Discovery of backyard burial leads to killer’s arrest, then justice

Michael and Laurie Shaver were middle school sweethearts, both from upstate New York. After the couple married, they moved to Clermont, Florida, rearing their two children on their rural property. Michael Shaver worked as a monorail technician at Walt Disney World, while Laurie Shaver worked from home for an insurance company.

In his spare time, Michael Shaver raced airplanes with a local flight team called Precious Metal across the country.

“He was so happy,” Michael Shaver’s sister Stacie Turner recalled in a “20/20” interview. “He was in a whole different zone when he was working on his plane.”

On Nov. 7, 2015, Michael Shaver, 33, attended a local tractor show with his family and co-worker Frank Merritt. Merritt noted palpable tension between the husband and wife. Merritt told “20/20” he thought little of the couple’s demeanor until the following week: Michael Shaver was a no-show at work three days in a row.

Through a text message, Merritt said he learned his co-worker was quitting his job to “save his marriage.”

Concerned, Merritt visited the family home to check on his co-worker, where he said Laurie Shaver revealed her husband left her – and she had no idea where he went.

“He was here one moment, gone the next, type of thing,” Merritt described. “No goodbye...He was just gone.”

That text message turned out to be the first in a series of disconcerting messages friends and family members would apparently receive from Michael Shaver over the course of the next two and a half years. The common theme of the messages was “leave me alone” and “I don’t have family.”

A new “20/20” episode airing January 17 at 9 p.m. ET, and streaming the next day on Hulu, explores the mysterious disappearance and murder of Michael Shaver and the stunning revelations in Laurie Shaver’s murder trial, including exclusive interviews with law enforcement, prosecutors, family members of the victim and those who witnessed the investigation unfold firsthand.

Laurie Shaver said she began dating a married veteran, Jereme Townsend, when she and Michael were separated. The relationship ended abruptly when Vanessa Townsend, Townsend’s wife, received a strange flower delivery accompanied by a note informing her of the affair.

The message read, “Roses are red. Violets are blue. My wife is a whore. Your husband is to [sic]. Sorry about this. Check your Facebook message. We need to talk. Mike.” Investigators would later discover the flowers were paid for through Laurie Shaver’s bank account.

By February 2018, Michael’s longtime friend, Scott Amatuccio, became concerned that no one had physically seen or spoken to Michael Shaver in more than two years. Amatuccio requested law enforcement perform a welfare check.

When investigators arrived at Laurie Shaver’s home and surveyed the backyard, they noticed a depression the size of a human body in a cement slab near the fire pit. They later returned with a search warrant, excavation equipment and cadaver dogs.

Authorities discovered Michael Shaver’s skeletal remains buried in the backyard, wrapped in a sheet. He had a single gunshot wound to the back of his head.

The backyard was the same site where Laurie had married her current husband, Travis Filmer, a little over a year earlier. The couple had even etched their initials on the cement slab near the fire pit. In his first television interview, Filmer told “20/20” he could not come to terms with her arrest and that Laurie never told him there was a body on the property.

“Yes, they're saying that they found a body on the property. Yes, they're saying that Laurie had some major involvement in this. There's always two sides to a story," Filmer said. “There’s no doubt in my mind...she didn’t kill Michael."

On Sept. 12, 2024, Michael and Laurie Shaver’s 15-year-old daughter Isabelle took the witness stand in front of a quiet courtroom in Tavares, Florida. Her mother, who was on trial for murder, watched from the defense table.

“Do you know anything about the death of your father?” Laurie Shaver’s defense attorney, Jeffrey Wiggs, asked Isabelle.

“I do,” she responded clearly.

Isabelle Shaver described a violent confrontation she claimed she witnessed as a 7-year-old between her father and her mother on the back porch of the family’s 5-acre property.

“I heard my mom screaming for help,” Isabelle Shaver testified, "and so I went to my mom’s room and went to her end table...I grabbed her gun...and I shot him.”

During the trial, Wiggs told the jury that after Isabelle Shaver shot her father, Jereme Townsend happened upon the scene, took the gun from Isabelle’s hands and fired a second shot at Michael Shaver. Wiggs went on to claim that Townsend disposed of Michael Shaver’s body.

“[Jereme Townsend] tells me to take the kids, get them out of the house, and he would take care of it,” Laurie Shaver testified in court. “He insinuated that if we said anything...he was not going to take the blame for this.”

During his testimony, Townsend denied shooting Michael Shaver or taking part in the disposal of his remains in any way. He said he was not at the Shaver home during the shooting or its aftermath. He testified that Laurie had told him that she was going through a divorce and that Michael had “left with a friend in a vehicle.”

Prosecutors Nick Camuccio and Rich Buxman argued that Townsend and Isabelle had no involvement in Michael’s murder. Prosecutors alleged that Laurie Shaver acted alone, saying she impersonated Michael Shaver for over two years after she killed him, sending those messages to friends and family, posting on Michael Shaver’s personal Facebook account and sending the flower delivery to Vanessa Townsend.

“We have the defendant's husband buried in her own backyard,” prosecutor Rich Buxman said to “20/20.” “That points directly to Laurie Shaver.”

On Sept. 13, 2024, a jury convicted Laurie Shaver of second-degree murder and she was sentenced to life in prison.

After the trial, Michael Shaver’s family expressed relief at the verdict.

“Michael was such a great, great person,” Turner said. “He loved everybody with all that he had, and I think his spirit will finally be able to be at peace.”