In his opening statements, however, Laurie Shaver's attorney said that the daughter may have missed when she tried to shoot her father and that it was Shaver's then-boyfriend, Jeremy Townsend, who allegedly killed Michael.
The Laurie Shaver trial is underway in Florida and kicked off with a new twist.
The Florida woman is charged with murdering her husband and then burying his body under a concrete firepit in the backyard of their home. She has entered a plea of not guilty.
In the months leading up to the trial, Shaver's defense team submitted multiple motions claiming that it was Shaver's then-7-year-old daughter who shot her father.
The daughter, who is now a teenager, admitted to shooting her father while being deposed in the case, according to a copy of a recent prosecution motion. According to that same motion, she also claimed that she shot her father to stop him from battering her mother.
In his opening statements, however, Shaver's attorney Jeffrey Wiggs said that the daughter may have missed when she tried to shoot her father and that it was Shaver's boyfriend at the time, Jeremy Townsend, who allegedly killed Michael.
Townsend has denied this allegation and police have not charged him with any crime in connection with the murder of Michael Shaver.
Prosecutors briefly mentioned this allegation in a motion that was filed just before the start of the trial:
During deposition, [redacted] indicated that the victim was battering [Shaver] and [redacted] retrieved a firearm and shot Michael Shaver to protect her mother. She indicated that “Jay,” presumed to be Jeremy Townsend, then arrived at the residence and also shot Michael Shaver. [Redacted] testified that Jay told her and her mother to leave the residence and implied that Jay disposed of Michael Shavers’s body after she and [Shaver] left the residence. Jeremy Townsend has denied these allegations during his sworn deposition.
In his opening statement, Wiggs shared the version of events that Shaver's daughter will allegedly be testifying to, saying:
She's at the residence with her mom and in walks Michael carrying on. He starts to battle his wife and [redacted] hers "I'll kill you," she hears a lot of commotion, she hears some banging, "leave me alone, leave me alone." Well, she walks in the room she'll testify that "poor old" Michael Shaver was sitting in a chair with his foot on Laurie Shaver's head and she's gasping. That Michael is sitting there threatening to kill her. So this young girl in desperation and in fear runs and retrieves a firearm and she believes she shot Michael. She thinks she did. She thought she had. She believed she had but almost simultaneously in walks Jay. He sees what's going on, Laurie is still on the ground she hasn't even gotten up to her feet. And Jay walks in, takes a gun out, and shoots Michael Shaver. Says, "Laurie, get these kids out of here, I'll take care of this. Anybody says a thing about this, I'll kill you too." Laurie said "we were like deer in headlights," got into the car and took the kids to school. [Redacted] said this was so routine, this violence in this household, "I was just numb, we didn't speak." And mom, who the state would have you believe is so infatuated with Jay, broke it off right there. "We don't want to see you." Now, Laurie assumes Jay has done something with the body beyond her knowledge, its whereabouts or anything.
Prosecutors presented their opening arguments first and said that Laurie shot her husband and then buried his body in the backyard after a tumultuous relationship that began when the two first met as teenagers in upstate New York. The prosecution also pointed out that the autopsy of Michael Shaver determined he had been shot once in the head, and that the medical examiner found no evidence to suggest a second bullet had entered his body.
Additional evidence also allegedly shows that even if Shaver did break things off with Townsend at that time, she might have still been in contact with his wife according to the prosecution.
Prosecutors say that in his deposition, Townsend accused Shaver of texting his wife while also claiming that he broke things off when Shaver allegedly showed him that she had gotten his nickname tattooed on her vagina.
The affidavit alleges that when Shaver got no response from Townsend's wife, she allegedly sent flowers to her office, along with a card that read: "Roses are red violets are blue my wife is a whore your husband is to. (sorry about this) Check your Facebook message, we need to talk, Mike!"
Once contacted by the woman, who believed she was communicating with Michael, according to the affidavit, Laurie allegedly responded by sending screengrabs from her conversations with the woman's husband while claiming to be Michael. She allegedly told the woman that she obtained the conversations by installing a spyware app on Laurie's phone, according to the affidavit.
Prosecutors allege all this was done to get the woman to divorce her husband, thus allowing him to be with Laurie. Townsend and his wife are still together at this time.
The defense also learned just before trial that at least one witness who claims they can confirm Shaver's daughter's version of events will not be allowed to testify to that fact after prosecutors successfully motioned the court to not allow that line of questioning during the trial.
The witness in question, Adam Narvaez, is a former member of law enforcement who now owns a number of building companies. Among his employees at those companies are Laurie Shaver and her current husband, Travis Filmer.
Inside Edition Digital obtained a copy of Narvaez's deposition, in which he said that Shaver's daughter approached him at a gathering and said that she shot her father in the head back in 2015 to protect her mother.
Shaver's daughter also told Narvaez that Michael allegedly abused his wife, a claim that Shaver also made in a separate conversation with her boss, according to Narvaez's deposition.
Narvaez will also be banned from speaking about those abuse allegations as per the judge's order.
Prosecutors were previously successful in blocking Laurie from presenting additional evidence of her husband's alleged abuse during the trial.
The judge ruled that the defense team could not share details from a previous incident involving Laurie and Michael after prosecutors argued that the details in the police report from that incident were "inadmissible hearsay."
The defense had argued in their motion that the details of this incident are a crucial part of their case, and the judge did then allow Laurie's lawyers to introduce a petition for a restraining order Laurie had filed in the past at trial. If introduced though, it must also include the petition Laurie filed a short time later to terminate that order.
Michael Shaver Murder
Michael Shaver disappeared on Nov. 15, 2015, according to a probable cause affidavit.
The affidavit says that three days later, the monorail technician at Disney World messaged his employer and suddenly quit his job. At the same time, his wife, Laurie, told friends and family that Michael had abandoned her and their children to start a new life with a new woman.
Two years later, a friend of Michael alerted police to the situation, according to the affidavit, saying that no one had seen or heard from Michael since the day he went missing. That same friend also said that he believed Laurie may be impersonating her husband on Facebook and had built a giant concrete fire pit in the backyard shortly after Michael went missing.
On Feb.16, 2018, deputies with the Lake County Sheriff's Office say they arrived at the home of Michael and Laurie Shaver to perform a welfare check. Laurie welcomed the men in and cooperated with the search efforts according to the affidavit, until they inquired about taking a look around that recently constructed firepit with a cadaver dog.
Laurie instructed the deputies to leave her home, says the affidavit, and they stopped their search. Those deputies then returned on March 9 and found the body of Michael buried three feet below the fire pit.
The affidavit says he died as the result of a single bullet to the back of the head, fired from a .38 caliber gun.
The couple owned multiple firearms, according to the affidavit, and Laurie kept a pink .38 caliber handgun on her nightstand.
Laurie never once called her husband after Nov.15, according to the affidavit, and never sought child support payments. She also never filed for divorce and began selling off Michael's guns and tools.
The affidavit also notes that Laurie married again less than a year after her husband's death, and had once allegedly told her new husband of Michael: "It's not that he's missing, it's that he's no longer walking this Earth."
She also told her new husband about a body buried on the property, suggesting to him that something bad happened, according to the affidavit.
Laurie did keep up the illusion of Michael being alive. according to the affidavit, sending sporadic messages on social media and allegedly telling stories about encounters between the two to her friends.
Laurie Shaver Arrest
On Sept. 17, 2020, deputies arrested Laurie Shaver and charged her with second-degree murder, domestic violence and accessory after the fact.
She entered a plea of not guilty to all three charges, posted $50,000 bail and returned home to her two children with Michael, according to court records.
Laurie's attorney informed the judge early last year of "having received testimony from a minor child, who confessed to having committed the respective murder in this matter," according to a motion filed by the defense.
That minor child met with her own court-appointed attorney last year and "represented her desire to testify in this case," the defense said in a previous motion.
That motion said that the minor child had been "apprised of the rights she would be waving, and the possibility [sic] penalties she would be facing," according to the motion.
The defense sought to have the child evaluated by a professional to argue against any claims of witness tampering or fabrication during the trial, but both the initial motion and a motion for reconsideration were rejected by the court.
Prosecutors meanwhile continue to focus on Laurie as the person responsible for the death of her one-time high school sweetheart Michael.
Laurie allegedly had a tempestuous relationship with her husband, according to the affidavit, and court records show that in September 2014, a fight between the couple resulted in Michael being charged with battery. Those records also show that Michael agreed to a plea deal that allowed him to enter a 12-month pre-trial intervention program, which he successfully completed in just six months.
Both Michael and Laurie provided conflicting stories about the incident, with each accusing the other of brandishing a gun that they had to wrestle away during the skirmish.
That is the same incident that Laurie will be limited in discussing or presenting at trial after the judge sided with prosecutors in their aforementioned motion.
Michael went to live in an airplane hangar at work after this incident and even began dating a co-worker, according to the affidavit. That relationship soured after Laurie began reporting the couple's actions to the human resources department at Disney World, according to the affidavit.
In May 2015, Michael and the co-worker split and he returned home to Laurie and their two children, according to the affidavit. Six months later, he was shot dead.
Now a jury will decide who is responsible.
