Leann Fletcher: The Shooting, the Affair, and the Appeals

The Leann Fletcher murder was the August 16, 1999 shooting death of a 29-year-old pregnant woman in her Hazel Park, Michigan home by her husband, defense attorney Michael Fletcher, who staged the scene to look like an accidental self-inflicted gunshot. A jury convicted him of second-degree murder in June 2000, and he was sentenced to life in prison. Prosecutors argued he killed his wife to protect an affair with a sitting district court judge after learning Leann was pregnant with their second child.¹

The Shooting and Michael Fletcher’s Story

On the evening of August 16, 1999, Michael Fletcher called 911 from the couple’s suburban Detroit home. “My wife … she just shot herself in the head,” he told dispatchers. He said he had been in the bathroom when he heard a gunshot. Leann was found dead from a single gunshot wound to the head. His .45 caliber Smith & Wesson pistol lay nearby. Fletcher’s account was that Leann had accidentally shot herself while reloading the weapon after a visit to a shooting range.²

She was four days past telling him she was pregnant with their second child.³

Assistant Macomb County Prosecutor Greg Townsend was at the scene within 24 hours. Three days after the shooting, Michael Fletcher was charged with murder.⁴

Why the Forensic Evidence Contradicted an Accident

Physical evidence at the scene was inconsistent with either suicide or accidental discharge. Expert testimony established that Leann was shot from 12 to 18 inches away, a distance at which a woman of her arm length could not have simultaneously held the gun to her own head and reached the trigger. The pistol was in near-new condition and required more than 12 pounds of pressure to fire, making a bump-the-trigger accident implausible.⁵

Blood spatter told the same story. High-velocity backspatter was found on the cuff of Michael Fletcher’s shirt. None was found on Leann’s hands or arms. The medical examiner testified that if she had fired the shot herself, backspatter would have been present on her hands. Investigators also found blood in the bathroom sink and recovered a wet washcloth, suggesting Fletcher had washed his hands before calling 911.⁵

Investigators also concluded the scene had been staged. Blood was found underneath Leann’s body and beneath the gun and the ammunition clip. The gunshot had severed her brain stem, so her blood would not have exited in a pumping motion; that meant the body and weapon must have reached the floor before the blood pooled. The positions in which they were found were inconsistent with that sequence.⁵

The Affair That Gave Prosecutors a Motive

While searching the Fletcher home, police found a brown expandable envelope in Michael Fletcher’s home office. Inside were photographs, love letters, and romantic correspondence between Fletcher and Susan Chrzanowski, a judge on Michigan’s 37th District Court in Warren. A draft divorce complaint was in the same envelope.⁶

The affair had begun in 1998. Chrzanowski had told Fletcher she would not continue the relationship if he remained sexually active with his wife, and Fletcher assured her the marriage was effectively over. Leann’s new pregnancy threatened to expose that lie. Prosecutors argued it gave Fletcher a clear motive to kill her.¹

The relationship had a professional side as well. During the affair, Chrzanowski appointed Fletcher to represent indigent defendants in 56 misdemeanor cases, generating more than $16,000 in fees for him. She presided over those cases without disclosing their personal relationship.⁷

Trial, Verdict, and Sentence

Fletcher was tried in Oakland County Circuit Court. Assistant Prosecutor Greg Townsend led the state’s case; Brian Legghio, a Mt. Clemens attorney, handled the defense.⁸ Fletcher was originally charged with first-degree murder, assault of a pregnant individual with intent to cause a miscarriage or stillbirth, and two counts of felony firearm.⁶

Legghio called the prosecution’s theory “far-fetched” and played Fletcher’s 911 call for the jury, emphasizing that he sounded hysterical. Fletcher did not testify.⁸

The court granted a directed verdict on the assault-of-a-pregnant-individual charge after the medical examiner testified that Leann did not undergo a miscarriage or stillbirth as those terms are medically understood. On June 30, 2000, the jury convicted Fletcher of the lesser included offense of second-degree murder and one count of felony firearm. He was sentenced to life in prison for the murder, to be served consecutively with two years for the firearm conviction.⁶

The Appeals

Fletcher appealed to the Michigan Court of Appeals. His most notable argument involved alleged juror misconduct. After the trial, an ABC 20/20 Downtown broadcast titled “Final Verdict” reported that jurors had used the murder weapon during deliberations to conduct reenactments of the shooting. Fletcher argued this amounted to improper experimentation that introduced extrinsic evidence.⁶

The Court of Appeals affirmed the conviction on February 10, 2004. It ruled the broadcast was inadmissible hearsay and that the jury’s use of the weapon was an exercise of collective recall of trial testimony rather than an outside influence. The court also upheld the seizure of the love letters under the plain view doctrine.⁹

Fletcher’s federal habeas corpus petition was also denied. The reviewing federal court cited the shooting distance, the blood spatter on Fletcher’s shirt, the absence of residue on Leann’s hands, and the evidence of staging.⁵ Fletcher became eligible for parole in 2017.¹⁰

What Happened to Judge Susan Chrzanowski

Police cleared Chrzanowski of any involvement in the killing itself, but her conduct drew separate consequences. Immediately after the shooting, she lied to Hazel Park police about the nature and duration of her affair with Fletcher and denied having spoken to him after Leann’s death. She later admitted the relationship had begun months earlier than she initially claimed and acknowledged she had been with Fletcher sexually on the eve of the murder.¹

The Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission brought misconduct charges against her in April 2000. The Michigan Supreme Court suspended her with pay on July 28, 2000, and in December 2001 ordered a 12-month suspension without pay for failing to disclose the relationship while assigning Fletcher cases and for making false statements to police. She was credited with six months of the roughly 17 months of interim suspension she had already served and required to serve the remaining six months without pay beginning January 1, 2002.⁷

After the unpaid suspension ended on June 30, 2002, Chrzanowski briefly returned to her courtroom but announced she would not run for re-election that November, saying she planned to return to private practice.¹¹

1
Time. The Fletcher Case
2
ABC News. 2020 Story
3
Forensic Files Now. Leann Fletcher
4
Crime Library. The Fletcher Case
5
GovInfo. Fletcher v. McKee
6
FindLaw. People v. Fletcher
7
FindLaw. In re Chrzanowski
8
Chicago Tribune. Lawyer Guilty of Murder in Pregnant Wife’s Death
9
Michigan Courts. People v. Fletcher Opinion
10
The Macomb Daily. Scorned TV Show Features Murder Involving Former Macomb County Judge
11
Law.com. Chrzanowski Returns to Bench