Attorneys for a Florida woman accused of shooting her husband to death and then impersonating him for years online, claiming to have abandoned his family, have filed a motion claiming that her then-8-year-old daughter killed her father while trying to protect her mother.
Laurie Shaver’s attorneys filed a motion in May saying that a minor child had “confessed to having committed the respective murder in this matter,” Inside Edition reported.
The child, now 14, met with a court-appointed attorney and “represented her desire to testify in this case,” the defense said. The child expressed that desire even after being “apprised of the rights she would be waving, and the possibility [sic] penalties she would be facing,” the motion said.
Prosecutors in Lake County confirmed the minor child in question is the defendant’s daughter.
“In numerous court hearings defense counsel has stated that the defendant’s daughter, who would have been approximately eight years old at the time of the crime, was in fact the person who shot and killed the victim and that she did so in defense of her mother,” a motion submitted by prosecutors says.
Michael Shaver was found dead and buried beneath a firepit in the Shavers’s backyard three years after Laurie Shaver she said her husband abandoned the family to live with another woman in 2015, as CrimeOnline previously reported.
A co-worker was reportedly the last person besides Laurie Shaver to see Michael alive, at a tractor show on November 7, 2015. Two days later, that same co-worker received a text from Michael’s phone, saying that he was quitting his job as a monorail technician at Disney World in order to save his troubled marriage.
Laurie Shaver allegedly impersonated her husband in digital communications in the years following his disappearance, in one instance sending a message to Michael’s sister demanding she and others leave him alone. Michael’s wife also made withdrawals from her husband’s bank account and took out a loan in his name, which was never paid back.
In February 2018, police, urged on by a friend, conducted a wellness check at the Shaver home, which ended abruptly when they asked to bring a cadaver dog to the firepit in the back. Laurie Shaver denied the request and ordered them off the property. When they later returned with a search warrant, they found Michael Shaver’s body beneath the firepit, dead from a gunshot wound to the back of the head.
Laurie Shaver was charged with second degree murder two years later.
According to InsideEdition, Laurie Shaver married again shortly after her husband disappeared and reportedly told her new husband, “It’s not that he’s missing, it’s that he’s no longer walking this Earth.”
She reportedly sent multiple messages to various people, pretending to be Michael, and even told friends about encounters that she had with him. In once instance, she sent texts to the wife of a man she dated for a time, pretending to be Michael and sharing texts between the man and Laurie. As Michael, she told the wife the texts came from spyware installed on Laurie’s phone.
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[Featured image: Laurie Shaver and Michael Shaver/Lake County Sheriff’s Office]
