LAKE COUNTY, FLA. – The parents of a man who was murdered and allegedly buried in the back yard by his wife are seeking custody of their two grandchildren, including the eldest who testified that she is the one who shot her dad.
Douglas and Sharon Shaver are seeking custody because the children’s mother, Laurie Shaver, could be sentenced today up to life in prison without parole for second-degree murder.
Michael Shaver, 33, disappeared in 2015. His body was discovered three years later under a concrete slab near a burn pit at the home they shared outside Clermont.
That news was sensational enough, but as the trial date inched closer to this September, Laurie claimed that it was her 7-year-old daughter, Isabelle, who shot her father. She said her boyfriend at the time also fired what was probably the fatal round. That man denied having anything to do with the crime.
Isabelle, who is now 16, testified that the atmosphere in the house was “very combative, a lot of tension,” when Michael was in the home. He worked the night shift at Epcot and was often absent. He was under a court order to stay away the day he was shot.
The teen has consistently defended her mother.
“To the Shavers I’m sorry you lost a son although you were around … you don’t know who he was,” Isabelle wrote in a Facebook message recently. “I get you’d like to get to know me and my brother but where were you the first 12 years of my life? If you’d like to get to know me then help us prove my mom did not do this.”
Court records do not show a hearing date for the grandparents’ petition.
Last week, Laurie wrote a rambling 12-page letter to prosecutor Nick Camuccio claiming witness statements were fabricated, that she was innocent and that her case was a rush to judgment. She also described years of physical and emotional abuse.
“How this case was investigated and handled by the State Attorney’s Office was wrong, unfair, unethical, and not justifiable,” she wrote.
A copy was sent to trial judge Cary Rada.
“The real murderer walks free and my children, ages 16, 13, 6, and 5 now must grow up without a mother in a broken home.”
Laurie had the two younger children with Travis Filmer. She married Filmer officially in 2020, but the two had what Filmer described as an unofficial “commitment” ceremony in December 2017. That ceremony was in the backyard just feet away from Michael’s secret grave.
Filmer told investigators he was sure they would find Shaver divorce papers in the courthouse, but no such papers existed. Nor did she ever report him missing. An old friend of Michael’s got the investigation rolling when he said he had not heard from him and asked the Sheriff’s Office for a well-being check.