Shelly Michael: Murder, Arson Conviction, and Retrial Bid

Shelly Michael is a former West Virginia pediatric nurse convicted in 2007 of first-degree murder and first-degree arson for killing her husband, James “Jimmy” Michael, with an injected paralytic drug and then setting fire to their Morgantown home to hide the crime. She is serving a life sentence with mercy at the Lakin Correctional Center in Mason County, West Virginia, and becomes eligible for parole on June 2, 2027.¹

Who She Was Before the Crime

Michelle “Shelly” Michael, born Michelle Goots, grew up in Clarksburg, West Virginia, cheered in high school, and earned a spot on the West Virginia University cheerleading squad in 1990. She became a pediatric nurse practitioner at J.W. Ruby Memorial Hospital in Morgantown.²

Jimmy Michael worked at the same hospital as a respiratory therapist before leaving to start his own medical supply company, Mountaineer Home Medical, where he was president and CEO. He coached Pee Wee football and was well known around Morgantown.²

They met at Ruby Memorial while each was married to someone else. Shelly was then married to Rob Angus with two children; Jimmy was married to Stephanie Estel, also with two children. After both couples divorced, Shelly and Jimmy married about eight months after her divorce was finalized, when both were 28. They settled on Killarney Drive in Morgantown.²

How Jimmy Michael Died

On the night of November 28, 2005, Jimmy went to bed at home. Shelly told investigators she left for her hospital shift around 6:00 a.m. the next morning. At about 10:30 a.m. on November 29, a fire was reported at the house. Jimmy was found dead in the master bedroom.²

The medical examiner found no soot in his airways, meaning he was already dead when the fire reached him. Toxicology showed a lethal dose of rocuronium, a neuromuscular blocking agent used in surgery. The drug paralyzes muscles while leaving the patient fully conscious, causing suffocation when no ventilator is provided. Trial experts testified that after the injection Jimmy would have been unable to move but fully aware for an estimated 13 to 16 minutes.²³

Fire investigators concluded the blaze was deliberately set. ATF arson experts demonstrated that a fire set in the closed bedroom could smolder for about two hours before erupting into visible flames, a window that matched the gap between Shelly’s movements that morning and the time the fire was noticed.²

How Investigators Caught Her

The rocuronium finding came from a tip. An anonymous caller told police to test Jimmy’s remains for the drug. Investigators later identified the caller as Rob Angus, Shelly’s ex-husband, who had contacted Lt. Kevin Clark of the Morgantown Police Department after his sister, a former coworker of Shelly’s, suggested the paralytic as a possible cause of death.⁴

Hospital security video showed Shelly’s car leaving the Ruby Memorial grounds between 8:11 a.m. and 8:28 a.m. on the morning of the fire, a 17-minute absence that contradicted her account of never leaving her shift. A neighbor also reported seeing her car pulling out of the Killarney Drive driveway at roughly 8:20 a.m.²

In a nine-hour police interview she denied leaving work and denied having an affair. She later admitted from the stand to lying to investigators more than 100 times over the course of the case.² She was arrested on March 10, 2006, and charged with first-degree murder and first-degree arson.⁵

The Trial and the Verdict

Because of heavy media coverage, Monongalia County Circuit Judge Robert Stone moved the trial to Kanawha County in Charleston, where he presided over the eight-day proceeding in July 2007.⁶²

Then-Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Perri Jo DeChristopher led the state’s case. Prosecutors argued that Shelly stole rocuronium from Ruby Memorial, injected her sleeping husband, drove to work, then returned about two hours later to start the fire before heading back to the hospital.⁷

Motive centered on money and an affair. Jimmy had recently obtained a $500,000 life insurance policy from Northwestern Mutual with Shelly as the beneficiary. DeChristopher told jurors that if Jimmy died in a fire, “Northwestern Mutual Life would write a check to Michelle Michael for half a million dollars.”⁷ The state also established that Shelly was having an affair with Robert “Bobby” Teets, an employee of Jimmy’s company and the husband of Shelly’s best friend. Teets testified the affair began during a business trip in Chicago and that they had sex in the master bedroom three days before the fire. Jimmy’s father, Dennis Michael, testified that the night before the funeral he found Teets kissing Shelly with his arms around her.²

Defense attorney Tom Dyer argued that Jimmy, a respiratory therapist with professional access to rocuronium, may have taken his own life and staged the scene so his family would still collect the insurance. Dyer told jurors that an affair, religious pressure from Shelly’s Catholic faith, and a life insurance policy did not amount to “sufficient motivation to kill.”²³ Shelly testified: “I, in no way, absolutely did not kill my husband. I did not inject him with any drug. I did not set fire to my own home.”⁵

The jury convicted her on both counts. On September 12, 2007, Judge Stone sentenced her to life imprisonment with a recommendation of mercy on the murder charge and the maximum 20 years on the arson charge, with the sentences running consecutively. Her petition to appeal was denied in the fall of 2008.⁵²

The Push for a New Trial

In August 2023, Shelly appeared in Monongalia County Circuit Court with new attorney Tim Rosinsky to request a new trial, arguing that Dyer had provided constitutionally ineffective assistance of counsel at her original trial.⁵ Dyer, who has practiced law for more than 30 years, called the ineffective-counsel argument “the last card in the deck that the defendant has to play.”¹

After the hearing, the defense was given until March 2024 to file its paperwork and the state until August 2024 to respond.⁷ No public reporting has indicated whether the court has ruled on the motion.

When She Becomes Parole-Eligible

Under West Virginia law, a life-with-mercy sentence for first-degree murder makes a defendant eligible for parole after 15 years. Because Shelly’s 20-year arson sentence runs consecutively, she cannot appear before the parole board until 20 years of the combined sentence have been served.⁸ The West Virginia Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation lists her parole eligibility date as June 2, 2027. She remains housed at the Lakin Correctional Center in Mason County.¹ Eligibility is not release; the board will decide whether to grant parole when she appears.

1
WBOY. Shelly Michael’s Original Attorney Addresses Retrial Request
2
CBS News. Death Without Mercy
3
WV MetroNews. Judge Will Decide if Former Nurse Convicted of Killing Husband Will Get New Trial
4
The Dominion Post. Michael Sentenced to Life for Husband’s Murder
5
The Dominion Post. Convicted Murderer Michelle Michael Requests New Trial
6
Newspaper Archive. Morgantown Dominion Post, February 2007
7
WBOY. Shelly Michael Convicted in 2007 of Arson and Husband’s Murder Wants New Trial
8
The DA Online. Michael Sentenced to Life for Husband’s Murder