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

when it comes to Quality sleep Ashley has you covered with top mattress brands at winning prices and with special
financing options available you can snooze now and pay later plus your mattress purchase helps give the gift of
better sleep to children in need and US Special Operations forces visit your local Ashley store or shop online today
and make every snooze count financing is subject to credit approval C store or ashley.com for d details Rosetta Stone
is the language learning program with a lasting impact I've been using the rap to learn French and it's not just about
memorizing words but actually having real conversations and it's not just French they offer 25 languages right now
Rosetta Stone has an awesome holiday deal 50% off their lifetime membership every language unlimited access forever
for anyone keen on diving deep into a new language check out rosettastone.com it's a
GameChanger [Music] [Applause] [Music] welcome to True Crime garage wherever you are whatever you're doing thanks for
listening I'm your host Nick and with me as always is a man that would like to remind us all that scores man got a
tattoo here is the captain and my next tattoo is going to say it's good to be seen it's good to see you thanks for
listening thanks for down friend this week we are very excited to be featuring dream pillow by the
insanely brilliant peeps over at Jackie O's dream pillow is a hazy double India Pale Ale brw with Citra equin and HBC
692 hops what does that all mean no one knows except for the good folks over at Jackie O's but what I do know is this is
a 4 and 1/2 bottle caps beer all day and night and I also know that these people
coming up they are the best so cheers to Doug down in beautiful Atlanta Georgia and a big cheers to Brighton in Toledo
Ohio next we have a cheers to Sarah in Louisville Kentucky and a big we like your jib to Emily in Frankfurt Kentucky
here we go Captain let's go to the big great state of Texas and give a cheers to Sarah K and Denton Texas and last but
certainly not least we have a long distance cheers to Helga and Victoria goo which I think Captain is somewhere
in the Mediterranean Sea so we have people listening all over far and wide and for that we thank you yeah b r n
beer run for all of our old episodes check us out on the Stitcher app they are free and also check out our bonus
show called off the Record if you're not following us on social media you need to
at Twitter at Instagram at Facebook Facebook at true Crim garage.com and that's enough of the
business all right everybody gather around grab a chair grab a beer let's talk some true
[Music] crime [Music] on November 29th 2005 in Morgantown West Virginia a respiratory therapist named Sean Al
wrapped up his overnight shift at Ruby Memorial Hospital Al 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 8:00 a.m. alt
parked his truck in his driveway on Karne 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 houses so he went inside showered and came back out at 8:20 a.m. the smell was still there
there puzzled he Shrugged it off and he started his truck he drove to the four-way stop sign at Karne in Eastern
Avenue and as he stopped he saw his neighbor from four houses down Shelly Michael and her silver Ford Expedition
with its six-pack vanity plates Shelly backed out of her own driveway and she drove to the
intersection stopping at the sign directly across from alt Alt knew shelle's husband Jimmy Michael very well
alt and Jimmy attended respiratory therapy school together and Shel was a pediatric nurse practitioner in the same
hospital that alt worked at but on this day Shelly did not acknowledge Al's raised hand wave on that morning
Michelle Shelly Michael ignored Shawn Al and quickly sped off through the intersection and that was that but Sha's
sighting of Shelly 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 of Michelle Shelly Michael [Music] around 10:20 on the morning of Tuesday November 29th 2005 in the pouring rain
two utility workers Monty and Rodney were driving along karney drive and morgage in Town 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
911 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
911 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 Flame shot out it was a flashover the time was 10:27 a.m.
well luckily the fire trck 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 korne drive
by 10:32 a.m. that's a 5 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 clap 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 Karne Drive Jimmy and Shelly Michael Bobby and Jimmy
work together at Jimmy's new company this is Mountaineer Home Medical Supply and they also coached their son's
football team together Shelly and Kelly were also close both coaching their daughter's cheer team Bobby drove over
to the Michaels 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 tenant 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 mhm 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 and 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 this same time Jimmy's
wife Shelly Michael arrived on the scene now let's give a little background information on some of these characters
that we've already introduced Michelle guts was born to Michael and Kathy guts on January 29th 1972 in Clarksburg West
Virginia she was a go-getter from the beginning straight A student a competitive cheerleader at just 100
lounds 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 what you talk yeah speak for yourself you were the manager of the
school store no I 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 Miss Popularity and voted most likely to
succeed M shell who she would later become known as that's her nickname Michelle guts became shell 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 Shelly 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 shell became pregnant again at 8 and
1/2 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 Shelly landed a coveted job as a nurse in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at
Ruby Memorial Hospital Hospital her marriage to Rob was Rocky and shell 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 hurt I would be if I
tried to do a backflip her supervisor Stephanie Michael recalled that Shelly was all about flirting at the hospital
and Stephanie would soon learn that Shelly wasn't just flirting in fact shell set her sights on Stephanie's
husband this was Jimmy Michael a respiratory therapist great Stephanie and Jimmy were already having marital
difficulties but when he met Shelly it was all over they shared shifts at the hospital and Shelly taught Jimmy who was
a big guy over 220 lbs 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 Shelly progressed to a full-blown Affair very
quickly Jimmy became infatuated with Shelly both marriages no surprise here disintegrated soon after this and Shelly
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 yeah Stephanie who continued to work with shell at the hospital started
dating Shell's ex-husband Rob Angus what yeah it's like a like a wife swapper in this
in this situation maybe a husband SWA 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 the
ones that cheat mhm well and 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 they're they're 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 Shelly this is one of Shell's rules now shell 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 Shelly focused on integrating the two families you know kind of like a modernday 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 shell 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 in
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 Shelly wanted everybody to think they
were the perfect family end quote Shelly 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 shalt 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 bulked 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 right Shelly
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 it we've already introduced the Michaels close friends remember Bobby and Kelly teats I never forget teats
Shelly 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 shell also had a best friend named Renee who lived in another
state and both Shelly 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 shelle's parents were whom we've already introduced Kathy and Michael
guts who divorced when Shelly 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 TS who both Jimmy and Shelly are very close with at the fire scene Captain we
have Bobby T's 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 Shelly 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 paged when she got
her on the phone Kelly said your house is on fire and no one can find Jimmy Shelly 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 shell seemed emotionalist as she stated this very matter of factly before shell left Shelly called
her husband well hold on in defense how would you react I mean who who knows how you react 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 fire
extinguisher I'm not going to 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 bits
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's 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 so Shel leaves work she arrived at home and found her ex-husband Rob and her friends Bobby and Kelly TS waiting
there to comfort her Jimmy's ex Stephanie and other friends and family soon arrived it was chaos as anyone
would expect Shelly 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 Shelly Michael shed any actual tears any real tears the detective arrived on the scene at 11:18
a.m. 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 tees arriving at their son's home afternoon 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 Shelly their daughter-in-law to commiserate over their tragic loss and
Denny found Shelly being comforted at a neighbor's home by her sister Jennifer then he hugged her and thanked her for
loving his son to which Shelly responded quote I wish I would have loved him more
one of Jimmy's best friends from childhood arrived on the scene and he's trying to comfort
Shelly 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 boss so this person's very taken aback it
seemed like a very weird question I mean guessing that's like a clothing store yeah I've 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 Shell'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 karney drive home was definitively identified by dental
records at 4:05 p.m. that day and of course sadly it was that of Jimmy [Music] Michael this show is sponsored by better
help do you look forward to the holidays maybe you struggle with seasonal Blues this time of year can be a lot and it's
natural to feel some sadness or even anxiety about it but adding something new and positive to your life can
counteract some of those feelings therapy can be a bright spot something to look forward to to make you feel
grounded and to give you the tools to manage everything going on if you're thinking of starting therapy give better
help a try it's entirely online designed to be convenient flexible and suited to
your schedule just fill out a brief questionnaire to get matched with a licensed therapist and switch therapist
at any time for no additional charge find your bright spot this season with betterhelp visit betterhelp.com
garod to get 10% off your first month that's better help hp.com garage dreaming of overseas Adventures
or connecting more deeply with family from afar Rosetta Stone Bridges language Gap I've tried others but Rosetta
Stone's immersive lessons and voice feedback technology are game changers dive into 25 Languages by learning
intuitively just like when you were a kid and here's the holiday Sparkle grab a lifetime membership now and sa 50%
gift yourself the world head to rosettastone.com now and save 50% you can start your day off right
when you find a professional on Angie to get your Plumbing right first connect with skilled professionals
to get all your home projects done well visit angie.com you can do this when you
Angie [Music] that all right we're back welcome to another episode of wife swap of the bachelor The Bachelor get your
roses out that's right 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 sitting at the neighbor's house now
here's what shell 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 900 p.m. his co- coach for the Suns team was his ex-wife's Stephanie's new husband Dan now 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
Shelly 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 dough and not a buck on the trip
Jimmy then went to bed and sh shell 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 a.m. this is one of our very first clues that something is not not right here in
my opinion at 7:24 a.m. 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 get busy some weird thing where the parents forgot the other parents forgot so somebody needs a pack them
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 a.m. she told her super supervisor that morning that she forgot her pager left
it in the car I got to go retrieve it she needs this for work then she got the call from Kelly te 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 Shelly he found the following about Shelly while talking with her her and observing her
and these were from his notes and his observations he says that Shel 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 back flips
at work well now that it's a established that Jimmy was deceased the detective is
going to sit down with everybody in that Circle that cast of characters that we introduced 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 Shelly 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 Shell'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 the difficult thing this is not that many years after he left his wife for Shelly
Jimmy's new business was doing very well but not well enough that Shelly could stop working and Shelly 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 that's 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 Shell's first day back at work this is after 3
weeks off for a quote quote knee injury after falling down the front porch steps
and taking 3 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 Imp lication 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 shell 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 6 months earlier Shelly knew about the policy and in fact was the sole
beneficiary of this policy Jimmy's cell phone was found on the counter in the kitchen of the home on the day that he
died and everyone the detective interviewed told him that 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
Shawn Al now remember we talked about Shawn Al in the trailer for today he's the neighbor who told the detective that
he saw Shelly driving away from their home from M 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 Shelly Michael oh the two not tis anybody but tis wait so but I got a
question shouldn't she already be at work at this point mhm 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 Shell's pastor and others noticed that
Shelly was constantly being comforted by and at times even holding hands or lying
on a bed with Bobby while his wife and Shell's friend Kelly dealt with the funeral
arrangements for Jimmy Mrs teats 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 f all were in good condition and it was relatively a new house so they like like
we already know though the majority of the heat is coming from the master bedroom so even though you're going to
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 he was the fire he yes yes the fire was him and and and around him immediately around him you know they
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 and quote this
to the investigators made no sense okay so they don't believe that hole to be like a a shotgun wound or 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 course we know that didn't
happen he just 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 homes 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 didn't always work and remember she said I I think the iron
was on that day look I think people should just lock somebody up when they go okay yeah I 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 damn just 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 accelerance and they walked through
the Michaels 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 bedroom 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
accelerate gas we do not we do 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 a tiny bit of smoke damage
and really nothing else it's it's so crazy how much fire can destroy evidence uh 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 planing 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 Shelly had been seen leaving
the house at 8:20 a.m. the fire did not erupt from the room until 2 hours later so they had to wonder the investigators
fire investigators was it possible for a fire to smolder for 2 hours incinerating
just one room before finally flashing over that's the unusual behavior yeah of this fire in life Jimmy was 6' tall 220
lb after the fire damage his corpse weighed only 151 lb 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 was meaning he's dead dead before the fire started he's dead before the fire
started yeah 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 was puncture wounds mhm we don't
know if there was blood on the bed because it was all burnt up mhm 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 an 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 shell worked here's what he ends up finding out he sees Shelly Michael you know doing her Hospital
duties doing her job well she goes out the front doors of the hospital at 811 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 Shelly Michael was
unaccounted for and remember Shawn Al had seen her pulling out of her driveway during that 17-minute window he says his
clock said 8:20 when he saw Shelly Michael investigators set out to determine whether Shel 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 shell 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 7 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 Shelly 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 Shelly to be so strange on the day that Jimmy died that even before it was was ruled an
homicidal act they started providing information to the detectives that's not going to put Shelly in the greatest of
light right they basically several of her friends or the couple's friends put together a list and send it over to the
detective this is a list of drugs that shell and other Hospital workers had access to at Ruby Memorial the other
thing too Captain is the professionals seemed 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 rrum I think is how you say
that recur rrum 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 Shelly 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 Shelly 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
shell 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 Shelly 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
great guy great friend great teats three days before Jimmy died Bobby said it was
just a fling and that he did not love shell 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 Shelly
this was videotaped it was 6 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 morning that Jimmy died she didn't know that they knew about her leaving the hospital and
being seen by Shawn Al 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 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 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 type 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 and then the LI 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 Shelly oh my God in the preest cuz they do like a little preest interview before they hook you up to the
machine in the preest she lied a 100 times in response to a question about what type of person she was you know
just 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 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 preest 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 to 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 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 that's teats 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 like 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 mhm in a lot of these cases
where the females suspected of murder they almost can take the L to the Grave like you see this like with Casey
Anthony when they 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 a office is just going to a appear you know same way
with this case yeah there was a there was a iron I saw the iron and it had some faulty wiring Maybe maybe that's it
it's almost like the character off a 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 Shelly filed a personal loss claim
amounting to $194,000 with Jake from State Farm Insurance you know that you said Jake
from All State last time I I have all state and I confused the which I I think I called you a dumb Dum during that but
I never caught you so I guess I was the dumb Dum as well yeah they only have 10,000 commercials of each a day I don't
know how anybody could screw I'm sure there's a Jake at all state she ended up collecting
$140,000 this is after she paid Wells Fargo who owned the mortgage on the home and now now she's going to be waiting
for the half million 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 3T 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 Shelly 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 in Jimmy's heart blood was found with large amounts of that rium ruroni 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 shelle's arrest on charges of
first deegree murder and first-degree arson and 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 one thing I do know is a dead body can't start a fire
correct there's know if you listen to the Billy Joel song he never once mentions a dead body start 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 morgant town 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 Shelly found herself back in jail this was one month before the trial I mean in all fairness so it's
hard to do back flips 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 because you're going to 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 $1 million it was done in a giant hanger and took months the agency viewed this
as an opportunity to study the nature of smoldering fires because the theory was
that Shelly 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 2 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 accelerance and three irons identical to
Shelly 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 mhm the investigators tried different cycles for the heating and ventilation
systems to try to replicate exactly how the fire had smoldered for 2 hours before combusting again from the book
quote 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 Michaels house the fire would have
soon gone out and if it had been turned up to 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 2 hours and 10 minutes into the burn the headboard collapsed and burned right through the
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 Shelly 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 9th
2007 and would take more than two weeks with 37 Witnesses for the prosecution alone to sum up here is the evidence
presented against Shelly at her trial they said Jimmy was killed with ronio a paralytic that shell 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 Shelly left the hospital and was unaccounted for for 17
minutes on the morning that Jimmy died in which time she could have got home and back and set the fire shell was the
sole beneficiary of a $500,000 life insurance policy on Jimmy and if the house had been consumed by the fire she
would have got another half a million dollar she was having an affair with Bobby te 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 Shelly 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 3 minutes he would be unable to Stand 4 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 Shelly 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 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 Shelly 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 drop 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 that could have been used was I found that to be a little a little problematic
here 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 the 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 show showed that anyone at the hospital could have had access to
the drug including Jimmy's ex-wife Stephanie uh including Jimmy himself who they tried to suggest that he possibly
killed himself using this drug uh they pointed out that all of the evidence against Shelly was simply circumstantial
they called only five witnesses in her defense and they did call Shelly 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 way why sha 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 and quote but again no
tears no emotion after 5 hours on the stand shelle'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 Shelly 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 Shawn Al had not seen her leaving her house things might have gone entirely different for her what 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 [Music] caught [Music] all right what an interesting case if
you'd like to leave your thoughts on this case go to our website true Crim 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 longtime 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 Crim
garage.com and until tomorrow be good be kind and don't [Music] [Applause] litter
you can live out your Master Chef dreams when you find a professional on Angie to
tackle your dream kitchen remodel connect with skilled professionals to get all your home
projects done well visit angie.com you can do this when you Angie that

Lies on Fire ////// 457

Part 1 of 1

www.TrueCrimeGarage.com (http://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.

Beer of the Week - Dream Pillow by Jackie O’s Brewery Garage Grade - 4 and a half bottle caps out of 5

The full archive of True Crime Garage is available on the Stitcher listening app - for FREE. Our show “Off the Record” is only on Stitcher Premium. For a FREE month of listening go to http://stitcherpremium.com/truecrimegarage and use promo code GARAGE

Beer Fund: https://truecrimegarage.com/home

Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com (https://pcm.adswizz.com) for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Brief Summary

Shelly Michael was convicted of murdering her husband Jimmy in a suspicious house fire after an affair and insurance motives were revealed.

Key points

A Shocking Discovery. A house fire leads to the discovery of a body, igniting a murder investigation.
The Perfect Family Image. Shelly Michael's desire for a perfect family life contrasts with her actions.
Chaos at the Fire Scene. Shelly arrives home to find chaos as friends and family gather after the fire.
Denny's Outburst. After learning of his son's death, Denny confronts police and is restrained.
Shelly's Bizarre Behavior. Shelly's odd comments during a tragic time raise eyebrows among friends.
Suspicious Circumstances. Detectives uncover troubling details about Shelly's behavior and marriage.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

This is a case of planned premeditated murder.

Introduction to the case

6:08WatchNov 16, 2023

Tension

85/ 100High tension

More from True Crime Garage TV

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.