They Tried To Pin The Murder On A 7 Year Old Child

- No one had seen or spoken to him in over two years. When people would ask his wife would say that he abandoned her and walked out on his family. But when police finally started looking for answers, they discovered something far more disturbing than a missing person's case. - And I did see that law enforcement kind of circled around the site and took off their hats and it looked like they had said a prayer. - Flash drive, a photograph, mytholaneous paperwork, projectiles, and human skeletal framing. - This is a case full of shocking turns. Moments that seem completely unbelievable and accusations that take an increasingly disturbing turn, ultimately placing a seven year old child at the center of a murder investigation. What truly happened in today's case is still up to debate even to this day. Well my name is Brianna and I'm hot on the case. (upbeat music) With the holiday season upon us, everyone is feeling the pressure of finding the perfect gifts for the people that they love. But thankfully I found quince, the sponsor for today's episode, and they've become my go-to for holiday shopping for both myself and my family. Holiday season means sweater season and I haven't been able to take this one off. It's so comfortable because all of their clothing is made from premium materials, like Mongolian cashmere, organic cotton and marina wool. Since quince works directly with top manufacturers that cut out the middle man, all of their essentials are 50 to 80% less than similar brands. Plus they have products for everyone on your list, not just the fashion lovers. From hotel quality bedding to kitchen essentials to well-designed furniture, they truly have something for everybody. And honestly, the reviews say it all. Quince has over 3,000 five star reviews on Trust Pilot. Download the Quince app for exclusive offers or go to quince.com/hotc. Get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns, now available in Canada and the UK too. And when they ask where you heard about them, please support the show by telling them how on the case. Thank you so much, Quince, for sponsoring this episode and now let's get back into this week's investigation. Our case today centers two people, Michael and Lori Shaver. The two grew up together in a really small town in New York state, so small in fact that there were reportedly only 30 students in their graduating class. Mike and Lori met while they were both in the seventh grade and even though in a school this small, there really weren't that many romantic partners. When the two met, they really, really hit it off. And Michael would ask Lori out while listening to boys to men in his friend's bedroom. Michael and Lori dated all throughout middle school and all throughout high school, even after Michael dropped out. And after Lori graduated high school, the two would get married pretty young in 2006. And this is what they believed was going to be their happily ever after. But unfortunately Lori's parents didn't really approve of Michael. Of course they had known him for so many years at this point, but they weren't really excited about the fact that their daughter's new husband had dropped out of high school. So to prove that he was serious, Michael went and he got his GED. He then went and actually got his pilot's license, which sounds so cool and definitely doesn't seem easy. Michael then started working as a commercial pilot and Lori's parents were pretty happy about that. This shaver couple then welcomed their daughter Isabel in 2008 and their son Aiden in 2009. The family just seemed so happy. They seemed to really have it all, but there would actually be some pretty big changes for the family around this time. First, the family left their small town in New York and all of their friends and family members behind to move down south to Claremont in Lake County, Florida, at just 40 minutes outside of Orlando, which was perfect because it was also around this time that Michael was looking for a change in career. He went back to school to get his engineering credentials and then started working nights at Disney World and Epcot as a mechanic working on their rides, which I bet is pretty cool work, but also I bet kind of creepy, like being alone practically in Disney World at night. No one else around, it's dark. All of their rides are shut off, like I bet it's a small world ride would really, really get me the crepes completely alone at night. But even though the family was now living in Florida down at the beach and Michael was working at Disney World, life for the Shabre family definitely wasn't all sunshine and their home certainly wasn't the happiest place on earth. There was unfortunately a lot of this function and toxicity in the Shabre marriage. They have been together since they were the seventh grade. What is that like 12 years old? People change and they grow apart and that's what seemed to be happening between Michael and Laurie. They weren't really seeing eye to eye or getting along at all. Different friends and acquaintances down in Florida notice that the couple seemed to be fighting a lot more recently and reportedly neighbors on more than one occasion heard yelling and screaming and fighting coming from the Shabre home. And if that's true, that's pretty serious. I've seen aerial view photos of the Shabre home and property and there are no neighbors like really, really close by. The Shabres actually lived on five acres of land. So if neighbors on more than one occasion are hearing them yelling, screaming, fighting with each other, then they must have been screaming pretty loud. Things had gotten particularly bad one night in September of 2014 about one year before the major events of this case. When Laurie called 911 to report that her husband, Michael, had become violent and started attacking her. What's going on? Oh, they went to the nursing院 to steal the Gary, OK? I did hit my ass with the head because he had pulled out on me. I grabbed my gun because he had started, and I have to go first, that's there. And that was the way to the truth. She also claimed that this, unfortunately, wasn't the first time that something like this had happened. And Laurie said while her husband is physically attacking her, she gets all of these injuries on her hands and on her face. And it was during this entire violent ordeal that Michael actually pulled a gun on Laurie and threatened her life. But in the struggle, Laurie claimed that she was actually able to get the gun away from her husband. And she attacked him by hitting him over the head with the gun. He starts bleeding from his head. And while he's distracted with his own injury, Laurie grabbed their two small children, ran out of the house, gone her car, and started driving to the sheriff's office. And it was from her car on the way to the sheriff's office that Laurie called 911. When police arrived at the scene, they would find that this was a, he said, she said, situation. Because when Michael was questioned, he had a completely different story. In his version of events, it was actually Laurie, that was the aggressor. And the one that pulled the gun on him first. Michael claimed that Laurie was threatening to end his life, her life, in the lives of both of their children. So he, of course, tries to get the gun away from his wife. And it was in that struggle that him and Laurie both ended up with all of their injuries. And in Michael's version of events where Laurie is the aggressor, this would also explain why it was just Michael that had all of his clothes torn and ripped up. But this situation would end with Michael being arrested and charged with battery. Reports differ about what happened next with like half of the reports saying that Michael actually pled guilty to battery and the other half saying that the charges were dropped. Which couldn't be more different outcomes. But the true answer of what happened with these battery charges actually lies somewhere in the middle to avoid a trial and conviction. Michael agreed to a deal where he would enter a pre-trial intervention contract. Which pretty much means to avoid a trial. Michael agreed to go to like some Ingram Management classes or to do some community service. Michael actually ended up completing his program six months early and the state agreed to drop the battery charges against him. So the state ultimately did a grade to drop the charges against him. But it wasn't because of a lack of evidence. It was because he agreed to go to like Ingram Management classes or do some sort of community service. Meaning that Michael did agree to some sort of plea deal essentially instead of trying to prove his innocence. So whether or not Michael was actually guilty or not guilty of the battery. And if it was him or Lori that was the true aggressor really does seem up in the air. Reportedly around this time, the shavers really seemed to be like on again, off again. They would have these big explosive fights where Michael would move out of the house. And while the two were separated, they would even sometimes date other people before ultimately reconciling and Michael moving back into the house. Just for another big fight to happen and the cycle starting over again. But by November 2015, Michael and Lori were very much together and still living under the same roof. But things were clearly still not going very well. On November 7th to 2015, the shaver family attended a tractor show down in Florida with some friends. Who noticed that there seemed to be a lot of tension between the couple? Have you ever hung out with people before like two friends or a couple and you can just tell? that the people were like fighting right before they got there. There's just like that vibe that feeling in the air. Well, that's what Michael and Lori's friends were feeling when they showed up for this tractor show. And whatever was going on must have been so bad because Michael and Lori Shaver and their children actually ended up leaving the show early. And even worse than that, Lori claims that just a few days later on November 10th, they got in yet another huge big blow-up fight. And it was so bad that Lori actually threw Michael out of the house. But this time she swore it was for good. She was absolutely done with her husband. Michael left his home, he left everything behind, including his children, he just up and abandoned them. One could assume that after realizing that his marriage was falling apart, Michael Shaver just wanted to ditch everything and start over. Michael failed to show up for work on November 10th, 11th, 12th, and 13th. Four days in a row, he just no-called no-showed, which was completely unlike him. So on the 13th, after four days, Michael's manager texted him, reached out to just make sure that everything was okay. And Michael texted his boss back, saying that he was having some troubles at home in his marriage. He has left and gone to Georgia, and his boss could either fire him or Michael just quit. Because he wasn't coming back to work. And any of his tools that he left behind at work, they could just keep. Also, on the 13th of November, one of Michael's really good friends and co-workers after hearing that Michael had quit out of the blue, stopped by the Shaver home to check on his body and make sure that everything was okay. Lori, his wife, answered the door and told Michael's co-worker that, "Michael left them, and she hadn't seen or heard from him ever since he left." She didn't know where he was or who he was with, but she assumed he was probably with some girl. 'Cause she had actually caught her, has been texting someone the night that she threw him out, which is what led to their big fight. Michael had texted his boss that he was down in Georgia, which could make sense because he did have family in Georgia. But this co-worker just really couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong, especially because Michael just failed to show up for work, multiple days in a row without warning because he had never done anything like that before. Michael wasn't even the kind of guy to not show up for work, even if he was like, deathly ill. And now he's not gonna show up for work multiple days in a row to sleeve all of his other co-workers hanging without as much of a phone call. And on top of that, now you're telling me that Michael has left the state without any of his belongings. He left every single thing that he owned and his children behind. Even Michael's car was still parked in the driveway. Laurie, of course, had an explanation. She said that her husband's car actually hadn't been working recently. So on the night that he left, he had one of his friends come and pick him up. This seemed to satisfy Michael's co-worker and he left. And that's kind of where things stood for a really long time. Even though her husband, the man that she had been with since she was in middle school and the father of her children was out of the house, Laurie really did not seem to mind. Because Laurie had already been seeing someone for at least two or three months before she threw Michael out of the house. Sometime between August or September, Laurie had met a man named Jeremy Townstead who went by Jay. Jay had children that went to the same school as Michael and Laurie's two children. Laurie had told Jay when they met that even though her and her husband were still living together, their marriage was practically over. Jay was also married, but Laurie claims that he told her that him and his wife were also on the brink of divorce so the two started having an affair. Quickly though, it became apparent that Jay had oversold just how over his marriage was. And by that I mean, if you asked Jay's wife Vanessa, she thought that her and her husband were happily married and still very much in love. Well, after kicking out her husband in November 2015, Laurie assumed that her and Jay would leave the CD affair territory and turn something a bit more serious. Meaning that she also wanted Jay to leave his marriage just like she had left hers. But as much as Laurie pushed Jay to leave his wife, he made it obvious that he had no intention of ending his marriage, which made everything so much more complicated. When some time after Michael Shaver left his family, but before spring of 2016, Laurie discovered that she was pregnant with Jay's baby. I truly don't know any details about this pregnancy. I don't know how either party reacted to the pregnancy. All I know is that Laurie claimed that she found out she was pregnant with Jay's baby and then later terminated the pregnancy. But it's very possible that word traveled fast about Laurie's pregnancy throughout the small community and found its way back to Laurie's husband Michael in Georgia or wherever he was at the time. Because not long later, Michael popped back up in quite the shocking and theatrical way. On April 11th, 2016, five months after Michael Shaver was last seen, a bouquet of flowers was delivered to where Jay's wife Vanessa worked as a teacher, which just so happened to be the same elementary school where the Shaver and the Townsend children both attended. The card that came with the flowers red and I'm not making this up, roses are red, violets are blue. My wife is a whore and your husband is too. Sorry about this. Check your Facebook messages. We need to talk. Signed Mike. Could you imagine just trying to clock in for work? You're working as a teacher, trying to teach a bunch of really young elementary school students and something like that? Being delivered to you? Have you ever seen those memes where it's like the type of stuff that happens when you're already having the worst day of your life? Vanessa at this point had no clue that her husband Jay was having enough there with Laurie Shaver. She also hadn't been getting any Facebook messages that she was at least aware of. But the thing about Facebook is when you message someone that you're not actually friends with, it doesn't go into the actual inbox. It goes into like a request folder that's pretty hidden away and most people don't check often if ever. But of course, wouldn't you know it when Vanessa went and checked her request folder on Facebook? She discovered that Mike Shaver had been messaging her going back two months. At first it was just messages introducing himself being like, "Hi, my name is Mike Shaver. "I know you don't know me. "I'm not being a creep, trying to friend request you a message you. "I think we really need to talk about something "and it's concerning my wife and your husband." And after those messages went uninsured, Mike sent more messages to Vanessa saying, "Hey, please contact me, please message me. "There's my number, you can even text me." And then on the day that Vanessa received those flowers from work, the flowers that were obviously sent to get her attention, Mike had also sent her a basic message saying, "Pretty sure today is the day that you're going to get your "special delivery, interesting way to put it, "and I'm hoping to hear back from you soon." So after Vanessa finally messages back Mike, he tells her that he had downloaded a spy app on his wife's phone and discovered that his wife was having an affair with her husband. He also sent Vanessa a bunch of photos of their spouses together and also screenshots of text messages between his wife and her husband. He urged Vanessa that she should divorce Jay and even sent a divorce lawyer to Vanessa that he recommended. A recommendation that Vanessa ultimately would not need. After confronting her husband about the affair, he agreed to end things with Lori and Jay and Vanessa agreed to try and repair their marriage. So after things ended with Jay in April of 2016, Lori quickly entered a new relationship just two months later with a man named Travis Filmer. And after Lori met Travis, things really moved fast. Lori is still technically married to Michael, even though she hadn't seen him in six months. But despite still being legally married to Mike, just six months after they met on December 31, 2016, Lori and Travis pled their loyalty to each other in a commitment ceremony. It's definitely not a wedding because Lori is still married, but she is wearing a white gown and a veil. And this commitment ceremony was held in Lori's backyard of the home that she once shared with her husband that she was still technically married to. Lori seemed to have finally found her true happily ever after, but things were all about to change. In February of 2018, one of Michael's really close childhood friends from back in New York has started to get seriously concerned that he hadn't been able to get a hold of his friend in a really long time. And this childhood friend of Michael's was a guy named Scott and Matuchio. He also knew Lori extremely well. It was actually Scott's bedroom that Michael first asked Lori to be his girlfriend and back in the seventh grade. So Scott reaches out to Lori and of course, he gets the same thing. Michael left me, he left the kids, I have no idea where he went. So Scott also reaches out to Michael's family and other friends and everyone said the exact same thing. No one had seen Michael or physically talked to him like on the phone, heard his voice in a really long time. When people would try and call Michael, he wouldn't answer but he would text them back or he would like email them or message them back on Facebook. He also kept frequently posting on his Facebook account but that was also pretty weird. Like one day he posted a photo of him fishing, this was obviously meant to be like a recent update, a recent photo, here I am out fishing. But one of his friends knew for a fact that that photo had been taken like two years earlier, it was not a recent photo. So as Scott is trying to piece everything together, he discovers that no one had actually seen or heard from Mike Shaver in over two years. The last time that Mike Shaver was ever seen by anyone other than his wife and children was on November 7th, 2015. The night of that tractor show that him and his wife had gone to a friends when there was clearly like something going on between them. That was just three days before Lori claims that her husband left them. So that was November 7th, 2015. It's now February 16th, 2018. No one has seen or spoken to Michael in that entire time frame. So Scott calls the Lake County Police Department explains what's going on and asks if they can do a welfare check. What police found out about Michael Shaver was that he really wasn't extremely close with any member of his family so it wasn't unusual that he wasn't keeping up with them. But during the two plus years that no one heard or saw Michael, his mother actually got really sick and multiple members of his family reached out to him or tried to reach out to him to let him know to see if he wanted to come see his mom while she was sick. And of course he never did and this is something that his family did think was really really odd that even though they weren't extremely close, a Michael would have shown up for that. Police also discovered that he was clearly having marital problems. His wife claimed that she had thrown him out and then he just took off and left. So at this point, nothing is too concerning at the moment. Michael Shaver is a grown man so even though it sounds terrible if he wants to ignore his family and his friends. Even for two plus years, he has the right to do that. But when police take a look into Michael Shaver's movements for the past two plus years, they are shocked. Other than a few posts on his Facebook page, there's no movement from him. He hasn't started a new job anywhere. He hasn't gotten a new place to live anywhere. In the time that he had been missing, his driver's license has passed forward and his pilot license had all expired and he had made no effort to renew any of them. There was absolutely nothing from Mike Shaver. It's like he had just vanished into thin air 27 months earlier. So the Lake County police arrive at Lori Shaver's home that she used to share with her husband Michael on 9850 Sandy Pines Road on February 16, 2018. They ask if she knows where her husband Michael Shaver is and of course she says that she doesn't and she tells him the whole story. Two plus years ago, they got a big fight, she told him to get out, he never came back and she hasn't heard from them since. The police ask Lori if it's okay if they come in and look around and she says that's okay. Lori's actually extremely cooperative and welcoming to the police until they make their way to the backyard. There was a fire pit in the backyard that did not exist before Michael Shaver disappeared. But what really concerned police was the concrete slab that the fire pit sat on. This concrete was also new. It was poured by Lori and her new husband in May of 2016, six months after Michael disappeared. Not only is that already a gigantic red flag but what really stood out to officers was the large indent in the concrete that was roughly the size of an adult male's body. All of the photo of this on the screen I would circle the indent so you can see what I'm trying to point out but I think it's pretty hard to miss. So when police start asking Lori questions about this concrete in her backyard and more specifically if they can bring some canines in to check it out that's when Lori's demeanor just completely changes. The welcoming host that they had met just a few moments earlier was completely gone. Now Lori is telling them to get out of her house and not to come back even though that is not how things work. If police are at your house and ask to bring in cadaver dogs to smell something possibly buried in your backyard and you tell them to leave and never come back chances are they will be back very very soon and in this case police will be back in just three weeks. But before that can happen police start working on what their plan is and they start digging in to Lori's shaver a little bit more and what they find are quite a few pretty odd things. First off in the past two plus years it seemed like Lori had told every single person that asked a completely different story about where her husband was. Michael was in Georgia. He went all the way to California. He was back home in New York. He was still in Florida harassing and stalking her and her children. He ran off with a different woman. He was actually in jail. The stories the excuses were endless. Another thing that police found really really odd was that Lori Shaver never actually attempted to file for divorce against Michael. She was now in this new really serious relationship. I mean heck they had a backyard wedding. I know they called it a commitment ceremony but come on. That was a wedding. So you're going to marry a completely different man but never try to divorce the guy that ran off and abandoned you and your children? Why not? Even if she couldn't find him you are able to get a divorce if your spouse abandoned you and you cannot find them. And the two children that Lori and Michael shared together police found it really really odd that Lori never attempted to get any kind of child support out of Michael. It's not like Lori was extremely wealthy. She definitely could have used the financial help. And possibly the strangest thing when police eventually ran Lori's phone records they discovered that in the 27 months since her husband left Lori never attempted to call him. Text him. Ever reach out to him. Ever. Not once. I get that she was mad. I get that she threw him out of the house. I get that they were fighting and that she was done with the marriage. But you're telling me in 27 months. You haven't seen or heard from your husband and you have two young children together. You're not going to try and reach out to him even one time. Even after members of his family are constantly reaching out to you to let you know that his mother is sick and the police try and get a hold of him. You never once try and reach out to your husband and say hey I don't care about you. You left me and our children but can you at least try and reach out to your friends and family so they stop bothering me all the time. So like I said three weeks up though Lori kicked the police out of her home on March 9th. They were back this time with the search warrant, cadaver dogs and large equipment ready to dig up the concrete that was in Lori's Shaver's backyard and only three feet under the concrete slab in Lori's backyard. They found the body of Michael Shaver. Here is a small audio clip between Lori and one of the police officers after completing the search on her home. The police officer had to call Lori to tell her it was good for her and her children to come back home and also to give an inventory of all the items that they were taking from her property. We are done out here and you guys are welcome to come back anytime. If you have a second I would like to just run over this list of items real quick with you over the phone and let you know the items that you see. Absolutely. Flash drive, a photograph, mytholatious paperwork, projectiles, and human skeletal for me. So as far as all of that stuff goes do you have any question? Do I actually do I need to sign any of that paperwork or is that the property? Yes, me. Okay. Okay. All right. Thank you so much. We would also we would still love to sit down with you so anyway that we can make that happen. Okay. Thank you. Okay. I could never imagine sounding that calm after police telling me that human remains were found on my property buried in my backyard and autopsy confirmed what everyone already know that these were the remains of Michael Shaver. It also confirmed a cause of death, a single gunshot in the back of Michael's head. The murder weapon was determined to be a 38 caliber pistol, the same kind of pistol that Laurie had in pink that was always sitting on her nightstand. But the one thing the one really frustrating thing that the autopsy could not determine was Michael Shaver's time of death because he had been buried underground for so long because at that point he was almost completely decomposed. He was just practically a skeleton at that point. But the medical examiner was pretty confident that Michael Shaver had been dead around two years. So was it possible that Michael Shaver was just buried in his backyard the entire time that he was missing? The one thing that is kind of odd if that is the case, Michael Shaver first went missing in November of 2015. But that concrete slab wasn't poured in her backyard until May of 2016. So there's just six months difference, unless you believe that maybe Lori buried her husband under three feet of dirt, and then six months later poured that concrete in the backyard as like an extra layer of protection. But if Michael Shaver really was dead the entire time that he was missing then who was making those Facebook posts? Who was sending people messages? Who was sending Lori's affair partner's wife, flowers, and cryptic notes trying to expose the affair? Well, would you be surprised if I told you that every single one of Michael Shaver's Facebook posts and messages that he had sent from his Facebook account for the two plus years that he was missing were all linked to his wife Lori's IP address? Or would you be surprised that it was Lori's bank account that had bought the flowers that were sent to Jay's wife Vanessa? It was all Lori, all of it the entire time. But why? The most popular theory is obviously that Lori had killed Michael and she was making Facebook posts and texting people back and messaging people from his Facebook account to make it seem like he was still alive. And the reason that she sent these flowers was because Lori wanted Jay to leave his wife because she wanted him all to herself but he would not end his marriage. So she thought if she could get his wife to leave him by exposing the affair then she could get Jay all to herself, which obviously didn't work. Just a few months later Lori met Travis and the two got married only six months later in her backyard just inches away from where her first husband's dead body was buried. The thing about Lori Shaver is that she tells so many different stories in this case. Story number one was of course that her husband took off and she hadn't seen or heard from them since and he just abandoned the entire family. She had no idea where he was. Well after the husband that she had spent two years telling everyone left her and she hadn't seen was found buried in her backyard. Here came story number two. Lori had no idea that her husband was buried in her backyard under that concrete slab. She absolutely did not kill him. She did not know who killed him but someone obviously not her had killed her husband. And then buried her husband in her backyard without her knowledge. On September 17th, 2020, Lori Filmer was arrested for the second degree murder for first husband Michael Shaver. I'm calling her Lori Filmer because in the two years since her first husband's dead body was found buried in her backyard, Lori and Travis had officially gotten married. They had also welcomed two children together in the two years since her first husband's dead body was found buried in her backyard. Lori pled not guilty and was released on a $50,000 bond pending her trial. And this is where story number three develops. Lori's new defense was that it was actually her ex lover Jay Townston that killed her husband Michael. So in this story, Lori really did throw her husband out of the house. Michael really was the one that was sending all of those sex messages and Facebook messages and he really was the one that sent those flowers to Jay's wife Vanessa. And in Lori's story number three, after being kicked out of the home by his wife around November 10th, Michael suddenly decided that he was going to quit his job and left the state with nothing other than the clothes on his back. No belongings, not even his car and no one saw or heard from him for six months. While Michael randomly showed up back at home sometime in May 2016 and he was angry. He had somehow discovered that Lori was pregnant with Jay's baby. Even though at this time, she had already terminated the pregnancy, but Michael did not know that and Michael was here with a vendetta. He was beating Lori, he was pushing her to the ground, he was kicking her in the stomach. She was an extremely violent attack and the entire time he's threatening her, he's telling her I am going to kill you, but just in time Jay showed up. He grabbed Lori's gun and shot and killed Michael to save Lori's life. He then told Lori to get off the house and he was going to deal with the body. Lori claimed that she had no idea that Jay buried Michael in her backyard and it was just a coincidence that a week or two later, she poured concrete in her backyard directly over where Michael's body was buried. The thing is, Jay adamantly denies this entire story. He says that by May 2016 he hadn't seen or spoken to Lori in months. There's actually a lot of discrepancies regarding the Lori Jay affair depending on who you ask. Lori would claim that the two met in September of 2015 at their kids school. At the time, Michael was extremely physically abusive and Lori was covered in different marks and scratches and bruises from Michael's violent abuse and on the day that she met Jay, he noticed all these bruises and he knew what was going on at home. So he came up to her and slipped her a note that had his phone number on it and the note said that he knows what she's going through and to reach out if she needs help or needed someone to talk to. The two began a relationship and Jay told Lori that him and his wife were separated and that he wanted to be with her. Now this is a completely different story than the one that Jay tells. He claims that the two actually met in August, not September and they didn't meet at their kids school. They actually met at a park when they had both of their sons there to play. She says that he never slipped her a note trying to be her knight in shining armor and that he never told her that him and his wife were separated because they weren't. She knew the entire time that this was just an affair, that this was just sex to him. But Jay could tell that this affair meant a lot more to Lori than it did to him so we started to pull away. And then without his knowledge, Lori actually got his name tattooed right above her private area. So he ended the affair in April of 2016 and he hadn't seen or spoken to her since. And he most definitely did not kill her husband and bury his body in her backyard. While awaiting her trial out on bond on March 2nd, 2021, Lori published a video to her YouTube channel called, "I'm innocent" and in this video, Lori and her defense attorney are attempting to raise public support of Lori's innocence and also trying to raise money for her defense. Also in this video, although they do not call Jay by his name, they definitely elude to the fact that Lori is innocent and Jay was guilty. Good morning, I'm Jeffrey Wags, I'm an attorney, a criminal attorney here in Lake County, Florida. Sitting to my left is Lori, a client of mine. Lori, regrettably, is charged with the most onerous crime that any individual could be faced with in their lifetime. Lori is charged with the crime of murder. This incident stemmed from a relationship having been married to her first husband, Michael. Now, Michael and Lori got married when they got out of high school. And this was a young marriage between the two of them. Lori was the victim of repeated physical violence by Michael. This went on for a period of years. It involved state attorney's office, it involved obtaining injunctions for the protection of Lori and involved the Department of Children and Families being called into the residence. Michael was removed from the residence and at that point or some point thereafter, Lori starts seeing somebody else. We're not going to mention his name, but he's a subject of this action. I'm coming before you guys today just to let you know that we have our suspicions, but I don't know why I've been targeted, why I've been set up or charged with this heinous crime. Anybody that knows me knows that my life is my children. There's people out there that are trying to paint this picture of me, but that's not me. I'm loving, I'm caring, I have a servitude heart. I don't judge people like septal, and I always try to see the good in everybody. And right now, I am up against something that I would have never imagined possible. And so today I'm coming to you, my family and I are begging you, asking for your assistance to help prove my innocence in this case. I am not guilty, I had nothing to do with the murder of Michael Shaver. nor did I have any knowledge of his body being buried under wear. We were building a gathering place, a conversational fire pit area for our family and friends. Without you, we don't have the financial means to pay for my attorney's fees. But I can tell you that I am not guilty. I had nothing to do with the murder of Michael Shaver, nor did I have any knowledge of his body being buried under wear. We were building a gathering place, a conversational fire pit area for our family and friends to spend time together at. - So we're asking that you reach in your pocket, do what you can, and help us through this. Thank you very much. - Lori's trial was delayed a lot, mainly due to the pandemic. So her trial didn't actually start until September 9th, 2024, nearly 10 years after her husband, Michael Shaver was last seen alive. And now at her trial, Lori was telling story number four. - What's this about, Dan? - Shit. - By her to gunshot? - Lori was now claiming that her daughter Isabel, who was only seven years old at the time, was actually the one that shot and killed Michael Shaver, her own father. And it was actually Isabel, now aged 15. That was the first one to tell this story as her mother's trial was getting ready to begin. Of course, Lori had no idea that her daughter was going to confess and absolutely did not feed her daughter the story, or convince her daughter to take the fall for her. But when her daughter decided to confess, Lori was perfectly okay, making it her entire defense strategy during her trial. Lori did take the stand in her own defense, which you really don't see often. And during this, she spoke extensively about the physical abuse she suffered at the hands of her first husband, Michael Shaver. - There was a lot of issues, a lot of issues. He was away, gone for over a week. I packed a physical, and we had play privileges. We could fly for free. I packed her up, and when he was gone, to her new New York, or my family was. So I packed his bill up, and she was just a little over a year old. - I was seeking attorney in New York filing for the worse. I joined a gym, and I went to a spinning class one night. I came home that night. My mom was watching his bill. I went into the shower. When I came out, my mom was not there. I was greeted by a punch in the face, and we were all back in Florida three weeks after that. - Did it ever develop Lori into an atmosphere where there was tension? - There was always tension. - Let's talk about the nature of the tension. - I don't wanna see pictures. - Don't you know what through that? Lori, that's number 10. - I have to memorize, I don't need to look at pictures. - Did you suffer any injuries at the hands of Michael Shaver? - Yes. - Were there events wherein you were not free to leave the residence? - Yes. - My eating was controlled, I had anorexia and bulimia. I literally reached for an oreo on time and was thrown off couch. - And the thing is, if I'm just being honest, throughout this case, Lori says a lot of things that when I hear them, I just don't believe them. They just don't sound true. She sounds like she's lying. It doesn't sound genuine. But in my opinion, and this is just my opinion, when Lori is on the stand talking about the abuse that she suffered at the hands of Michael, I do believe that she is genuine. I am interested to hear your thoughts on that. What I believe to likely be the most accurate is that both Lori and Michael were possibly toxic and abusive and violent towards each other. But there are a lot of people that think that Lori was the only victim in this relationship. And a lot of people that think Lori was the only aggressor in this relationship. So I'm extremely interested to hear your opinion on that. Lori also brought forth evidence of her husband's extensive violent abuse. Of course, they had the fact that a year before he went missing, he was literally arrested for a battery. She had also attempted to get a restraining order against her husband, Michael, but ultimately ended up canceling or dropping the restraining order. No one that was in Lori and Michael's life was able to testify that Michael was abusing his wife Lori. But I do not personally believe that that is concrete evidence that such abuse did not exist. Many women that suffered domestic violence are unfortunately really, really good at hiding the violence from the people that they love. One of the most heart-wrenching parts of the entire trial was when Michael and Lori's daughter Isabel, who like I said, was just 15 years old, took the stand and her mother's defense to confess that she was the one at only seven years old that shot her father, Michael. A lot of this story was the same story that Lori told when Jay was the one that shot Michael Isabel testified that her entire family walked on eggshells around her father, Michael. And the times when her father was out of the house were actually the happiest parts of her childhood. Her father was extremely violent. He was neglectful. He pretty much forced her and her brother to just stay locked away in their bedrooms for a majority of the time. She testified that in November of 2015, her mother and father got in a big fight and her mother threw her father out the house and then she didn't see him for a really long time. And then one day Isabel was in her bedroom when she heard a really loud commotion. She went to go see what it was and it was her father, Michael. He was back. Her mother was on the ground and her father was beating her mother, kicking her, yelling at her and threatening to kill her. And even though she was only seven years old at the time, even though she had never held a gun, never fired a gun, she knew where her mom kept her gun on her nightstand always. So she runs her mom's bedroom, she grabs her mom's gun, she runs back and then she points it at her father and she pulls the trigger, shooting her father with saving her mother's life. What was your relationship like with Michael Shaver? We didn't really have much of a relationship. He wasn't very present. He worked at night and so he slept all day during the day and anytime he was home, we were really allowed outside of our rooms. We didn't have a relationship really. He really wasn't a father to me. Did you see any altercations between Michael and your mother? - I did, yes. - Really physical? - Yes. - Do you know anything about the death of your father? - I do. It was a school morning. Me and my brother were getting ready for school. He hadn't been at the house for a while. He was kicked out. I was watching TV and I heard arguing. Initially I thought it was a TV and then I was like, no, that's not the TV. So I opened the door and I stood there and I saw my father and my mom went to leave. The argument leads the porch around the porch. He pulled her into her lap onto one of the porch chairs and he held her there and then she was like, we can work things out. We'll figure this out, it'll be different. And he was like, no, there's no next time. There's no figuring it out and he pushed her onto the ground and he started kicking her in the stomach and in the back and then he took his other foot and he put it on the side of her face saying there's not gonna be another time and then he was going to kill her at this time. So I went to my mom's room and I grabbed her gun and I went to the door. The door was already open and I shot him. And then in this story, even though Lori and Isabelle when telling this story never mentioned that Jay was in the house, Isabelle claims that immediately after she fires the shot at her father in his head, she shoots her father in the head, Jay immediately takes the gun from Isabelle and he fires a second shot into Michael's head. A second shot that the medical examiner did not find. Unless Jay is such a good shot that he was able to fire the bullet directly through the hole that Isabelle had just made. Isabelle then claims that Jay then told her mother to take her and her brother out of the house and that Jay was going to take care of the body. Lori again had no idea that Jay had buried Michael's body in her backyard and again, coincidentally, just a week or two later, she poured concrete down in her backyard directly over Michael's body. There are just way too many unbelievable things in Lori's defense that you will have to just let go to believe her story. To try and be a bias though, there is no physical evidence that Lori was the one that murdered Michael. There is also no clear motive, there was no. large sum of money for Laurie to inherit. There was no life insurance for her to claim. Her marriage with Michael was already practically over, so if the motive was to get Michael out of the picture so she could be with Jay, murdering Michael definitely wouldn't have been the easiest option. They had already been separated on multiple different occasions. Michael had gotten into new relationships while they were separated. If she wanted out of the marriage, she could have gotten out of the marriage without firing a bullet into his head. Is the only motive that actually makes sense? That Laurie actually was a battered woman that had just had enough? Or that Laurie really was telling the truth the entire time. When you don't have any physical or forensic evidence when you don't have a motive, when you don't have any witnesses, can you really confidently say that someone is guilty of murder beyond a reasonable doubt? Well, in this case, I would have to say, yeah, probably. I mean, unless Laurie is telling the total truth this time, she was lying the other times, but she's telling the truth now. And the reason that she was telling all those lies was just to protect her daughter and she had created this mountain of lies to try and protect her daughter, but then had to come up with more lies to cover up those lies. I have to be honest, and I really think that the story that is about a seven-year-old that had never held or fired a gun in her entire life was the one that actually shot and killed Michael, I think that it's extremely unlikely. And frankly, disgusting and evil that Laurie would try and get her 15-year-old daughter to confess and take the blame for a murder that I believe Laurie committed. I believe that the most likely answer is that Laurie killed Michael back in November, right after they had that big fight the tractor show. He really was dead the entire time and then she was using his phone and Facebook account to try and make it seem like he was still alive. I do still have a really hard time understanding the why, the motive, but I guess it's something that we just will never know. At the end of the trial, Laurie was found guilty of the second degree murder of her first husband, Michael Shaver, the man that she had been with since she was only in the seventh grade. The man that she had known pretty much her entire life and Laurie was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Absolutely extremely interested to hear your thoughts and opinions and theories on this case. Do you believe Laurie? And Isabel's story that Isabel was the one that committed this crime and Laurie was just coming up with all of these lies to just protect her daughter or do you believe that Laurie is guilty? And she somehow convinced her 15 year old daughter to try and take the blame for her father's murder. I mean, it's just so disturbing and disgusting. I think that this is a pretty complicated case. I don't think complicated in the sense that Laurie was the one that did it because I personally think that's pretty obvious, but if you have a different opinion, extremely interested to hear what that opinion is and why. But I think it's complicated because in my opinion, at least some evidence that Laurie could have been a battered wife. I'm not saying that with 100%, but I do think that it's possible and is that a defense for murder? Not saying me personally thinks that, but I'm asking you. If Michael Shaver was this violent and abusive husband, does that make a difference to any of you? Let me know all your thoughts and opinions and theories, like I said down in the comments, but why are there please remember to be respectful. There are four children of Laurie Shaver, in this case, one of them that was very likely for us to try and take the blame for the murder that her mother committed, the murder of her father, like I said, so disgusting, so disturbing. So please, just always remember to be respectful in the comments. Why are there please? Let me know what case you want to see covered in a future hot in the case episode. Until then, that's all I have for this week. And I will see you guys all next Friday. only are hot in the case once again.