Michelle Theer: Affair, Murder, Trial, and Appeals

Michelle Theer is a former Fayetteville, North Carolina psychologist who is serving life in prison without parole for orchestrating the December 2000 murder of her husband, U.S. Air Force Captain Frank “Marty” Theer. She was convicted in 2004 of first-degree murder and conspiracy after a jury found she had manipulated her lover, Army Staff Sergeant John Diamond, into shooting her husband outside her office. Diamond, convicted by a military court in 2001, is serving the same sentence at Fort Leavenworth.¹²

The Marriage and the Affair

Michelle Catherine Theer and Marty Theer were high school sweethearts who married in 1991, the year he graduated from the U.S. Air Force Academy.¹ He became a C-130 pilot and spent long stretches overseas. She worked in Fayetteville for a psychologist, Dr. Thomas Harbin, while studying toward her permanent counseling license.²

The marriage frayed. Trial evidence later showed a pattern of extramarital affairs on Michelle’s part, including attendance at “swinger” parties and online classified ads seeking sexual partners. The couple briefly separated in 2000 and reconciled that October.²

Earlier in 2000, Michelle had met John Diamond, a Special Forces soldier at Fort Bragg, through an online chat room. Both were married to other people. Their affair continued on and off after Michelle’s reconciliation with her husband. In November 2000, Diamond sent her emails expressing frustration that the affair might end. Prosecutors would later use those emails to show how she kept him bound to her emotionally.²

The Murder of Marty Theer

On the evening of December 17, 2000, Michelle and Marty attended a holiday dinner in Cary, North Carolina, with Dr. Harbin and his wife. Afterward they drove another couple back to Dr. Harbin’s Fayetteville office, where that couple had parked. Michelle told her husband she needed to run inside to grab a reference book for work the next day.²

Marty waited outside. He was shot five times, including once at close range behind his left ear, and was found at the bottom of the stairs outside the building. He was 31.²³

How the Case Came Together

Investigators quickly focused on Diamond. Records showed Michelle had placed a cell phone call to him shortly before the shooting. Diamond had been at home that night with his estranged wife and mother-in-law; after the call, he put on cold-weather clothing and left.²

He had also borrowed a semiautomatic pistol of the same model used in the killing not long before the crime.¹ When he learned police wanted the gun for ballistics testing, he reported it stolen from his vehicle on base. Investigators did not believe him.²

Military authorities at Fort Bragg charged Diamond in February 2001 with making a false official statement, false swearing, and obstruction of justice, placing him in pretrial confinement. Murder and conspiracy charges followed at a General Court-Martial. By August 2001, he had been convicted of murder and conspiracy, reduced in rank to private, and sentenced to life without parole at Fort Leavenworth.²³ Michelle invoked her Fifth Amendment right and refused to testify during his proceedings.¹

On the Run

After the murder, Michelle left Fayetteville for New Orleans and then southern Florida. On May 21, 2002, a Cumberland County grand jury indicted her for first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder. She had disappeared days before the indictment came down.²³

She rented a Florida cottage under an assumed name, bleached her hair blonde, altered her skin tone, and had plastic surgery on her face. Investigators later recovered roughly 21,000 computer records and documents from her apartment detailing plans to create false identities and “disappear,” along with publications on living as a fugitive and software for forging identity documents.²¹

U.S. Marshals arrested her in August 2002. She still had visible laser burns on her face from the recent surgery.³

The Trial

Michelle Theer’s trial opened on September 27, 2004, in Cumberland County Superior Court and ran nearly three months. She was charged with first-degree murder by aiding and abetting and with conspiracy to commit first-degree murder.²

The prosecution’s theory was that Michelle used her sexual relationship with Diamond to manipulate him into becoming the triggerman. Assistant Attorney General Jack Barnwell told jurors she “manipulated John Diamond to be the triggerman.”⁴ Prosecutors introduced the emails between the pair, testimony about the affair and the state of the marriage, the life insurance payout on Marty as a financial motive, the phone call placed to Diamond just before the shooting, Diamond’s link to the murder weapon, and the trove of documents from the Florida apartment showing her flight plans. The court also admitted evidence of her “alternative lifestyle” and online sexual solicitations as proof of motive, intent, and plan.²

The defense argued the case was entirely circumstantial. There was no eyewitness, no physical evidence placing Michelle at the shooting, and no confession. Appellate lawyer Daniel Pollitt later called the state’s case “very weak circumstantial evidence” and said prosecutors used an “endless” presentation of her sexual history to “assassinate Michelle’s character.”⁴ The defense also argued the evidence could not rule out that Diamond had acted on his own.²

On December 3, 2004, after only a few hours of deliberation, the jury convicted her on both counts. She was sentenced to life in prison without parole.¹²

Appeals and Current Status

Theer’s appeals failed at every level. On January 16, 2007, the North Carolina Court of Appeals affirmed her conviction, rejecting eleven separate arguments and finding “ample and sufficient evidence” for the verdict and a trial “free of prejudicial error.” The court held that the lifestyle evidence was properly admitted as proof of motive, intent, and plan.²

The North Carolina Supreme Court declined review on October 11, 2007. The U.S. Supreme Court denied certiorari on May 19, 2008 (Docket No. 07-8752), and denied rehearing on July 28, 2008.⁵ A separate federal appeal claiming constitutional violations at trial was dismissed on September 15, 2010.⁶

In April 2010, while housed at the North Carolina Correctional Institute for Women in Raleigh, Theer was cited for an escape infraction after officials intercepted maps of the area around the facility that had been mailed to her. Warden Annie Harvey said she had items “that could’ve been used to assist her and aid her in a possible escape,” though she did not physically try to leave.⁷ She received 45 days in disciplinary segregation, and the sender of the maps was permanently barred from contact.⁸

Michelle Theer remains in the North Carolina prison system on her life-without-parole sentence. John Diamond remains at Fort Leavenworth on his.

1
Air Force Office of Special Investigations. The Murder of Capt. Marty Theer
2
FindLaw. State v. Theer
3
ABC News. Murder of Air Force Captain Marty Theer
4
WRAL. Theer Trial Coverage
5
Supreme Court of the United States. Theer v. North Carolina, Docket No. 07-8752
6
WRAL. Court Denies Appeal of Wife Convicted of Killing Air Force Officer
7
ABC11. Michelle Theer Escape Plot Investigation
8
WRAL. Michelle Theer Escape Infraction