48 Hours - Death Without Mercy

Episode Date: January 11, 2026

On November 29, 2005, a fire struck the West Virginia home of Jimmy and Shelly Michael. Jimmy's charred remains were found by firefighters and his death was suspicious to police from the get-go. Was evidence of a murder lost in the blaze? “48 Hours" Correspondent Susan Spencer reports. This classic "48 Hours" episode last aired on 4/18/2009. Watch all-new episodes of “48 Hours” on Saturdays, and stream on demand on Paramount+. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

911 was your emergency? Hey, we have smoke now in the house at Calarney and Eastern. It was Tuesday, November 29th, 2005, 1027 a.m. in the morning when the call came out. Heavy smoke on the second floor. Okay. We got the third apartment on the way. My name is Shelly Michael. I'm 35 years old. I am a registered nurse.

When I arrived, the fire was venting through the roof. roof there was a there was a hole burn through the roof I pick up the phone and I Frank Kelly is on the line and she says Shelley your house is on fire and I just threw the phone down and said I have to go it was a very intense fire and it was very difficult to extinguish as I'm driving to the house I'm shaking I'm nervous I'm calling Jimmy on its phone saying Honey, where are you? Our house is on fire. Call me back. My name is Dennis Michael. I'm the father of James Michael.

When they contacted, they said it was a fire and Jimmy was in the fire. But they wouldn't give us any details. I see Jimmy's car in the garage and I start yelling what's going on? Why is Jimmy's car in the garage? I just remember saying, please go find him, please go find him. You had a fully involved fire in that bedroom which had reached the flashover stage, which means everything in that room was pretty much on fire at that point. I was in the police car and a fireman, I believe, said, we found your husband, and he didn't make it.

And I was driving every 80 mile in air all the way and you're just thinking you want to get there as soon as you possibly can. And of course, we... My wife Ruth and myself, we both realized in our hearts that Jimmy was gone. I have not taken my wedding set off ever since we've been married and I'm not ever going to take it off. Jimmy gave it to me and I'll always be his wife. There were a lot of red flags concerning this fire.

The position of the body was unusual for a fire inside of a bedroom. When I made it up the stairs and I saw the damage to that bedroom and I walked in, it actually took me a couple seconds to find the body on the bed. That's how bad it was devastated. My name is Paul Mezzanaut. I'm a Morgantown police detective and on November 29, 2005, I became involved in the death investigation of James Michael. From an investigative standpoint, there was just something really wrong. I am the wife of Jimmy Michael and I am charged with first-degree murder and first-degree arson. And I'm wrongly accused.

Death without mercy. Opening game for the 2007 West Virginia Mountaineers, pride of the entire state. From small towns to remote mountain valleys, kids here dream of being part of the excitement in Morgantown. Young Michelle Goetz, raised in nearby Clarksburg, was no different, and her dream came true. Shelly, as she liked to be called, was a straight A student at cheerleader in high school, and it was clear to everyone, including her mom, that she had what it takes. She would go into the backyard and do backflips and cartwheels and getting herself ready for cheering. Chearing was her first love as far as sports.

When she got to West Virginia University in 1990, her looks, brains, and talent paid off. She won a coveted spot on the cheerleading squad. And Shelly also had a more serious side. I wanted to be involved with children somehow. That was never a question. I always wanted to be a pediatric nurse. After graduation, she landed a job at Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown. therapist Stephanie Estell remembers Shelley well. Hard not to, she says.

Cheerleader moves in the unit and she was all about flirting with the boys that we worked with and what do you mean cheerleader moves in the unit? You're in an intensive care unit. Right. I can remember. She just came over and did this high kick to her ear and just kind of giggled and kept on walking. This did not endear her to Stephanie. I thought she was slightly annoying and she's not a person I would have picked to be my friend. But what Stephanie

found annoying apparently made a very good impression on another therapist in the unit, Jimmy Michael. Jimmy was very handsome. He was very kind and loving and very generous. Very family-oriented.

Very Christian man. But a very married Christian man. married, in fact, to her colleague Stephanie Estelle. Yes, that's Stephanie Estell, who had two kids. And did we mention that Shelley by then was married too, to Rob Angus and Shelley also had two kids, none of which appeared to deter her or Jimmy in the slightest.

Jimmy and I would talk off and on at work, and I knew that he and Stephanie were having issues, and Rob and I were not getting along very well, and we kind of, kind of just connected that way. We would just kind of sit around and chairs around work when it was slow and talk, chit-chat. What you doing? By the fall of 1998, Stephanie suspected something was up. The phone rang, and I said hello, and there was a hesitation, and then there was a dial tone.

And I hit the return call code, and this number came back, and I wrote it down. and when I went to work a couple days later, I said to one of the girls, hey, whose phone number is this? And she opened up the nurse's phone number list, and it was the very first number on the top of the page was Shelly Angus. Soon, both couples divorced. And just eight months after hers was final, Shelly and Jimmy, both 28, got married, moving to the house on Killarney Drive, only minutes away from her job at the hospital. We had a whole future plan together. So you saw yourselves getting old together. Oh, yes. And this blended family was working out fairly well.

I mean, that can be pretty difficult when you've got somebody else's kids, your kids, and so forth. Right. And I thought it was working out very well. We thought a lot of her. She was more outgoing than Stephanie, and she was friendly. I mean, she seemed like she was good for Jimmy. It seemed a perfect match. And Jimmy's parents, Dennis and Ruth, say that perfect was very important to Shelly.

When I walked out of the front door, it was like perfection. Hair was neat. Everything was just perfect. She wanted everybody to think that they were the perfect model family. Jimmy had left the hospital to start a medical supply business, coaching football in his spare time, while Shelly coached the cheerleaders. And true to form, made sure everyone knew it. What did she do? Oh, back flips right across this floor.

Flipped all way down through my yard. You know, one right after another. It was just... November 28, 2005, a quiet evening. The Michaels were alone in the house, the kids staying with their exes. Jimmy turned in early, Shelly says, and was still asleep when she left the next morning.

I left to go to work around six-ish, and I got there about 6-10, 6-15, and I went in and just did my normal routine work. Shelly says it was hours later, about 10.30 a.m., when that horrible phone call came, telling her that her house was on fire. So the adrenaline takes over, you race to the house. What's the scene like when you get there?

Crazy. Firemen everywhere. I was saying, where's Jimmy? Where is he? And they just kept saying, we don't know. We can't find him. We don't know. Firefighters fought the blaze for half an hour before finding him.

Jimmy Michael's charred remains were in the master bedroom still lying in what was left of the bed. I remember crying in the police car. I don't know who was there with me. I remember yelling, go good him, go do CPR. I remember telling Jeremy to ask God to give him back. Just thought that at that time we had a fire with a fatality. But his impressions changed, says Detective Paul Mezzanaut the minute he got to the scene and began watching Shelly Michael. The people that were showing up, they seemed to be more upset than she was. And it was. It was. was just kind of different when we talked to her that day. The more they talked, the more he was sure that this was a person of interest.

She didn't have a reaction. She didn't have a reaction? You mean? Was she crying? Was she upset? I never saw her cry. There was something that just kept drawing me to be around her, because something never set right with me from the beginning of the investigation.

And then there was the crime scene itself, with Jimmy Michael's body simply lying on the bed. When we saw the body, something just stuck out to me that there wasn't something right with this. Just three days later, the medical examiner confirmed why all these somethings weren't right. Jimmy Michael, he found, had not died in the fire. No, he was dead before the blaze even started. This was murder. Morgantown, West Virginia prides itself on being just a little bit sleepy, a quiet place. So we will have a short for tomorrow.

Yes. And says editor Jerry Ferrarra of the local Dominion Post, it is a place where nothing much happened. Morgan Town still maintains a small hometown flavor. Everyone knows everyone. So imagine the shock in town. When police discovered the charred body of a popular businessman and peewee football coach

in his burned out home. And he'd been murdered in his bed. Premeditated murder of that nature with all the bells and whistles doesn't happen. Not in Morgantown. But Detective Mezzanaut says investigators suspected murder from the minute they saw Jimmy Michael. The body looked as if he was asleep. It was like no fire damage I'd ever seen on a body. It just struck you as bizarre.

Very bizarre. Bizarre, because intense heat normally causes muscles to contract. Not only was Jimmy Michael lying flat on the bed, this healthy 33-year-old man apparently made no effort at all to escape. The house was pretty much salvageable other than just some water and smoke damage, and I thought that was very weird. When the medical examiner found no soot in Jimmy's breathing passages, police knew. This was murder. The fire set by someone to destroy evidence. Rumors began that that someone was Shelly Michael.

One anonymous caller even naming a drug she might have used. Everybody that we talked to, you know, are you looking at the wife? Are you looking at Shelly? Shelly's this, Shelly's that. Check for drugs. She's got access to this. You know, was he poisoned? Everybody that we talked to wanted to talk to us about her.

Toxicology results would take weeks. But meanwhile, investigators interviewed family and friends, and when they checked out the Michael's perfect marriage, they hit pay dirt. They thought that there was possibility of an affair. Often speculation like that, though, is just sheer gossip. Because who could believe it's true? Not here.

The perfect family wasn't so perfect after all. We were able to confirm that there was an affair. And then that kind of started driving the investigation. Shelly Michael's lover was a man named Bobby Teets, who worked for her husband. When questioned, Teets admitted the affair. It started, he said, at this Chicago hotel. When the two supposedly were on a business trip. And it was ongoing.

Teets said they'd had sex just three days before the first. fire in the very bed where Jimmy Michael was found. Did he have an alibi? He had an alibi for the day of the fire. He was making deliveries and he was at the warehouse and we have people that are putting him there. Investigators also briefly looked at Jimmy Michael's ex-wife, Stephanie. But although she and Jimmy had had an ugly divorce, Mezzanot couldn't see her killing her children's father. She has a new husband. At the time this murder happened, she had a four-month-old baby. She had a four-month-old you know she has no motive to do this no every lead led him to the same place but Shelly had an alibi she'd been at work when the fire was discovered

Apparently sure that that would clear her she actually asked to come in and chat with detectives a second time And she came without a lawyer the interview took place for about nine hours Did you see Jimmy before you left? I gave him a kiss in the forehead. Okay. Anything weird about that? Okay. And you're at the hospital by what time?

I think I was there by 610 or 615. The only time she left, she said, was to retrieve a forgotten pager from her truck. Now, how did you know that this wasn't the case? With video from the hospital, security video. Something Shelly apparently overlooked. On the video, she is seen leaving the hospital at 8.11 and returning at 8.28 a.m. 17 missing minutes. Surveillance cameras, don't lie.

We got your car leaving the hospital grounds. I didn't leave the hospital grounds. Complicating her denials, a neighbor actually saw her pull out of her own driveway at 820, when she insisted she was at work. Why did you go home? I didn't go home. That's something that we can't explain away. We got your car leaving the hospital grounds.

I didn't leave the hospital grounds either. In the end, Shelly finally admitted it, saying, okay, she did leave briefly for an errand around eight. But that was a full two hours before the fire was discovered. And she doggedly stuck to her denial of the affair, not knowing that Bobby Teets already had fessed up. Have you ever had an affair with him? Why would Bobby say that you'd hear? The detectives were flabbergasted at her denials

and completely unpersuaded. She brought the investigation to herself. We didn't center it around her. You know, everything that she did was a lie. You know, everything that she did was a lie. Then in February of 2006, the toxicology result. finally came back. And just as that anonymous caller had suggested,

Jimmy Michael did indeed die of a lethal dose of a drug. A drug called rockeroneum. Rockeroneum is used in hospital procedures when doctors need to temporarily paralyze muscles. But the patient always is put on a ventilator to help him breathe, because without a ventilator,

an injection of rock uronium causes slow suffocation. Suffocation. The way that it was explained to me that made the most sense would be that you would be awake and kind of watch yourself die. Can you imagine a more agonizing way to die than that? No. For police, it was the last piece of the puzzle. And on March 10, 2006, they charged Nurse Shelly Michael with first-degree murder and arson. It was front-page news.

Our readers wanted every single detail. Our single copy sales were phenomenal. Morgan Town was reeling again. People look at her as a cool cucumber. That's the word around town, is that they thought that she was so cold. Yet there were questions. Could Shelly Michael really leave work, kill Jimmy, ignite a fire, and return to the hospital in just 17 minutes?

And why was it two hours? it two hours before any sign of fire. The whole story, says her attorney Tom Dyer, is preposterous. The defense is able to contend that the murderer and the arsonist are one and the same person. And we know, absolutely, this young lady is not the arsonist. So it's going to be our position, she's not the murderer. This is the type of case that people didn't want anyone to get away with. No one was more determined to make Shelly Michael pay than District Attorney Marcia Ashdown,

especially given how Rockeroneum kills. It's like being buried alive, not being able to move. What an awful way to die. Exactly. It's unconscionable. The lead prosecutor on the case, Ashdown says that as paralysis slowly crept over him, a terrified Jimmy Michael would have been totally held. helpless. That's like Edgar Allan Poe.

Not being able to cry out. Right. The state's theory of the crime is this. Shelly lifted the vial of rockeroneum from the hospital. Injected Jimmy probably while he slept. And then around 6 a.m. left for work as usual, only to secretly return home some two hours later. So you think she had time to leave the hospital, go back to her house, set this fire, and get back to the hospital and see that back to the hospital in 17 minutes?

Yes. It only takes, even by her own, accounting, maybe four or five minutes one way. And how long does it take to flick a bit? But why then was the fire not spotted until 10.30, two hours after Shelly was seen at the house? Ashdown says it's very significant that all the windows and doors to their bedroom were closed.

This was an oxygen-deprived fire. meaning that it could burn in a limited area for a period of time until some smoldering is sufficient to burn into something else that then becomes fuel. A fire that smolders for hours and then suddenly bursts into flames, to Shelley's lawyer, Tom Dyer, that makes no sense. This fire had to have started sometime after 10 o'clock. There's no evidence of any delayed. combustion device or anything like that. Not only is there no hard evidence against Shelly, Dyer insists she had no motive, not even the affair. Shelly's reputation after all was for loving and leaving her men, not killing them.

She has had affairs and run around on other men previously. She's divorced previously. She's taken advantage of her relationships with men in the past and never harmed any of them. Cosecutors say the motive is obvious. Turns out Jimmy had recently taken out a half-million-dollar life insurance policy. But despite the money, despite the affair, Shelley swears she's innocent. You had absolutely nothing to do with his death? Nothing at all.

With this drug that you work with all the time. I work with it every day. I have nothing to do with it. And she has another suspect in mind. Is there a scene in your mind that puts anybody else in that room with him when this is happening? Kind of, yeah. And who would that be?

I know that there was one person that gave him a lot of trouble all the time, constantly, made him miserable. It seemed like it was her point in life to make him miserable. And it worked. Shelly is talking about Stephanie Estelle, Jimmy's ex-wife. But she has an alibi. Stephanie was at home with her new baby. Making trouble for somebody is a long way from injecting them with rockeroneum and setting the house on fire.

You can't believe that about her. I can believe that she is capable of it. Yes, I can. But the challenge for the defense is to convince the jury that Shelley isn't capable of it. And her lawyer is worried. Worried that jurors may decide to punish her for the affair, for lying, or for simply not really being the bubbly ex-chairleader and perfect mother she tried to present to the world. She has a reputation for being a bit abrasive, a bit of a disciplinarian around her children, and those who are working with her and for her under her at the hospital.

Is the jury going to like this woman? Does it matter to you? Sure, absolutely. I mean, it's especially important when the state's case is in time. entirely circumstantial. But Shelly doesn't always make herself easy to like. Out on bail, she was put on strict home confinement by the court. Not that Shelly seemed to care. We had people calling saying, I think I saw Michelle Michael drive by the Killarney house. Is it possible?

She was getting her nails done? A pedicure. She stopped by a nail salon and got a pedicure. Did you just figure that wouldn't get noticed or what? I think so. Think about it. You've got children. without a father. You have parents who lost their son and in a terrible way. And you have someone

who's been accused who just went and got her nails done. Did she not understand? Honestly goodness, Susan. She is indignant that she's on home confinement during this period of time. She is highly indignant that she's being accused for her husband's death. An equally indignant judge threw her in jail a month before the trial, which was moved 150 miles to Charleston because of all the publicity. If that fazed Shelly, you'd hardly know it, even as the trial began. I can tell you that that photo that we used where she's going like this,

people couldn't believe it. How could she, she's on trial for the murder? How could she give the thumbs up? You'd think her attorney would have warned her not to do that? I just sort of wonder as you look at your life and what's happened here, you were really rocketing along there and it's sort of come to this. I mean, what do you think happened? I have no idea.

I've been asking that question over and over again. Where did things sort of turn the other way? When I got arrested. When Jimmy died. How this drama ultimately unfolds, soon will be up to a jury. jury. All right. Do you have a dark curiosity?

Heart starts pounding, horrors, hauntings, and mysteries is a weekly podcast hosted by me, Kailen Moore. Each week, I'll take you on a dark journey through terrifying true urban legends, bizarre true crime cases, chilling tales of backwoods horror and more. So if you're looking to join a passionate community of the Darkly Curious, check out Heart Starts Pounding on the free Odyssey app or wherever you get your podcasts. And remember, stay curious. 20 months after the fire on Killarney Drive, all that's left is an impromptu memorial to Jimmy Michael.

That and a prosecutor totally convinced that it was his wife, Shelly Michael, who killed him. What do you think your strongest evidence is going into this? The manner of death, the murder weapon. But prosecutors have no evidence directly linking Shelly Michael to the murder weapon or any of aspect of this crime. And her lawyer, Tom Dyer, insists the circumstantial case is a weak one. This is my first who-done-it. This is the first case that doesn't involve either direct evidence of guilt, and I witness a smoking gun, so to speak, or a confession. Prosecutors, Marcia Ashdowne and Perry de Christopher wasted no time providing jurors with painful details of Jimmy's death.

James Michael died of an intentional poisoning of a substance called Rock Euronium, a death without mercy. And lurid testimony of Shelley's infidelity. We were, you know, kissing and holding hands and flirting. Shelley's lover, Bobby Teets, says the affair started at this Chicago hotel. The pair caught on tape checking in and was still going. on just three days before the fire. I stopped over there in the morning. Okay, why did you stop over there in the morning?

Once again, I guess, intimate with her. Call your next witness. During excruciating testimony, Jimmy's dad wonders if even his son's murder ended the affair. I come in the back door and I went into the wreck room. Bobby Teets was in his pajamas and he had his arms around, Shelly kissed her on a cheek. She immediately shoved him away when I walked in.

This was the night before the funeral. Admitting that the affair makes their client look bad, defense co-counsel Jim Zimmerowski reminds jurors that motive, without opportunity, means nothing. And Shelly has an alibi. She has been at work, even under the state's theory, for several hours. The defense suggests the fire started shortly before it was spotted, around 1030.

Prosecutors say Shelly said it when she was seen at the house shortly after 8 o'clock. But if that's so, it would have had to have smoldered for two full hours before bursting into flame. To sort it all out,

the state called on arson experts from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms. They built six models of the Michael Bedroom, exact replicas down to the mattress, carpet, and paint, and set them on fire.

In the tests, the bedroom erupts into flames after smoldering for two hours and 12 minutes. Although, as the defense points out, that result came only after several failed tries. They keep manipulating these things, and the first five tests, they don't get anywhere near. What they're looking to prove, they can't squeeze the square peg into the round hole.

Still, the prosecution has scored points simply by showing it's possible for a fire like this to smolder undetected for two hours. There was never another person that we investigated with motive to do this, and there was never another suspect that was developed. And that the defense argues was the problem. Police really investigated no one else, not even others who had access to rockeroneum, like Jimmy's ex-exam. wife. Stephanie Estelle listens as the defense tries to finger her for this murder. From what I heard, she was unaccounted for between 730 and 930. And her only other alibi between the hours of 6 and 10 were her husband Dan. You verified all that? Yes, sir. And you took them at their word. Why wouldn't I take them at their word? Why wouldn't you take Michelle

Michael at her word? Because every time I gave her an opportunity to do that, she lied. on TV often feature dramatic moments when the defendant takes a witness stand to try to undo damaging testimony like that. But in real life, it rarely ever happens, certainly not to a defendant who's been caught on tape lying repeatedly. But Shelley Michael's case is in seeming shambles, and so she rolls the dice and steps into the witness box. Please call your next witness.

Um, I'm going to show me. Was there another matter that you were not? not truthful about and we're meeting with Detective Mezzanot? Yes. Her lawyer, Tom Dyer, sympathetically elicits all the reasons she chose to lie. Why did you not tell them the truth about leaving the hospital that morning? I didn't want my boss to find out I left. I didn't want to get fired. As for not admitting her affair to the detective.

And why would you lie to him about that? I was ashamed to myself. I just cheated on my husband. I just didn't want to cause any more pain. Make it worse. The life insurance, Shelly insists, was for the children, though she was the beneficiary. She testifies the couple had no debts, and she had no motive to kill Jimmy.

Shell, did you have anything at all to do with the death of your husband? No, I did not. How about the fire at your house? No, I did not. But prosecutor to Christopher is merciless. That, in fact, was a... a lie to cover up a lie.

Saying Shelly killed out of greed. And she points to her initial 34-page insurance claim to show just how greedy Shelley could be. You claimed reimbursement for 12 bottles of nail polish totaling $72. I had a big basket of nail polish. Actually, it was probably an understatement. You requested reimbursement for the value of Jim's dress socks. 30 pair totaling $240. Is that right?

I guess so if it's on there. You put a price on your framed wedding vows. $40. It was in Michael's frame, yes. I'm sorry, I didn't hear that. Yes, ma'am. Over and over to Christopher ridicule Shelly's claim that at heart, she really is an honest person.

And in your interviews with Detective Mezzanaut, you lied to him over a hundred times, correct? I lied a lot. Well, would you doubt that it was over a hundred times? Yes, ma'am, I actually counted. Well, so did it. 52 times on December 8th regarding the car. You lied five times on December 7th about moving your car.

Does that sound about right? Probably. You lied 28 times on December 7th regarding the affair. Probably. You lied 20 times on December 8th about the affair. Does that sound about right? Sure. So that adds up to over 100.

Okay. But the most important lie, the prosecutor says, says, you took flame to the bed where Jim's body lay already dead, correct? No. Cross-examination was brutal, but Shelley says she had to testify. I didn't do it and I wanted everybody to hear me. The ex-chairleader who'd twirled and charmed her way through life could only hope that when the jurors saw her struggling in that witness box, they saw an innocent person. Do you feel like taking the stand helped?

I don't know if it did or not. The jury is about to get the case, and nothing less than Shelly Michael's future is on the line. It's all or nothing. First-degree murder. Guilty or not guilty? The decision may rest on how jurors see Shelly. Is she still the perky cheerleader

whose white lies made her the easy target of investigators? Or is she a psychopath? a murderer of unimaginable cruelty. I'm still scared to death because I'm not those 12 members and I don't know what's in their head. As the trial winds down, She insists again. She only lied because she was scared,

not because she was guilty. Surveillance cameras don't lie. We got your car leaving the hospital grounds. I didn't leave the hospital ground. My honest value in life is honesty. And I know it didn't show that day, that's for sure. To be honest, if you will, I mean, looking at the testimony, that's laughable. I know.

But I do want to respond. All those lies figure mightily in closing arguments. Her lies are a symptom of her guilty knowledge. Prosecutor Marcia Ashdown dramatically recreates her version of the crime. She had injected her husband with rock uronium. All she had to do about a second. And to get the fire started, this is all she had to do. The evidence may be circumstantial,

but Ashton says it is overwhelming. Who had access to the murder weapon? Who had access to the victim's home? Who had access to the victim's body? Who had motive or something to gain from Jimmy Michael's death? She's guilty of lying, cheating. There's no question about that. Is she guilty of murder and arson?

In a last-ditch effort to plant doubt, the defense shocks the court by suggesting that perhaps no one is guilty. Perhaps this isn't even a murder. So why is this guy found in bed? Could it be suicide? Perhaps Tom Dyer continues, Jimmy Michael killed himself, making it look like. like a murder, so his family would get the life insurance money. He knows what Rock Huronium does. He's a respiratory therapist. He knows it's going to give him a little bit of time to start a fire. It won't look like suicide. This evidence alone is all

the reasonable doubt you would ever need in a case like this. Jimmy's family is appalled. That's the most unbelievable part that my son would ever commit suicide. Never ever would he do that, never. Finally, after eight days of testimony, the judge gives the case to the jury. As you wait for the jury, what are you most concerned about? We're always worried that she'll come back not guilty, or even guilty with mercy, because she's guilty. And we don't hate, shall we, if you can believe in, but we hate with she. I'm not looking for revenge, just justice.

There's not long to wait. The jury has a verdict in a day and a half. All right. Has the jury reached a verdict in this case? Yes, sir. Is the verdict unanimous in each case? Yes, sir, it is. Will the defendant please stand?

With respect to the charge of murder in the first degree, we the jury find the defendant Michelle Michael, guilty with a recommendation of mercy. And guilty as well on the arson charge. Guilty. The murder conviction alone carries an automatic life sentence. With mercy only means parole is theoretically possible. Shelly seems stunned, emotionless.

Her family takes it hard. My daughter did not do this, could not have done this, this, would not have it, in her to do it. But Shelly never convinced Morgantown. There are an awful lot of people who would love with Michelle Michael never saw the light of day again, again because of the type of crime that it was. And she certainly hasn't convinced the Michaels.

Was Justice Dunn? Yes. I don't know how a person becomes the person she is to be able to do what she did. She had planned this thing out, what she thought would be, maybe the perfect crime. She will have ample time to consider what went wrong. Why someone so good at living the picture perfect life

fared so badly at the perfect crime.