Every Town - Experts Have NEVER Seen A Shark Attack Like This - The Tragic Story Of Michelle Von Emster

Episode Date: December 1, 2023

In southern California back in the Spring of 1994, some surfers came across a horrific sight. It was the body of a young woman floating in a bed of kelp. By all accounts it had appeared she had been attacked by a shark. However, when shark experts examined the details of the case, not one of them had ever seen a shark attack like this before, leading many to wonder, what actually happened to Michelle Von Emster. 💥 Watch On Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/scarymysteries 🎧 Our Other Podcast: https://scarymysteries.buzzsprout.com 💥 Exclusive Podcasts: https://www.buzzsprout.com/1235579/subscribe  💀 Follow Our Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/scarymysteries  💀 Follow Our Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andrew.fitzg 👁 Follow Our TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andrewfitzgerald 💥 Follow Our Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/scarymysteriesofficial 🗣 Business Inquiries: [e-mail] Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

If you love true crime, grab your favorite mug and pour yourself a dose of creepy true crime every single morning with a morning cup of murder. This short daily show is the perfect podcast to incorporate into your morning routine because in less than 15 minutes, you'll hear about a true crime that took place on a day's date in history. Each day's dark history lesson will kickstart your morning with intriguing tales of murder, abduction, serial killers, cults, and everything in between.

With over 20 million downloads, Morning Cup of Murder has something for every true crime lover. One listener describes the show as a small package with a powerful punch of crime. Another writes that the show is an absolute delight in the morning. Support yourself a piping hot cup of murder every single morning with Morning Cup of Murder. Find it on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Everytown has a dark side. In Southern California, back in the spring of 1994, some surfers came across a horrific site. It was the body of a young woman floating in a bed of kelp.

For all accounts, it appeared she'd been attacked by a shark. After all, her right leg was completely missing. However, when shark experts examined the details of the case and the wounds on her body, not one of them had ever seen a shark attack like this before. leading many to wonder what actually happened to Michelle von Emster. I'm Andrew Fitzgerald, and welcome to this week's episode of Everytown, where we're going to take a closer look in the mysterious case of Michelle von Emster, and for the past three decades has divided the experts.

Events leading up to her death and the strange truth about her quote-unquote shark attack opens the door for a lot of speculation which we'll get into. Was this a tragic case of a girl going to, skinny dipping one night only to meet or fade at the hands of an apex predator? Is it possible it was a tragic accident, like a fall from a cliff, or was this actually a murder followed by a cover-up? Well, no matter what happened, it's surely a case of a young girl gone too soon, so let's head down to sunny San Diego and shed some light on this tragic case.

Michelle grew up in San Carlos, California. which is a beautiful suburb just south of San Francisco that overlooks the San Francisco Bay. She was born on August 2nd of 1968, growing up as one of five girls in a tight-knit family. Michelle was beautiful and intelligent as described by her friends, and she had an adventurous, free spirit, someone who loved the ocean hiking and the arts. By all accounts, her future looked bright, and after school she decided to attend St. Mary's College in Maraga, California, which kept her close to home and her sisters. It was here that she would face something that's terrifying for anyone to have to go through,

but especially a person as young as Michelle. She was diagnosed with cancer, had to pull out of her college courses in order to take care of herself and fight the disease. Luckily, she was able to beat it, and after that, perhaps with a new outlook and appreciation for life, She decided to make a move away from home for the first time in her life and headed down to San Diego's Ocean Beach neighborhood. She rented out a small, cheap place with another girl.

Back in the early 90s, while this area, of course, had some nice parts since it was on the ocean, it also was referred to as the war zone by locals for having some shady people living in and around the area. It was known to have a decent-sized homeless population where drugs were prevalent, and so it attracted some shady individuals. At first, Michelle worked at a local coffee shop to get her bearings and a steady paycheck while she tried to decide if and when she ever wanted to go back to school. But a man who frequented the restaurant ultimately made her feel so uncomfortable with his advances that she decided to quit and find something else.

This situation was never anything that was looked into by police at the time, but she told friends and coworkers that this guy wrote a motorist. cycle and was essentially stalking her. By 1994, she was 25 years old, finding work as a clerk at an office supply store. And by April of that year, something very horrific and mysterious would occur. I would still have people talking about it to this day, divide it as to what exactly happened that tragic night. On Wednesday, April 13th of 94, Michelle went out on a date with one of her co-workers, Edwin Decker. The two had always had a flirtatious relationship, and so when they got done stocking the shelves and putting up copies, they headed out to a local bar called Winston's for some

live music and cocktails. It was a fairly uneventful night where when it was done, Michelle got in a cab and simply headed home. Edwin and her parted ways, but this night is worth noting because just about a day later Michelle's body would be discovered in the icy waters of the Pacific. The night after Winston's, Michelle and her roommate, Coco Campbell, planned on attending a Pink Floyd concert, but unfortunately they had bought tickets for the wrong night, so they couldn't get in. They had no choice then, so they headed back towards home with Michelle,

asking to be dropped off at the pier in town, which was only about six blocks away from her apartment. A likely wanting to try and salvage the night by hitting up. a couple bars. Coco dropped her off at the pier around 8 p.m. But Michelle ever made it back to her apartment. And in fact, that was the last time she was ever officially seen alive again. As sure as the sun rose over the ocean horizon on April 15th, eager surfers were out there to catch some waves on that Friday. The surfing was good around the sunset cliffs area, and for most of the day, there were people hanging ten as usual. However,

Nearby, a large flock of seagulls, was unusually hanging around, interested in a very specific area nearby to some rocks. Ultimately, curiosity got the best of a few of the guys out there, so they paddled over to check it out. It was there they saw the body of a nude woman floating face down, a big patch of seaweed. She was clearly deceased, but also hadn't been there very long. and from her body large chunks of flesh were missing and her right leg was completely gone from the thigh down. She was pulled onto shore and brought to a nearby lifeguard station where it was clear to everyone that she had been killed from a shark attack. Lieutenant Brant Bass of the San Diego Lifeguard Service set up the missing leg.

Large pieces of flesh were missing and we don't know what else, so besides the shark attack, what else could have caused that type of wound? The next day, San Diego Medical Examiner Brian Blackburn performed the official autopsy on the body where he too thought that it was clearly a shark attack, more specifically because the leg had been ripped clean off. It had to have been a great white as no other shark in those waters is capable of such a vicious wound. On top of the chunks of flesh ripped off of her, and that missing leg she also had suffered a broken neck, several broken ribs, facial and back laceration, bruising and contusions, as well as a substantial amount of sand inhaled. It was found in her mouth, throat, lungs, and stomach,

which suggests that this shark had pushed her to the bottom while she was still alive. And down on the ocean floor, fighting for her life, she would then have inhaled all the sand, which would explain how it got there. And from there, Blackburn then put together a timeline of the events leading up to her death and eventual discovery. It went as followed. On April 14th, she was dropped off at 8 p.m. at the pier. The last time she was seen alive.

Sometime at around midnight, she decided to go skinny dipping and got in the water, at which time she was attacked by the Great White. The violent attack forced her to the ocean floor where she inhaled the sand and received all her injuries. She ultimately died from the loss of blood and from drowning, and on April 15th, the body was found by those surfers at around 3.20 p.m. While that all sounds good on paper, there's some issues, according to shark and ocean experts. For starters, Blackburn himself had never seen a shark attack victim before in his entire life. While he did reach out to some local experts to get their opinion, it was just a phone conversation and they never even saw the body.

Ralph Collier, a man who spent his entire career with sharks, 54 years working with the shark research committee, did not agree with Blackburn's findings after he examined the body. He said, When a shark bites off a part of a limb, the break is clean, almost like you put it on a table saw. What remained a Michelle's femur was anything but. It looked like what happens when you get a piece of bamboo and whittle it down to a

point with a knife. I've looked at close to 100 photos of cases that I've reviewed over the years, and I've never seen any bones that came to a point. Richard Rosenblatt was the chairman of the Scripps Institute for Oceanography. Also disagrees with the medical examiner's findings. After he got his hands on the measurements of Michelle's wounds, Rosenblatt stated, none of the marks on Michelle's body were caused by a white shark. If she had been bitten, by a white shark that most likely would have also found a great white tooth broken off in her body. And if a shark had in fact taken her leg, it could only have been taken by a white shark. There were, of course, no great white teeth found in Michelle's body,

but there were a bunch of chunks of flesh taken out, and clearly a predator had been feeding on her. Local retired pathologist Harry Bonnell explained, there was no evidence to suggest the bites occurred before death. And they were much smaller than what a great white would inflict. Many you have seen the bites believe they are from the smaller blue sharks that roam California's coast. They picked at her after she was already deceased. Ultimately, this case was officially marked down as a fatal shark attack, even though the official record keepers on shark attacks throughout the world,

the International Shark Attack File, does not list Michelle in their database due to a lack of evidence. 14 years after her death, because of all the contention with her case, her file was re-examined by a medical examiner named Glenn Wagner. After thoroughly sifting through the evidence, he also concluded that it was very unlikely she died from a great white shark attack and that her body had been picked over by smaller sharks post-mortem. So then, what do you? people think happened. Well, there's a few theories. One is that she fell from the sunset cliffs, very close to where her body was found. The cliffs here have been a place where several people

have accidentally fallen off over the years and died. The rock and sand that makes up these ledges is constantly deteriorating and so if she were up there in the middle of the night and lost her footing, she could have easily fallen some 300 feet down onto the rocks below. While this would explain, the broken neck and bruising. It's harder to say that the severity of the leg injury could have been caused by this. It's possible, of course, but the cliff theory also doesn't explain why her purse was found two miles away sitting untouched on a beach. Around 11 p.m. on Friday, April 15th, about eight hours after her body was pulled from the

water, Michelle's purse was found sitting in the middle of a popular stretch of beach that people like to walk along. It appeared untouched, as it had $27 in cash in it, some cigarettes, her ID, and keys. And so she did walk up to the cliffs and accidentally fall off. Why was the purse there? This purse is what helped lead the medical examiner in the first place to think that this is the point where she stripped off her clothes and entered the water. However, there were no clothes found nearby. And the idea that she even went for a late-night skinny-dipping session doesn't add up in the first place, as the temperature outside that night was 57 degrees. Michelle was out with Coco that evening wearing a coat, so she herself knew it was chilly.

While perhaps you could say she was maybe under the influence and disregarded the cold, again the severity of her injuries and the sand in her mouth doesn't really make a lot of sense. The most popular theory then, as to what actually happened to Michelle, seems to be the idea that she was murdered. That purse sat for almost 24 hours. If she did in fact leave it there, without anyone coming across it, or even picking through it,

which feels a bit strange. Remember, this was in a town nicknamed the War Zone, where many unsavory characters roamed. Several of whom even trekked the beaches, looking for a chance to find something left behind by beachgoers, or taking the opportunity to grab something from the beach, while its owners were out swimming. This left some to theorize that the purse was planted there by the killer

to help aid in the belief that she had swam out into the ocean on her own accord. The killer could have actually drowned her on that beach, which would explain why she had all that sand in her lungs and stomach. And then perhaps even cut off her leg before pushing her out to sea. The leg was apparently a bit of insurance. And they, of course, hoped she was never found, but if she were, then it would look like a shark attack. That would also explain the sharpness of the cut and the bone.

The missing clothes may have been kept by the killer. Perhaps they contained their DNA after an assault, so it had to be destroyed. They had the purse with them, and then, once they got word, she had been found, placed it back on that beach. In terms of suspects, Edwin Decker, the man Michelle went out with on a date a few nights prior, was mentioned. He actually claimed Michelle liked to surf naked, which her friends all found odd as this wasn't something they knew of her doing. Over that information would help steer the narrative and police towards understanding why she was found nude. Denise Knox, who was Michelle's former boss over at that office supply store, said that shortly after Michelle's death, a strange man came

into the store and made several copies of the woman's odd types of report. She also mentioned that he rode away from the store on a motorcycle. Was this possibly a old stalker from the coffee shop looking for some sort of trophy for the crime he committed? This entire case is a strange one. When bodies are found in water, often it's hard to collect all the evidence, and so he can end up being forced to make a lot of speculations.

Was this a shark attack, an accident, murder, or something else? Well, it's impossible at this juncture to say for sure. It seems everywhere you turn on this case, it's a whole lot of theories and nothing concrete. There are assumptions made and ideas tossed around, but because none of them can be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and who's to say which ones are correct. If justice is warranted in this case, then we hope for the sake of Michelle and her family that it's obtained someday. Until then, the case of Michelle von Emster will continue to be one of the many strange and unsettling unsoled, all mysteries that exist in many towns all around the world.

So that's it for this week's episode of every town. Hope you guys enjoyed it. Go check out this episode in video form over on our YouTube channel called Scary Mysteries. And for more podcasts from us, check out the Scary Mysteries podcast. Thanks for tuning in today. Remember to come back next week for another episode filled with scary, strange, and mysterious stories. Because you never know. Maybe your town will be next.