hey guys it's Bella welcome back to my channel Happy New Year I hope you guys are all having a great start to the New Year 2024 it's our year I can feel it good things are coming to all of us I just know it okay I Feel It In My Bones if you're new here as well welcome we talk about True Crime cases on this channel usually on Mondays and today we are covering a solved case it's the case of Mike Williams and this case took almost 17 years to solve so it happened back in 2000 and then all kind of unraveled in 2017 and this case you guys is insane like had me pulling my hair out when I was researching it insane before we do get into the case I just quickly want to thank today's sponsor wild for making this video possible 2024 resolutions for me is all about you know small changes because I feel like when you accomplish a small goal or small resolution it makes you feel so good and just motivates you to do more and keep going and kill more goals and the best way to get that feeling is to 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by Mike was born on the 16th of October in 1969 he grew up in Bradfordville Florida with his older brother Nick his dad who worked as a greyhound BRS driver and his mother Cheryl who was a daycare provider and his parents really wanted a good education for their sons they wanted them to have every opportunity in life that they could give them and so they saved their money to send both of the boys to North Florida Christian School and both of the boys also got jobs working nights at the supermarket so that they could help their parents out a bit as well Mike also killed it in school he got good grades he was student council president he played football he was a part of school clubs and he also met his high school sweetheart and future wife Denise Merill there when he was 15 years old who Mike's family loved they just thought that they were perfect together he also had a good group of friends at school he met his best friend Brian Winchester in grade n and Brian also met his future wife in school too a girl named Katherine and so they all became a close group of friends and when Mike was 15 he also got into duck hunting as a hobby which is something that he would love to do all throughout his life after he finished school he went on to attend Florida State University to study political science and urban planning but before he even graduated he was hired by a property appraisal group and he really excelled in that line of work I mean he probably would have excelled in whatever he did because he was described as a really hard worker the owner of the property appraisal company he worked for said Mike was the hardest working man that he'd ever met in 1994 Mike and Denise got married and they bought a house in Tallahassee on Centennial Oak Circle and then in 1999 they had a child together they had a daughter at which point Denise quit her job as an accountant and stayed home to raise their daughter which she was able to do because Mike at this point was on very good money by 1999 he was earning like $200,000 a year so very good money enough to obviously support the whole family while Denise stayed home and raised their daughter but he worked very hard for this money like he would leave work buy groceries come home cook for Denise and their daughter and then after they all ate dinner together he would leave and he would go back to work after he also still made time for his Hobbies he would go duck hunting with friends whenever he could he also still had his you know same group of friends that he was really close to from high school so Brian Winchester Brian's wife Kathy and Denise they were like a group of four and they kind of liveed parallel lives to be honest with you like Brian and Kathy got married around the same time as Mike and Denise bought a house around the same time had a kid around the same time so they were very much like going through life together and they were all still really close they would go on double dates go to the movies together that sort of thing by the 16th of December in 2000 Mike is 31 years old at this point and he seems to have everything going for him he's got a great well-paying job great friends he's a happily married man with a beautiful wife a 19-month old daughter he Ador he had also just told his family that he and Denise were going to try for another child and his sixth wedding anniversary with Denise was coming up as well so they had booked a bed and breakfast for the weekend to go and celebrate that but before they left on the day that they were going to leave Mike decided to go duck hunting that morning super early in the morning like before Dawn because to my knowledge I don't know a lot about duck hunting but I was looking it up and to my knowledge it has a very short season and you can only really go on select dates so he just tried to go whenever he could really whenever he got an opportunity to go he would so he leaves that morning the morning of the 16th of December well Before Dawn he takes his boat and he heads out to Lake seol which is this huge Reservoir about 50 Mi or 80 km from tasse and after he left he was never seen again he never came home obviously him and Denise Were Meant to leave for their anniversary trip that day so she tries calling him she never gets a hold of him never hears back from him and this was so out of character for him because not only like would he not be late but he certainly wouldn't be late without calling her and letting her know and she also knew that he was really looking forward to this anniversary trip so she was not feeling good about the whole thing she was freaking out she called her dad Warren who you know they immediately went out to Lake seol and gathered some friends and family to go to Lake seol and look for Mike Denise's dad Warren also called Brian's dad and so Brian and his dad came out to help with the search which was really helpful because Brian and Mike often went duck hunting together and Lake seol was huge like it was 37,000 Acres so having Brian there who went duck hunting with Mike who knew the areas that they would hunt in was really helpful to like narrow down the search area Denise father Warren also called the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission also known as the FWC and so they came out to help as well and they also got deputies from the Jackson County Sheriff's Department to come and Aid in this search for Mike the search on the first day didn't last for very long like that night there was a storm and it was blowing a gale it was super windy it was raining and it just was not going to do anyone any good searching in those kind of conditions so they postponed the search for a little while but as soon as they could get back out there and search they were like at 2:30 a.m. the next morning is when Brian and his dad were out searching this area called stumpfield which is this Lake and it's called stump field because would you imagine there's like a bunch of tree stumps in there and it's just filled with weeds and they were searching the western side of stumpfield when they actually found Mike's boat there 2:30 a.m. it was on this like muddy bank and then 70 me away they also found his Ford Bronco the car showed no signs of Mike or where he might be and it was kind of the same thing with the boat but inside the boat they did find all of his hunting equipment so like duck decoys his life jacket his shotgun but his shotgun was still in the case and there was no mud in the boat so it didn't seem like he was mid hunt or anything when he had become separated from the boat his boots were also missing from the boat which indicated that he was likely wearing waiters when he became separated from the boat and waiters are basically like these boot overall type things it's like the overall and the boot Allin one they're waterproof and when they like if they fill up with water they can be really hard to get off and they can also weigh you down because they're like full of water so they can just drag you down and you can really easily drown if you're in the wrong situation while wearing them the bird's engine when it was found was also still on which suggested Mike had become separated from it while it was still in use and this led investigators to speculate that Mike had maybe hit a tree stump or something and gone overboard while wearing his waiters and despite the fact that stump field was only between 8 to 12 ft deep because he was wearing waiters they could have easily filled up with water dragged him to the bottom and he just couldn't get them off and so he drowned and the boat you know kept going without him because it was still on until it hit that muddy bank and then it stopped so with this information FWC officers began scouring stump field for Mike they went out on boats with these long poles and every 6 to 8 in of stump field they would like poke down looking for any signs of Mike or his waiters in the water they also had underwater cameras that they would use to detect any kind of movement under the water they had divers they used used cadaba dogs they had helicopters and fixed-wing airplanes going overhead looking for any signs of anything like maybe his body floating to the surface or maybe he didn't drown you know they're still holding out hope that Mike is still alive and they might be able to see him from above and then they also had a ton of people on foot they had friends family volunteers members of the FWC deputies from the Sheriff's Office all out searching for Mike as the days went on on it was becoming increasingly obvious to everybody that this was more of a recovery Mission they were looking for Mike's body rather than hoping to find Mike alive usually when somebody drowns as the body decomposes it ends up rising to the surface and members of the FWC said that sometimes in these freezing temperatures because it was super cold at this time you know it was December and so in these freezing temperatures it can sometimes take up to 7 days for somebody's body to rise to the surface but it hit 7 days and there was still no sign of Mike or his body or his waiters or any trace of him by Christmas Day the search was scaled back to just one FWC officer and one flight a day to check from overhead of course they were still you know friends and family out looking for him but the official search was really scaled back just 2 days later on the 27th of December this FWC officer actually found a camouflage hunting hat and he went and showed this to Denise Mike's wife and Denise said that it looked just like one that Mike owned but after searching that area the Hat was found in extensively they found nothing more and that hat could not be definitively linked to Mike in late January Mike's mother Cheryl paid for a private search and rescue team to go and research the entire area but again they found nothing and the craziest part of this is that there had only ever been 80 drownings in Lake seol and every single one of these drownings the body was recovered within you know a couple of days a week at most and so if Mike did drown in Lake seol he would be the first person to drown there whose body was not recovered and so because of this investigators came up with another theory that maybe he did drown but that he was eaten by alligators because this is Florida right there's a lot of alligators a lot of the Searchers in the early searches said that they saw a bunch of alligators while they were there looking a member of the FWC said quote everyone knows the lake is full of alligators you look for answers why hasn't the body appeared the head of a private search firm also said quote with the wildlife around I would guess that the alligators have dismembered and have stored the remains in a location that we would not be able to find and so this is just what people came to believe that Mike drowned and then his remains were eaten by an alligator and that's why they hadn't been able to recover his body like they had been able to recover the bodies of every other person who died in Lake seminal but because this is what people believed what investigators believed happened as well on the 11th of February in 2001 the search for Mike's body was completely called off he had been missing for 44 Days by this point and officers had spent 735 men hours searching a 10 acre area of Lake seol Mike's wife Denise arranged for a memorial service to be held the day after the search was officially called off as months went by with no clear answers as what happened to Mike with all of the weird circumstances surrounding his disappearance the fact that there was no body a lot of people began to speculate that maybe he didn't drown maybe he actually faked his own death some Law Enforcement Officers believe this to be the case a lot of local people believe this to be the case and even Mike's mom Cheryl thought that this could be a possibility because it was all just so weird first of all Mike Almost Never goes hunting alone he almost always goes with a hunting buddy so the one time he goes alone he goes just hours before he's meant to leave for his anniversary getaway and then he just vanishes into thin air no trace of him his mother Sherl also said that he just recently told her that he wished he could get his hands on $50,000 and just take a year off but there was also just so much that didn't make sense about him faking his own death first of all his daughter he loved his daughter according to his friends and his family she was just the light of his life so there's no way he would just up and leave her he'd also just recently told his family that he and Denise were going to start trying for another baby so why would they make these plans and he tells his whole family and then he just scoots off his father had also recently passed away so there was just no way he would leave his mom and cause more pain for her on purpose and then he also had a bunch of exciting plans coming up he had a cruise to Hawaii booked he had a business trip to Jamaica coming up so all of this had his mom chery believing maybe he did fake his own death and disappeared or maybe he didn't maybe something more Sinister happened and then just under 6 months after Mike's Disappearance in June of 2001 A local fisherman actually found Mike's waiters floating in stumpfield in Lake seol and this fisherman was familiar with Mike's disappearance so he immediately called the FWC who came out to stumpfield to retrieve the waiters and also you search the general area for any more clues anything else that may have come up and they also brought some deputies from the sheriff's department with them inside the waiters they found some shotgun casings and then they also found Mike Williams hunting license with his signature his photo everything on it which confirmed that these waiters did in fact belong to him 2 days later when divers were searching stumpfield at the bottom of the lake in the mud they also recovered Mike's hunting jacket and inside one of the pockets of the hunting jacket was a small flashlight and it was definitely strange that this all of a sudden showed up 6 months after his disappearance despite the 44-day extensive search that was conducted directly following Mike's disappearance but nonetheless the discovery of these items solidified the theory that Mike had drowned there in the lake now the waiters the hunting jacket the flashlight it was all in very good condition despite the fact that it had been supposedly in this Lake for the past 6 months there was no human DNA inside these waiters to indicate that Mike had ever worn them there was also no poke marks in any of these items despite the fact that investigators had gone through the whole of stump field poking with these pointy sticks every 6 to 8 in looking for any sign of mic or these waiters there was no poke holes there were no marks on them no alligator teeth marks no marks from any other type of animal I mean one expert did say that alligators can actually be super gentle and so it's possible that the alligator removed his body from the waiters without leaving any teeth marks and then took his body somewhere else to eat it but why is an alligator doing all that like why is an alligator delicately undressing this dude and then taking his body away somewhere else like I just don't think I just don't think alligator are doing all that and on top of that why were the waiters not found in the extensive 44 day search for Mike there were divers in that water cameras they were pting holes every 6 to 8 in and why were they in such good condition no slime nothing despite all of this weirdness though 4 weeks after the discovery of these waiters and the hunting jacket a judge actually granted Mike's wife Denise Williams petition to officially have Mike declared dead and his official cause of death was listed as accidental drowning typically in Florida it took 5 years for a person to be declared legally dead if there was no body no proof that they had died nothing like in this case but I guess the discovery of his waiters and his hunting jacket was proof enough that something had happened to Mike resulting in his death but Mike's mom Cheryl was not happy about this ruling because she just didn't believe it was an accident she didn't believe he simply drowned the whole situation was just super off to her she didn't have the money for a private investigator and so she actually ended up investigating this case herself and she compiled a 27 page document about all of the things in this case that did not add up some of the things that she outlined in this document were quote the boat where his Bronco was found which he would presumably have used to put his boat in the lake was an undeveloped patch of mud yet very nearby were finished concrete launches that he was known to have used in the past the storm wared the night after he was reported missing had wesle winds that should have blown the Abend and unmowed boat across the lake to the Georgia side when the boat was recovered though the engine was off yet the gas tank was full according to the manufacturer if the engine had been running when Williams allegedly fell out of the boat as investigators had theorized it should have stayed on with the boat running in circles until its fuel was exhausted she also outlined the fact that Mike almost never goes hunting alone so for him to randomly go hunting by himself on the day that he disappeared is strange to say the least and that she also went on to debunk the alligator Theory as well so during the time Mike disappeared and during the searches that followed the temperature during the daytime was around 55° F or around 13° C and nighttime lows were Beyond freezing so some nights were as cold as 19° F which is around -7° c a local herbologist said that in those conditions and those temperatures quote it is highly unlikely an alligator would have been active all they're doing is maintaining their body temperature 58° is too cold for an alligator to be interested in food at all another investigator on the case said that if an alligator had quote defied all known Gator Behavior unquote to eat Mike that it would have left something behind all of the alligators in this area at this time were pretty small right for an alligator small for an alligator so if they had eaten Mike there's no way they're eaten this 510 170 lb man and not leaving a single trace of him it's just not happening and the waight do just further undermined the alligator Theory because there's no teeth marks no bite marks no damage of any kind they're not slimy despite being in this muddy Lake for almost 6 months and on top of this there was also the question as to why Mike even would have been wearing these weight is because according to one of his friends who he often went hunting with he went hunting with this friend as recently as one week before his disappearance and this friend said that Mike was very cautious like he was very all about safety he kept his guns at work so they would never be at home near his daughter he was very cautious he would never put on his waiters until he got to the point where he was ready to stop and get out of the boat and start hunting he would never wear them while he was just driving the boat and this was a common safety practice that was used to avoid the exact type of accident that investigators believed Mike had had this friend said quote as much as he preached that to me why would he be wearing his waiters while driving the boat so Cheryl submitted this 27-page document with all of this information in it to various law enforcement agencies urging them to reopen Mike's case she wrote to them she called them she was tireless in her efforts but but over the years nobody listened to her it wasn't until 2004 that she actually managed to get the case reopened so she had a friend who had connections to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement also known as the FDLE and the FDLE can't actually like they don't have jurisdiction over missing person's cases and they can't actually like investigate cases based on a citizen's request but they can reach out to other law enforcement agencies and get them involved and so they read this page document and they were like yeah this is super weird and so they showed it to other law enforcement agencies who agreed that the circumstances surrounding Mike's apparent drowning were super odd and they managed to get the case changed from accidental drowning to suspicious missing person which meant that Mike's case was finally being considered a criminal case and Cheryl was finally being taken seriously after years of being ridiculed for not letting sleeping dogs lie for believing that her son's disappearance was anything other than an accidental drowning she you know lost her granddaughter because of everything because Mike's wife Denise didn't want an investigation into the case she wanted to move on with her life she didn't want to dwell on it she didn't want to keep looking into it she's like look he's obviously drowned so why are you still going on with this and if you keep trying to get the investigation reopened then I'm not going to let you see your granddaughter anymore and for Cheryl that was really hard but it was really important to her that her son gets Justice it was the price that she had to pay as the investigation got underway it became evident almost immediately that this was going to be very difficult because Mike's case had never been treated as a criminal investigation which meant no evidence had been preserved whatsoever not the waiters not the hunting jacket not the car the boat nothing which also meant that the areas that these items were found in were never considered crime scenes so no evidence was ever collected from them no Footprints no tire marks no forensic evidence whatsoever and everyone who aided in the search friends family volunteers they were all allowed to walk over the whole area as they pleased so it was impossible to gather any evidence from those areas from those items all of Mike's items had been returned to his family long ago so it was impossible for them to get any forensic evidence in this case so this was a really frustrating case for investigators and one said quote we know we're at a brick wall and a pounding our heads against it he said that they were trying to make up for the fact that they didn't consider the possibility that things might not have been as they seemed back in 2000 one of Mike's friends said they did not protect the crime scene at all they botched it so investigators started from the only place they really could and they started questioning Mike's friends and family they questioned Denise and she said there was nobody in Mike's life that would want to harm him they questioned Mike's boss and he said that he was a hard worker he was an incredible guy and he was quote as clean as they come everyone who knew Mike said the same thing he was a great guy he was a devoted husband he was a devoted father he was a hard worker and there was just no one in his life who would want to harm him unfortunately the investigation was just coming up dry there were no Witnesses no leads nothing no suspects nothing Mike's mom Cheryl was doing everything in her power that she could to try and Garner leads or Witnesses or suspects she was using her retirement savings to put Billboards up around town she was you know reaching out to journalists trying to get them to cover the story she was paying for ads in the newspaper and these ads read quote I haven't seen my son Mike in over 5 years will you please take a moment to read this and help me find him unfortunately by 2006 the case had gone cold again invest instigators stopped returning Cheryl's calls and in 2007 they closed the case in that same year of 2007 though Mike's brother Nick was going through all of Mike's belongings that had been returned to the family and he was looking through all of the firearms that Mike owned that had been returned to them by Mike's wife Denise Williams and he realized there was a gun missing it was a 22 caliber Ruger pistol and this gun had been handed down to Mike like Mike inherited this when his father passed away so it was really important to Nick that he get this gun back and he contacted Denise and asked about the gun and she said I lost it I even put an insurance claim in for this gun like it's gone and Nick just did not believe her so he ended up contacting the police himself to report this gun missing and what do you know when he reported it missing Denise magically found the gun and returned it to Mike's family and this was kind of a turning point in the case because it kind of made them question why was she hiding this gun is there more that she's hiding and oh boy was there more that Denise was hiding so before Mike disappeared he had three life insurance policies that total 1.75 million so one was worth $500,000 one was worth $250,000 and another was worth $1 million and Denise was the sole beneficiary of all of these policies and she tried to claim on them just 19 days after Mike disappeared which obviously she wasn't able to because he was just missing by that point he wasn't declared dead so within 6 months of of his disappearance she petitioned to have Mike declared legally dead which of course he was and then she was able to claim on this life insurance money to make matters even worse the largest life insurance policy of $1 million Mike had actually taken out just a few months before his disappearance and the person that sold him this life insurance was his best friend Brian Winchester and then following Mike's disappearance Brian and Denise actually ended up getting married and they lived together in Mike and Denise's house and they had gone public with their relationship in 2004 so 4 years after Mike's disappearance so with this new insight into things Florida's department of insurance fraud and the FDLE started looking into this and Mike had been missing for 7 years now and the statute of limitations on insurance fraud is 5 years but under special circumstances that can be extended to 8 years so they were kind of under a time crunch to investigate this since Mike's disappearance Denise and Brian had refused to speak to the media they didn't want any involvement in the case at all but following this information coming to light they made a rare public statement where they said for 7 years we have prayed and hoped to find out with certainty what happened to Mike nobody wants Mike found more than we do Brian was brought in for questioning and of course denied any claims of insurance fraud he said that Mike simply wanted a bigger life insurance policy now that he was a dad and he just helped him to facilitate that he also denied any claims that he and Denise were having an affair before Mike's disappearance he said that at the time in December of 200000 that he was still happily married to his wife Kathy and he also denied any claims that he and Denise were involved in Mike's disappearance and said that at the time of The Disappearance he was asleep in bed with his wife Kathy and Kathy also corroborated this but she did say that contrary to what Brian had said their marriage was not happy at the time and she already had her suspicions that Brian and Denise were sleeping together while Mike was still alive and this just furthered the speculation that Brian and Denise were involved in Mike's disappearance and this is what investigators came to believe but they just couldn't prove it they couldn't prove their involvement in The Disappearance let alone their involvement with each other back in 2000 credit card Records phone records from that time were no longer available and so there was just nothing there was nothing that investigators could do their hands were tied and the statute of limitations you know came and went and they had to close the case and the only way that they could reopen it is if new information and new evidence came to light despite the failure of yet another investigation into Mike's disappearance his mom Cheryl was undeterred she was one badass woman and she would go and pick it outside Denise's father's Church which was the church that Denise and Brian also attended and she held up a sign with Mike's face on it that said please help me find my son eventually in 2011 she managed to get the Investigation Discovery Channel to do a segment on Mike's disappearance which unfortunately did not produce any new leads on New Year's Day in 2012 Cheryl began writing a letter every single day to the governor asking for another agency besides the FDLE to be put on the case or to have a special prosecutor put on the case to investigate it because she was really unhappy with the way that the the FDLE have been handling the case and she believed that one agent in particular named Mike Phillips who was a friend of Mike and Denise's was hindering the case she wrote a total of 240 letters to the governor before finding out that he had not opened a single one the governor's office had simply forwarded the unopen letters to the FDLE of all people and they just put them in a case File which was just a massive gut punch to Cheryl and she said quote they could not have hurt me more if they had punched me in the face fast forward to August of 2016 so it's been almost 16 years since Mike is disappeared now and Denise and Brian filed for a divorce in 2016 they had been separated for 4 years by this point since 2012 because Brian had a sex addiction and they both like cheated on each other a bunch and then on the morning of the 5th of August Denise got in her car so she could drive to work at her accounting job and when she was sitting in her car she noticed just a dark figure climb over her third row of seats into the second row of seats and before she knew it her ex-husband was sitting there behind her yelling at her telling her to drive wherever he asked her to drive like take his directions and she told him no I'm not going to do that I'm going to sit right here and so he produced a semi-automatic pistol and he held it up against her ribs and said drive drive where I tell you to drive follow my instructions and so she had no choice but to drive but she didn't follow his instructions instead she drove to the car park of a CVS it was like a humongous CVS so there's a lot of people around there's CCTV footage filming the car park so they're on camera and she tells him this is the only place I'm willing to talk to you in this public space and he was really agitated but there was nothing he could do he's not going to harm her he's not going to do anything rash while there's all of these people around and they're on camera so they just start talking they talk for about 45 minutes to an hour and Brian is crying he's really agitated he's telling her he doesn't want the divorce that he's not going to kill her or harm her but he wants to kill himself and after about 45 minutes to an hour Denise managed to calm him down she told him look if I don't tell the police and I don't report you to the police can I drive you back to your car and he agreed she drove him back to his truck which was parked really close to her house and when he got out of the car he went around to her boot and got a couple of things out of the boot that he had brought with him which were a plastic top a spray bottle filled with bleach and a small Hammer like item so Denise was like well he was planning on killing me like that doesn't look good and so as soon as he gets out of the car although she assured him she wouldn't go to the police she drove straight to the police to report what had happened she said that she wanted Brian arrested immediately and the police couldn't believe it because for the past 16 years like they've suspected that her and Brian have been involved in Mike's disappearance for years now but for the past 16 years she has been completely unwilling to talk to police so she could not believe that she just voluntarily came to them with no lawyer so they take her in to get her statement and she asks if a detective named Mike Phillips is there at the time who if you remember is the detective that Mike's M Cheryl was not a fan of and the officer talking to Denise acts like he's got no idea who Mike Phillips is or about his investigation into Mike's appearance because obviously she asked if Philips was going to be there to see if she was going to be asked about Mike's disappearance while she was there anyway she Dives straight into the kidnapping that had taken place that morning it was a pretty cut and dry case of armed kidnapping and with the CCTV footage from the CVS parking lot it would be pretty easy to convict Brian of armed kidnapping which has a 10year minimum term of imprisonment but the police actually don't really care about her attempted kidnapping they care about getting some information about Mike's disappearance they tell Denise that when they bring Brian in for questioning they're going to ask him about Mike they know that he killed Mike they know that he planted the discovery or orchestrated the discovery of the waiters and Denise is just not having a bar of it she's like I don't want to talk about this I don't want to talk about Mike as far as I'm aware he went hunting and then he never came back I know nothing else I don't want to talk about it I just want to talk about what happened this morning and you know my kidnapping they even get another officer in who has been investigating Mike's disappearance for a very long time like since the beginning of the investigation pretty much and he tells her he's like look I've been looking into myx dis appearance I know the ins and outs of this case I know every little detail to the point where I have your gate code or your front code to your door memorize I know everything I know what happened and in the whole history of Lake seol there's never been a person that's drown there and we haven't found their body so we know he didn't drown at Lake seol and Denise just says I don't know about that I don't know about anything I don't want to talk about it I just want to talk about Brian kidnapping me this morning and I want to get him arrested right now so this officer goes one step further she's like okay you know we're going to go and arrest Brian and when we do we're going to ask him about Mike's disappearance and what do you think he's going to say knowing that you've had him arrested what do you think he's going to say about The Disappearance and Denise just does not take a bite she's like I don't know I don't know what he's going to say they even bring up these sexually explicit photos and videos which are apparently of Denise Brian's ex-wife Kathy and Brian which Brian had taken prior to Mike's disappearance so while Mike was still alive and if they're bringing out these photos and videos like they've obviously seen them they know them and Denise just plays Dumb she's like I don't know I don't know what you're talking about I'd have to see them and now you're making me uncomfortable I don't want to talk about this I want to talk about Brian kidnapping me like this woman has got to be psychotic or something to think that she can get Brian arrested for armed kidnapping which is a felony and fence imprisonment of minimum 10 years she thinks she can get him arrested for that and he's just going to take it sitting down and he's not going to retti retaliate by telling them everything about Mike's disappearance and murder she has to be delusional to go and ask the police for protection from a man who she conspired with to murder her husband I think she just thought she could get away with anything by this point that she was invincible because over the last 16 years she had gotten away with a marital affair with murdering her husband and with insurance fraud as well the officer even said to her quote I was hoping you could fill in some of the pieces of the puzzle you haven't Brian m think about what I've said and he says that plain as day and it's still not clicking for her what's not clicking Denise so a week later Brian appears in court for kidnapping domestic assault and armed burglary two of which were felony charges and Denise attended this hearing and she cried to the judge asking him to refuse bail for the safety of her and her daughter to which the judge agreed and then Brian's sentencing took place in December of 2017 and he argued that he was suicidal on the day of the kidnapping because of the divorce because his teenage son from his first marriage to Kathy decided to move in with Kathy and also because his mother had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer so he argued for the minimum 10year sentence Denise once again read an emotional Victim Impact statement through tears I start each day with the memory of him jumping out of the back and I end each day feeling the gun shoved in my ribs when I turn on my right side trying to sleep each day when I get in my car to go to work I look back to check the back seats this is my life now in the end Brian was sentenced to 20 years in prison for the kidnapping now as it turns out two months prior Brian had actually made a deal with prosecutors who had seen an opportunity in the fact that he and Denise's divorce had finalized just months prior and so they were no longer protected by spouse or privilege and so Brian made a deal with them that if he told told them the entire story of what happened to Mike that they would give him immunity for all charges relating to Mike's disappearance and murder and they would also not seek the life imprisonment sentence for his kidnapping charges and so Brian told them everything almost 17 years to the day since Mike disappeared Brian said that he and Denise had been having an affair since October of 1997 so they had been having an affair for 3 years behind Mike and Cathy's back before maike's disappearance and they would meet up regularly like sometimes up to 15 times a week to have sex they would even meet up at Mike and Denise's house while Mike was at work Brian would follow them when they would go on business trips for Mike's work and then while Mike was out working at conferences whatever he and Denise would meet up to spend time together Brian even said quote I had a good wife I had a kid and I had Denise on the side which mind you Denise is his best friend wife Denise claimed that she was unhappy in her marriage to Mike that you know they weren't having much sex that she didn't want to have sex with Mike that he was working too much for her liking and mind you like Mike was unhappy in the relationship as well and he confided in Brian of all people that he was frustrated at he and Denise's lack of sex that he was hoping they could rekindle the spark on their anniversary get away the one that Mike never made it to and he was also telling Brian about how money kept going missing from his bank accounts and he was concerned about this because he thought that Denise was taking money out of the accounts to go and buy drugs he thought she had a drug problem little did he know that the money is actually being taken out because Denise is using that money to pay for hotels and getaways with Brian who's he he's confiding into about this and Brian knows all of this and he just has no remorse he's standing there listening to his best friend talk about his troubles in his marriage and meanwhile he knows he's the cause of it and he's not saying anything he obviously didn't feel bad at all doing this to his best friend anyway the way the whole murder conversation came up between Brian and Denise is that Denise wanted to be with Brian full-time but it went against her religion to get a divorce and she also didn't want to have to go through a custody battle for their daughter she didn't want have to share custody of their daughter and I always find it so insane hearing that sort of thing in these cases because it's actually unreal the amount of cases there are out there where people are like well I don't believe divorce so I had to murder him I had no other option and it's like what are you saying that you know your religion thinks that divorce is not okay but it does think that having an affair is okay and it does think that murder is okay and then this woman also went and divorced Brian 16 years later so I don't even know with this woman but they start trying to come up with ways that they could kill Mike and get away with it and they're coming up empty-handed but then one day Brian is on a hunting trip with Mike and Mike walks into this mud and this mud just sucks Mike right on up and Brian eventually gets him out but it took a lot of effort and it got Brian thinking you know if he was alone he could have just died just like that and so they come up with this plan that okay well maybe we can just stage something like that like an accident on a hunting trip and no one will be any wiser so they start making arrangements Brian sets Mike up with this $1 million life insurance policy and Mike already has two life insurance policies but he's like I'm just not going to pay for them and I'll just let them lapse but what he didn't know is that Denise kept paying the premiums on this life insurance policy so that when they inevitably killed him they would get $11.75 million and so this also meant that there was a timeline in which they had to kill Mike you know there was only a certain amount of time before he realized that Denise was still paying these life insurance policies and that would be suspicious and she also really did not want to go on that 6year anniversary trip with him she wanted him gone so they set the plan in motion Brian and Denise agreed to go no contact for a while before and after the murder so that they couldn't be linked together Brian then invited Mike on an early morning hunting trip and he also invited his father-in-law so Kathy's dad on a hunting trip after his hunting trip with Mike so that he would have someone to verify his whereabouts for that morning and while he was out on the hunting trip with Mike Denise was also going to make a few calls from her home phone so that she could prove that she was at home all morning when Mike was being murdered on the night before the murder took place so on Friday the 15th of December Brian took his then wife Kathy out and got her drunk so that she would sleep in the next morning and wake up late and the next morning on the 16th of December before the sun rose while Kathy was still asleep he slipped out of bed and he went to Lake seal with Mike he told him that he was taking him to a special hunting spot and that he'd need his waiters he also told him that his phone was dead and not to call him for any reason and that way he couldn't be linked to having gone out hunting with Mike that morning once they got out onto Lake seminal on the boat Brian had Mike put his waiters on and then he pushed Mike overboard hoping that his waiters would fill up with water and he wouldn't be able to get them off and he would drown but somehow Mike was able to get the waiters off and get his hunting jacket off and he was in the water calling out to Brian to help him to help him get out of the water and Brian in a state of panic shot Mike in the head with a 12 caliber shotgun killing him which is so sad to think about Mike just being helplessly in the water realizing just before his death that his best friend who he's been friends with since grade nine is trying to kill him that was his his last thought his last realization that he would have had afterwards he dragged Bran's body out of the water and into the back of his car and then he went back and he pushed Mike's boat back out into stumpfield he then drove home and as he was driving home he was dismantling his shotgun and he was throwing it out of the window and when he got home Kathy was still sound asleep so he crawled into bed next to her and then pretended that he'd overslept and missed the hunting trip with her dad his father-in-law he also called his father-in-law to say that he'd overslept he wouldn't be able to make the hunting trip and that way he also had phone records that proved he was at home that morning all the while he still has Mike's body in the back of his car later that morning he drove to Walmart where he brought a shovel and a tarp and he drove out to a lake that was about 10 Mi or 16 km from his house and he buried Mike in a shallow grave not long after that his dad called him to say that Mike was missing and that they had to go and search for him and he went and helped search for his friend that he had just murdered Brian claims that he never told Denise the full truth of what happened that day and that she never asked and he said that they both vowed never to tell anybody else they waited a while before Brian ended his marriage to his them wife Kathy and then he and Denise eventually went public with their relationship in 2004 pretending it was this new fresh thing when in reality they had been together since 1997 and then by 2012 when their own relationship started going downhill they both became increasingly paranoid that one of them was going to talk or tell somebody about what had happened and it was to the point where they would like Pat each other down before they could talk about anything serious and then when Denise finally filed for divorce in 2016 Brian became so paranoid that she was going to talk that he broke into her car tried to kidnap her and you know the rest of that story after Brian's confession he ended up guiding police to the area in which he buried Mike's body but he couldn't remember exactly where he had buried him so investigators spent 16 hours a day for 5 days digging 9t or 2.7 M deep holes in the area and then eventually they got kadaba dogs in who helped them locate Mike's body and they were able to recover 98% of his bones as well as some of his clothes like his winter boots and his gloves that he had been wearing so Brian made this so Brian made this confession in October of 2017 and then his sentencing happened in December of 2017 and obviously Denise spoke at his sentencing she was none the wiser about any of this she had no idea that had made this confession that investigators had recovered Mike's Body by this point they just didn't release any of this information to the public because they didn't want Denise to be suspicious because they still weren't ready to arrest her they still didn't have enough evidence against her to get a conviction at this point all they had was Brian's confession which just was not enough so in order to get more evidence against anise they reach out to Brian's ex-wife Kathy and she's still really good friends with Denise which is crazy to me because she knows that Denise was was sleeping with her husband while they were still married and then she went and married her husband so Kathy is a better woman than I because I could not anyway police reach out to Cathy and ask her if she can get involved in the investigation help them out and she tells them that the morning after Denise left the sheriff's office after reporting Brian's kidnapping that she actually called her and said tell Marcus to tell Brian I'm not talking Marcus being Brian's dad which the actual delusion of this woman to go and report him for armed kidnapping try and get him in prison for a minimum of 10 years and then get a message to him being like I'm not talking about Mike though I honestly I don't know what this woman is on anyway Kathy tries to get her to you know once she starts working with police all this time later she tries to get on a recorded phone call that police are recording to get Denise to say something similar and she tells her that she's been subpoena in relationship to the charges against Brian and she was worried that they would bring up Mike's disappearance Brian told me that yall planned it planed what oh my God and Marcus showed up at the shop later that afternoon you know telling me how I would have to take this to my grave that it st's life it would ruin you know apparently Brian told Marcus that he had talked to me and he went on to just tell me Marcus went on to tell me how my life would be ruined how I would never be able to start over if Stafford's life was ruined if so Marcus new Denise doesn't admit to anything on this phone call but what she does do is when confronted about having a role in Mike's disappearance her immediate reaction is to ask if Marcus knew she also agreed with Kathy that she had said tell Marcus to tell Brian I'm not talking and she's also just so calm about the whole thing which it's just so unlikely that an innocent person would react so calmly about you know being accused of murder so while she doesn't outright admit to anything on this phone call she does allude to it and that's good enough for investigators on the 8th of May in 2016 which just happened to be Denise and Mike's daughter's 19th birthday Denise who was 48 years old at this point was arrested outside of her office for first-degree murder conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and accessory after the fact she plad not guilty to all charges and her trial began in late 2018 during the trial Brian was the star witness and at one point the defense tried to say that he was just obsessed with Denise so he did the whole thing without her knowing and he said quote Denise and I were best friends we were Bonnie and Clyde we were partners in crime were we obsessed with each other you could say that in December of 2018 so almost 18 years to the day since Mike's murder Denise was found guilty on all counts and at her sentencing hearing Mike's mother Cheryl gave a very emotional Victim Impact statement I would go out and put up missing person signs with Mike's picture on them I made a big poster sign and walked the streets of Leon County asking everyone to help me find Mike I wrote thousands of letters to the media and politicians begging them to help me find my son I put ads in tassey Democrat and I put up Billboards trying to find Mike her statement honestly broke my heart because you can just hear the pain in her voice her son was killed and for 18 years she fought for justice for him all because Denise couldn't just get a divorce it was that simple I cannot imagine how much that wore down on her over the years and I also cannot imagine the relief that her tireless campaigning finally wore off and she finally got to see Justice for her son she never gave up so it really is all thanks to her that Denise and Brian are behind bars for Mike's murder it's just a shame that nobody listened to her for so long and so Denise and Brian were free living their lives for 18 years while Mike never got that opportunity Denise was sentenced to life in prison which she appealed in 2020 on the grounds that there was no evidence to prove that she was involved in Mike's murder and the judge actually overturned the conviction for first-degree murder and for accessory after the fact and only maintained the conviction for conspiracy to commit murder which still left Denise with a 30-year sentence so she appealed that sentencing too and got a hearing in September of 2021 Denise and Mike's daughter actually spoke at the sentencing hearing and she basically said that Denise had nothing to do with her father's murder it was all Brian that Brian never consulted with Denise about anything and that he was also physically abusive towards Denise and she asked the judge to give Denise the minimum 2-year sentence Mike mom Cheryl however asked for the maximum sentence to be upheld and said quote if you will make Denise serve every minute of her 30-year sentence for conspiracy to commit murder then and only then will I believe Justice has been done for my son in the end the judge resentenced Denise to the full 30 years including time already served at the sentencing hearing which happened in February of 2019 Mike's mom Cheryl told the judge quote not only did Denise kill my son she stole my granddaughter for her entire life my granddaughter was raised in a house with the murderers of her father while being denied the love of her father's family she was told that Grandma Cher's crazy and would hurt her there is no amount of prison time that will bring Mike back to me I don't know if I'll ever have my grand daughter in my life again because of the damage her mother has done 5 months later Mike and Denise's daughter was awarded all of Mike's assets and all of the insurance money that was still left to be paid out to Denise and Denise signed all of this over to her in order to avoid being prosecuted for 3 counts of insurance fraud as part of this deal her daughter was not allowed to spend any of this money on Denise's legal fees and if she broke this condition then she would ow the state $150,000 Denise is now in prison at the Florida Women's Reception Center and Brian is imprisoned in the wakala correctional institution Mike and Denise's daughter has since handed over Brian's remains to his mother Cheryl so that she could have a proper burial and she invited any and all of Mike and Denise's friends and family to attend the funeral saying quote I want everyone to come Who Loved Michael on the 20 year anniversary of Mike's death she also held a memorial service for all those who helped bring Mike's Killers to justice but that is everything that's everything for this case that's it for me today I honestly thought that this case was so insane while researching like Denise is a nut job Brian is a nut job but Denise is more of a nut job she is delusional she just thought she could get away with anything she thought she was like walking on water but ma mom Cheryl was there to save the day she spent 18 years like being ridiculed by people who were just saying Let It Go like he obviously just drowned you just need to let it go move on with your life and thank God she didn't let those people get to her because if it wasn't for her this case probably never would have been solved I also couldn't find anything online to say whether or not Cheryl was able to reconnect with her granddaughter but it's just so sad that she was kept from having this relationship with her granddaughter her last link to her son Mike all because Denise is a whack job and decided to murder her husband and this girl's father it's actually psychotic like nie is actually psychotic when she got sentenced like the first time as well she just sat there emotionless just stared Straight Ahead like she's psychotic but yeah that's everything that's everything for this case I really look forward to talking to you guys about this one in the comments because it's just so unreal like I cannot believe there are actually people out there in the world that are this evil like Denise is the epitome of evil you hear cases like this and it just reminds you like there are some messed up people in this world but that's all I hope you guys have a wonderful rest of your day and I'll speak to you in the comments and hopefully I'll see you in my next video bye guys
