Dateline: Secrets Uncovered - A complete timeline of events surrounding the murders of Michelle Young

Dateline: Secrets Uncovered  (Image via Dateline NBC/Coffeehouse Crime YT)
Dateline: Secrets Uncovered (Image via Dateline NBC/Coffeehouse Crime YT)

The Dateline episode titled, 'Silent Witness,' detailed the horrific bludgeoning case of Michelle Young. As revealed in the Dateline episode, Young was a senior financial consultant who was found beaten to a bloody death in their family bedroom on November 3, 2006, in Raleigh, North Carolina while her husband, Jason Young, was supposedly away on a business trip. Their two-year-old child was found unharmed just beside Michelle's corpse. At the time of her death, Michelle was pregnant with their second child.

Dateline further recounted what followed, including the act of Jason's suspicious non-cooperation with the police and the two necessary trials to prove that Jason had indeed murdered his wife.

Here we take a close look at the complete timeline of events that went down culminating in the murder of Michelle Young.


Dateline: Michelle and Jason Young's early life (1995-2005)

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Michelle Fisher was a native of Long Island, New York before she relocated to attend the North Carolina State University. It was there that she first met her future husband Jason Young at a party in 1997. She then went on to graduate with a degree in accounting in 1993.

Michele and Jason tied the knot in 2003 and in the spring of 2004, their first child, Cassidy, was born. They began living in the Enchanted Oaks suburb of Raleigh in 2005.


Dateline: The car accident and the murder (2005 - 2006)

Jason and Michelle were embroiled in a car accident in May 2006 when their car went off-road and was partially submerged in a river. Although considered to be an innocent accident at the time, investigators later grew suspicious after Michelle's murder as Jason had taken out hefty life insurance in her name right before the accident.

Jason then went on to be hired as a salesman for a medical records-based software company. His salary hike allows Michelle to contemplate retiring from her employer Progress Energy.

On November 3, 2006, Jason was away on a business trip and contacted Michelle's sister, Meredith, to run a few errands at their family home. Upon her arrival, Meredith found Michelle's cold body that had been bludgeoned to death.


The aftermath and the trials (2007 - 2015)

Initial police investigations that started right after the murder and continued in February 2007 linked Jason Young to the murder of his wife. Blood was discovered inside his SUV, and bloody shoe prints matching his shoes were also found at the crime scene. Dateline further revealed that Jason was allegedly having an affair with a woman called Michelle Money.

In October 2008 Michelle's mother filed a wrongful death suit against Jason, in an attempt to force him to produce evidence of his innocence and cooperate with the police.

In December 2008, a Wake County judge found Jason guilty of murdering his wife. Another judge from the same county directed Jason to pay more than $15 million to Michelle's family.

Jason narrowly escaped justice when his murder jury was deadlocked in June 2011. He was finally convicted in a re-trial in March 2012 and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole.


Dateline is exclusively available on NBC.

Edited by Amey Mirashi
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