LAKE COUNTY, FLA. – Laurie Shaver killed her husband Michael, buried him in the back yard, then pretended to be him on social media, a prosecutor argued Monday. The defense says no; Laurie’s 7-year-old daughter and a boyfriend did the shooting.
Witnesses will testify about her using his Facebook posts and texts to pretend he left the state after Nov. 7, 2015, the last time anyone saw him alive. Three years later, after a friend called the sheriff’s office asking for a well-being check at the rural mobile home outside Clermont, a deputy noticed a depression in a concrete slab beneath a fire pit. Ground radar detected skeletal remains.
Digital forensic experts will tell the six-member jury that IP computer addresses assigned to Michael’s Facebook account are linked to the 41-year-old woman, Assistant State Attorney Rich Buxman said in his opening remarks.
Just because someone lies doesn’t make them a killer, defense attorney Jeffrey Wiggs countered.
“This was not a pleasant atmosphere,” he conceded, but he blamed it on Michael. “He imposed fear over and over.”
Past court records seeking protection from domestic violence recall one incident in which the two pulled guns on each other.
Wiggs put a former married boyfriend, Jereme Townsend, at the epicenter of the tragedy.
He told jurors that Michael came home and began beating Laurie. The couple’s 7-year-old daughter Isabelle retrieved a handgun and fired a round to defend her mother. “I think I shot him,” she reportedly said. Townsend, who was there, grabbed the weapon and shot Shaver.
“Laurie, get out of here,” he supposedly said. “If you say anything about this, I’ll kill you too.”
He said Townsend hid he body.
In February 2016, Laurie pretended to be Michael and sent a Facebook message to Townsend’s wife disclosing the affair in hopes of breaking up their marriage She also chastised Jereme asking when he was going to go through with his divorce and asking if he was in love with her.
She even sent flowers to the wife in Michael’s name to get her to look at the Facebook messages. Bank records showed the flowers came from Laurie’s bank account. Laurie and Michae had separate accounts, Buxman said.
Jereme ended the affair in April 2016 and restored his marriage.
“Jereme also described a tattoo Laurie got of his nickname, ‘Jay’ in a heart over her vagina which caused him to think Laurie felt more serious about their relationship than he did, which he always considered purely physical,” according to the probable cause affidavit filed by investigators.
“He was obsessed with Laurie,” Wiggs insisted.
The point prosecutors are making is that the social media fakery occurred months after Shaver was killed. Detectives also found photos of bags of the concrete on her Facebook page in 2017.
Jurors might even wonder, if she included Townsend in story as revenge for him dumping her.
Isabelle, now 17, is expected to testify for the defense.
Wiggs claims the state just didn’t want to hear it, proof that investigators rushed to judgment.
The first witness in the case took the stand on Monday. Frank Merritt, a coworker of Michael’s at Epcot, went to the house to check on his friend when he didn’t show up for work. She told him that he left for Georgia. When he noticed Michael’s truck was still at the house, she said another friend picked him up in his vehicle. That friend would later tell investigators that he never picked up Michael in his vehicle.
The trial continues tomorrow.