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Michael: I'M Not Guilty: Defense Attorney: Other Scenarios Could Be Possible

Posted on: Saturday, 1 April 2006, 12:00 CST

By Brandy Brubaker, The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.

Apr. 1--Michelle Michael insists she's not a killer, her defense attorney said Friday.

Michael's attorney, Tom Dyer, said his client has told him that she is not the one who killed her husband, James Andrew Michael.

"She's very shook up over that (losing her husband)," Dyer said. "It's very difficult for her to cope with and contend with all of these issues."

"She's a grieving widow," Dyer continued. "This will be interesting to see this unfold. We're only at the tip of the iceberg."

Morgantown police charged Michelle Michael with first-degree murder and first-degree arson in the Nov. 29, 2005, death of her husband of 5 1/2 years.

According to police, Michelle Michael gave her husband a lethal dose of a "nondepolarizing neuromuscular-blocking drug" -- a drug that causes temporary paralysis -- and set their Killarney Drive home on fire.

Dyer said Michael is a pleasant, intelligent and personable young lady.

The defense is considering all possible scenarios surrounding the Nov. 29 incident.

"We want to keep an open mind," Dyer said. "There are a variety of theories of this man's demise, and we're not presently ready to concede to homicide at this time."

Police, however, say otherwise.

"We've investigated everything," Morgantown Police Sgt. H.W. Sperringer said. "If we thought this was a suicide, we wouldn't have charged her."

Morgantown Fire Chief David Fetty said the fire got out of control so quickly only with the help of an accelerant, which was poured in the couple's upstairs master bedroom, where James Michael's body was discovered.

Fetty noted that the fire burned in a downward direction.

"If you have a fire that burns down, it clearly shows that an accelerant of some sort was poured," Fetty said.

Typically, a fire burns upward, damaging the ceiling and roof first. This was not the case in the Killarney Drive fire, Fetty said.

Once the fire was reported, firefighters arrived on the scene within four minutes and found the second floor of the house engulfed in flames.

"The fire damage in the room of origin was substantial," Fetty said.

Fetty said his department, along with the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco Firearms and Explosives, the state fire marshal and an insurance investigator all reviewed the fire scene and came to the same conclusion -- the fire was intentionally set with the use of an accel- erant.

Michael recently waived her right to a preliminary hearing and will face a grand jury in May.

Dyer plans to call the country's top forensic experts in fields such as pathology and toxicology if the case goes to trial after the grand jury's ruling.

He said this case is unlike any he's worked in his 25 years as a defense attorney.

"Statistically, there are not many whodunits in the criminal arena," Dyer said.

Already, the case has garnered national attention. The CBS primetime news series "48 Hours" is in town gathering information for a piece, for example, Dyer said.

"The spouse killing the spouse, the way it's alleged to have happened," Dyer said. "There's (rumors of) sex, drugs and money."

The rumors are amazing, he said.

Dyer said he heard a rumor that Michelle Michael was having an affair. The pair did, however, have $500,000 insurance policies on each other, taken out 10 months before James Michael turned up dead, Dyer confirmed.

Dyer said that the state's entire case is based on circumstantial evidence, instead of direct evidence.

Michelle Michael worked as a University Health Associates nurse practitioner assigned to work in the Pediatric Intensive Care Unit at Ruby Memorial Hospital, although she's been on leave since the fire.

Like most hospital employees, she would have had access to the drug, which is used to cause temporary paralysis before tracheal tubes are inserted into the throat, police said.

According to the police report, Michelle Michael was with her husband the night before he died and on the morning of his death. She reportedly went to work in the early morning hours of Nov. 29, then left her place of work, returned to her residence before the fire was discovered, and then returned to work. The couple's four children, two each from previous marriages, weren't at home when the fire broke out.

Sperringer wouldn't comment on if police believe an additional suspect or suspects was involved, any possible motive for the crime, or if James Michael was dead when the fire started.

Michelle Michael is confined to her parents' Clarksburg home on $450,000 bond.

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Copyright (c) 2006, The Dominion Post, Morgantown, W.Va.

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Source: The Dominion Post (Morgantown, W.Va.)

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