Criminology - The Murder of Michael Griffey

Episode Date: January 8, 2023

Michael Griffey was murdered at the end of December 2005. He was found in the garage on January 2nd after a New Year's Eve celebration had occurred at the house. Michael and his wife Diane were married for 20 years and had three children, but they were essentially living separate lives. In fact, they were each seeing other people while still living under the same roof. Join Mike and Morf as they discuss the mysterious murder of Michael Griffey. Suspicion quickly fell on multiple members of the Griffey family. It seems as though more than one family member may have had a motive to want to see Michael dead. Anger, jealousy, and financial issues were all possibilities. There have been arrests but no trials, and one child has even confessed on video. So many years later, the case remains extremely murky. You can help support the show at patreon.com/criminology An Emash Digital production Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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Criminology is a true crime podcast that may contain discussion about violent or disturbing topics. Listener discretion is advised. Hello everyone and welcome to episode 239 of the criminology podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson. And this is Mike Morford. Mr. Morford, man. How are you in the new year? I'm doing good.

I'm starting off fresh and a little relaxed. And that downtime really helped. How about you? Yeah, it was nice. My family and I actually had a real vacation. We hadn't had one in at least four years, maybe five years. I can't remember how long it had been. And we went to Disney, had a great time.

And then I came back. And right after Christmas got COVID. So that was rough. And I'm still kind of battling through. It's my first time getting it. And it's been pretty rough. Yeah, that sucks. It's like there's no escaping.

It's a new year. But here we are still dealing with this. And I hope you get better soon. But it was a good thing that we did the Q&A episode for sure and taped it early because I couldn't tape anything last week at all. Yeah, we got a lot of great feedback. A lot of people who were responding on social media. and just making comments that they thought that was a fun episode and something a little different.

So I think every once in a while we can switch it up like that. That's pretty cool. Yeah, you know, it's lighter. It was the holidays. And again, hope everybody had a great holiday season. It's hard for me to really grasp the fact that we're in 2023. This does happen to me every year.

But I'll say it again. It's tough. When you say it out, 2003. And I'm still old school. I still write checks. So the first couple of checks I wrote were, had to scratch off the two and put the three in there or void the check altogether.

So I'll get it one of these days. Yeah, we'll get there. Hey, let's go ahead and give our Patreon shoutouts. We had Gia Bowens, Ceda White, Kristen Adams, Pamela Tubbs, Jenny L, Donna Butram, Ashley Whitaker, and Libby Pryor. So that's a lot of great new support. We really appreciate it. Yeah, thank you so much for that support.

It goes a long way to putting out the show. And for anyone else out there that would like to support the show, they can go to patreon.com slash criminology. So I just got done talking about, you know, 2023. It's upon us. We just want to remind everyone that we're only about nine months away from CrimeCon, 2003 in Orlando, Florida,

at the World Center, Maria. Yeah, we're definitely looking forward to seeing our old true crime friends and meeting some new ones. And if you want to go to CrimeCon, don't wait, because spots fill up fast. Go to CrimeCon.com and register and use our promo code criminology to save 10% on your standard badge at checkout. All right, buddy, so all that out of the way. Let's jump into this episode. We mentioned it, right? It's a new year, 2003. Many of us are still winding down from, you know, some of the year-end festivities. And I'm, willing to bet that many of our listeners attended some kind of New Year's Eve party and made it home

safely. Well, in this episode, we are heading to Pakenham, Victoria, Australia to discuss a case in which a woman named Diane Griffey through a New Year's Eve party in 2005 that began a perplexing murder mystery. Her 45-year-old husband, Michael, wound up dead, and his case remains unsolved to this day. Michael and Diane got married in 1985 and had three children, Natasha, Kenny, and Cassie. Around the same time, they started a very successful business together, and things were going well. But by 2005, things had changed, and a couple had been estranged for at least a year. Michael had been reportedly having multiple affairs, but he also had one steady girlfriend, Gillian, they had been seeing for five years. As for Diane, she too began seeing

seeing someone else, a guy named Rodney. It's safe to say Michael and Diane tried to keep up appearances to the outside world, but they were essentially living separate lives. Just before the New Year's Eve party on the 31st, Diane and her three children returned from Diane's boyfriend Rodney's home in Alexandra, north of Packingham. After a two-day visit, Michael didn't show up for the party, and perhaps Diane thought that he was mad at her,

that she had been away for two days at her boyfriend and Rodney's house, or maybe she thought he was spending time with his girlfriend. The pair also owned a beach house in San Remo, where Michael spent a lot of time following the separation. Whatever the case, Michael not showing up to the party wasn't a concern at first. So I think already we have a lot going on. We have a couple with three children, but after 20 years, they're estranged. And, you know, like you said, Morph, they're essentially living separate lives at this point. they have other individuals in their lives that they're seeing.

And so when Michael doesn't show up for this part, what is everyone to think? It would be different if they were together together. He doesn't show up. That's a big deal. But when you're living separate lives, you're not communicating the way that you were before. You don't know the other person's schedule as much and they don't show up for something. do you automatically go to, well, something is really wrong? And my thought is no.

So we have this couple that's technically living together under the same roof, but they're essentially, as we mentioned, living separate lives. What we don't know here is what conversation went on between them. Did Michael specifically say to Diane, okay, I will be at the party at such and such time? We don't know that. and that leads a little bit to, you know, part of the mystery, was he specifically supposed to show up for this party? The only thing we know for sure is that he didn't.

And so that may play a factor as well. And they're not being maybe the level of concern that many people thought there should have been in the beginning, basically coming down to whether or not he was scheduled to be at the party or not. And we don't know that. What we do know is that the party started without a hitch. At one point during the night, Rodney's son Shannon, who was dating 16-year-old Cassie, started to walk into the garage.

But Cassie stopped him and quickly hurried him back inside to ring in the new year with about a dozen of their friends. Before he closed the door, Shannon saw Michael's car in the garage, but didn't think anything of it at the time. the party ended and everyone left or went to sleep. By New Year's Day, Michael's girlfriend, Gillian, was very worried. She had been trying to get a hold of Michael for four days and hadn't heard from him. On January 2nd, 2006, Gillian reported Michael Griffey missing.

She told police that since December 29th, she hadn't heard from Michael and that he hadn't shown up for their New Year's plans together. Michael's sister Katrina was also worried about her brother after he didn't return her call after Christmas. At around 10 p.m. on the second, not long after Michael was reported missing, Diane and Cassie made a gruesome discovery in their garage. They found Michael's body. It would later be determined that he had been lying there dead for four days, while partiers ushered in the New Year just feet away.

So we just talked about how the family wasn't concerned at first because it's a little bit of a gray area as to what Michael had said, whether he was going to attend the party or not. It doesn't seem like there's any doubt that Gillian was very worried right away because they definitely had plans. And he didn't show up. And in fact, she hadn't heard from him for four days. Yeah. And that's got to be pretty alarming. and it was alarming enough that she didn't waste any time going to the police to report him missing. And then you have this discovery by Michael's wife, daughter, they find his body in the garage.

And then it later comes out that he'd been there for four days. All through the party, you know, people drinking, celebrating. You know, some people were probably in that garage at some point. we know Shannon was for sure. It's a, it's a very eerie thought to think about, you know, having been at that party, had a good time, went home, and then later on found out that the entire time you were there, there was a dead body in the garage. Yeah, that's got to be a creepy feeling to know that a body has been there that entire time

and you've been just leading your normal life while feet away. there's someone that's dead and sort of along that line, you know, a personal experience I had was a friend who lived in an apartment and the person on the other side of the wall in the apartment next to her had passed away and for some reason she didn't have family, whatever it was and she was there for, I think it was a month before they discovered her body and it really freaked out my friend, and she was, you know, she thought about it. Hey, I was eating. I was living my life, having friends over for that last month.

And here's this person that's just right on the other side of this wall for me. And she just, it left a weird feeling with her. I can imagine that would be something that would be tough to get over. It was determined that Michael had been beaten to death, and his body was covered with a black and white sheet and then a tarp over that. Cassie later told the Harold's son. on Australia, how horrible it was finding her father dead. She walked into the garage with her mom and found the lights on.

Cassie said, I noticed the smell like something rotting. I saw the blankets and blood. She knew what was her dad because she could see some of his belongings. I noticed dad's sunglasses hanging out the end closest to me. Neither of the two moved anything. They just ran back into the house and called for help. Diane was too distraught to speak to the dispatcher. So it was Cassie who spoke and relayed information about what they

had found. There were multiple lacerations on Michael's head, all of them fatal and a defensive injury on his wrist. The safe in the garage was open and empty. The trunk of his car was open, and there was a briefcase inside. That was also open and empty. Michael's work diary was missing two pages. The 27th and the 28th of December had been ripped out. Michael's wallet and phone were also missing. Only three people knew the combination to the safe, Michael, Diane, and their oldest daughter, Natasha. Now, this didn't rule out the possibility of Michael having been forced to open the safe before he was killed, but it cast a very dark shadow over the family. Whoever ripped out the pages in the diary must have been in a hurry because, according to various

reports. They didn't cleanly tear several pages out in an effort to make it more difficult for police to figure out what dates were important. Instead, they only took two days' worth of pages. We don't know if the book was checked for prints or other evidence. And I think it brings up one very important question. Why not just take the entire book? Yeah, it seems pretty easy to just walk out of the house when you're leaving the scene and just carry this book with you, you can do whatever you want to do with it later on, you can burn it, you can throw it in a creek, throw it in a trash. It's just weird that they would leave it there and only take two pages out of it. Well, because at the very least, doesn't it seem as though it really makes those two dates

stand out? If you only tore out those two dates, the 27th and the 28th, then what are police to believe? Well, something must have either happened or was scheduled to happen on those two dates that somebody didn't want anybody else to know about or that they thought would lead them maybe back to them the killer. And I think some people that are suspicious of the family might say that those two pages, being torn out was an attempt to make it look like someone from the outside had come in when in reality it was an inside job. Well, no doubt, it's a big question in this case. What does it mean exactly, the two pages?

And like you said, Morph, why not just take the whole book? If your main goal is to get rid of evidence, just take the book, it's easy to dispose of, but that's not what happened. Authorities believe that Michael was killed on December 29th, the same day the rest of his family left for their stay with Rodney and Alexandra. Investigators worked to put together a timeline of the last day Michael was known to be alive. That morning, he drove from the beach house in San Remo, north to the family home on Ahern Road in Packingham. On the way, he stopped and put 58 liters of petrol or about 15 gallons in his car before returning home. He also bought a coffee and an orange juice.

A neighbor, Chris Curtis, remembered saying good morning to Michael around 10.30 a.m. at the service station. In Packingham, 18-year-old Kenny Griffey had spoken to a mechanic, Andrew Blackwell, at his shop. They talked about Kenny's sprint car. The engine was blown and needed to be rebuilt for a race that weekend. Kenny went home to talk to his dad about the bill, but Michael told Kenny that he couldn't pay to have it fixed at that moment. Kenny was disappointed, and around 2 p.m. he went back to Andrew's shop to tell him the news. according to Kenny, he didn't have Andrew's number and had to go back in person. He wouldn't be able to race that weekend and he wouldn't be able to pay for Andrew to put an engine in any time soon. At around this same time, 2 p.m., Michael's friend Darren Delaland spoke to him on the phone.

They discussed the financial situation that Diane and Michael were in, which was part of the reason that Michael couldn't give Kenny money for the engine build. they were deeply in debt. After they had married, they started a transport company and quickly made a small fortune, hauling Jip Rock, a common type of plasterboard. Though D&M Plaster Transport was successful, they were living far beyond their means. Michael had paid another woman's down payment on a home in Pakenham

and was paying each month for another woman who lived in Canberra, though it's not clear. if this was for her rent or her mortgage. At the time of his murder, Michael owed over a million dollars in taxes. And DNM plastered transport was about $100,000 in debt to other creditors. Diane had also been writing checks that were bouncing, the most recent four or $5,000. And more of I think this is something that we see in a number of cases, especially when people are looking at modos.

that involve greed or finances, you know, here you have a couple who started a successful business. But like many people, at a certain point, they began spending more than they were bringing in. Well, that's always a problem. There's a lot of different things going on here that seem like they could lead to murder. You know, you've got the jealousy possibility to people that are seeing other people that are seeing other people. Now you're putting money and finances into the mix. And, you know, those are two main motivations and a lot of murders. Gride, money, and affairs of the heart. So all of that's going on in this relationship here. So you have to wonder, you know, did the police look at that and think,

okay, we need to drill down closer and look here at people close to Michael? Michael's friend, Della Land told police more about the call he got from Michael on the day of his murder. In that call, Michael mentioned he had money in the safe. Many news articles mentioned that according to Darren, there was $1,000 in the safe. But some reports say that Darren indicated that there was $50,000. Michael had also told Darren during this call that he was going to remove Diane from their bank accounts and leave her out of his will because of the way she was wasting their money. Darren also heard Diane walk in during the phone call and asked Michael who he was talking.

to just before Michael hung up the phone. Michael didn't answer when Darren called back. Earlier that month before Michael was murdered, he told his friend Darren that Diane was bipolar and had attacked him. At around 3 p.m. on the day of the murder, on his way back to the house, after telling Andrew that the race was off, Kenny claims that he saw his dad's car back out of the driveway as he headed inside. Diane was standing there and her front teeth were badly chipped.

She claimed that she had broken them on an apple that she bid into. Now, Diane's memory differed pretty significantly from Kenny's and others' claims. She claimed that Michael had arrived back home around 8 a.m. And that after they talked about their finances, they had sex. This contradicts the neighbor who spoke to Michael around 10.30 a.m. Diane also said that when Michael left around 3 p.m., She and Kenny had been standing next to each other in the driveway, which is different from Kenny's story, that he had seen Michael's car pull out of the driveway before he pulled in

himself. And it's pretty tough for us to do an unsolved case where you don't have people's accounts, timelines, and memories different. That seems to be a pretty common theme. It might also be part of the reason why, you know, some of these cases are hard to solve. Obviously, you have some conflicts here with timing and events that happened during time frames. But I want to go back to, you know, Kenny's statement of seeing his mother with badly chipped teeth in saying that she told him she had broken them on an apple. Now, I'm not saying you can't chip a tooth on an apple. I've eaten a lot of apples in my, my lifetime. If it was any normal day, okay, do you hear that and, and just kind of discounted? But when somebody's murdered and you're trying to figure out

stories and people's accounts of things, this seems to stick out a little bit more than it would otherwise. Yeah, I think you're spot on. If this had been a normal day where nothing uneventful happened, the story of her chipping her teeth on Apple might not be a big deal. But on the day of a murderer, it obviously isn't a new light the way that you see that story. And there's also the conflict here between Kenny and Diane's accounts. You know, they can't both be right. You know, Diane said that her and Kenny were standing together in the driveway when Michael left. And Kenny said that when he drove up, his dad's car was pulling away.

So one of them is not accurate. And it's a question of, are they lying? Are they misremembering? But both stories can't be accurate. And in the end, isn't that what, you know, some of these stories really come down to or some of these. cases, you have people who are saying a bunch of different things. Who's telling the truth, who has a reason maybe to bend the truth because it goes in their favor? And I think this really demonstrates an uphill battle that the police would have. You're trying to solve this murder.

You're trying to make an official, accurate timeline of what happened. And here you have two main witnesses who are pieces of this puzzle that have these conflicting stories. The police have to ask the same thing that I just mentioned, are one of these people lying? Are they simply misremembering? If they're lying, is there a motive there? So it opens up a big can of worms, I think. Well, and then you also have the added struggle of not only trying to figure out who's telling the truth, but how do you substantiate it? How do you back it up? And when does it become just one person's word against the other. Now, let's keep in mind, these are not two strangers who are just saying different things. This is wife and son, saying different things

about a husband, father, who is ultimately murdered. At 4.25 p.m., Diane got a text from Michael's phone saying, I got it. Done deal with bad people. So we have to pay back on time. And, also with interest. We'll fix those fuck-ups. Good luck at dentist. Got 50k so I can fix everything. After six minutes, a second text message from Michael's phone to Diane read, I'll put five in your savings for you. You and kids deserve it after what I have put you through last couple of months. Then I am going to drown sorrows. Diane had to visit a dentist on the evening of December 29th. She got to the dentist at 5.16 p.m. shortly after receiving a text from Michael's phone. It's unknown what work she had done or whether it was an emergency appointment for a

chip teeth or something that had been planned for a while. Investigators quickly realized that there was something very off with this timeline. Authorities believe that Michael was killed between 2 and 3 p.m. on the 29th of December. This would make Kenny's citing of Michael leaving the home as well as Michael's text to Diane after 4 p.m. impossible. Even if they were mistaken on the time. Michael's car, a Holden, Manero, still had the 58 liters of petrol. He had put in that very morning. Authorities believe that if the car had left the driveway, it pretty much went right back in. It seems that both Diane's and Kenny's stories were not possible. Considering Michael's time of death, Shannon, Cassie's boyfriend, who had entered the garage on New Year's Eve, saw Michael's

Manero in the garage that night, though he didn't see Michael's body under a tarp. 18-year-old Kenny Griffey quickly became the prime suspect in his father's murder. His timeline being so off was troubling for police. The theory was that he was so enraged and upset over not being able to compete in the race that he attacked his dad. Kenny was known to have a short temper, and racing was basically his life. So to many, his father not helping him with his engine was surely more than a slight disappointment that he would easily get over.

Another strong suspect was Michael's estranged wife, Diane. Diane was the sole beneficiary of Michael's two life insurance policies, which totaled a pretty large amount, $1.5 million. If what Darren says he spoke to Michael about in that last phone call is true, that Diane was being too frivolous with money, that they were in debt, and that Michael was going to remove Diane from the bank accounts and from his will, she had a strong motive to kill him before he was able to cut her off financial.

Michael's girlfriend, Gillian, claimed that Michael had been writing a new will that would include her, somewhat backing up his friend Darren's recollection that Michael is going to remove Diane from his will. Another thing caught the attention of police. Diane told investigators that Michael had been covered with a black and white sheet,

but it wasn't visible under the tarp he was covered in, so they believed this was guilty knowledge that only his killer, the person who covered him with the sheet and tarp, could know. So, Morf, we spent some time talking about statements made by Diane as well as Kinney. They were in a lot of ways at odds at each other. So I don't think it's any surprise

when we come out and say that police were looking at both of them as potential suspects. And then you have this kind of revelation that Diane told investigators that Michael had been covered in this black and white sheet. If it's true, that it was not. not visible under the tarp, then we have to go back to Diane's statements, which was essentially that she ran out. There was no, we removed the tarp, we did this, we did that, we took all. So how could she have known? I think that's what police were asking themselves.

Yeah, and this is the very reason why police hold back stuff in cases so that they can differentiate somebody coming forward with information that doesn't match the crime scene. But here we have Diane saying something that she shouldn't know. So unless there's some kind of snafu where police were investigating the crime scene with her around and she somehow saw it that way,

there's not a logical reason how she would know what he was covered with underneath that tarp. So because of holes in both the timelines of Kinney, In the suburbs of D.C., a woman fails to show up for work and is found brutally murdered. I wonder what's emergency? We just walked in the door, and there's blood in the foyer. For the next two decades, the case remained unsolved until new technology allowed investigators to do

but had once been impossible. A new series from ABC Audio in 2020, blood and water. Listen now, wherever you get your podcasts. in Diane, some people think that they were both involved in the murder. Andrew Blackwell doesn't remember Kenny ever coming back to his shop and telling him that he wouldn't be able to pay for the engine, build, but he did recall Diane, calling him the next morning in telling him that they wouldn't be racing that weekend. Diane and Andrew also had different stories about where they were the last time they supposedly

saw Michael. In February 2006, Diane and Kenny were both arrested. After an overnight interrogation, Kenny was released. But Diane was charged with Michael's murder and was set to stay in trial. She pleaded not guilty. In July 2007, the case took a bizarre turn. 17-year-old Cassandra Griffey confessed to killing her father turned Diane's preliminary hearing.

After Cassie's confession, the charges against Diane were dropped, even though investigators didn't believe that the information Cassie gave them lined up with what really happened, and Cassie herself wasn't charged. Prosecutors didn't believe they had a strong enough case against any of the Griffies to proceed with a jury trial. Cassie and Kenny supposedly didn't know the combination to the safe, pointing away from them, and Cassie's confession and Kenny's arrest, temper, and motive would all cast doubt on Diane's guilt. A skilled attorney could always find a way to make a juror second-gift. guess just enough that a murderer could walk free with no other chances for justice.

Since the murder charge against her was dropped, Diane was able to receive the large life insurance settlements from the two policies that Michael had. A short investigative series on Michael's murder called Family of Suspects contains a short home video. In the video, Cassie is lying on the ground, screaming being pinned by Diane, who is bad. begging her to calm down. It seems that Natasha is filming. In the video, Cassie screams, I'm telling you he was a fucking pedophile and you were not fucking there with fucking Michael. It's unclear if she's talking to Diane or the person filming, but she continues, why not? Because I was the one that fucking protected you from him. Diane also cries, saying Cassie, please stop it.

But Cassie continues screaming, saying, no wonder I killed him. We were fucking better off without him, weren't we? Cassie points right to the camera and says, you were better off without him. So to me, Morve, I mean, this seems like pretty earth-shattering stuff. I mean, she is literally coming out and admitting to the murder. No doubt what she's saying in this video is in stark contrast to her statement to the police that she and Michael had a good relationship and that she was daddy's little girl. The narrator of the documentary mentions that no one had ever seen this video before,

including the authorities. Some people believe that Cassie's confession was the truth. Others who think Diane is guilty believe Cassie was trying to protect her mother. And some people think it's aversion somewhere in the middle. The theory is that maybe Cassie killed Michael for Diane and that they were protecting each other. There have been other murders in the past where someone, usually someone younger, and who looks up to the person asking them, has been talked into killing someone. One such case is the murder of 23-year-old Linda Brown in 1985. She was shot and killed by her stepdaughter, 14-year-old Cinnamon Brown.

Sinnaman then tried to take her own life by taking pills, but she was rescued. When she was found unconscious, she was holding a note that read, Dear God, please forgive me, I didn't mean to hurt her. Sinan was found guilty and sentenced to 27 years to life in prison. Sinaman refused to speak about the murder, claiming that she didn't remember anything. This changed when she learned that her father had married Linda's young teenage sister Patty. During her trial, District Attorney's Office investigator Jane Newell had passed this information to her because he suspected that her father, David Brown, was truly responsible for the murder. He received $835,000 from a life insurance policy he had taken out on Linda, and he was living it up, driving fast cars, buying multiple homes while cinnamon was behind bars.

Patty had lived in the Brown household while Linda and David were married because Linda wanted to help her sister get away from their unhappy childhood home. David took the opportunity to groom and molest her. For two years before Linda's murder, David had been telling Cinnamon and Patty that he knew that Linda and her twin brother were planning to kill him and steal his money. He made them feel like he felt unsafe with Linda a lot. David claimed to be too old and weak to kill Linda himself and said that it would be safer for everyone if someone underage did it because they would be unlikely to do any real time. because cinnamon was younger than Patty. She was the one who ultimately pulled the trigger, believing since her father claimed it that she would only have to see a psychiatrist

if she was even punished at all. So investigator Newell kind of let this information out. And it was this betrayal by David and Patty that made cinnamon spill. And she agreed to cooperate in undercover operations, taping David's conference. conversations with her. After he was arrested, he claimed Patty was responsible before trying to pay someone to kill not only Patty, but two district attorney's office employees. And it turned out that the person he offered to pay was an undercover cop. So, I mean, that pretty much sank him.

Cinnamon was released from prison in 1992. So from this case with cinnamon that we just talked about, We see it's very possible that a younger person can be manipulated by someone they look up to an authority figure in their life. Yeah, to me, any time that I see or hear the term grooming, it sends a shiver down my spine. The connotation is so negative, so sinister. Just look at this case. This man, David, essentially groomed his daughter into, committing murder. It's unthinkable to me to use your daughter to do your dastardly deeds in order

to get, what, $835,000 worth of life insurance, get out of a marriage, you know, essentially anything like that. Yeah, I think younger people can be easily manipulated by someone they trust a parent figure especially. So, you know, I think that's important to remember that here's a younger person that's maybe would have never done this on her own without her father urging her to. And that sort of dovetails back into our case because in this video documentary, Cassie did say she was protecting someone. It didn't have to be a premeditated murder for Michael to end up dead, though. If Michael had told Diane that he was cutting her off and she was furious, and it led to a physical fight and one of their screaming matches that Kenny described seeing

Cassie could have come into the garage and grabbed something nearby to defend Diane or even defend Michael. Someone or something broke Diane's teeth. She claims it was from biting it to an apple, but could it have been from some kind of altercation with Michael? Something that's notable here is that when she's being pinned down by a Diane in the video and could scream right into Diane's face, Cassie points at the camera instead and tells the person filming that she protected them.

If this was a Natasha that was filming, the only other person who definitely knew the combination to the safe, it makes it harder to say that Cassie is lying to protect Diane. This documentary or investigative series managed to track down everyone involved. Diane, Cassie, and Rodney, though they wouldn't talk. Kenny and his engine builder, Andrew Blackwell, everyone. But it didn't seem like they tried to reach out to Natasha. It's possible she did tell her side of the story in her own way. But she didn't do it on video, so there's no record of it if it happened.

She's the only one who didn't give an official account of the time. The only one who doesn't have a story that we can really sift through, examine if Diane or Diane and Cassie together had tried to frame Natasha because she was the last one left, who knew the combination to the safe. it wouldn't surprise a lot of people, I don't think, if she was quietly bitter toward her family and cooperative with attempts to investigate her father's murder. Kenny never seemed to indicate her at all in any of his suspicions during his interview with seven news. With everything we've talked about, it's understandable that in the family home, where no suspect's DNA would necessarily be suspicious,

and no murder weapon was found to test further, that prosecutors wouldn't be confident in bringing a case. case to a jury. Even very damning statements by others who would be key witnesses muddy the waters a bit. Michael's girlfriend, Gillian, recalled a time when the entire family, including his children, actually physically assaulted Michael at a family barbecue. In the docu-series, it seemed like Gillian wanted to specify which members of the family, but the host had a habit of sort of filling in information and letting the person he was talking to say yes, instead of letting them describe things in their own words.

One thing that definitely stands out at the crime scene is that the safe was left open. Both Diane and Natasha knew the combination to the safe. If either of them played a role in the murder, leaving the safe open could be an attempt to make it look like Michael was robbed. Also troubling at the crime scene were the missing pages from Michael's planner. We mentioned it, right? It was only missing a couple of dates. What was on those missing?

pages and what might have been written down that could have possibly implicated someone. And then there's this confession from Cassie. But even if you kind of set Cassie's confession aside, or maybe, you know, you think she confessed to save her innocent mother who was about to go to trial, there is room to argue for a suspect outside of the family, just enough room possibly to create reasonable doubt. Michael was a millionaire. Large houses like he lived in are often targets because people know that good things and often large amounts of money will be inside.

Some people wonder if all these inaccuracies and things going on with the family statements are sort of red herrings and that the killer is perhaps somebody from outside the home, maybe that they chose that home to target, to rob, and this was just a robbery gone wrong, and all the stuff we've talked about up to this point is not connected to the case at all. Well, we've said several times that only, you know, a few people knew the combination to the same. But Michael knew it. So is it possible that an outsider, a stranger, could have forced him to give that combination up?

Sure it is. I mean, to me, this is just a, it's very muddy. There's a lot of things going on. There's a lot of conflicting information. We mentioned the term reasonable doubt. You know, is that why this case remains unsolved? Maybe we'll talk about it more in the wrap-up. Michael's sister Katrina saw him about a month before his murder,

and she remembers her visit was odd. Michael gave her a necklace and told her that he loved her and started to cry. This could be taken as a sign that he was afraid and knew that he might be killed. killed, maybe because people were threatening him or his family. I think we all know that sometimes wealthy people can be indebted to dangerous people, and it's not unheard of for a business deal to go south or for people to come collecting. If the text from Michael to his wife about getting some money from dangerous people was really from him, perhaps it backs his possibility up. But then we go back to the problem. This text came from Michael's phone after police belief he was killed. The problem

with this case is that there's a lot of possibilities, but no clear path to finding answers. You have an estranged couple fighting over finances. They're dating other people. There's a son who may have been quite upset or angry with his father on the day of the murder. And you have a daughter that confessed to killing him. One possible theory that some people point to is that somehow Michael Griffey orchestrated his own murder. We mentioned there was a lot going on in his life. He had financial issues. He cried when giving his sister the necklace. Some life insurance policies have a clause that will nullify the agreement in the event that someone takes their life to prevent people from getting large policies solely because they know their families will be paid.

Could Michael have wanted to help his family financially? In this case, it makes sense to look for a hired hitman in order to cover up the fact that someone planned to take their own life. The issue with this theory is that there was no indication that Michael was suicidal or depressed to the point where he would want to harm himself or have someone else do it for him. In Michael's case, though, the most logical theory people settle on is that the killer was someone close to Michael. Despite being in debt and possibly being a good target for robbery with a large windfall, multiple members of the family have stories that are impossible and clash with the known timeline. despite Cassie's confession and Diane's motive, Kenny's story is also not possible. He couldn't have seen Michael pull out of the driveway on the 29th, whether he was standing next to Diane or not, because according to police, Michael was dead by 3 p.m.

Diane received text from Michael's phone that couldn't have been from him if he was dead. So if Michael didn't send the text, who did? And on top of that, morph, my thought is what was the true reasons behind him? them. Was it to throw off the timeline? Was it to throw off the investigation? And I definitely think you could make that case. Yeah, because we're going off of what is on the official record so far, which is that Michael died between 2 and 3 p.m. Now, what we haven't mentioned is one theory, which is that Diane took the children to Rodney's house while someone else killed Michael, which is why they were gone from the 29th to the 31st.

Many people have theorized that that scenario could have provided Diane with the perfect alibi. The New Year's Eve party could have raised suspicion if canceled. So they just had to keep everyone out of the garage. Once Diane received a life insurance settlement, she could split it with whoever had helped her. But again, there's nothing solid that leads down this path either. As far as updates in this case,

as of 2020, Cassie and Diane were still living together. Diane wound up marrying Rodney. In the documentary, Kenny claimed he had a few good memories of his time with Cassie and believed that Diane was absolutely capable of killing his father. He also recalled a new detail that he remembered it was a hammer, missing from the garage after the murder. Unfortunately, there's not a lot of information out there about this case. It never went to trial and is still technically ongoing.

If you have any information about the murder of Michael Griffey, you can call Crime Stoppers at 1-800-333-000-000. You can also report information at Crimesoppersvic.com.com. So as we wrap up this episode, you know, to me, this is a fascinating case. Obviously, at the heart of it, you have a man who lost his life. and the goal for police is to try to figure out, number one, who did it, who's responsible, whether it's one person, multiple people, those individuals are part of the family, outside of the family. But then, you know, also secondarily, what was the motive?

Was it purely money, greed? Or was it because someone was upset with Michael Griffey? What I think really stands out in this case to me is the number of family members who have either raised a level of suspicion on themselves or outright confess to the murder in the case of Cassie. I'm still blown away by that because to me there's really two options for doing that. She either did it and is coming clean or she's saying that to muddy the waters for her mother so that if she were to go to trial, the defense would be able to jump on that and create reasonable doubt. Yeah, this is a really difficult case to dissect. And I think for police to investigate and eventually arrest someone and have a prosecution against that person because There's so many moving parts to this case and so many motives and people with stories that don't add up.

And I think that just all combined really makes this case difficult. Well, I also think it's an easy one to kind of put yourself in the mind of a juror. If you're being bombarded with all of this different information, at least for me, I could see a scenario where at the end of the day, day, it's so cloudy that I'm not willing to commit to convicting someone. Because I just don't know. You know, how do you weed through everything? Now, obviously, if there was a full-blown trial, there would be more information. There would be more evidence to wade through.

But just based on what we know right now, there are so many things shooting off in different directions. It's my assumption that it's for those very reasons that no one has been taken to trial yet. I'm assuming that prosecutors do not feel comfortable that they would be able to get a conviction against anyone at this point. And with the passage of time, it doesn't get any easier. It probably gets even harder because obviously people's memories change, possible witnesses can die off. So I don't see this getting any easier for authorities here to make a case stick against anyone. But that's it for our episode on Michael Griffey. If you love the show and you haven't done so yet, take a minute, go out, give us a review, leave a rating.

Keep telling your friends. Word of mouth about the criminology podcast really helps us out. If you want to find us on social media, we're on Twitter with that. the handle at Criminology Pod. We're also on Facebook at Facebook.com slash criminology podcast. You can also join our Facebook discussion group, Criminology Podcast, discussion and fans. So, Morph, that is our first episode of 2023. And we've got a lot more in store for the rest of the year.

So for Mike and Morph. We'll talk to you next week. Take care, everyone.