A Florida woman named Laurie Shaver has been sentenced to life behind bars for fatally shooting her husband, Michael Shaver, burying his remains under a concrete slab in their yard, and impersonating him online.
Shaver, 41, was convicted on Tuesday, November 26, of second-degree murder with a firearm. Reportedly, Laurie alleged that Michael was beating her night and day for her infidelity. Her defense also contended that he subjected her to years of physical, emotional, and s*xual torment. The defense further claimed that their children were privy to much of the abuse.
Laurie Shaver points the blame to her daughter and boyfriend for killing her husband
A little more than four hours of deliberations saw the jury sentence the 41-year-old for the crime of shooting her husband in the back of his head. The incident took place at their home in Claremont in November 2015. However, as prosecutors have pointed out, she spent the next three years impersonating him via texts and pretending he was alive on Facebook.
Per Law&Crime, Laurie Shaver used Facebook to announce that he was quitting his job at Walt Disney World, inform his boss of the same, assert that he was relocating to Georgia, and call on everyone to “leave me alone."
Michael's body was only uncovered in 2018 when officers from the Lake County Sheriff’s Office were called in to conduct a wellness check on him. Authorities told People Magazine that Michael, who worked as a monorail technician, would never abandon his family.
At the house, the cops met with Laurie Shaver who asserted that her husband had left them stranded. She then let them in the house to look for themselves, but as reported by the magazine, when they asked if they could come back with their dogs to sniff around the property, she said not without a warrant.
Lake County Sheriff’s Office Corporal Cory Anderson said during the trial that when he looked around the backyard, he noticed that the concrete slab beneath the fire pit seemed weird. He said in court:
"Six [feet] by eight [feet] and eight inches depressed. Had the shape of a body.”
In March, officers returned to the property with a warrant and a dog, and towards the end of the day, they uncovered his remains.
During the trial, Shaver's attorneys not only accused Michael of being abusive, but they also maintained that it wasn't Laurie who shot him. Instead, they claimed, it was their daughter, who was 8 at the time. Towards the end of the trial, the girl, 15, took to the stand to double down on the same.
She asserted that she shot and killed Michael following an altercation between him and Laurie. She claimed she was simply trying to protect her mother, according to The New York Post:
"And I grabbed her, and I grabbed her gun. And I went back out, and I went to the door. The door was already open. And he had my mom on the ground still. Still laying on the ground. Still kicking her. And I shot him."
Laurie Shaver then claimed that her then-boyfriend and now-husband, Jeremy Townsend, came back to shoot Michael a second time in precaution. She also maintained that it was he who disposed of the body as she was dropping her kids off at school. However, Townsend refuted said claims, noting that he "did not know who Mike was."
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Per WESH, Michael Shaver was shot just one time. In the end, while Michael's family was satisfied, Laurie Shaver's legal representation argued that they would appeal the verdict.
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