MORGANTOWN, W.Va. — A judge is considering whether a former Morgantown nurse convicted of first-degree murder and arson in the death of her husband will get a new trial.
A hearing was held last month in the case of Michelle Michael. She’s claiming ineffective counsel in the 2007 trial in which she was convicted in death of her husband Jimmy Michael.
Michael has been in prison for 15 years.
A jury found Michelle Michael injected her husband with the muscle relaxer Rocuronium while he lay in bed in 2005, a neuromuscular blocker used in surgical procedures, and attempted to set the Kilarney Drive home on fire before going back to her job at Ruby Memorial Hospital. When hours passed and there was no fire reported, court documents said she returned to the home and started the fire that burned her husband and destroyed the home.
Her attorney in the trial that followed, Tom Dyer, said the case created a wave of national attention and was one of the most difficult he has been a part of.
“The story itself was so captivating and had a level of evil you just don’t hear on a regular basis,” Dyer said during a recent appearance on MetroNews “Talkline.” “It’s still at the top of my list.”
Dyer said the drugs and graphic manner of death presented by the prosecution to the jury is what made this case a national spectacle once it hit the news media.
“All the while, she’s lighting things in the bedroom to get a fire started, and he’s laying there on his bed for 13 to 16 minutes, according to the experts testifying, unable to move but fully conscious and aware of what was going on around him,” Dyer said. “That’s what makes the story so horrific.”
Michael testified she did not set fire to the home and kill her husband, but she did admit to lying to investigators only to conceal the affair she was having at the time. The prosecution pointed out that it was Michael who would have benefited from a life insurance policy worth several hundred thousand dollars.
Dyer said there was a “mountain range” of circumstantial evidence in the case that forced him to be on the defensive. Dyer said the affair, the life insurance policy and Michael’s Catholic faith and the shame of another divorce all came up during testimony.
“Our contention was that none of it amounted to sufficient motivation to kill,” Dyer said. “Motive is certainly not something the state needs to prove, but they did have bits and pieces of evidence to suggest motive.”
The case broke down for Michael when the prosecution began to dig deeper into her access to Rocuronium and the evidence related to the fire. Hospital surveillance had picked up her car as it left the parking lot, and that was confirmed by additional witness statements in the neighborhood.
“They had some surveillance videos from the hospital, and with the passage of time, they got some statements from individuals that were in the neighborhood at the time the fire was detected and claimed to see her pulling out of the driveway.”
Michael is currently in the Lakin Correctional Center eligible for parole on June 2, 2027.