Mountain State Mysteries contains adult content that may not be suitable for all audiences.
This is Mountain State Mysteries.
The case we have for you today is one about a nurse and former West Virginia University
cheerleader who was found guilty for murdering her husband and committing arson.
This is part one of the case of Michelle Shelley Michaels.
Michelle Annette Goetz, better known as Shelley, grew up in Clarksburg, West Virginia.
She was born into a well-to-do family with her parents who owned a refrigeration equipment
company.
Her parents were known to be strict and well, Shelley would sometimes break the rules.
Like most kids growing up with strict parents would.
Shelley was an excellent student and was a great child.
At the age of nine, Shelley was molested by a family member.
She didn't tell anyone when it happened and she acted like everything was okay after it
happened.
After this, Shelley started to ignore her curfews.
She was caught shoplifting from a mall and started to drink at the age of 14.
Shelley excelled in school and joined the cheerleading team which her mom absolutely
loved.
Shelley kept up with school and cheerleading until she got to college where she became
a West Virginia University cheerleader.
In February of 1992, Shelley started to date Bruce Sackins and not too long after she got
pregnant.
He didn't want to marry her and in all honesty, her parents even thought it was a terrible
idea.
So she decided to have the baby alone.
Shelley gave birth to a baby boy she named Alec.
Her mother would drive to Morgantown every week just to babysit so Shelley could go to
school.
The father Bruce would help but after they broke up he just kind of faded away.
That is until he offered to marry her which she said no to because she knew he just asked
out of jealousy.
Shelley would end up finding love again.
She started to date a man she met through some friends.
His name was Rob Angus and he ended up forming a tight bond with her son Alec.
Shelley would end up saying that she really didn't love Rob but she knew it was the best
thing for her son.
In September they were engaged and she got pregnant again.
She would end up going to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania to have an abortion which she would end up
blaming on Rob saying he told her it wasn't a good time to have a baby.
During football season Shelley would be on a trip to Philadelphia for a football tournament
that WVU was in.
After a party she started to flirt with one of the trainers.
She would go on to describe what happened after the party and in all honesty it sounded
like rape.
Shelley says she remember feeling filthy and humiliated but she can't remember if she
consented to it.
This is why she said ended her cheerleading career at WVU.
Shelley carried on with the wedding plans even though her family urged her to call it
off or even just postpone it.
But Shelley being Shelley refused to do either.
In July of 1995 she married Rob Angus in a Catholic church in Clarksburg, West Virginia.
They started to settle into the married life.
Shelley stayed in school and Rob worked for Parks and Rec in Morgantown.
Not too long after the wedding Bruce Ackens would actually suggest that Rob would adopt
his son.
Alec adored his stepdad so everyone just thought it would be the best for everyone involved.
Time passed and Shelley claimed that the marriage quickly crumbled.
She would say that the physical violence was on both sides of the relationship.
However Rob would never comment on this part of their marriage.
Around Halloween Shelley became pregnant again and when she was 39 weeks pregnant she was
called shoplifting again.
She would say it was just a mistake and that Alec really wanted a costume and he put it
in her bag and she just didn't realize it.
However she was found to be guilty and was given probation.
Shelley gave birth to their daughter Kylie on October 3rd.
So there were some aspects of Rob and Shelley's marriage that some people thought were just
weird.
Shelley left her 6 month old baby girl and her 4 year old son with her husband Rob which
seems normal right?
Maybe to go visit family or maybe just a little getaway for herself.
However Shelley ended up going to Myrtle Beach with her friends for Spring Break.
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Shelley would go on to graduate from WVU with a bachelor's degree in nursing.
She was offered a job at Ruby Memorial Hospital in the pediatric intensive care unit.
Shelley absolutely loved her job at Ruby Memorial.
She has said that she's always wanted to work with children and that she loved taking care
of the babies.
But her co-worker's thought she was nothing but a flirt and a show off.
They said that Shelley would go around doing cheerleading moves basically doing high kicks
or jumping while walking down the halls which I can see how this is annoying to co-workers.
But maybe she was doing this for the kids on the floor and her co-workers took it as
her showing off.
There was one co-worker who found the thing Shelley did I roll worthy.
Stephanie Michael, a respiratory therapist but in all honesty she didn't have trouble
with her.
Stephanie's husband Jimmy Michael worked with him on the same unit as well.
After a while she ended up working one of the same weekend shifts as Jimmy and they developed
a friendship.
Shelley called it an instant attraction.
James Andrew Michael better known as Jimmy was born in Cumberland, Maryland in 1972.
Jimmy started college at Allegheny College in Cumberland because his parents thought
he may be a bit too immature to go somewhere far away to school.
So while he was there he actually became very close with his roommate Reggie Atwars.
Reggie said that he would actually tease Jimmy about his fascination with cheerleaders and
well basically just skinny girls in general, Reggie said that it was so bad that he would
come home to see Jimmy watching the cheer competitions on ESPN.
In 1992 Jimmy graduated with an associates degree in respiratory therapy and he enrolled
in WVU wanting to major in chemistry.
So him and Reggie moved to Morrentown together both fighting jobs at Ruby Memorial.
Not too long after Jimmy started working at Ruby Memorial, Jimmy met Stephanie.
She said that she remembers thinking he was just a big old teddy bear.
They were honestly polar opposites of each other.
He was extroverted, she was introverted.
After being a couple for a while in 1993 the two ended up getting engaged.
Basically surprising everyone with how quick they were moving but Jimmy just really wanted
to get married.
He just wanted to settle down and he thought he found that in Stephanie.
In June of 1993 Stephanie was pregnant giving birth to their son Drew.
Everyone said that the couple seemed happy but like every couple there were problems.
They discovered that they honestly didn't have much in common with each other.
Jimmy had a lot of pressure on him.
The couple lived in a house owned by Stephanie's parents.
He spent years working double shifts just so they could save for a down payment on their
own house and he also wanted to go to medical school.
After he graduated from WU he found out that Stephanie had thousands in credit card debt.
Then his dreams of medical school were thrown away.
By the fall of 1996 Stephanie was pregnant again and the couple kept fighting.
She swore out a complaint with the police accusing Jimmy of pinching her arm during an
argument.
Arguing and fighting kept going on after the birth of their daughter, Jacey.
As much as they loved their new daughter they knew she couldn't save their marriage.
Jimmy and Stephanie separated when Jacey was five months old.
Jimmy bought his own home so his kids could spend the night with him.
In 1998 the couple did reconcile and they ended up renewing their vows and Stephanie
moved into Jimmy's new house.
Stephanie's parents did not approve of this and they ended up shutting their daughter
out of their lives.
Jimmy started to work some nights and that is when he met Shelley Angus and they started
to become close.
Shelley would go on to say that the two had a lot in common.
They both had small children and failing marriages.
But most of their friends and coworkers believed that Shelley pursued Jimmy relentlessly.
His longtime friend and coworker Reggie said that he knew from the beginning Shelley could
sense that Jimmy was very ambitious and a hard worker and that he was meant to be successful.
Reggie said that Shelley would play up to his weaknesses, flirting, complimenting, and
well, she definitely played up to the cheerleader part of his dream.
Shelley would often complain about her house because it was provided by the Parks and Rec
department where her husband worked.
She really just wanted something nicer.
Stephanie would end up regretting how she mentioned that Jimmy just bought a new house
in a really nice neighborhood.
By Christmas of 1998, Jimmy and Shelley were having a full blown affair.
Reggie suspected the affair.
Stephanie figured it out one night when Shelley called the house and she answered and Shelley
hung up the phone the second Stephanie answered.
Stephanie not recognizing the number wrote it down.
When she was at work, she would ask around to see if anyone knew whose number it was.
Then she was told it was Shelley's number, but she didn't confront her husband.
She decided to sit back and watch it all unfold.
By now, the hospital and some of Morgantown were gossiping about their affair.
Jimmy would deny the affair to Stephanie.
They had a lot of heated arguments about the affair and well, Jimmy had a temper and Stephanie
maintained that he did not hit her, but he threw things, punched walls, and right before
New Year's Eve, he threatened to physically throw her out of the house.
Stephanie filed her third complaint to the police.
She said that he threatened to kill her.
Stephanie served Jimmy with divorce papers while at work.
His parents were disappointed and encouraged him to work it out with Stephanie.
In the long run, Stephanie and Jimmy didn't have a great marriage.
They rushed into getting married.
They argued all the time and in all honesty, Shelley was more than likely the last straw
in the marriage.
In January of 1999, Shelley walked out on Rob.
She said that their marriage ended because of the lack of trust, not because of the affair
she was having, but because Rob liked to watch porn.
Both of the divorces were settled in the spring of 1999.
Right away, Shelley moved in with Jimmy.
Stephanie made a remark one day saying, sure enough, she got my house.
After she moved in, they had Jimmy's friend, Carrie, and her husband ever for dinner.
Carrie was an educational psychologist.
She said that she was disturbed by Shelley's treatment of Jimmy's son, Drew, because she
thought he was overly hard on him.
She told what she thought to Jimmy and he blew her off.
But Carrie was concerned, but she just hoped that it was from the adjustment to the new
living arrangements.
Over that summer, Jimmy took Shelley to his parents' new house in Pennsylvania.
His parents were not wealthy, but they did have a nice home on a big piece of land.
His dad, Danny, did the construction and he did a lot of the add-ons himself.
Ruth, Jimmy's mother, said Shelley was impressed with the house, which she thought it was a
little odd at the time, but she brushed it off.
Shelley liked it her and said, why don't you go ahead and give us our inheritance now?
In the meantime, Shelley and Jimmy were both still in divorce court, working out their
finances and the custody of their children.
In February, they both worked out joint custody.
They met it to where either side had all four kids on the weekend and the kids going to their
mother or father's home on Monday and Tuesday.
It was an arrangement that they had to make work, but soon other friends and family would
see what Carrie saw.
They saw that Shelley would pick on Drew and her son Alec would even bully Drew.
All surprised everyone is how Jimmy would just take it in stride.
The girls, Collie and JC, were like automatic besties.
They thought that the boys were just naturally competitive like all stepbrothers can be.
Over the time, Drew's relationship with his soon-to-be mother, Shelley, just got worse.
Do you ever find yourself searching for a true crime podcast focused on West Virginia?
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Courtney and I will tell you about one of West Virginia's coldest, unsolved cases.
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After all of this, Shelley, Jimmy, and Stephanie still work together at Ruby Memorial.
When Stephanie found out Shelley and Jimmy were engaged right after their divorce, she
was hurt.
She thought it was too soon.
I'm not sure she knew it was coming or not.
Maybe she did, but maybe she just saw it down the road.
Not right after the divorce.
Now Stephanie was a single mother trying to pay her bills and raise her children.
Shelley got her husband, but Shelley also rubbed it in her face by threatening that they would
eventually go back to court and she would have full custody of her children.
In May of 2000, Shelley and Jimmy got married.
But soon after the wedding, Shelley made Jimmy stop communicating with Stephanie.
All of the calls about their kids had to go through her.
It was so bad that Stephanie couldn't even get his new cell phone number.
Shelley was basically taking over Jimmy's life.
She was race Catholic.
She wasn't that involved in the church before she met Jimmy, but she threw herself into
his faith, going to church every Sunday and going above and beyond.
Jimmy would start coaching Drew and Alex Little League football team.
I was honestly shocked to find out that Rob Angus helped him.
Working together with the kids, there seemed to be no problems.
In February of 2001, Stephanie filed another complaint on Jimmy.
She said that he tried to hit her with his car during a heated argument and that JC and
Kylie were in the vehicle with him.
In orders were filed and Jimmy would end up taking a plea bargain of a simple assault
so he wouldn't have a criminal record.
Later, Stephanie says she asked for the charges to be dropped as long as Jimmy took anger
management classes.
By early 2002, Shelley was pressuring Jimmy to buy a new home, complaining that their
family simply outgrew them when they were in.
She also complained it was too far to drive to work every day.
It was only five miles outside of Morgantown, which isn't bad at all.
She wanted to live in the Suncrest neighborhood of Morgantown.
So she picked out a house on Calarney Drive.
It was a four bedroom house that Jimmy worried about it being out of budget.
Shelley had recently went down to a part-time position.
Shelley actually convinced Jimmy to pay for her to go back to school for nursing.
Then she would become a nurse practitioner.
Then she would be making really good money.
But until then, they would live with a decreased income.
Jimmy tried to fight Shelley on buying a new house, but she wouldn't give it up.
By May, they moved into a new house just a mile from Ruby Memorial.
The two went on to make friends with the neighbors and people in their new community.
Later, some would talk about how Shelley would wear skimpy outfits.
They also noticed how she treated Jimmy's son Drew.
Her picking on him must have been bad enough for not only their friends, but now their
new neighbors are seeing it.
At this time, Jimmy wasn't the only one getting the controlling nature of Shelley.
It had moved on to the families as well.
Any family get-togethers had to be at their new home.
A family member said that Shelley got what Shelley wanted.
She was a perfectionist and she wanted to look like the perfect Brady Bunch family.
Shelley had taken a two-week vacation from work after being told she wasn't allowed.
A few weeks later, her sister Jennifer, who was pregnant with her third child, came out
as a lesbian.
She left her husband and moved in with her partner, Jamie.
Jimmy felt like this was against his faith and banned his children from seeing their
aunt.
Shelley wrote her a letter about being disappointed and upset.
Shelley's parents accepted Jennifer in her choices.
However, Shelley didn't.
But a few months later, she would attend the baptism of the baby.
Apparently, Shelley sat in the church, fuming the entire time.
When she found out that Jennifer's partner, Jamie, would be at the family dinner, she
was pissed.
She ran over to Jamie's car, pulled her out, and started to punch her.
Jamie was able to pull her off of Jamie and Jamie was able to get away from Shelley.
This is actually how Jamie's parents found out what was going on.
Ruth said the whole thing was like a big dark secret, which she didn't understand as their
parents accepted it.
Ruth did understand Jimmy's religious beliefs, but like others, she thought Shelley's objection
was disingenuous.
People at their church would actually whisper about Shelley.
It wasn't her skimpy outfits.
There were other rumors.
To a lot of them, she came off like a fake person, only showing up for church on Sundays,
dressed up with her picture perfect family.
But everyone in the church thought it was nothing but an act.
A few weeks later, Jimmy actually pulled one of his best friends, Jeremy, from church to
the side.
He showed him a box that came in the mail.
In the box was one of Shelley's sweaters, with a note that said, quote, keep your whore
wife away from my husband.
In quote, Jimmy wonder why this lady sent him this and why Shelley denied it all.
He didn't think she was cheating on him.
However, Jeremy thought it was pretty obvious that Jimmy was in denial.
I mean, Jimmy knew she was a cheater and once a cheater, always a cheater.
In July of 2004, Shelley went on to receive her pediatric nurse practitioner certificate.
Despite her history at Ruby Memorial, they did offer her a full-time position.
However, in her interview, she said she didn't want to work full-time, that she only wanted
to work three 10-hour shifts a week.
Her supervisor, who was the same man who had problems with her before, insisted that this
was a full-time position, that she would have much more responsibility and therefore be accountable,
and that it just wasn't a part-time job.
Shelley being Shelley would not give it up and the supervisor or family gave in and said
he would give it a shot.
By winter, Shelley no longer wanted to have sex with Jimmy and Jimmy was frustrated at
work.
Jimmy took a pharmacy job when he realized he would never be able to go to medical school.
He was promised that he would be made a partner in the company and after three years of waiting,
he decided to leave and start his own medical supply business.
Jimmy, along with the help from a bank, secured a personal loan for $60,000.
He retained 55% control in the company and in January of 2005, he opened Mountaineer
Home Medical.
Jimmy threw himself into his business.
He was the first to arrive in the last to leave.
Only can understand this, that no new company is going without some personal sacrifices.
And one of those was the income that Jimmy had with his pharmacy job.
And just like everything else in her life, she started to put herself into Jimmy's business.
She called meetings with Jimmy's partners, questioning her husband repeatedly.
Honestly, Jimmy was embarrassed, as I think anyone would be.
And this started the downhill ride for the couple.
In February of 2005, Jimmy met with the life insurance salesman after talking to his business
partners.
Shelly was brought into that meeting and they both decided on a $500,000 policy.
They also took out a $200,000 policy on her and she had a $300,000 policy through her
work.
Around the same time as this, Ruby Memorial started an extension on the pediatric wing.
So during the construction, Shelly had to work full time.
She met with the head doctor, who was once again put off by her attitude.
She complained and complained about it.
When the doctor met with her nursing supervisor, they agreed that Shelly would have to work
full time once the construction was completed.
With Shelly wanting to work as little as possible, she was angry that Jimmy's business wasn't
paying enough yet.
So she decided to stop trying to keep up with this picture perfect life to her friends and
family.
When Father's Day came, she didn't invite either side of the family like she usually
did, which Jimmy's parents found that to be extremely odd.
Shelly did end up blaming it on Jimmy.
She said that he didn't want them there and well, they knew him well enough to know that
it was a lie.
What Shelly didn't know at the time is that Jimmy's business was taken off, but things
were still bad at home.
People noticed how cold Shelly was towards him and because of this, Jimmy was usually
depressed and upset.
Shelly said she was under a lot of pressure at work, trying to accept the responsibility
of the full time hours she was having to work.
So she decided it was the perfect time to have another child.
The thing is that Jimmy had a vasectomy years before they even got married.
It was after his last child with Stephanie was born.
Jimmy in all honesty had no interest in expending their family.
He definitely had no desire to have the reversal surgery with Shelly being the way she is.
Shelly was adamant and this caused many fights to happen.
Everyone around them thought this was Shelly's way of having to get out of working her full
time hours.
Around this time, Jimmy started to question Shelly's faithfulness again.
She ended up going to the Italian Heritage Festival with a friend and when she returned
home that night, Jimmy asked her where she'd been.
She told him that it was none of his business.
She wasn't even trying to hide what she was doing anymore.
There were whispers around Morgantown and Jimmy tried to ignore them, but they were
getting to him now.
In September of 2005, Shelly was suspended from work again for taking some more unauthorized
time off.
In October, Shelly went to Jimmy and told him that Drew was misbehaving.
We aren't sure what she accused him of, but we do know that Drew said he didn't do it
and he called Shelly a liar.
That was it for Jimmy.
He snapped and he beat Drew with a belt.
However, it didn't take Jimmy long to figure out what he did and he was upset with himself.
He called his friend from church and Jimmy was almost hysterical.
The next Saturday, Drew had a soccer game and Stephanie noticed the bruising on Drew's
arm.
He heard some what happened and he told her what Jimmy did to him.
When she asked Jimmy about it, he became emotional and apologetic.
Stephanie was always one to forgive and she decided just to let it go.
She could tell Jimmy was truly sorry for what he did and she believed him.
Jimmy went to Stephanie's house to talk to Drew.
Drew lifted up his shirt so he could see the bruising.
Stephanie said that you could see the colored drain from Jimmy's face and he fell to his
knees crying and begging for forgiveness.
Dan, Drew's stepdad, stepped in to talk to Jimmy.
He seemed like he understood the pressure Jimmy was under and he didn't want to punish
him because it was clear that Jimmy felt awful.
He did tell Jimmy that he needed to start communicating with Stephanie.
Dan and Stephanie said that there were a lot of problems caused by Shelly's insistence
that Stephanie only went through Shelly.
They decided right then and there that it would stop.
Jimmy would now be out of the equation and later Stephanie and Dan said that really improved
their relationship with Jimmy.
Jimmy seemed less stressed and it seemed like everyone got along better.
Even though Jimmy was forgiven by his son and Stephanie, a teacher at Drew's school
saw the bruising and called CPS.
After this, people who said they saw Jimmy said that he seemed depressed or distraught.
Many believed that it was because of Shelly's actions.
In the meantime, Shelly was pursuing an embroidery company.
She was doing a lot of research and ended up signing her and a friend up for a seminar
in Chicago.
When she got back, she was in a minor car accident.
Then she fell down the stairs.
Of course, these two things put her out of work for three weeks.
Even though she didn't have any injuries or broken bones, to me, I think she said she
just did this to get out of work since we all know she didn't want to work full-time
hours and they wouldn't let her take any more time off.
During this, Stephanie had a baby and everyone saw a change in the way Shelly was towards
her.
When Stephanie came to pick up JC, Andrew Shelly begged to hold the new baby.
With this, Stephanie just hoped things got better.
But the real reason Shelly was happy is because the flirtation stayed between her and Bobby
Teetz.
When they were in Chicago for the embroidery seminar, Shelly booked one room.
They turned the trip into a lovers getaway.
Cameras in the hotel caught the two kissing and holding hands.
Shelly said that later she felt guilty and was just sucked into it.
However, Bobby was guilt-ridden, not just for his wife Kelly, but for Jimmy as well.
Jimmy gave him a job and then Jimmy started to act differently.
On Thanksgiving Day, Jimmy and Shelly attended a Mountaineer football game.
She would later say they discussed how the business was doing.
He told her that he was leaving the following night to go home and to go on a hunting trip
with his dad and his cousin.
He also told Bobby Teetz that he would be out of town and needed Bobby to be on call.
He called Stephanie to see if he could take Drew with him even though he knew it was Thanksgiving.
And she said no because there was a huge family get together with the new baby and she really
just wanted all of the kids to be there.
She said that Jimmy was understanding and he wished her a happy holiday and hung up.
This would be the last time Jimmy and Stephanie spoke to each other.
Do you ever find yourself searching for a true crime podcast focused on West Virginia?
Well I have you covered.
I'm Mark Covey, the creator of Mountain State Mysteries, where every Friday my co-host
Courtney and I will tell you about one of West Virginia's coldest unsolved cases.
Tune into Mountain State Mysteries on your favorite podcast platform.
Jimmy left that Friday and as soon as he was gone, Shelly made a phone call to Bobby.
He came straight over and they had sex in Jimmy's bed.
Then Bobby went home to be with his wife.
In the hunting trip, Jimmy's dad and cousin said that he was happy and seemed very upbeat.
He was super excited about how well his business was going.
For the first time in a very long time, it really seemed that he was looking forward
to his future.
He came home Saturday night.
Him and Shelly went to a mountaineer's basketball game with Bobby and his wife Kelly.
Bobby later said that he felt awful looking at his wife and boss.
He came to the decision that it would end with Shelly.
That Sunday, Jimmy went and worked a shift at Preston Hospital.
He was still picking up a few shifts for extra money.
After his shift, he stopped by his parents' home and he promised his dad that he would
go hunting again on Monday morning.
That morning they did just that.
When they were done, he got back in his car and drove back to Morgantown.
While he was driving, Reggie called and asked Jimmy if he could go and set up a sleep apnea
monitor for a newborn baby at Ruby Memorial.
Jimmy said that he would do it first thing the next morning.
Around 10pm, he called Bobby to ask him his schedule for the next day, but Bobby didn't
know yet.
He said Jimmy brought up the embroidery business and that they would be single a lot of each
other and just left it at that.
He said that conversation seemed odd due to the fact that he seemed really supportive
of Shelly's business, but he was no longer willing to foot the bill for it.
Shelly just naturally assumed that Jimmy would invest money into her business from his business.
He made it clear that he would not be doing that.
So Shelly went to the office on Monday morning to use the fax machine and send out an email
to everyone in the company about his change of mind.
Saying she understood if anyone wants to change their mind and back out.
Then she called Bobby and told him to bring the tax returns to her the next day at work.
They were going to have to finance the embroidery business on their own.
Bobby agreed and they hung up.
After this phone call, no one knew what would happen in the Michaels household.
Stay tuned for part two coming out next week.
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