EP274: The Mystery of Michael Shaver

he would learn to play the guitar. He, along with his friends around the neighborhood, formed a little band of their own called Rifles in Dandelions, which was a play on guns n' roses. Nice. Michael, from a young age was a fairly decent mechanic. He was able to fix anything and everything around the house. His grandfather was the same way, so it was always thought that Michael inherited that gene. Neighbors would give him various things that needed

fixing and he'd happily help them. He was even known to have built an airplane in the backyard with a friend, and the airplane was completely made out of wood. A family member said that if he had gotten his hands on a motor, he would have flown away. While Michael was still in high school, Not only did he become infatuated with the learning to fly a plane, he also

became infatuated with a young girl named Laurie Paddleford. He and Laurie had basically grown up together in the Utica, New York area, and even from middle school, Michael had his eye on Laurie, and his crush developed as they made their way into high school. The only thing Michael wanted to do was to figure out a cute, cool way to ask Laurie out on a date. His best friend helped him come up with an idea. So this

is the idea. Michael was going to ask her out to the song I'll make love to you by boys to men playing in the background. Oh my gosh, I am in love with the cheesiness of this.

their life together. After the wedding, Michael got his commercial pilot's license and he had even gotten a job at Piedmont Airlines. He loved every single second working as a pilot, and he would always take his friends up in the sky every chance he got. Not long after Michael had secured his dream job at Petemont Airlines, Laurie became pregnant, first with a girl named Isabelle and soon after a son named Aiden. When the happy couple became parents. They

decided to relocate to Clermont, Florida. They purchased a five acre property in the more rural area of Clermont, and the family would live quiet and peaceful life surrounded by hills, lakes, and the love of wildlife. They eventually would buy some chickens, some guinea hens, some turkeys, and a couple of ducks. In the meantime, Michael got a job for a local flight group called Precious Medal. He worked as a mechanic and the pilots would perform all over the United States

in races along with air shows. While with Precious Medal, Michael became a volunteer pilot with the group so that he was able to go up into the sky. These races are often compared to NASCAR racing, but obviously race cars are on a closed track and these races are airplane flight races, so kind of similar, but just up in the sky as a huge scale called the sky, up in the sky on a closed course. So I guess they had like a carry off, yeah, an area that was probably you can't see it, I guess, I

don't know. I'm trying to like picture it.

So Laurie took care of the kids and she worked from home for an insurance company. Biko was a great father to Isabelle and Aiden and knew he was missing out on quality time and memories with his kids, so he ended up quitting his job doing what he loved for the sake of fatherhood. He was able to find a job with a secure schedule, and that way he'd be home with his family every single night. So even though he dropped his dream job, he quickly found another,

working for a business everyone knows and loves. It's also known as the happiest place on Earth, So you guessed it. He found a job at Walt Disney World, located in Orlando, Florida. This job was where he could still do what he loved, being mechanic, but it was no longer fixing planes. It was to be the mechanic for the monorail at the park on the Epioge.

had her children with her. When the operator asked Laurie what was going on, she replied that her hand was bleeding from a domestic violence dispute. While that was happening, Michael phoned a neighbor. He asked neighbor to come by the house because he needed help, and when the neighbor got to the house, Michael was completely covered in blood. His clothes had been ripped to shreds, and there was

blood pouring down his face. The neighbor's only thought was to take as many photos as she could of what she had walked into, just in case. This neighbor had often heard many arguments coming from the Shaver home, and oftentimes they were screaming and yelling. Laurie, while on the phone with nine one one, said she and Michael were fighting a lot up to that point, but their fights had never gotten physical until then. Most people thought that

maybe the marriage was on the rocks. Whenever Laurie was asked by friends and family previously if everything was all right between her and Michael, she almost acted like she didn't know what they were talking about, like everything was fine. Both of them put on a happy face, not seeming that they had any troubles, so those who knew them didn't really notice, but they also didn't know, like is everything all right with them? So you know, they're not sure.

Is this the same happy couple who had fallen in love in middle school? Or are they at each other's throats? So, Laurie, while still on the phone with Diamond one, said that she had grabbed Michael's gun and whacked him over the head with it. He had the pistol okay. After that happened, she grabbed Isabella and Aiden and left as quickly as she could. The operator asked if Michael was the one who pulled the gun on her, and she said, well, yeah, he grabbed my car keys and shoved them in a pocket.

She only had used force, I guess to get the keys from him, and she grabbed the two children and left. According to Michael, she was the person who had initiated all of the beating him with the gun that she had initially pulled on him, and he had been trying to calm her down. Michael told the neighbor that he and Laurie had been in a pretty physical altercation and his wife had threatened him with the gun. Not only did she threaten to kill him, she had also threatened

to kill herself as well. Laurie told the nine one one operator that the two of them had consumed three beers, and Michael admitted that he had taken the car keys from her to prevent her from drinking and driving with their children in the back seat. Both she and Michael said it was Laurie who had struck him in the head with the thirty eight caliber revolver, which had been

left on their butt inside the home. In the end, Michael was arrested for grabbing Laurie by her arm and he was charged with battery, and after that the marriage just was never the same. Those who knew Michael said he never raised his voice and would have never yelled at her, let alone beat her physically. Michael had even gone over to his mother's home a few times with bruises on him, and when his mom asked him what happened,

Michael would respond with Lurie got mad. In the fall of twenty fourteen, the judge from their domestic violence case granted Laurie a no contact order against Michael and he had to move out. Michael stayed in the hangar at Precious Metal, as there were showers inside the bathrooms there. Those who were close to him said that Laurie kicked him out just to invite him back into the house, even though there was still the no contact order in place.

Laurie was playing mind games with him, and while she's doing this, she's seeing other guys. Michael suspected that Laurie was cheating on him, and he would often tell his family. She denied it, though, but the neighbors would see men

coming and leaving the house. Michael also thought that maybe he's just being paranoid and maybe she's not sleeping around, but friends of his said that while he was staying in the hangar, he would jump into a plane and fly over the house just to see if there was an unknown car in the driveway.

his siblings and other family members. Whenever his family would make plans to visit Michael, visit him, visit Laurie and the kids, there would always be a last minute cancelation and the reason behind it would often be that Laurie thought that it was just a bad time know your family come over. So since Michael was trying to save his marriage, he had no other option than to just roll with it because he wanted to make Laurie happy.

The communications with his family was rare up until that point, and not only was it rare, but it was rare among his friends too. So at this point within the marriage, Michael was invited back into the house to live with Laurie and the kids. They were going to try to work things out. Laurie knew that since Michael was desperate to work things out with her, that she could pretty much ask for anything and Michael would make her wishes

come true. In November twenty fifteen, Michael, Lourie, and the kids attended a tractor show with some of Michael's close friends. This is something that would happen at least three times during the winter months in the Claremont area, and that was always something Michael loved to attend because he really had a passion for the old tractors that were being shown off. Cool. Yeah, that specific tractor show. The tension between Michael and Laurie was so thick that you could

literally drive a tractor through it. Laurie never made eye contact with Michael's friends, and they all noticed she wouldn't even talk to them, and Michael's friends thought that part was pretty strange because she was always friendly with them whenever they would hang out. She was known to just be a bubbly person who was happy to be there.

And then, you know, in the middle of this tractor show, all of a sudden, Michael told his friends that he and the family needed to leave, and they left, and that would be the last time that anyone would ever lay eyes again on Michael. Two days later, Michael's coworkers received a really odd text from him, and in that text, Michael said he was no longer coming to work and

that he was planning on moving away to Georgia. His coworkers and family members tried to contact him, and when he didn't respond, even after hearing that his mother was sick, people who knew him best began to worry something was up. Some close friends of his even log down to their Facebook accounts and noticed they weren't even friends with him anymore, so why is he unfriending them? They didn't have falling out here. This man was dependable for years and then he's just going to.

his personality skills, yeah, his skills. His coworkers were just perplexed, you know, they had no idea what was going on. He was just gone. Everyone began to have their own suspicions and draw their own conclusions. Soon after, Michael's friends began to get text messages from his saying that he just wanted everyone to leave him alone. All of a sudden, he didn't want anything to do with anyone that he

knew and loved. According to the texts that were sent from his phone, he didn't want to be found by anyone who knew him, and he was just done with everything and everyone. Obviously, his friends his family are saying these are out of character, this is bullshit. Yeah, and his niece even received a text message that said, quote, I don't have a family anymore. I have no clue who you are, so stop messaging me. End quote. It's weird.

pretty bad argument and he had stormed off. He then got picked up in a black suv and he just never came back home. She said that he caught a ride with his friend Robert and that the two of them decided to just go to Georgia. They were gonna move up and move okay. Frank thought that the entire communication with Laurie was weird because not only did Michael never wish to leave the state of Florida, he also

never wanted out of his marriage with Laurie. He wasn't going to leave his kids, and everyone that he knew knew that. Yes. Stacy, Michael's sister, sent Laurie a Facebook message asking where her brother was, and she just replied with quote no, he left end quote, and she went on to say that he left his children with her and that he wasn't paying any child support. This was strange to Stacy because she knew her brother would never do anything like that because those kids were two of

the most important people in his life. Michael wouldn't have never left this job at Disney World to go to Georgia to start completely over without his kids or his wife, and at some point his sister Stacy and his brother Brian. They just didn't know what to think. While Stacy became angry, Brian just thought maybe Michael did need some space and time. You know who didn't need space and time? Ri. No, she moved on without a second thought, and she began,

he's gone yet. Yeah. She began a data man named Jeremy Townsend. The two had met at a park where they gave each other their phone numbers. When she began dating Jeremy, though, she was also telling her friends that Michael was harassing her. Laurie and Jeremy didn't work out, though, and you want to know why. Jeremy was married to another woman, Vanessa. One day, while Vanessa was at work, she got a random flower delivery, and with the delivery was a card. The card said quote roses are read,

Let's are blue. My wife is a whore. Your husband is too end quote. The car was signed sorry about this like your Facebook message, We need to talk Mike. So Vanessa did as the card said, and she went on Facebook to check her messages. She then found a message from Michael saying, quote, I believe your husband is having an affair with Mike soon to be ex wife

end quote. He then told Vanessa that he had installed some spy software onto his wife's phone, then sent screenshots of text messages that had been sent between Laurie and Jeremy. Jeremy's affair with Laurie obviously came to a screeching halt after that, and Jeremy went back to Vanessa in hopes of working things out between them. Glori began dating someone who would become her next husband, and this guy's name was Travis Filmer, who was a youth group leader at

the local church in the area. Travis looked an awful lot like Michael, and he fell head over heels for the two of them. Were married on December thirty first, twenty sixteen, which I'm not sure how that happened if she never got a divorce from Michael, but what Yeah. The wedding took place in Laurie's backyard, the same house she had once shared with Michael. It was a small ceremony, but Travis was really happy. Laurie had spent so much

time fixing up the backyard for the ceremony. She even went as far as to install a fire pit in the backyard for the ceremony, she and Travis actually utched their initials into the concrete while it was still wet like it was literally like this fire pit, and it was to symbolize their love and affection for one another. Not long after the two were married, Laurie told Travis

that she was pregnant. Travis was over the moon with excitement because all he had wanted to do was be a father, and after seeing Laurie with Isabella and Aiden, he knew she was going to be a great mom. As Laurie was building a new life with Travis, Michael's Facebook page was still active and were made here and there saying he was working on internal struggles and that

he just wanted to be left alone. Michael's friends and family, who hadn't seen him since he allegedly walked out on all their lives, Yeah, just thought this was obviously was strange again that you know, they hadn't heard from him, but here he is posting on Facebook. At least two years had gone by without anyone seeing him in person.

Even Brian, Michael's brother, had known something was up when a text came over that was from Michael's phone and Michael had called him bro and he had never called him that before, so none of this is adding up. Michael's childhood best friend, Scott had received a phone call from someone who had been over to Michael and Laurie's house shortly after he had left his family, and it

apparently walked out on them. On the phone call, Scott was told that even though Laurie said he had completely left them to go start a life in Georgia, all of Michael's belongings were still in the home, and with his belongings obviously was his cell. Phoned his w in his car, but Laurie stuck to the story that Michael had gotten into a black SUV and never came back home. Scott even went on Facebook after not logging on for

a while, and he went onto Michael's profile. He noticed that Michael's profile picture had been changed that same month. It was the beginning of twenty eighteen at this point, okay, He zoomed in on the photo though he noticed that it was a group of random men drinking in a bar. The odd thing about the photo was that Michael was nowhere in the picture. It was just a random picture that was uploaded from somewhere, so somebody had changed his

profile picture and why wasn't Michael in it? Yeah, Michael had only ever posted photos of himself and others while working on planes in the past. None of his more recent posts were anything like that. Once again, something was up and someone had to do something. And finally February of twenty eighteen, the police were called and sent to Laurie's house to do a wellness visit on Michael. And it was Michael's childhood friend Scott who called the cops

since he also lived in Florida. When Scott got a hold of the local police, he filed a missing person report. Scott was able to convince the local authorities that there was something that needed to be looked into immediately. When the police got to Lourie's house, she repeated the same exact thing. Her husband had walked out of their lives without a single trace. She said she had no clue

where he went. The police then asked if they could search the property, and at first Laurie was very cooperative and allowed the officers into the backyard, but once they asked if they could bring in the canine unit, she said get out and come back with a search warrant on March ninth, twenty eighteen, the police brought in caidaver

dogs to the property and searched for Michael. And when the dogs got to the property, they stopped at a concrete slab which was the same concrete slab that had LORII and Travis's initials marked on.

over the head with previously. He was buried wrapped in a fitted sheet, wearing only a pair of airpostyl underwear and under armor athletic shorts along with a pair of socks. Remember that Louri and Michael had owned all types of different birds around their five acre plot of land. Remember I told you there was chickens and docks and yeah, Laurie had always wanted a duck pond for the ducks

to live in. And this was around the time. Remember they were having these marital troubles and Michael would do just anything for her. Yeah, he knew that she could take advantage of Michael wanting to save the marriage, so she asked him to dig a hole for him to create a duck pond. But little did Michael know that he was digging his own grain.

pin Michael's murder on her. Since he was murdered leaving his phone accessible to Laurie, she was the person who was sending the text to all his friends and family, basically telling anyone everyone to never come looking for him. Yes, also had been the one who had been in control of his Facebook account and so Yes, this even included her own self sabotage about her relationship with the married Jeremy.

She was the one who sent the flowers to Vanessa's work, stating that his wife was a whore along with Jeremy, so Laurie literally called herself a whore.

She was only seven years old at the time, but she was fifteen when she took the stand. Isabelle took the stand it admitted she accidentally fired a gun at her father while he and her mother were getting physical with one another. Isabelle also told the jury that a family friend, her mother's current boyfriend, Jeremy, also used a

firearm against Michael right after isabel claimed she did. Jeremy eventually testified and said he never once came into contact with Michael at any point, and that appeared to be the truth. So I think isabel was lying for her mother, of course she was. Many of Michael's friends and former cohor testified that Michael was one of a kind. He had a great heart and tried to see the good in everyone. They told the court that Michael was the one who had been fighting to save the marriage with Laurie,

although it had been rocky. Laurie's attorney said that her acts against Michael were because of the fact that she had gone years and years and during such violent abuse from Michael, and according to her attorney, the violent acts against her were severe. Laurie said that she had been locked in a closet at one point and that she

was physically beaten bloody by Michael. Those who were closest to Michael always said that Laurie did everything she could to try to get the public to believe that Michael was abusive toward her, but he could never hurt anyone. He was a good man, and the accusations against someone who was no longer able to defund himself was a

pretty below the belt blow. Michael's siblings have come forward saying that they always thought that Laurie did everything she could to control Michael and she was actually the abusive one within their marriage. Stacy even said that he wasn't allowed to speak with her on the phone for exist spended periods of time. She said that to Laurie, talking to Michael on the phone for twenty minutes was completely out of the question. The prosecution proved Laurie tried to

pin everything on her daughter Isabelle. Not once was Isabelle brought up in the entire investigation until Lourie's defense team attempted to get Isabelle to lie for her mother to save her. Finally, on September thirteenth, twenty twenty four, Laurie was convicted after a four hour deliberation by the jury. She's guilty of second degree murder, but she was acquitted of the accessory charge. After the guilty verdict, Michael's family

released a heart wrenching statement. They said their lives have been so difficult to maneuver since the disappearance of Michael back in the fall of twenty sixteen. Since that day, they never stopped searching for him, and not a single day had gone by that they had stopped thinking about him in his beautiful, caring heart quote on behalf of the shaver Of family. We are very grateful to be standing here today to recognize the guilty verdict against Lourie

end quote. They I knew that the verdict could never bring Michael back, but after all that time, the vertical was the closure they needed to be able to move on in a positive direction. On November twenty sixth, twenty twenty four, Laurie was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of her husband and the father of her children. As of January twenty twenty five, Laurie was incarcerated at the Florida Women's Reception Facility without any visitation rights and

no possibility of parole. I love it.

you know, pistol whip him. Who does that to a person just has no sympathy or empathy, just coldly using them, the father of your children. I just know she had no you know, respects, not just for him, like because he's so nice and great just as a human life. I feel so bad because he sounded like a really great guy, sound like a cowboy yeah right, like yeah, he just you know, he just wanted to take care

of his wife and his kids. And I don't know, you know, I always tell people like, just get a divorce if you're not happy, like yeah, Laurie, just sit down and be like Michael, I don't want to be with you.

or you can subscribe on the Apple podcast app. And what that is is you'll get an extra episode a week besides the one that we released to the public, and just for a very small monthly fee, you can go to our website Crimes Andconsequences dot com and I believe that's everything.