September 11, 2025 • 34 mins
Tucked away in the quiet community of Clermont, Florida, lived a man whose easygoing nature and love for the outdoors made him a friend to many. Michael Shaver was a hardworking father who seemed to juggle his responsibilities with an easy smile, always willing to lend a hand or share a laugh. But in early 2015, Michael’s presence began to fade. Calls went unanswered, visits stopped, and gradually, he seemed to slip out of the daily rhythm of life. Yet the silence surrounding his absence raised far more questions than answers. Tonight, we dive into the story of Michael Shaver—his life, the relationships that defined him, and the unsettling mystery that followed when he vanished.
SOURCES:
1) Michael Shaver: How Did He Die? Who Killed Him?
2) Laurie Shaver who tried to frame seven-year-old daughter for husband's murder barely reacts as she is sentenced
3) Woman convicted of killing husband and burying his body under concrete slab in the backyard
4) Laurie Shaver: Where is the Killer Wife Now?
5) FL v. Laurie Shaver: Buried in the Backyard Murder Trial
6) Brian Shaver and Stacie Turner: Where Are Michael Shaver’s Siblings Now?
7) 20/20 Episode: "The Lies Beneath"
SOURCES:
1) Michael Shaver: How Did He Die? Who Killed Him?
2) Laurie Shaver who tried to frame seven-year-old daughter for husband's murder barely reacts as she is sentenced
3) Woman convicted of killing husband and burying his body under concrete slab in the backyard
4) Laurie Shaver: Where is the Killer Wife Now?
5) FL v. Laurie Shaver: Buried in the Backyard Murder Trial
6) Brian Shaver and Stacie Turner: Where Are Michael Shaver’s Siblings Now?
7) 20/20 Episode: "The Lies Beneath"
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:12):
This episode MA contained content of a graphic nature, including
descriptions of physical and sexual violence against adults, children, and animals.
Listener discretion is advised. Hi, this is Tanya. Hi this
(00:37):
is Shannon, and we are Crimes and Consequences, a hardcore
true crime podcast. Hey Shannon, Hey girl, how are you?
I'm doing great? How are you? Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Could be better?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Maybe adjusting the microphone just as you hit record.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I'm struggling with chords over here.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
No, you sound good.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, but everything's going good. Had a great day.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Visited the parents visited, very nice, great grandma and great
grandpa Levi and I did, Oh.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
They're doing great, good things. What about you?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
How was your day? My day was good. I worked
sports from home today and fucking eight If an eight
hour day didn't last for sixteen hours, I swear, but
that's what it felt like today. I sent eighteams message
to some people that I work with today and I'm like,
it's only two thirty six, and then like the crying
(01:37):
emoji because I just was like, I can't fucking believe
it's only two thirty six, because I swear it was
seven pm.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Days like that are insane. It's like being on another
plane of existence.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
And it's not that I'm not busy, because I am.
I have tons of work to do, but I just
was like I was ready for this day to be
ten minutes afore I woke up.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
So tgif yes, tgif.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Whoo. So I am going to tell you this crazy
story today, and before I get into it, if everyone
can hit the subscribe or follow button, that would be wonderful.
I'm going to tell you the story about Michael Douglas Shaver.
He was born January fourteenth, nineteen eighty two, making him Capricorn.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
He was born in upstate New York and he had
a brother, Brian, and a very overprotective sister, Stacy. Michael's
mom was a single mother, so oftentimes Stacy would step
in to help with anything that needed to be done
around the house. Growing up, Michael enjoyed making his own
drum set out of things like tupperware and buckets. Eventually
(02:42):
he would learn to play the guitar. He, along with
his friends around the neighborhood, formed a little band of
their own called Rifles in Dandelions, which was a play
on guns n' roses. Nice. Michael, from a young age
was a fairly decent mechanic. He was able to fix
anything and everything around the house. His grandfather was the
(03:04):
same way, so it was always thought that Michael inherited
that gene. Neighbors would give him various things that needed
fixing and he'd happily help them. He was even known
to have built an airplane in the backyard with a friend,
and the airplane was completely made out of wood. A
family member said that if he had gotten his hands
on a motor, he would have flown away. While Michael
(03:27):
was still in high school, Not only did he become
infatuated with the learning to fly a plane, he also
became infatuated with a young girl named Laurie Paddleford. He
and Laurie had basically grown up together in the Utica,
New York area, and even from middle school, Michael had
his eye on Laurie, and his crush developed as they
(03:48):
made their way into high school. The only thing Michael
wanted to do was to figure out a cute, cool
way to ask Laurie out on a date. His best
friend helped him come up with an idea. So this
is the idea. Michael was going to ask her out
to the song I'll make love to you by boys
to men playing in the background. Oh my gosh, I
(04:11):
am in love with the cheesiness of this.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
You know, isn't it adorable? It is.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Once he asked her out, Laurie said yes, and the
two became inseparable. They dated throughout high school and they
were really excited to get married after graduation. Throughout the
duration of their wedding ceremony and reception, no one could
wipe the smile from Michael's face. His biggest dream had
come true and he had married the girl that he
(04:40):
had fallen in love with at the ripe old age
of thirteen. Laurie was all that Michael had ever wanted,
and the two of them were so excited to start
their life together. After the wedding, Michael got his commercial
pilot's license and he had even gotten a job at
Piedmont Airlines. He loved every single second working as a pilot,
and he would always take his friends up in the
(05:02):
sky every chance he got. Not long after Michael had
secured his dream job at Petemont Airlines, Laurie became pregnant,
first with a girl named Isabelle and soon after a
son named Aiden. When the happy couple became parents. They
decided to relocate to Clermont, Florida. They purchased a five
acre property in the more rural area of Clermont, and
(05:25):
the family would live quiet and peaceful life surrounded by hills, lakes,
and the love of wildlife. They eventually would buy some chickens,
some guinea hens, some turkeys, and a couple of ducks.
In the meantime, Michael got a job for a local
flight group called Precious Medal. He worked as a mechanic
and the pilots would perform all over the United States
(05:46):
in races along with air shows. While with Precious Medal,
Michael became a volunteer pilot with the group so that
he was able to go up into the sky. These
races are often compared to NASCAR racing, but obviously race
cars are on a closed track and these races are
airplane flight races, so kind of similar, but just up
(06:09):
in the sky as a huge scale called the sky,
up in the sky on a closed course. So I
guess they had like a carry off, yeah, an area
that was probably you can't see it, I guess, I
don't know. I'm trying to like picture it.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
But there something aviation where a designated air space that
they're allowed to be in.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Right, right, and the planes would race at over five
hundred miles an hour and they remained fifty feet off
the ground, so they were not really high up.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Those who participated were just adrenaline junkies, to say the
Those who worked closely with Michael at Precious Metal would
always describe him as a genius when it came to
his mechanic skills whenever he would touch a plane. Well,
Michael stayed away for three days at a time working
as a pilot mechanic, so I guess it's his schedule
was kind of like how firefighters have, or they'll go
(07:03):
to the station and sounds like it. They lived there
for a couple of days, yeah, and come home and whatever.
So Laurie took care of the kids and she worked
from home for an insurance company. Biko was a great
father to Isabelle and Aiden and knew he was missing
out on quality time and memories with his kids, so
he ended up quitting his job doing what he loved
(07:23):
for the sake of fatherhood. He was able to find
a job with a secure schedule, and that way he'd
be home with his family every single night. So even
though he dropped his dream job, he quickly found another,
working for a business everyone knows and loves. It's also
known as the happiest place on Earth, So you guessed it.
He found a job at Walt Disney World, located in Orlando, Florida.
(07:46):
This job was where he could still do what he loved,
being mechanic, but it was no longer fixing planes. It
was to be the mechanic for the monorail at the
park on the Epioge.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
That way, he would only ever be about twenty min
miles away from home, and he was still able to
live out his dream of continuously working with his hands,
and he also made people happy, So I mean, yeah,
did you want? One day in twenty fourteen, a nine
one one call was placed, and it was a desperate
Lourie telling the nine one one operator that she was
(08:17):
on her way to the sheriff's office and that she
had her children with her. When the operator asked Laurie
what was going on, she replied that her hand was
bleeding from a domestic violence dispute. While that was happening,
Michael phoned a neighbor. He asked neighbor to come by
the house because he needed help, and when the neighbor
got to the house, Michael was completely covered in blood.
(08:38):
His clothes had been ripped to shreds, and there was
blood pouring down his face. The neighbor's only thought was
to take as many photos as she could of what
she had walked into, just in case. This neighbor had
often heard many arguments coming from the Shaver home, and
oftentimes they were screaming and yelling. Laurie, while on the
phone with nine one one, said she and Michael were
fighting a lot up to that point, but their fights
(09:00):
had never gotten physical until then. Most people thought that
maybe the marriage was on the rocks. Whenever Laurie was
asked by friends and family previously if everything was all
right between her and Michael, she almost acted like she
didn't know what they were talking about, like everything was fine.
Both of them put on a happy face, not seeming
that they had any troubles, so those who knew them
(09:24):
didn't really notice, but they also didn't know, like is
everything all right with them? So you know, they're not sure.
Is this the same happy couple who had fallen in
love in middle school? Or are they at each other's throats? So, Laurie,
while still on the phone with Diamond one, said that
she had grabbed Michael's gun and whacked him over the
(09:44):
head with it. He had the pistol okay. After that happened,
she grabbed Isabella and Aiden and left as quickly as
she could. The operator asked if Michael was the one
who pulled the gun on her, and she said, well, yeah,
he grabbed my car keys and shoved them in a pocket.
She only had used force, I guess to get the
keys from him, and she grabbed the two children and left.
(10:06):
According to Michael, she was the person who had initiated
all of the beating him with the gun that she
had initially pulled on him, and he had been trying
to calm her down. Michael told the neighbor that he
and Laurie had been in a pretty physical altercation and
his wife had threatened him with the gun. Not only
did she threaten to kill him, she had also threatened
(10:27):
to kill herself as well. Laurie told the nine one
one operator that the two of them had consumed three beers,
and Michael admitted that he had taken the car keys
from her to prevent her from drinking and driving with
their children in the back seat. Both she and Michael
said it was Laurie who had struck him in the
head with the thirty eight caliber revolver, which had been
left on their butt inside the home. In the end,
(10:49):
Michael was arrested for grabbing Laurie by her arm and
he was charged with battery, and after that the marriage
just was never the same. Those who knew Michael said
he never raised his voice and would have never yelled
at her, let alone beat her physically. Michael had even
gone over to his mother's home a few times with
bruises on him, and when his mom asked him what happened,
(11:10):
Michael would respond with Lurie got mad. In the fall
of twenty fourteen, the judge from their domestic violence case
granted Laurie a no contact order against Michael and he
had to move out. Michael stayed in the hangar at
Precious Metal, as there were showers inside the bathrooms there.
Those who were close to him said that Laurie kicked
him out just to invite him back into the house,
(11:33):
even though there was still the no contact order in place.
Laurie was playing mind games with him, and while she's
doing this, she's seeing other guys. Michael suspected that Laurie
was cheating on him, and he would often tell his family.
She denied it, though, but the neighbors would see men
coming and leaving the house. Michael also thought that maybe
he's just being paranoid and maybe she's not sleeping around,
(11:57):
but friends of his said that while he was staying
in the hangar, he would jump into a plane and
fly over the house just to see if there was
an unknown car in the driveway.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
That's genius. I think I would do that too.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I know, I know all day exactly exactly. I'm not
that too. But even when he would see an unknown vehicle,
he was still willing to fight for their marriage, and
to fight this was not something that his family necessarily
thought was the right thing to do, but that was
just who Michael was. Wanting to stay married and keeping
(12:32):
his marriage together put a strain on his relationships with
his siblings and other family members. Whenever his family would
make plans to visit Michael, visit him, visit Laurie and
the kids, there would always be a last minute cancelation
and the reason behind it would often be that Laurie
thought that it was just a bad time know your
(12:52):
family come over. So since Michael was trying to save
his marriage, he had no other option than to just
roll with it because he wanted to make Laurie happy.
The communications with his family was rare up until that point,
and not only was it rare, but it was rare
among his friends too. So at this point within the marriage,
Michael was invited back into the house to live with
(13:14):
Laurie and the kids. They were going to try to
work things out. Laurie knew that since Michael was desperate
to work things out with her, that she could pretty
much ask for anything and Michael would make her wishes
come true. In November twenty fifteen, Michael, Lourie, and the
kids attended a tractor show with some of Michael's close friends.
This is something that would happen at least three times
(13:35):
during the winter months in the Claremont area, and that
was always something Michael loved to attend because he really
had a passion for the old tractors that were being
shown off. Cool. Yeah, that specific tractor show. The tension
between Michael and Laurie was so thick that you could
literally drive a tractor through it. Laurie never made eye
contact with Michael's friends, and they all noticed she wouldn't
(13:58):
even talk to them, and Michael's friends thought that part
was pretty strange because she was always friendly with them
whenever they would hang out. She was known to just
be a bubbly person who was happy to be there.
And then, you know, in the middle of this tractor show,
all of a sudden, Michael told his friends that he
and the family needed to leave, and they left, and
that would be the last time that anyone would ever
(14:19):
lay eyes again on Michael. Two days later, Michael's coworkers
received a really odd text from him, and in that text,
Michael said he was no longer coming to work and
that he was planning on moving away to Georgia. His
coworkers and family members tried to contact him, and when
he didn't respond, even after hearing that his mother was sick,
(14:40):
people who knew him best began to worry something was up.
Some close friends of his even log down to their
Facebook accounts and noticed they weren't even friends with him anymore,
so why is he unfriending them? They didn't have falling
out here. This man was dependable for years and then
he's just going to.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Blow off this now he can't be reached.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yeah, and he's going to blow off this job at
Disney World out of the blue. And it was just
couldn't be more dependable as an employee as the sounds like,
is trying to be a husband, a dependable father.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
A husband. He was how his family would say.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
It was never like him to do that. It was
just it was just really odd. When Michael's boss reached
out to him, Michael's boss received a text back that said, quote,
you can go ahead and fire me. I'm not coming
back end quote. His coworkers all thought that was really
weird because he wouldn't just leave a job without saying
goodbye to anyone. He had friends, everyone had known him
(15:40):
and grown to love him because of his dependability and
his personality skills, yeah, his skills. His coworkers were just perplexed,
you know, they had no idea what was going on.
He was just gone. Everyone began to have their own
suspicions and draw their own conclusions. Soon after, Michael's friends
began to get text messages from his saying that he
(16:01):
just wanted everyone to leave him alone. All of a sudden,
he didn't want anything to do with anyone that he
knew and loved. According to the texts that were sent
from his phone, he didn't want to be found by
anyone who knew him, and he was just done with
everything and everyone. Obviously, his friends his family are saying
these are out of character, this is bullshit. Yeah, and
(16:24):
his niece even received a text message that said, quote,
I don't have a family anymore. I have no clue
who you are, so stop messaging me. End quote. It's weird.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I mean, it's so red flag. It's like, oh, he
has his phone? Who has Michael's phone?
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Right? Frank, one of Michael's friends and a coworker at
Epcot that he was the closest with, decided to drive
by his house to see what was going on. When
he got to the house, Frank was confused when Laurie
was the one who came to the door. Frank asked
Laurie where Michael was, and she said he's just not home,
but his car was in the driveway, and Laurie kept
(16:59):
insisting that Michael was at home. She went on to
say that the two of them had gotten into a
pretty bad argument and he had stormed off. He then
got picked up in a black suv and he just
never came back home. She said that he caught a
ride with his friend Robert and that the two of
them decided to just go to Georgia. They were gonna
move up and move okay. Frank thought that the entire
(17:22):
communication with Laurie was weird because not only did Michael
never wish to leave the state of Florida, he also
never wanted out of his marriage with Laurie. He wasn't
going to leave his kids, and everyone that he knew
knew that. Yes. Stacy, Michael's sister, sent Laurie a Facebook
message asking where her brother was, and she just replied
(17:43):
with quote no, he left end quote, and she went
on to say that he left his children with her
and that he wasn't paying any child support. This was
strange to Stacy because she knew her brother would never
do anything like that because those kids were two of
the most important people in his life. Michael wouldn't have
never left this job at Disney World to go to
(18:05):
Georgia to start completely over without his kids or his wife,
and at some point his sister Stacy and his brother Brian.
They just didn't know what to think. While Stacy became angry,
Brian just thought maybe Michael did need some space and time.
You know who didn't need space and time? Ri. No,
(18:26):
she moved on without a second thought, and she began,
he's gone yet. Yeah. She began a data man named
Jeremy Townsend. The two had met at a park where
they gave each other their phone numbers. When she began
dating Jeremy, though, she was also telling her friends that
Michael was harassing her. Laurie and Jeremy didn't work out, though,
and you want to know why. Jeremy was married to
(18:48):
another woman, Vanessa. One day, while Vanessa was at work,
she got a random flower delivery, and with the delivery
was a card. The card said quote roses are read,
Let's are blue. My wife is a whore. Your husband
is too end quote. The car was signed sorry about
this like your Facebook message, We need to talk Mike.
(19:12):
So Vanessa did as the card said, and she went
on Facebook to check her messages. She then found a
message from Michael saying, quote, I believe your husband is
having an affair with Mike soon to be ex wife
end quote. He then told Vanessa that he had installed
some spy software onto his wife's phone, then sent screenshots
of text messages that had been sent between Laurie and Jeremy.
(19:37):
Jeremy's affair with Laurie obviously came to a screeching halt
after that, and Jeremy went back to Vanessa in hopes
of working things out between them. Glori began dating someone
who would become her next husband, and this guy's name
was Travis Filmer, who was a youth group leader at
the local church in the area. Travis looked an awful
lot like Michael, and he fell head over heels for
(20:00):
the two of them. Were married on December thirty first,
twenty sixteen, which I'm not sure how that happened if
she never got a divorce from Michael, but what Yeah.
The wedding took place in Laurie's backyard, the same house
she had once shared with Michael. It was a small ceremony,
but Travis was really happy. Laurie had spent so much
time fixing up the backyard for the ceremony. She even
(20:23):
went as far as to install a fire pit in
the backyard for the ceremony, she and Travis actually utched
their initials into the concrete while it was still wet
like it was literally like this fire pit, and it
was to symbolize their love and affection for one another.
Not long after the two were married, Laurie told Travis
(20:43):
that she was pregnant. Travis was over the moon with
excitement because all he had wanted to do was be
a father, and after seeing Laurie with Isabella and Aiden,
he knew she was going to be a great mom.
As Laurie was building a new life with Travis, Michael's
Facebook page was still active and were made here and
there saying he was working on internal struggles and that
(21:04):
he just wanted to be left alone. Michael's friends and family,
who hadn't seen him since he allegedly walked out on
all their lives, Yeah, just thought this was obviously was
strange again that you know, they hadn't heard from him,
but here he is posting on Facebook. At least two
years had gone by without anyone seeing him in person.
(21:24):
Even Brian, Michael's brother, had known something was up when
a text came over that was from Michael's phone and
Michael had called him bro and he had never called
him that before, so none of this is adding up.
Michael's childhood best friend, Scott had received a phone call
from someone who had been over to Michael and Laurie's
house shortly after he had left his family, and it
apparently walked out on them. On the phone call, Scott
(21:47):
was told that even though Laurie said he had completely
left them to go start a life in Georgia, all
of Michael's belongings were still in the home, and with
his belongings obviously was his cell. Phoned his w in
his car, but Laurie stuck to the story that Michael
had gotten into a black SUV and never came back home.
Scott even went on Facebook after not logging on for
(22:10):
a while, and he went onto Michael's profile. He noticed
that Michael's profile picture had been changed that same month.
It was the beginning of twenty eighteen at this point, okay,
He zoomed in on the photo though he noticed that
it was a group of random men drinking in a bar.
The odd thing about the photo was that Michael was
nowhere in the picture. It was just a random picture
(22:32):
that was uploaded from somewhere, so somebody had changed his
profile picture and why wasn't Michael in it? Yeah, Michael
had only ever posted photos of himself and others while
working on planes in the past. None of his more
recent posts were anything like that. Once again, something was
up and someone had to do something. And finally February
(22:55):
of twenty eighteen, the police were called and sent to
Laurie's house to do a wellness visit on Michael. And
it was Michael's childhood friend Scott who called the cops
since he also lived in Florida. When Scott got a
hold of the local police, he filed a missing person report.
Scott was able to convince the local authorities that there
was something that needed to be looked into immediately. When
(23:18):
the police got to Lourie's house, she repeated the same
exact thing. Her husband had walked out of their lives
without a single trace. She said she had no clue
where he went. The police then asked if they could
search the property, and at first Laurie was very cooperative
and allowed the officers into the backyard, but once they
asked if they could bring in the canine unit, she
(23:39):
said get out and come back with a search warrant
on March ninth, twenty eighteen, the police brought in caidaver
dogs to the property and searched for Michael. And when
the dogs got to the property, they stopped at a
concrete slab which was the same concrete slab that had
LORII and Travis's initials marked on.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Oh my gosh, fire pit.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yeah, the fire pit and yep, the foundation of the
fire pit that Laurie had made in preparation for her
marriage to Travis. Detectives tracked down that friend that Lurie
had Saiden Michael had gotten into the Blacky sv with
that was Robert. Robert had an interview with detectives and
he said at that time he had a Mitsubishi Gallant
(24:21):
which was a sedan and the color of the car
was blue. So obviously our girl Lourie was.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Full of shit. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
The police began excavating the property and they ended up
finding Michael's skeletal remains under the cement. Wow. It was
discovered that he had been killed from a single gunshot
wound to the back of his head. There was remnants
of the bullet that came from a thirty eight caliber Revolver,
the same gun that Louri had owned and whacked Michael
(24:52):
over the head with previously. He was buried wrapped in
a fitted sheet, wearing only a pair of airpostyl underwear
and under armor athletic shorts along with a pair of socks.
Remember that Louri and Michael had owned all types of
different birds around their five acre plot of land. Remember
I told you there was chickens and docks and yeah,
(25:14):
Laurie had always wanted a duck pond for the ducks
to live in. And this was around the time. Remember
they were having these marital troubles and Michael would do
just anything for her. Yeah, he knew that she could
take advantage of Michael wanting to save the marriage, so
she asked him to dig a hole for him to
create a duck pond. But little did Michael know that
he was digging his own grain.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
That is diabolical. Isn't it a one of the British hunt?
What a cunt of Isn't that terrible?
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
My goodness.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Michael's neighbor was the one who told police that all
he wanted to do was to make his wife happy.
After Michael was killed, Travis was the one who poured
the cement to then make that hole into a fire pit.
Travis had no idea he was pouring cement over Michael's
dead body, and Michael was only thirty three years old
at the time of his murder. Laurie was able to
(26:10):
dodge law enforcement until they could find enough evidence to
pin Michael's murder on her. Since he was murdered leaving
his phone accessible to Laurie, she was the person who
was sending the text to all his friends and family,
basically telling anyone everyone to never come looking for him. Yes,
also had been the one who had been in control
of his Facebook account and so Yes, this even included
(26:34):
her own self sabotage about her relationship with the married Jeremy.
She was the one who sent the flowers to Vanessa's work,
stating that his wife was a whore along with Jeremy,
so Laurie literally called herself a whore.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
No way, oh my gosh right, craziness. That is crazy.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
In September of twenty twenty, Laurie was finally charged with
Michael's murder. He was charged with second degree murder along
with being an accessory after the fact, and she was
released on fifty two thousand dollars bond. Four years later,
on September ninth, twenty twenty four, she finally stood in
front of a jury for Michael's murder. Crazily, Laurie's defense
(27:16):
team tried to blame the shooting and killing of Michael
on their daughter, Isabelle in a May twenty twenty three motion.
She was only seven years old at the time, but
she was fifteen when she took the stand. Isabelle took
the stand it admitted she accidentally fired a gun at
her father while he and her mother were getting physical
with one another. Isabelle also told the jury that a
(27:38):
family friend, her mother's current boyfriend, Jeremy, also used a
firearm against Michael right after isabel claimed she did. Jeremy
eventually testified and said he never once came into contact
with Michael at any point, and that appeared to be
the truth. So I think isabel was lying for her mother,
of course she was. Many of Michael's friends and former
(27:59):
cohor testified that Michael was one of a kind. He
had a great heart and tried to see the good
in everyone. They told the court that Michael was the
one who had been fighting to save the marriage with Laurie,
although it had been rocky. Laurie's attorney said that her
acts against Michael were because of the fact that she
had gone years and years and during such violent abuse
from Michael, and according to her attorney, the violent acts
(28:22):
against her were severe. Laurie said that she had been
locked in a closet at one point and that she
was physically beaten bloody by Michael. Those who were closest
to Michael always said that Laurie did everything she could
to try to get the public to believe that Michael
was abusive toward her, but he could never hurt anyone.
He was a good man, and the accusations against someone
(28:43):
who was no longer able to defund himself was a
pretty below the belt blow. Michael's siblings have come forward
saying that they always thought that Laurie did everything she
could to control Michael and she was actually the abusive
one within their marriage. Stacy even said that he wasn't
allowed to speak with her on the phone for exist
spended periods of time. She said that to Laurie, talking
(29:03):
to Michael on the phone for twenty minutes was completely
out of the question. The prosecution proved Laurie tried to
pin everything on her daughter Isabelle. Not once was Isabelle
brought up in the entire investigation until Lourie's defense team
attempted to get Isabelle to lie for her mother to
save her. Finally, on September thirteenth, twenty twenty four, Laurie
was convicted after a four hour deliberation by the jury.
(29:26):
She's guilty of second degree murder, but she was acquitted
of the accessory charge. After the guilty verdict, Michael's family
released a heart wrenching statement. They said their lives have
been so difficult to maneuver since the disappearance of Michael
back in the fall of twenty sixteen. Since that day,
they never stopped searching for him, and not a single
(29:46):
day had gone by that they had stopped thinking about
him in his beautiful, caring heart quote on behalf of
the shaver Of family. We are very grateful to be
standing here today to recognize the guilty verdict against Lourie
end quote. They I knew that the verdict could never
bring Michael back, but after all that time, the vertical
was the closure they needed to be able to move
(30:06):
on in a positive direction. On November twenty sixth, twenty
twenty four, Laurie was sentenced to life in prison for
the murder of her husband and the father of her children.
As of January twenty twenty five, Laurie was incarcerated at
the Florida Women's Reception Facility without any visitation rights and
(30:27):
no possibility of parole. I love it.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
I love to hear that.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
I know right well, and that's just terrible. I mean
everything about it. Diabolical having your daughter life for you.
How much lower can you go? I know, when your children,
it's about the lowest. And then have your kid take
the murder rap Yeah, for you, and you're the one. Absolutely,
I believe the Michael's siblings viewpoint of she was she
(30:57):
Laurie was the abuser, don't I'm likely physical if she's gonna,
you know, pistol whip him. Who does that to a
person just has no sympathy or empathy, just coldly using them,
the father of your children. I just know she had
no you know, respects, not just for him, like because
he's so nice and great just as a human life.
(31:19):
I feel so bad because he sounded like a really
great guy, sound like a cowboy yeah right, like yeah,
he just you know, he just wanted to take care
of his wife and his kids. And I don't know,
you know, I always tell people like, just get a
divorce if you're not happy, like yeah, Laurie, just sit
(31:40):
down and be like Michael, I don't want to be
with you.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
And I know you just I know you are head
over heels in love with me. And that's just a
hard conversation.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
It's done.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
I will not be happy with you, okay, right, Like
just do it. People banding.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
I don't want to have to share my kids. Trust me.
When you share your kids, you're gonna have so much
time to your you're gonna love it.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yes, you work on yourselves, well.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I mean you'll have some free time and they'll they'll
be get their other parent living it up, and just
you know, look at it that way exactly. You need
to have your child with you twenty four seven, like
it'll be okay, yes, And it's just hard when someone
is yes, totally nice.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Long weekends, those are nice.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
You need those as an adult parent for sure, right,
but that's just crazy and then oh my gosh, to
pour the cement and put their initials in who know,
and she knows he's under that summont. Like you said,
it was fucking diabolical.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
It is who does that? Why?
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Who deserves that? These are he fathered your kids, your
kids are half him. That should be really really a
cool thing because you're a part of it too, you know.
But you know he dug that duck pond and she
put his fucking body in there, like damn girl, and his.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Energy is I love my LORI.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I know she's sipping her coffee looking at him dig
like sucker.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Yeah right, how terrible?
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Fuck her?
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Right exactly. That's what I'm like. I love how the
British speaks.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Sometimes I'll cross the pond and grab a word or two.
Oh well, thank you Shannon for.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Oh hi, thank you for bringing that story.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Thank you everyone for listening to this week's story too.
And before you go, if you could hit the subscriber
follow button on whatever app you're listening to, that would
be great. You'll get notified of new episodes. If you
would like to hear more episodes by Shannon and I,
you can go to patreon dot com slash tnt Crimes,
or you can subscribe on the Apple podcast app. And
(33:46):
what that is is you'll get an extra episode a
week besides the one that we released to the public,
and just for a very small monthly fee, you can
go to our website Crimes Andconsequences dot com and I
believe that's everything.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Sounds like everything.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, perfect, all right, Miss Shannon, I will see you
at the next recording.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Sounds great. Queen, you have a great week. Thanks, you
have a great week. Adia.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Everyone have a wonderful week. See you, love you, Bye bye.
This episode MA contained content of a graphic nature, including
descriptions of physical and sexual violence against adults, children, and animals.
Listener discretion is advised. Hi, this is Tanya. Hi this
(00:37):
is Shannon, and we are Crimes and Consequences, a hardcore
true crime podcast. Hey Shannon, Hey girl, how are you?
I'm doing great? How are you? Oh?
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Could be better?
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Maybe adjusting the microphone just as you hit record.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
I'm struggling with chords over here.
Speaker 1 (01:02):
No, you sound good.
Speaker 2 (01:04):
Yeah, but everything's going good. Had a great day.
Speaker 1 (01:06):
Visited the parents visited, very nice, great grandma and great
grandpa Levi and I did, Oh.
Speaker 2 (01:13):
They're doing great, good things. What about you?
Speaker 1 (01:16):
How was your day? My day was good. I worked
sports from home today and fucking eight If an eight
hour day didn't last for sixteen hours, I swear, but
that's what it felt like today. I sent eighteams message
to some people that I work with today and I'm like,
it's only two thirty six, and then like the crying
(01:37):
emoji because I just was like, I can't fucking believe
it's only two thirty six, because I swear it was
seven pm.
Speaker 2 (01:44):
Days like that are insane. It's like being on another
plane of existence.
Speaker 1 (01:49):
And it's not that I'm not busy, because I am.
I have tons of work to do, but I just
was like I was ready for this day to be
ten minutes afore I woke up.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
So tgif yes, tgif.
Speaker 1 (02:01):
Whoo. So I am going to tell you this crazy
story today, and before I get into it, if everyone
can hit the subscribe or follow button, that would be wonderful.
I'm going to tell you the story about Michael Douglas Shaver.
He was born January fourteenth, nineteen eighty two, making him Capricorn.
Speaker 2 (02:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (02:21):
He was born in upstate New York and he had
a brother, Brian, and a very overprotective sister, Stacy. Michael's
mom was a single mother, so oftentimes Stacy would step
in to help with anything that needed to be done
around the house. Growing up, Michael enjoyed making his own
drum set out of things like tupperware and buckets. Eventually
(02:42):
he would learn to play the guitar. He, along with
his friends around the neighborhood, formed a little band of
their own called Rifles in Dandelions, which was a play
on guns n' roses. Nice. Michael, from a young age
was a fairly decent mechanic. He was able to fix
anything and everything around the house. His grandfather was the
(03:04):
same way, so it was always thought that Michael inherited
that gene. Neighbors would give him various things that needed
fixing and he'd happily help them. He was even known
to have built an airplane in the backyard with a friend,
and the airplane was completely made out of wood. A
family member said that if he had gotten his hands
on a motor, he would have flown away. While Michael
(03:27):
was still in high school, Not only did he become
infatuated with the learning to fly a plane, he also
became infatuated with a young girl named Laurie Paddleford. He
and Laurie had basically grown up together in the Utica,
New York area, and even from middle school, Michael had
his eye on Laurie, and his crush developed as they
(03:48):
made their way into high school. The only thing Michael
wanted to do was to figure out a cute, cool
way to ask Laurie out on a date. His best
friend helped him come up with an idea. So this
is the idea. Michael was going to ask her out
to the song I'll make love to you by boys
to men playing in the background. Oh my gosh, I
(04:11):
am in love with the cheesiness of this.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
You know, isn't it adorable? It is.
Speaker 1 (04:17):
Once he asked her out, Laurie said yes, and the
two became inseparable. They dated throughout high school and they
were really excited to get married after graduation. Throughout the
duration of their wedding ceremony and reception, no one could
wipe the smile from Michael's face. His biggest dream had
come true and he had married the girl that he
(04:40):
had fallen in love with at the ripe old age
of thirteen. Laurie was all that Michael had ever wanted,
and the two of them were so excited to start
their life together. After the wedding, Michael got his commercial
pilot's license and he had even gotten a job at
Piedmont Airlines. He loved every single second working as a pilot,
and he would always take his friends up in the
(05:02):
sky every chance he got. Not long after Michael had
secured his dream job at Petemont Airlines, Laurie became pregnant,
first with a girl named Isabelle and soon after a
son named Aiden. When the happy couple became parents. They
decided to relocate to Clermont, Florida. They purchased a five
acre property in the more rural area of Clermont, and
(05:25):
the family would live quiet and peaceful life surrounded by hills, lakes,
and the love of wildlife. They eventually would buy some chickens,
some guinea hens, some turkeys, and a couple of ducks.
In the meantime, Michael got a job for a local
flight group called Precious Medal. He worked as a mechanic
and the pilots would perform all over the United States
(05:46):
in races along with air shows. While with Precious Medal,
Michael became a volunteer pilot with the group so that
he was able to go up into the sky. These
races are often compared to NASCAR racing, but obviously race
cars are on a closed track and these races are
airplane flight races, so kind of similar, but just up
(06:09):
in the sky as a huge scale called the sky,
up in the sky on a closed course. So I
guess they had like a carry off, yeah, an area
that was probably you can't see it, I guess, I
don't know. I'm trying to like picture it.
Speaker 2 (06:22):
But there something aviation where a designated air space that
they're allowed to be in.
Speaker 1 (06:29):
Right, right, and the planes would race at over five
hundred miles an hour and they remained fifty feet off
the ground, so they were not really high up.
Speaker 2 (06:39):
Oh my gosh.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
Those who participated were just adrenaline junkies, to say the
Those who worked closely with Michael at Precious Metal would
always describe him as a genius when it came to
his mechanic skills whenever he would touch a plane. Well,
Michael stayed away for three days at a time working
as a pilot mechanic, so I guess it's his schedule
was kind of like how firefighters have, or they'll go
(07:03):
to the station and sounds like it. They lived there
for a couple of days, yeah, and come home and whatever.
So Laurie took care of the kids and she worked
from home for an insurance company. Biko was a great
father to Isabelle and Aiden and knew he was missing
out on quality time and memories with his kids, so
he ended up quitting his job doing what he loved
(07:23):
for the sake of fatherhood. He was able to find
a job with a secure schedule, and that way he'd
be home with his family every single night. So even
though he dropped his dream job, he quickly found another,
working for a business everyone knows and loves. It's also
known as the happiest place on Earth, So you guessed it.
He found a job at Walt Disney World, located in Orlando, Florida.
(07:46):
This job was where he could still do what he loved,
being mechanic, but it was no longer fixing planes. It
was to be the mechanic for the monorail at the
park on the Epioge.
Speaker 2 (07:56):
Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1 (07:57):
That way, he would only ever be about twenty min
miles away from home, and he was still able to
live out his dream of continuously working with his hands,
and he also made people happy, So I mean, yeah,
did you want? One day in twenty fourteen, a nine
one one call was placed, and it was a desperate
Lourie telling the nine one one operator that she was
(08:17):
on her way to the sheriff's office and that she
had her children with her. When the operator asked Laurie
what was going on, she replied that her hand was
bleeding from a domestic violence dispute. While that was happening,
Michael phoned a neighbor. He asked neighbor to come by
the house because he needed help, and when the neighbor
got to the house, Michael was completely covered in blood.
(08:38):
His clothes had been ripped to shreds, and there was
blood pouring down his face. The neighbor's only thought was
to take as many photos as she could of what
she had walked into, just in case. This neighbor had
often heard many arguments coming from the Shaver home, and
oftentimes they were screaming and yelling. Laurie, while on the
phone with nine one one, said she and Michael were
fighting a lot up to that point, but their fights
(09:00):
had never gotten physical until then. Most people thought that
maybe the marriage was on the rocks. Whenever Laurie was
asked by friends and family previously if everything was all
right between her and Michael, she almost acted like she
didn't know what they were talking about, like everything was fine.
Both of them put on a happy face, not seeming
that they had any troubles, so those who knew them
(09:24):
didn't really notice, but they also didn't know, like is
everything all right with them? So you know, they're not sure.
Is this the same happy couple who had fallen in
love in middle school? Or are they at each other's throats? So, Laurie,
while still on the phone with Diamond one, said that
she had grabbed Michael's gun and whacked him over the
(09:44):
head with it. He had the pistol okay. After that happened,
she grabbed Isabella and Aiden and left as quickly as
she could. The operator asked if Michael was the one
who pulled the gun on her, and she said, well, yeah,
he grabbed my car keys and shoved them in a pocket.
She only had used force, I guess to get the
keys from him, and she grabbed the two children and left.
(10:06):
According to Michael, she was the person who had initiated
all of the beating him with the gun that she
had initially pulled on him, and he had been trying
to calm her down. Michael told the neighbor that he
and Laurie had been in a pretty physical altercation and
his wife had threatened him with the gun. Not only
did she threaten to kill him, she had also threatened
(10:27):
to kill herself as well. Laurie told the nine one
one operator that the two of them had consumed three beers,
and Michael admitted that he had taken the car keys
from her to prevent her from drinking and driving with
their children in the back seat. Both she and Michael
said it was Laurie who had struck him in the
head with the thirty eight caliber revolver, which had been
left on their butt inside the home. In the end,
(10:49):
Michael was arrested for grabbing Laurie by her arm and
he was charged with battery, and after that the marriage
just was never the same. Those who knew Michael said
he never raised his voice and would have never yelled
at her, let alone beat her physically. Michael had even
gone over to his mother's home a few times with
bruises on him, and when his mom asked him what happened,
(11:10):
Michael would respond with Lurie got mad. In the fall
of twenty fourteen, the judge from their domestic violence case
granted Laurie a no contact order against Michael and he
had to move out. Michael stayed in the hangar at
Precious Metal, as there were showers inside the bathrooms there.
Those who were close to him said that Laurie kicked
him out just to invite him back into the house,
(11:33):
even though there was still the no contact order in place.
Laurie was playing mind games with him, and while she's
doing this, she's seeing other guys. Michael suspected that Laurie
was cheating on him, and he would often tell his family.
She denied it, though, but the neighbors would see men
coming and leaving the house. Michael also thought that maybe
he's just being paranoid and maybe she's not sleeping around,
(11:57):
but friends of his said that while he was staying
in the hangar, he would jump into a plane and
fly over the house just to see if there was
an unknown car in the driveway.
Speaker 2 (12:07):
That's genius. I think I would do that too.
Speaker 1 (12:10):
I know, I know all day exactly exactly. I'm not
that too. But even when he would see an unknown vehicle,
he was still willing to fight for their marriage, and
to fight this was not something that his family necessarily
thought was the right thing to do, but that was
just who Michael was. Wanting to stay married and keeping
(12:32):
his marriage together put a strain on his relationships with
his siblings and other family members. Whenever his family would
make plans to visit Michael, visit him, visit Laurie and
the kids, there would always be a last minute cancelation
and the reason behind it would often be that Laurie
thought that it was just a bad time know your
(12:52):
family come over. So since Michael was trying to save
his marriage, he had no other option than to just
roll with it because he wanted to make Laurie happy.
The communications with his family was rare up until that point,
and not only was it rare, but it was rare
among his friends too. So at this point within the marriage,
Michael was invited back into the house to live with
(13:14):
Laurie and the kids. They were going to try to
work things out. Laurie knew that since Michael was desperate
to work things out with her, that she could pretty
much ask for anything and Michael would make her wishes
come true. In November twenty fifteen, Michael, Lourie, and the
kids attended a tractor show with some of Michael's close friends.
This is something that would happen at least three times
(13:35):
during the winter months in the Claremont area, and that
was always something Michael loved to attend because he really
had a passion for the old tractors that were being
shown off. Cool. Yeah, that specific tractor show. The tension
between Michael and Laurie was so thick that you could
literally drive a tractor through it. Laurie never made eye
contact with Michael's friends, and they all noticed she wouldn't
(13:58):
even talk to them, and Michael's friends thought that part
was pretty strange because she was always friendly with them
whenever they would hang out. She was known to just
be a bubbly person who was happy to be there.
And then, you know, in the middle of this tractor show,
all of a sudden, Michael told his friends that he
and the family needed to leave, and they left, and
that would be the last time that anyone would ever
(14:19):
lay eyes again on Michael. Two days later, Michael's coworkers
received a really odd text from him, and in that text,
Michael said he was no longer coming to work and
that he was planning on moving away to Georgia. His
coworkers and family members tried to contact him, and when
he didn't respond, even after hearing that his mother was sick,
(14:40):
people who knew him best began to worry something was up.
Some close friends of his even log down to their
Facebook accounts and noticed they weren't even friends with him anymore,
so why is he unfriending them? They didn't have falling
out here. This man was dependable for years and then
he's just going to.
Speaker 2 (14:59):
Blow off this now he can't be reached.
Speaker 1 (15:01):
Yeah, and he's going to blow off this job at
Disney World out of the blue. And it was just
couldn't be more dependable as an employee as the sounds like,
is trying to be a husband, a dependable father.
Speaker 2 (15:15):
A husband. He was how his family would say.
Speaker 1 (15:18):
It was never like him to do that. It was
just it was just really odd. When Michael's boss reached
out to him, Michael's boss received a text back that said, quote,
you can go ahead and fire me. I'm not coming
back end quote. His coworkers all thought that was really
weird because he wouldn't just leave a job without saying
goodbye to anyone. He had friends, everyone had known him
(15:40):
and grown to love him because of his dependability and
his personality skills, yeah, his skills. His coworkers were just perplexed,
you know, they had no idea what was going on.
He was just gone. Everyone began to have their own
suspicions and draw their own conclusions. Soon after, Michael's friends
began to get text messages from his saying that he
(16:01):
just wanted everyone to leave him alone. All of a sudden,
he didn't want anything to do with anyone that he
knew and loved. According to the texts that were sent
from his phone, he didn't want to be found by
anyone who knew him, and he was just done with
everything and everyone. Obviously, his friends his family are saying
these are out of character, this is bullshit. Yeah, and
(16:24):
his niece even received a text message that said, quote,
I don't have a family anymore. I have no clue
who you are, so stop messaging me. End quote. It's weird.
Speaker 2 (16:34):
I mean, it's so red flag. It's like, oh, he
has his phone? Who has Michael's phone?
Speaker 1 (16:38):
Right? Frank, one of Michael's friends and a coworker at
Epcot that he was the closest with, decided to drive
by his house to see what was going on. When
he got to the house, Frank was confused when Laurie
was the one who came to the door. Frank asked
Laurie where Michael was, and she said he's just not home,
but his car was in the driveway, and Laurie kept
(16:59):
insisting that Michael was at home. She went on to
say that the two of them had gotten into a
pretty bad argument and he had stormed off. He then
got picked up in a black suv and he just
never came back home. She said that he caught a
ride with his friend Robert and that the two of
them decided to just go to Georgia. They were gonna
move up and move okay. Frank thought that the entire
(17:22):
communication with Laurie was weird because not only did Michael
never wish to leave the state of Florida, he also
never wanted out of his marriage with Laurie. He wasn't
going to leave his kids, and everyone that he knew
knew that. Yes. Stacy, Michael's sister, sent Laurie a Facebook
message asking where her brother was, and she just replied
(17:43):
with quote no, he left end quote, and she went
on to say that he left his children with her
and that he wasn't paying any child support. This was
strange to Stacy because she knew her brother would never
do anything like that because those kids were two of
the most important people in his life. Michael wouldn't have
never left this job at Disney World to go to
(18:05):
Georgia to start completely over without his kids or his wife,
and at some point his sister Stacy and his brother Brian.
They just didn't know what to think. While Stacy became angry,
Brian just thought maybe Michael did need some space and time.
You know who didn't need space and time? Ri. No,
(18:26):
she moved on without a second thought, and she began,
he's gone yet. Yeah. She began a data man named
Jeremy Townsend. The two had met at a park where
they gave each other their phone numbers. When she began
dating Jeremy, though, she was also telling her friends that
Michael was harassing her. Laurie and Jeremy didn't work out, though,
and you want to know why. Jeremy was married to
(18:48):
another woman, Vanessa. One day, while Vanessa was at work,
she got a random flower delivery, and with the delivery
was a card. The card said quote roses are read,
Let's are blue. My wife is a whore. Your husband
is too end quote. The car was signed sorry about
this like your Facebook message, We need to talk Mike.
(19:12):
So Vanessa did as the card said, and she went
on Facebook to check her messages. She then found a
message from Michael saying, quote, I believe your husband is
having an affair with Mike soon to be ex wife
end quote. He then told Vanessa that he had installed
some spy software onto his wife's phone, then sent screenshots
of text messages that had been sent between Laurie and Jeremy.
(19:37):
Jeremy's affair with Laurie obviously came to a screeching halt
after that, and Jeremy went back to Vanessa in hopes
of working things out between them. Glori began dating someone
who would become her next husband, and this guy's name
was Travis Filmer, who was a youth group leader at
the local church in the area. Travis looked an awful
lot like Michael, and he fell head over heels for
(20:00):
the two of them. Were married on December thirty first,
twenty sixteen, which I'm not sure how that happened if
she never got a divorce from Michael, but what Yeah.
The wedding took place in Laurie's backyard, the same house
she had once shared with Michael. It was a small ceremony,
but Travis was really happy. Laurie had spent so much
time fixing up the backyard for the ceremony. She even
(20:23):
went as far as to install a fire pit in
the backyard for the ceremony, she and Travis actually utched
their initials into the concrete while it was still wet
like it was literally like this fire pit, and it
was to symbolize their love and affection for one another.
Not long after the two were married, Laurie told Travis
(20:43):
that she was pregnant. Travis was over the moon with
excitement because all he had wanted to do was be
a father, and after seeing Laurie with Isabella and Aiden,
he knew she was going to be a great mom.
As Laurie was building a new life with Travis, Michael's
Facebook page was still active and were made here and
there saying he was working on internal struggles and that
(21:04):
he just wanted to be left alone. Michael's friends and family,
who hadn't seen him since he allegedly walked out on
all their lives, Yeah, just thought this was obviously was
strange again that you know, they hadn't heard from him,
but here he is posting on Facebook. At least two
years had gone by without anyone seeing him in person.
(21:24):
Even Brian, Michael's brother, had known something was up when
a text came over that was from Michael's phone and
Michael had called him bro and he had never called
him that before, so none of this is adding up.
Michael's childhood best friend, Scott had received a phone call
from someone who had been over to Michael and Laurie's
house shortly after he had left his family, and it
apparently walked out on them. On the phone call, Scott
(21:47):
was told that even though Laurie said he had completely
left them to go start a life in Georgia, all
of Michael's belongings were still in the home, and with
his belongings obviously was his cell. Phoned his w in
his car, but Laurie stuck to the story that Michael
had gotten into a black SUV and never came back home.
Scott even went on Facebook after not logging on for
(22:10):
a while, and he went onto Michael's profile. He noticed
that Michael's profile picture had been changed that same month.
It was the beginning of twenty eighteen at this point, okay,
He zoomed in on the photo though he noticed that
it was a group of random men drinking in a bar.
The odd thing about the photo was that Michael was
nowhere in the picture. It was just a random picture
(22:32):
that was uploaded from somewhere, so somebody had changed his
profile picture and why wasn't Michael in it? Yeah, Michael
had only ever posted photos of himself and others while
working on planes in the past. None of his more
recent posts were anything like that. Once again, something was
up and someone had to do something. And finally February
(22:55):
of twenty eighteen, the police were called and sent to
Laurie's house to do a wellness visit on Michael. And
it was Michael's childhood friend Scott who called the cops
since he also lived in Florida. When Scott got a
hold of the local police, he filed a missing person report.
Scott was able to convince the local authorities that there
was something that needed to be looked into immediately. When
(23:18):
the police got to Lourie's house, she repeated the same
exact thing. Her husband had walked out of their lives
without a single trace. She said she had no clue
where he went. The police then asked if they could
search the property, and at first Laurie was very cooperative
and allowed the officers into the backyard, but once they
asked if they could bring in the canine unit, she
(23:39):
said get out and come back with a search warrant
on March ninth, twenty eighteen, the police brought in caidaver
dogs to the property and searched for Michael. And when
the dogs got to the property, they stopped at a
concrete slab which was the same concrete slab that had
LORII and Travis's initials marked on.
Speaker 2 (23:59):
Oh my gosh, fire pit.
Speaker 1 (24:01):
Yeah, the fire pit and yep, the foundation of the
fire pit that Laurie had made in preparation for her
marriage to Travis. Detectives tracked down that friend that Lurie
had Saiden Michael had gotten into the Blacky sv with
that was Robert. Robert had an interview with detectives and
he said at that time he had a Mitsubishi Gallant
(24:21):
which was a sedan and the color of the car
was blue. So obviously our girl Lourie was.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
Full of shit. Yeah, for sure.
Speaker 1 (24:31):
The police began excavating the property and they ended up
finding Michael's skeletal remains under the cement. Wow. It was
discovered that he had been killed from a single gunshot
wound to the back of his head. There was remnants
of the bullet that came from a thirty eight caliber Revolver,
the same gun that Louri had owned and whacked Michael
(24:52):
over the head with previously. He was buried wrapped in
a fitted sheet, wearing only a pair of airpostyl underwear
and under armor athletic shorts along with a pair of socks.
Remember that Louri and Michael had owned all types of
different birds around their five acre plot of land. Remember
I told you there was chickens and docks and yeah,
(25:14):
Laurie had always wanted a duck pond for the ducks
to live in. And this was around the time. Remember
they were having these marital troubles and Michael would do
just anything for her. Yeah, he knew that she could
take advantage of Michael wanting to save the marriage, so
she asked him to dig a hole for him to
create a duck pond. But little did Michael know that
he was digging his own grain.
Speaker 2 (25:35):
That is diabolical. Isn't it a one of the British hunt?
What a cunt of Isn't that terrible?
Speaker 1 (25:46):
Oh?
Speaker 2 (25:47):
My goodness.
Speaker 1 (25:48):
Michael's neighbor was the one who told police that all
he wanted to do was to make his wife happy.
After Michael was killed, Travis was the one who poured
the cement to then make that hole into a fire pit.
Travis had no idea he was pouring cement over Michael's
dead body, and Michael was only thirty three years old
at the time of his murder. Laurie was able to
(26:10):
dodge law enforcement until they could find enough evidence to
pin Michael's murder on her. Since he was murdered leaving
his phone accessible to Laurie, she was the person who
was sending the text to all his friends and family,
basically telling anyone everyone to never come looking for him. Yes,
also had been the one who had been in control
of his Facebook account and so Yes, this even included
(26:34):
her own self sabotage about her relationship with the married Jeremy.
She was the one who sent the flowers to Vanessa's work,
stating that his wife was a whore along with Jeremy,
so Laurie literally called herself a whore.
Speaker 2 (26:49):
No way, oh my gosh right, craziness. That is crazy.
Speaker 1 (26:55):
In September of twenty twenty, Laurie was finally charged with
Michael's murder. He was charged with second degree murder along
with being an accessory after the fact, and she was
released on fifty two thousand dollars bond. Four years later,
on September ninth, twenty twenty four, she finally stood in
front of a jury for Michael's murder. Crazily, Laurie's defense
(27:16):
team tried to blame the shooting and killing of Michael
on their daughter, Isabelle in a May twenty twenty three motion.
She was only seven years old at the time, but
she was fifteen when she took the stand. Isabelle took
the stand it admitted she accidentally fired a gun at
her father while he and her mother were getting physical
with one another. Isabelle also told the jury that a
(27:38):
family friend, her mother's current boyfriend, Jeremy, also used a
firearm against Michael right after isabel claimed she did. Jeremy
eventually testified and said he never once came into contact
with Michael at any point, and that appeared to be
the truth. So I think isabel was lying for her mother,
of course she was. Many of Michael's friends and former
(27:59):
cohor testified that Michael was one of a kind. He
had a great heart and tried to see the good
in everyone. They told the court that Michael was the
one who had been fighting to save the marriage with Laurie,
although it had been rocky. Laurie's attorney said that her
acts against Michael were because of the fact that she
had gone years and years and during such violent abuse
from Michael, and according to her attorney, the violent acts
(28:22):
against her were severe. Laurie said that she had been
locked in a closet at one point and that she
was physically beaten bloody by Michael. Those who were closest
to Michael always said that Laurie did everything she could
to try to get the public to believe that Michael
was abusive toward her, but he could never hurt anyone.
He was a good man, and the accusations against someone
(28:43):
who was no longer able to defund himself was a
pretty below the belt blow. Michael's siblings have come forward
saying that they always thought that Laurie did everything she
could to control Michael and she was actually the abusive
one within their marriage. Stacy even said that he wasn't
allowed to speak with her on the phone for exist
spended periods of time. She said that to Laurie, talking
(29:03):
to Michael on the phone for twenty minutes was completely
out of the question. The prosecution proved Laurie tried to
pin everything on her daughter Isabelle. Not once was Isabelle
brought up in the entire investigation until Lourie's defense team
attempted to get Isabelle to lie for her mother to
save her. Finally, on September thirteenth, twenty twenty four, Laurie
was convicted after a four hour deliberation by the jury.
(29:26):
She's guilty of second degree murder, but she was acquitted
of the accessory charge. After the guilty verdict, Michael's family
released a heart wrenching statement. They said their lives have
been so difficult to maneuver since the disappearance of Michael
back in the fall of twenty sixteen. Since that day,
they never stopped searching for him, and not a single
(29:46):
day had gone by that they had stopped thinking about
him in his beautiful, caring heart quote on behalf of
the shaver Of family. We are very grateful to be
standing here today to recognize the guilty verdict against Lourie
end quote. They I knew that the verdict could never
bring Michael back, but after all that time, the vertical
was the closure they needed to be able to move
(30:06):
on in a positive direction. On November twenty sixth, twenty
twenty four, Laurie was sentenced to life in prison for
the murder of her husband and the father of her children.
As of January twenty twenty five, Laurie was incarcerated at
the Florida Women's Reception Facility without any visitation rights and
(30:27):
no possibility of parole. I love it.
Speaker 2 (30:30):
I love to hear that.
Speaker 1 (30:32):
I know right well, and that's just terrible. I mean
everything about it. Diabolical having your daughter life for you.
How much lower can you go? I know, when your children,
it's about the lowest. And then have your kid take
the murder rap Yeah, for you, and you're the one. Absolutely,
I believe the Michael's siblings viewpoint of she was she
(30:57):
Laurie was the abuser, don't I'm likely physical if she's gonna,
you know, pistol whip him. Who does that to a
person just has no sympathy or empathy, just coldly using them,
the father of your children. I just know she had
no you know, respects, not just for him, like because
he's so nice and great just as a human life.
(31:19):
I feel so bad because he sounded like a really
great guy, sound like a cowboy yeah right, like yeah,
he just you know, he just wanted to take care
of his wife and his kids. And I don't know,
you know, I always tell people like, just get a
divorce if you're not happy, like yeah, Laurie, just sit
(31:40):
down and be like Michael, I don't want to be
with you.
Speaker 2 (31:42):
And I know you just I know you are head
over heels in love with me. And that's just a
hard conversation.
Speaker 1 (31:47):
It's done.
Speaker 2 (31:48):
I will not be happy with you, okay, right, Like
just do it. People banding.
Speaker 1 (31:54):
I don't want to have to share my kids. Trust me.
When you share your kids, you're gonna have so much
time to your you're gonna love it.
Speaker 2 (32:01):
Yes, you work on yourselves, well.
Speaker 1 (32:05):
I mean you'll have some free time and they'll they'll
be get their other parent living it up, and just
you know, look at it that way exactly. You need
to have your child with you twenty four seven, like
it'll be okay, yes, And it's just hard when someone
is yes, totally nice.
Speaker 2 (32:24):
Long weekends, those are nice.
Speaker 1 (32:26):
You need those as an adult parent for sure, right,
but that's just crazy and then oh my gosh, to
pour the cement and put their initials in who know,
and she knows he's under that summont. Like you said,
it was fucking diabolical.
Speaker 2 (32:42):
It is who does that? Why?
Speaker 1 (32:44):
Who deserves that? These are he fathered your kids, your
kids are half him. That should be really really a
cool thing because you're a part of it too, you know.
But you know he dug that duck pond and she
put his fucking body in there, like damn girl, and his.
Speaker 2 (32:59):
Energy is I love my LORI.
Speaker 1 (33:02):
I know she's sipping her coffee looking at him dig
like sucker.
Speaker 2 (33:06):
Yeah right, how terrible?
Speaker 1 (33:09):
Fuck her?
Speaker 2 (33:09):
Right exactly. That's what I'm like. I love how the
British speaks.
Speaker 1 (33:13):
Sometimes I'll cross the pond and grab a word or two.
Oh well, thank you Shannon for.
Speaker 2 (33:20):
Oh hi, thank you for bringing that story.
Speaker 1 (33:24):
Thank you everyone for listening to this week's story too.
And before you go, if you could hit the subscriber
follow button on whatever app you're listening to, that would
be great. You'll get notified of new episodes. If you
would like to hear more episodes by Shannon and I,
you can go to patreon dot com slash tnt Crimes,
or you can subscribe on the Apple podcast app. And
(33:46):
what that is is you'll get an extra episode a
week besides the one that we released to the public,
and just for a very small monthly fee, you can
go to our website Crimes Andconsequences dot com and I
believe that's everything.
Speaker 2 (34:00):
Sounds like everything.
Speaker 1 (34:01):
Yeah, perfect, all right, Miss Shannon, I will see you
at the next recording.
Speaker 2 (34:07):
Sounds great. Queen, you have a great week. Thanks, you
have a great week. Adia.
Speaker 1 (34:11):
Everyone have a wonderful week. See you, love you, Bye bye.
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