[narrator] Up next, the way this fire burned
has even experts wondering what happened.
Fire did not behave
in a manner that appeared to be typical.
[narrator] A body is found, but something about it
confounds investigators.
The position of his body, to me, seemed a little unusual
from what I'd experienced in other fatalities.
[Ashdown] It raised questions of
was he already deceased from some reason?
Was there some kind of a medical situation?
[narrator] If it's murder,
how was the victim killed?
And if this is murder,
can detectives prove it?
[theme music playing]
[narrator] Every fall in Morgantown, West Virginia,
home of West Virginia University,
football reigns supreme.
On Monday, November 28, 2005,
the city was still reveling
in a recent victory over the University of Pittsburgh
in the so-called "Backyard Brawl,"
one of the oldest rivalries in college sports.
But celebrations by local firefighters
didn't last long.
That morning, they were called to a fire
in a suburban neighborhood.
We heard on the radio that there was a structure fire
on Killarney Drive
which was in the north, uh, section of the city
in the city of Morgantown.
[narrator] Firefighters were met at the scene
by a man named Bobby Teets.
He identified himself
as a friend of a family that owned the home.
[Tennant] Bobby Teets was at the scene.
I remember him saying, "If his car is in the garage, he's there."
And of course, I had no idea what he was talking about.
At that point, we didn't know
that there was potentially somebody, you know,
a victim in the house.
[narrator] The person he was referring to
was Jimmy Michael, the homeowner.
Jimmy's wife Michelle,
a local nurse practitioner
who worked at a hospital a few miles away,
arrived at the fire shortly after Bobby Teets.
Firefighting efforts were still being made.
She was actually there while it was on fire.
[narrator] The Michaels' children were at school,
but as everyone feared,
once the fire was out,
a body was found inside the house.
[Ashdown] It was a body that was very badly burned,
very little left
of internal organs and that sort of thing.
[narrator] At the scene, it was impossible
to make a definitive identification.
Meanwhile, fire investigators
immediately noticed odd things about this fire.
[Tennant] Walking through the first floor, you know,
a lot of areas, you'd have never known
a fire had occurred in the house.
And that struck me as kinda unusual.
Um, I knew that, you know,
we're gonna be dealing with something kinda strange here.
[narrator] This particular fire,
at least in its final stages, burned very hot,
achieving what arson investigators call "flashover,"
demonstrated in this training video.
Flashover is when
a fire in a room
becomes a room on fire,
when everything that isn't already burning in the room
ignites, essentially, simultaneously.
[narrator] A fire that reaches flashover
generally creates a lot of damage.
But that's not what happened here.
Fire personnel noticed that it was really
one room of the house that was on fire.
[narrator] That room was the master bedroom
where the body was found.
It looked as if the victim
made no effort to escape the fire.
[Glatt] What they were struck with was that
it looked like he'd just gone to sleep
and he hadn't made any effort in a fire
to try and escape or anything.
He was in a sleeping position.
[narrator] Dental records confirmed
the victim was 33-year-old Jimmy Michael,
the father of two
and step-father of two more.
Since the position of his body
indicated he may have died before the fire started,
the possibility of murder loomed large.
In this case, it was enough to say,
"We have a huge red flag."
We had several red flags.
[narrator] Jimmy Michael and his wife Shelly
had each been married before they found each other,
divorced their respective spouses
and joined their families together.
She had two children from a prior marriage.
Um, Jimmy Michael had been married before,
had two children from a prior marriage.
They had a very normal life,
just a normal, everyday, middle-class family here,
here in Morgantown.
[narrator] While Jimmy's body
was sent to be autopsied,
fire investigators set about determining
what started the fire
that may or may not have caused his death.
There were no positive, um,
laboratory results for an accelerant,
a liquid accelerant or anything like that.
There were no electrical artifacts
inside the structure
that showed that the fire was an electrical fire.
[narrator] The fire had burned a hole in the bedroom floor
which opened up to the living room below.
A clothes iron found in the bedroom
was initially turned to
as a possible fire starter.
The iron had to be considered as a potential ignition source
because it was found in a position
that indicated it would've been
in contact with combustible materials.
[narrator] But even though the iron had been turned on,
it was not what started the fire.
[Tennant] The modern iron's a pretty safe device.
The base plate that heats up
will only get to about 400 degrees.
Paper ignites at 451 degrees.
So, you know,
400 degrees, it won't even ignite paper.
[narrator] Since Jimmy obviously made no attempt to escape the fire,
was it possible he'd taken his own life
and wanted to hide his suicide
by torching the house with a clothes iron?
Or was he killed by someone
who then set the fire?
With his body so damaged,
his autopsy provided limited but vital information.
[Ashdown] The very interesting thing about the autopsy
was that Mr. Michael's, uh,
lungs and air passages were free from soot
and any evidence of having inhaled smoke.
And so it was apparent from that to the medical examiner
that the fire had not been the cause of his death.
[narrator] This answered the question of why
Jimmy hadn't tried to escape the fire.
But the question of how he died was still open
and investigators worried
he'd sustained so much damage
it would never be answered.
But just enough remained for a toxicology test.
The deep, deep muscle tissue samples
is what we sent to the lab.
[narrator] As is normal in any potential murder,
investigators first looked at Jimmy's wife Michelle,
known as Shelly.
The 33-year-old was an attractive, successful
and well-respected nurse practitioner.
The couple had been married for five years.
Shelly Michael went to the University of West Virginia
in Morgantown, in fact, to study nursing.
She got on the cheerleading team.
Shelly was Jimmy's perfect woman.
Some of his friends told me that
his dream girl was a cheerleader.
[narrator] By all accounts, it was a happy marriage
and Shelly had an alibi for the time of the fire.
She was seen at work at the local hospital.
So now detectives turned to Bobby Teets who,
in what might or might not have been a coincidence,
was at the fire scene even before firefighters.
He was a longtime friend
of both Shelly and Jimmy Michael.
In fact, Bobby worked for Jimmy's business,
providing respiratory equipment to local hospitals.
[Mezzanotte] They were family friends,
they were kinda best friends.
They did everything together.
They were constantly at each other's houses.
[narrator] But as detectives
continued talking to Bobby Teets,
they found there was a lot more
to his friendship with the Michael family
than originally thought.
[Ashdown] Well, before the fire,
I don't think anyone would've described it
as anything other than a friendship
and a business relationship.
It wasn't until after the fire
and the death of Jimmy
that things began to unravel.
[narrator] As detectives looked to see if Bobby Teets,
Jimmy Michael's longtime friend and employee,
had any reason to harm him,
they got an unexpected phone call
about Teets and Jimmy's wife Shelly.
Soon detectives, acting on this tip,
came upon this image
shot with a security camera at a Chicago hotel.
In it, they saw Shelly Michael and Bobby Teets
checking into the same room.
It became apparent through, uh,
information that was gathered by investigators
that they had something more than a business relationship.
He first denied that he had any kind of a personal
or romantic relationship with Michelle.
[narrator] When confronted with this image,
Bobby Teets could no longer deny the affair.
[narrator] But Bobby Teets adamantly denied
having anything to do with Jimmy Michael's death.
And he had what might or might not be
a plausible explanation for why he got to the fire
even before firefighters.
[Glatt] Jimmy delivered respiratory equipment
and Bobby Teets worked for him
and he became alarmed, you know,
that Jimmy hadn't turned up.
So when he heard about a fire, he went there and said,
"Well, if Jimmy's car is in the garage,
then he's probably in the house."
[narrator] Bobby's affair with Michelle Michael
was a clear motive for him and for her.
Now detectives asked Michelle
the same series of questions they'd asked Bobby Teets.
[narrator] Then Michelle, just like Bobby Teets,
was confronted with the evidence.
[Mezzanotte] She did, uh, admit to the affair
after probably 50 or 60 times on tape saying,
"No, no, no, I never did that.
I've never done this. I've never done that."
[narrator] The question now was establishing
where Michelle Michael was on the morning of the fire.
She said, "It was a typical Monday morning."
[narrator] After getting to work,
Michelle said she never left the hospital,
but security video, once again,
contradicted her story.
There are cameras, really, in every inch
outside that building and inside that building
and in the parking lots.
Officers the began to confirm
her comings and goings, um, on that date.
This showed Michelle leaving the hospital at 8:11 a.m.
and returning at 8:28,
a total of 17 minutes.
And her house was only five minutes from the hospital.
And then her story changed.
It was an ever-changing story
that she represented to law enforcement.
[narrator] And now that it became known
that Michelle was a possible suspect,
detectives got another tip
from a volunteer fireman about the morning of the fire.
This is when you kinda get that good luck, sometimes, as a police officer.
He was going to the volunteer fire station
and he just happened to take a shortcut
that put him directly in front of Shelly Michael's house.
And he said,
"I saw Shelly and her big SUV
back out of the driveway, um,
and then speed off."
[narrator] This sighting took place
during the 17-minute window
in which Shelly had left her job at the hospital.
But this only proved that Shelly was lying
about her whereabouts on the morning Jimmy died.
It didn't look good,
but didn't prove conclusively
that she lit the fire.
To get that proof, arson investigators set their own fires,
a series of what are called "test burns,"
in an attempt to find out what really happened.
[Summerfield] The best way to find out
was to do full-scale testing,
furnish it with comparable furnishings
and comparable carpet,
comparable construction,
and burn it to see what happens.
[narrator] Investigators analyzing the fire
that almost consumed Jimmy Michael's body
had certain facts that were not in dispute.
They knew Jimmy's wife Michelle
lied about where she was on the morning of the fire,
a fact confirmed by a witness
who saw her at her house around 8:30.
This was also confirmed by surveillance video
at the hospital where Michelle worked.
She was gone for 17 minutes.
[Mezzanotte] 17 minutes was more than enough time
to drive to her residence,
go into the residence,
either set or make sure the fire was burning.
[narrator] Fire investigators theorized that the fire started
during the time Shelly left the hospital
between 8:11 and 8:28 a.m.
And they knew when the fire reached flashover
because, by that time, about 10:30,
they were at the scene.
But even veteran arson investigators had to admit
that two hours was an awfully long time
for an arson fire to burn.
This fire started around 8:15, 8:30,
but nobody found it until 10:27 a.m.
Does this make any sense?
[narrator] The thing is, fires do make sense.
They burn in predictable patterns.
With a timeline in hand
and knowing all the materials in the master bedroom
and its measurements,
analysts decided to recreate the fire.
[Grove] So, we did rebuild, uh, the bedroom.
It makes us better witnesses in terms of understanding,
uh, the science of what might have happened.
So we had, uh, a pretty good understanding
of the materials that were in the space.
[narrator] A critical factor in this fire recreation
was replicating the HVAC system,
the heating and cooling system in the Michael house.
The HVAC would affect how much oxygen got in the room.
Also key was the fact that the door to the bedroom
was closed during the fire.
The fact that the door was closed
closed the fire off
from available air in the rest of the house
and provided a severely ventilation-limited condition
for the fire to evolve.
[narrator] Analysts focused mainly on three of their test burns.
In the first,
the HVAC system was not on.
Predictably, this cut the oxygen levels
and the fire burned out fairly quickly.
In the second test burn,
the HVAC system was on full.
This made for plenty of oxygen
and this fire created a hole in the floor
in well under two hours.
In the third test,
the HVAC system was cycling,
meaning it was on automatic
and turned itself off and on.
This is where the Michaels' HVAC was set
on the morning of the fire.
In this test,
because the oxygen levels were fluctuating,
the fire would almost go out
and then come back to life.
It took over two hours
for this fire to burn through the floor,
which is exactly what happened
in the actual fire.
[Grove] The main variable here
was changing the HVAC
or the flow of air into the compartment
which is so important to combustion.
We had cameras
in our structure in the floor joists,
and at two hours and 12 minutes after ignition,
we had, uh, flaming debris
fall onto our burn room below.
[narrator] This proved arson
and Shelly Michael was the only person seen at the house
before the fire started.
Bobby Teets, her lover
and Jimmy Michael's business partner,
had a rock-solid alibi for the very same time period.
He was never charged in this case.
The final question,
how was Jimmy Michael killed,
was answered once the toxicology results came in.
He had a drug called rocuronium in his system.
[Mezzanotte] Rocuronium is what's known as a paralytic
and it basically paralyzes your body.
[Ashdown] Michelle Michael would be able
to get access to the rocuronium.
She was charged with first-degree murder and first-degree arson.
[narrator] The evidence left no doubt,
even though Shelly appeared to be
a typical suburban housewife
and had never committed a crime,
this was cold-blooded, pre-meditated murder.
Her lawyer described her, looking in her eyes
as like looking in Charles Manson's eyes.
That woman's scary.
One of the themes that we used during trial
was love and money.
You know, those are two motives, often,
that we have separately or together in a murder trial,
and in this case, we suggested that it might have been both.
The half-a-million-dollar insurance policy
was definitely a motivation for the crime.
And I think that also, maybe,
it would've been the affair with Bobby Teets,
that might have been motivation.
[narrator] In 2007,
Michelle Michael was found guilty
of first-degree murder and arson
and was sentenced to life in prison.
After her conviction,
she addressed Jimmy's family in court.
[Michelle crying] I did not take Jimmy's life,
I swear to you.
I don't know what happened.
I wish I did.
If you want to believe I did it
and it helps you heal,
and it helps you have closure,
then please blame me
'cause I don't want you in pain any more.
[narrator] Prosecutors told jurors a horrifying story.
They believe Michelle injected her husband with rocuronium
as he laid sleeping,
paralyzing him almost instantly.
Then she made her first mistake.
She thought the iron would start the fire.
It didn't.
She went to work expecting to get a call
that her house was on fire.
When that didn't happen,
she made her next mistake.
She left work, apparently not realizing
there were surveillance cameras.
Minutes later, the volunteer fireman saw her at her house.
Once inside, she made sure the bedroom was on fire.
And then she committed her final mistake,
the one that ultimately preserved
the evidence that landed her in jail.
She closed the bedroom door.
Nurses are actually trained
that, if you have a dead patient in the room,
to close the door
so that you don't upset the other patients.
With the door being closed,
it consumed the available oxygen in the room
and it became ventilation-limited.
Had she not closed that bedroom door on the way out,
the house probably would've burned to the ground
and the body would probably have been too badly damaged
for us to be able to determine
that he would've been injected with rocuronium.
[Ashdown] I guess she thought she was capable
of committing the perfect crime.
She should've left the door open in the bedroom.
That might have helped her.