NO ONE EXPECTED such a twist in the case. THE DISTURBING STORY of Michelle Young
No one expected such a twist in the case. The disturbing story of Michelle Young.
A young mother was found dead in her bedroom. From the very beginning of the investigation, detectives faced an almost complete lack of evidence. However, soon the case took a very unexpected turn; as a result, they learned shocking details that changed the course of the case and allowed them to uncover the truth.
Michelle Young was born on February 17, 1977, in the small American town of Sayville, New York. From an early age, the girl was characterized by perseverance and determination. She set ambitious goals for herself and made every effort to achieve them. In school, she excelled academically and was captain of the cheerleading team. She also chose a career path quite early in life; Michelle planned to become a tax lawyer. To obtain the necessary education, Michelle enrolled at NC State University in Raleigh, North Carolina. She also joined the local cheerleading team but later decided to leave it and fully focus on her studies. Four years later, she earned a master’s degree, and almost immediately after that, she got a job at a local accounting company.
Despite the fact that Michelle had just started her career path, her position provided a decent income right from the start. She rented an apartment in a good area and devoted a large part of her time to climbing the career ladder. In February 2001, while celebrating her 24th birthday with friends, Michelle met a man named Jason. He was several years older and had graduated from the same university as her. The couple quickly found common ground, and soon they started dating. Jason worked as a sales agent in a large company that produced power tools. He lived in another city, and at the time of their meeting, he was in Raleigh on business. After meeting Michelle, he started visiting there more often, and at other times, they communicated by phone. Later, he permanently moved to the city, and after some time, he and Michelle started living together. Two years later, Michelle became pregnant, and in August 2003, the couple decided to get married.
On March 29, 2004, their daughter, Cassidy, was born, and the family moved into a large house located in a prestigious area on the outskirts of the city. Around the same time, Michelle’s sister, Meredith, moved to Raleigh and regularly helped the family take care of the child. Two years later, Michelle became pregnant again, and she and her husband decided to visit Jason’s parents to celebrate the news. They lived in a city called Brevard, which was 400 kilometers away from their home. Unfortunately, instead of a celebration, the trip turned into a tragedy. On the very day the couple planned to return to Raleigh, Jason and Michelle were involved in a serious accident that caused her pregnancy to be terminated. The family was devastated by the news, but just two months later, Michelle became pregnant again. After a while, the couple found out that they were having a boy, and they eagerly awaited his birth.
On November 2, 2006, Jason left for another city for work as a sales agent. He regularly traveled around the country for business meetings and negotiations. This time, he was headed to a town called Clintwood, which was about 490 kilometers away. That day, Michelle invited her friend, Shelly, to visit; the women talked until evening, after which the friend went home. The next morning, Jason called his wife’s sister, Meredith, and told her that before leaving for another city, he found some designer women’s bags on an online store with a good discount and wanted to order one for Michelle as a gift for their third anniversary. After his departure, he remembered that he had printed out several pages with these bags and left them on the table in his home office. Jason did not want his wife to see them and learn about the upcoming gift, so he asked her sister to go to their house and take them.
Meredith agreed and came to their house at around 1:00 p.m. At that moment, she did not have the keys with her, and Michelle was supposed to be at work, but the woman knew that the door to their garage was broken and could be easily lifted by hand. She did just that, but immediately noticed something strange: her sister’s car was parked inside. Thinking that she had gone to work, Meredith walked into the house. Upon entering the kitchen, she saw Michelle’s purse lying on the floor. The woman called her sister by name, but there was no answer. Instead, she heard their dog barking, which was also strange; when Jason and Michelle left the house, they always let the dog out into the backyard.
Climbing upstairs, the woman noticed something red on the floor in the bedroom. Approaching closer, she realized with horror that it was a bloodstain, and next to it was her sister, Michelle. She was lying face down. Meredith approached her sister and tried to turn her over, but immediately felt that her sister’s body was cold. The woman panicked and immediately called 911. At the same time, Cassidy, the two-year-old girl who was hiding under the bed next to where the body lay, crawled out and ran to her aunt when she saw her. Meredith called the police and led her outside where they waited for the officers.
When the woman was speaking to the operator, he asked, “Is the child okay?” Meredith examined her and found no visible injuries. The only thing she noticed was small bloodstains all over the room, which she immediately realized were the child’s footprints. The child was immediately handed over to the doctors for examination, and the police began to investigate the crime scene. They immediately noticed something strange: there were bloody footprints of a child all over the room, however, Cassidy’s feet were completely clean. Additionally, there wasn’t a single drop of blood on the girl. The footprints led to the bathroom in only one direction. Bloodstains were found on the inside of the bathroom door, apparently left by the child’s hand.
Based on all of this, the detectives constructed the most obvious version of what had happened: after the murder, the girl was locked in the bathroom for a while, and then someone came in and washed Cassidy clean of blood. Later, when the police talked to Michelle’s friend, they learned another interesting fact. Shelly said that they put the girl to sleep together the night before, and she was wearing a diaper. However, when the victim’s sister came to her house, the child was not wearing a diaper. Based on the investigators’ conclusions, the same person who washed the blood off the child also removed the diaper.
The detectives did not find any signs of a break-in in the house. They discovered that Michelle’s two rings—wedding and engagement—were missing from her hand, but all other valuables were in their place, including cash, ruling out the scenario of robbery. Two small hairs that did not belong to the victim were found on her body and near her, and four DNA samples were found on the jewelry box that did not belong to Michelle or her husband. Several fingerprints were also found in the house that did not belong to anyone in their family. In the bedroom where the victim’s body was found, experts discovered two shoe prints of American size 10 and 12. With the pattern on the soles, they were even able to determine the model of the shoes. Additionally, detectives noticed blood splatters on the door of the closet with clothing; however, the door was open, and the splatters were arranged in a way that suggested the door should have been closed when they landed on it.
On Jason’s home office computer, the police found something interesting in the browsing history. Besides pages from a woman’s handbag store and a search for directions to Clintwood, there were several alarming search queries such as “anatomy of a knockout,” “loss of consciousness from head trauma,” and related topics. Medical experts concluded that Michelle died from a head injury inflicted by a heavy object. The perpetrator struck her over 30 times, and at the time of her death, she was five months pregnant, and her baby did not survive the attack. The exact time of Michelle’s death was not determined, but experts speculated that it most likely occurred at five or six in the morning. The brutality of the crime suggested that the perpetrator may have known the victim and harbored a strong dislike towards her.
As usual, the detectives first looked into Michelle’s husband. They spoke with their friends and relatives, who provided them with a lot of interesting information. Their marriage was quite problematic, as Jason and Michelle often argued over domestic issues. Furthermore, Jason was not happy when his wife became pregnant with their first child; he asked her to terminate the pregnancy, but Michelle refused. When Michelle became pregnant again after the accident they were involved in, Jason was once again not pleased with the news. It seemed like the couple might divorce in the foreseeable future. Meredith also told the police that Jason’s request to retrieve the handbag prints initially seemed strange to her, considering the obvious problems in their marriage, and it had already been over three weeks since their anniversary.
However, one obvious fact contradicted the theories of Jason’s involvement: at the time of the murder, he was in another city that was 490 kilometers away. After Michelle’s sister discovered her body and called the police, she also informed their relatives about what had happened. Michelle’s mother called Jason’s parents while he was on his way from Clintwood to visit them. He decided to stop by his parents’ house before heading home, and upon arrival, they told him about what had happened. Jason was shocked by the news and immediately left for Raleigh with other relatives. During this trip, a friend called Jason and told him that the police were asking a lot of questions about him. Jason made a strange decision and said he didn’t want to talk to the police and wanted to hire a lawyer, which only increased the investigator’s suspicions, but also gave them a new lead.
Shelly, who was visiting the victim the day before the murder, told the police something interesting: Michelle had told her that she had been feeling like someone was constantly watching her lately. Shelly herself also felt like someone was watching them through the window that evening and even asked her friend to walk her to her car because she was a little scared to leave the house alone. Detectives tried to find any evidence related to possible surveillance but continued to investigate Jason’s potential involvement.
Jason left his house in his car on November 2 in the afternoon, and considering it was about a six-hour drive to Clintwood, he decided to stop and stay at the Hampton hotel, which is roughly halfway on the route. Detectives requested surveillance footage from this hotel and actually saw Jason check in at 10:54 p.m., and two minutes later, he used his key card to enter his room, and the card was not used again after that. The next morning around 7:40 a.m., he called his mother and the signal passed through a cell tower located near the town of Whiteville. This town was on the way from the hotel to Clintwood, where his business meeting was supposed to take place. The police also found out that the meeting was scheduled for 10:00 a.m., but Jason arrived 30 minutes late.
When Jason arrived home with his relatives, the police seized his white Ford Explorer. Forensic experts could not find any blood or other evidence in it. They also examined the hotel room where the man stayed, but nothing was found there either. The same applied to all of Jason’s clothing and belongings. Interestingly, a pair of size 12 boots of the same brand were found in his car, the tracks of which were discovered in the house, but it was a model with a completely different pattern on the sole. A DNA sample was taken from the man by court order, which did not match the two hairs found on the victim’s body. His fingerprints were also taken, although this was not particularly useful as they were everywhere in his home. Of course, experts could only determine that none of the fingerprints found contained traces of blood. Thus, the police were unable to find any evidence that could connect Jason to the murder. He did not speak to the police and used the services of a lawyer.
Another fact indirectly spoke in favor of his innocence: when the police searched Jason’s car, they found a hotel receipt and a fresh newspaper. A Hampton employee said he had slipped them under the door of his room somewhere between 3:00 and 5:00 a.m. This meant that the man was definitely in the hotel that morning. In the end, a rather complex situation arose. Jason could have killed his wife only if he had left the hotel unnoticed in the middle of the night, driven 270 kilometers to his home, committed the crime, cleaned his daughter of blood, then driven 270 kilometers back, and quietly entered his room so that the electronic key did not register it.
Detectives tried to figure out if this was possible in principle. They interviewed hotel staff and here they came across an interesting lead. Early in the morning on November 3, one of the employees noticed that the fire door on the first floor was slightly open, held open by a small red stone. The employee was surprised because this door was always closed from 11:00 p.m. to 6:00 a.m. He pulled out the stone from under the door and closed it. After that, the man decided to check the surveillance cameras and saw that one of them was not working—the one located on the stairwell next to the door. The employee approached it and realized that someone had disconnected the wire from the camera. He asked his colleague to return the wire to its place, and around 5:50 a.m., the camera started working again.
From the recordings, the detectives established that the camera was turned off at 11:19 p.m. Then something interesting happened: at 6:35 a.m., less than an hour after the camera was reconnected, it suddenly turned to face the ceiling. Given that there is no automatic mechanism to change its position, there was only one option: someone manually turned the camera so it wouldn’t face the hallway. The hotel management claimed that the camera had never been turned off before, and the only time someone turned it towards the ceiling was a few years ago when a guest wanted to leave the hotel unnoticed. This was a significant argument for the detectives that Jason could have left the hotel and gone home, then returned. The idea with the door and the camera was evident. The hotel’s fire doors are designed in such a way that they can only be opened from inside the room. Jason could have used this door to leave the hotel without going through the main entrance, as he would have been seen by the employees and other cameras.
Investigators interviewed all of Michelle’s neighbors, and interesting clues awaited them here as well. On the night of the murder, around 4:00 a.m., a woman was delivering fresh newspapers to their area near Michelle’s house when she noticed a light-colored SUV but couldn’t remember the model. Another neighbor left for work around 5:20 a.m. and also noticed a white SUV near Jason and Michelle’s house. Passing by, she saw a man behind the wheel but couldn’t make out his face. What was even more interesting was that there was a woman sitting next to him in the passenger seat. The neighbor thought she was trying to hide her face from her. The third witness drove past her house around 6:15 a.m. and also saw a white SUV there, but no one was inside.
Detectives believed that this car belonged to Jason, but it was a complete surprise to them that there was a woman in the car with him. Attempts to identify her were unsuccessful, but during the investigation, detectives found out that the man had been cheating on his wife with her friends since college. The woman lived in Florida, and Jason regularly went to see her under the guise of business trips. Detectives also discovered that the day before Michelle’s murder, the lovers had called each other about 50 times, but the content of their conversations was unknown. Despite all this, the police still had no evidence linking Jason to the murder. He still refused to talk to the police without his lawyer present, but even in the presence of the attorney, he did not answer their questions.
Detectives continued to actively work on the case, and ultimately, the investigation dragged on for many months. They were almost certain that it was Jason who committed the murder, but without substantial evidence, they were not in a hurry to arrest him. This happened only on December 14, 2009, three years after the murder. The investigators realized they would not be able to find any new evidence, so they gathered all the available materials and charged him with murder. The trial began two years later, in June 2011.
The prosecution insisted that Jason had premeditated the murder of his wife because he did not want to lose part of his property in the divorce. According to their version, he had initially decided to stay at that particular hotel because it would allow him to return home to commit the murder and then drive back. Former girlfriends of Jason also testified at the trial. One of them recounted that he had proposed to her and given her a ring, but later, during an argument, he grabbed her hand and took the ring off her finger. Given that the killer had removed the rings from Michelle’s hand, these statements seemed significant to the prosecution. Another woman turned out to be Jason’s second mistress and a friend of Michelle. She revealed that she spent time with the man at his home when Michelle went somewhere. She was also married, and on one of those nights, Jason removed her engagement ring from her finger. He did not return it until the next day, which seemed strange to the woman.
Another mistress, a college friend of Michelle, also testified at the trial. She admitted that they had a romance, but the prints of their correspondence turned out to be much more interesting. Just a few days before the murder, he wrote to her: “I don’t know how it all turned out this way, but I know how it will all end—with two broken hearts. But I don’t care. I have a lot of suffering ahead of me, but you are worth it, even if only for a moment.” Given that Michelle was killed just a few days after this message, its content was very disturbing.
But one of the main witnesses was a woman who worked at a gas station between Raleigh and the town where Jason’s hotel was located. She recounted that around 5:20 a.m., a man in a white SUV pulled up to the farthest pump. He tried to fill his car, but by law, people had to pay for gas first or show their ID at night. The driver went into the gas station and shouted at the employee, then threw twenty dollars at her, filled the car with fifteen dollars’ worth of gas, and drove away without taking the change. The woman claimed to recognize this man from the photo—it was Jason Young. This witness changed the course of the case, as thanks to her, it became known that Jason was between his home and the hotel early in the morning. This once again pointed to the fact that he could have killed his wife.
At the trial, Michelle’s sister, Meredith, also testified. After Michelle’s murder, her daughter, Cassidy, stayed with her father, who moved in with his parents for a long time. Michelle’s relatives tried to obtain a court decision allowing them to take the girl to live with them temporarily. This went on for several years, and the lawyers were close to obtaining a positive decision when Jason simply relinquished full custody to Meredith, practically abandoning her. As a result, the girl moved in with her mother’s relatives, who have been raising her without her father’s involvement since then.
Jason spoke for the first time at the trial, telling his version of events and denying that he killed his wife. He admitted that their marriage was falling apart but insisted that they would have eventually divorced, and he had no motive to kill her. His lawyers argued that there was no evidence against Jason and also tried to convince everyone that he could not physically have driven such a distance to kill his wife and return to the hotel early in the morning. They tried to calculate the average fuel consumption of his car and compare it with data on how often he refueled. According to the lawyers, he would not have had enough fuel to make the trip. However, verifying this version was not possible. Nonetheless, the jurors could not reach a unanimous decision, and the judge was forced to declare a mistrial and schedule a new one for a year later.
Against this backdrop, something else important happened. Michelle’s relatives were convinced that Jason killed her, so they decided to file a civil lawsuit against him. Unlike in criminal trials, the required level of evidence for such lawsuits is lower, and the judge cannot sentence a person to prison. Jason completely ignored this lawsuit and decided not to participate in the process, which worked against him. After examining all the available evidence, the judge concluded that he was the one who killed his wife, and Jason was ordered to pay 15 million dollars to Michelle’s relatives.
In the retrial, which began in 2012, the prosecution was allowed to use the decision in the civil lawsuit as an argument in favor of the suspect’s guilt. In addition, they discovered something else during the preparation: it turned out that a year before Michelle’s murder, Jason had bought boots with the same pattern, the bloody imprint of which was left in Michelle’s room, but they had not been able to find those shoes. These additional factors only strengthened the case against Jason, and this time, the jury found him guilty of murder. The man was sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. His lawyers tried to challenge the decision, and they continue to file appeals to this day, but all of them are rejected.
This case was widely covered in the media, and its finale sparked heated discussions. On the one hand, over all these years, no physical evidence has been found that would connect Jason to the murder. On the other hand, a huge range of circumstantial evidence indicated that the man had orchestrated almost a perfect cover-up. If he had not stopped at the gas station that morning and had not caused a scene with the cashier, she might not have remembered his face. In that case, this case would still remain unsolved.
As for the woman who was seen by a neighbor in the passenger seat of his car that night, everything is very ambiguous. There are no other clues that would indicate the involvement of other people in this crime. Other people’s hair and DNA in the house did not guarantee this; it could have been left by one of the guests long before the murder. Nevertheless, the prosecution did not rule out 100% that someone could have helped Jason, but this moment remains a mystery. Share your opinion on the story in the comments, and don’t forget to like the video if you enjoyed it. Thanks for watching.
