Michelle Boat Trial: Verdict, Appeal, and Where She Is Now

The Michelle Boat trial ended on May 11, 2021, when a Marion County, Iowa jury deliberated for roughly 45 minutes and found her guilty of first-degree murder for fatally stabbing Tracy Mondabough, the girlfriend of Boat’s estranged husband. She was sentenced on July 1, 2021, to life in prison without the possibility of parole, and the Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed both the conviction and sentence in February 2024.¹²

What Led to the Killing

Michelle and Nick Boat had been married for 20 years when Nick left her around March 2020, during the early weeks of the COVID-19 pandemic. He had connected with Tracy Mondabough after she accidentally sent him a Facebook friend request that February, and the two went on their first date on March 8. He moved in with Mondabough about two months later.³⁴

Boat had no criminal history beyond traffic tickets before that spring. On March 22, 2020, she was charged with domestic abuse after admitting she had struck and bruised Nick. A no-contact order followed on March 28, barring her from contact with Nick and Mondabough. By mid-April she had been charged with harassment for threatening a family member and was accused of violating the no-contact order four times.⁵

On the evening of May 18, 2020, surveillance video captured Boat’s gray Cadillac following Mondabough’s pickup truck around Pella for nearly an hour. Pella officers responding to a report of a possible domestic dispute behind an apartment complex at 101 Glenwood Street found Mondabough slumped in her truck, still belted into the driver’s seat, fatally stabbed in the chest. Witnesses reported hearing a woman yell, “He don’t belong to you, he’s mine,” before the attacker fled in a gray Cadillac.⁶⁷⁸

When officers reached Boat’s home shortly afterward, she was wearing a robe, her hair was wrapped in a towel, and her washing machine was running. Investigators found rubber gloves with what appeared to be blood inside a toilet tank, and blood on the exterior of her Cadillac. A finger-portion of a disposable glove recovered at the scene matched the glove in the toilet tank, and Mondabough’s DNA was in the tank’s water. Mondabough’s blood and hair were on Boat’s car, and strands of Boat’s hair were found on the truck’s steering wheel and in the victim’s hand.⁸⁶¹

Boat was arrested that day and initially charged with violating the no-contact order. The next day, prosecutors upgraded the charge to first-degree murder, a Class A felony, and held her on a $2 million bond.⁷

The Prosecution’s Case

The trial opened in Marion County on May 6, 2021, with Marion County Attorney Ed Bull and Assistant Prosecutor Jared Harmon representing the state. Prosecutors argued Boat acted with deliberate premeditation driven by jealousy. Harmon called it a case of “planning, plotting, and premeditation” fueled by “anger, malice, and jealousy.”⁹

The state pointed to a calendar Boat had kept tracking the days since her separation from Nick, with the final entry marked May 18. Investigators also testified that her car contained blue rubber gloves, an orange hammer, a gardening spade, a pry bar, and binoculars. After the verdict, Bull called the evidence “overwhelming” and described the case as a “textbook example of murder in the first degree,” adding, “Michelle Boat did exactly what she intended to do.”⁴¹⁰

Boat’s Testimony and the Defense

Boat took the stand on May 10 and admitted killing Mondabough but denied planning it. She testified she followed Mondabough only to find out where Nick was staying, intending to tell Mondabough to leave him. She said she kept a knife on the passenger seat because she felt unprotected after Nick left, and that she put on disposable gloves before approaching the truck. According to her account, Mondabough began hitting and screaming at her when she opened the door, her glasses fell off during the struggle, and she grabbed the knife and stabbed reflexively. “She was hitting me and hitting me and hitting me, and I had my hands up… I just stabbed,” she told the jury.⁶

Defense attorney Trevor Anderson asked the jury to convict on the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter, arguing Boat had “snapped” as a 20-year marriage suddenly ended during the pandemic, which had also left her jobless and with just $6 to her name. “I don’t want you to sympathize with Mrs. Boat. I don’t want you to give her mercy. She doesn’t deserve it,” he told the jury. “She killed someone seat-belted in her truck, with no weapon — killed her and left her for dead, drove off. That is not asking for sympathy when I ask you to consider why.”¹¹

On cross-examination, Boat acknowledged that after the stabbing she drove home, put her bloody clothes in the washing machine, showered, hid the gloves in the toilet tank, and lied to police by telling them she had not seen Mondabough in months.⁶

Verdict and Sentence

The jury rejected the manslaughter theory and returned a first-degree murder verdict after about 45 minutes.¹¹²¹³

The Appeal

Boat challenged her conviction and sentence in the Iowa Court of Appeals. On February 7, 2024, in Case No. 21-0934, the court affirmed both in full.² She raised three issues:

Juror impartiality. Boat argued the trial court should have struck a potential juror who had testified in her own ex-husband’s murder trial and admitted hearing news coverage of Boat’s case. The appeals court found no abuse of discretion, noting the juror’s responses did not indicate a fixed opinion and the trial judge had observed her demeanor firsthand.
Prosecutorial error. Boat contended the state’s closing argument improperly steered the jury toward punishment by dismissing the defense’s plea and referencing the “ladder” of lesser-included offenses. The court disagreed, ruling the remarks were fair commentary on the jury instructions and the defense’s arguments.
Restitution calculation. Boat argued the trial court improperly considered assets exempt from execution when determining her ability to pay $6,673.75 in category “B” restitution. The appeals court held that while Iowa law requires disclosure only of non-exempt assets, it does not prohibit a court from considering additional assets listed in a defendant’s financial affidavit.⁶

That $6,673.75 in category “B” restitution was separate from the $150,000 ordered to the victim’s estate. The trial court based Boat’s ability to pay the smaller amount on her self-reported assets of $296,250 minus $153,000 in debts, arriving at a net worth of roughly $143,250.¹⁴

Where Michelle Boat Is Now

Boat, Iowa Department of Corrections offender number 6267652, is serving her life sentence at the Iowa Correctional Institution for Women. Her commitment date was July 8, 2021, and her discharge date is listed as “Life.”¹⁵

1
Des Moines Register. Michelle Boat Guilty of Murder
2
Iowa Courts. State of Iowa vs. Michelle Lee Boat, No. 21-0934
3
Des Moines Register. Michelle Boat Trial: Defense Attorneys Argue Manslaughter in Tracy Mondabough Murder
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WHO13. Estranged Husband, Investigators Testify During Murder Trial of Michelle Boat
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Des Moines Register. Pella Crime: Michelle Boat Charged in Death of Husband’s Girlfriend Tracy Mondabough
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Findlaw. State of Iowa v. Michelle Lee Boat, No. 21-0934
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Iowa Department of Public Safety. Update: Victim Identified and Suspect Charged in Pella Homicide
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Court TV. Iowa Woman Guilty of Fatally Stabbing Estranged Husband’s Girlfriend
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Court TV. IA v. Boat Trial Coverage
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KCCI. Michelle Boat Guilty of First Degree Murder in Tracy Mondabough Death
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WHO13. Michelle Boat Found Guilty of First Degree Murder
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KYOU TV. Michelle Boat Sentenced to Life in Prison Without Parole
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Yahoo News. Boat Gets Life Sentence for Murder
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KTVO. Appeal Denied for Iowa Inmate Convicted of Fatally Stabbing Ottumwa Woman
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Iowa Department of Corrections. Offender Detail: Michelle Lee Boat