Snapped: Women Who Murder - Kimberly Fletcher Groh

Episode Date: October 11, 2026

After a man dies from an apparent suicide, South Carolina investigators must unravel a murky story.Season 34 Episode 23Originally aired: Sun, Dec 22, 2024Watch full episodes of Snapped on the Oxygen app: https://oxygen.tv/watchsnappedSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

A father's life comes to a violent end. Officers observed a large amount of blood and an obvious gunshot wound to his chest. But the sole witness says it was a tragic accident. He had the firearm in bed with him? Yeah, and I just tried to move it. He jerked and it went off. The investigation reveals a murky history of mental health struggles. I don't know the exact year that my father was,

diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Depression increases the likelihood of suicidal ideation. Until a deeper look into his personal life raises startling questions. He didn't understand where the money was going. There were discrepancies in the stories. He was looking for proof. And evidence mounts that this was no mere accident. We found plastic baggies.

that contained powder. She said that he was crushing them up. Why would a grown man crush up pills to put him to his food? Leading investigators to a desperate killer who'll go to any length to get what they want. They have conducted a search for top ten most deadly poisons to humans. It was hard to understand. Did you always have this plan?

They felt he was worth more. felt he was worth more dead than he was alive. The small town of Lexington, South Carolina, is known for its family-friendly atmosphere. There's lots of great schools, there are fun things for families to do. It's a really great place to live. Though it is one of the fastest growing areas in South Carolina,

knights in Lexington are usually peaceful. But that isn't the case on November 30, 2016. At approximately 142 a.m., our 911 communication center received a call. Alex McKinley, 911, save the address of your emergency. Anita, Angel, right away, my husband was asleep, and he's done with the side of him and it went off. I don't know what to do. He shot himself? Yes.

Please, hurry. Please stop breathing. The 911 caller was Kimberly Groh. During the course of the call, the 911 dispatcher learns that Kimberly Groh's husband is Michael Bryan. Okay, where did he get shot at? I'm like a test area, I think. He's laying in and where does he fall there?

Can I move him? No, ma'am, do not move him? All right. Dan Lennan, I have a few more questions for you. Where is the gun at? It's on the bed. Officers arrived at a scene within minutes. They were met by Kimberly Grove.

She was distraught. distraught. When the officers enter the bedroom, they find the scene much as Kimberly described. Michael was laying on the right side of the bed, on his left side. Officers observed a rifle that was laying, pointing towards him, but pretty much at a 45-degree angle on the left side of the bed. They walked around the foot of the bed and observed a large amount of blood and obvious gunshot wound to his chest. He has his arm laid across a blue towel with a remote control in his right hand.

They did not get a pulse from Michael. They were able to determine that Michael was not alive anymore. Lexington police encounter hunting accidents every season. But a man shooting himself in his own bed is a rare occurrence, especially with a rifle. Due to the fact that it was initially reported and believed to be a suicide. Each individual piece of evidence had to be scrutinized.

As an investigator, you would want to try to figure out why that person would want to harm themselves. However, the rifle laying on the bed was very odd. Nobody sleeps with a rifle in their bed, also because of how far he would have had to reach to pull the trigger. That alone didn't say that it was not a suicide. But it's very uncommon to see people use a long gun or rifle to commit suicide. The responding officers asked Kimberly if there was anyone else in the house other than Michael, and she said that her daughter was upstairs in her bedroom, asleep at the time.

Kimberly's daughter from a previous marriage, she was asleep in bed. And once she was awakened, the officers escorted her outside of the residence. Once backup arrives, the officer put Kimberly and her daughter in a car while the house is secured for investigators. We treat all suspicious deaths, which would include a suicide, as a crime until proven otherwise,

whether you believe it's suicide or it is an accident. It's important to keep an open mind in any investigation. Michael Bryan was born on October 11, 1961, in Charlotte, North Carolina. His early years were marked by a love of family God and the Outdoors. My dad had two older sisters and one younger sister.

He was a handful. He loved to have fun and he loved to help people since he was little. Faith was the centerpiece of my dad's life. He was raised up with a strong faith from my grandfather and my grandma. I think my father thoroughly enjoyed the great outdoors just because he, got to see God's beautiful earth and just sit there and listen to the animals. As he grew older, Michael's interests expanded into more practical pursuits. After high school, Michael trained to be a plumber.

In 1999, he opened his own plumbing company here in Lexington, South Carolina. My dad and my mom, I'm not exactly sure when they got married. But my father had my brother in 91, and I was born in 94. It was a happy household. My dad was always in a good mood, and that mood was contagious. As a family, we did a lot together. We'd go to church, obviously, and we'd go out on the lake. We'd go camping.

We were very close. Although he was an ideal father, Michael struggled in his marriage. My father always expressed to me that he loved my mother, but things had just changed. I was in middle school when they finally divorced. When my parents divorced, actually, my father had sole custody of us both. But I would see my mom. I really looked up to my dad for stepping up and being a single dad. And he was at every basketball game.

He was at every football game for my brother in the marching band. Michael divided his time between raising his boys and building up his plumbing business. Michael did work in the Lexington area and all over the state. It was a pretty profitable business for him at the time. Despite his career success, the life of a single father grew lonely for 46-year-old Michael. By 2007, two years after his divorce, he was ready to try again at love. When my dad told me he was on E-Harmony, it was surprising, but it also was geared for men like him. you know, find another person who's into their faith as much as you are.

I was probably 13 when Kim and my dad met. Michael was new to dating, but 41-year-old Kimberly Fletcher-Grow seemed to be everything he was looking for in a woman. She was a single mom that was strong in her faith and hardworking and loving and caring. I think she checked a lot of the boxes that my dad was looking for. she had a sense of humor and family meant most to her. I thought she was a nice woman and she made my dad happy. That's really all that mattered. Kim had two daughters.

One was much older and then one was younger than me. Like Michael, Kim ran her own business, renting out properties she owned in the area. Before long, she was helping Michael manage his company as well. Kimberly joined Michael in the plumbing business, taking over the finances and the bookkeeping. When Kim stepped into the business, I think everything kind of grew exponentially. And we were doing really well. And I think it was purely because Kim was there and she was smart and she was hardworking. In 2008, after a year and a half together, they decided to get married.

Their wedding was local and it was mainly family there. My father and Kim had a great relationship, and they loved each other very strongly, and they were supportive of each other and growing. Now, their happy home has been torn apart by Michael's stunning apparent suicide. They began speaking with Kimberly Groh concerning the events that had transpired. So officers got verbal statements from her that were recorded on body. camera about what had happened. I just tried to move it so he wouldn't be in bed with it. He had the firearm in bed with him?

Yeah, and I just tried to move it. Despite what she told 911, Kimberly says Michael didn't take his own life. According to her, the gun went off by accident. The barrel was pointed up toward him? Yeah, I'd grab the bottom. Mm-hmm. And he jerked it back, and it went off. When officers learned that it was Kimberly's hand,

that was on the gun when the gun went off, that changes the trajectory of the investigation. After speaking with Kimberly Groh, police question her 17-year-old daughter as well. She tells them she was asleep when the shooting happened and doesn't remember hearing the gun go off, leaving no one to corroborate Kim's version of events. Now investigators have a more keen interest

in investigating whether that's what actually happened. The difference between a suicide or an accident or night and day. How do you confuse it to you? Coming up, Kimberly gives investigators a detailed account of the accident. She actually did a drawing of the bed and location of the gun. Investigators must question if any of it is true. I've seen suicides. I've been to homicides.

I knew something about this scene was just not at a lot. of. After hearing Kimberly Groh's initial statement about her husband's death, Lexington Police open an official investigation. Kimberly now has to be ruled out

as having any sort of malicious tent and potentially intentionally killing Michael. So officers are obviously very interested in bringing Kimberly into conduct a interview with the detectives with the Lexington Police Department. It's not unusual for people who've experienced a traumatic event

to not exactly have the exact facts. So we continue to just let her try to pin down the best that she could exactly what had happened. Can you kind of go over what happened starting with

yesterday morning when you guys got up? Well, he didn't get up. He's bipolar. Yesterday. He's seen him bed all day. Kimberly said that this type of behavior from Michael was something that had been ongoing, but had been getting worse over time. I don't know the exact year that my father was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but I believe he'd probably always struggled with it.

He kept most of that stuff to himself and didn't want to seem moody. Bipolar can be triggered by extremely stressful. events, which may trigger an episode, whether it is mania or depression. When asked what could have prompted this behavior, Kimberly explains that Michael's passion has always been hunting. And his latest depression was caused by tremors, which prevented him from shooting accurately. He has been really possessive over the fact that he hadn't So he shot at him. He shot at deer and he says it was in there.

This year, and that's unusual. Kimberly says it also caused Michael to obsess over his guns. Kimberly told law enforcement that Michael would consistently leave guns laying around the house. She didn't know if they were loaded or not, but she was afraid that something like this might happen. And so he started laying him in the bedroom, and they were laying everywhere.

When someone's going through the depression, they are more likely to be fatigue, not wanting to engage in activities of daily living. Kimberly had advised us that Michael pretty much slept all day while she had run a whole bunch of errands. Kimberly says when she came home later that day, Michael was still in bed. He hasn't had an episode where he stayed in bed a lot in the last couple of years. months. Okay. And I made dinner, and I woke him at 8 o'clock and said, it's 8 o'clock, you need to eat dinner. Okay. And what kind of, so you heat it up like a... A roast beef meal. He said, okay, I'll eat now. And he had me get him his medicine and bring it to him. Kimberly says they watched TV together before falling asleep. She remembers getting up around 1 a.m.

to let the dog out. And when she returned, she was met with a disturbing sight. I walked in the bedroom, the TV was on, and the gun was on the bed. Was the gun on the bed before you got up? No, I wouldn't have been sleeping with the gun. She obviously was concerned for Michael's safety. I was like, uh, Michael, Michael. Why is the gun in the bed? Michael. He just moaned, and I went to bullet, and he jerked, and he went off. As he jerked, did he actually grab the gun?

I don't know. It jerked me back, and I dropped it on the bed. Kimberly says she can't be sure how the gun went off. It's possible Michael's finger was on the trigger when she moved it. Anytime you have firearms, there's always the potential for accidents to happen. And they do happen, unfortunately, a pretty frequent basis. Leave me have to cry out. I'm getting a tough situation, okay?

I don't know why it's an allergic. like that. Kim's attitude during her interview was she was cooperative. She made a written statement. She actually did a drawing of the actual bed and location of the gun and orientation to the room. She allowed photos to be taken of her. They noticed that she had a small abrasion on her forehead.

She stated that when the gun went off, it hit her in the head. They hold Kimberly in a room for further questioning. Although investigators find her to be cooperative, they do have some questions regarding her story. One of them is why Michael brought a loaded rifle to bed in the first place. Depression increases the likelihood that someone is to have thoughts of suicidal ideation, which would also help explain why it could have been a weapon in bed. But since Michael cannot speak. for himself, investigators must find evidence that corroborates Kimberly's story.

They obtain a search warrant for the house. Nothing really jumped out to me. There was no struggle that had taken place. I made my way down the hallway. I went into the bedroom. The coroner has not arrived yet, so Michael's body is still at the scene. In South Carolina, we don't touch the body until the coroner's office arrives on the scene. scene. So while I'm waiting, I observed Michael lying on his left side. The only visible

injuries that we could see at that point in time was a single gunshot wound to his chest. The rifle found on the bed was a Winchester 223. I observed the rifle laying at that 45-degree angle that it was pointed toward him. It appeared to be fairly close. They find various other firearms as well, just as Kimberly said they would. However, none of them are loaded with ammunition. It tells me that Michael knew his way around guns and wouldn't store a weapon with ammunition in it. To detectives, it means the rifle Michael took to bed was loaded for a reason. The question remains whether he did it himself.

I had 25 years of public safety experience. I've seen suicides, I've been to homicides. I knew something about this scene was just not adding up. Detectives are searching the Brian Grow home for evidence regarding 55-year-old Michael Bryan's death. They collect all the electronic devices in the house, hoping those might provide some answers. So in this case, phones that belong to Kimmer

to Michael, laptops, and iPads were collected and analyzed by a forensic digital analyst. The analysis will take days to complete. In the meantime, police continue their search. During our search, we also located a life insurance policy. Investigators learned that Michael had a $500,000 life insurance policy on his life that Kimberly was the sole beneficiary of. year you of. To seasoned investigators,

a substantial life insurance policy hints at a motive to murder Michael. And in the garage, they find another curious piece of evidence. We moved on to Kimberly Gross vehicle. Her purse

was in her car. Within her purse, investigator located an eyeglass case. And within the eyeglass case, he found plastic baggies that contained capsules and some baggies contained powder. We discovered that they were sedatives

that were commonly used to treat insomnia. Michael was known to take the drug to Mazepam, which matches the description. When they asked Kimberly about it, she provides an innocent explanation. Kimberly told investigators that earlier that morning, on the 29th, that she had taken those pills from Michael that he was crushing them up.

She stated to the investigator that that was because Michael had been abusing his medication and that he had been opening capsules and sprinkling it on his food. It didn't close the door to my questions. Just absolutely made everything even more questionable. Despite their doubts, investigators have nothing to hold her on. Though Kimberly is allowed to leave, detectives are beginning to wonder if anything she's told them can be trusted. Why would a grown man crush up his pills to put into his food

instead of just popping and taking a capsule? It would be a lot easier. Anytime you're investigating the death of someone, you don't leave any stone unturned. In this case, they found food in the trash can. that Kimberly had indicated that Michael had eaten early that evening. The investigators took that food into evidence to be tested later by the toxicologists. Investigators reach out to the Brian's loved ones for more information on Kimberly and Michael's marriage.

Everybody that we spoke with said that Kimberly was a good wife, that she had been taken care of Michael while he was suffering through a little bit of depression. that she had also been busy running the business. So we spoke to one of Michael's friends, and he said that Michael had been down on himself lately about his ability to shoot his rifle, that he had missed a couple of deer this year, pretty much kind of depressed over the whole situation.

But opinions are mixed on the state of Michael's mental health. His son John refutes claims that he was depressed over hunting. He could go to the woods, not see anything, and come home super excited because he got to sit out there in the peace and quiet. And so I don't think he'd get that upset over missing a deer. Honestly, there were conversations with my father about his emotions where he would say he'd have thoughts that scared him. But he truly felt suicide.

it's the most selfish thing you can do. He would have never done that. When asked by investigators whether they ever knew Michael to crush up his medications and put them in his food, all of his friends and family members indicated that they had never seen Michael do that. Investigators spoke with a number of Michael's hunting buddies

who all indicated that Michael was always very safe with the handling of the guns and the storage of the guns that he had and that he never left them loaded. Michael's brother-in-law Jerry says he knows how careful Michael is so he was surprised by a text from Kimberly in the days leading up to the shooting. According to Jerry, Kimberly indicated

that Michael was leaving guns lying around the house in a reckless manner and that he was even falling asleep with guns in the bed with him. A week prior to the shooting, Kimberly did approach him and ask him about how to operate and render safe the specific rifle that was used, the 223 Winchester.

Investigators wonder why Kimberly didn't make sure the safety was on before she tried to move the rifle. An interview with the couple's pastor provides them with a possible answer. Their pastor told investigators that he had spoken to Michael on multiple occasions. He said they had a large amount of money coming in, but they also had even larger amount of money going out. He didn't understand where the money was going. Michael had confided to Pastor Ken

that Kimberly was stealing from the business. There were discrepancies in the stories that Kim was telling him about the day-to-day in the business. I could see how much it was hurting him. And I kind of put together that he was looking for proof. He was trying to determine that he was being lied to on a daily basis.

Tensions were high for sure. Was there financial things going on, and maybe they couldn't take any more, and maybe they just reached a breaking point. Coming up, a marriage full of secrets and lies. She had wrote that their marriage was crumbling. And investigators find evidence of a murder plot. She conducted a search for how to poison your spouse and go undetected. Given this new information from a trusted source, the Grow family's pastor, investigators collect Kimberly

Groh's personal journal for further insight on the state of their marriage. There were recent entries where she expressed frustration with Michael's bipolar disorder, that it was becoming a burden on her. She was also expressing that she didn't believe that Michael was necessarily in love with her anymore, that she was. in love with Michael. She had wrote that she felt like her and Michael were growing distant and that their marriage was crumbling. Obviously, you know, it's when you have a, you know, a death of a spouse and you have indications that the marriage may have been on the rocks, that's always going to add to the suspicion.

Kimberly's search history paints an even clearer picture of a woman desperately looking for a way out. During the forensic analysis of the electronic devices that belong to Kimberly, investigators learned that in May of 2016, she conducted a search for how to poison your spouse and go undetected. Then later, much closer to the time of the incident, on November 1st, Kimberly searches top 10 most deadly poisons to humans. Investigators find irregularities between their personal and business accounts but aren't to confirm any theft.

However, there is a record of Kimberly placing an online order for arsenic. She orders arsenic to be delivered to the business that's located next to her business, which was also suspicious to investigators. While they await Michael's toxicology reports, investigators focus on the gunshot wound that killed him. During further analysis of the... Further analysis of the electronic devices, the investigators found a search for how to operate the 223 Winchester rifle.

So this also adds to the suspicion that just a few weeks prior to the shooting using a 223 Winchester, she's searching on the internet how to operate that specific gun. The coincidences are really starting to stack pretty high, and investigators are fairly convinced that this was not an accident. At this point in time, we now are believing this is absolutely a premeditated murder. After collecting a mountain of circumstantial evidence, police confront Kimberly with their findings. Once again, she seems to have an answer for everything. One of the common themes that she pick up on is that Kimberly oftentimes thinks that she is the smartest person in the room.

Investigators also asked her about the search that she did for the 223 Winchester. She indicated that was because Michael was leaving these guns lying around the house since she wanted to be able to make sure that she knew how to render these weapons safe. In regards to the search about ways to kill a spouse without detection, she stated that she was interested in crime dramas and TV shows. Kimberly explained to the investigators that the reason she ordered the arsenic was because she was going to use it as a cleaning solution for the pipes in their plumbing business. She had no nervousness. Any one of those could have potentially been plausible, but the more that she spoke and the more things that she said, the more questions we had.

In investigations, you want to what we refer to as lock them into a story as soon as possible. If the evidence doesn't go with what they're telling you, you know that there's something missing. But when detectives ask Kimberly if she'd be willing to take a polygraph test, her confidence evaporates. I think she had that aha moment when we asked her to take a polygraph that she realized, wait, they think I did this. And it caused her to see.

stop and request an attorney. Based off all the evidence that we had thus far, absolutely moved her from being just a innocent widow and witness to a suspect. Police are four months into the investigation of the death of 55-year-old Michael Bryan. Kimberly Groh had ample defense for her suspicious behavior leading up to his death,

so now investigators must try to refute her crime. claims. We went to several master plumbers and they could think of no situation or no mixture or no concoction where any plumber would ever want to use arsenic. Police hope Michael's toxicology report will prove whether Kimberly had a different use for the poison. Dr. Janice Ross conducts the autopsy. Arsenic is, it's sort of a natural mineral. The normal person, the normal person. The normal person person may have as much as one microgram of arsenic. Michael Bryan had 39 micrograms, which is higher than it should be, but it's not lethal. That amount of arsenic probably came from somebody putting it in his food or drink.

I think potentially what she wanted to do was try to slowly poison Michael with arsenic, that she actually did so over a period of time. And I believe arsenic played a role to explain some of his physical elements that he was experiencing. And I believe it just wasn't a lethal amount because she wasn't sure how much to give him. It's found that Michael had Tamazepam and Tamazepam pills inside his stomach. The food that we had seized out of the trash can that Kimberly had fed him that night, also included positive result for containing Tamazepam. This analysis points in the direction of her now having intentionally medicated him prior to her shooting.

To prove the shooting could not have been an accident, detectives turn to pathologists and ballistic experts. In this case, the deceased was shot in the chest. When a bullet comes out of a gun, so does powder and soot. But the powder and soot only go a certain distance, depending on the caliber, the length of the rifle, barrel, the type of ammunition. With the stippling, as large as it was, indicated to me that the barrel of the gun was a fair distance away from the person. In this case, it turned out to be 12 inches.

One of the things Kimberly said was that Michael had reached down and pushed the trigger himself. But it wasn't a close contact wound. That further solidified and took it off the table that Michael had anything to do with pulling the trigger. It would just be too far of the distance for him to reach. As far as investigators are concerned, it's irrefutable proof Kimberly murdered her husband.

husband. And a blood spatter expert reveals evidence that before calling 911, she staged the crime scene to look like an accident. It was observed that blood had been running out of the bullet wound. Blood is always going to flow in the direction of gravity. So in Michael's case, the blood that was on his chest initially went straight down, which would indicate that he was sitting up in the bed. However, the blood pattern then begins to turn, which indicates that during the course of him bleeding out,

that his body moved from an upright position to now a laying on his side position. So this all indicates that he was potentially manipulated after he had been shot. If there was any doubt left who pulled the trigger, it vanishes once DNA tests are performed on the rifle. The DNA analysis from the trigger of the gun comes back as a DNA match for Kimberly. Despite the mountain of evidence, investigators must be sure they have a case that can get a conviction at court. So we've now reached a point in the investigation where it's becoming clear that if Kimberly did plan a murder, she certainly didn't plan it very well with all the loose ends that she left untied. So they didn't want to get the arrest warrant before we believe that we have to.

had enough to prove her guilty beyond a reasonable doubt at trial. Ten months after the death of Michael Bryant, investigators believe they have enough evidence to prove he was murdered by his wife, Kimberly Groh. I think that night was clearly premeditated. I believe that Kimberly waited for Michael either to go to sleep or she medicated him to the point that he passed out. And she took his gun.

She loaded it, and she shot him in the chest from the foot of the bed. However, investigators theorize not everything went smoothly. When I officer's first encountered Kimberly Grove, they noticed that she had a small abrasion on her forehead. I think it could have been that she had the scope up, and she didn't have it firmly seated in her shoulder. And if you don't have that it's firmly seated, when it fires kicks back and it's what you call scoped. You get hit with the rim, the metal rim of the scope, and it leaves a mark. If we ruled out domestic violence or self-defense, we can look at money issues or for financial gains. That obviously points you to the direction of the $500,000 life insurance policy that he had.

Phone records show Kimberly called their insurance company to cash in the day after Michael's death. The call was recorded through. through the insurance company. When you get in the call centers that say this call may be recorded for quality assurance, well guess what? They're recorded. I listen to him. Sorry to hear about the passing of your husband.

His name is Michael, Brian, B-R-Y-A-N. She didn't seem upset when she was calling the life insurance company. She just was monotone. She had no emotion. I absolutely believe that Kimberley felt that Michael was worth more dead than he was alive. Further investigation reveals she also had Michael's sons written out of his will. We were not going to get anything, and that was shocking to not only me and my brother, but the entire Brian family.

Everything he did in life was for his family. Why would he write me and my brother out? I think a combination of greed and the burden that Michael's bipolar disorder that she felt led her to snap and kill her husband Michael. After all the evidence came back, we were able to obtain an arrest warrant for Kimberly Groh for the commission of murder of Michael Bryan. We made arrangements through her attorney, and she turned herself in to us on September 26. COVID delays Kimberly's trial for over a year.

But when the time finally comes, she chooses not to. face a jury. We were able to reach a plea agreement with Kimberly's defense attorney that she would enter an offered plea to voluntary manslaughter. And after the presentation by the state and after hearing the emotional testimony of Michael's family, the judge ended up imposing the maximum 30-year sentence. It was hard to understand. I still sometimes wonder.

How you do that? How do you go from loving him to that? Did you always have this plan? I think Kimberly Groh has an absolute disregard for human life. I think that she was selfish. I think that she was greedy, and I think she was cold-blooded. I think Kimberly thought she could get away with murder.

My father loved Kim. He loved her with everything he had. And I just, it's hard to wrap my head around how she responded to that. It's affected the entire family in ways I think will live on with us. I believe my father would be proud of all of us and the way we've carried on. He will live on through us and the impact he made on all of us. Under South Carolina law, Kimberly Grow is not eligible for parole. When she is released from prison, she will be 79 years old.