David Moffitt is the Iowa man serving life in prison without the possibility of parole for the May 2014 murder of Justin Michael, a Wells Fargo operations analyst shot four times in his Grimes home while he slept next to his fiancée. Moffitt had briefly dated the fiancée the year before. A Polk County jury convicted him of first-degree murder and first-degree burglary on July 1, 2015, rejecting an insanity defense, and the Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of his postconviction relief petition in May 2025.
Who Justin Michael Was
Justin Clay Michael was 30 years old, worked as an operations analyst at Wells Fargo, and was engaged to Angie Ver Huel, a Waukee schoolteacher. The couple had planned to marry in July 2014.1Legacy.com. Justin Michael Obituary His mother, Marie Michael, told reporters after his death, “It was perfect… And it was taken away. He had such a wonderful life ahead.”2Des Moines Register. Grimes Shooting Victim Justin Michael
The Motive
Moffitt, a Pleasant Hill resident, dated Ver Huel for about three months in the spring of 2013. She ended the relationship that June and began seeing Michael. Two months later, in August 2013, Moffitt took a job at Wells Fargo on the same team as Michael. After Michael announced his engagement to Ver Huel at work in September 2013, Moffitt was sent home and was gone from the company by January 2014.3FindLaw. Moffitt v. State of Iowa
Prosecutors described what followed as “months of boiling anger.” A search of Moffitt’s home turned up notes documenting Michael’s routine and the routines of his neighbors, along with evidence of internet searches on how to commit murder and on local police response times.4Des Moines Register. Boyfriend Murder Trial5Drake University News. Mallory Weiser
Moffitt had a history of depression and was taking Wellbutrin and Trazodone. In January 2014, he told a therapist he was having homicidal thoughts and was briefly prescribed an antipsychotic. He later stopped attending therapy and took his medications only sporadically.6Des Moines Register. David Moffitt Murder Iowa
The Killing and the Attempt to Frame Someone Else
In 2014, Moffitt bought a Hi-Point rifle, a red-dot scope, and ammunition from a seller in Sigourney, Iowa, using the name Andrew Wegener, another of Ver Huel’s former boyfriends. He also made a fake identification card that carried Wegener’s name but Moffitt’s own photograph. Prosecutors called it a deliberate plan to pin the killing on Wegener.4Des Moines Register. Boyfriend Murder Trial
Around 3:00 a.m. on May 8, 2014, Moffitt broke into Michael’s home at 409 SE Jacob Street in Grimes. Dressed in dark clothing, he went into the bedroom where the couple was sleeping. Ver Huel later recalled a figure shining a red laser-type light in the room just before the shooting.7Iowa Courts. State v. Moffitt Court Document Moffitt shot Michael four times in the neck, face, and temple. Ver Huel was not physically injured. Before leaving, Moffitt moved a DVD player in an apparent effort to make the scene look like a burglary.6Des Moines Register. David Moffitt Murder Iowa
How Moffitt Was Identified
Fleeing the scene, Moffitt crashed his red Ford Taurus into a telephone pole near Highway 141 and 102nd Street, about five and a half miles from Michael’s home. An off-duty officer stopped at the crash around 4:00 a.m. and found Moffitt wearing only shorts. A Polk County deputy identified him, cited him for the accident, and put him in a cab home to Pleasant Hill.3FindLaw. Moffitt v. State of Iowa
When investigators returned to the crash site as part of the Grimes shooting investigation, they found a shoebox near the abandoned car. Inside were a map of Grimes, ammunition matching the shell casings from the scene, a laser pointer, an Amazon Kindle, and a receipt made out to Andrew Wegener.4Des Moines Register. Boyfriend Murder Trial Combined with the notes and fake ID recovered from his home, that evidence led to charges. Moffitt was charged with first-degree murder and first-degree burglary in Polk County on May 9, 2014.6Des Moines Register. David Moffitt Murder Iowa
The Trial and the Insanity Defense
Testimony began June 23, 2015, in Polk County District Court. Assistant Polk County Attorneys Steve Foritano and Bret Lucas prosecuted the case. J. Keith Rigg represented Moffitt.5Drake University News. Mallory Weiser
The defense conceded that Moffitt killed Michael and pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity. Under Iowa law, that meant proving Moffitt could not appreciate the nature of his actions or tell right from wrong at the time of the killing.8Des Moines Register. David Moffitt Jury Verdict Rigg called New York psychiatrist Dr. Peter Breggin, who testified on June 29, 2015, that side effects from Moffitt’s antidepressants caused manic episodes and left him “completely out of touch with reality.” Rigg told jurors that careful planning does not rule out legal insanity: “If somebody is delusional, obsessive, psychotic, whatever you want to label it, if they’re in their own world and they’ve left ours, that doesn’t mean that they can’t plan things. It just means that they’re going to plan bizarre things that don’t make much sense.”9Des Moines Register. Moffitt Murder Case Goes to Jury
Prosecutors used the same planning against him. They walked jurors through the months of surveillance, the rifle bought under a false name, the fake ID meant to frame Wegener, the staged burglary, and the searches about committing murder and evading police. Foritano argued Moffitt “clearly understood his actions and their consequences.”8Des Moines Register. David Moffitt Jury Verdict
On July 1, 2015, the jury rejected the insanity defense and found Moffitt guilty of first-degree murder and first-degree burglary.10KCCI. Jury Announced Verdict in David Moffitt Trial
The Sentence
On July 28, 2015, Moffitt was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, the mandatory sentence for first-degree murder in Iowa. Ver Huel read a victim impact statement, a representative read one for Michael’s parents, and Moffitt told the court he was sorry for what he had done.11WHO 13. Moffitt Sentenced to Life in Prison
Appeals Through 2025
The Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed Moffitt’s conviction on direct appeal on January 11, 2017.3FindLaw. Moffitt v. State of Iowa
In May 2018, Moffitt filed for postconviction relief, arguing his trial counsel should have pursued diminished-responsibility and intoxication defenses. A successful diminished-responsibility claim could at most have reduced the conviction to second-degree murder, which carries a 35-year mandatory minimum in Iowa. The Polk County District Court denied the petition, calling the evidence of premeditation “overwhelming” and noting that Moffitt’s own expert conceded as much. The court also pointed out that the first-degree burglary conviction independently triggered Iowa’s felony-murder rule, so a diminished-responsibility defense could not have avoided a first-degree murder conviction anyway.3FindLaw. Moffitt v. State of Iowa
The Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed that denial on May 7, 2025. It held the intoxication claim was not preserved because Moffitt had failed to develop it or obtain a ruling on it at trial. On diminished responsibility, the panel found trial counsel’s decision to skip that defense was a reasonable strategic choice given the strength of the state’s evidence on planning and intent, and it credited a prosecution expert who concluded Moffitt “clearly planned the killing ahead of time and had the ability to form the intent to kill.”12Radio Iowa. Appeals Court Upholds Urbandale Man’s Murder Conviction13Iowa Courts. Moffitt v. State of Iowa, Case No. 21-1490
Moffitt remains in prison serving his life sentence. No further appeals beyond the May 2025 ruling have been reported.