Michelle Young Murder
North Carolina
Michelle Young, 29, was found in a pool of blood by her sister, Meredith Fisher, on November 3, 2006. According to authorities it was blunt force trauma that killed her. She was five months pregnant at the time. She was hit at least 10 times and showed signs of strangulation, along with a fractured skull.
Meredith said that Michelle's husband, Jason Young, who was said to be out of town at the time, had asked her to go to the house and pick up a fax for him. When she arrived at the scene, "the dog was freaking out" and "the place does not look like what it normally looks like," she said in the 911 call.
She also told the dispatcher she found Young's 2-year-old daughter, who authorities said was unharmed, at her mother's side.
"There's like blood footprints all over the house, like her daughter's little footprints," Fisher says in the five-minute recording, in which she tries to quiet the child and keep her in a room while she talks to authorities.
Investigators said there was no sign of forced entry at the house, at 5108 Birchleaf Drive, and authorities said the slaying did not appear to be a random act of violence.
Jason Young lawyered up and became very uncooperative with law-enforcement only giving his fingerprints under a court order.
Search warrants indicated that in the three months prior to her death, he was in almost daily contact by phone and e-mail with a woman named Michelle Money. Money was in Michelle Young's sorority at North Carolina State University and reportedly was a close friend of the couple's. Money has been cooperative.
Jason, quickly, made himself scarce and unavailable for comments and questions.
Authorities said that the Youngs were in financial trouble, just before the slaying. There was also a large insurance policy that could have paid out between $1 million and $2 million.
One affidavit pointed out that Michelle was upset with a trip that her husband, Jason, had taken in the summer of 2006. According to one witness, Michelle Young was also "stressing about money and things Jason would go out and do."
Revealed in documents released in August of 2008, Jason Young had been linked to the murder of Michelle, after blood spatter that was found on a bedroom wall, near Michelle's body, matched his DNA.
The night before Michelle Young's body was found, Jason Young checked into a Hampton Inn in Hillsville, Va., about 170 miles from Raleigh, according to the search warrant. A hotel security camera captured an image of Young wearing a light, long-sleeved pullover at the front desk as he registered between 10:49 p.m. and 10:51 p.m.
A security camera captured a second image of Young at 11:59 p.m., wearing a dark pullover, heading to a hotel exit.
Hotel employees later discovered that the exit door had a rock in the door jamb that kept the door from locking automatically and allowed people to enter without using a key card, according to the warrant. Young's key card was not used to re-enter the hotel. The security camera did not show him returning to his hotel room.
The warrant says that investigators suspect a light-colored SUV seen at the Young residence between 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. by a newspaper carrier was Jason Young's white Ford Explorer. The newspaper carrier told investigators the house stood out because all the lights were on, as if someone was having a party. The SUV was "parked in such a manner that it appeared to have been unloading or loading something," the investigator stated in the warrant.
In the affidavit, the investigator also noted that Young was not wearing the dark pullover when he arrived at his mother's home in Brevard in late afternoon on the day of the killing. Instead, he was wearing a white shirt and tie.
His mother told investigators that her son had not washed, changed or discarded any clothing while at her home. The dark pullover Young was wearing when he left the hotel was never found, investigators said.
Authorities found a number of Internet searches, including "head trauma knockout" and "anatomy of a knockout," were made on one of Jason Young's computers prior to Michelle's death.
Among other searches that investigators told the judge they had found earlier on a computer of Jason Young's were real estate and owner-listing information for the couple's home at the time, 5108 Birchleaf Drive; "ischemia" (a decrease in the blood supply caused by constriction or obstruction to blood vessels); "divorce" and "right posterior parietal occipital region" (back of the head).
Investigators discovered Michelle's bedroom pillow carried two footwear impressions in what appeared to be blood.
Further analysis of the footprints showed the number “10” in the shoe’s imprint. The FBI footwear database matched the shoe impression to two Hush Puppies brand shoes that had been discontinued. After further investigation it was found that a pair of Hush Puppies Orbital plain-toe, slip on, men’s casual leather shoes, size 12, were purchased along with three other pairs of shoes on July 4, 2005, by Jason and Michelle Young.
In an affidavit for the July 25, 2007, warrant, detectives said they had found a bottle of Extra Strength Tylenol/Adult Rapid Blast Liquid and a medicine dropper that contained liquid residue on Cassidy Young’s dresser. DNA on a medicine dropper containing the liquid residue matched Cassidy's.
They believed it was used to medicate the child with the belief that it would have made her drowsy.
In November of 2008, a wrongful death lawsuit was filed against Jason Young. Linda Fisher, Michelle Young's mother, claimed that Jason Young was liable for her daughter's death and asked that he be barred from collecting any insurance benefits on her life.
It also asked for compensation for the "horror, pain and suffering … caused by the defendant's fatal assault," reasonable funeral expenses and the monetary value to Cassidy of the loss of her mother.
In December of 2008, A judge ruled that Jason Young "willfully and unlawfully killed" his wife, Michelle Young "in the early morning hours of" Nov. 3, 2006.
The ruling comes as part of the civil wrongful death suit, filed by Michelle's mother, to which Jason failed to respond. That allowed Fisher to have control over her daughter's estate.
The court order acknowledged Fisher's claim that "Jason Young brutally murdered Michelle Young at their residence."
On March 16, 2009, a Superior Court judge, Judge Osmond Smith, awarded the family of a slain Wake County woman $15.5 million in damages in a wrongful death suit against the woman's husband.
The award, which includes $11.7 million in punitive damages, was less than half of the $36 million Michelle Young's family had sought from Jason Young.
According to WRAL.com, the civil ruling precluded Jason Young from collecting benefits from his wife's insurance policy and set the stage for Fisher to seek compensation that would go to Michelle and Jason Young's daughter, Cassidy.
Neither Jason Young or his lawyers attended the hearing.
In February of 2009 Jason Young and Fisher reached a settlement in a custody case involving Cassidy. Under that agreement, he will share custody of the child with Michelle Young's sister, Meredith Fisher. Meredith will be the primary care giver.
Now the question is... with all of the evidence gathered, why hasn't Jason Young been arrested yet?
Research Resources...
http://www.wral.com/news/local/page/4090063/ (excellent coverage on this case)
http://www.wral.com/news/local/asset_gallery/1065978/
http://www.newsobserver.com/news/crime_safety/michelle_young/story/1184010.html
http://wake.mync.com/site/Wake/news%7CSports%7CLifestyles/story/21101
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DOCUMENTS AND AFIDAVITS
More to Come...
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