Lies on Fire ////// 457 | Forensic Files

foreign [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
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listening thanks for telling my friend [Music] this week we are very excited to be
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a beer let's talk some true crime foreign [Music] on November 29th 2005 in Morgantown West
Virginia a respiratory therapist named Sean Alt wrapped up his overnight shift at Ruby
Memorial Hospital all who was also a firefighter left the hospital and went home to shower before heading over to
the Star City Fire Department to start his shift just after 8 A.M alt parked his truck in
his driveway on Killarney Drive about a mile from the hospital and got out of his truck a trained firefighter he
immediately recognized the smell of a house fire but visibly noticed nothing wrong with his own home or his
neighbor's houses so he went inside showered and came back out at 8 20 A.M the smell was still
there puzzled he Shrugged it off and he started his truck he drove to the four-way stop sign at
Killarney and Eastern Avenue and as he stopped he saw his neighbor from four houses down
Shelley Michael and her silver Ford Expedition with its six pack vanity plates Shelley backed out of her own driveway
and she drove to the intersection stopping at the sign directly across from Alt alt knew Shelley's husband Jimmy Michael
very well Alton Jimmy attended respiratory therapy school together and Shelley was a pediatric nurse
practitioner in the same hospital that alt worked at but on this day Shelley did not
acknowledge alt's raised hand wave on that morning Michelle Shelley Michael ignored Sean Alt and quickly sped off
through the intersection and that was that but Sean's sighting of Shelley speeding away would soon change
everything because this is a case of planned premeditated murder someone thought they
could commit the perfect crime and get away with it this is true crime garage and this is the case Michelle Shelley
Michael [Music] foreign [Music] 10 20 on the morning of Tuesday November 29th 2005 in the pouring rain two
utility workers Monty and Rodney were driving along Killarney Drive in Morgantown West Virginia when Monty told
Rodney to stop the vehicle Monty noticed that what looked like a house fire at number 545 observing smoke pouring from
an upstairs window they called their dispatcher and told her to call 9-1-1 Monty ran to the house and banged on the
door he could hear the smoke alarms and looking through a window he could see that one of the ground level ceilings
had partially collapsed around this time an off-duty fireman Keith Summers ran up
he too noticed that his neighbor's home was on fire Keith called 9-1-1 and tried
to see if anyone was inside the home as he prepared to break a set of French doors at the rear of the house an
explosion shattered the upstairs window and Flames shot out it was a flashover the time was 10 27 am one luckily the
fire truck was only about a mile away at this point yeah the Morgantown fire department just happened to be very
close they were in the area when that call came in Captain so 10 firefighters arrived at 545 Killarney Drive by 10 32
a.m that's a five minute response time they kicked in the front door and they observed that the Flames were all on the
upstairs level so nothing on the first floor the first floor was perfect except for the room with the collapsed ceiling
well the collapse ceiling is coming from the master bedroom on the second floor that's correct the master bedroom was in
such bad shape with the fire that the firefighters could not enter the room all they could do was
stand at the doorway and spray the hose in and hope that the fire would die down
right the entire room was burned to a crisp blackened every piece of furniture charred and destroyed firefighters stuck
with it though training the hose on the bedroom and inspecting the rest of the house at the same time one relief to
everyone on the scene was there was no immediate sign that anyone was in the house while this is going on a man named
Bobby teats drove up to the home Bobby and his wife Kelly were best friends with the residents of 545 killarning
Drive Jimmy and Shelley Michael Bobby and Jimmy worked together at Jimmy's new company this is Mountaineer Home Medical
Supply and they also coached their son's football team together Shelley and Kelly
were also close both coaching their daughter's cheer team Bobby drove over to the Michael's house
that morning because no one could figure out where Jimmy Michael was and why he had not shown up at work right he was
always at work by 7 30 a.m he's the kind of guy you can set your watch to his schedule his work schedule and in fact
on that morning Captain Jimmy had an important installation appointment that morning and he missed it so this is
something he certainly would not miss as a successful businessman and he was not
answering his cell phone as well Bobby told the deputy Fire Marshal on the scene this is Lieutenant tenet that
he thought Jimmy might be inside the home now they looked in the garage and sure
enough Jimmy's vehicle was inside right and the other problem is the hottest spot or the most damaged spot is the
master bedroom and who would sleep in that the husband and wife yeah so the lieutenant radioed to stop the
firefighters inside from Wrecking the scene and told them to start looking for a body
now crawling on the burned out floor in the pitch black room filled with smoke and steam the firefighters made their
way to what little was left of the actual bed by this point it's just going to be the the Springs left of this
mattress in the frame and there on top of the bed was a very badly burned body so badly
burned that it had no hands the lower legs were gone and the skin was gone as well wow all
that was recognizable as actually human was teeth presumably Jimmy Michael this is his body it almost seems like
there was some kind of accelerant used in that room so now this went from being a house fire call
to a death investigation at the same time Jimmy's wife Shelley Michael arrived on the scene
now let's give a little background information on some of these characters that we've already introduced Michelle
Goods was born to Michael and Kathy gootz on January 29 1972 in Clarksburg West Virginia
she was a go-getter from the beginning straight A student a competitive cheerleader at just 100 pounds she was a
tiny bombshell running track playing basketball and swimming on the swim team she was the president of the National
Honor Society chapter at her school serving on the yearbook committee student council Key Club Spanish club
and manager of the school store she did all the stuff that you and I failed to do
yeah speaking for yourself you were the manager of the school store no no I never I don't even think I went into the
school store four years of high school so with all of this activity it's easy to see that she was missed popularity
and voted most likely to succeed a Shelley who she would later become known as that's her nickname Michelle
gootz became Shelley Michael she went on to cheer at West Virginia University where she found herself pregnant by her
boyfriend while she's still a student and the boyfriend was a fellow student as well named Bruce Atkins even though
she and Bruce broke up Shelley had the baby a boy named Alec and continued to be enrolled at the WVU nursing program
she then met Rob Angus and they married in 1995. so Rob adopted Alec her son and Shelley became pregnant
again at eight and a half months pregnant she was caught shoplifting a baby pumpkin Halloween costume and it
was the second time that she had been caught stealing from a store I guess the first time was a like a minor infraction
back when she was a juvenile after having the new baby Shelley landed a coveted job as a nurse
in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Ruby Memorial Hospital her marriage to Rob was Rocky and Shelley soon got a
reputation for flirting with the men at work she was notorious for doing backflips in the hospital hallways
always very professional when you see that yeah she a little desperate too yeah she enjoyed showing off and she by
everyone's accounts loved the attention all the beautiful women out there you don't have to do backflips to get a good
guy I you know how her I would be if I tried to do a backflip her supervisor Stephanie Michael recalled that Shelley
was all about flirting at the hospital and Stephanie would soon learn that Shelly wasn't just flirting in fact
Shelley set her sights on Stephanie's husband this was Jimmy Michael a respiratory
therapist oh great Stephanie and Jimmy were already having marital difficulties but when he met Shelley it was all over
they shared shifts at the hospital and Shelly taught Jimmy who was a big guy over 220 pounds how to throw her up in
the air and catch her cheerleader style so you can picture what's going on in behind the scenes at this Hospital yeah
maybe the these people need to spend more time trying to save people's lives than do gymnast tricks practice on
finding that vein rather than backflips in the hallway so they're doing they're basically these
two behaving like cheerleaders behind the scenes at this Hospital be aggressive passive aggressive so Jimmy
and Shelley progressed to a full-blown Affair very quickly Jimmy became infatuated with Shelley both marriages
no surprise here disintegrated soon after this and Shelley and Jimmy moved in together
so Stephanie and they still have to work with this lady they have to work with everybody but it's it gets even more
interesting Stephanie who continued to work with Shelley at the hospital started dating Shelley's
ex-husband Rob Angus what yeah it's like a like a wife swapper and this car in this situation maybe a husband swap
Double Dipper nipple liquor something Shelly and Jimmy quickly married and Shelly banned Jimmy from any contact
with his ex Stephanie all right yeah because the most jealous people are are the ones that cheat well this is going
to be difficult too because as you said Captain they all still work together all communication between the two of
them hold on there there are a couple wine coolers away from just all having sex with each other well according to
what I could find all communication between the two of them this is Jimmy and his ex Stephanie
they have children together right all communication between the two of them had to go through Shelley this is one of
Shelley's rules now Shelley had two kids a boy and a girl and Jimmy had a boy and
a girl as well all about the same age but that's also the other problem is if he was cheating on his wife when he met
you then for the rest of the time while he's with you you're going to be thinking he
has the ability to cheat on me correct but I mean obviously everybody's doing this kind of behavior doesn't make it
right so Shelley focused on integrating the two families you know kind of like a
modern day Brady Bunch because of the respective custody Arrangements this is several days a week
the Michael household Jimmy and Shelly consisted of a blended family of six people the two of them and the four kids
two from each previous marriage and Shelley wanted to project a certain image for their family she pushed Jimmy
to buy a large house that she wanted she dressed the children and herself and designer labels she volunteered at all
of the kids stuff always taking charge the family went to church every Sunday dressed to the nines according to
Jimmy's father Denny quote she meaning Shelley wanted everybody to think they were the perfect family end quote
Shelley arranged for Jimmy to pay for her to get her master's degree in nursing even though it meant he had to
take on more work to have better income I wonder if she was shocked when she got
to church and they said thou shall not covet the neighbor's wife well Shelley ended up getting her master's degree and
was offered a full-time job at Ruby Memorial in the Pediatric unit it seemed it was everything that she had
ever wanted Jimmy started his own respiratory therapy company and it was doing well
but then Shelly balked at the concept of working full-time she expected Jimmy's new business to
start making lots of money very quickly she was disciplined by her job at the hospital a number of times and this was
for taking unauthorized vacations I call that a no-call no-show unauthorized vacation
Shelley started to look for different work something that she could do while staying at home she wanted to work from
home and be with the kids by the way next week I have an unauthorized vacation right at least you're telling
me about him we've already introduced the Michael's close friends remember Bobby and Kelly
teets I never forget teats Shelley and Jimmy's exes Stephanie and Rob dated for a while but they split up and both
married other people so this is this is a little bit confusing to follow here because it feels like this hospital is
almost a few episodes of of the bachelor right Shelly also had a best friend named Renee who lived in another state
and both Shelley and Jimmy had parents who were very close with them and active in their lives Jimmy's parents were
Pastor Denny and Mom Ruth Michael Shelley's parents were whom we've already introduced Kathy and Michael
gootz who divorced when Shelley was in college so now we have the background of everybody back to the scene of the house
fire you might have the background but I'm I'm confused the important things to make mental note of
here is this Hide Your Hide your husband the two hooked up divorced their exes and
they're trying to have this blended family each brought two children with them to the family the their close
friends are Bobby and Kelly teets who both Jimmy and Shelly are very close with fire scene Captain we have Bobby teats
good friend showed up to his buddy's house and alerted firefighters to the fact that Jimmy was missing while they
started to search for Jimmy Bobby tried to call Shelley who was on duty at her job at the pediatric department at Ruby
Memorial he could not reach her so he called his own wife Kelly and asked her to try
while he himself checked in with Rob and Stephanie to make sure there were no kids
in the house right and thank God there were not all four kids actually spent the previous night out of the
house they were with their their other parents so Kelly called the hospital and had her friend Shelly page
when she got her on the phone Kelly said your house is on fire and no one can find Jimmy
Shelley said oh my God hung up and told the clerk her boss I have to go my house is on
fire the clerk's name is Nancy she later said that Shelly seemed emotionless as she
stated this very matter-of-factly before Shelley left Shelley called her husband well hold on in defense
how would you react I mean who knows how you'd react if somebody called me and said your house is on fire it's like
well there's nothing I can do about it even if I run out of here with a Buckner extinguisher I'm not
gonna be able to put put the fire out well but there are going to be a set of circumstances that are going to require
us to reflect on all of these little right I think of information well I think as a parent the first thing is
where are the kids oh I know the kids are safe okay things can be replaced so I'm just saying I just don't think
that's uh the most damning of evidence so before she left she attempts to call her husband Jimmy
cell phone and left a message the message was Jimmy where are you I just heard that our house is on fire where
are you call me back yeah so Shelley leaves work she arrived at home and found her ex-husband Rob and
her friends Bobby and Kelly teets waiting there to comfort her Jimmy's ex Stephanie and other friends
and family soon arrived it was chaos as anyone would expect Shelley seemed despondent according to
accounts saying over and over again find Jimmy and tell God to give Jimmy back but the weird thing was although she was
described as visibly in shock no one saw Shelley Michael shed any actual tears any real tears the detective arrived on
the scene at 11 18 am and he met with the lieutenant from the fire department to review the fire damage and see the
body they discovered on the remains of the bed now the lieutenant told the detective
that there were some very interesting and strange things about the fire there were red flags first
only the bedroom only the master bedroom was burned the rest of the house was unscathed
second the body they found which at this point you're presuming it to be that of
Jimmy it was prone on the bed as if he slept through all of the smoke alarms the smell the
Blaze the heat the whole thing right that doesn't make a lot of sense no not at all and Jimmy's parents Denny and
Ruth were called by Kelly teets arriving at their son's home after noon on that day now after being told that Jimmy was
dead his father Denny demanded to see his son's body and actually charged the front door when he was denied this
request and he was so infuriated that he punched a police officer in the eye and had to
be restrained he and his wife Ruth went to find Shelley their daughter-in-law to
commiserate over their tragic loss and Denny found Shelley being comforted at a neighbor's home by her sister
Jennifer then he hugged her and thanked her for loving his son to which Shelley responded quote I wish I would have
loved him more of Jimmy's best friends from childhood arrived on the scene and he's trying to
comfort Shelley and I bet he is when he went to express to her his condolences she looked at him and said something to
the effect of did you get that outfit at bmos so this person is very taken aback it
seemed like a very weird question I'm guessing that's like a clothing store yeah I've not heard of it
but I mean I mean picture this is supposed to be a horrible tragic day again no one knows who how any of us
would react right but it seemed to be very bizarre that she would be asking about someone's
outfit and one neighbor asked Shelly if she could get her anything Shelley's response was a new husband
so I you know who knows Jesus just just bizarre behavior I I don't care what anybody says I'm fine judging someone's
Behavior the unrecognizable body on the bed at the Killarney drive home was definitively identified by dental
records at 405 PM that day and of course sadly it was that of Jimmy Michael [Music]
thank you [Music] [Music] all right we're back welcome to another episode of wife swap
of the bachelor The Bachelor get your roses out hey me and the colonel are going to be handing out roses to all the
ladies and kicking people out of the house left and right yeah so the detective on the scene Captain
was able to do like a quick initial interview with Shelly this is as she's sitting at the neighbor's house now
here's what Shelley told the detective happened in the hours leading up to the fire the detective wants to know and
start putting together a timeline on everything right she said that Jimmy spent the Monday night this would be
November 28th hunting in Pennsylvania with his father and then he coached his son's basketball practice that night
until 9 pm his Co CK coach for the sun's team was his ex-wife's Stephanie's new husband Dan
Dan and Stephanie had the kids that night and Dan and Jimmy made arrangements for
handing off the kids on Wednesday Jimmy then went home after coaching the basketball team it was pretty late and
he was very tired Shelley says when she got home she found Jimmy lying on the couch watching Monday Night Football
they joked a little bit about him shooting I guess he he only shot a doe and not a buck on the trip Jimmy then
went to bed and Shelly stayed up watching a cheer competition DVD both sets of kids again were with their
other parents on that night at 5 15 a.m on Tuesday Shelly got up she kisses her sleeping husband Jimmy on the forehead
and she gets ready for work she noted that the iron was on the ironing board in the bedroom
Shelly arrived at work at 6 30 a.m this is half an hour early she tended to patience spoke with
several co-workers and called Jimmy's cell phone and left a message at 7 24 am this is one of our very first clues that
something is not not right here in my opinion at 7 24 am she leaves the following message she's asking Jimmy to
pack the kids a lunch keep in mind this is even though they were not staying at their home or at their house
that morning yeah but I could see it being maybe you get busy some weird thing where the parents forgot the other
parents forgot so somebody needs a pack of lunch or bring them lunch money or something but still that's a little
strange so she says then she tried calling the house phone after leaving the message she gets a busy signal so
then she goes to her vehicle to retrieve her pager this is sometime around 8 20 am she told her supervisor that morning
that she forgot her pager left it in the car I gotta go retrieve it she needs this for work
then she got the call from Kelly teats telling her that the house was on fire and no one could find or locate Jimmy
this was around 10 30 A.M okay so the detective noted some strange things as he spoke to Shelley he found
the following about Shelley while talking with her and observing her and these were from his notes and his
observations he says that Shelley wanted to be the center of attention she was more concerned about herself than her
dead husband she wasn't asking the right questions and she had not cried not even
for a second while in the presence of the detective of course this this lady wants attention she's doing backflips at
work well now that it's established that Jimmy was deceased the detective is going to sit down with everybody in that
Circle that cast of characters that we introduce you to and interview them one by one and here
is what he learned from those interviews that the marriage seemed to be in quite some trouble
Shelley had stopped sleeping with Jimmy and Jimmy was vocally not happy about this he's telling other people that the
marriage is on the rocks and then he relays this story someone mailed one of Shelley's sweaters
to Jimmy and it had a note attached to it that read keep your [ __ ] wife away from my
husband so she's cheating again or at least someone's accusing her of such yeah well why would she have her sweater
I don't know but Jimmy talked to several of his friends about this he asked for advice from his pastor and he was
actively collecting and Gathering some names of divorce attorneys well in the difficult thing this is not that many
years after he left his wife for Shelley Jimmy's new business was doing very well
but not well enough that Shelley could stop working and Shelley did not want to work this is
according to her circle of friends and family she wanted to be a stay-at-home mom she wanted to
you know shop get her nails done well you know what I want to be an astronaut okay but not everything is possible well
and then we have to compound that with we know she's in trouble at work she's already you know she's had trouble with
her with her boss she's been taking these unauthorized vacations well she's probably trying to sleep with all of her
co-workers husbands well the day that Jimmy died on that Tuesday was Shelley's first day
back at work this is after three weeks off for a quote-unquote knee injury after falling down the front porch steps
and taking three weeks sick leave from work now during that time that she's off of
work to nurse her knee injury well it's like why go to work if you can't do backflips she managed to take her
daughter out of state to a cheer competition to multiple cheer competitions during this time
I get it you can drive and you can still be a parent while injured maybe you can't go to work but I think what the
implication is here is that she may have needed time off from work from her shifts so she could take her child to
these competitions and sounds like she wanted to be a cheer mom and so possibly she faked this injury to get a few weeks
off of of work now Shelley was mean to Jimmy's son Drew this is by the accounts of others in their Circle and said that
he picked on him incessantly to the point that others took obvious notice of this yeah that's not cool the other
thing that the detective Learned was that Jimmy did not drink alcohol or do drugs the couple purchased a 500 000
life insurance policy on Jimmy just six months earlier Shelley knew about the policy and in fact was the sole
beneficiary of this policy Jimmy cell phone was found on the counter in the kitchen of the home on the day that he
died and everyone the detective interview told him that Jimmy especially being a
business owner was never without his cell phone even while sleeping he kept the phone on a
nightstand next to the bed Jimmy was a very light sleeper according to others and would never have slept
through a fire so the detective also spoke with Sean Alt now remember we talked about Sean
ull in the trailer for today he's the neighbor who told the detective that he saw Shelly driving away from their home
from Mike from the Michael house around 8 25 a.m and here's the kicker the detective heard rumors from several
witnesses that Bobby teats Jimmy's close friend was having an affair with Shelley
Michael oh the two not teats anybody but teats wait so but I got a question shouldn't she already be at work at this
point so correct so I'm I I feel like she had to have some kind of ruse to her bosses or co-workers to get away from to
leave work at some point well you uh you you would be a very good Sherlock Holmes
there captain now Bobby and Shelly they were doing some kind of trying to start up some kind of small
business together in their free time they went on a business trip to Chicago a week earlier
and what the detective will find here is the two were visibly on video at the hotel kissing on surveillance footage
and many people including Shelley's pastor and others noticed that Shelley was constantly being comforted by and at
times even holding hands or lying on a bed with Bobby while his wife and Shelley's friend Kelly
dealt with the funeral arrangements for Jimmy Mrs tits yeah so they're not very uh Shelly and Bobby are not very
discreet about their affection for one another PDA fire inspectors looked at everything in the house to try to
determine the cause of the fire they you know they're going to look at all the normal things water heater
wiring the furnace all were in good condition and it was relatively a new house so they were like like we already
know though the majority of the heat is coming from the master bedroom so even though you're gonna check out those
those items like I said there's there's some kind of accelerant or something used in that area unless they had you
know some like gas heater or possibly like a a gas fireplace or something in their bedroom yeah the short of their
investigation will be that the bed in the master bedroom was the epicenter of the fire this meant that it was
impossible that Jimmy had been asleep so he didn't he wasn't like overcome by smoke
from a fire and then passed out it was the fire he yes yes the fire was him in in around him immediately around him
you know they couldn't really explain away why he would just be lying there on the bed
now Jimmy basically to put it as simple as possible was incinerated and according to a book on the case called
playing with fire quote the body was so badly burned that the experienced fire investigator found it difficult to
visibly separate it from the charred remains of the box spring mattress one leg was completely missing and other
parts of the limbs had burned away there was a large hole on the left side of the
chest near the rib cage where tremendous heat had caused a blowout end quote this to the investigators made no sense
okay so they don't believe that hole to be like a a shotgun wound or a gunshot wound no no and the other thing too is
look if the fire started in the bedroom with Jimmy and everything was normal all
he had to do was get up and get out of the room and then get out of the house but of course we know that didn't happen
he just it was lying there right investigators could also they couldn't determine any accidental cause for the
fire so you know Jimmy didn't smoke and there was nothing wrong with the home's wiring or the systems they
couldn't pinpoint a a problem that would cause this this fire they also examined
the iron because remember Shelly had told them that it was faulty that the automatic shut off yeah didn't always
work and remember she said I think the iron was on that day I look I think people should just lock somebody up when
they go okay yeah and remember what do you remember Shelly oh yeah I was I was in the I was in the bedroom and yeah
there was iron there and a damnedest thing about the iron it has kind of a short there's kind of something wrong
with it anytime somebody's like trying to take that bread and Lead it down that trail just lock them up well what
they're going to do is the lieutenant Lieutenant will bring in a State Fire Marshal with a canine unit named Brady
trained to hit on accelerants and they walked through the Michael's home and of course the dog hit on 10 different spots
four in the pile of debris that fell to the living room remember that's the ceiling from the master bed right right
and hit on six spots in the master bedroom near the bed so no doubt it's the floor of the master bedroom the fire
was deliberate now do we know what kind of accelerant we do not we do not and we will not
spoiler alert okay the the problem here though captain for the fire investigators is that this fire behaved
in an unusual manner it burned for a long period of time but never expanded beyond the master bedroom until the
collapse of the floor and the flashover sometime around 10 30 a.m right they could tell this because the other
upstairs rooms only displayed a little just a tiny bit of smoke damage and really nothing else it's it's so crazy
how much fire can destroy evidence the same way water can destroy evidence again according to the book playing with
fire they state that the fire had to have progressed over a long period of time in a ventilation limited manner by
the way playing with fire is written by John Glatt and by this time Captain we know that some of the people involved in
this investigation know that Shelley had been seen leaving the house at 8 20 am the fire did not erupt from the room
until two hours later so they had to wonder the investigators fire investigators was it possible for a fire
to smolder for two hours incinerating just one room before finally flashing over that's the unusual behavior of this
fire in life Jimmy was six foot tall 220 pounds after the fire damage his corpse
weighed only 151 pounds by some miracle many of Jimmy's internal organs were intact and were available
for testing by the medical examiner now the good doctor was able to determine immediately that there was no carbon
monoxide in the victim's system this is incredibly important and no soot in his Airway meaning Jimmy was not breathing
during the fire so he wasn't in his dead before the fire he's dead before the fire started
and according to the autopsy his death did not appear to be the result of any natural causes his heart was perfectly
normal and there was no sign of any kind of physical event that would have killed
him so then the doctor is going to certify the cause of death as quote an undetermined homicidal act yeah because
we we wouldn't know because there's no skin we don't know if there's puncture wounds we don't know if they're what was
blood on the bed because it was all burnt up yeah so now we're going to have the detective who
wants to figure out we have the wife telling us she was at work all day but yet we have other we have a eyewitness
who says he saw her leaving their home at 8 20. so he's going to go to Ruby Memorial Hospital
he's going to interview everybody there and he's going to start pulling surveillance footage from the hallways
in the lobby of that hospital where Shelley worked here's what he ends up finding out he sees Shelley Michael you
know doing her Hospital duties doing her job well she goes out the front doors of the
hospital at 8 11 A.M she then walked through the rain to an employee parking lot started her car
turned on the wipers and turned left out of the lot this is on to Elmer Prince drive and then her and her vehicle are
now out of sight from the surveillance cameras then he does not see her again on any of the camera footage until about
8 25 a.m when he can see her silver Expedition coming back into the parking lot circling around and looking for a
parking spot she parked and walked under an umbrella back into the hospital entering the
lobby at 8 28 a.m there were 17 minutes where Shelley Michael was unaccounted for and remember Sean Alt had seen her
pulling out of her driveway during that 17-minute window he says his clock said 8 20 when he saw Shelley Michael
investigators set out to determine whether Shelley could have made it home set the fire and the return to the
hospital in 17 minutes so they drove from Ruby Memorial Hospital to the home remember it's less than one mile
so every time they're conducting this test the back and forth the back and forth
their trip to get from the hospital to the house is always about four to five minutes
right even if Shelley spent 10 total minutes driving back and forth if you go to the the the latter part of that she
would have had up to seven minutes inside the house this too poor and accelerant in the master bedroom and
light it investigators were able to replicate the drive within that window of time over
and over and over again now several people who knew Shelley found her actions to be very suspicious
and of course we want to know why Jimmy didn't escape the fire well like I said I I don't like the comment about the
iron in inside the the master bedroom definitely don't like the comment that she made saying oh well
now I need a new husband correct yeah no nobody wants to hear that at all one thing I find to be interesting here
Captain is some of the people on their inner circle found Shelley to be so strange on the day that Jimmy died that
even before it was ruled an homicidal Act they started providing information to the detectives
that's not going to put Shelley in the greatest of light right they basically several of her friends are the couple's
friends put together a list and send it over to the detective this is a list of drugs
that Shelley and other Hospital workers had access to at Ruby Memorial the other
thing too Captain is the professionals seem to think that it was possible that Jimmy was poisoned with some kind of
paralytic and these are people that worked at Ruby Memorial they said and named a drug requonium I
think is how you say that recur recronium um somewhere out there there's a medical
professional laughing at me this drug this particular drug is a paralytic and it was readily available
at the hospital where Shelly worked right but we've already had the autopsy performed now no narcotics were found in
Jimmy's system and an explanation for a paralytic required special testing so samples of
Jimmy's intact liver were sent to the National Medical Services organization in Pennsylvania so they could do the
test we need to note here too some suspicious findings a syringe was found in the sink in Shelley and Jimmy's
house right this syringe contained a large amount of ibuprofen and also an unidentifiable pink liquid
now the detective deliberately did not tell Shelley and Bobby that they are now considered suspects in
the murder of Jimmy Michael he has both of them come in for interviews and he speaks with them
separately Shelley had no idea that authorities believed Jimmy to have been killed by this point she and Bobby did
not know that the detective knew about their Affair either right that's what you want to do as a detective you're
going to stack the deck against these individuals interview them separately and see if they are answering you in an
honest manner Bobby broke down immediately confessing to the affair so much so he said that he
even slept with Shelley in her own bedroom while their two kids their kids were friends
uh had a sleepover in the Next Room right what a great guy this is while Jimmy was away I'm guessing maybe on a
hunting trip or something yeah a great guy great friend great teats three days before Jimmy died Bobby said it was just
a fling and that he did not love Shelley and he felt terrible about it in fact he
was going to reveal everything to his wife with an attempt to save his own marriage I don't think we need to get
into the whole interview with Shelley this was videotaped it was six hours long by the way
suffice it to say she lied her face off to the detectives and according to prosecutors what prosecutors would later
tell a jury that they believed she lied over 100 times during the course of this
videotaped interview she lied about the affair she lied about the Chicago trip and her activities on the morning that
Jimmy died she didn't know that they knew about her leaving the hospital and being seen by
Sean Alt during the course of this interview of course she didn't she told the detective that she had a theory of
her own and you've already kind of pieced this together that the iron must have caused the fire she was worried
that it was left on may have fallen over and started the fire and she did not bat an eye when the
detective informed her that the fire was now deemed an arson and that testing was being done to
determine what killed Jimmy she just asked what he knew and how he knew it when she left the interview she
expressed indignation that she was even being asked these types of questions that there was any suspicion on her at
all how dare you how dare you she was so mad about it that she called the detective later and asked to come in for
a lie detector test yeah that's that's never that's never smart and then the lie detector caught
fire and blew up and then she said maybe that's how the fire started so at her own request a polygraph was set up for
Shelley oh my God in the pretest because they do like a little pre-test interview
before they hook you up to the machine in the pretest she lied a hundred times in response to a question about what
type of person she was you know describe yourself she said quote I value honesty a lot
I've always tried to be very honest honesty comes first end quote what a [ __ ] what a beautiful human being then
they confronted her with the information about her vehicle leaving the hospital lot and returning 17 minutes later
she was adamant that she didn't leave the hospital until she suddenly remembered that because it was raining
she decided while I'm out there to retrieve my pager I should move my vehicle to a covered parking area
she hoped this would explain away why they could see her vehicle leaving the lot on surveillance footage
she said that she definitely did not leave the hospital parking lot she expressed concern that the polygraph
would make her out to be lying when she in fact was not so she decided you know she's the one says hey I'll
come in for a polygraph test they're like okay cool come right in and then in the pre-test interview she then says you
know what this polygraph test is going to make it look like I'm lying even though I'm not uh I'm not going to talk
with you anymore I'm not going to answer any more of your questions here's my attorney's phone number
so she lawyers up and shuts down and did she say by the way I'm sleeping with him
too all right I'm sleeping with everybody but before lawyering up she again tries
to explain away see this is what we get and we see this time and time again in these cases don't we Captain where a
detective will start to break down a witness or break down a suspect and where they might have been lying
before now they start using other lies to cover up like I'll give them a little bit of information I'll admit to this or
that but I'm going to use another lie to explain it away yeah so when pressed you
know they're saying look we know you left the parking lot there's no getting around that we have proof of that have
you watched the interrogation tapes yes I've watched portions of them it's it was six hours over the course of two
days I believe I would I like bang on the desk listen here you boner smoker tell me the truth
well she she came up with some story that she had to leave because there was something going on at her son's school
like she had to drop off some paperwork or something the story is a little confusing to me but the basics of it is
she had to leave for some reason that just popped up and she lied about it and stuck to her story because she was
already in trouble at work and didn't want them to find out that she had right an unauthorized leave for
just a couple of minutes now Bobby the boyfriend the uh that's Pete's that's doing the affair right was cleared by
police during their investigation of any involvement this is after he passed a polygraph test and more importantly
Bobby had an alibi for the day of the murder he was sleeping on somebody else's wife so between his confirmed
Alibi and him being honest with the detectives finally you know he said he broke down pretty quickly and passing
the polygraph they believe that his innocence were sealed in the mind of the detectives yeah but think about this a
little bit as far as the uh the whole True Crime Spectrum somebody like Chris Watts for example I
mean that guy he lied for a while but he didn't keep it up that long and a lot of these cases where the
females suspected of murder they almost can take the LIE to the Grave like you see this like with Casey
Anthony when they uh I work here okay show us your office they she goes all the way to the office
like like what does she think like magically like an office is just going to a a pier
you know same way with this case yeah there was a there was an iron I saw the iron and it had some faulty wiring maybe
maybe that's it it's almost like the character off of Saturday Night Live from way back in the day where they go
oh yeah that's the ticket right the well I will refer you to Christopher Rock's studies on the difference between men
and women lying uh and I think that will explain away everything for you now on January 9th Shelley filed a personal
loss claim amounting to 194 thousand dollars with Jake from State Farm Insurance you know that you said Jake
from Allstate last time I I have Allstate and I confused which I I think I called you a dumb dumb during that but
I never caught you so I guess I was the dumb dumb as well yeah they only have 10
000 commercials of each a day I don't know how anybody could I'm sure there's a Jake at Allstate she ended up
collecting a hundred and forty thousand dollars this is after she paid Wells Fargo who owned the mortgage on the home
and now she's going to be waiting for the half million dollar life insurance policy
and she thought she got away with it fire investigators pouring over the burn scene on their hands and knees on
January 23rd found something they had missed before about three feet under the end of the remains of the bed this is
buried under other burned debris was a distinctive orange plastic item that had been protected from the fire
simply because it was buried this was a syringe cap Shelley denied ever taking any drugs
from the hospital and there was no known reason for a syringe to be in the bedroom
then in February of 2006 the final talks report came back from the national Medical Services
and Jimmy's heart blood was found with large amounts of that recronium chromium I'm not never going to be able to say
that right I can say it until you turn on this microphone right that's how this goes down the cause of death was amended
to homicide by being intentionally injected by a lethal dose of this drug by another person no one believed that
Jimmy could have done this to himself a warrant was issued for Shelley's arrest on charges of first-degree murder
and first degree arson in March she was indicted for both and entered pleas of not guilty as if this was not enough
captain her parents posted her 450 000 bond for her and she was required to remain on
home confinement while she waited for her trial so they put her on you know the the beautiful ankle monitoring
bracelet yeah it's not that far-fetched to think that possibly uh Jimmy would be
suicidal because his marriage is going bad but his business was going well but this is also kind of a this is also
a very strange way for somebody like him to take his life and then that doesn't explain how the fire got started right
it it doesn't add up it makes zero sense for that to logically play out yeah because one thing I do know is a dead
body can't start a fire correct there's no if you listen to the Billy Joel song he never once
mentions a dead body started in the fire so during this time where she's supposed
to be on home confinement with the monitoring bracelet it was quickly learned that she violated her home
confinement requirements time and time again sneaking off several times people reportedly saw her all over Morgantown
regularly by the time of her trial it was determined that she had broken off the ankle bracelet six times at least
six times and taped it back together so at some point the judge revoked her home
confinement and Shelley found herself back in jail this was one month before the trial I mean in all fairness so it's
hard to do backflips with that those ankle monitors on so the thing here though too is we still have to explain
away why the fire would behave in an unusual manner because you're gonna have to take this thing to trial present your
theory to the judge and jury and convince them that you you know what you're talking about and this is how you
know that she killed her husband so there were painstaking portions to this fire investigation
the investigators took samples of the carpet wood tile paint flooring Windows bedding and mattress from the master
bedroom they constructed six exact replicas of the bedroom down to each item of furniture even the wall paint identical
and the bathroom tile this is just so they could burn them to determine exactly how the fire went down and why
it was behaving in this manner this was all funded by the ATF to the tune of one million dollars it
was done in a giant Hangar and took months the agency viewed this as an opportunity
to study the nature of smoldering fires because the theory was that Shelley set the fire at 8 20 A.M remember when she
was seen leaving the home and it did not destroy the home or even become noticeable until two hours later it had
to have smoldered but not gone out but also not erupted into a full-fledged fire for quite some time
the test involved various conditions and accelerants and three irons identical to
Shelley's were used even with the automatic shut off disabled they never got the iron never
got hot enough to cause a fire so the iron theory is ruled out it was determined that the headboard
must have eventually caught fire burned and collapsed through the floor underneath it
the investigators tried different cycles for the heating and ventilation systems
to try to replicate exactly how the fire had smoldered for two hours before combusting again from the book quo these
tests all demonstrated that the fire's progress was directly related to the heating system going on and off
if the furnace had not been working at the Michael's house the fire would have soon gone out and if it had been turned
up too high it would have raged out of control within 30 minutes they finally found the correct combination with the
home HVAC system to set a cycle at 10 minutes on 15 minutes off they set the bed a light closed the door
that's important the door had to be closed for the fire to behave this way right and allowed the air handler to
cycle on and then off in that pattern 10 minutes on 15 minutes off the fire smoldered small Flames glowed and then
two hours and 10 minutes into the burn the headboard collapsed and burned right through the full floor they got the fire
to act the exact way that it acted that day conditions were plausible in their house
not only so much so it was also 100 plausible that Shelley Michael could set the fire 8 20 a.m and the flashover
didn't occur until 10 20 10 27 a.m correct so now we're at the trial the trial commenced on July 9 2007 and
would take more than two weeks with 37 Witnesses for the prosecution alone to sum up here is the evidence presented
against Shelley at her trial they said Jimmy was killed with recronium a paralytic that Shelley had
access to and had administered to patients in the past the fire in the Michael home was
deliberately set in the master bedroom with Aid of an accelerant After Jimmy was already deceased
Shelley left the hospital and was unaccounted for for 17 minutes on the morning that Jimmy died and which time
she could have got home and back and set the fire Shelley was the sole beneficiary of a
five hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy on Jimmy and if the house had been consumed by the fire she
would have got another half a million dollars she was having an affair with Bobby
teats she lied to police over and over again so it is still a circumstantial case
yeah the prosecution showed the jury hours and hours of videotaped interviews with Shelley where she is caught lying
to detectives they called a medical expert to the stand who dramatically plunged a syringe into a grapefruit to
show how quickly the drug could be injected it took less than one second for him to
depress the plunger and here is what the testimony was that would happen to Jimmy per the medical
examiner they stated that within one minute Jimmy would start to feel muscular weakness within three minutes he would
be unable to stand four minutes he would lose the ability to breathe as his lungs
and respiratory muscles froze up he would have been fully conscious and aware of what was happening essentially
suffocating as his blood oxygen was used up basically being tortured from the inside out
he would then lose Consciousness and die the total time for all of this to take place and Jimmy unable to do anything
about it 13 minutes wow the prosecutor told the jury that their theory was that Shelley
had injected Jimmy with the paralytic while he slept and then turned on the iron and left it
where it would catch fire to the bed or some clothes or or the floor or what have you
she then goes to work 30 minutes early that's a red flag in itself this woman doesn't like to go to work and on this
day she's showing up early yeah now there's all the evidence she needs she gets in there early and now she's she's
very visible very loud and vocal so people take notice that she is there she leaves Jimmy a voicemail about the
lunches for the kids who were not even at the house at that time but by 8 10 A.M
the prosecution says Shelley started to get nervous that no phone call came in about the house being on fire
so she's already injected this guy she's got to cover up her murder so she had to drive home
set a fire more carefully using some type of accelerant one thing that is interesting about the
trial though and in her defense as we stated earlier captain the prosecution at no time do they ever
present what the believed accelerant they could have been used was I found that to be a little a little
problematic here I agree then she with the you know flick of a lighter or what have you the prosecution
demonstrated this and because she closed the bedroom door behind her she wouldn't
have known to do this but because she did the fire failed to ignite and burn out of control and destroy all of the
evidence that she was hoping would be destroyed so the syringe the the syringe cap
um and she was probably looking to collect the insurance money on the house as well
the defense tried to cast blame on others they showed that anyone at the hospital could have had access to the
drug including Jimmy's ex-wife Stephanie including Jimmy himself who they tried to suggest that he possibly
killed himself using this drug they pointed out that all of the evidence against Shelley was simply
circumstantial they called only five witnesses in her defense and they did call Shelley to the stand how many times
did she lie on the stand well let's get into that because once on the stand she's going to tell an
entirely new version of the events of the day of the fire one in which she actually stopped at her house and put
some paperwork in the mailbox before heading back to work so now she's got to explain away why Sean Alt saw her
pulling out of the driveway and that's the excuse or lie that she comes up with uh she did say on the stand that she did
not believe that Jimmy would have killed himself but again she's unaccounted for 17
minutes she lied over 100 times to the detectives and then you know she's a nurse so she has some
expertise in this area on the stand they're going to ask her to describe what someone's slow death from this drug
would be and she says quote it would be horrible end quote but again no tears no emotion
after five hours on the stand Shelley's attorney later said that she was absolutely completely
convinced that she had won well she was wrong although it took the jury more than one day of deliberations
they unanimously found Shelley guilty of both murder and arson Shelly very nearly got away with murder
I mean think about it if she had not closed the door to the bedroom and if Sean all had not seen her leaving
her house things might have gone entirely different for her what's shocking in her case to me is the
arrogance she displayed throughout the whole process and she really did not think for a minute that she would get
caught [Music] all right what an interesting case if you'd like to leave your thoughts on
this case go to our website True Crime garage.com click on the blog leave your thoughts and while you're there check
out our recommended reading page Colonel do we have any recommended reading this
week this week's recommended reading comes to us from long time friend of the show Jess who helps us with research and
such and she really helped us out a lot this week on this case for this episode we relied heavily on the book playing
with fire the true story of a nurse her husband and a marriage turned fatal by John Glatt and it's available in
paperback Kindle and on Audible so if you want to dive deeper into this case make sure you check out and read playing
with fire by John Glatt check out that great title and many many others at True Crime garage.com and until tomorrow be
good be kind and don't live foreign [Music]

Lies on Fire ////// 457

Part 1 of 1 www.TrueCrimeGarage.com

November 29, 2005 - Morgantown, West Virginia. Neighbors call in a house fire and emergency services responds. The house fire call quickly becomes a Murder/ Arson investigation. The detective becomes very suspicious of the widow Michelle Michael.

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Brief Summary

Shelley Michael was convicted of murdering her husband Jimmy in a staged house fire for insurance money.

Key points

The Fire Incident. On November 29, 2005, a house fire leads to a shocking discovery.
Shelley's Reaction. Shelley appears despondent yet strangely emotionless after the fire.
Bizarre Behavior at a Tragic Time. Shelley’s strange comments during a tragic event raise eyebrows.
Mysterious Circumstances of Jimmy's Death. Investigators find Jimmy's death suspicious with no signs of natural causes.
Shelley's Alibi Under Scrutiny. Surveillance footage reveals gaps in Shelley’s timeline on the day of the fire.
Bobby's Confession. Bobby admits to an affair with Shelley, revealing shocking details about their relationship.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

I wish I would have loved him more.

Shelley responds to Jimmy's father after his death

24:31WatchNov 9, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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