Murder With My Husband - 239. The Disturbing Case of Laurie Shaver

Episode Date: October 21, 2024

In this episode, Payton and Garrett explore the mysterious disappearance of Michael Shaver, a man who vanished without a trace. For years, no one filed a missing person report, but eventually, the police began to investigate what really happened to Michael Shaver. Twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/themwmh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/murderwithmyhusband/ Discount Codes: https://mailchi.mp/c6f48670aeac/oh-no-media-discount-codes Watch on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@murderwithmyhusband Listen on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/into-the-dark/id1662304327 Listen on spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/36SDVKB2MEWpFGVs9kRgQ7?si=f5224c9fd99542a7 LINKS- linktr.ee/murderwithmyhusband Case Sources: WFTV 9 - https://www.wftv.com/news/local/murder-or-innocent-jury-deliberate-case-husband-buried-backyard/U6E2QET3SJA7JMS6QX772D4NIQ/ Inside Edition - https://www.insideedition.com/laurie-shaver-murder-trial-daughter-shot-father  Spectrum News 13 - https://mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news/2024/09/13/laurie-shaver-murder-trial-nears-end--accused-of-killing-her-husband  https://mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news/2020/09/18/florida-woman-accused-of-killing-husband--covering-remains-under-concrete-slab  Law & Crime Trials - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jtfa_VSDz9Q&list=PLT2snNGWwa65TSL1ZY2yzVBqvATLaQISM https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sE43ErZNZyE&list=PLT2snNGWwa65TSL1ZY2yzVBqvATLaQISM&index=2  The Guardian - https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/07/amie-harwick-murder-convicted ABC 7 - https://abc7.com/amie-harwick-gareth-pursehouse-murder-case-sentenced/14148385/ Law & Crime Network - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bg0Huiwv_WE  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CiPDU14FgJk  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jmU0kIkMtcY  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=70QXkVUnGDY&list=PLT2snNGWwa65TSL1ZY2yzVBqvATLaQISM&index=3 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HC4LoLEEb9A&list=PLT2snNGWwa65TSL1ZY2yzVBqvATLaQISM&index=4 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q8EyroDE-Cs&list=PLT2snNGWwa65TSL1ZY2yzVBqvATLaQISM&index=5 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l7xn-oOaUH8&list=PLT2snNGWwa65TSL1ZY2yzVBqvATLaQISM&index=6 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ov8mbYtlFN8&list=PLT2snNGWwa65TSL1ZY2yzVBqvATLaQISM&index=7 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YdcnxDShO1I&list=PLT2snNGWwa65TSL1ZY2yzVBqvATLaQISM&index=8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rmuPsAZY2Bg&list=PLT2snNGWwa65TSL1ZY2yzVBqvATLaQISM&index=9 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnGY7KF0CEw&list=PLT2snNGWwa65TSL1ZY2yzVBqvATLaQISM&index=10 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eg3HV05KJLE&list=PLT2snNGWwa65TSL1ZY2yzVBqvATLaQISM&index=11 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrwM05r6-tQ&list=PLT2snNGWwa65TSL1ZY2yzVBqvATLaQISM&index=12 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm6v4kSkxtA&list=PLT2snNGWwa65TSL1ZY2yzVBqvATLaQISM&index=14 Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

You're listening to an Ono Media podcast. Hey, everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Morland. And I'm Garrett Morland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. Now, if no one's told you today, you rock.

Hope everyone's having a great week. Hope everyone's had a great weekend. It's come out on Monday. I always forget. So I hope everyone's weekend has been amazing. I'm still a little bit sick. So excuse my voice. Good thing Peyton's the one that's gonna be talking

majority of the time. We can listen to her pretty voice. It won't matter. Reminder, we have bonus content, ad free content, early release content over on Patreon, Apple subscriptions, Spotify. So yeah, you should check it out. I feel weird plugging, but I will just plug and chug. He'd come down. I'm being weird

Gary why don't you take it over and give us your amazing brilliant ten seconds? So honestly, I've been sick and The only thing that makes me not congested is taking Sudafed and not the wimpy crappy sugarpale placebo effect stuff that you get just in the aisle, the same ingredients that are NyQuil and so forth, but the good stuff behind the counter that the pharmacist has, right? You go up, you tell me you want Sudafed, they log your license because you can make a meth from it,

yada, yada, yada, right? Started taking it and when I take that stuff, not only am I not congested anymore, I am like a superhuman. I am hyper aware, just super attentive. And then I was looking it up on Reddit. Okay, Reddit, I know. I wasn't just Reddit, other sources were saying it too.

Anyways, I was looking it up and they were saying that a lot of people that take, there's a word for it, but a lot of people that stimul stimulants that take stimulants like Sudafed and so forth when they become hyper aware or super focused most likely they have ADHD. I might have ADHD I don't know anyways just letting everyone know Sudafed works. I don't promote this I'm not a doctor I just am explaining my experience Sudafed this is not an ad, I swear. It just helped me. I feel like low key, you are wandering into dangerous territory.

You think I'm a druggy? No, we're just telling people that Sudafed gives them the same effects as Adderall. Oh no, I was just saying what I saw online and people were saying that a lot of people that take stimulants, Sudafed is a stimulant, depending on what, not the Sudafed PE, like the actual Sudafed. It's a stimulant and apparently like Adderall is a stimulant as well. Anyway, it scared me a little bit cause I was like,

why am I so focused on this stuff? Garret came home from Pickleball and said, I, that Sudafed made it so I could see where the ball was at all times. Everything was like in slow motion. I was just crystal clear. I felt like I had a new life. It kind of scared me. I'm not gonna take Sudafed anymore, unless I'm congested.

So maybe I'll take some tonight before I go to bed. Anyways, that's my 10 seconds. That's my experience. Any doctors, nurses, medical students, pharmacists want to comment? Go ahead. No at alls. No, I mean, I've done pharmacists want to comment, go ahead. No at alls. No, I mean, I've done the research.

I know my shiz. Yeah, that's what I got going. I start medical school next week, so I'm pretty excited about that. And on that note, let's hop into today's case. Our sources for this episode are WFTV9, Spectrum News 13, Inside Edition, Long Crime Trials, The Guardian, ABC7, Long Crime Network, and West 2.

Okay, so over the years, we have covered a lot of murders on this show. And we've also talked about many of the reasons that people commit violent crimes, kill out of greed or the desire to control or even punish a victim. Some people are simply cruel and enjoy making others suffer. But every now and then, you come across a story that is a bit trickier to understand.

One where the killer's motives are in more of a gray area. And that's what we'll be covering today. And to explain why that is, I actually have to go all the way back to the beginning. So here we are. We are meeting Lori and Michael Shaver. They were high school sweethearts. They grew up in a small rural town in New York state, and they went to a school with just 500 students in it. The two of them met for the first time in the mid-90s when they had a class together in seventh grade. They began dating in their sophomore year of high school, but Michael dropped out before

his graduation. So after Lori earned her diploma, her parents actually confronted Michael, her high school sweetheart, and they warned him that he'd have a hard time supporting a family with their daughter with no degree. And with their encouragement, he got a GED. Now, Laurie stood by Michael through all of this, and the two of them were married five years later in 2006. And then eventually they had a daughter together who they named Isabel. And once they were married, Michael got to pursue a lifelong dream of his. He'd always wanted to fly planes and he was actually able to get his license and become a pilot.

Now from there, the marriage had a lot of ups and downs. Michael, Lori and their daughter, Isabel ended up moving to Florida and then they decided they didn't like it. So they moved back to New York and then they changed their mind again and they went back to Florida. And I can't judge because Garrett and I have done this every year of our marriage. Michael also ended up changing his mind at one point about his professional aspirations.

At one point he decided, okay, I do not want to fly planes anymore. He then went into a special engineering training program. He then got a job working at Disney World and then Epcot. So there was a lot of shuffling around for this family. They were moving States. They for this family. They were moving states. They were changing careers. They were making huge life changes. What's Epcot again? It is a part of the theme park that is part of Disney World. Yes,

I've never been to Disney World. So for those freaking out characters know it. I've never been to Florida and I've never been to Disney World. If I'm remembering right, Epcot is the one with like the big golf ball. It might not be a golf ball. I was really young when I went. Okay. It has this really big giant ball. Okay.

So eventually though, they did settle down in a small town on the outskirts of Orlando, Florida. So now at this point, even though they weren't moving so much, Laurie and Michael's relationship was complicated in other ways. Reportedly, at this point in their marriage, Michael had become physically abusive. According to Lori, one night she got home from a workout at the gym, she took a shower,

and as soon as she stepped out of the bathroom, Michael attacked her completely unprovoked. What? Lori hadn't said a word to him, but still he reportedly came up to her and punched her in the face. Oh, wait, that's insane. She claimed that another time, Michael physically knocked her down onto a couch just because she wanted an Oreo. It was bad enough that at one point, Lori actually took out a restraining order against him. However, pretty soon after she filed for the protective order, she asked for it to be cancelled. It's bad enough that at one point Lori actually took out a restraining order against him. However, pretty soon after she filed for the protective order, she asked for it to be canceled.

And we can never say for sure what goes on in other people's lives. It's hard to know what led her to file for the restraining order and then cancel it right away. I don't want to speculate on it. They're still married. I think it is safe to say though that their marriage, their relationship is on the rocks. I am going to focus on what we do know, which is that by mid November of 2015, Michael was out of the picture. According to Lori around that time, he told her

that he was done with the marriage, he was done with their daughter, and he was leaving her. He walked out the door without taking any of his possessions with him. Instead, once it was clear that he wasn't coming back, Lori decided to take all of his stuff and sell it for cash. And then on November 18th, he emailed his boss to say, "'Hey, I'm quitting my job.'" This was a job that he had worked very hard to get by the way.

And interestingly, this resignation came after a full week of missed shifts. So he leaves his wife, she sells his stuff, he misses work for a week, and then he emails his boss and says, yeah, I'm not coming back. Now before all of this, Michael had always been a very reliable employee. In his entire career, he'd actually never missed a shift without at least calling his manager to say he was sick, there was a family emergency. But beginning on November 10th, he began skipping work again and again, and it was completely out of character. And then that email he sent when he left his job didn't exactly sound like him either. But either way, Lori was now a single

mother raising a seven-year-old alone. She didn't file for child support in part because Lori had always made more money than Michael and she knew he was out of work now. And even if he could afford to pay child support at all, the money would be small enough that she decides it's not worth her time to go through the court process. And interestingly, she actually never officially files for divorce either. Apparently she says the two of them had a verbal agreement about the terms of the split, who'd send who money, who had parental rights over Isabel, other details. Laurie and Michael says they worked it out between themselves without getting lawyers involved.

Which I do feel like this happens quite a bit. So not a big raise of awareness to me, I guess. But so technically on paper, Michael and Laurie are married for years after he leaves. Yeah. Now, this was a little weird because Michael had never given any indication that he planned to abandon his family and his career. And he didn't tell anyone what he was going to do next. And besides that, Michael apparently became a bit of a recluse after he walked out on Lori and Isabel. He hadn't met up with any of his old friends in person. He apparently became a bit of a recluse after he walked out on Lori and Isabel.

He hadn't met up with any of his old friends in person. He didn't find a new job. Nobody ever spotted him at the grocery store around town. And when Michael's mother got sick enough that she had to be hospitalized, his brother desperately tried to reach Michael, share the news, but he was impossible to get on the phone or to find in person. And then Michael stopped making car payments and his vehicle got repossessed in 2016. His credit card company also tried to sue him for not paying his balance, but the lawsuit couldn't go forward because he filed bankruptcy.

No one could find Michael to serve him with papers, his driver's license, pilot license and passports. They all expired and Michael never showed up to file the paperwork to renew any of them. Wait, that's insane actually. So it's definitely strange, but nobody raised the alarm until early February of 2018. Now remember, he leaves his family in 2015. So that was in part because Michael was posting on Facebook this entire time. He had been emailing people. So even though nobody had actually seen him or talked to him on the phone, he was still living his life. He was sharing updates about it on social media. And it actually took until that February, years later, for a friend to sit down and think about this, just the strangeness of all of this and realize, like, I think something's

going on. So that friend decides to investigate and they call other people. They're like, Hey, I know that like, like you've corresponded with Michael and we've seen that he's been posting, but like, have you actually laid eyes on him? No one has, no one has even seen Michael that this friend can talk to since November 15th, 2015, the week that he goes missing, misses work. So three years, basically no one has like, wait, even the ex wife hasn't seen him. Well, it had been a little over two full years of him being completely out of sight and impossible to reach on the phone.

Got it. So it was concerning. And it was actually enough at this point that the friend called the police and said, hey, here's what's going on. Like he's posting, but no one's actually spoken to him or seen him in person since 2015. And so they report Michael missing and they say, can you please find him and do a wellness check on him? Now, interestingly, there was no record when police start looking into it of Michael renting any apartment,

buying another house. To all appearances, it seemed like he still lived in the same home that he had once shared with his wife, Lori. And obviously this is a house that Lori and their daughter, Isabelle, are still living in. So the police go to Lori's house and they say, hey, we've been asked to do a wellness check on Michael. This is like the address we can find. Can we search your house? And inside, they don't find anything unusual. And Lori tells them, she's like, hey, Michael left a long time ago. Like, I haven't seen him since 2015. We decided to split and that was that. There was no sign that he'd been in the home or that anything alarming had happened.

For sure, they look at her and go, is it weird that he hasn't asked about? Your child? Your child? To see your child? Yeah, this is where the red flags start coming in. So they go in the backyard and in the backyard, they see a fire pit and it had been stalled in May of 2016.

So this was about six months after Michael left his wife and daughter and basically went missing. And this fire pit had a concrete base. This was a base that Lori had actually written her name in before the concrete set, you know, like a little fun thing to do at the house. Clearly this was something that Lori had helped install herself because she was her name in before the concrete set, you know, like a little fun thing to do at the house. Clearly this was something that Lori had helped install herself because she was there when the concrete was wet. She hadn't called in professionals to pour the concrete. She had done it. And given the timing, the police are like, okay, it's a little weird. We're just going to take a closer look.

Except when they approach Lori and they're like, hey, we're gonna come back another time with cadaver dogs just to like go around the backyard, she refuses. Not only that, but she says, you need to leave now. Like I'm canceling the current search that you are doing and you need to get off my property. And she said, leave immediately. All right, you guys, I've got to ask when it comes to keeping track of your

finances, how do you do it? Honestly, I used to be overwhelmed until Garrett and I found Rocket Money. Peyton and I have been using Rocket Money for years. We love it. It makes it so easy to see your different bills, your different subscriptions, your credit cards, your bank accounts, everything just in one app. Rocket Money is a personal finance app that empowers you to save more, spend less, and take control of your financial life. With Rocket Money, you can actually see all of your checkings, savings, credit cards,

and investments in one convenient place, allowing you to understand your spending trends. And Rocket Money can actually help you set up a custom budget by identifying top spending categories and suggesting areas where you can adjust your spending habits. They'll actually calculate your monthly spending allowance and alert you when you're close to going over budget so you can save more and spend less. They also have a goals feature that automatically saves money for you so you don't even have to think about it. Whether your goal is to pay off your credit card debt, set away money for you so you don't even have to think about it. Whether your goal is to pay off your credit card debt,

set away money for a house or simply save your money, RocketMoney makes it easy. RocketMoney has over five million happy members and has saved its users over one billion across all of the app's features. So let RocketMoney help you reach your financial goals faster. Get RocketMoney today at rocketmoney.com slash husband. That's rocketmoney.com slash husband, rocketmoney.com slash husband. So of course the police didn't need her permission

to continue their investigation. They just needed to wait for a warrant to come through because technically they're gonna go to a judge and say, hey, this guy supposedly on paper still lives here, but no one's seen him for three years. We need to search the house and any judge is going to say, yeah, that's probable cause like go. So they get the warrant on March 9th. So remember this was happening back in February. It's now March. And on this day, they're so suspicious by Lori, like immediately kicking them out and saying, no, you cannot search for him here. That they come in hard and they decide

to excavate the fire pit. They're gonna dig it up. Holy crap. So interesting because if they don't find anything, it looks really bad on them, but I feel like they're gonna find something. I mean, I don't think it's really that, I mean, it's gonna look bad for Lori,

but everyone else is gonna be like, well, they needed to search for him. It's just like we dug up your whole fire pit. Your yard, basically. To be honest, we thought there was a body in there. Well, this does happen quite a bit when searching for missing people, like digging up someone's yard. And if you're Chad and Lori Daybell, you-

That's true. Okay. Buried bodies there. Mm-hmm. So they excavate this fire pit, and about three feet down underneath the concrete, they find? A skeleton.

Michael's body. No freaking way, insane. He was buried underneath the fire pit. No way that she killed him. I did not see this coming this way. I didn't see that she was gonna kill him and bury him there. I mean, I think everyone was stunned.

Like this is not how these things typically go. Especially like the body just being in the backyard. This is nuts, okay. When I know that it was under concrete, but like she kind of technically had a month to move the body. She just probably knew she was screwed. Well, I mean, how do you get under the concrete

without people noticing? Yeah. So it's just hard. So the body was under a blue tarp and had been tied up with a green strap. But here's where things get interesting. Michael had been reported missing in early February of 2018. So this was about a month previous to this search, right?

Sorry to interrupt. Do you really think the dogs would have been able to smell it underneath the concrete? Uh-huh. Yeah? Decomp? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Even like if a body was there at one point and has been moved, they can smell it. Oh yeah, I guess it still hits them. Okay. Yeah. So police are like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, he's been reported missing for a month.

Like no one has technically seen him for over two years, but he only got reported missing a month ago. But given the rate of decomposition, when they find the body, they are like, well, okay. He has been dead a lot longer than that. And it was impossible for the investigators to pinpoint an exact date, but they could tell that Michael had been dead

for about two years, give or take. It had been so long that his body had almost completely rotted away. So like Garrett said, it was little more than a skeleton and the police actually needed to check his DNA against his father's to confirm his identity. So they're not like for sure it's Michael, but I mean, it was clear why Michael hadn't gotten a new job or found a new place to live, updated his address. But this also means that all of those Facebook

posts that had been appearing on his timeline for years, Michael obviously couldn't have been making those on his own page. His killer must have been putting them up to hide the fact that he was dead and keep appearances alive. And the police didn't have to wonder for long who the killer was. I think most people at this point are not. It had to be the person who had poured the concrete over the body, because obviously the person who'd reacted so strongly and so negatively when the police had wanted to search the area around the fire pit. The woman who'd lied and said that Michael had left her when he was actually dead and buried in her own backyard. And that was his wife, Lori Shaver. Now, Lori only looked even more

suspicious when Michael's autopsy results came back. They showed that he had died of a gunshot to the back of the head. Holy crap, dude. Specifically from a 38 caliber gun. And as it turned out, Lori owned quite the collection of firearms in Florida, including a 38 caliber handgun. So next, the police pulled her digital records, which only implicated her further. First, they saw that Lori hadn't sent a single text message or even tried to call Michael once since November 15th of 2015.

Your husband, who is the father of your child, leaves, and you never once try to get in contact with him. You never once even send a text message, a phone call. This person that you say you've agreed to co-parent with. This is definitely going to be a pretty open and shut case, but I would assume the defense is going to argue domestic violence, abuse, you're fearful for my life, so on and so forth. And again, even if Michael had left her and even if she was completely okay with

letting the marriage and then in there, like I said, she would have probably tried to communicate with him at some point because they probably would have wanted to file for divorce, which this is why she hadn't formally filed for divorce because she and Michael had reportedly worked all of the details out between themselves, except apparently none of those conversations ever involved a phone call or even a quick text about when to meet up. They just randomly were meeting up in person and having these conversations. Yeah. But the investigators were confident that she had been posting as him on his

Facebook account because they traced the IP address for the device that made those posts. And it was all from Lori's computer. So when Lori is confronted with all of this mounting evidence, she told the police, well, I'm not the only person that has access to that computer. She wasn't even the only person who'd made decisions about projects around the house, like installing the fire pit in the backyard. See, after Michael's death, Lori had dated other men. She even remarried pretty quickly after his disappearance,

even though her and Michael weren't technically divorced. But she'd also had other boyfriends while Michael was still alive. According to her, the two of them had gone through a trial separation. And one day while Lori was at her daughter's school, she bumped into a man named Jeremy Townsend. And as soon as he laid eyes on her, Lori realized that

he was noticing something specific about her appearances, namely that she had bruises, bruises that according to Lori had been left by Michael. So according to Lori, she meets Jeremy at her daughter's school and he writes her a note. It had his phone number on it He slips it to her and it says I know what you're going through. I can help you call me and So that's what Lori did. She called Jeremy and then she fell for him and they started dating She thought that Jeremy was someone who was safe someone who could help her get away from her violent husband help her build a new life But to hear Lori tell it, he wasn't who he seemed. First and foremost, according to Lori, Jeremy was a liar.

He told Lori he was married but separated too, but then sometime after he and Lori started dating, he got back together with his wife and didn't tell Lori. So they were cheating and according to her, she didn't even realize it at first. The good news was that Lori was gaining more confidence and realizing she didn't need Michael in her life anymore. This is according to her. She told the police that sometime around November 10th of 2015, so about five days before anyone last hears from him, she'd kicked him out

of the house for good. So when she'd been going around telling her friends that he'd left her around the time, it was true Lori also claimed she didn't know what happened to Michael after that where he was living or why he'd quit his job All she had was a vague understanding that he had moved somewhere to the state of Georgia And that's where things stood for six months. It's just so hard. How do you? How do you get around the fact that there's a body buried in your husband's body in your backyard, right? Like how how do you get out of that? I thought you have to admit it and then you have to go Like I defend in my life. Well, she's about to tell you because there's no other way

There's no other way you can go she claims that he didn't die He actually left and lived in Georgia and just didn't talk to anyone She says but then in May of 2016, she was at home when Michael suddenly appears out of nowhere, shows up at the house, he hasn't talked to anyone, and he shows up back to their home and he begins attacking her yet again. And this incident was worse than anything

that she had ever gone through before with him. He threatened to kill her. He pushed her down on the ground and then kicked her before stomping her head with his foot. Which knowing their past, I mean, this very well could have happened, correct? Unless their past was a lie too. Yes, if you're trusting.

You have to trust everything she says because has she ever told her any friends about this? We will get there. We'll get there, Okay, so this is what Lori is telling police when they're confronting her with evidence. So she says he's kicking me and she says my life was in danger. So I fought back. She says the coral got out of hand. One thing led to another. And then suddenly Jeremy, her boyfriend, who is married, was in her house and he grabbed her gun and he

fatally shot Michael in the back of the head. So she says it wasn't me. Okay. It wasn't me. She said Jeremy was the one who killed him. But she's like, it also wasn't a cut and dry murder because there's a gray area here. Now, while this was going on, according to Lori, her seven-year-old daughter, Isabelle, was in the house. And so she said she didn't want Isabelle around to see her father's corpse. And she knew her daughter was too young and innocent to deal with the fallout of such a brutal act of violence.

So she says that she panicked, put Isabelle in the car and left. And Jeremy stayed at the house with Michael's body to clean up the scene. So she's just blaming everything on Jeremy. I wonder what Jeremy thinks about this. So after she dropped Isabel off at school, Laurie came home and by now Michael's body was gone and Jeremy had gotten rid of it.

So Laurie claimed she had no way of knowing where the body was. But once it was discovered years later, she kind of pieced everything together. So she's saying I had no idea that was under my fire pit. But okay, then why did you say no to searching the house? Well, shortly before Michael had allegedly left her in November of 2015, he and Lori had been digging a pit in the backyard because they were planning to turn it into a duck pond. Obviously that project never happened between Michael leaving and his

disappearance. The duck pond, I guess, just wasn't a priority anymore. So at some point after Michael disappeared, Lori began dating someone. This is not Jeremy. It's a different man named Travis Filmer. And in May of 2016, very soon after this supposed shooting, they planned to have a commitment ceremony. So she's now she's with Jeremy and she marries Jeremy, except for now, she's with Travis. Okay. Um, they couldn't have a wedding because Lori is actually still technically married

to Michael who hadn't even been declared dead yet. So the ceremony was going to be an informal thing in Lori's backyard. So she and Travis decided they needed to fill the pit with something before the guests came. So they rented a cement mixer and filled the hole with freshly poured concrete and they turned it into a fire pit. Now, according to Lori, neither her nor Travis had any idea that Jeremy had buried Michael's body in that pit. And then by complete coincidence, she and Travis filled it just days later. Like we're talking days after the shooting.

Now, even if Lori didn't know exactly where Michael was buried, she did know he'd been shot to death. And everything she did after this was an attempt to cover up what happened. I mean, Jeremy wasn't the one posting the Facebook posts and he wasn't the one lying to her friends. She even told her family that Michael had been arrested

and sent to jail. When her family's like, hey, where's Michael? She's like, oh, he's in jail. So she's just changing story after story, depending on who she's talking to. I wanna know what Jeremy, where's Jeremy? Where's Jeremy think about all this? So Lori told the police why she kept the lie up for so long.

She said it wasn't necessarily because she was worried about being charged with murder. She's like, I didn't murder him. It wasn't my fault. It was more that she was scared of losing custody of her daughter, Isabelle. She said, if anyone ever learned about the violence and the abuse that had been in the household

and that this death had happened while the child was home. She was worried that child services might take Isabella away. I don't know who saw. I don't know. I'm on. I'm picking nobody side right now. So police, they don't believe Lori's story fully. They're like, we think there's lies in here at some point. That was because it didn't really fit the facts because there were some issues around the timeline. Laurie said Michael left her in November, but obviously didn't die until May. Those were her words. She left and then he randomly showed back up and she couldn't offer any explanation about where he had been for those six months.

And during those six months, he had stopped paying off his car and credit card. He had quit his job and he was impossible for his friends and family to reach. She also couldn't explain why he would just leave all of his possessions behind for her to sell and then profit off of. It seemed a lot more likely that Michael really did die back in November and Lori's story about him coming back and attacking her was a lie. And then when the investigators asked Jeremy to corroborate Lori's account, he's like. But he doesn't deny just his role in the shooting,

but he also denies a bunch of details about their relationship. They're like, this is what she told us about you two and that you shot him. And he's like, well, I didn't shoot anybody insane. And also, he said, I I I had been dating Laurie but it wasn't while I was separated from my wife he said we were never separated he said Laurie and I were having an affair and then my wife found out and I ended things yeah he's like wait I never told her I was separated like I don't know where that random detail came in from. You imagine someone

come into your house and be like, hey man, this girl said you killed somebody and that you like were separated from your wife and then lied to her about it. You buried a body and he's like, wait, I just had an affair with her. Yeah. And so he claims he's like, not only is she lied about all this, he says all of this happened before Michael even went missing. He's like, not only is she lied about all this, he says all of this happened before Michael even went missing. He's like, so like she was out of my life before Michael even went missing in November. Okay. Did she not think that they were going to go ask Jeremy?

There's some like, Oh, Jeremy did it. Shucks. Well, everybody, it gets even better because Jeremy's like, wait, also, I need to let you know, like, I have proof about the fact that this happened, all happened before Michael went missing. He says, because Michael was actually instrumental in exposing me to my wife as a cheater. He said he discovered what Lori was up to, contacted Jeremy's wife and said, hey,

this is what's been going on. And then once she learned the truth, it turned into this huge mess that blew up. And Jeremy was like, hey, I will end things with Lori. Like she's married to Michael. And he and his spouse eventually worked through their issues. She agreed to stay with them. They patched things up. And he said, I haven't been with Lori.

I haven't seen Lori since then. And he's like, and at the time of Michael's death, whether you believe that death was in November or May, I hadn't seen Laurie. Like I was completely no contact with her. So someone is obviously lying. It's either Laurie or Jeremy. And either way, the police knew that Laurie had been actively covering up Michael's homicide. They're like, well, we know she lied about this because she was actively pretending to be him on social media, and so they think that Laurie is the one lying and Jeremy is the one telling the truth. They think she's the guiltier party. So on

September seventeenth, twenty twenty, they arrest Laurie for the murder of her husband. So we're at right now in the case, I think that Lori is, I mean, I think she's a guilty one. I feel like it's pretty obvious crazy. Jeremy was just thrown under the bus like that. He's like, what is happening to me right now? I'm just living my life. Well, I also think it says something that he it would have made him look better to say he was separated from his wife when he was dating Lori, but he was like no, no, he's like no straight up. I was cheating on my wife.

I'm fine being a cheater. I'm not OK being a killer. Like, I'm going to just tell you what happened. Exactly. And I also think that this story, if true, makes her look even more guilty because the only outlook of their marriage we had so far was that he was physically abusive. She had a month to think about this and she chooses,

I'm gonna blame it on Jeremy. They thought they were just gonna go arrest Jeremy and be like, all right, Jeremy did it. You're free to go. Maybe she was hoping that because Jeremy was her affair partner, Michael would have been so mad at him and Jeremy would have been mad at Michael and it would have been this love triangle.

So maybe there was like motive there for Jeremy to kill Michael. That's just crazy. Like the police are gonna do their investigation. I think the fact that Jeremy's wife love triangle, so maybe there was like motive there for Jeremy to kill Michael. That's just crazy. Like the police are going to do their investigation. But I think the fact that Jeremy's wife can kind of back his story and be like, yeah, no, it was a mess and all this happened. But like this is how it ended.

Kind of makes Laurie's hope that this would look like a love triangle be smashed because it seems like everything was settled by the time Michael went missing. Yeah. So Lori was charged with second degree murder, domestic violence, and accessory after the fact, all of which she pled not guilty to. And her trial actually began in September of 2024. So just this year, this is recent. There, the prosecutors laid out all of their evidence that Laurie was a liar. This is the strategy they take.

They said she killed Michael herself. Jeremy was not involved and she didn't do it in self-defense. They believe it was a cold blooded crime. They also presented evidence that supported their timeline that Michael was killed in November, not May, like she was claiming. When they interviewed her neighbors, they noticed a terrible stench coming from Laurie's backyard since that fall. This is well before the day that Laurie claims

Jeremy shot Michael. And interestingly, Laurie had adopted a new pet, pot bellied pig, shortly after her neighbors No. Began complaining about the odor. And anytime someone would mention the smell, she'd'd like oh, it's just my new pig Oh, I thought it was because pigs eat anything while they do and so I thought there was something else No, she uses it. She's like, oh, that's just my stinky pig and the neighbors are like, it's not the stinky pig

Yeah, like the the smell was here before you got the stinky pig So this was just one more lie to add on I mean at this point Laurie has so many lies tacked onto her story that it's a little alarming. However, when it came to the defense case, Laurie and her attorneys actually took a pretty shocking strategy, not one that you would think. So earlier I mentioned that according to Laurie's testimony

to the police, Jeremy had shown up and killed Michael after Michael attacked her. I left out one part of her account. And that's because the public didn't know these details until trial. So I left it out, but now I'm gonna tell you in the same way that the public found out. So Lori and Isabel, her daughter,

both told the police more details than that originally. These were details, like I said, that weren't released to the public until right before the murder trial. And it's because they were sensitive and they both got into everything when they were called as witnesses. So at this point, Isabel is 15 at trial

and she's just one week away from her sweet 16th birthday when she takes the stand and she was only seven when Michael died and Isabelle explained that Violence had been common in her house when she was young She said Laurie and Michael her parents fought almost every day and it wasn't unusual for those fights to become physical She said when Michael finally walked out on her mother in the fall of 2015 She said when Michael finally walked out on her mother in the fall of 2015, she felt like she could breathe a sigh of relief that they'd never been close. Michael, her dad had always been strict, and each time he got home from work, she would hide in her bedroom because she wanted to avoid her father.

So she said life became easier when he wasn't around, except Isabel testified at trial that one night in May, she came home to find Michael on the patio behind the house fighting with her mom. Yeah. She's seven at this point. Yeah. And in her mind, she's like, I knew he wasn't supposed to be there because they were separated. He was supposed to be out of both of our lives.

And yet here he was grabbing Lori and throwing her on the ground and Lori was begging him for mercy and Michael was screaming that he'd kill her. And he pushed her down onto the concrete floor. He began hitting her and kicking her. And then he put a foot down against her face and pressed her head down. And at that moment, Lori stopped screaming and seven year old Isabel became terrified. Again, this is courting to Isabelle. She told the jury that she ran away all the way to her mother's bedroom where she knew her mom kept a gun close to the bed. Isabelle grabbed the gun, she ran out to the patio and she aimed it at her father's head

and she pulled the trigger. What's happening? There's no way. So I want to keep in mind that according to everyone, at this point, seven-year-old Isabel had never been taught how to use a gun. She'd never held a gun because she was too young to be holding a gun. But Isabel testified on the trial that she did what she had to do. If she hadn't shot Michael, according to her, her mother would have died that day.

Now even though Isabel said that she managed to hit Michael in the head, she said she didn't kill him. She just hurt him badly. And Lori decided in that moment not to call ambulance to help Michael. Instead, she called Jeremy to come over and get rid of Michael. So you're telling. So the daughter story is, oh, no, Jeremy didn't shoot him. I did. But no, Jeremy was involved.

He came and helped get rid of the body. I don't know if Jeremy did that. I don't know. I think I'm on Jeremy's side right now. So it all was a mother's desperate attempt to shield her daughter from the consequences of one tragic life or death decision. Laurie said this is why she also lied about Michael leaving her and being out of touch, because even though she knew that Isabel had killed Michael to save her, she feared this would create trouble in their family.

Child services might take Isabel away once they learned that she was the one who had the gun, that there had even been a gun to access and that she'd use it to kill her father. Now, as moving as that was, Isabelle's story still doesn't explain the timeline discrepancies. Again, there's so much evidence that Michael actually was killed back in November. But Isabel corroborated her mother's story on the stand saying the shooting happened in May. And on top of that, Michael's autopsy showed that he'd only been shot once in the back

of the head. But for Isabel's story to be true, he should have had two bullet holes because according to her, he wasn't dead yet and they called Jeremy and Jeremy delivered the fatal shot and buried the body. Yeah. Plus the testimony is bell gave on the stand was different from what she'd told police originally. And I'm not sure what the discrepancies were. Her initial statement to the detectives wasn't released to the public as she was seven. So it's not possible to compare them, but it was enough for prosecutors to

suggest during the trial that Isabel isn't being truthful. They're like, this is not what she originally and we don't know how different we do not know how different those testimonies were. But we do know at trial, prosecutors were like it was a completely different story than what she originally told police. This is this is nuts. They believe that isabel was coached that she didn't want her mother to go to

jail, and so she was coached by the defense. It is so sad to testify to this. She had been encouraged to take credit of the shooting, so lori could be spared. I just think that if as an attorney as the defense, like that, that should be illegal. And here's the thing. How is that not illegal? Many of Lori and Michael's friends and family members came forward and were like, we never heard that Michael was abusive. We hung out with this couple. We were around this couple. We knew this couple. There had

been no signs of violence coming from them. Which for those in a DV situation, we know that's not always true. Right. But it's just- It can be hidden. It can be hidden. But just, this is just for the case. But I do think it's important to note that a lot of their friends who hung out with them came forward and said, if anything if anything, opposite, it seemed like Lori was the one who was abusive to Michael actually in public, like in front of people, she had threatened Michael, she had physically attacked him. And on one occasion, other people saw that Lori had pulled a gun on Michael. So interestingly, this incident where Laurie

had threatened to shoot Michael was right before his disappearance. So it kind of did come across like Laurie was controlling and dangerous and she was victim blaming her husband by acting like he was the aggressive one. So his, their friends and family come forward and they're like, we don't think he was actually abusive,

but mom and daughter are saying he was abusive. Now I will say we are getting into a gray area. The signs of abuse are not always obvious from the outside, especially if you don't know what to look for. So it is possible that Lori could be telling the truth. Michael could have been abusive and his loved ones may never have noticed or realized it. Some people are good at hiding these things and we do know that Michael was charged with battery in September of 2014, a year before his disappearance. And he did plead guilty to those charges.

He didn't attempt to fight them. But one of Lori's former friends testified that she knew Lori had been hurting herself and blaming Michael for it. According to that friend, Lori had openly admitted to this friend that she had given herself bruises and cuts to tell everyone it was from Michael. She added that she'd been in therapy to deal with these compulsive lies, that she had trouble with lying. But since this was a private conversation between Lori and a friend, I mean, how do you know who's telling the truth? This is just what a friend testified to at trial.

It's also possible that Lori told the friend that the abuse wasn't real when it really was. I mean, again, we're in a very tricky situation. She could have been trying to protect Michael. It's also possible that Lori and Michael were both abusive toward one another. We know that that also happens. However, when it comes to homicide, things tend to be a bit clearer. Either Lori was guilty or she wasn't. That became the core question during her trial. Was Lori a victim who'd covered up her husband's justifiable shooting in a moment of desperation or a cold-blooded killer who'd been faking abuse for years so she could get away with murder?

The jury actually only deliberated for five hours and they came back with their verdict. They found Lori guilty of second degree murder. Yeah, 100%. To all appearances, the jury did not buy her story about how Isabel had really pulled the trigger and then how Jeremy had come over to finish. And as of this recording, Laurie hasn't been sentenced yet. Those hearings are scheduled for the end of this November, 2024.

Wow. And in the meanwhile, after the ruling came down, Lori's attorney said that they plan to appeal the verdict. So even though the trial is over, it's very clear that there will be more to this story in the future. Now, this is clearly a very recent trial, even though the murder is older. And there's a lot that we still don't know. I mean, in the eyes of the law, Lori is guilty, but her story feels a lot less cut and dry than those of some convicted killers.

I mean, it's been almost 10 years since Michael died. So for his sake, I hope that we can sort through the misinformation and somewhere find some truth, because everyone, no matter what they may or may have not done, does deserve justice. And that is the actually pretty current story about Lori Shaver and Michael's death.