286: Toxic & Cheating Wife Takes “Over His Dead Body” Literally | The Case of Michael Shaver
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33-year-old Michael Shaver left work and was never seen again. Lori Shaver is accused in the 2015 shooting death of her husband, Michael Shaver. He put his foot on my face, smashing it into the patio porch.

When Lori took the stand in her trial, she immediately became emotional, wiping away tears before telling the jury how she first met her then-husband, Michael. When that motion was filed to say, "Lori Shaver didn't do it," it was her daughter stepping in to defend her. That daughter was seven years old at the time. I had nothing to do with the murder of Michael Shaver.

My name is Lori Filmer, also known as Lori Shaver. 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. I am a daughter. I'm a friend. I'm a neighbor. I'm a servant of God. I'm a wife, and I'm a devoted mother of four. Hey, True Crime Besties. Welcome back to an all-new episode of Serialist Sleeve.

Hey everybody, welcome back to an all new episode of Serialistly. I am your host, Annie Elise, and I'm here to break down another true crime case for you. Now, if you are brand new to the podcast and checking it out for the first time, let me just kind of give you the breakdown of what we do over here on Serialistly. I

I know, and it's a mouthful, okay? And trust me, I know the name is hard to say. But over here, what I like to do is discuss these cases in more of a conversational way. Almost like you're talking with your friend or your sister or, you know, your true crime BFF, which I would love the honor to be that for you. But like,

just in less of a clinical and sterile way that I feel like a lot of the times these cases are discussed. You know, I grew up watching 60 Minutes, Dateline, documentaries, all the things, and I still watch them, don't get me wrong, but I felt like I was kind of craving for something where people would just talk to me about these cases as if it were like my sister and I on the couch or a friend of mine was like trying to update me on a case. So we talk about things a little bit more casual over here. I

call things out like I see them. I talk about the red flags and just kind of like we're friends having a conversation. And today's case, okay, the one I'm talking to you about today is a wild one. And I...

It felt like it was kind of like a Lifetime movie when I first heard about it. And it might very well be one or definitely will be one in the future. But it kind of just goes to show the level of like unhinged that people become, okay? I want you to just imagine this for a moment, okay? Imagine that your friend suddenly disappears, okay?

Meanwhile, their spouse has a dozen different stories about where they went, who they were with, what happened. Then, boom, all of a sudden, a huge piece of evidence, a clue, turns everything about the case upside down. And guys, there's a twist at the end of this that I bet none of you are ready for. I know that I wasn't. It is one of those like rollercoaster cases. So let me just shut up.

I'm gonna get right into it and buckle up because we've got a lot of twists and turns ahead. So in November of 2015, Michael Mike Shaver disappeared without a trace. One moment, he was at home with his wife, Lori, and with their two kids, Isabel and Aiden. But then the next...

He was just gone. Now, Lori says his disappearance happened after, yet again, another argument between the two of them, which these arguments were happening pretty frequently. It was apparently like their marriage was just unraveling. It was this long string of arguments. And then, boom, this one happened. And in the heat of all of it, Mike just walked out of their Clermont, Florida home. Just walked out and never looked back.

And this was the last time that Lori, Isabel, and Aiden would ever see him or ever hear from him ever again. Now at first, Lori thought that Mike would come back. I mean, maybe not right away, but eventually. But as the weeks dragged into months, the reality began to settle in. Mike was

was gone. For good. So Lori did the only thing that she could do. She began to move on. She wanted to continue to live her life. But starting over for her wasn't really easy, because by 2015, Lori and Mike were both in their mid-30s. They had been together for over two decades also, so starting over after 20 years, I mean, not an easy feat.

Their relationship had begun long before marriage and children had even entered the picture as well. I mean, so the history that they shared also kind of made Mike's sudden disappearance just even more difficult to comprehend. Now Lori was suddenly in a position where she was a single mother, trying to navigate that, trying to navigate raising...

her two kids on her own, but keeping things together and emotionally intact for them as well. So she did what she could to keep things as normal as possible, even when neighborhood chatter and rumors and whispers started to add up. Because to those who knew Mike, something about his disappearance just was not adding up. It wasn't making sense. I mean, a husband doesn't just vanish into thin air, right? A father doesn't just walk away from his kids without a trace. I mean, usually, unless they're a full-on deadbeat.

Yet, that's exactly what seemed to happen here. Now let's go back a little bit and talk about how Mike and Lori met and what their upbringings were, because I feel like you need to have a full picture of these two people before we get into, like, what went on. So their story began in upstate New York, where they both spent their childhoods. Mike was the third of four kids, he was raised by a single mother, and from a very early age, he just was super fascinated with figuring out how things worked. I mean, he loved kids.

tinkering, fixing, and building, whether it was old radios, broken appliances, discarded bicycles. He would just collect what a lot of people considered junk, and then he would take it all apart and put it all back together again. And the two of them, Lori and Mike, first met in middle school. That's how far back they go.

From the moment that they crossed paths, something just clicked between them. So eventually their friendship evolved into a crush, then the crush evolved into dating, then dating went into a serious relationship, serious relationship went into engagement, engagement went into marriage, I mean, over the course of many, many years. They married shortly after their high school graduation, and then they started building their life together.

Mike had dreams of becoming a pilot and really wanted to pursue this commercial flying license. Eventually, he even secured a job at Piedmont Airlines. Then in his spare time, he worked on competitive racing airplanes, which I didn't even know that was a thing, but the more you know, right? So as their relationship grew, Lori also was working, and she built a career in the insurance industry, all while Mike was pursuing his passion with aviation. And their lives

were a little bit all over the place, right? Because his job was in the commercial airline industry. It took him from city to city, state to state, I mean, all over the place, constantly on the move, even international occasionally. So all of this back and forth and this travel, this meant frequently relocating their small but growing family.

But then with the arrival of their two children, Isabel and Aiden, they started rethinking the whole lifestyle. It was difficult to manage. It was a lot. I mean, moving from place to place is one thing when it's just you and your partner. But now when you have kids in the mix who you want to establish a routine, give them roots, makes things more challenging, right? So Mike and Lori decided to set out on their search for the perfect home that they could raise their family in. And eventually, they found it.

A spacious, beautiful property in Claremont, Florida. A very quiet and rural area just outside of Orlando. And it was everything that they had hoped for. It was five acres of land, plenty of space for the kids to run around, even room for animals. So they really embraced this country lifestyle. I mean, so much so that they even added ducks and chickens to their home. I mean, they loved this life. But now, having this settled home balance and home life, it really sparked something in Mike.

He was now craving that same kind of

well, I don't know what you call it, like not roots, but like that same kind of stability in his work life as well. He loved aviation, but he didn't love the long hours. He didn't love the constant travel. That was draining. And more than anything, he just hated being away from his family for so long. So over time, he found himself really craving a change, something that would, you know, keep him closer to home, keep him grounded. And then the absolute perfect opportunity came along because he landed a job as a mechanic at Disney World.

He was working on the monorails, which are the things that like transport guests all around the resort. You've probably seen them. And for somebody who loved fixing things ever since he was a kid, this now felt like a dream come true. He was going to be helping them as a mechanic, so like a little bit of engineering, I suppose. It's also at, you know, Disney World, the happiest place on earth. And if you loved doing that as a kid, I mean, it just kind of feels serendipitous, right?

So to the outside world, Mike and Lori had built this life that so many people would envy. I mean, high school sweethearts, two kids, this beautiful home with plenty of space to have animals, to grow food, to do all these things, two careers that provided stability. I mean, truly what everybody would hope for one day, right?

But as we know, the truth isn't always what it seems from the outside, and behind closed doors, their relationship was far from perfect. Over the years, tensions between the two of them started escalating. So what may have started as a typical marital spat or argument

it started to grow into something far more toxic and dangerous. Their marriage was marked by these heated arguments, these accusations, and even at times, violence. So much so that Lori confided in her friends that Mike was physically abusive to her.

Not only would he hit her, allegedly, but he would even lock her inside a closet for hours at a time. Nobody ever witnessed these alleged incidents, but her friends believed her. They were convinced that she was a victim of domestic violence. However, Mike's close friends saw the situation very differently.

They believed that Lori was the aggressor, that she was the one frequently attacking him. Because on at least one occasion, Mike apparently showed up to work and he had visible bruises on his face. When his co-workers asked him what had happened, he admitted to them that Lori hit him. They urged him to go to the police because they were obviously really concerned for his well-being, also for the kids living in a toxic household like that, but Mike just dismissed the idea.

He told them, no, you know, it's not worth the hassle of involving the police or going through any sort of legal battle. I'm just, you know, it's a toxic marriage. I'm just going to deal with it. This is just the way that life is now. And you might be wondering, okay, well, why did their relationship go so south? They were high school sweethearts. Like, it seems like they had everything. What happened? Well,

it had gone bad for a lot of different reasons. I mean, for example, Mike and Lori were accusing each other of infidelity, both of them against each other. Each suspected the other of being unfaithful, and these suspicions ended up leading to explosive arguments.

Now, as I've hinted at, their arguments, they weren't just verbal. They often got physical. And on multiple occasions, both Lori and Mike allegedly escalated from the physical violence aspect of it to threatening each other with guns during their arguments. I mean, these got especially intense.

By September 2014, one fight escalated to a particularly dangerous level, too. Because one night, a pretty bad argument erupted right after Lori supposedly discovered very suspicious text messages on Mike's phone. It's unclear what they said, and some sources say that Lori only found a woman's number on his phone, not these incriminating text messages—

But whatever it was that she found, it was enough for Lori to spark this massive confrontation. And this fight got really intense, so much so that it prompted Lori to call 911. When she called, she told the operator that although they have had arguments in the past, this is the first time that it got physical and that there was actual violence involved. But she claimed that Mike grabbed her and that he attacked her.

Yet when the police arrived, Mike told a completely different story, just like they were telling their friends two different stories. And according to Mike, Lori had been the one to escalate the situation to physical violence, not him. He said that she was furious over these text messages, and that in a fit of rage, she went and grabbed a gun and not only threatened to use the gun and kill him, but said that she was going to turn the gun on herself as well.

Now, both of them had apparently been drinking that night, and fearing that she might act on these threats, Mike ended up taking her car keys and prevented her from leaving. Although, to me personally, I don't really know how that would stop the threat or even, like, yield it or curb it at all because...

You would kind of, not that she should drink and drive, obviously, but you should want her out of the house so that she doesn't use the weapon, in my mind. But anyways, regardless, he took her keys, and that only made matters worse. Because then, allegedly, Lori lunged at him again, with the gun still in her hand. From there, a struggle between the two of them ensued, and during this, like, physical little altercation, Mike said that Lori struck him over the head with the gun, almost like...

pistol-whipping him, leaving this really deep and bloody gash. Lori, however, claimed that, no, no, no, no, I only hit Mike's hand, and that caused him to then accidentally strike himself in the head. I didn't do that. But whatever happened, a neighbor who saw the aftermath of the fight took photos of Mike's injuries, and the images showed a deep wound with significant bleeding, an injury that didn't look casual or accidental or even self-inflicted.

Meanwhile, Lori appeared relatively unharmed. Now, despite all of that, when the officers interviewed Mike, he admitted that he had grabbed Lori, not in an attempt to hurt her, but rather to restrain her when she was trying to reach for the gun. However, that admission in and of itself was enough for the police to arrest him on domestic violence charges.

He admitted to touching her, so he was arrested. Mike ultimately accepted a plea deal which allowed him to enter a 12-month pretrial intervention program. However, he ended up completing the program in six months instead of 12, and then ultimately the charges were dropped.

Still, though, the judge ended up issuing a no-contact order between him and Lori, forcing Mike to move out of their shared home. So with nowhere else to go, Mike took up residence in an airplane hangar. Now, many sources said that the airplane hangar was at his work, but as far as I know, there isn't an airplane hangar at Disney World. I mean, maybe I'm missing something. I did do some research, but I couldn't really find a definitive answer.

Now, as I mentioned before, Mike did compete on a competitive flying team. So because of that, other sources say that he was staying at his team's hangar, which also makes a little bit more sense to me. But whatever the case, he ended up living there for a while, sleeping among the planes, using the locker room showers to bathe, eating microwave meals in the break room, and...

just getting by. Eventually, though, Mike ended up moving back home. And unfortunately, this kind of became a pattern in their marriage. I mean, Lori would kick him out, he'd live in the hangar for a while, he'd return, they'd make up, and then it was just a cycle, ongoing. It was always the same thing.

And during the periods where Mike was not living at the home, when she kicked him out and he was in the hangar, rumors started swirling that Lori was seeing other men during those times. Friends and neighbors would tell Mike about these frequent visitors, and Mike even went so far as to fly over their house in a plane, just to see if there were unfamiliar cars parked in the driveway. Which, I gotta say, maybe because I don't have a plane at my disposal, but...

I will say in my day, in my toxic relationships, I've done drive-bys to see if other cars are over at the house or like if they're dating other girls, which I know that sounds totally psychotic and like crazy girl behavior. But look, in my 20s, I was a stage five clinger. I'll just say it like it is. You guys are my friends here. I'm going to tell you like it is. And I would definitely do drive-bys. Taking a plane now and flying a plane overhead...

That kind of goes next level, but, you know, I can't say I wouldn't do it if I had a plane when I was 21 years old. Maybe I would. Although he was, of course, much older, but you get what I'm saying. So he flies over, seeing if there's any unfamiliar cars, and ultimately he confronted Lori about the rumors. And when he did, Lori made her stance crystal clear. She was allowed to see other men while they were separated. But...

But Mike was not allowed to see other women. And she even warned him that if he did, he would never be allowed to see their kids again. Which I don't know how you can really have that argument and think that you have any merit in that. Like, how are you going to say, I can see other men, but you can't see other women? Like, that feels a little hypocritical. That doesn't really track, right?

Well, turns out in the spring in 2015, during one of their many separations, Mike did begin dating a co-worker named Kendall. And when Lori found out about that relationship, she was furious. She even tracked down Kendall's Facebook page and began sending her just all of these threatening messages, one after another, saying, I'm going to expose you as a homewrecker. You better not mess with me. Back off, my husband. Just like, truly, really.

going at this girl. She even went so far as to report their relationship to Disney's HR department, hoping to get Kendall in trouble at work for, you know, what is that, fraternization? And I don't know if he was her boss or what it was, but she was like pulling out all the stops. Oops.

And she didn't stop there. She took it next level. She even took photos from Kendall's personal Facebook page, pictures that, in Lori's mind, she deemed as looking inappropriate. And she submitted those photos to Disney's HR department as well, arguing, you know, Kendall's not the type of person that you would want representing your brand. She shouldn't work at Disney. She's not innocent. She's not wholesome. Take a look at these pictures.

which I will say Disney does take their employees and their reputation, I guess you would say, very seriously. I had a friend who worked at Disney, not even like

at the park, but worked in downtown Disney at a restaurant. And they are so strict. I'm sure you've heard of Disney fingers. If you haven't, it basically means you're not allowed to use like your single index finger to point to anything. Like if somebody's like, hey, where's the bathroom? You can't say, oh, over there. The rule is you always have to use two fingers that that's like the polite way. Guys, I know that that probably just sounded way worse than I meant it, but get your minds out of the gutter.

But you have to say like, no, it's over this way or this way. Kind of how Chick-fil-A has to say, what do they say? My pleasure to everything that you, if you say thank you or whatever. So I kind of get where she was trying to go with this, but I also don't know that it's going to hold much water, but whatever. And her harassment didn't just stop there with Disney. Lori also managed to find Kendall's grandmother's phone number.

Then in the middle of the night, she called her grandmother at 3 a.m. demanding to know where Kendall lived. Basically being like, Grandma, Grandma, tell me where Kendall lives. I need to know her address. Like fully unhinged, right? There was even one time when Mike apparently called Kendall and told her she needed to park in a different parking lot than usual for work because Lori was driving over. She was on her way to Disney and she had a gun and he was worried that she was going to do something crazy to Kendall. Which

Which at that point, I mean, I think you gotta call it and you just gotta divorce. There's no way to save a marriage like that, in my opinion. Again, not that I advocate for divorce, but like, come on. I mean, if you're worried somebody's gonna commit murder, maybe you don't stay with that person. And while nothing significant came of Lori's threats, the relentless harassment did take its toll. And by May of 2015, Kendall had enough and she ended her relationship with Mike.

The constant threats and the interference from Lori had just become way too much to handle. But once again, history repeated itself, and following this breakup, Mike moved right back into the home with Lori and his two kids and tried to make their marriage work.

And their toxic relationship didn't just affect the two of them and I would imagine their children too. It also affected their extended friends and family. I mean, over time, he just became increasingly distant from his loved ones. His family, who lived out of state, made several attempts to come visit him, but time and time again, the plans would just fall through. At the last minute, Mike would just call them and say, you know, it's not a good time right now. You can visit another time. Always really citing Lori as the main reason behind it.

saying she insisted that they needed to focus on their marriage and these family visits would just only be a distraction. So as time passed in their marriage, Mike seemed more and more isolated, just completely trapped in this relationship that was spiraling further out of control. Those who knew Mike and Lori wouldn't have been shocked to hear that they were going to be divorcing. Some even encouraged it, saying, look, this is probably the best decision for you.

Then, on November 7th, 2015, Mike and Lori attended a local tractor show with his co-worker and his friend, Frank Merritt. Some of Frank's family members also attended this show. And from the moment that they arrived, Frank could just sense that there was tension between Mike and Lori.

Have you ever been in a situation like that when you're like third wheeling or you're in a group setting and there's another couple and you could just feel like, okay, they must've just had a huge argument right before they arrived or like the tension is so thick you can cut it with a knife. It's a really uncomfy position to be in, right?

especially if you ever have been that couple. I have, even with my husband, where we've gotten into an argument and then we have somewhere to go and we get there and we're like, okay, we have to put on a happy face. Like, we'll talk about this later when we get home. Like, it's not good for anybody involved, right? So at this tractor show, they barely interacted with each other.

Lori also refused to even acknowledge or make eye contact with anybody who was there. The unease between Mike and Lori was just so obvious, making things awkward for everyone around them. And while there wasn't a dramatic argument or big moment, the atmosphere just felt off, creating this really uncomfortable situation. What was supposed to be a fun afternoon turned into an experience that was honestly anything but enjoyable, and it eventually led to Mike and Lori leaving early. Then,

Then the next day, after all of that awkwardness at the tractor show, Frank decided he wanted to check in on Mike just to see, you know, how's he doing? Is everything okay? Like, did you make it home safely? You know, whatever, whatever, whatever, whatever. So he sent him a text message, but he got no response, which...

He wasn't really worried about it. He's like, you know, I know that he and Lori had a lot to work on. They probably are still talking, but I'm not too worried. So wanting to respect Mike's privacy, he kind of held off on contacting him again for the rest of the day. But by November 9th, two days later, his concerns started growing, and he decided he was going to check in again. And this time, he finally got a text back.

But it was nothing like he expected. It wasn't a text that he would have thought that he would have received because it was brief and it was just completely out of character. In this text, Mike told Frank that he was not only quitting his job, but he was doing it to, quote, save his marriage.

And Frank found that really strange because Mike had always been dedicated to his work. He was always been reliable and passionate about his job. So it did make sense that he would just suddenly and abruptly quit and walk away without any prior warning. The wording of the messages also felt a little bit odd, almost like impersonal, as if it wasn't really coming from Mike at all.

So Frank couldn't shake this uneasy feeling that something was just very wrong here. And unfortunately, he was right. All right, you guys know, especially if you've been listening or watching for a while, that I am obsessed with Diet Coke. I live, breathe, and die by Diet Coke. But I also see all of your comments where you're warning me, being like, Annie, you need to lay off the Diet Coke. It's so bad for you. It has so much sugar. It has aspartame. All the things. And look, I

I get it. But what I will say, what might make a lot of you listeners and commenters happy is that one of you commenters recommended that I try Olipop. And I did. And I think that I might be converting. Now, let me just tell you about Olipop for those of you who haven't heard about it. They offer a delicious alternative to traditional soda.

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This sudden resignation not only caught Frank off guard, but also Mike's manager. When Mike failed to show up for work for three consecutive days, his boss reached out to him directly and saying like, what's going on? Where are you? Is everything okay? Yet Mike's text back was just short, dismissive. He said, you can fire me. I'm not coming back.

Not surprisingly, Mike's boss was completely caught off guard by this sudden resignation. It was so unlike Mike to do something like this, something so drastic without any prior discussion. However, there also wasn't really much that he could do. If Mike was determined to leave, nobody was going to be able to force him to stay. He was a grown man after all.

Frank, though, his friend, was still concerned, so he decided to go check on Mike in person. And on November 13th, he went over to Mike's house in Clermont, wanting to check on him, and Lori answered the door. And Lori told Frank, you know what? Mike left. We got into a heated argument because he was talking to other women. I called him out on it, and he took off. He left.

And according to Lori, he not only stormed off in the middle of their argument, but he drove off in a very big hurry. Now something about this story didn't really sit right with Frank, not only because it again was out of character, but also Mike's car was still sitting in the driveway, right there, exactly where he usually parked it.

So if he had really left on his own and drove off in a hurry, why wouldn't he have driven his own car? Why was his car there? So Frank started pressing Lori on that, and when he did, she started changing her story just slightly, saying, you know, a black SUV actually pulled up to the house, and it was driven by Mike's friend Robert, and then Mike got in that car, and that's the car that sped away.

She says he took off in such a hurry and that Robert and Mike were apparently heading to Georgia, of all places, that he sped off so quickly he left behind his car, his wallet, his

his clothes, I mean, everything. Which obviously, Frank was still super suspicious. But despite his concerns, Lori maintained that she had no idea where Mike was or what his plans were. And that was the last known interaction that anybody outside of the family had regarding Mike's whereabouts. From that moment on, he seemingly just vanished without a trace.

Then, after his disappearance, Lori's story about what happened to him seemed to change a little bit depending on whoever she was talking to. Lori told family members that he had left for the airport and that he moved to another state. Sometimes she said he moved to Georgia, sometimes she said California, other times she even said New York. But there is just constant shifting in her story, and that of course raised some eyebrows. Yet nobody could quite figure out what was going on, what was the truth.

And just about a month after he left, Lori started doing something else that raised a lot of red flags. She started selling all of his stuff. I mean, his expensive aviation tools, his guns, literally anything that he owned, she was trying to clear it out. It was almost as if she could not wait to get rid of all of it.

She sold some of his stuff to friends, to coworkers, to family members, many of whom, by the way, still couldn't believe that Mike, this guy who had spent years of building this collection of expensive tools, would just walk away from everything that he had worked for without a single word.

So naturally, these people started asking Lori a lot of questions, right? You know, where did Mike go? Why would he leave all of this stuff behind? But Lori's answers were just vague. She would shrug it off and say, you know, well, our relationship was on the rocks, or, you know, he was more trouble than he was worth. He's out of my hair now. Just vague and kind of not really giving much context. Now,

Now, despite how toxic their marriage was, she and Mike were together for over two decades, 20 years. And the fact that he had just disappeared without a trace, she didn't really seem particularly upset. There was no panic, no frantic searching, no real concern for even her children, who were, by the way, under the age of 10 at the time, and whose father just up and vanished. It was almost as if Lori just accepted that Mike had left her and their two children without even so much as a goodbye.

And at first, even with Lori's weird responses about his disappearance, his family and friends didn't immediately jump to conclusions or get too concerned, because Mike was still in contact with them. He would send them text messages sporadically here and there, sometimes Facebook messages, and even though it wasn't constant, it kind of tracked with his communication. Remember, he had been distancing himself for quite a few years at that point.

So they kind of just chalked it up to, all right, he left, he's moving on to another phase in his life, and, you know, we'll talk to him when we talk to him, but we don't need to really worry. However, then the tone of Mike's messages that he was sending started to shift. They became even more cold.

more distant, and they all kind of had this unmistakable theme of just, you know, leave me alone, leave me be. In one strange message to a family member, Mike even wrote, quote, "'I'm done with all this back and forth crap. Everyone just needs to leave me alone, just like they did my entire life.'"

Needless to say, it was uncharacteristically harsh. I mean, definitely a bold and abrupt statement. But still, it also didn't really immediately set off any alarm bells. After all, people go through rough patches. Sometimes people just need to go off the grid and like regroup for a moment. So it seemed like, okay, he just needs some space and his friends and family figured, you know, he'll reach out again when he's ready to talk. But as days turned into weeks, Mike's contact became even more sporadic.

Everybody heard from him less and less, and at the same time, they had no idea where he really was or what he was doing. And the messages that they were receiving got even more weird. One time, Mike's niece, somebody who he was really close with, messaged him just to check in. And Mike replied asking who she was, claiming he never even met her, saying like, leave me alone, I don't know you, get away. In another instance, Mike texted his brother, and in this text he said, I tried calling mom. Did she change her number?

Which, to be clear, their mom hadn't changed her phone number for years. And Mike knew that, so if he really was trying to contact her, he would have been able to. And the odd behavior didn't just stop at text messages. His Facebook activity also started taking a drastic turn.

Previously, his posts were filled with photos of himself, his friends, the planes that he worked on, some family shots here and there. But now his timeline was flooded with these random memes, different posts that seemed just totally disconnected from his usual personality. And then things got even stranger when his Facebook profile picture just suddenly changed from a personal photo of him to a random image of this group of people at a bar where Mike wasn't even in it.

His friend Scott noticed the switch and immediately tried to find Mike in the photo, but he realized he wasn't even in it at all, not even in the background. So, super confused, he decided to take a closer look and do a reverse Google image search on the picture. And to his shock, he discovered that the photo wasn't even original, it was a stock image that was used by a Bloody Mary company, like a bar promotion company.

or I guess rather a liquor promotion company. Meanwhile, everybody else still surrounding Lori was just growing increasingly concerned about his sudden disappearance because she still seemed completely unfazed by the situation. Her lack of worry or urgency was just extremely unsettling, especially considering the circumstances, because in fact Lori seemed to move on remarkably quickly.

Just about a month after Mike left, she met a man named Jeremy Townsend at a park. Jeremy was married, but he still pursued Lori like the garbage human that he is, and she didn't seem to mind. Lori told him she had recently become single and explained that her husband, you know, had abruptly left her and her children behind, though she didn't go into too much detail. But she seemed to be more than ready to embrace this new relationship, and it didn't take long for Lori to become infatuated with Jeremy.

In fact, less than a month into their relationship, Lori showed just how serious she was about this relationship. She tattooed Jeremy's nickname, Jay, right above her crotch. Which look, even a tattoo of somebody's name on the arm is a lot for only being with somebody for a month.

tattooing it right above your, you know, private area, that's next level. That is dedication. But also I will just say, you know, to each their own, I personally will not ever get somebody's name tattooed on me. I think it's the kiss of death, but you know, go Lori, I guess. Now she's obviously taking this relationship very seriously and like very committed to this guy. Meanwhile, he initially was under the impression that this relationship with her was purely casual, purely sexual. He was married after all.

So now he was becoming way overwhelmed by Lori's like stage five clinger intense attachment to him. And at this point, she was constantly bombarding him with text messages. Also questioning him about his marriage, asking why he was still wearing his wedding ring, why he hasn't divorced his wife yet, whether or not he was in love with her. I mean,

The constant just harassment of questions and emotional demands, it was a lot for Jeremy to handle, and it definitely was not what he thought he signed up for. But then the situation took another unexpected turn when Jeremy's wife Vanessa received a very bizarre delivery at her job.

She received this oversized bouquet of flowers that also had a card with it, and on the card it read, Roses are red, violets are blue. My wife is a whore. Your husband is too. Sorry about this. Check your Facebook messages. We need to talk. Mike.

So completely confused and also, rightfully so, a little freaked out, Vanessa checked her Facebook messages. And when she did, she found a series of hundreds of messages from Mike. In these messages, he shared details about Jeremy and Lori's affair. He included screenshots of their text message exchanges. He even included the inappropriate nude photos that they had sent one another.

So Vanessa was understandably very upset, and she confronted her husband Jeremy about this. Which, he didn't try to deny it. Instead,

Instead, he admitted to this affair, and he immediately ended things with Lori. He assured Vanessa that he was committed to working on their marriage. If she would just give him another chance, he would never see Lori again. Nothing like this would ever happen. It's officially over. Now, you can imagine, Lori was hurt. She was frustrated, and she really tried to win Jeremy back. But

But her efforts were useless. He wanted to make his marriage work. He was done with her. And Lori didn't really stay that upset for very long. Instead, she quickly set her sights on somebody new. A guy named Travis Filmer, who also happened to be a local church leader that she met through mutual friends. Their chemistry was undeniable, and they quickly grew close with one another.

Travis, who had always wanted a family, was drawn to Lori's bond with her kids, which he just found incredibly attractive. I mean, here she was, left by her husband, embracing motherhood on her own. Then, by the beginning of 2016, Lori hosted a bonfire party where she and Travis became even closer. This really was the spark of the beginning of their relationship.

And as they continued seeing each other, she assured Travis that her marriage with Mike was officially over, that they were completely officially divorced, that Mike was no longer involved in their children's lives, that he wasn't paying child support, that she was fully independent and on her own. Which, meanwhile, Mike's friends and family couldn't help but notice how serious Lori and Travis's relationship was now becoming. And understandably, they started asking her about it.

Because their curiosity about Mike, it hadn't faded. At this point, it had been almost a year since anybody had seen him or talked to him, and they still had no clue where he was or what he was doing. But Lori told them, no, you know, me and Mike are divorced. I've gone to court for it. We're done. I, like, he left. I'm done. I'm moving on with my life. However, I will say she did claim that she never actually saw Mike at the divorce hearing.

She said he didn't want to be there, so they stayed in separate rooms during the entire proceeding of it, and they were divorced, and it all worked out. But again, the whole story just seemed a little bit odd. Yet Lori seemed confident in this story, so they didn't question her any further. And she really seemed to quickly embrace this new reality of hers. She was posting updates on social media, photos, I mean, as if nothing ever happened.

She was sharing photos of herself and Travis enjoying time together. She shared photos of her kids. She was even posting some photos of various projects she was working on around her house, particularly some remodeling. One specific detail was pouring a concrete pad for a fire pit in the backyard. And she and Travis even etched their initials into the cement, officially finishing the project. It was almost as if she was carrying on like everything was perfectly normal without a care in the world.

And to any outsider, it would have seemed like nothing strange had happened at all. Then, on December 31st, 2016, Lori and Travis took the next step in their relationship. They got married in a small, intimate ceremony in Lori's backyard.

And this event was very close-knit. Only a couple close family and friends were in attendance. And everything was going really smoothly. It seemed like a very happy, very joyful, loving occasion. But then, out of nowhere, Lori had an unexpected emotional breakdown.

She locked herself in the bathroom with a gun, threatening to take her own life. And the situation came completely out of left field. Everybody around her was just stunned, kind of unsure of how to react. It wasn't like the usual, you know, pre-wedding nerves or jitters that people sometimes experience. This was obviously far more intense. And why? Why?

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Fortunately, a family member was able to talk to Lori and calm her down and kind of bring her back down to reality. So the wedding continued as planned. They got married. She seemed to snap back to her cheerful self. She was going through the motions of enjoying the wedding. And there was no sign that a breakdown had even happened. And that in and of itself kind of left people feeling a little bit unsettled, right? Like how do you go from one extreme to the other?

but nobody really knew how to make sense of it. It was just a bizarre moment that didn't really seem to fit in with the life that Lori had been portraying to the world. But Lori moved on. She and Travis were married, they continued their relationship, and they even had two kids together, making Lori now a mom of four.

And by mid-2017, the mystery of Mike's whereabouts had deepened, but still nobody had heard a word from him. Some people, like close friends and family, would receive an occasional text from him, you know, saying he was okay, that he was just checking in, but that was pretty much it. No calls, no details about his life, basically nothing. Lori, however, started building this whole new narrative about his absence, because now she was saying he didn't vanish and he didn't leave her and, like,

go off on his own, but he's actually stalking her. He's following her everywhere that she goes. She even claimed that she had to call the police because she spotted him tailing her while she was driving. And according to Lori, when the police arrived on the scene to investigate, they even discovered that Mike had placed tracking devices on her car.

And she claimed that there were so many hidden tracking devices that the police had to take the car to the station so that they could remove all of them. It took him two weeks to find all of them and to get rid of everything. I mean, he was stalking her to like the one millionth degree.

Yet despite what happened, she for whatever reason didn't file an official police report for stalking or for harassment. Instead, she just continued to confide in her friends about it, talking about this ongoing surveillance, stalking, but never really wanting to take legal action to address it. And there was kind of a strange mix with this that happened.

had her friends and family's curiosity piqued. I mean, she was raising red flags for anybody who was close to her because on one hand, she was portraying herself as a victim of Mike's stalking and obsession, yet she also wasn't willing to take any legal steps to protect herself or protect her children. If she was truly scared, why?

why wouldn't she act on it? So by 2018, Mike's family and friends had reached their breaking point. Something was clearly wrong, and the fact that nobody had heard from him in now over two years, it was becoming harder to ignore. For people who knew Mike well, it just didn't add up.

They couldn't reconcile the idea that he would just voluntarily cut off all contact, especially with his children. While it was possible that, yeah, he might sever ties with Lori, the one constant in his life was his kids. Mike had always been a dedicated father, and everybody was certain that even if he had tried to distance himself from Lori, he definitely would not have abandoned his children.

So by February of 2018, his friend Scott, the same one who noticed that weird Facebook profile change, the picture to, you know, the stock photo of the group from the Bloody Mary site, he knew that he just could not ignore this nagging feeling in his gut anymore. He knew something was wrong. So he decided that he was going to take action. I mean, he hadn't heard from his friend in over two years.

So he requested that the police perform a welfare check on Mike at Lori's house. And he wasn't really sure what to expect, but he knew that there was just something between all of the stories that wasn't adding up. When law enforcement arrived, Lori appeared calm and very cooperative, answering all their questions without any hesitation.

She explained how and when Mike had left, she stuck to her story that he had simply just walked away from their life back in 2015, she allowed the police to come in to search through the house, I mean, just seemingly unbothered by this intrusion, not worried at all.

But then, once the officers made their way through the house and into the backyard, everything changed. Because right there near the fire pit that, remember, Lori had so enthusiastically been posting about on social media, the police found an unusual depression in the cement slab. This

This area was about 6 by 9 feet in size, and the indention was a few inches deep, and suspiciously, this indention was shaped like a human body. So this discovery immediately raised concerns among the officers, and they asked Lori, like,

Hey, we're gonna come back this evening with search dogs. Is that okay? And up until that moment, Lori had been warm, chatty, accommodating. But when it came to the backyard, her demeanor drastically shifted. Gone was the friendly, cooperative woman. Suddenly, she was now cold, guarded, and angry.

So she ordered these officers off her property saying, I'm not allowing any dogs in unless you have a warrant. Get out, get off my property and beat it. If you have any questions, talk to my lawyer. So this was the kind of reaction that made the investigators pause a little bit. Because if she really had nothing to hide, why the sudden change? Why was she totally fine and open and willing when they were inside the house and now turn into like,

you know, this mean guarded person the second they were in the backyard. And they knew something was up, so they got their warrant. And on March 9th, nearly a month after their very unsettling first visit, the investigators returned to Lori's property. And this time, they didn't come empty-handed. They brought excavation tools, cadaver dogs, and they just had this growing sense that something was very, very wrong.

It didn't take long. As soon as the dogs were released into the yard, one of them made a beeline for that fire pit, circling it again and again, signaling that something below the surface demanded their attention. So a team of officers got to work digging through this thick concrete slab, and within a few hours, their efforts paid off. They saw the first sign of human remains, specifically a partially exposed arm.

And from there, the team just continued to dig. Once they were done digging, they found an entire body wrapped in a sheet and secured very tightly with a tarp. It was discovered approximately three feet underground, and at this point, it was basically just a skeleton wearing only socks and underwear. It was clear that these remains had been there for months, possibly even years. Now, while this search was going on, it kind of is reminiscent of Chad Daybell a little bit.

She just stayed inside the house, just quietly watching as everything was unfolding. But then, the moment that the body was uncovered, she got in her car and she took off. Investigators kept working, but her exit didn't go unnoticed. I mean, if anything, it only raised more questions about what she knew, right? And what she might have been trying to avoid. So the body was carefully removed and it was sent for further examination.

And using DNA from Mike's father, the authorities confirmed in 2018 that these remains belonged to Mike. The timeline of his death was narrowed down to late 2015, a date that, of course, matched the last time that anybody had seen him or heard from him. And eventually, an autopsy revealed the shocking truth behind Mike's death.

He had been shot in the head with a .38 caliber handgun. Coincidentally, this was the same type of gun that Lori kept in her nightstand and had used to threaten Mike in the past. So this discovery confirmed what all of Mike's friends and family had feared. Mike had not just walked out on his life, walked out on his children. He had been murdered.

And with each new piece of evidence, they were increasingly convinced that Lori was the one responsible for his death. But proving it? That was going to be a whole different challenge, because while the truth was finally starting to surface, Lori was not going to go down without a fight. And the investigation into Mike's death...

It was only the beginning, because remember, I told you there was a twist in this at the end that nobody, even myself, saw coming. So after the discovery of Mike's remains, police issued a second warrant a few weeks later so that they could examine the property further. Investigators used specialized lighting to detect bloodstains inside the home, and they found evidence of a trail of blood that stretched all the way from the dining room

all the way to the back porch. Among the bloodstains, they also found multiple hair follicles. The blood in the hair was sent away for testing, and test results later showed the presence of mixed DNA, lory, and an unidentified male. Now, unfortunately, a direct match would never be found for either, so while it couldn't be directly linked to Mike, he also couldn't be ruled out.

So the investigation that followed the discovery of Mike's body started to paint a picture. Not only that Lori had potentially murdered Mike, but that she lived with this secret for years and also lived with his body in her backyard for years.

Investigators found that the last call that Mike's cell phone made was on November 7, 2015, the last day that anyone ever saw him. His bank accounts also told a very troubling story, because by late 2015, his bank activity just came to a halt. No ATM withdrawals, no credit card purchases, no signs of him living anywhere, nothing.

However, somebody had been using his accounts for a short while after November 7th, and all of that evidence pointed directly to Lori being the one using the accounts. Records showed that on November 19th and 23rd, somebody used Mike's debit card to go buy clothes and also buy lingerie online. The purchases weren't sent to Georgia, where remember Lori claimed Mike had moved, but instead it was shipped to her home in Florida.

under her name. And in the weeks that followed, somebody completely drained Mike's account, which it was mostly online transactions. And that was kind of also out of character for Mike because he was more of like an in-person kind of shopper, not a big online shopper. But by that December, his account was overdrafted and then never used again.

Detectives also uncovered other alarming financial discrepancies, including the fact that those flowers that were sent to Vanessa, remember Jeremy's wife, they were purchased using Lori's personal debit card.

Checks addressed to Mike also continued arriving at the house, and they were endorsed and deposited right into an account that Lori controlled. Meanwhile, all of his bills went unpaid, his passport expired, a loan was taken out in his name and never repaid. I mean, come on, it's pretty clear what happened here, right?

But then, beyond just this financial trail, the investigators uncovered a mountain of digital evidence. All those messages that appeared to come from Mike, the text messages, the Facebook posts, all of it, they were tracked back to Lori's IP address.

So for Mike's friends and family, it confirmed what they had suspected all along. The messages didn't sound like him because they weren't from him. Someone had been impersonating Mike, and again, all the signs pointed directly to Lori. But that wasn't all. One of Mike's close friends came forward with text messages that he had received from Mike shortly before he disappeared. And in these texts, Mike shared something chilling.

He said Lori was after his life insurance money, and he admitted that he was scared she might kill him for it.

Even more disturbing, he told his friend that if anything ever happened to him, Lori would cover it up by pretending to be him online, that she would assume his identity and take over. It of course sounded unthinkable at the time, but now it was starting to look like a plan that was already in motion. Then there was of course the gun, right? It was a .38 caliber gun that Lori always kept in her nightstand that she had allegedly threatened Mike with in the past, and Lori had ended up selling this gun to a nearby neighbor.

And while it was the same type of gun that was used to kill Mike, the bullet that was recovered from his remains was too damaged to conclusively match to a specific gun. So they're building their case, they're gathering all of this evidence, and the investigator sat down with Travis, Lori's new husband. He repeatedly insisted he had no idea that Mike was dead, let alone buried in the backyard of the home that he was now sharing with Lori.

He claimed that he always believed that Mike had simply just vanished, that he and Lori were officially divorced. However, when the police dug into the records, it should be no surprise that they found no trace of a divorce ever being filed. Now, during this interview, Travis did recall a very strange comment that Lori had made to him once about Mike, where she said, "...it's not that he's missing."

He's no longer walking this earth. Now at the time, Travis didn't really take it literally. He just assumed it was Lori's dramatic way of saying that Mike had left their lives for good. But investigators, this like piqued their curiosity.

And they also discovered another odd detail. Travis and Lori were never legally married. I mean, despite having that wedding ceremony in Lori's backyard, there was no official marriage certificate on record. And when they questioned Travis about it, he tried to explain this away, saying, you know, we chose not to make it official for financial reasons. That's the only reason why. But given everything else that the detectives had uncovered, his excuse didn't really seem that convincing.

especially when they found out that Travis was the one who helped Lori pour the concrete that Mike was buried under.

So all the evidence piled up, and one thing became undeniable. Mike had not vanished by choice. He had been murdered, and all signs pointed to Lori. So finally, in September of 2020, Lori was officially named a person of interest, and she was arrested. She was charged with second-degree murder and accessory after the fact. But this story was far from over, because as you're about to hear, the spotlight would shift.

And the blame would be placed on two other people that no one ever saw coming.

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Initially, Lori was held without bond in the Lake County Jail, but in December of 2020, she posted a $50,000 bond and she was released while awaiting trial. She pleaded not guilty to the charges. She said she had absolutely nothing to do with Mike's death. But instead of keeping a low profile while she was out on bond, she made a really bizarre move. She posted a very long YouTube video in this...

attempt to like defend herself and also solicit financial help for all of her legal fees. So right there sitting on a dock by a body of water, Lori sat next to her defense attorney denying any involvement in Mike's murder and introducing what would then become their main defense argument in this.

And I gotta just say, you have to hear this thing to believe it. And it's not like an awkward press conference. It's this way overproduced video that is titled, I'm Innocent. And it is complete with these like overhead drone shots, a sunset, soft music, an American flag. It's almost like a commercial. It's honestly ridiculous. Especially because of who she was blaming and the confusing story that she told.

Good morning, I'm Jeffrey Weggs. I'm an attorney, 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. 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, and at that point,

or some point thereafter, Laurie starts seeing somebody else. We're not gonna mention his name, but he's the subject of this action. This relationship came upon Laurie by Laurie dropping the children off at school and this same individual observing bruising and injuries to Laurie. He confronted Laurie and we don't know to this day or to some extent, we'll find out though,

But he proclaimed he had been in the Special Forces, he had been appointed to protect President Bush, and that he had the special ability to protect Lori from Michael Shaver. He even advised Lori that he had the ability and the knowledge and the special skills to kill somebody, and that nobody else would ever see it, know it, or be able to pin it on him in any fashion.

Michael being out of the house, Lori had a relationship with this same individual. The same individual became close to Lori 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. 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. Later in time, law enforcement approached her, having received some word or advice or suspicion that a crime had been committed. Now, we don't know who exactly told law enforcement, but we'll find out about that

And underneath the patio lay Michael Shaver. Now, when law enforcement confronted Lori, Lori wisely

said, "I want to talk to an attorney. I don't want to speak with y'all unless I first speak with an attorney." Thus she came to me. Having interviewed Lori, 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.

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. So the focus of her defense was Jeremy, the guy that she had once been in a relationship with, the one that dumped her because he wanted to make his marriage work. They say he killed Mike out of jealousy. He wanted Lori. He was aware, too, of the abuse that she had suffered at Mike's hand, so he wanted to protect her, and he just was so in love with her.

Then, without her knowledge, he secretly buried Mike's body on her property, leaving her completely unaware of what had happened. Kind of feels far-fetched, right? But then, after asking for money for Lori's defense, she spoke directly to the camera, fighting back tears, talking about her kids, and she was actually pretty convincing. I'm coming before you guys today just to let you know that we have our suspicions, and

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. And anybody that knows me knows that my life is my children. I am a daughter. I'm a friend. I'm a neighbor. I'm a servant of God. I'm a wife. And I am a devoted mother of four. 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. And I know that everybody, 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. I accept all 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. 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 where we were building a gathering place, a conversational fire pit area for our family and friends to spend time together at. After that, things stayed relatively quiet for a few years, and her team was preparing for trial.

But then in 2023, the case took an even more shocking turn, because instead of just blaming Jeremy with that earlier accusation, her attorneys now filed a motion claiming it wasn't actually Jeremy who pulled the trigger, it was her daughter. They alleged that Lori's seven-year-old daughter, Isabel, had shot Mike.

According to the motion, Isabel had grown up witnessing years of abuse between her parents, and in a moment of fear, while Mike was allegedly beating and threatening to kill Lori, she acted.

The claim completely contradicted everything we had heard before. Isabel also had been questioned by police multiple times over the years, and not once did she mention this version of events. But still, Lori's defense said that Isabel wanted to testify. So a judge ordered a psychological evaluation to determine if she could.

And by this time, Isabel was a teenager. So her trial began in September of 2024. And of course, her defense team painted Mike as this abusive, violent husband that, you know, Lori was the victim. She suffered for years and years and years, physical, emotional, mental trauma, even sexual abuse at the hands of him. They portrayed her as this battered woman who just lived in constant fear and did whatever she had to do to survive this toxic relationship.

And beyond attempting to destroy Mike's character, they also put forth a wildly contradictory timeline, arguing that Mike hadn't actually been killed in November of 2015, you know, even though all the evidence suggested that, but instead...

He was killed in May of 2016, six months after he had supposedly disappeared. Now, as for the actual shooting, they said that Mike and Lori were in a heated argument. It got physical. Mike allegedly pinned Lori down at one point, just beating her horrifically, pressing his foot against her neck. So as she was struggling below him, her seven-year-old daughter came, intervened, and wanted to save her mother's life.

According to Lori's defense, Isabel somehow knew exactly where her mother kept a gun. So she ran inside, she retrieved it from Lori's nightstand, and she returned just in time to shoot Mike in the head with almost perfect accuracy. Which I gotta say, that's hard for an adult to do, no less a seven-year-old.

And the defense didn't stop there. They further alleged that then Jeremy, the boyfriend, arrived at the house shortly after Isabel fired this shot. And for reasons that were never explained, he took the gun from her and he shot Mike a second time so that he could ensure that he was dead. However, the medical examiner's testimony completely contradicted this claim. Mike had only been shot once and there was only one bullet recovered from his body.

Her defense also then argued that Jeremy told Lori, you know, leave, take the kids with you, which she did, and that by the time that she returned, Mike's body was gone. She didn't know what Jeremy had done, where his body was, what happened, but Jeremy told her, "'Keep quiet. I've handled everything. And stay quiet, because if you talk, I will not take the blame alone.'"

But Jeremy testified for the prosecution, and he denied everything. He insisted he wasn't at the house during the shooting or the aftermath, and that during that time, he wasn't even with Lori. They had already ended their relationship. He was working on things with his wife. At any point when you were over at the Shaver residence, was Michael Shaver there? No. At any point did you arrive on a scene where Michael Shaver had been shot?

I say what? At any point did you arrive at the Shaver residence or any other place where Michael Shaver had been shot? No. At any point were you involved with any sort of altercation with Michael Shaver? No. At any point did you shoot or injure Michael Shaver? No. At any point were you involved with disposing of the body of Michael Shaver? No.

And after the affair was exposed, what happened with your early super four? I cut it off. Then on September 12th, Isabel, who was now 15 years old, she took the stand and she told her side of the story. She started by telling the jury about her parents' relationship and also that she had witnessed them fighting on multiple occasions. It would happen pretty often. They'd at least argue and like fight really bad, pretty much on the daily.

But it would escalate to those points a few times a month. Like, it wasn't a rare occurrence. Like, it happened often. And as a matter of those events, I may have asked this question before, did you feel a need to attempt to protect your mom in any fashion? I did, yes. Did you perceive your mother as a victim through those events? Yes.

those that response that transpired in you, did it become a natural and automatic response? You talked about the feeling inside of yourself of a need to protect your mother. Did that become automatic inside? Yes, it did. Growing up, I mean...

Then she went on to say that she witnessed a very violent confrontation between her parents on the back porch of their home in 2016. She claims she heard her mother screaming for help, so she ran to her mom's room, grabbed the gun out of the nightstand, returned to the scene where they were fighting, and she fired the gun at her father. She testified, quote,

But there were a lot of inconsistencies in this story. Isabel had never mentioned shooting Mike in the past in any of her police interviews over the years. It was only now during the trial, which was nearly a decade after Mike's disappearance, that she now was suddenly claiming that she's the one who pulled the trigger. Her

Her testimony also had other contradictions, including getting the date wrong. She stated that the shooting happened in May of 2016, which, remember, was six months after he disappeared in November of 2015. So it was almost like she was trying to protect her mom in these moments. Her testimony was shaky at best. Do you know anything about the death of your father? I do. Do you know anything about how your father died? I do. Could you tell the jury? So...

It was a school day and I'm sorry. And he... First, let's relax, go slow, make sure the jury understands the events, okay? Okay. 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, removed. And me and my brother were in separate rooms where we had pretty much been ready for school. I was...

I knew my breakfast and I was watching TV. We had these like little plastic tables in our rooms and 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 my room, it had, it was my room and then it had a bathroom and then a spare room. And so they all connected to each other, like through the bathroom. It was almost like a little like pathway. And

So I heard, you know, the fighting and the yelling and it escalated. So I went, I always, when I was little, I would go through there to like sneak around. And I opened the spare room door and in front of the spare room door was the dining room. And in front of the dining room, there was a glass door, like a sliding glass door. So I, um,

opened the door to the spare room, and I stood there, 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 it's, 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 and I heard my mom screaming for help obviously and then he put his foot on the side of her face and pushed it into the ground and I didn't hear her anymore. Sorry. And 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 holding her to the ground, still kicking her. And I shot him and nothing happened. He didn't fall, nothing happened. And then Jeremy... He was sitting in the chair.

He was sitting in the chair. Red. I'm not exactly sure. No. I was aiming towards his head, but I'm not sure where the bullet went. Okay. What happened after you fired the gun?

He was just sitting there. I mean, he wasn't moving. Nothing happened. There was no blood. There was no nothing. And then... Let me interject here and there, if I may. Okay. Did you feel when you fired that shot that that had to be done...

Or he would have killed your mother? Yes. Yes. Yes. I'm firm on that. I'm firm on that. Was he using that type of force in your mind? Yes. It was necessary? Yes. Okay. What happened after you shot him or you believe you shot him? Afterwards, Jeremy came and he... How long? It was right, like right after it happened, like right...

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. And my mom had crawled away. 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.

It almost seemed rehearsed and uncertain, leading a lot of people to believe that she had in fact been coached. So realizing now that Isabel's testimony had likely done more harm than good, the defense made a last-minute drastic decision. The very next day, Lori, who was never originally set to testify...

She took the stand. Lori used her time in front of the jury to paint herself as a longtime victim of Mike's alleged abuse, and once again claimed that she had filed for divorce even though there was no legal record of it. She then gave her own account of the day that Mike died, telling a story nearly identical to Isabelle's, claiming that Mike had unexpectedly returned to the house that morning, launched into a violent attack, and then was shot and killed during the struggle.

I knew he was sitting out there. 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. There was an imprint of my phone on that sliding glass door. He grabbed my arm, pulled me down into his lap. And the furthest chair that was... I don't have a picture in front of me, but the sliding glass door, there was like a post. And there was a... We had like a bistro table sitting there in front. And on the...

this further side, I guess, in front of the sliding glass door. There was a chair. So he had pulled me down in his lap. He was holding on to me. And at that point, I was just trying to convince him, like, okay, okay, okay, enough. We'll work it out. What's he saying to you during this, Lori? He's just, he's...

I was talking at that point. I was scared. That's what I'm saying. Okay, okay, okay. We can work it out because that's what I did every single time because I was scared. I'm in his lap. He's holding me there. Okay. And then he pushed me to the ground. Okay. As he pushes you to the ground, does he do anything? After he pushed me to the ground, he was kicking me in the stomach. Okay. Okay.

presuming you were pregnant or something. Yeah, and I had already told him I had the abortion, and I was screaming at that point. Okay. Is he making any threats to do any harm to you, any serious bodily harm? Yeah. I mean, he said not this time. He said I was not getting away. Okay. Not this time. I mean, we had been through so many events, but that's not the first time. I mean, he had pulled a gun out. He had Publix and Claremont. This was not the first time. Okay, let's not talk about prior events.

Okay. Yeah, I'm sorry. So you're on the ground and he's kicking you. In the stomach. Okay. Is he kicking you hard? Yes. Okay. Is he making any... Okay. Is he making any statements of any intent to kill you or anything of that nature? Yes. Okay. Is he speaking in such a level that the children could hear this? Oh, yeah. We both were. Okay. I was screaming. Okay.

What's the next thing you recall? The next thing I see is... I can't even say that I've seen her. I more or less heard it, and then I think I've seen her. When you say her, who are you referring to? Isabel. Isabel. What's Isabel do? She had fired a gunshot. Now, when Isabel fires this gunshot,

Do you see where it lodged into Michael or what? I could not. Where are you after Isabel fires the gun? Still on the ground. And the next thing you recall? The next thing I recall is seeing Jay, Jeremy, and hearing the gunshot essentially at the same time. Is there much time that goes by between Isabel shooting the gun and Jay taking out Jeremy? No.

It felt like forever. I remember looking at her. Had you gotten off the ground? No. No, I had not. Michael was still sitting in the chair. After Jay comes, you hear Jay discharge the firearm. And after Jay discharges the firearm, what do you hear next or observe next? At that point, I started crawling away, but Michael fell forward out of the chair.

Go forward on the chair? Out of the chair. Okay. Was that after Jeremy shot or after Isabel shot? After Jeremy makes that shot into Michael, what happens after that? I got up. We went into the house. We went into Isabel's room. Who has the gun at that point? I don't recall that he had the gun. I don't know.

He was the last one with the gun. I did not know what was going to happen after that, but I wanted to get the kids out. And the only place I had to take them was school. It wasn't that far away. So you take the kids to school, come back to the house. Is Michael there? No. Is Jay there? No, no, no. And we had a conversation with Aiden. I remember that. He had obviously heard commotion.

And he didn't know what happened. He didn't see it. He was in his room, which was at the further end of the house. And I had just told him, your dad's gone away for a long, long time and insinuated that he was going to jail. Did you see any fresh dug holes on the property as you walked about it or moved about it beyond that point? No. No.

When Jeremy said, I'll take care of this, did you have any reason to believe that that body was on your property? No, never. There's no way he could have. I wasn't gone that long where he could have. Finding out the dementia? No. No.

But the prosecution kept fighting back. I mean, the IP address, the credit cards, the text messages. Out of the entire five-foot property, she just so happened to pour a new concrete slab directly over the spot that Mike's body was buried at. What's the likelihood of that? If you didn't know where he was buried, why would you pour the slab right there? Like, was it a coincidence? No, it's clearly a cover-up.

And in the end, they just argued the simple truth that her story didn't add up. The fake text messages, the money trail, the concrete project, all of it. It pointed at the same conclusion. Lori had killed Mike, and she had spent years trying to cover it up. So on September 13th, 2024, after just four hours of deliberation...

The jury found Lori guilty of second-degree murder with a firearm. She was acquitted of accessory after the fact, but two months later, in November 2024, at the age of 42, she was sentenced to life in prison. Lori didn't speak at her sentencing, but in a 14-page letter to the state attorney's office, she still accused Jeremy of the murder and maintained her innocence, which...

I think it's interesting because then it's like she backpedaled and she went from Jeremy to her daughter, now back to Jeremy. It just doesn't make sense.

Meanwhile, her new husband Travis, to this day, still believes that Lori is innocent and that she had nothing to do with Mike's death. But a lot of people are divided out there. Some people think, okay, maybe her daughter did do it. I don't think so. Truly, in my heart of hearts, I don't. Many people believe Lori did it, and some people even think Jeremy did it. So I am curious to know what you guys think. But this is one of those cases that just sticks with you, not just because of all the twists and the turns, but because of how long it took for the truth to finally come out.

And it reminds us, you know, justice isn't always immediate. Sometimes...

It's buried, literally and figuratively, for years. But when the truth does finally surface, at least it brings a little bit of peace to the people who were left behind. As his family said, because they said it best, they said, Michael will never be forgotten. We can be at peace knowing that the story is known by all. And that, again, is just so powerful, and it reminds us why we talk about these cases and these stories. The family wants to make sure these stories are known by everybody, that his voice isn't forgotten.

He was a father. He was a son. He was a great man. I mean, as long as the alleged abuse wasn't real, I will say that. Although even if it was, it doesn't warrant him being murdered, but you get what I'm saying. But now, even with Lori behind bars, it's like questions still linger. Why did Isabel testify the way that she did? What really happened that day? And did Lori act alone?

Or is there still more to this story that we may never really know? So let me know what you guys think in the Spotify comment section or the Apple review section, or if you're watching this on YouTube, in the comment section. I'm curious to know your thoughts. I know this was a wild one, but I appreciate you guys hearing Mike's story and allowing his voice to continue to be heard. We'll see if we hear any more from Lori. I mean, it's relatively recent that she was sentenced, so I'd imagine we would, but...

Stay tuned for that. All right. Thanks again, guys, for tuning in. I hope you have a great week. I'll be back with you on Thursday with headline highlights where we talk through everything happening this week in true crime. And I'll be back again with you too next Monday for a deep dive. All right. Until then, be nice. Don't kill people. Say it with me. You know my new mantra. Just get a divorce. Right? And more than that, just stay safe. All right. Bye, guys.