Scott Amatuccio

But soon, the communication from Michael went from infrequent to almost nonexistent. He seemed to simply vanish.

And when Frank checks in with Lori, her answer only deepens the mystery.

Gone without a trace. Or was he? Michael and Lori had a roller coaster relationship. But in the fall of 2015, things seemed to be going well. So well that Michael has moved back in with Lori and the kids.

But then things take another turn. November 7th, 2015. It's a day Frank Merritt says he will never forget. He and his family met Michael and Lori Shaver and their children at a local tractor show.

But Michael's friend and coworker Frank says he could once again sense an unspoken tension between Michael and Lori.

The next time Frank hears from Michael is by text two days later.

After three days of no showing at work, Michael's manager reaches out to him and gets a surprising response back.

But when Frank goes to Michael's house looking for answers, he only ends up with more questions.

Frank says Lori eventually told him that after a heated argument, Michael stormed off, catching a ride with his friend Robert to Georgia, and she hadn't seen him since.

This strikes Michael's sister Stacey as completely out of character for the brother she knows.

Could Michael have finally had enough of his rocky marriage and decided to ditch it all, his job included, and head north to start over?

What was strange and unusual about the messages that Mike was sending to his friends and family?

Michael's niece, Desiree Ruggles, got this text from him flat out saying, I don't have a family.

This is Claremont, Florida, a rural community about 20 miles west of Orlando, but a world apart from the tourist-filled amusement parks. Michael and Lori Shaver were raising their two children here when his lifelong friend, Scott Amatuccio, started to get worried.

Just when it seems he's gone for good and his wife Lori is moving on. Lori met Jeremy at a park and their children began to play together. Michael Shaver seems to show back up. Had she ever mentioned any concerns about Mike? Yes.

Michael Shaver seems to be abandoning his life. He hasn't shown up to work, and when friends and family reach out to him, they get messages saying, just leave me alone.

Over time, with no sign of Michael, Lori moves on with her life, meeting a new man, Jeremy Townsend, or Jay, as he's often called.

Lori's fresh start also includes getting fit. She starts working with a personal trainer named Rebecca Filmer.

Now you end up becoming roommates. You moved in, in this neighborhood with her. Yes. We became friends pretty close. So close that Lori confides in her about relationships with men, including what Lori says was a difficult marriage to Michael Shaver.

And even though it seemed Michael had initially skipped town, Rebecca says Lori told her that she started to sense that he was back.

Rebecca says Lori told her that she was divorcing Michael once and for all and moving on with her life.

But Lori's new relationship is far from perfect. She knows. That man she's been seeing, Jeremy Townsend, is already married. Jeremy's wife didn't know about Lori. And Jeremy doesn't seem to be leaving his wife anytime soon, something that texts between the two show was creating a strain on their relationship. In April 2016, Jeremy's wife Vanessa gets a surprise.

She's at work one day when she receives a flower delivery, but it's not from Jeremy. The delivery comes with a strange card.

Then Jeremy's wife goes onto Facebook and finds a message from Michael Shaver informing her of the affair. He says he's installed a spy app on Lori's cell phone and he includes screenshots of texts and explicit photos between Jeremy and Lori. Basically, Mike was outing this affair.

Travis Filmer was a youth leader at a local church. Lori met him through Rebecca.

The sparks between Travis and Lori first flying during a bonfire get together at Lori's house.

Lori also told Travis details about her relationship with Michael.

Travis and Lori's love affair is moving quickly, and on New Year's Eve 2016, they decide to have a wedding ceremony right here in Lori's backyard.

Lori had fixed up the five-acre property prior to the occasion, putting in a backyard fire pit. The couple later etched their initials into the concrete around it. Lori walked out to the Brantley Gilbert song, Fall Into Me.

For friends so close, an unexplained social media slight like this was too strange to ignore. And it turns out Scott wasn't the only one worried.

So Lori has moved on and put her ex, Michael Shaver, behind her. But Michael's friends and family have not been able to do the same, still wondering why it's been so long. At this point, more than two years since any of them have laid eyes on him.

And that lifelong friend, Scott Amatuchio, is about to make a stunning discovery.

New Year's Eve 2016, Lori Shaver and Travis Filmer had a wedding ceremony in their backyard.

Just steps from that fire pit where their initials are etched in the concrete. And a year later, the couple had even more to celebrate.

I was just floored, like absolutely floored. They would quickly add another child to their growing brood, along with the two kids Lori shared with her ex, Michael Shaver. Michael hadn't been seen by friends and family since he seemingly walked away from his life.

Even though the years were passing, friends and family said the occasional texts and Facebook messages led them to believe Michael wanted to be left alone.

Scott then gets a phone call from his ex-fiancee, Katina Vasquez, that would change everything. She tells him she happened to be over at Michael and Lori's house two and a half years ago, right after Lori said Michael skipped town.

Basically everything he owned.

Katina tells Scott that during that visit, she asked Lori where Michael was.

Eventually, Scott pieces together that no one has seen or spoken to Michael in 2 and 1 half years. He decides it's time to reach out to Michael's sister in upstate New York to compare notes.

With his suspicions growing, Scott does what any of us might do when trying to track down his now long-lost friend. He logs onto Facebook.

Scott then does a reverse Google image search, trying to determine where this photo came from. Turns out, it matches a photo from a Bloody Mary mix company.

And Michael's recent posts also seemed off. They were different from what he typically posted in the past.

Michael's friend Scott, along with his sister Stacy, knew it was time for something drastic.

Scott is able to convince police in Florida that his concerns are serious enough to warrant a welfare check. And when a deputy goes to Lori Shaver's house, something catches his eye that's been hiding in plain sight for years.

It was that concern that started the unraveling of a years-long mystery as deep and dark as the lakes that surround this place.

I'll take you there to see for yourself.

And just when you think you know where the story is headed, a new twist.

When you walked out here, were you immediately surprised? I really started to get chills up my back. But what about the chills when a totally unexpected person confesses? Everyone was just like, what? When you have a witness take the stand that says, I had a role in it, that's pretty incredible. I know it sounds weird.

It's been two and a half years since anyone has seen or spoken to Michael Shaver. His loved ones are concerned. So his longtime friend, Scott Amatuccio, decides to call law enforcement. He requests a welfare check.

Corporal Corey Anderson was one of two deputies that respond to the welfare check call that day in February 2018.

What about it felt unusual to you?

So you pull up to the house. What's the first thing you do when you get here?

Michael grew up the third child of four with his brother and two sisters in the tiny rural village of Lawrence in upstate New York.

What was her demeanor like? Was she friendly?

Corporal Anderson then asks Laurie if he can take a look in the backyard.

The deputies noticed multiple outbuildings in the backyard, as well as a chicken coop, rabbit hutch, a fire pit, and an above-ground swimming pool. But when they ask if they can perform a more thorough search of the backyard, things take a turn.

Meanwhile, as detectives are digging for more clues into Michael's possible whereabouts, they discover some startling information.

Detectives then start interviewing Michael's friends, relatives, and coworkers. They start building a timeline to try to pinpoint exactly when someone last laid eyes on him. And it turns out they think it was at that tractor show that Michael and his family attended two and a half years earlier with his friend and coworker, Frank Merritt.

And it was just days later that Michael sent that strange text to his boss, abruptly quitting his job.

Three weeks after that initial welfare check, detectives finally secure a search warrant for Laurie Shaver's property.

One of the cadaver dogs is walked along the backyard and alert to a dirt mound multiple times.

Investigators with Florida's Lake County Sheriff's Office are back at Michael and Lori Shaver's home, armed with a search warrant. They're now scouring the property.

What did you find in that gravesite?

How deep was this grave?

Investigators say the remains were skeletonized and looked like they had been there for quite some time.

Three weeks before the remains were found back on the day of that welfare check, Corporal Corey Anderson was convinced there was something underneath that concrete. And this is where the fire pit was.

As a young man, Michael showed a talent for working with his hands.

It's what he noticed then that raised investigators' suspicions enough to come back with a search warrant.

and you saw that depression, were you immediately surprised?

You immediately thought it was a shallow grave?

It's just terrible. As painful as that moment was, Michael's family says, finally, all the hurt and confusion around his unexplained disappearance made sense.

But now investigators have Lori Shaver in their sights, and they want to hear exactly what she does know and when she knew it.

After Michael Shaver's remains are recovered from a shallow grave in the backyard of the home he once shared with his wife, Lori, the medical examiner determines that what put him there was a single gunshot to the head.

Any DNA, any evidence of who would have put him there?

So over time, it's really hard to find DNA if it's in the ground, even if it had been there. Yes. But to many people's surprise, even after the gruesome discovery, Lori Shaver remains a free woman.

Lori Shaver didn't get arrested right away.

Why?

If that's true, that's months before Lori met Travis Filmer, who says he believed she was divorced from Michael Shaver.

Travis says that after Michael's body was found, he and Lori didn't discuss the investigation.

But detectives are asking questions, interviewing those close to Lori like Katina Vasquez, the ex-fiance of Michael's childhood friend. They wanted to know what she knew about Lori's supposed divorce from Michael Shaver.

Investigators also tracked down that friend of Michael's who Laurie said picked him up in a black SUV and drove him to Georgia.

Georgia?

When detectives talk to the Shaver's neighbor, Wilma, they hear something really dark and unexpected. She tells them Michael Shaver actually started the project that eventually became the fire pit and concrete slab where his body was found.

What physical evidence was there?

Another witness comes forward to say that after Michael disappeared, leaving everything behind, Laurie began selling his belongings.

Flying wasn't the only thing Michael loved. By the time he'd gotten to high school, his head was also in the clouds for Lori Paddleford, seen here in their yearbook.

The key to this case, police think Lori Shaver was hiding that her husband was gone for good, pointing to data suggesting those Facebook updates and messages to family and friends, seemingly from Michael, were actually coming from her.

Lori Shaver is charged with second degree murder with a firearm. She pleads not guilty.

After about two and a half months in jail, Lori Shaver is released on bond.

and I am a devoted mother of four. In that same video, Lori's attorney says his client is innocent, and at trial, they are prepared to say who actually killed Michael Shaver.

As her trial nears, Lori Shaver's attorney makes another shocking claim. Now, it's not just one person responsible for her husband's murder, but two. And who they say that second shooter is takes everyone by surprise.

Happening today, jury selection will begin in the trial of a Claremont woman accused of killing her husband. In September, almost nine years after Michael Shaver was last seen alive, prosecutors are now hoping to prove that Lori Shaver was the one who killed him. But they'll have to do it without fingerprints, DNA, or other forensic evidence.

In your opening remarks, you made the comment that you have to use a little bit of common sense here.

In their opening statement, the defense finally discloses who they say actually killed Michael Shaver. It wasn't Lori. It was Jeremy Townsend, or Jay, that man she had an affair with before meeting Travis. And they say someone else fired a shot too, Lori's then seven-year-old daughter, Isabel.

The defense presents a stunning story to the jury.

And at that very moment, the defense says Jeremy stormed into the house and took control.

But prosecutors say this story is preposterous. They argue that Lori Shaver acted alone and killed Michael for her own selfish reasons, to be with her then-boyfriend Jeremy Townsend. What is the motive here?

They say it's not the crime that gets you caught, but the cover-up. And prosecutors argue that Lori's attempts to impersonate Michael online show all the signs of a badly executed cover-up.

The defense argues the digital evidence is unreliable. It could have been anyone accessing Michael Shaver's Facebook account.

But prosecutors say they have more than digital evidence. They argue that Lori had access to multiple firearms that could have killed Michael Shaver, including the pink and black .38 caliber revolver that she sold after Michael was last seen.

Yes, I did.

But the defense points out that the bullet recovered from Michael Shaver's skull could not be definitively linked to her pink handgun.

With the state's case laid out, it's now the defense's turn, and they're about to call their star witness, Isabel Shaver, Lori and Michael's daughter, who was just seven years old when he was last seen alive. She's now 15 and says she's prepared to tell the jury what really happened.

Lori Shaver's defense is built on what she says really happened the day her husband died. And to lay out that story, they call to the stand the person they claim fired what they say was the first of two shots, her 15-year-old daughter, Isabel.

Because she's a minor, Judge Kerry Rada does not allow Isabel's face to be shown during her testimony.

I do. Isabel tells jurors a stunning story that when she was just seven years old, she witnessed a violent confrontation between her mother and her father, Michael, while the two were separated.

Isabel Shaver goes on to say that after she fired that shot, the man her mother was dating at the time, Jeremy, or Jay as they called him, came barreling into the house.

Remember, Jeremy Townsend testified he had no involvement in Michael Shaver's murder or the disposal of the body. And when prosecutors cross-examine Isabel, they challenge her memory of this event.

When you have a witness take this down that says, I had a role in it, that's pretty incredible.

Soon, Michael and Lori became parents to daughter Isabel and her younger brother Aiden. After moving up and down the East Coast, Michael and his family ended up in the Sunshine State.

Next up, the woman at the center of the case facing life in prison takes the stand in her own defense.

Laurie Shaver tells the jury that when she came home that day, Jeremy was gone, and so was Michael's body. According to Laurie, she had no idea his remains were buried in her backyard.

When prosecutors finally get their chance to question Lori Shaver, they challenge her for more details about what they say is a story full of lies.

Prosecutors say Lori wants jurors to believe that Michael was actually alive in May because that's a full six months after he was last seen by anyone.

And then it's left to the jury to decide which version of the story is the truth.

In his off hours, he worked as a mechanic for Precious Metal, a local flight team that performs and races all over the country.

The jury deliberates for just under four hours before returning a verdict.

Your reaction, your thoughts as soon as that verdict came down?

It upsets you?

Lori worked from home for an insurance company while Michael was away for days at a time working as a pilot. Wanting to be with his family more, Michael quit the airline business for another dream job, this one at the most magical place on Earth.

But then, for some reason, dependable Michael just stopped showing up.

It seemed Michael Shaver was blowing off his friends, his family, even his job.

But if Michael Shaver wasn't coming back, where exactly was he going? In the fall of 2015, Michael Shaver, father of two, a mechanic who loved to work on and fly planes, seems to just fall off the grid.

It was a disappearance that just didn't make sense to Michael's friends, who wondered, after nearly a decade marriage, could this have something to do with his rocky relationship with his wife, Lori?

On a hot, late summer afternoon, the simmering tension inside the house erupts. 911, do you need police, fire, or the ambulance service?

There was a domestic abuse incident in September of 2014 at Michael and Lori's house.

Lori tells the 911 operator she and Michael have been fighting a lot lately, but it never got physical until that night.

You both had three beers? Yeah. Michael admits he kept the car keys from Lori to prevent her from leaving, but he says that's because he didn't want his wife driving with the kids after she'd been drinking. Both say during the struggle, Lori hit Michael on the head with her revolver.

Police are unable to determine who started the physical altercation with the pistol.

Had she ever mentioned anything about Mike, concerns about Mike?

The battery charges ultimately dropped, but things are never the same between the childhood sweethearts. Both Michael and Laurie dug in and pointed fingers at each other.

In the fall of 2014, a judge grants a no contact order against Michael, and he's forced to move out of the house he shared with Lori and his kids.

Michael's friends say that while he was living out of the house, he still keeps tabs on Lori, suspecting she's seeing other men.

Michael's repeated attempts to save his marriage began to strain his other relationships.