Forensic Files - Season 6, Episode 28 - Naked Justice - Full Episode | Forensic Files

this is the story of a classic love triangle husband wife and lover one of these three died
in what was described as an accident a forensic computer analysis uncovered photographs and emails so revealing
they even embarrassed a local judge [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] detroit michigan nicknamed the motor
city for its history is one of the world's largest automotive manufacturing hubs
just west of detroit is michigan state university with almost 40 000 students in 1990 michael mick fletcher was an
undergraduate student there with hopes of one day becoming a lawyer at a campus social event mick
fletcher met leanne meisner who wasn't a student but worked as a telemarketer nearby
for both it was love at first sight and they were inseparable three years later in september of 1993
mick and leanne married that was great he was going to be a lawyer so he'd make a lot of money be
able to buy her a nice house and she wanted to stay home and have a lot of babies
that's all she wanted in life i saw since she was a little girl all she wanted to do
was to get married and have children the newlyweds settled in hazel park a working-class suburb just north of
detroit they bought this house on hazelwood avenue and mick started law school leanne worked to support them and not
long afterwards the couple had a daughter hannah was her joy she just she was just crazy about hannah
[Music] the fletcher household appeared to be a happy one i mean she just got a thrill out of
everything that hannah did oh my gosh she dressed her so cute too all the cute little outfits it was like
her little doll by 1999 mick was an up-and-coming criminal defense attorney working hard
to build his practice on august 12 1999 the couple had more good news leanne learned she was pregnant with
their second child [Music] mick was delighted with the news and sent her a note leanne i might not always tell you but
you mean the world to me i love you so much sweetheart and girl or boy so long as they are part of you our children
will all be beautiful i love you mick that's sunday night the couple celebrated their good fortune with
leanne's parents mick asked his in-laws if they would watch their granddaughter hannah the
next day and he said i wonder if you'd babysit for about one hour and i said for one hour and he said yeah
he said we want to go to the firing range mick believed in having a gun in the house for protection and he wanted
leanne to learn how to use after visiting the firing range mick and leanne decided to return home and to
spend some quiet time together before picking up their daughter just a few minutes after they arrived
home mick made a frantic call to police [Music] hazel park police found leanne dead on
the bedroom floor naked from the waist down a bullet hole through her right ear [Music]
mick told police he and leanne were sitting on the bed together reloading the 45 caliber smith and wesson they
just used at the firing range he had trouble loading the second clip so he gave it to leanne to help him
he put the gun down in the gun box at the foot of the bed got up went to the bathroom to wash his hands and that's
when he heard the gun go off he came running out of the bathroom and saw his wife laying on the floor
oh my god man the last thing i ever wanted in my life was to bury one of my kids
and then to have to bury one so young so young so beautiful not fair at first glance it appeared to be an
accident but police decided to take a second look and then a third [Music] as part of the investigation into leanne
fletcher's death police first needed to eliminate the possibility of suicide perhaps leanne's pregnancy had caused
some depression [Music] she was so excited there is no way on earth that liam would ever consider
suicide let alone go through with it not in a million years mick fletcher told police his wife
accidentally shot herself in their bedroom shortly after a trip to the firing range as she tried to reload
their pistol leanne's mother suspected that an accidental shooting in the head was a little too convenient this was a
terrible accident she would have been shot in her hand her arm her foot in the wall i said it wouldn't be in her
head in the couple's bedroom police noticed blood stains on the carpet under leanne's body as well as
under the gun and clip and there was blood spatter on the computer stand by the bed
there was more blood spatter on the edge of the bed spread the medical examiner dr lubissa dragovic
performed leanne's autopsy there was no gunpowder residue in the bullet wound but there were some tiny dots of
gunpowder called stippling embedded in the skin around the wound gap other stippling is a phenomenon
that occurs when partly burnt or unburnt gum powder particles land on the surface
of the skin the density of this stippling pattern indicated that the muzzle of the firearm
was 12 to 18 inches away from leanne's head when the gun went off and the trajectory of the bullet was
almost horizontal an unusual path for a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head
in order to accomplish that your arm has to be about four foot long this lady had only 23 inches
or 23 and a half inches long right arm when police searched the couple's home they found a brown folder in mix office
containing numerous romantic greeting cards [Music] inside were pictures of susan shernowski
a local district court judge investigators also discovered that mick had earned seventeen thousand dollars in
legal fees from cases assigned by and presided over by judge susan shernowski if the two were romantically involved
this was a gross violation of legal ethics investigators seized the fletcher's home
computer and susan chernowski's office computer for examination by a forensic computer expert
for years and years we've always been willing to look in a file cabinet for some type of an incriminating document
well people aren't using file cabinets anymore they're using computers sergeant duke copied the hard drives
from the confiscated computers onto a forensic examination computer which is equipped with special software
that can access password protected files and reconstruct documents which have been deleted sergeant duke found
nude photographs of judge chernowski and hundreds of emails between her and mick
they read as love letters they appeared to be intimate they appeared to be lovers they talked about
being together they talked about wanting to be together in the future mick had been corresponding with the
judge for 17 months police also learned that before she died leanne had suspected her husband was
having an affair and the couple separated [Music] but three months later they reconciled
and moved back in together police no longer believed that leanne's death was an accident
and we're beginning to suspect that mick fletcher and the judge might be involved
[Music] when investigators discovered that attorney mick fletcher was having an affair with a sitting judge at the time
of his wife's death both were considered suspects he had his should i call her his [ __ ]
because that's as far as i'm concerned that's what she is judge susan shernowski denied she had
anything to do with leanne's death but she was able to provide some useful information
so i asked the judge when was the last time they had sexual relations and she stated the night before the homicide
this meant that after having dinner with leanne's parents mick dropped his wife and daughter off
at home and made some excuse so that he could secretly meet with his lover she believed there was no sexual
relationship between himself and leanne and she told us that if there was a sexual relationship between
michael and leanne that their relationship would be over and all of a sudden now at the time of
her death she was three weeks four weeks pregnant that we believe that that was indeed the motive
for for her death mick insisted that leanne's death was an accident he claimed leanne was reloading their
gun and that he heard the gunshot when he was in the bathroom but the evidence told a different story
the gun and extra clip were found on the floor and not in leanne's hand in a lot of cases where people shoot
themselves the gun is still in their hand because of anatomy that i can't explain the body
grabs a gun there was also blood on leanne's palm if the gun had been in her hand when the
shot was fired the gun would have prevented the blood from striking the palm of her hand
and there was blood on the carpet underneath the gun and extra clip well it should have been on top of those
items there's blood underneath the items if she had to shot herself the blood would have fallen on top of the gun in
the top of the cliff and by the dresser there was a shell casing standing on end
and everything looked like it was placed we swapped leanne's hands and sent it to a lab to determine
whether or not there was any type of gunpowder residue that may have been left that came back negative
forensic serologist and blood spatter expert dave woodford examined the shirt mick fletcher wore the day of the
shooting a phenol phthalene chemical test found blood on the right cuff using a stereo microscope
woodford saw high velocity impact blood spatter on the right cuff a fine mist of tiny blood particles had
been driven deep into the fibers to me it was critical because it pretty much took his story
and didn't give it any credibility at all there was no way that he could have been in the bathroom
at the time of the shooting high velocity impact blood spatter is created when a gunshot wound hits an
area with blood and the fine mist of blood blows back toward the gun he had to be in close proximity
to leanne when she was shot had leanne shot herself investigators say there would have been high velocity
impact blood spatter on her hand and there was none it doesn't make any difference
if there are additional drops of blood that occur later or contaminate on top of it with some
some smudging occurs there will still be areas that allow for this pattern to be
recognized and that was not there to find out where leanne was when she was shot
investigators analyzed the angle of the blood spatter on the computer stand next
to leanne's body the size and shape of the blood spatter told investigators that the blood hit
the computer stand at a 10 to 20 degree angle strings which were connected to each
drop of blood spatter revealed the exact location of leanne's head when the shot
was fired say for instance the angle you got was 52 degrees so then you take the string
from the blood droplet and you measure up 52 degrees and you bring that out into space somewhere and you do that
with each blood droplet where the strings intersect is the spot where the blood originated
woodford concluded that leanne was on the floor when she was shot she was not sitting on the bed while she
was shot that she was on her hands and her knees while she was shot investigators also discovered fresh
sperm in the vaginal swab from leanne's autopsy an indication that the couple had sexual relations shortly before the
shooting it's my opinion that sexual relationships occurred pretty close to the time of her death
police repeatedly test fired the gun in order to recreate the same stippling patterns found on leanne's head
they fired at close range and gradually moved back at six inch intervals the tests confirmed dr dragovic's
earlier observation the gun was 12 to 18 inches away from leanne's head when the shot was fired
too far away for leanne to have held the gun herself which in essence takes out the possibility of this
this wound being self-inflicted leanne's family never believed mcstorey that the shooting was accidental
judge chernowski said she was out of town on the day of leanne's death which checked out
and investigators did not believe she knew about mick's plans police arrested mick fletcher and
charged him with the premeditated murder of his wife [Music] prosecutors believe that the murder of
leanne fletcher was premeditated and that her husband mick killed her in order to protect his romantic
relationship with judge susan shernowski [Music] judge chernowski testified that mick had
lied to her about his relationship with leanne mick told her he no longer was having
sexual relations with his wife and so susan chernowski believed that the two had a future together
but when leanne became pregnant mick realized that the judge would discover he had been lying
i really do think if she wouldn't have gotten pregnant she'd still be alive i think that panicked him when she got
pregnant you know prosecutors believe the couple's trip to the firing range was probably a setup a
way to explain why the pistol was out of its case in the bedroom they had to pick up their daughter but before
they picked up their daughter they wanted to come home and have what he quoted as a quickie
when they returned from the firing range and leanne went into the bathroom mick placed the gun near the gun case at the
foot of their bed medical evidence shows that the couple had sex on the floor [Music]
we have to go as leanne was getting up mick grabbed the gun and pulled the trigger
the mistakes mick made were numerous blowback blood spatter landed on the cuff of mick's shirt
and he placed the weapon and clip on top of a blood stain next to leanne's bloody
hand which clearly showed she hadn't been holding the gun mick then went into the bathroom and
rinsed off leanne's blood blood that was later found in the sink trap then he called police
you have the evidence of the night before where he is professing his love to another woman not his wife you had
the blood in the trap of the sink which would indicate that he washed his hands prior to making a 911 call you
have the high velocity blood mist on the cuff of his shirt you have the stippling
patterns that are on the right side of leanne's face so it's a combination of all all this
evidence that just just pointed towards him as the person that committed this crime
mick didn't want to be with lann anymore but the thought of her being with somebody
else he just couldn't handle it guilty of the lesser offense of second-degree murder
but the jury did not believe mick fletcher planned leanne's murder so he was convicted of second-degree murder
we were grateful that it was second degree but it should have been first degree it
should have i mean it was clearly clearly premeditated and anybody that knew him
knew that the trial judge sentenced fletcher to the maximum penalty allowed life in prison
in this exclusive phone interview from prison mick fletcher tells the producers of
this program that he is not a murderer i didn't kill my wife am i an innocent man i had an affair
i did something that i shouldn't have done i did something that was immoral all i can tell you is that i didn't kill
my wife unfortunately for him all the evidence points the other direction and points to
the fact that indeed he did commit this murder and he did commit this crime it's hard when you have two people in
the house and only one left to tell the story and so you have to have the forensic
evidence and that basically will tell the story for you and i'm so glad you have to look at the scene and what
does the scene tell you forensically and that's exactly what happened in this case
that the story by the defendant then oh my god my wife accidentally shot herself
was seen through i hope they find him in the same humiliating way that he left my
daughter half naked in the prison somewhere dead and i hope he rots in him [Music]
[Music] so [Music] you

Forensic computer analysis, blood spatter analysis and a painstaking investigation lead police to a lawyer husband Michael "Mick" Fletcher with a motive to kill his wife, since he was having a sexual affair with judge Susan Chrzanowski.

Forensic Files is the longest-running true crime series in television history. Evidence and interviews with experts help solve real crimes, disease outbreaks and accidents around the world.

Brief Summary

Mick Fletcher was convicted of murdering his wife Leanne amid an affair with Judge Susan Shernowski, despite claiming it was an accident.

Key points

A Tragic Love Triangle. The story unfolds with a love triangle involving a husband, wife, and lover, leading to a shocking death.
The Fatal Incident. Mick Fletcher's wife Leanne is found dead, leading to a police investigation.
Uncovering the Affair. Forensic analysis reveals Mick's affair with a judge, complicating the investigation into Leanne's death.
The Verdict. Mick Fletcher is convicted of second-degree murder, with evidence suggesting premeditation.
Mick's Denial. In an exclusive interview, Mick maintains his innocence despite overwhelming evidence against him.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I didn't kill my wife.

Mick Fletcher's claim during an interview from prison.

21:01WatchNov 24, 2021

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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