the family, said he believes Sweeney was murdered.
“I believe he may have had his attention drawn away from his business at hand, and he had his attention focused to someone on his right side. Remember, his passenger window was down. He may have been talking to someone on the right and someone else came up to him from the other side and shot him,” Schramm said.
Secondly, a bullet was discovered in the passenger side door. The hole was missed when the truck was initially processed. On body cam video, deputies can be seen looking around for a hole in nearby cars. The casing was found by Jay Sweeney in the back seat.
“We took the (passenger door) panel off, and then we couldn’t understand what happened to the bullet,” Schramm said. “Well, it actually hit a thick steel piece and it was embedded in there.”
On the driver’s side, blood was found in the door jamb, according to police reports, meaning that the door was possibly opened when the fatal shot was fired.
As far as the gun, although footage from one deputy's body-camera has a responder saying that the gun was found in Sweeney’s lap, a second video and police report indicate it was found on the center console, beneath Sweeney’s right wrist.
11 Investigates talked to a longtime crime scene investigator, who asked that his name not be used. He said a gun fired by the left hand should have dropped straight down and been found beside the driver’s seat or on the floor. It could bounce around a little, but there was no logical explanation to him about how it could end up on the center console, beneath Sweeney’s right hand.
And finally, the most perplexing question is how a bullet traveling in an upward direction can suddenly change directions and go downward and become embedded in the door. A 9-mm bullet can change directions once it impacts bone, but Sweeney’s hat contains a bullet hole near the top, meaning it likely didn’t change direction and continued on the path in which it was fired. If Sweeney was sitting upright, the bullet should have been found in the roof of the vehicle.
A possible explanation is that Sweeney was leaning far to the side when the shot was fired. This scenario would fit what the crime scene investigator told us. He said he believes Sweeney may have had a gun in the center console and attempted to pull it out when he was ambushed from the side. He was then shot and the gun fell from his hand, onto the console. The sheriff’s department has not tested the gun to confirm that it actually fired the bullet that killed Sweeney. It is possible it came from a different weapon.
11 Investigates met with Henry County Prosecutor Gwen Howe-Gebers, who said she is willing to look into having the gun released to the family so that it can be tested by Schramm’s team. Schramm said his agency, Pyramid Security & Investigations, is ready to find a private lab to test the gun.
The prosecutor said the coroner is still convinced that the death is a suicide
The police report pointed to suicide, blaming it on Sweeney’s failed relationship with the woman who found him: “It would be reasonable to conclude Oscar strategically parked his pickup next to (the woman’s) Jeep in the lot so that she would see or find him after his death.”
Other clues raise suspicions
Family members are concerned not only about the physical evidence but also what was and was not found in the vehicle.
The back seat was filled with groceries, a prescription he had filled that day, and also dog food. His dog was a constant companion and was why he had seat covers for the back seat. Those seat covers were not found when the truck was processed.
“He wouldn’t take those off,” Jay Sweeney said. “He took his dog everywhere when he wasn’t working.”
In fact, those covers have not been found anywhere, including where Sweeney was living, the private investigator and his brother said.
“Where are the seat covers? We have been able to pretty much nail down that those seat covers were in the vehicle – up to that day,” Schramm said.
In addition, Oscar Sweeney always wore a gold necklace. That necklace was not on his body when he was taken to the morgue, and it also has not been found, the investigator and Jay Sweeney said.
His brother has continued to investigate the case and has discovered that after dinner at the Sweetwater Chophouse, Sweeney then went to Fricker’s in Defiance. He talked to a manager at the restaurant who believed that Oscar was in an altercation at the restaurant before his death. Post-mortem photos viewed by 11 Investigates appear to show an abrasion on his knuckles and a puffy lip. His brother also said there was a laceration on his leg.
“At the funeral, I asked everyone to take a look, didn’t tell them what I was thinking, and everyone told me it looked like he had a busted lip,” Jay Sweeney said. “And his knee had a laceration. If you are sitting in your truck, getting ready to shoot yourself, I’m not sure how you’re going to get a laceration.”
So many questions, but no clear answers.
“He had a lot going for him. He simply wouldn’t off himself,” Schramm said. “He had his son, his brother was close, his dog. He was trying to work his life out.”
More on WTOL: