Oregon District Shooting a year later: Court papers lay out attacker’s life of drug abuse

DAYTON — Connor Betts, who shot and killed his sister and eight other people in the Oregon District early on the morning of Aug. 4, 2019, was addicted to several different drugs including heroin, meth, Xanax, prescription drugs and marijuana since high school and had a plastic baggie containing cocaine on him when the Montgomery County Coroner's Office autopsied him.

Details about Betts are in two affidavits filed by the FBI about the incident that left at least 24 people wounded. The court papers were used to establish probable cause in order to get the court to OK several searches the FBI conducted.

Several Dayton police shot and killed Betts, who was dressed in body armor and armed with an illegally obtained firearm, as he tried to enter a business on East Fifth Street.

At the autopsy later that day on Aug. 4, Dayton police found on Betts a “3-inch long black straw with a baggie attached to the end of it by a rubber band.” The Miami Valley Regional Crime Lab confirmed the white powder in that baggie was cocaine, according to the affidavit.

According to the affidavits, friends and acquaintances of Betts interviewed by the FBI characterized the Bellbrook man as a longtime drug abuser who once tried to kick his habit by going “cold turkey” while on a family vacation.

A former girlfriend, identified in the court documents as “C.J.,” said she met Betts in January 2019 and got to know him while they both were attending a local college. She said she dated Betts from March 2019 until they cut off the relationship in May 2019 and knew him as a person who was addicted to meth.

“C.J.” told authorities Betts told her he “quit ‘cold turkey’ while on vacation with his family and he was unable to obtain illegal narcotics.”

A co-worker of Betts, interviewed in the days after the Oregon District shooting, told authorities he had been aware Betts had been using meth at least three years. The co-worker and Betts worked at a Dayton area restaurant. The co-worker said Betts told him he had a drug abuse problem since high school and mentioned "huffing and cocaine."

An acquaintance who claimed to have hung out with Betts at least once a month from 2014 through 2017, said Betts "was hardly sober ever" during that time period and used heroin, meth, cocaine and prescription drugs.

The acquaintance, identified in the documents at "J.E.," said Betts would often show up at his home "messed up."

Another friend, identified in the court filings as “J.B.,” said Betts often went to social media to discuss “dark sexual fantasies.”

“E.K” in the documents is Ethan Kollie, convicted of buying the weapons Betts used. He told authorities he sat and watched and helped Betts assemble the AR-15 used in the deadly assault. Kollie has yet to serve his sentence because of delays in handling inmates in state and federal prisons caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Cox Media Group