20/20 - Bad Romance: Dark Waters (Revisited)

Episode Date: February 4, 2026

After a military hero’s body is located, shocking revelations surface about what was really happening in his marriage to a Texas veterinarian. (Originally broadcast 3/5/24) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

This is Deborah Roberts. We're taking a few weeks off from new podcast programming on Wednesdays while we work on a new interesting series to share with you. So in the meantime, we're bringing back some of our installments from our classic series, Bad Romance. Here's this week's episode. This is Deborah Roberts, co-anchor of 2020. Welcome to Bad Romance, a limited edition 2020 series you can watch on ABC Monday nights right after The Bachelor. Have a listen. He's a military man who loves his career. He has a baby and a new wife.

But four months after the wedding, he can't be found. One member of the family knows more than they're saying, as they plunge into dark waters. I'm traveling to the Gatesville Correctional Facility about an hour west of Waco. I'm there to meet Wendy Mae Davidson, the former veterinarian, current convicted murderer. From day one, she has insisted

she wasn't responsible for the death of her husband, Staff Sergeant Michael Severance. When you do interviews like this, you always wonder what it's going to be like looking into the eyes of a killer. But Wendy doesn't look or act like any of the killers I've talked to. I'm going to cut to the chase and get right to business. The first question is, you know,

you've basically kept your silence for 15 years. Why did you decide to do this first network interview? I was kind of advised from the get-go. It'd be best not to talk. It seems like that that hasn't done me any favors. So I want my side of the story of what happened heard. I want people to know what did and didn't happen. But let's start back at the beginning, the sleepy town of Lee Main.

It's a very small, very, very depopulated. Lots of open land, but all of it choked with trees. In this deeply rural countryside, a little boy named Michael Severance grows up in a close-knit family with his mom, dad, and younger brother, Frank. Tell me about Mike. What was he like growing up? I had a great son. He was a very, very good man.

He put other people first. I often called my brother buying a Superman. He was always there when I needed him. After high school, Michael enlisted in the military and was stationed in Texas. There are a lot of ifs about this case. If only Michael had never left Maine. If only, he'd never joined the Air Force. If only, he'd never been stationed in Abilene, Texas.

If only, he'd never met a Texas girl named Wendy. Long before Wendy May Davidson cross his paths with Michael Severance, she's an aspiring young woman with a dream of working with animals. Even as a teenager at Water Valley High School, she has plans to become a veterinarian. I grew up on a farm, so my life pretty much revolved around animals.

By almost all accounts, the person closest to Wendy, the main figure in her life, is Judy, a strong mother, a loving mother. Judy saw the potential in her daughter and was determined to help her fulfill it. Wendy went to Texas A&M, but she was also rebellious. She also wanted to have fun.

I think in some ways, once she tasted freedom, she just went overboard. And she got pregnant. In October 2001, Tristan is born. Now, Wendy says that her relationship with Tristan's father falls apart, leaving her a single mother and a student. Wendy graduates with a veterinary degree in May 2002, and she heads back to West Texas. Gets her first job as a vet in Abilene. Remember, that's where Michael Severance is stationed at Dias Air Force Base. After several deployments to combat zones in the Middle East, Michael continues to build a terrific career

and assume greater levels of responsibility as a C-130 crew chief. So he loved the Air Force, was doing really well. The worlds of Wendy Mae Davidson and Michael Severance are about to collide. Mike and Wendy met when he was out line dancing, and I think she just was drawn to him like a magnet. I was there with a friend, and he came and asked me to dance. And I had an emergency call before long, so I had to go see a pet. something I normally wouldn't do, I gave him my phone number just because I had to leave. And I figured I might never see this guy again.

They had a flash romance. I think they just hit it off immediately. But then, the unexpected. He was quite surprised when she called up and said, Hello, I'm pregnant with your child. Despite only knowing each other for a couple of months, the couple decides they want to make a go of it. and Wendy introduces Mike to her family.

Why didn't your family like Mike? I think it was probably primarily my mom, and she never liked any guy I ever dated. She was always very protective. I think she looked at him as kind of a scrub. He's come into her life, and the first thing he does is get her pregnant. It kind of sounds like the pregnancy forced you into marriage.

He asked me, you know, do you want to get married now? And I, of course, I wanted to. You know, I wasn't going to pressure him. In September 2004, Wendy's second child, Shane, is born. The wedding was in an justice of the peace office. They repeated their vows. The rings were exchanged, and that was that. The Davidson's want to give their daughter a hand,

so they help her finance her veterinary clinic. At the back of the building, there's just enough space for a small apartment, and it's there that Mike eventually moves in, with Wendy and the two boys. It was really very small and cramped for four people. It wasn't a very comfortable existence. And adding to these rising tensions,

Michael's about to be redeployed. I did notice that he had started, he was still drank every afternoon he was drinking, but then he started kind of at first, I noticed he was using caffeine, pills and like a Fedra, something like that. Would you say that he was abusing alcohol and drugs? At the time, I didn't realize there was an issue.

But looking back, you know, like hindsight's 2020 and everything. So looking back, obviously there was a problem. There's no evidence, though, that Michael had a problem with alcohol or drugs. It's been four months to the day since Wendy married Mike. He's just gotten back from an Air Force training course and gets into the same. to an argument with Wendy. Wendy started yelling at him and Michael's pretty much

said, screw this. I'm going to take Shane and go to Abilene. That stirred up a hornet's nest. No one other than Wendy knows exactly what happens next. But one thing is for sure, Michael never be heard from again.

It's been four months since Wendy and Michael got married and tensions are rising. After he gets into a fight with Wendy, Michael takes off with baby Shane. Wendy's losing her mind trying to figure out where he is and where he is taking their son. When he got back, he caught help. Mike said, well, he's my son too.

I can take my son where I want. Wendy took Michael's taking off as a sign of things to come, as a warning, a portent. Michael is now under significant pressure at home, and he's preparing himself for his redeployment. Michael had deployed several times to the Middle East after 9-11, so he knew what deployments were like. But this was the first time with this new wife with a baby, that he would have to leave them behind and again go somewhere else on the other side of the world. And it creates a lot of anxiety and angst. It seems that even with everything else they're going through, the couple has at least one thing to look forward to. They plan to squeeze in a trip to Michael's hometown in Maine before his next deployment.

They book tickets for the whole family, Mike, Wendy, Tristan, and baby Shane for Sunday, January 16th. Michael was very, very excited. We were excited. A lot of his friends were going to get to see the baby and his new wife. So it was really much looking forward to spending an hour or five minutes or just, hey, good to see you, give him a quick hug, be able to hold the baby and spend some time with the baby. Regardless of the challenges they're facing, on Friday, Wendy and Mike decide to go out for the evening. Just the two of them. Michael doesn't know it yet, but his days are now numbered.

That last Friday night that you went out to dinner together, do you remember anything about that night? We went out, we had fun, we came back, he slept in, and I mean, everything seemed fine to me. And then everything gets murky. Between Friday night and Sunday morning, we really just have Wendy's version of events. So describe to me the last time that you say you saw your husband alive. Okay, so Saturday morning, I stayed at the clinic and I was going to take Shane and go get Tristan because we were supposed to go to Maine on Sunday.

So I saw Mike. He was in the back watching TV. And I told him that I was going to go out to my parents' house and get Tristan. and I would be home in a little while. No one other than Wendy knows exactly what happens next, but one thing is for sure. Michael never be heard from again. We were supposed to go to the airport and pick him up. I walked through the door and said,

how come you guys aren't ready? Let's go, let's go. And Brenda says you need to sit down. She said, well, Michael's messing. What do you mean, Michael's messing? Well, Wendy can't find him. She's saying that she couldn't go to Maine because she can't find Michael. She's saying maybe Michael went to Maine without me.

I got to talk to Wendy and asked her, what's going on, Wendy? And she says, well, I don't know. I had taken this truck and gone to my mom's house. And when I got back, he was gone. Clearly, Michael Wendy and the boys are not. and the boys are not catching that flight to Maine. Instead, Wendy calls her mother Judy. Did your parents know that Mike disappeared?

When I called, I asked my mother, do you know where Mike is? And she said, no, do you know where Mike is? And I said, well, he's not here. I don't know where he is. And she said, well, then you need to come up to the house right. now. So I got the boys went out there. I went to sleep at some point. Now, here's one of the first strange things Wendy does. Despite her parents telling her to call the police, Wendy spends that

Sunday sleeping on and off throughout the day at their house. She doesn't call the police until 6.43 p.m. that night, telling them her husband is missing, and a manhunt begins. So I knew we had a missing airman and they were in the process looking for him. He'd totally fallen off the radar screen, totally disappeared. On Wednesday, Wendy is interviewed by the San Angelo Police Department. She says that Saturday afternoon was the last time she saw Michael. I started to get more worried and more worried and I started crying. And Tristan started crying.

He said, Mommy, why are we crying? And I said, because I don't know where daddy is. Police are now on what they think is an ordinary missing person's investigation. They don't know. that this will be a case like they've never seen before. The NBA is happening now on ABC and the ESPN app. And right now, this season is unpredictable. We know this rookie class is special.

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That's meundies.com slash comfort code comfort. Staff sergeant Michael Severance is missing, with no leads, the San Angelo police, decide to call in the Texas Rangers. During the investigation, we interviewed a friend of Michael Severance. Michael said that his marriage was rocky and that he was thinking about getting out. When Michael doesn't show up for work, he's considered AWOL, absent without leave, but it's highly unusual for somebody that had been in the service this long to just disappear. That raised the red flags, and that's why the Air Force was so diligent.

We need to find out what happened here. As an investigation progressed, such as this one, we're looking at a deserter case. Desertion is considered a military crime. The Air Force has its own police, the Office of Special Investigation. OSI. And now they're on the hunt as well. Wendy? She says she has no idea where he is. Is there one memory from the good times that you hold on to that you ever think about? Well, I think the best thing that I remember about my was one morning I had woke up on a Sunday morning and he was laying in the crib with both the boys asleep curled up with him. And he said, well,

He said, Shane woke up. So he said, I was trying to keep him, trying to get him to go back to sleep so you could sleep in a little bit. He said, and then Tristan woke up and came and crawled in bed with us. So they were all cuddled up and the baby could have asleep together. So that was a good, it's a good memory. Sounds like a sweet dad. He was a good dad. The police talk to Wendy's parents, Lloyd and Judy, who support the investigator's theory that Michael went

My thoughts are that at first I was landing towards he'd probably get out somewhere I believe that's where most of his friends are and stuff you know people that he knew. But then the more time with my thing well maybe one of his family remember hiding out since he always told Wendy how easy it be to go over in Canada from Maine. If he'd taken off to Canada or something you wouldn't cover more. Oh gosh no I don't let you all Let you all have him in a minute. The Davidson family seemed to indicate that they believed that Michael was worried about an upcoming deployment,

and so he left on his own to avoid being deployed. He really loved the service. There was no indication that he was a malcontent. He liked being in the Air Force, and he had gone to Afghanistan, and he was going to do it again. It's now more than two weeks since Michael was last seen. An investigator search Wendy's Clinic again. This time, they get Wendy's Clinic again. This time, they get Wendy's permission to make a copy of her computer hard drive for analysis.

It'll be several weeks before the results come back. In the meantime, investigators aren't ruling anything out. They're even considering the possibility that if Michael is AWOL, maybe it's Wendy who's helping them hide out. Their next move is critical. They put Wendy under surveillance in hopes that she'll lead them to where Michael might be. We were given permission to place a job. tracking devices on Wendy's car. When they follow her path,

they see Wendy is driving somewhere a little strange. The 4-7s ranch about 20 miles from their home. They noticed on the tracking download that she had spent quite a bit of time at the pond. When the results of the contents of Wendy's laptop come in,

they no longer suspect that Michael is just missing. When they looked in that computer, they found out that she'd looked to see about body decomposition. Ranger, Sean Palmer, goes back to the clinic to question Wendy one more time. And at first, she seems to have answers for why she's searching the internet about decomposing bodies. She wasn't caught off guard by those questions. She explained that she had researched

the decomposition of a body and water because during that time period, searchers, volunteer searchers were out searching for Michael. But he presses Wendy further, telling her he knows she's been to the 4-7s ranch, and he wants to know why. She obviously became disturbed by the information that the pond would be searched. It caused her to kind of lose her composure. And that's when Wendy started to feel the fire breathing down her neck. She grabbed her infant son, jumped in her car, and took off. Her next stop, a cemetery.

And she calls her family and asks them to meet her there. The brother Marshall, a law enforcement officer, is the first to arrive. And he said, why am I here? What are we doing here? And she said, I've got to tell you all something. And he said, well, tell me now. The story Wendy tells her brother is that she came home that Saturday and found Michael dead in their living room. In a panic, she decides to get rid of his body in the pond at the four seven's ranch. And of course he was shocked, but she kept swearing that she hadn't killed Michael.

And then my parents drove up and me and my brother were telling them everything that happened, which was that I had found him dead and dumped his body in the pond. My brother told me that he was going to try to call an attorney, and instead he called the police. When you found your husband dead, when you say you feel you. found him dead. Right. What did you do?

The first thing that I did, I went over to home to see if he was alive and to fill for a pulse. Of course, there wasn't a pulse. He was cold to the touch. A couple of detectives' cars came pulling up to where the Davidson family were gathered at the cemetery.

They talked to everyone and ended up leaving with Wendy under arrest for disposing of evidence. Once they arrive at the police station, Wendy drops the bombshell. She tells investigators that she didn't kill Michael, but she believes that someone else in her family did. I mean, I think most people would call the police if they found their husband dead on the floor in their living room.

I think that that's maybe what most people would have done if they didn't think that someone in their family was involved. Wendy was insisting that a member of her family had murdered Mike. And so she got rid of the body to save one of her family members from getting into trouble. Of course, the next question, who? Remember, the night Wendy was taken into custody for tampering with evidence, she alleges to investigators that someone in her family killed Michael, her mother. But by the time Wendy gets into the interrogation room,

she's doing a lot less talking. We kind of got to know from you why this all happened. But I'm not talking about you. And that's just about all the police get from Wendy that night. But Wendy's parents, Judy and Lloyd, are talking. Did you have anything to do with what happened to mom? I thought he didn't run away.

No. I understand that's a hard for us. No, it's not. I had to ask it and he knows that I hated it, but I would never, ever. What did she say she found? She said she walked in and said he was laying in the floor and the box was sharp. She, when he looked at him and said he was dead. Are you kind of surprised if she thought Joll had killed him?

Well, yes, I was kind of but not totally shocked. totally shot because she did Judy bathing. I've never heard Judy threatened killing. With no reason to believe that Wendy's family isn't any way involved in the disposing of Michael's body, they do not press charges against Lloyd, Marshall, or Judy. At this point, Michael's family still believes he's missing. I was coming home from hanging out with some friends, pulled in the driveway and the car with government plates was in our driveway at 9, 10, 11 o'clock at night. That's not a good sign. Walked down over the driveway and dad said he's gone.

It's hard to convey to people what kind of a person your son is because everybody has a great son. He said to me one day, Dad, I want to be a truck driver. I'm going to haul logs. And I sat him down and I said, Michael, I said, you only know Lee Main. You need to go out and see the world. I said, I suggest the military. If I hadn't have said that, if I'd have said, go ahead and be a truck driver, Mike. He might be coming through the door right now.

I'm sorry. It's not your fault, last. I know. Back in Texas, investigators gatherer at the pond at the 4-7s ranch where Wendy says she disposed of Michael's body. We're all on the shoreline kind of watching where the divers are. And all of a sudden, he looks up as they got him, they found him. He was wearing underwear, and he had lots of different implements tied to his body.

They knew something was holding him down because he just wasn't buoyant, and then guided him to the shoreline where other ones were able to get him out of the wall. And that's when we got him in the body bag. How did you move the inert weight of a 160-pound man? There was a box sitting over in the corner. And in my mind, I thought I was just going to roll the body in the box, and I was going to pick the box up and put it in the back of the truck. And of course, no, I couldn't lift it.

So I devised a ramp out of a couple of boards, put them on the tailgate. Where are your kids? They were both asleep when I got in the truck. So your two boys? Two boys are in the car seats in the truck, and in the flatbed is your husband who's dead? Yes. Unfortunately, yes, that's the truth. Wendy says she drove her husband's body to the stock pond at the 4-7's ranch.

I put the center box on these handles and pushed it down the hill. As soon as the cardboard box hit the water, it disintegrated. So Mike's body is now floating in the pond? It's setting in about a foot of water. So I had to take these weights and tie them onto this body. And there's one other grisly detail the police now discover. Michael's body is covered in puncture wounds, 41 of them, suggesting he had been stabbed to death. His body's taken to the medical examiner's office to figure out the cause of death.

The main thing I think we came out of this was there were a number of stab. I don't believe a single wound would be considered lethal. The conclusion was these were post-mortem stab wounds. If the stab wounds didn't cause Michael's death, why were they there? I knew air made bodies float, so I decided to make holes in the body, bent holes, like, so the air could escape. So you were actually stabbing your dead husband's abdomen to make these holes so that gases could escape? Yes. Since the medical examiner says the stab wounds are off the table and that Michael didn't drown,

investigators now wait for the toxicology report, which reveals what they believe really killed him, three different drugs. We are very confident that the cause of death was due to the combined toxicity of three drugs, phenotron, pentobarbital, and phenobarbital. That was why the person died. It was not the stab wounds. It was not a drowning. This is the cause of death. Now, that toxic cocktail of three drugs is a showstopper for investigators.

Why? Because of what those drugs are used for. He had been poisoned with medications that veterinarians use to tranquilize or euthanize animals. Now that they know, the investigators go back to search Wendy's vet clinic, The evidence against her is mounting. And Wendy's about to tell a completely different story. But she says really happened the night of Michael's death. A Tins donut and coffee is the original collab. And now any classic donut is a dollar when you buy any size original or dark roast coffee.

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Now armed with this new information, investigator search Wendy's vet clinic once again. Phenobarbital is a controlled substance. Its dispensing must be documented in controlled substance logs. We seize controlled substance logs from the clinic. They find crumpled up records in the trash can. The prescription found in the trash is for a large amount of phenobarbital, a drug usually used for euthanizing pets and one of the drugs found in Michael's system. It was clear that somebody did not want that record to be found because it was clear once we found it that we would identify that the records had been doctored. And here's where things really go sideways.

All along, Wendy has been claiming she thought Michael was murdered. But now, in the same interview, she's about to... completely changed her story. Somebody planned to kill him. Somebody had access to the drugs at the clinic. And only one person here is a vet, and that was you. But nobody takes into account that he had access to this. He's not the only one.

Everybody at that clinic had access to this. But he certainly had access to this. So why did you say that at the time? And you also basically, you know, accused your mother. And only now do you realize that it might have been a fatal overdose? I didn't know drugs were involved until I read it in the newspaper. It appears that Wendy Davidson has changed her story from believing that one of her family members killed Mike. And that's why she disposed of the body to now that possibly Michael either accidentally or intentionally took his own life.

So could Michael have taken the drugs himself? The medical examiner on this case is that even if Michael used drugs, as Wendy alleges, they're not the typical kind of drugs that a user would go looking for. If we're talking about drugs to go to sleep, you know, generally we're not looking at pentobarbital or phenobarbital or phenotone. Remember, Wendy says she allegedly saw Michael abusing alcohol and possibly drugs. She recalled caffeine pills and maybe ephedra. The toxicology report and the missing euthanizing drugs are enough for the grand jury to indict Wendy the murder of her husband. Ultimately, authorities reject Wendy's claim that someone in her family was involved in Michael's murder.

She's indicted for murder, and now Michael's dad comes to grips with his new reality, a son murdered. You never want to give up that hope, but I know. I know in my mind. own mind that I wasn't going to see Michael again because I believed with all my heart that if Michael was alive he would have contacted me. Michael is buried in Maine with full military honors. Wendy, did you murder your husband? I didn't. If not you, then who? The first thing that I would do if I was an investigator, if I found a body in a pond, of course you're going to think foul play. And you're going to think the spouse, That's always what they think. That's the first thing.

Because most often it is the spouse. Sure. Sure. Leading up to the trial, from what we had been informed, we were pretty certain she was going away for a long, long time. A trial date is set. The prosecution has it thinks a cut and dried case. That is, until Wendy's defense files the sort of motion that's a prosecutor's nightmare. They say one of the key pieces of evidence can't be admitted. They file a motion to suppress the evidence gained from the tracking device on her car. They say it was legally obtained.

No tracking device means though evidence that Wendy was ever at that pond. Without the evidence from the tracker, the prosecution will struggle to make a case. Wendy could get off on a technicality. Yes, the police might need a warrant, but here's the key point. It isn't the San Angelo police who put the tracker on the car. it's OSI and they operate under different rules and regulations. We were looking for a deserterter and that was our reason why we utilize the tracking devices to see if that would bring forth discovery of Michael Sliberts.

Military investigation, military rules. And the judge rules in favor of the prosecution. The tracker is legal and the evidence gained from the tracker is admissible. Wendy's defense has taken a huge hit. What happens next absolutely stunts the Severance family. Last minute, we're sitting in a room waiting for the trial to start. And the DA comes in and has a conversation with that. And they usher us into the courtroom and Wendy pled no contest.

So when Wendy's defense team loses this legal argument about the GPS trackers, it's really harmful to their case. At this point, her lawyers, based on the evidence that the prosecution has, recommends that Wendy take that plea. Basically saying, I'm not saying I committed this homicide. What I'm agreeing to is that if we were to go to trial, that the prosecution has enough evidence that I would likely be convicted. Wendy has found guilty of tampering with evidence and murder.

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it is but not in the way they'd hoped the judge rules there's enough evidence to support the no contest plea and he finds windy guilty of murder but her sentence only 25 years that plea deal leaves the severance family feeling deeply unsatisfied she should have got life the death penalty would have been fine with me. I don't understand it. I don't think forgiveness is in my heart. When Wendy killed Michael, she hurt this community. She took a part of this community.

Lee Main's a small town. Everybody knows everybody. There is a lot of collateral damage left in the wake of all of this. And we can't lose sight of the two other lives shattered. Those two boys, Tristan, now 22, and Shane, Now 19. Though Michael's dad had joint custody of Shane with Wendy's parents, seeing him on holidays and in the summer, it was Wendy's family that raised the boys. Mike was definitely robbed of a lifetime of getting to know his fantastic son. And it's hurtful. It's painful. Because you'd love anything. I would give nothing more than to watch Mike be able to give his boy a hug.

I didn't just lose my brother. Dad didn't just lose his son. Shane didn't just lose his father. Shane didn't just lose his father. father. The world, the country, lost a soldier, lost one of the most decent human beings ever for one. Even among all the endless futilities of homicides, this one's one of the most, if not the most feudal that I've ever seen. In 2021, the Davidson's declined a request for an interview. Wendy says she last spoke to her parents in 2009. She says she hasn't seen her sons since they were and five years old. Are you hoping to be able to see them again one day, too? Yes.

I would hope so. Yes. At the start of our interview, Wendy told us she wanted to tell her side of this story. She still seems disappointed that she never got her day in court, and she still refuses to confess to Michael's murder. Would you say that in all of this story, Wendy May Davidson is a victim? No. I think my husband was a victim. I think my children were victims. I think Mike's family are victims. I did what I did. I think that I made a bad choice. There were better choices to be made, but I still didn't kill him. What I did was horrible. There's no excuse. I mean, I might have had crazy reasons in my head, but there's no excuse.

Whatever Wendy might say she did or didn't do, the authorities have absolutely no doubts about the facts of this case. I can speak to the fact that 100% certainty, that we found no evidence that anybody else, but Wendy Davidson was responsible for Michael's murder. What strikes me after leaving the Gatesville correction facility, and then meaning less, is how raw the pain still is for less severance. Wendy was kind of happy because she didn't get life.

She got 25 years. She'll be out a little while walking the streets. Michael's not out. He got life. He's gone. She took his life. That's forever. Wendy Mae Davidson was denied parole in 2019.

The board said that she, quote, poses a continuing threat to public safety. She will next be eligible for parole in May of 2024. Her prison sentence will end in 2013. You can watch fresh episodes of bad romance from 2020 on Monday nights at 10 p.m. Right after The Bachelor. And of course, tune in on Fridays at 9 for all new episodes of 2020. Thanks for listening.