Episode 241 - Concrete Lies - The Disappearance of Michael Shaver
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When someone sends you a message, how do you know who's really typing the words? How do you know it's really them? In the digital age, we often take for granted that the person at the other end of the message is who they claim to be. But what if that trust was exploited? What if someone else was pulling the strings behind those familiar accounts?

In the winter of 2015, friends and family of Florida resident Michael Shaver started noticing something strange was going on. Suddenly, Michael just didn't seem like himself through his messages. He blamed his poor attitude and tone on a crumbling relationship between him and his wife. He'd been kicked out of his home, quit his job, and moved out of state.

And for a while, everyone respected his wishes to be left alone, to give him some space. But eventually they realized no one had actually seen him in over two years. Join me now as we examine the mysterious disappearance of Michael Shaver, a 33-year-old monorail technician at Disney's Epcot Center.

You'll hear how Michael seemingly abandoned his family, job, wife and children in 2015, never to be seen again. And you'll learn how a grisly backyard discovery in 2018 revealed a secret someone hoped to keep buried forever.

April 11th, 2016 was a warm spring day at Pine Ridge Elementary School in Claremont, Florida, just west of Orlando. That day, fifth grade teacher Vanessa Townsend went about her school day until she received a special delivery. A package sent to the school addressed to her. A bouquet of flowers. But they hadn't come from her husband, Jeremy.

As she read the words on the card, her heart sank. "Roses are red, violets are blue, my wife is a whore, your husband is too. Sorry about this. Check your Facebook message, we need to talk. Mike." Allegedly, her husband was cheating on her with another woman. Until then, she hadn't felt the slightest inkling anything might be wrong. She hadn't seen any warning signs.

In fact, he was home with her every single night. After work that day, Vanessa checked her Facebook and saw a friend request from a man named Michael Shaver. When she accepted the request, she noticed he'd been trying to get a hold of her for some time, sending messages for months as far back as February.

February 25th, 2016. Hello Vanessa, I know you don't know me but I keep sending you a friend request because I really need to talk with you about something important. I am not a creep, I promise. I'm looking to confirm some information concerning my wife. April 5th, 2016. It says, I don't think you are seeing my messages. I just sent you something. Hope you contact me when you receive.

On April 5th, the sender sent another message. Please contact me. And provided a phone number. That was the same day Vanessa received the flowers at school. And then she got another message. April 11th, 2016. It says your special delivery is to arrive today. Hope to finally hear back from you. Vanessa called the number Michael provided, but nobody answered.

Michael did, however, start texting her. Over the coming days, Michael provided Vanessa with more than 500 pictures, screenshots, and text messages between Vanessa's husband, Jeremy, and Michael's wife, Lori Shaver. As horrible as it was, it was made worse by the fact that Michael and Lori Shaver were parents of a Pine Ridge Elementary School student, seven-year-old Isabel Shaver.

And there was no way she could have ever known that this entire exchange, the flowers, the affair, and the messages from Michael's phone and Facebook account, would place her smack dab in the middle of a murder trial eight years later. According to Lori Shaver, she'd known Michael for as long as either of them could remember.

Michael's lifelong best friend, Scott Amatuccio, remembers Michael working up the nerve to ask Lori out.

We had all known each other since about kindergarten. We all went to the same K-12 school. I didn't really start to hang out with her until they started to date. It was about eighth grade. He asked her out in my bedroom. He had me play boys to men in the background. From that moment on, Lori and Michael were inseparable. So Mike was a dropout. He got his GED. He wanted to become a pilot.

Didn't have much funding for that. My parents paid for it. I went to school for business administration. Lori graduated and worked her way up the corporate ladder at MetLife Insurance. While Michael started working at U.S. Airways out of New York City, the couple would eventually marry and throughout their 20s, Lori, Michael and his best friend Scott remained close.

When Lori learned she could work her corporate job remotely, she and Michael moved to Florida around 2008, while Lori was seven weeks pregnant.

Their daughter, Isabelle, was born in 2009. Michael continued working for US Airways in New York City, which meant he was often gone for long periods, putting a serious strain on his marriage. We just had each other. I don't know how else to explain it.

We just had each other. I was a single mom in a new place with no family, no friends. He was a pilot. He was gone all the time. There was no support from either family. There was a lot of issues. A lot of issues. According to Lori, those issues included times when Micah would become violent toward her. And eventually, it all became too much. He was away, gone for over a week.

I packed up Isabel and we had flight privileges. We could fly for free. I packed her up and when he was gone, took her to New York where my family was. Thinking I could get away, get support, file for divorce. Everything was good. Rented a house. Everything was good. I was back working at MetLife in the office. I was seeking an attorney in New York filing for divorce. I joined a gym and I went to a spinning class one night.

I came home that night. My mom was watching Isabel. It was a baby. I went into the shower. When I came out, my mom was not there. I was greeted by a punch in the face. I was out of work for three weeks. And we were all back in Florida three weeks after that. And I was again working from home without my family, without any support. And we were living in Davenport, Florida at that time.

In an effort to become closer to his family, Michael quit his airline job and started working as a monorail technician at Disney's Epcot Center. During this time, Lori gave birth to their son Aiden. But eventually, things once again deteriorated. On September 14th, 2014, Lake County Police responded to a 911 domestic violence call from Lori Shaver.

She'd fled her home in her vehicle, taking her children with her. When police met up with her in the parking lot of a local Target store, Lori told them she'd gotten into an argument at their rural home in Claremont. She claimed that Michael had pulled out a handgun and the two of them struggled for control over it.

Somehow, Lori managed to wrestle the weapon away from him and used it to strike him on the top of his head, causing a deep laceration. Meanwhile, as police were speaking with Lori, the Shaver's next-door neighbor, Wilma Nicholas, came over to see what all the ruckus was about, and Michael told her a very different version than what Lori had told police.

He told me that they had had an argument. Lori was intoxicated and she had taken off with the kids. The injuries that I saw on him, he said that she had threatened to kill the children, him and herself. And he fought her with the gun and got the gun, was trying to get the gun away from her. And she hit him over the head, the top of the head with the gun.

When police made it clear that both Michael and Lori would be arrested, Michael agreed to take the blame. If not, he worried the children might be taken away by Child Protective Services. Even on his arrest affidavit, the officer wrote, "I cannot determine who committed the aggravated assault with a firearm." Michael was charged with battery and he pleaded guilty.

The battery had happened in 2014. The state imposed an injunction. DCF was involved and they said that as long as he was not in the picture, everything was okay. But if he came back... So they had offered to move me and the two kids, change our names, change our socials. We had already moved so much. We finally were in a good school.

The kids had good friends and there was a point where Isabel had asked, you know, is this where we're going to live now? And I said, yep, we're never moving again. Now that Michael was no longer allowed to be at their house, he started living out of an airplane hangar near where he worked at Disney. During that time period, we both dated other people. Obviously, those relationships sucked, failed, but

And I went back. It was in the summer of 2015 when Lori and Michael began living together again, giving their marriage another shot. A surprise to Lori's friend, Katina Vasquez. But what she heard next shocked her even more.

Mike had come back into the home. He was living at an airport and I was kind of like, "Why is he here?" kind of. And she said that she was working with being honest with her therapist and that Mike didn't touch her. Like all the wounds were from her. She threw a vase and broke a door. It wasn't Mike and he was actually trying to stop her because she had a gun and was trying to kill herself.

Over the next few months, Lori and Michael appeared to be putting their past differences behind them. Step into the world of power, loyalty, and luck. I'm gonna make him an offer he can't refuse. With family, cannolis, and spins mean everything. Now, you wanna get mixed up in the family business? Introducing the Godfather at ChapaCasino.com.

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That day, Frank noticed tension between the couple. The next day, Frank texted Michael to check in but received no message. He followed up on November 9th and finally got a reply that read, "I have to quit my job and work on my marriage." On November 12th, Michael messaged his boss saying, "I'm having issues at home in Georgia right now. Just fire me or I'll quit."

and will not be returning anytime soon. By this time, Frank Merritt was getting worried and drove over to the Shavers' home where he spoke with Lori. Lori explained that Michael had left her after a fight over another woman's number in his phone. When Frank asked how Michael had gotten to Georgia, given that his vehicle was still in the driveway, Lori claimed that one of his friends had gave him a ride.

In December, Michael's sister Stacy attempted to reach out to him. The first time I was not able to get a hold of him was December of 2015. I believe it was December 4th. My mother was sick. She was in the hospital. We were not sure if she was going to make it or not.

and Michael and my mother were always very, very close. And I sent a message saying that he was very sick. I never got a response, so I did reach out to Lori, who I did get a response from. All she told me was that she would tell Michael that my mother was sick. Another sister, Christine, who'd kept in regular contact with Michael through Facebook and text, also noticed a distinct change in her brother.

And then his tone started changing and it was harder to get a hold of him. And I could tell that there was a change in his tone. There was unresponsiveness, especially following 2015. I sent some messages and text and he wasn't responding. Lori and Michael's mutual friends noticed that Lori had started selling off the possessions Michael had left behind, like his tools, car and gun collection.

Lori also didn't seem to have much trouble moving on romantically. By the end of November, she already had a new love interest in her life, a married man named Jeremy Townsend. I met her at one of the public parks, September 2015. I had my son there. She approached me and asked if it was okay if her son played with my son. But according to Lori, this is how they met.

I met Jeremy at the school, not at the park. He had an opal color truck. I had a white truck. There was two lanes coming out. We were both there at the same time, towards the end of August. And he rolled down the passenger window and handed me a sticky note. And I grabbed it and I said, "I know what you're going through. I can help you. Call me." And he gave me his number.

Lori claimed Jeremy was aware of her history of domestic violence at the hands of Michael, but Jeremy denied this. She was going through a divorce. When she told me that Michael had moved out, she said that he had left with a friend in a vehicle. That was November 2015. According to Jeremy, it was only after Lori told him that Michael had moved out that he started going over to her house to conduct his affair.

According to Jeremy, he believed his relationship with Lori, as he describes it, merely a friends with benefits situation. But as weeks and months passed, he soon realized Lori wanted something more.

This point was driven home one day when Lori surprised him with a new tattoo she'd received. A heart with his name inside it, tattooed below her bikini line. In February, Lori pressed Jeremy to divorce Vanessa and to be with her. When he refused, they had a major argument.

Two days later, Vanessa received a Facebook message from Michael Shaver's account, though she didn't see it at the time since they weren't friends. When Vanessa received the bouquet of flowers from Michael in April, making her aware of her husband's affair, Michael even offered to help her find a good divorce attorney. But despite Lori's efforts, Jeremy and Vanessa stayed together, and Jeremy cut ties with Lori.

By early 2018, Michael's best friend, Scott Amatuchio, grew concerned after Michael had seemingly estranged himself through odd dismissive messages. Scott didn't believe Michael would abandon his children, as Lori claimed, and suspected Lori was behind the messages. He also learned of a concrete fire pit Lori had poured in her backyard shortly after Michael disappeared.

Michael's neighbor Wilma remembers noticing a particularly foul smell in the air when Lori installed the new fire pit.

My son and I were on the back porch and we were talking and I had been smelling it, but he was, he had just come and he wrinkled his nose and said, do you smell that? And I said, yeah. My neighbor behind me had cattle and probably in 2006, seven, a cow died on her pasture. She didn't bury it. She just left it there. So whenever the wind blew up,

Putting all this together, Scott suspected foul play.

I messaged Mike's sister on Facebook, told her what I had found out. I told her I'm going to file a missing person report based on that information. It was disturbing. I then called the sheriff's office.

On February 16th, 2018, Scott requested a welfare check for Michael at his last known address, where Lori still lived with her children and her new husband, Travis Filmer. Officer Corey Anderson was dispatched to perform a welfare check.

I made contact with Miss Lori Shaver. She said that she hasn't seen him since I think October of 2014 and that he kind of just absconded the family. She did mention that she that he had not reached out to the children or her in some time. I observed a cement slab in the backyard where there was it looked to be like brick rock structure that created the fire pit.

So as I approached the cement slab, you could clearly see a depression. It was approximately between six feet and three feet in dimension and about eight inches depressed. It had the shape of what could be a normal-sized adult body. During the welfare check, Lori was completely cooperative with the officers on duty.

But after noticing the depression in the concrete slab, the officers asked Lori for permission to bring cadaver dogs onto her property. Lori immediately asked the deputies to leave, which they did, but they were back three weeks later with a proper search warrant. Police then excavated beneath the concrete slab and they were shocked by what they found.

Now to the backyard mystery unfolding in Florida. Police investigating human remains discovered behind a home. Investigators trying to determine if they belong to a husband not seen in more than two years. They say his wife never reported him missing. Here's ABC's Eva Pilgrim.

Investigators turning their attention to the wife of a Florida man after police recently discover human remains in his own backyard. Authorities say 36-year-old Michael Shaver may have been missing since 2015, but no one reported him missing until this February when a friend called asking for a wellness check. Officials finding an arm bone under that concrete near the fire pit, later finding more remains and clothing.

Underneath a slab of concrete, investigators discovered the complete skeletal remains of a human body. Inside the makeshift grave, they also found a pair of socks, shorts, and underwear. The body was positively identified as Michael Shaver by comparing DNA from a femur bone to the DNA of Michael's father.

Despite the condition of the remains, the cause of Michael's death was obvious to a forensic pathologist. There was a single bullet hole in the back of his skull. So the x-ray gave, let me know that it was there. I was then able to carefully basically reach into the skull. The skull is basically sitting on the top of the spine and where the brain exits the skull and goes down into the spinal column, there's a hole.

and that's called the Foreman Magnum, and it's on the order of approximately an inch or a little bit bigger in size. And I was able to reach in there, feel that bullet, which was loosely adherent but not firmly adherent. It came loose very easily and I was able to recover that and retrieve it out of the Foreman Magnum. The remnants of the single bullet hole in Michael's skull was confirmed to have come from a .38 caliber weapon.

Now the detectives knew how Michael was killed, they needed to find out when he was killed, and most importantly, who was responsible. The obvious suspect, of course, was Lori.

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Authorities pinpointed the last day anyone saw Michael in person, November 7th, 2015, when he attended a tractor show with co-worker Frank Merritt. His phone records revealed his last call was at 5.45pm that day, and after that, his phone never made another call.

Lori's phone records revealed she never tried to contact Michael after November 7th. But Michael had been sending texts and Facebook messages through 2016, right? Detectives uncovered a bombshell. Michael's phone number was changed in February 2016, and the account's sole subscriber was Lori. This was the same number Lori used to expose her affair to Vanessa Townsend.

The number changed again 10 days later, but remained under Lori's control. She even used it for official court documents in July 2016, proving she had access to it. Investigators also found both Michael and Lori's phones used the same IP address more than 13 times after Michael's disappearance, meaning they were in the same place.

The evidence was clear. Since November 7th, 2015, Laurie had been pretending to be Michael, messaging his friends, family, and trying to get Vanessa to divorce Jeremy. On September 17th, 2020, Laurie was arrested for second-degree murder.

Despite the sensational press coverage of Michael's body being found in her backyard, Lori was granted bail. She and her defense attorney, Jeffrey Wiggs, posted a professionally edited YouTube video proclaiming her innocence, beginning by addressing her history of domestic violence with Michael. Lori was the victim of repeated physical violence by Michael. This went on for a period of years.

It involved the state attorney's office, involved obtaining injunctions for the protection of Lori. It involved the Department of Children and Families being called into the residence. Michael was removed from the residence. The video then pivoted to an astonishing claim that Lori did not kill Michael, but she knew who did.

At that point, Laurie starts seeing somebody else. We're not going to mention his name, but he's the subject of this action. This relationship came upon Laurie by Laurie dropping the children off at school. The man they are talking about is, of course, Jeremy Townsend. The same individual became close to Laurie.

And during their relationship, Michael was gone. Michael was out of the house. He had disappeared through some means of which we suspect we have the answer to. Anyway, this same individual, this mystery man,

advised Lori that she needed to create a sitting patio in her backyard, told her how much concrete she would need, told her where to put it, and even assisted her in purchasing the concrete. Financial records do, in fact, show that bags of concrete used for the slab were purchased in January 2016, when Jeremy and Lori were still together.

Well, later these two individuals broke up. This individual went back to his first wife and later on, Lori began to date somebody else. Well, they had concrete sitting there and her and this individual who she's now married to, Travis, built this patio. Unbeknownst to Lori, underneath the patio laid Michael Shaver.

Lori's new husband, Travis Filmer, started dating Lori in May 2016, just weeks after Jeremy decided to repair his relationship with his wife. Since then, Lori and Travis had had two children of their own. I understood what had happened and confronted law enforcement, telling them things that I had discovered, what I knew about the case, who we suspected had committed this crime.

Law enforcement evidently turned a blind eye on this and sometime later eventually arrested or did arrest Lori for the crime. Now, there was no, there's no forensic evidence that ties Lori to this crime, let alone any other crime. There's no gun.

There's no ballistical evidence, no chemical evidence, no evidence of any other matter that they can link Lori to this particular crime of murder. Their response was, "Well, we spoke to him. He was cooperative, so we dismissed him really early." And because Lori was closest to the body, she was the one that was arrested in this case. She is presently looking at a life and sentence.

the mother of four children, and I can assure you, having interviewed Lori, having looked at the discovery that's been provided me to this date, there is no evidence against Lori Shaver upon which the state can seek a verdict of guilty. For prosecutors, these statements made it clear that Lori would be attempting what's known as the SODDI defense, otherwise known as some other dude did it.

But in this case, they were directly pointing the finger at the other dude. Lori even referred to the case against her as a setup. My name is Lori Filmer, also known as Lori Shaver. And 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. I am not guilty.

My life is my children. The well-being of my children has and always will be my top priority. And that is the reason that I would never cause any harm to the father of my children. The video you just heard clips from was recorded in 2021. But by the time Lori's trial came around in September 2024, a new witness had come forward.

A new witness claiming to be the person who pulled the trigger and shot Michael Shaver, Lori and Michael's daughter, Isabel. And although she was 15 years old at the time of the trial, she was only 7 years old at the time of Michael's murder. The prosecution in Lori's trial spent four days demonstrating their case against her. They asserted that Lori had killed Michael because she wanted to pursue a relationship with Jeremy Townsend.

No one had seen Michael after November 7th, 2015. Lori then drained Michael's bank accounts and pretended to be Michael to friends and family to keep anyone from discovering he was no longer alive. They also showed that Lori had owned a pink and black .38 caliber handgun when Michael went missing. The same caliber that had killed Michael.

She later sold the gun to an acquaintance, which was eventually turned over to police. Within a year of Michael's disappearance, Lori had poured a large concrete slab in her backyard, where Michael's remains were eventually discovered.

Despite all this, the prosecution knew that jury was about to hear Isabel Shaver's testimony. That she, not her mother, was the one who killed Michael, her father, when she was just seven years old. My name is Isabel Shaver. I'm 15. I turned 16 this Sunday. Lori Shaver is my mother. Me and her are very close. We...

We've always been very close. We do everything together. She's like my best friend and a mom in one. Isabel then described her relationship with her father. 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 he really wasn't a father to me. According to Isabel, she frequently witnessed violent confrontations between her mom and dad.

It was very combative. It was very tense. There was a lot of tension constantly. Whenever he was home, it was just, I mean, it was scary. It was like we, I don't know, we were just stuck in our rooms all day. And then like whenever we weren't, it was just, he was very aggressive. They'd at least argue and like fight really bad.

Interestingly, Isabel claimed that the last time she remembered Michael living at their home was in 2014, before Michael was arrested for battery. She didn't recall the period of time he'd moved back in before his disappearance in November 2015.

Isabel then described her mother's relationship with Jeremy Townsend. He was over all the time. I mean, he came over for holidays. He was there for my brother's birthday. His son went to the same school as me and my brother, and he was at the school for all the plays, the events, all that type of stuff. He was over all the time.

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According to Vanessa, one of the reasons she didn't know about the affair was that Jeremy had never spent a night away from home. Isabel said she hadn't seen her father for quite some time, but then one day before school, he suddenly appeared on the back porch of their home.

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. And I was watching TV and I heard arguing. Initially, I thought it was the TV. And then I was like, no, that's not the TV. And so I heard, you know, the fighting and the yelling and it escalated. So I went and I saw my father and he wasn't supposed to be there.

And my mom and my father were fighting. And my mom went to leave, like, leave the argument, leave the porch. They were out on the porch. And he pulled her by the arm. And 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. Like, you know, 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.

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. And she was screaming and he was like saying there's not going to be another time. And that he was going to kill her at this time. Isabel testified that her mother then began screaming for help.

So I went to my mom's room and I went at her end table and I grabbed her, I grabbed her gun and I went back out and I went to the door. The door was already open and he had my mom on the ground still, still laying her to the ground, still kicking her. And, and I, I shot him. He was sitting in the chair.

If this confession wasn't shocking enough for the jury, Isabel then added a surprising twist to the story.

Afterwards, Jeremy came and it was right, like right after it happened. Like I hadn't even had a chance to walk away, moved nothing yet. And he came in and he took the gun from me and then he shot him again.

And that's when he fell to the ground. Jeremy shot him. He told my mom to take us out of the house, take us to school, and that we needed to leave. We're not to tell anybody. We can't tell nobody. We can't call the cops. We can't say anything. Or else he was going to do the same thing to me and my brother. And he was going to, you know, hurt us too. So we went to school.

Incredibly, according to Isabel's testimony, Lori then took her children to school and dropped them off, including her seven-year-old, who'd just shot her own father. I would say I was most definitely in shock, but at the same time it was like, because those types of events happen often, I was very used to like,

During Isabel's cross-examination, the prosecutor began poking holes in Isabel's story.

So you're saying that he had not lived with you since before August or September of 2014? Yes. Okay. And the event that we're here to talk about, you don't know what grade you were in when that happened, right? I don't. Okay. You don't know who your teacher was when this happened, correct? Correct. You don't know what month this happened in, correct? Correct. You don't know what year this happened in, correct? Yes.

You can't think of any holidays that this event was near, correct? I would say probably spring, summer-ish. So you take your mom's pink and black gun, and from about five to ten feet away, you shoot him. Correct. And you shoot him in the back of the head? I think so, yes. I shot him in the back of the head. I don't know where the bullet went, but that's where I was aiming. That's where I'm pretty sure it hit. Okay. You hit him? Yes. I think, yes. Okay. And when you hit him...

Today you said he just sat there, correct? Yeah, he sat there and he's like shaped. All right. He didn't get up, he didn't move, he didn't try to run. Exactly, yeah. Okay, so clearly you hit him. Yeah. All right. During cross-examination, the prosecutor established two very important things. Isabel was not able to pinpoint which date or even the year she killed her own father. Most importantly, Isabel couldn't confirm where she'd shot her dad.

The reason this was so important? There was only one bullet wound in Michael's skull. There was no exit wound, and only one bullet was ever found inside. So her story that Jeremy had fired a second shot into Michael's head was demonstrably false. During Lori's testimony, she had a very similar story to her daughter Isabel. I could see him through the kitchen window out in the back patio,

So I went out there and we started talking and it escalated and I went to walk back in because this wasn't going anywhere and he was not leaving and I opened the sliding glass door to go in.

And when I did that, he took my phone and slammed it up against the sliding glass door. I was just trying to convince him like, okay, okay, okay, we'll work it out. And he told me not this time. He pushed me to the ground. He was kicking me in the stomach. The next thing I see is, I can't even say that I seen her. I more or less heard it. She had

fired a gunshot. The next thing I recall is seeing Jeremy and hearing the gunshot essentially at the same time. I got up, we went into the house. He tells me to take the kids, get them out of the house and he would take care of it. He insinuated that if we said anything that she would be taken away and he said that he was not going to take the blame for this

At that point, Lori's defense became perfectly clear. She was claiming that Jeremy Townsend had used threats of violence to keep her and Isabel silent about what had happened. Lori then claimed that by the time she returned home from dropping the kids off at school, Jeremy had already cleaned up the entire crime scene and was gone.

She claimed that Jeremy must have buried Michael's body in the backyard without her knowledge. Then Lori made another surprising claim. The biggest question I have for you, because you didn't mention it once in your entire story, is when did your husband get killed? The exact date, I cannot recall. It was beginning of May of 2016. It was not November. Okay.

Lori was actually testifying that Michael had been alive between November 7th and the spring of 2016. According to Lori, November 7th was the day she finally kicked Michael out of the house after a nasty argument. This, she explained, was why she ceased to communicate with Michael afterward.

This was essential to her defense because Laurie was also maintaining she never once used Michael's phone or Facebook to send messages to anyone else. Before ending his cross-examination, the prosecutor poked one final hole into her story.

He left in November of 2015. Okay. Got it straight now? Okay. After he left in November of 2015, was this incident, which ultimately led to his death, the first time that he came back? Yes, it was. Okay. What vehicle, the day that he showed up in May of 2016, what vehicle did he use to get to your house that day?

What vehicle was in your yard that you didn't recognize that day? In May? Yes. Lori then stated there was not another vehicle at her house that day. So he just walked? He just showed up without a vehicle in your house on the back porch? Not paying attention to that. Nothing further, Judge.

They say a picture is worth a thousand words. And the look on Lori's face screamed loud and clear that she simply wasn't prepared to answer that final question. The prosecution then summarized the absurdity of the defense's claims during their closing arguments. November 7th, 2015 is the last time Michael Shaver is seen by any friends, family members, co-workers,

Anyone other than Lori Shaver. The testimony that has been presented to you by the defense is that Isabel shot her dad in the back of the head. And then, just so happened, at that exact same moment, that Jeremy Townsend showed up, grabbed the gun, shot him again, and then threatened to kill Isabel and Aiden if anybody said something.

They also say, both Lori Shaver and Isabelle Shaver, that Lori took them, her kids to school. I just needed to get them to school and I just, it was a short trip over to school. All I wanted to do is get them to school and then get back home. That's what she said. Isabelle, who shot her dad in the back of the head and went to school when she was seven years old, has absolutely no memory

Although the entirety of the case against Lori was based on circumstantial evidence, the prosecution had demonstrated that Lori and Isabel's story could simply not be true. The totality of the circumstances show you that everything points to Lori Shaver.

She had the motive, the means, the opportunity. Mike is buried in her backyard. She's the one that installs the fire pit and puts the cement slab over his body. She lied to friends, family, and law enforcement about his whereabouts for years. There was no attempts to call Michael after 2015. She depleted his bank account. She sold his property. She posed as Michael through Facebook and his phone. Everything points to her.

All the evidence points to her because she is guilty of murder in the second degree. Lori Shaver can tell you what day she kicked her husband out of the home in November of 2015, but cannot tell you the day he died. It is completely unreasonable. And the only reason for that

is because she's afraid I'm going to find something in some of these records to completely refute it. So if she tries to keep it vague, that's harder to do. It is Ryan Seacrest here. There was a recent social media trend which consisted of flying on a plane with no music, no movies, no entertainment. But a better trend would be going to ChumbaCasino.com. It's like having a mini social casino in your pocket. Chumba Casino has over 100 online casino-style games all

Absolutely free. It's the most fun you can have online and on a plane. So grab your free welcome bonus now at ChumpaCasino.com. Sponsored by Chumpa Casino. No purchase necessary. VGW Group. Void where prohibited by law. 18 plus terms and conditions apply. After a truly shocking trial, which lasted six days, the case was handed over to the jury for deliberation. And after only four hours, the jury returned its verdict.

Lori's conviction of second-degree murder means she's now facing a minimum sentence of 16 years to life in prison.

Her sentencing is currently scheduled for November 25th, 2024. In addition to Lori's conviction, the jury's decision was a de facto declaration that 15-year-old Isabel had perjured herself on the witness stand. Legal analyst Sunny Slaughter gave her opinions on the subject during a Court TV news segment.

I think, first of all, that this child is going to need substantial mental health services. I don't think that the prosecution will prosecute her. I think they will identify that she was the victim of master

manipulation by her mother and that she will need to be in therapy for a very long time. Someone responsible will need to have custody of her until she is of age and can move about, but also to ensure that she has the mental health and trauma services and support that she needs because she alleges facts that are not true with the murder of her father manipulated by her mother. And she's going to have to live with that for the rest of her life.

For nine years after her father's murder, Isabelle lived with her mother, including the four years Lori was out on bail after her arrest in 2020. Whether Isabelle's memory was flawed and manipulated, or whether she deliberately lied to save her mother, there can be no question she was yet another tragic victim of her mother's actions and lies.

After a decade-long saga, the mysterious case of Michael Shaver had finally come to an end. His life was tragically cut short, leaving behind two young children who will grow up without their father. His murder and subsequent cover-up devastated his family and friends, who spent years wondering what had happened to him.

During a statement delivered by Michael's sister, Stacey expressed the family's relief the case was finally over. Even more importantly, that the true story about Michael Shaver had now finally been told for the whole world to hear.

It's been an extremely hard journey. There hasn't been a day that has went by that we have not thought of Michael, and there has not been a day that has went by that we have not stopped looking for Michael. On behalf of the entire Shaver family, we are very grateful to be standing here today to recognize the guilty verdict against Lori Shaver. While this will not bring our beloved Michael back, our

Our family can finally, after all these years, start to get closure. Michael was a great son, brother, father, uncle, and friend. He loved his life, his job, his family, his friends, the list could go on and on. He did not deserve what happened to him. His friends and family, and now the public, know what a great man he was.

He will forever live on in our hearts. Michael will never be forgotten. We can be at peace that the story is known by all.

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