A young mom is brutally murdered. Her husband is suspected, although he was away on business at the time of the crime. Would shoes and other physical clues lead investigators to the truth? View source material and photos for this episode at: anatomyofmurder.com/double-indemnityCan’t get enough AoM? Find us on social media!Instagram: @aom_podcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @AOM_podcast | @audiochuckFacebook: /listenAOMpod | /audiochuckllc
Chapter 1: Who was Michelle Young and what happened to her?
29-year-old Michelle Young was born on Long Island, New York, and grew up in a large, close-knit family that valued hard work, loyalty, and above all, each other.
Described as outgoing and personable, Michelle put her high spirits and positivity to work as a varsity cheerleader, first in high school and then at North Carolina State University. Here's Richard Spivey, a retired investigator at the Wake County Sheriff's Office in Raleigh, North Carolina.
From everybody we talked to, I mean, she was somebody that kind of had a plan. She was going to get like a business degree. She was going to, I think more or less specializing in accounting. She wanted to find a professional husband, somebody that was, you know, kind of had the same goals of achieving and building a nice life and wanted to have children, et cetera.
I mean, so she had it kind of laid out what she wanted.
But of course, things don't always go according to plan, even for goal-oriented young women like Michelle and the most common cause, falling in love.
In 1997, Michelle met a fellow NC State student named Jason Young, and the two had instant chemistry. Shortly after graduation, the couple was married and had a child on the way. By 2006, Michelle was pregnant with their second child, and that meant some big changes for her future plans.
She was planning on cutting back on the number of hours that she worked. It was going to be a pay cut. She also was planning on converting money. the third floor slash semi-finished attic space. She was going to convert that into a room where her mother could live. And her mom was going to move down here from New York and move in with them and help take care of the children.
It's the kind of sacrifice many mothers make all the time, putting careers on hold for the benefit of a growing family. But sadly, Michelle's act of selflessness and family-first priorities would have tragic consequences.
On November 3rd, 2006, Michelle's sister received an unusual text from Michelle's husband, Jason, while he was away on a business trip.
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Chapter 2: What were the initial findings at the crime scene?
She noticed soon thereafter that in the bathroom there were bloody footprints of little tiny footprints that were her niece.
Thankfully, Michelle's sister located the young girl unharmed and hiding in her parents' bed, her first question, what's wrong with mommy?
After rushing her niece to safety, Michelle's sister immediately called 911. But as the first responders arrived, it was clear that Michelle was beyond saving. The injuries to her face and head were severe and fatal. Upon preliminary examination, blunt force trauma had caused skull fractures, multiple lacerations, and several broken teeth.
I think the first ones arriving were just kind of shocked at exactly how brutal the beating was and how serious the crime scene was as far as the amount of blood. I mean, that really stood out. I've seen serious facial injuries, usually because of the result of maybe a self-inflicted shotgun blast or a rifle or something like that. I've seen really horrific injuries.
Traffic accidents where there's a lot of damage to the face. This was by far the worst that I had ever seen that had been like manually conducted on someone, another human being. I mean, it's just hard to believe this might could beat someone that viciously.
Adding to the tragedy was the loss of Michelle's unborn child.
The autopsy would also reveal that in addition to being beaten, Michelle had been strangled and even had wounds on the back of her head that appeared to have been caused by an unknown object. A lot of the lacerations to her head had kind of a half moon shape. So in our interview, I discussed with Richard what kind of weapon could have caused that kind of shape.
And what we're talking about is this crescent looking shape, which could be at the end of a bat or the portion of the end of a hammer. But he could only speculate because no weapon had ever been found at the scene.
But the gruesome scene left behind, it obviously indicated a brutal and violent attack, a part of which may even have been witnessed by Michelle's young daughter. It does seem clear that she saw the aftermath. So was this a result of a botched break-in? Or was Michelle the premeditated target of someone's homicidal rage?
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Chapter 3: Was Michelle Young's husband a suspect in her murder?
His appointment was set for 10 o'clock that morning. He was about 35 minutes late. The person he met with described him as being hyper and kind of nervous.
Shortly after this meeting is when Jason texted his sister-in-law to go retrieve something from his and Michelle's home.
He drives from Clintwood, Virginia, and instead of going straight back to the home in Raleigh, he drives to his mother's house in Brevard.
But in the frantic moments after Michelle's body was discovered, no one could reach him. Not Michelle's sister, not his mother, and not the police.
He is in the mountains, so I can understand, you know, your cell service is going to be kind of spotty. In the meantime, his mother-in-law has been trying to call him repeatedly. And it's being allowed to go straight through the voicemail and not being answered. He drives all the way to Brevard. And his mom talks about how he gets out of the car.
He's got his jacket slung over his shoulder and he's petting the dog that's come out to greet him. He's walking up to them in the driveway. The mother walks out to him and says, Jason, I've got some bad news. And he's like, what is it? And she says, Michelle's dead. And he immediately falls to the ground.
Now, there is just no way to know how anyone would react to the news that your spouse was dead. But when Jason's mom recounted this story to investigators, it immediately struck them as a little bit odd. in making these types of notifications, I describe it as a two-step process. Both are equally heartbreaking.
First, the fact that a loved one has passed, and then the inability at that very moment, in most cases, to have complete answers for the family, why it happened, and most importantly, who is responsible.
And she goes, I thought he was going to pass out, but he just fell down to the ground, just immediately kind of drops to the ground. The stepfather goes and grabs him a chair, a lawn chair, so he can sit in it out in the driveway while he gathers himself. And he's like, oh, you know, my son, my son, all this kind of stuff. Now, what stood out to me...
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Chapter 4: Did Jason Young have a solid alibi?
Was she in an accident? How did this happen? A million questions.
But it wasn't just his strange reaction to the news of Michelle's murder that was turning heads. Before he had even returned to his home in Raleigh, it seemed Jason was already on the defensive.
They talked to him on the phone as he's headed from Brevard back to Raleigh. Investigators spoke with him on the phone, said that they needed to talk to him just to get, you know, find out information about her. By the time he got back to Raleigh, he had already spoken with a friend of his. It was an attorney who basically said, don't talk to them. Don't say anything to them.
Get yourself an attorney in Raleigh before you talk to them.
So if you listen to enough true crime podcasts, you already know that the people closest to the victim are in the initial circle of suspicion. Now, as you know, Anastasia, it doesn't really make a difference in the legal sense, but in the sense of optics, it's something to talk about.
You know, it's an interesting thing. I think people's first reaction is, well, wait a second, if they ask for a lawyer, they must be hiding something. But, you know, my first reaction in reading this was literally like careful because as law enforcement, as prosecutors, you can't take anything adverse from someone exercising their right to remain silent, right?
And we do know that when people talk, if they're not telling the truth, they trip themselves up all the time. But also, you know, look, It could also just be exercising that right because they want a lawyer there to make sure there isn't something untoward by police, prosecutors, whatever it is. So it's an interesting thought.
But again, I have to err on the side of caution here and just say that that is everyone's right. And while, yes, it's the optics that we just can't read into it, at least not yet.
And Asika, I totally agree. Let me just add this. Let's say as an investigator, you're working a missing persons case, a case you've deemed suspicious from the start. Not being able to talk to the person closest to your missing person is definitely a hindrance to an investigation. But when you have a body already, you're just trying to unravel what happened.
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Chapter 5: What evidence was found that suggested Jason Young's involvement?
He's the main guy we're looking for. We have our suspect right here.
Now, I know this might sound greedy, but as an investigator, I'd still be looking for more. A murder weapon for starters, or bloody clothing in his possession. Even a spot of blood in his car. Anything to help remove even the shadow of doubt that he was responsible for this crime.
There was what appeared to be blood on the outside of the vehicle. It looked like a little spot of blood. They were able to seize the vehicle. completely inventory everything that was in the vehicle, and it later turned out that it was actually not blood. But at least we had the PC to seize the vehicle and completely process it.
Unfortunately, even with that probable cause to search his car, police turned up no weapons, no bloody clothes, no bloodstains, nothing incriminating. Although, it was interesting that they also never found the clothes he was wearing in the videos from his Virginia business trip.
It was obvious that whoever did this with the amount of blood, that blood is going to be on their clothes, feet or shoes or pants. I mean, you know, they're going to be covered in blood as well. They seized the vehicle when he got back to Raleigh. They did a complete inventory of everything in there.
The clothes that he was wearing at the Cracker Barrel and in the video at the Hampton Inn, those clothes were never found.
So at this point, the lead investigator and the prosecutor would be weighing whether or not this was enough to make an arrest, but also to successfully try the case.
And while the prosecutor does not have to prove a motive to prove someone is responsible for a homicide, it definitely would help if you could show a jury why Jason Young would act so viciously and kill his wife.
When he got up on his phones and started doing some of the phone work, it became very clear that he was talking to one of Michelle's best friends a lot more than Michelle was. She had a really, really good friend who lived at the time in Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and he was talking to her and texting her numerous times daily.
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Chapter 6: How did investigators link the shoe print to the crime?
If I can be completely honest, we so often talk about the public having the CSI effect. And I think law enforcement officers and investigators at times are kind of guilty of the same thing. We're thinking that, you know, oh, we're going to get a report back any day that's going to be the slam dunk and he did it and that's it. And, you know, it's not always the case.
Sometimes it's just a lot more involved in that. Even when you have good crime scene evidence, you need more than that a lot of times to go along with it.
That delayed justice? As you can imagine, it was especially hard on Michelle's family.
But they had a very tight wire they had to walk because he had custody of the daughter. I think one time it was even suggested that if they wanted to keep seeing her, that they needed to make a public statement in support of him.
Finally, in 2008, Michelle's mother, Linda, filed a wrongful death suit against the man she was convinced took her daughter's life.
And basically with a civil case, that's not proof beyond a reasonable doubt. The burden of proof is different. It's a preponderance of the evidence. And the sentence is not prison, but monetary relief, often never collected.
But families have definitely told me that they have filed them at least sometimes in part because they want to hear someone say that this person has been proven to have committed the crime.
At the conclusion of that civil suit, a judge agreed that Young was indeed responsible for Michelle's death. And while the verdict could not mandate prison time, it could bar Young from receiving any of the life insurance benefits from his wife's death.
And soon afterwards, the prosecutor's office also charged Young with Michelle's murder.
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