A Florida lady was found guilty of killing her husband in the back of the head, concealing his body beneath a slab of concrete beneath a backyard firepit, and pretending to be him on Facebook to trick his loved ones.
Following her husband Michael Shaver’s death on Friday, Laurie Leigh Shaver, 41, was found guilty of second-degree murder with a firearm, according to a news release from the Fifth Judicial Circuit State Attorney’s Office.
“Elation, elation…” We were overjoyed. Michael Shaver’s sister Stacy Turner stated, “This was a long time coming,” according to local NBC station WESH.
Assistant State Attorney Nicholas Camuccio for the Fifth Judicial Circuit told the station that while he was disappointed the case took so long, “I’m just happy we were able to take the evidence, and they came back with the right decision to give this family closure.”
Authorities reported that Michael Shaver was slain somewhere between November 7 and November 10, 2015, the first day he failed to report for work.
The Lake County Sheriff’s Office said in a press release that the case wasn’t made public until February 2018, when Michael Shaver’s friend contacted to report that neither he nor his family had seen or heard from him since 2015.
The friend asked that deputies visit his Clermont home to see how he was doing. Orlando is located more than 25 miles west of Clermont.
Laurie Shaver told deputies she hadn’t seen her husband since 2015 when they arrived at the property and gave them permission to search around. However, she then stopped assisting the deputies and requested legal representation, according to officials.
On March 9, 2018, an investigator noticed an odd depression in a cement slab and discovered the partially clothed skeleton remains of Michael Shaver, who had been shot in the back of the head. The remains were wrapped in a blue tarp beneath a firepit in the couple’s garden.
Laurie Shaver, who was killed, allegedly went on Facebook after his supervisor told him to “leave me alone” and that he was quitting and moving to Georgia.
According to a former coworker’s testimony, “He kind of just stopped talking to me, said he wanted to be left alone,” WESH said.
Michael Shaver’s brother Brian testified that there was no communication. Laurie Shaver sold her husband’s tools and rifles and gradually got rid of his personal belongings.
A man who assisted with pouring the concrete slab became her husband. He stated in his testimony that he did not observe anything out of the ordinary at the time and that Laurie Shaver had informed him that she was divorcing, adding, “that he wanted nothing to do with the family, did not know where he was, and he was not around.”
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In an additional twist, Laurie Shaver stated in court that she was attacked by Michael Shaver after he discovered she was expecting a child and that he became enraged when he showed up to the house.
In a shocking admission, Laurie Shaver’s 7-year-old adolescent daughter testified that she had shot her father because she believed he was abusing her mother.
On November 25, Laurie Shaver is scheduled to be sentenced.
