>> jeff: we move beyond proof coming out simply about possibility. >> james: it still just the beginning of the movement. >> michelle: i climbed on the shoulders of people who brought me up here today. and i have to keep going for that each other day. >> then wearing it more authentic stories. >> why can't a brown actress with it hero let us be the heroes of the story. >> you normalize, normalize and becomes one more aspect of makes what mix american. >> good story is universal. >> wear them a route for each other. >> michelle: we didn't give up and we never give >> ke huy quan: anything is possible. ♪ ♪

>> she's >> most people would call the police if they found their husband dead in the living room. >> they looked like an optimistic young couple. >> wendy, building her new veterinary practice. >> at what point did this apparent dream life sour and why? >> michael said his marriage was rocky and that he was thinking about getting out. >> it was on this ranch that police found a decomposing body, believed to be that of 20-year-old staff sergeant michael severance. >> he survived five tours of duty in the middle east but he did not survive five months of marriage to wendy >> -- secret going on. >> that man has got sense enough to pour piss out of a boot.

>> you can't make this up. >> how is it that a wife finds the only way to get rid of a husband is through murder? it doesn't sound right. it doesn't feel right. >> i did not kill him. >> we all know that wendy is a pathological liar. >> who killed mike severance if it wasn't her? ♪ >> traveling to the gatesville correctional facility about an hour west of waco, i'm there to meet wendy may davidson, the former veterinarian and current convicted murderer. ♪ >> from day one, she has insisted she wasn't responsible for the death of her husband, staff sergeant michael severance. when you do interviews like this you always wonder what it will be like looking into the eyes of a killer. but wendi doesn't look or act

like any of the killers talked to. >> i'm going to cut to the chase and get right to business. you kept your silence for 15 years. why did you decide to do this first network interview? >> i was kind of advised from the get-go maybe it was best not to talk. it seems like that hasn't done me any favors so i want my side of the story what happened heard, so i want people to know what did and didn't happen. >> wendi's story starts here in west texas. >> st. angelo is a funny little town because it's so isolated. there are just acres and acres and miles and miles of nothing leading up to san angelo. >> it's pioneer country, ranchers, people who go to church, have very traditional values, marriage, family, raising your children right, these are going to be the

priorities for most people. >> we're out here on our own. the closest town of any size is an hour and a half away so the people take care of the people here. ♪ sombre in the 1980s, in san angelo, texas, a bright girl, wendi mae davidson gross up. her stay at home, mom, and her younger brother, marshall. >> wendi was happy little child and it almost became her life. by the age of seven she knew she wanted to be a veterinarian when she grew up. >> she excelled as a student. she was derivative unanimous lot of ways to succeed. >> she took part in future farmers of america events and volunteered at a local vet clinic while she was still a student at water valley high school. >> when she went to school with my daughter, she was fun loving, outgoing and very responsible.

♪ >> 2,000 miles to the northeast is another small town. lee may. >> it's very small. very, very de populated. >> lots of open land, but all o it was choked with trees as thick as any jungle. >> in this area you get all four seasons so during the summer you're roller blading, you're biking. you're outside in the summer. you're outside in the winter. there is always something to do. >> in this deep rural countryside, a little boy named michael severance also grows up in a close-knit family with his mom, dad and younger brother, frank. >> michael loved the snow. he loved being outdoors. he went hunting. he went fishing. he went skiing. he wanted to do everything, downhill, cross country, you

name it and he excelled at it and he was of the fabric of the woods of maine. >> michael's family still lives up here in >> welcome to maine. >> thanks for having >> this way. >> tell me about mike. what was he like growing up? >> i had a great son. he was a very, very good man. he put other people first. i could show you document after document, letters after letters, of his co-workers and such, that say the same thing. >> i often called my brother kind of my superman. he was always, always there when i needed him. >> tragedy hits this family early on, when michael's mother suddenly collapses with a brain aneurysm.

♪ >> i believe he was around 13 or 14 when his mom died. and frankie was 11. >> a tough age to lose your mom. >> yes. >> it was a shock to the system. we as a family, mike, dad, myself, we didn't know how to function without her. it was challenging. there were nights where i would cry myself to sleep and he would be there rubbing my back, or just kind of telling me, you know, everything is going to be okay. >> near the end of high school, what were his career ambitions or just ambitions in general? >> i suggested the military. and a little while later he came to me and said, dad, i'm going toen list in the air force. ♪ >> this was a life changing event, for him to join the air force, to do the things that he had always dreamed of doing in terms of adventure and being part of a team. >> mike was stationed at the air

force base in abilene, about an hour and a half from san angelo. he loved the job because of the camaraderie, because of the sense of adventure, because of the feeling he got from knowing he was doing something to serve his country. that meant a lot to him. >> joining the air force is a turning point in michael's life. being part of that air force team and then ending up in texas, certainly he was a fish out of water in many ways in texas. >> there are a lot of if's about this case. if only michael had never left maine. if only he had never joined the air force. if only he had never been stationed in abilene, texas. but all of that did happen to a young man with a promising military career ahead of him. and then he met wendi. >> i mean, i wish i could do it all over again. i don't think i was a terrible person. i think i just made a really horrible mistake.

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for that healthy skin glow. >> long before wendi mae davidson crosses paths with

michael severance she's an inspiring young woman with a dream of working with young animals. even as a teenager she has plans to become a vet. her younger brother, marshall, has ambitions to go into law enforcement and at the heart of the family is judy, a powerful personality who has high hopes for her children. >> the davidson family, people describe them as close-knit and i always thought that meant guarded. >> going way back, who was wendi mae davidson? who were you? >> i grew up on a farm. so, my life pretty much revolved around animals. i would like to go out and have fun but for the most part animals, veterinary medicine, and our family, that was pretty much me. ♪ >> by almost all accounts the person closest to wendi, the central figure in her life, is

judy. a strong and loving mother. >> judy saw the potential in her daughter and was determined to help her fulfill it. in 1996, wendi graduates second in her class from water valley high school. >> judy wanted her daughter to be successful. there was a lot of drive in that family. >> and success in high school leads to success in college for wendi. >> wendi went to texas a&m, which is one of the toughest veterinary schools and she did very well. but she was also rebellious. she also wanted to have fun. >> i think in some ways, once she tasted freedom, she just went overboard. >> and she got pregnant while still at texas a&m. >> in october, 2001, tristan is born. now, wendi says her relationship with tristan's father falls apart leaving her a single mother and a student. >> her mom moved across the

state of texas to live with wendi, so wendi could continue to go to school. >> wendi graduates with a veterinary degree in may 2002, and she heads back to west texas. she gets her first job as a vet in abilene. meanwhile, michael severance is also in abilene, stationed at dyess air force base. >> after several deployments, to combat zones in the middle east, mike continues to build a terrific career and assume greater levels of responsibility as a c-130 crew chief. he loved the air force, was doing really well. >> the worlds of wendi mae davidson and michael s are about to collide. ♪ >> mike and wendi met when he was out line dancing, and i think she just was drawn to him

like a magnet. >> i was there with a friend, and he came and dance. and i had an emergency call before long, so i had to go see a pet. something i normally wouldn't do, i gave him my phone number, just because i had to leave, and i figured, i might never see this guy again. >> they had flash romance. they just hit it off immediately. >> he was quite surprised when she called up and said, hello. i'm pregnant with your child. >> despite only knowing each other for a couple of months, the couple decides they want to make a go of it and wendi introduces mike to her family. >> mike probably didn't make the best impression on the davidson's family. they probably think he's a little bit too much of a playboy, a guy that's out at the bars trying to pick up women. >> judy did not like him from the outset.

>> why didn't your family like mike? >> i think it was probably primarily my mom. she never liked any guy i ever dated. she always felt like they weren't good enough. mike came along. she thought he was rude. >> in what way rude? >> one story she told me is when we were staying at her house overnight she told me she saw him walking into the hallway to the bathroom at night and thought that was disrespectful. >> judy described him as lazy and so she kept her distance from him. >> i think she looked at him kind of a scrump. she's come into her life and the first thing he does is get her pregnant. >> i found out i was pregnant with shane. things happened out of order. >> it kind of sounds like the pregnancy forced him into marriage. >> he asked me, do i want to get married? of course i wanted to.

i wasn't going to pressure him. >> in september 2004, wendi's second child, shane, is born. mike makes a decision that will change his life forever. >> the wedding was in the justice of the peace office. they repeated the vows, rings were exchanged and that was it. >> michael's brother and dad traveled there and it felt like an immediate culture clash. >> lloyd came in and he said, you must be the dad. and i said, i am. and he said, well, i'm lloyd. we shook hands, and he turned around and left. and that was, that was pretty much it. judy davidson came in and pretty much introduced herself and left. >> judy remembers the day differently. she says she bought the wedding cake, paid for the dinner and mike never even thanked her. judy says she felt he was a bit

stand offish. >> they were supposed to immediate us all for this dinner which they never showed up so there was animosity right from the get-go. ♪ >> the david sons want to give their daughter a hand so they help her finance her veterinary clinic. at the back of thenling there is just enough space for a small apartment, and it's there that mike eventually moves in mae davidson and the two boys. >> it was really very small and cramped for four people. it wasn't a very comfortable existence. >> wendi is trying to manage two small children, a tiny little residential area, her family, and her practice. so there is a tremendous amount of stress in this relationship for a young couple that basically are starting out with two young kids. >> and adding to these rising tensions, michael is about to be

redeployed. >> so long days and then on top of that he chose to live well away from the base so he spent three hours of every day commuting which in itself takes a toll. >> it just becomes almost a big caldron boiling. a situation that could easily boil over. >> michael has just returned from an air force training course and gets into an argument with wendi. >> wendi started yelling at him, and michael pretty much said screw this i'm going to take shane and go to abilene that stirred up a hornet's nest. now, there's skyrizi. ♪ things are looking up ♪ ♪ i've got symptom relief ♪ ♪ control of my crohn's means everything to me. ♪ ♪ ♪ control is everything to me. ♪ feel significant symptom relief with skyrizi, including less abdominal pain and fewer bowel movements at 4 weeks. skyrizi is the first and only il-23 inhibitor

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>> it's thursday, january 13. it's been four months to the day since wendi married mike and he's just gotten back from an air force training course and gets into an argument with wendi. >> mike, without saying a word, took shane and drove up to

abilene. >> just to cool off, lose steam, and he hadn't shown shane around or his friends. >> he didn't tell wendi he was leaving. he was upset with with w. >> wendi is losing her mind trying to figure out where he is and where she's taken her son. she's calling him but he will not answer the phone. >> it was a confrontation. >> when he got back, he caught hell from wendi, that he can't just take the baby whenever he likes. mike said, it's my son, too. like, i can take my son when i want. >> wendi took michael's taking off with the baby as a sign of things to come, as a warning, a portend. >> he's now under significant pressure at home, and mike is also redding himself for re-employment likely to the middle east. >> we learned today of two more american soldiers killed in iraq.

577 u.s. troops have died in action now since the war began. >> michael had deployed several times to the middle east after 9/11, so he knew what deployments were like but this was the first time with his new wife, with a baby, that he would have to leave them behind, and again, go somewhere else on the other side of the world and it creates a lot of anxiety and angst, so that house winds a lot of pressure and anxiety just prior to his employment. >> it did seem like a guy with a good job, maybe he was about to be deployed, but was there for you and the children. he helped. he was loving to you, you guys had fun. at what point did this apparent dream life sour and why? >> i still don't know that it ever did. everything was fine to me, but see, i was busy. i was in the middle of trying to run this clinic i had just opened. taking care of two little babies. the only thing that i noticed that changed with mike is he was

having a very hard time driving back and forth to abilene every day. so i did notice that he had started, he would still drink every afternoon, but at first i noticed he was using caffeine pills, and like ephedra, something like that. he did ask me on a couple of occasions if i had anything that could help him sleep and the only thing i ever gave him was benny drill. >> would you say he was abusing alcohol and drugs? >> at the time i didn't realize there was an issue but looking back, you know, hindsight is 20/20, so looking back, obviously there was a problem. that's not normal. >> despite what wendi says there was never any evidence that michael had a problem with drugs or alcohol. it seems that even with everything else they are going through, the couple has at least one thing to look forward to. they plan to squeeze in a trip to michael's hometown in maine

before his next deployment. they booked tickets for sunday, january 16. >> michael was very, very excited because we were excited. a lot of his friends were going to get to see the baby and wife. >> very much looking forward to spending an hour or five minutes or just, hey, good to see you, a quick hug, hold the barry, spend time with the baby. >> i'm not even sure if wendi had ever seen snow so it would be a change for them, too. >> regardless of the challenges they are facing, on friday, wendi decided to go out for the evening. just the two of them. >> michael doesn't know it yet, but his days ♪ >> that last friday night that you went out to dinner together, probably had a few drinks.

>> yes. >> do you remember anything about that night? >> we went out, had fun, he slept in. everything seemed fine to me that night and even the next day when i saw him. >> that was friday and saturday. >> yes, he was at the clinic. and then everything gets murky. between friday night and sunday morning, we really just have wendi's version of events. >> describe to me the last time that you say you saw your husband alive. >> okay. so saturday morning, i stayed at the clinic until three, and i was going to take shane and go get tristan because we were supposed to go to maine on sunday. i saw mike. he was in the back watching tv and i told him that i was going to go out to my parent's house and get tristan and i would be home in a little while. >> no one other than wendi knows exactly what happens next but one thing is for

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>> it was january 16, 2005, that's when everything changed up here, for the severance family. >> we were supposed to go to the airport and pick him up. i walked through the door, i said, how come you guys aren't ready. let's go. we've got an hour and a half ride to bangor to pick up mikey, and his wife and baby, got to get them and brenda says, you need to sit down. she said, michael is missing. i said what do you mean, michael is missing? >> wendi can't find him. >> she's saying that she couldn't go to maine because she can't find michael. she's saying maybe michael went to maine without me. >> i got to talk to wendi, and i asked her what's going on, wendi, what's up? and she says, well, i don't

know, i had taken his truck and gone to my mom's house, and when i got back, he wa >> clearly, michael, wendi, and the boys are not catching that flight to maine. instead, wendi calls her mother, judy. >> did your parents know that mike disappeared? >> when i called, i asked my mother, do you know where mike is? and she said, no. do you know where mike is? i said, well, he's not here. i don't know where he is. and she said, well, then you need to come up to the house right now. so i got the boys, went out there, i went to sleep, at some point. >> now, here's one of the first

strange things wendi does. despite her parents telling her to call the police, wendi spends that sunday sleeping on and off throughout the day at their house. >> definitely thinking if my husband was missing, i wouldn't sleep. i wouldn't eat. i would be searching for him. i would be looking for him. i would be calling everybody i knew under the sun that could help me. >> and when he does eventually call the san angelo police department at 6:43 p.m. that night telling them that her husband is missing and manhunt begins. >> we had a missing airman and they were in the process of looking for him. >> he had totally fallen off the radar screen. totally disappeared. >> the very next day, wendi does something extraordinary. within 24 hours, she filed for divorce. >> as bizarre as this sounds

wendi does have an excuse. it wasn't her husband, she says, it was her parents. >> i was a zombie at this point in time. just doing whatever they said. my dad took me to the attorney's office, told them whatever. >> you signed the papers, though. >> of course i did. they told me to sign the papers. i did what they told me to do. >> and i don't know why. >> not only did she file for divorce, but she got a restraining order against him. a restraining order that forbid him from writing to her, being around her, talking to her on the telephone. >> and the request for the restraining order wendi claims she's worried michael will take shane away from her. >> just the day after mike went missing, wendi filed for divorce and filed for a restraining order against mike. >> red flag. >> in the days that follow,

officers talked to wendi and visited the clinic. >> on wednesday, she's interviewed by the san angelo police department. she said that saturday afternoon was the last time she saw her husband. >> i -- [inaudible] >> more worried. i started crying. and tristan started crying, mommy, why are we crying? because i don't know where daddy is. we can't get everything packed. i said i guess we're not going to go to maine. at 5:00, that's when i pick up the phone and called and said, have y'all heard from mike? >> days later, the investigation ramps up, when the san angelo police team up with the texas rangers. >> my name is sean pamter and i'm with the texas rangers. i joined in the investigation with the san ang

department. we got together and came up with ideas of other leads that we could follow to find out what happened to michael. >> the investigators wanted to know if they could think of any reason why michael might have run off. they talked to some of his buddies. >> i believe i met him in the latter part of november 2004. i even told him that any time he was in san angelo to give me a shout. so he said, i don't go down there a whole lot because my mother-in-law hates me and wishes i was dead. he kind of giggled about it and said, i'm serious. i thought, well, maybe he's had enough of it and went for a few days away and then i learned he left his car and his cell phone and i thought that was really strange because, you know, everybody lives by both nowadays. and that's when i really began to wonder if something was really going on. >> the more the rangers dig, the more they discover just how

unhappy michael appears to be in his marriage. >> during the investigation, we interviewed a friend of michael severance named jeffrey holden, and during our interview with mr. holden, he said that he had spoken to michael around november-december period and during that conversation michael said that his marriage was rocky, and that he was thinking about getting out. >> now, this is something the texas rangers want to drill down into further. >> i obtained the cell phone records for his cell phone to try and determine what activity there was on his phone around the time that he went missing. and in one case, a female had his phone number programmed into her phone. >> it was a compelling lead. these calls to michael's phone, could mike, in fact, be seeing another woman? >> this is not my son michael. this is not what he does. the model train set is entrusted to todd. mr. marbles will receive recurring deliveries

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>> staff sergeant michael severance is missing. his newlywed wife, veterinarian wendi mae davidson, says he left their home when she was without the family. there is no sign of him anywhere. his father is getting very anxious. >> at that time, were you confident of the investigation by the texas rangers and the san angelo police? >> no. no, i've got to be honest. i was not. they weren't asking the right questions. >> when michael doesn't show up for work he's considered awol. absent without leave but it's highly unusual for somebody who had been in the service this long to just disappear. that raised a red flag and that's why the air force was so diligent. we need to find out what happened here, so they now need to get the osi involved, the office of special investigations, because this is

a mystery. >> -- has a lot of resources that they can use in the investigation, and as the investigation progressed, such as this one, we're looking at a deserter case. >> there are now several law enforcement agencies joining together to investigate michael's disappearance. the task force goes back to the clinic and decides they need to take a closer look at the cell phone records. >> we were able to identify some of the phone numbers that contacted him, and in one case, a female had his phone number programmed in her phone. >> one of the scenarios that came up was did fact that michael might be having an affair with another woman. >> it seemed like a compelling lead. midnight calls to michael's phone from a mystery woman. maybe he was hiding out with her. >> i believe that if michael was going to leave with another woman he would have ended things with wendi. he would have said this isn't for me anymore, i want a divorce, and he would have done

it the right way. i don't think mike had it in him to be a cheater or anything like that. >> it turns out this would be girlfriend was just an old friend calling michael. nothing more than that, but what investigators -- when investigators talked to the davidsons, couple supports the other theory from their daughter, wendi that michael has gone awol. >> he was all concerned about he didn't want to be deployed because he was afraid that something bad would happen, and he was saying, it would be just so easy to go to canada. >> what do you think happened to him? >> i think he just -- >> you think it strange he left with no clothes and no money? >> if you had met the guy, you wouldn't think it was strange at all. because, i mean, he was just one super weirdo. >> do you think anybody -- >> [inaudible]

he talked off at somebody. he was obnoxious, rude, nasty, i wanted no part of him and i didn't want her or my babies to have any part of that i'm not going to lie, i didn't like him, never did never will, and i hope no harm has come to him but if i never seen him again that's fine, too. >> i'm going to ask this question of everybody, did you do anything to him? >> no, i did not. >> just have a seat right there and i'll be right back. >> i asked judy this, too, because, you know, i've got to ask you, i asked her, i said, did you do anything to him? did you hurt him or do you know if anybody did? do you know? >> well, i never did, and i never would. my thoughts are that, at first i was leaning toward -- that's

where most of his friends are, in abilene. but then, you know, maybe -- since he always told wendi how easy it would be to go from canada to maine. according to her, he had even said something about how easy it would be to get a fake i.d. >> him taking off to canada -- >> oh, gosh, no, i would have >> he was telling her he had a secret mission that he was going on. >> i said, wendi, that man hasn't gotten sense enough to pore piss out of a boot. do you really think they are going to send him on a secret mission. he had three, four years left, something like that, and he wanted out. he was tired of people telling him what to do. >> the davidson family seemed to indicate that they believed michael was worried about an upcoming employment and is so he

left on his to avoid being deployed. >> the task force talks to michael's family and friends, and look into his service record. >> michael really loved the service. there was no indication that he was a malcontent. he liked being in the air force and he had gone to afghanistan and he was going to do it again. >> his friends' minds are starting to go to some pretty dark places. >> things started running through my head that there may be a possibility that something had happened to him. that somebody did do something to him. you know. >> it's now more than two weeks since michael was last seen and investigators search wendi's clinic yet again. this time they get wendi's permission to make a copy of her computer hard drive for analysis. it will be several weeks before the results come back. in the meantime investigators aren't ruling anything out. they are even considering the possibility that if michael is awol, maybe it's wendi who is helping him hide out. >> their next move is critical.

they put wendi under surveillance in the hopes she'll lead them to where michael m be. >> we were given permission to place tracking devices on wendi's car. >> with that tracker in place the task force will know anywhere that wendi goes, and they are hoping it leads them to michael's location. wendi's car is recorded making a trip to the four sevens ranch 20 miles outside of san angelo. >> they noticed on the tracking download that she had spent quite a bit of time at the pond. >> then on march 3, the results of wendi's laptop search come in. some bone-chilling revelations come to light. >> ultimately, what became a breaking point in the investigation was when we learned about the research that she had done on the computer. >> when they looked in that computer they found out that she

had looked to see about body decomposition. >> for her to research that, it would indicate that she had some knowledge that michael's body was in a body of water. >> ranger sean palmer goes back to the clinic to question wendi one more time and at first she seems to have answers for why she's searching the internet about decomposing bodies. >> she wasn't caught off-guard by those questions. she explained that she had researched the decomposition of a body in water because during that time period, searchers, volunteer searchers were out searching for michael. >> but he presses wendi further, telling her he knows she's been to the four sevens ranch. he want to know why. >> she obviously became disturbed by the information that the pond would be searched, and it caused her to kind of lose her composure that she had

maintained throughout the investigation. >> that's when wendi started to feel the fire breathing down her neck. >> she grabbed her infant son, jumped in her car and took off. >> if you're keeping score as to who is behaving like they are innocent and who is behaving like they are guilty, wendi is behavioring like she's guilty. >> once police started being on your tail you called your brother marshall? >> yes. >> he's a game warden, a law enforcement role and he's now in an awkward position. >> they agree to meet at a nearby location, at a cemetery, and that's where wendi mae davidson's story is about to make a major plot twist. >> so marshall arrived first, and he said why am i here? what are we doing here? and she said, i've got to tell y'all something. he said, tell me now.

>> what happened there. >> i told him what had happened. that i had found mike dead, and dumped his body in the pond. >> the story wendi tells her brother is that she came home that saturday and found michael dead in their living room. and in a panic, she decides to get rid of his body in a the four sevens ranch, of course, he was a bit shocked but kept swearing that she hadn't killed michael. >> but the revelations to marshall is about to tear the close-knit family apart. >> wendi, you can't be telling me this. i can't believe you just told me this. >> parents drove up and me and my brother were telling they will everything that happened, which was, you know, that i had

found him dead, and dumped his body in the pond. my brother told me that he was going to try to call an attorney, and instead, he called the police. [siren] >> so as your brother had called the police, they came to take you away to questioning. what did you think? what was going through your mind? >> did you feel betrayer at that moment? >> i didn't feel anything. except impending doom. i was crying. vomiting. everything was horrible. everything. >> and then, the bombshell. as they approach with with investigators hear her say that she didn't kill mike, but that someone else in her family did. >> wendi was insisting that a member of her family had murdered mike, and so she got rid of the body to save one of

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>> so let's just take a step back. you wake up saturday morning. you have a veterinary clinic, a live husband, two kids, and a life. almost all of that is gone. >> wendi's revelation to her

brother marshall is about to tear this close-knit family apart. >> wendi was insisting that a member of her family had murdered mike. so she got rid of the body. >> your two boys are in the car seats in the truck, and in the flatbed as your husband is dead. >> yes. unfortunately, yes, that's the truth. >> if you didn't kill that young man, why did she throw him away? >> i thought if somebody killed my son, maybe somebody would try and kill my grandson. >> wendi, only a guilty person disposes of a body the way you did. an innocent person calls the police. >> you wouldn't do anything to protect your mother or child or your wife? ♪ >> is there one memory from the

good times that you hold on to? >> the best thing that i remember about mike was one morning i had woke up on a sunday morning, and he was laying in the crib with both the boys asleep, curled up with them. he said shane woke up so he said i was trying to get him to go back to sleep, and tristan woke up and came and crawled into bed with us. >> he sounds like a sweet dad? >> he was a good dad. >> so all in all we're talking about a good man? >> yes. >> a good man but one whose body, wendi says, she left at the bottom of that stock pond. [siren] >> a couple of detectives cars came pulling up and they went to where the davidson family were gathered at the cemetery. [siren] >> when you found your husband dead, when you say you found him dead -- >> right. >> -- what did you do? >> i had both the boys with me

and i told tristan go play in the other room and i went over to him to see if he was live to feel for a pulse, and, of course there, wasn't a pulse. he was cold to the touch. >> why didn't you call the police? >> i think that's maybe what most people would have done if they didn't think that someone in their family was involved. this is what i thought, he's dead. i can't bring him back. i can't save him. but if my mother is involved in this, i can save her. so i made the horrible, horrible decision that i was going to move his body and just pretend he went missing. >> wendi was insisting that a member of her family had murdered mike, and so she got rid of the body to save one of her family members from getting into trouble. >> how do you make that leap to my mother must have done this? and then, another huge leap back

to going, well, i have a decision to make, because even if my mother must have done probably still should be calling 911. >> wendi is put into the back of the patrol car and taken from the cemetery to the police station for what's going to be very long night. >> and by the time wendi gets into the interrogation room she's suddenly doing a talking. >> we got a note from you why this all happened. >> i'm not talking right now. >> and that's just about all the people get from wendi that night. wendi's brother marshall is also interviewed by police that night about his sister's shocking revelations. >> what happened this evening? >> i don't know if i should tell you either. but, i mean, basically, she did

something but she didn't kill him, hurt him, or anything like that but she knows where he's at. i didn't do anything. this and that. >> now, in the interview room is wendi's mother, judy, who given the circumstances, seemingly has no problem with the fact that her son called the police on his sister. >> she's pretty upset with him. >> i know she is, but he did the right thing. he did the right thing. i know he's going to catch flack for it from her, but -- >> he did the right thing. >> he did. >> did wendi call you, y'all, at the house, or did she call your son? >> she called -- i answered the phone. and she said, to everybody, to the cemetery. >> did she say she found him dead?

>> she found him dead. she said, i didn't do but i moved him. she thought i had done something, or one of us. >> did you have anything to do with what happened to mike? >> i thought he had run away. no. >> i understand this is hard. >> no, it's not. i know you have to ask it and he knows that i hated him, but i would never, ever, i couldn't even -- i couldn't -- >> and now wendi's father, lloyd, confronted with his daughter's unthinkable accusations. >> what did she say she found? >> she said she walked in and he was laying on the floor, and his -- she looked at him and said he was dead. i said, how did he die?

whatever, she said i don't know. it didn't seem like anybody had shot him or anything. he was just laying there dead. >> what did she do? what did she say she did? >> that's why she was so scared. she said she just knew since we had keys and stuff, she knew one of us had done it. >> were you kind of surprised that she thought y'all had killed him? >> well, yes, i was kind of, not totally shocked because she knew that judy hated him. i have never heard judy threaten to kill him. >> and what about lloyd and judy, urging wendi to go and file for divorce? >> was it your idea or wendi's idea to file for divorce? >> it was ours, we said, you

know, if he's starting to pull that kind of stuff, it's going to do nothing but get worse. he's already getting drunk all the time. he's already running off with the baby and stuff. you don't need that. you need to get away from him. >> so at this point, all wendi is being charged with is tampering with evidence and she's going to be held at the county jail. with no reason to believe that wendi's family is in any way involved in disposing of the body they do not press charges against them but a gruesome discovery is about to be made at the pond and as it turns out dead men do tell tails. >> how do you go to the pond and stab that body 41 times, how do you do that? hm, what about these? looks right. nooo... nooo...

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hanging out with some friends, pulled into the driveway and the car with government plates was in our driveway 11:00 at night. that's not a good sign. walked out on the driveway -- when i lost my mom i was still a little young to fully grasp the effects, so when i lost mike, i lost a big ♪ >> what do we have here? >> this is michael in front of his aircraft. the c-130. it's hard to convey to people what kind of a person your son is because everybody has great son. he said to me one day, dad, i

want to be a truck driver. i want to haul logs and i sat him down and said, michael, you only know maine. you need to go out and see the world and then decide if you want to come home and be a truck driver and haul logs in maine. i said, i suggest the military but if i hadn't of said that, if i had said go ahead and be a truck driver, mike, he might be coming through the door now. i'm sorry. >> it's not your fault, les. >> i know. but you can't always control your emotions. >> and now the true horror of what had happened to michael severance is about to unfold. the investigative team makes its way to the four sevens ranch. >> to get to the ranch you drive seven miles north of the city limits on u.s. highway 87.

you'll turn on one of the side pave roads and follow it for about three miles. >> there were approximately 10 investigators along with the texas department of public safety dive team. >> it's not great big pond. i know it was cold and there was a little breeze that would come off that water and make it cold. >> it was kind of an uneasy anticipation about what would be found. >> we're on the shore kind of watching where the divers are. these guys are like search divers. they have the boots and big bell head and they are running air down to them, and all of a sudden, they said something and the diver that had the radio, that was talking to him, he looks up and said, they got him. they found him. >> he was wearing underwear and he had lots of different implements tied to his body.

>> they knew something was holding him down because he wasn't buoyant, and guided him to the shore where others were able to get him out of the water and that's when we got him in the body bag. >> because of the cold temperatures in the water the body had been preserved. >> in all of the 36 years i've been doing this i have never had human remains in water with apparatuses tied around his person to hold him in the water. >> how did you move the inert weight of a 160-pound man? >> there was a box sitting over in the corner, and in my mind i thought i was just going to roll the body in the box, and i was going to pick the box up and put it in the back of a truck. >> a cardboard box. yes, that's what i thought in my crazy mind. look, i can't make this stuff up. this is real. this is so crazy, you can't make this up. dean koontz couldn't make this up. what i did was absolutely

horrible but it's the absolute truth. i rolled the body in this big cardboard box, and, of course, i couldn't look into the back of the truck like my crazy mind thought so i devised a ramp out of a couple of board, put them on the tailgate. >> why are your kids while you're devising the ramp and loading cinder blocks on your dead husband? >> shane was only four months old so i'm almost positive that he was asleep through that whole thing. i do remember they were both asleep when i got in the truck because i put them in the car seats. >> so your two boys are in the car seats in the truck, and in the flatbed is your he was who is dead? >> yes. unfortunately, yes, that's the truth. >> wendi says she drove her husband's body to the stock pond on the four sevens ranch? >> i had these cinder blocks and the fishing line and a knife to cut the fishing line. i put the cinder blocks on these

handles, in this big cardboard box and pushed it down the hill. as soon as the cardboard box hit the water it disintegrated. so now i had to devise something different. >> so mike's body is now floating in the pond? >> it's sitting in about a foot of water. so i had to take these weights and i'm trying to tie them on to this body, and, of course, it's the middle of the night, you know, i can't >> and there is one other grisly detail the police now discover. michael's body is discovered in puncture wounds. 41 of them. suggesting he had been stabbed to death. >> his body is taken to the medical examiner's office to determine the cause of death. >> the main thing that came out of this was, there were a number

of stab wounds. they were in a cluster but i don't believe a single wound would be considered lethal or would, you know, generate death to the individual. >> i think the conclusion was these were post mort 'em stab wound. >> if the stab wounds didn't cause michael's death why were they there? >> i knew air made bodies float so i decided to make holes in the body, big holes so the air could escape. >> so you were actually stabbing your dead husband's abdomen to make these holes so gases could escape? >> yes. >> she really thought that nobody would find the body at the bottom of the pond. she took a gamble, but taking gambles never seemed to bother with w. >> investigators now have to

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>> with her husband's body retrieved from its icy tomb wendi mae davidson was taken into custody and remains there for the next 34 days. calls made to her brother and mother, it seems jail is a shock to her

>> how are you doing? [inaudible] there is no tv. you know, stuck here. >> and then judy givers some savvy advice. -- [inaudible] >> then, with her brother marshall, it's sounding like wendi is starting to worry about michael's toxicology report which her lawyer told her is about to be released. >> they sent samples off for toxicology. if he said he doesn't know if there is anything in the system or not -- he still can't prove that it was me, you, or anybody else. >> on april 8, wendi gets out on

bond and goes back to work at her animal clinic, and then the toxicology report on michael comes back. it reveals exactly what was in his system. >> we're very confident that the cause of death was due to the combined toxicity of three drugs, phenobarbital and two others. that's why the person died. it was not the stab wounds, it was not a drowning, it's not because he was weighted down, there was no lethal blunt force trauma. it's the cause of death, taking of these drugs. >> the cocktail of three drugs is a show stopper for investigators. why? >> because of what those drugs are used for. >> the first thing the medical examiner found when he got the body is that he had been poisoned with medications that veterinarians use usually to tranquilize or euthanize animals. >> when we find out that he had

been euthanized -- she's a veterinarian, and they had found animal tranquilizers in his system, kind of writes itself from there. >> armed with this new information, the task force conducts yet another search of wendi's vet clinic. >> we had to go back and conduct another search, to go ahead and seize those drugs that were consistent with what was found in michael's body. >> keep in mind, wendi has been out of scale for a couple of days now. she's back at work at her animal clinic, when police arrive to conduct that search. >> phenobarbital is a controlled substance. it's dispesting must be documented in controlled substance logs. we seize control substance logs in the clinic. >> they find crumbled up records in the trash can.

>> the records belong to a dog named weisezy. he apparently had been prescribed a large dose of phenobarbital for his seizures. >> the chihuahua did not receive the kind of medication that was now on his record. >> such large dose of phenobarbital would not be used to treat such a small animal. >> but it turns out a large amount of that same drug, phenobarbital, is what michael has in his system. >> it was clear that somebody did not want that record to be found because it was clear once we found it that we would identify that the records had been doctored. >> now, weisezy is just fine but is that crumbled record in the trash just a clumsy attempt to cover up that missing phenobarbital? >> those were her drug logs. those were her drug books. they weren't somebody else's. she's responsible for the drugs. she's responsible for the logs. she's responsible for trying to

change the logs. >> i believe that there were false documents written by you purporting to show that a chihuahua named weisezy was the one who received the drugs that actually killed your husband. >> no, that's not true. >> but you did falsify veterinary documents about the use of medication for your animals. >> that's not true, though. the only thing -- >> did you not falsify documents? >> no. no, there was nothing >> and here's where things really go sideways. all along wendi has been claiming she thought michael was murdered but now, in the same interview, she's about to completely change her story. >> somebody planned to kill him. somebody had access to the drugs and the clinic. and only one person here is a

vet. and that was you. >> nobody takes into account that he had access to this. he's not the only one, everybody at that clinic had access to this. but he certainly had access. >> so why didn't you say that at the time? and you also basically accused your mother, and only now do you realize that it might have been a fatal overdose? >> i didn't know drugs were involved until i read it in the newspaper. that's how i found out the cause of death. my aunt called whenever that was, two or three months after he was dead. >> it appears that wendi mae davidson has changed her story from believing that one of her family members killed mike and that's why she disposed of the body, to now possibly michael either accidentally or intentionally took his own life. >> so could michael have taken the drugs himself? the medical examiner on this case says even if michael used

drugs as wendi alleges, they are not the typical kind of drugs that a user would go looking for. >> we're talking about drugs to go to sleep, you know, generally we're not looking at pen know bash tal or phenobarbital, this isn't generally what you take to decide to take a nap or go to sleep. somebody could say that but it didn't make sense. >> remember, wendi says she allegedly saw michael abusing alcohol and possibly drugs. she called caffeine pills and maybe ephedra. >> what she want us to believe is that mike somehow made this huge sleep from taking oral medications to injectable medications. >> at this stage in the game we all know that wendi is pathological liar. she has told so many different stories that you cannot believe anything that wendi says. >> the toxicology report and the

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>> you never want to give up that hope, but i knew, i knew in my own mind i wasn't going to see michael again because i believed with all my heart if michael was alive, he would have contacted me. >> it's too much loss for one man. you're not supposed to lose a child ever. parents are supposed to die

before their children. >> on the one hand, at least there is closure. you know michael has been found. on the other hand, you now know that he's not alive. >> i can't imagine what these parents go through that don't find their children. it's got to be the worst horror in the whole world not knowing what happened to your child. i kind of count my blessings that we did find >> michael is buried in maine with full military honors. but a few months after mike's funeral, his father les gets a letter from wendi who is out on bond. >> i was at les's house and he literally got a letter from wendi. she basically said, you know, when this is over i hope we can become a cheerful family again and everybody can get along and

we'll have a good future. >> i hope to come to maine and spend time with you guys and either become or stay a part of the family, you know. why? >> this is the role playing that she's chosen to do. she has to ingratiate herself with mike's family, with her family, playing the role of, you know, the victim here. essentially what she's saying is, mike is left. i wanted this relationship to work. i loved my husband. >> it's wendi d this is what she does. >> it's a hot summer night and wendi levers her older son, tristan, she thinks, asleep in bed while she goes out to a local bar called grand central station. >> tristan was found on his little tricycle having traveled

across two busy lanes of traffic over to a shopping center, unsupervised. >> a waitress came out, got him, and called the police. the police recognized him, knew he was from across the street. they took him back to the clinic. wendi pulled up about the same time. went to the police officer, said, oh, i just ran down to the pharmacy to get tristan some medicine. >> police said, you can stop that because we know you were at grand central station and she broke down and she was so sorry. >> wendi gets arrested again. this time for child endangerment. >> if my opinion could get any lower, that's where it bottomed out, because not only are you a horrible wife, you're a horrible mother. >> in the end, the san angelo

police department decides not to charge wendi mae davidson child endangerment. >> now, as prosecutors begin to plan for trial there is one thing that's been eluding them and that's motive. why would wendi have wanted michael dead? >> based on what wendi says, she has no motive to kill her husband, mike. so we have to conjecture. would it relieve the stress in her household? or is it a motive as old as time itself. is michael worth more to wendi dead than alive? >> congress added a hundred thousand dollars to the military life insurance. it's a quarter of a million dollars, if your husband dies while he's in the military. she made sure she was a beneficiary. michael called me before this ever happened, dad, i got married. i have to change my beneficiary. i said, sure, i understand that.

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♪ >> wendi, did you murder your

husband? >> i didn't. >> if not you, then who? >> the first thing i would do if i was an investigator, if i found a body in a pond, of course you're going to think foul play. >> and you're going to think the spouse? >> that's always what they think. that's the first thing. >> because most often, it is the spouse. >> sure. sure. >> she just kind of like it's horrible, it's unbelievable, i know, believe me, don't believe me, i wanted you to hear my side of the story and that's a hard thing to do convincingly if you're lying. is she lying or manipulating us? we have to go with the facts of the case. >> michael's family is feeling confident as the trial is about to begin. >> leading up to the trial, from what we have been informed, we were pretty certain that she was going away for

time. >> but wendi's defense quickly play their ace. they file a motion to suppress the evidence gained from the tracking device on her car claiming it was illegally obtained. >> wendi mae davidson's attorneys tried to argue that the evidence obtained from the gps was improperly collected. >> generally, police officers need by law to get a court order to allow them to attach a tracker to a person's vehicle. >> wendi is banking her whole future on one legal technicality and the lawyers are confident. >> don't worry, we're going to get this whole thing tossed because they didn't have a warrant. >> without the evidence from the tracker the prosecution would be struggling to make a case. wendi would get off on a technicality. >> -- followed the rule of law at the time that we gained the permissions and approval, to

utilize the tracking devices, i was not concerned with the outcome. >> so it isn't the san angelo police who put the tracker on the car, it was osi and they operate under different regulations. >> we were looking for a deserter and that's why we used a tracking devices to see if that would bring forth discovery of michael severance. >> and the judge rules in favor of the prosecution. the tracker was legal, and therefore the evidence gained via the tracker is admissib >> if they had succeeded, they probably would have taken the guts right out of the case against wendi, because it was her movement in and around the stock pond and the ranch that led police to the discovery of michael's body in the first place. >> wendi's defense has taken a huge hit. what happens next absolutely stuns the severance

>> we're sitting in a room waiting for the trial to start and the d.a. comes in and has a conversation with dad and they enter the courtroom, and wendi pled no contest. >> so when wendi's defense team loses this legal argument about the gps tracker, it's really harmful to their case. at this point, her lawyers, based on the evidence that the prosecution has, recommends wendi take that plea. basically saying, i'm not saying i committed this homicide, what i'm agreeing to is that if we were to go to trial, that the prosecution has enough evidence that it -- i would likely be convicted. >> the easiest way to explain that from my understanding is add anying guilt without

admitting guilt. >> the judge rules there is enough evidence to support the no-contest plea. he finds wendi guilt of murder. her sentence, 25 years. >> the truth is, once she took that plea, no contest, she was saying, in essence, she was guilty. >> those in the courtroom say she saw wendi collapse on the floor sobbing. her mom, judy, is in tears. >> what was your reaction to the judge pronouncing you guilty? >> i think i was just in shock. and i was horrified. i mean, by everything. i mean, i never ■wenttorial. i never got to give my side of the story. >> that plea deal leaves the severance family deeply unsatisfied. >> she should have got life the death penalty would have

been fine with me. i don't understand it. somebody out fighting for your country, what more can you ask for, of a person, than to go fight for your country? >> i don't think forgiveness is in my heart. >> wendi is taken to the county jail where she lobs another grenade. >> she writes a letter to the judge and basically tells the judge, you can't send me t

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cute dresses, bright button-ups and tees, comfy tank tops and more essentials for summer plans. plus, earn kohl's cash while you shop. kohl's. >> two months after wendi mae davidson is sensed to 25 years for murdering her husband she's in her jail cell and picks up

her pen. she's writing a last-ditch effort to her trial judge. >> pleading that he not send her to the texas department of criminal justice, the tdc, and then, another wendi mae davidson stunner. >> in the letter wendi writes to the judge, she says she's pregnant. >> even if that were true, it would be so easy to verify whether she was pregnant or not. >> and wendi now says although she thought she was pregnant at the time, she was mistaken. >> it wasn't true. and it didn't stop anything. she is a person who runs responsibility. >> when wendi killed michael, she hurt this community. she took a part of this community, and lee is a small town. everybody knows everybody. >> there is a lot of collateral damage in the wake of all of this and we can't lose sight of

the other two lives shattered. tristan, 20, and shane now 17. >> do you have any contact with shane? >> i do. we have joint custody. the davidsons have primary care, and i get visitation on all the holidays. and spring break. and i get him in the summer. >> mike was definitely robbed of a lifetime of getting to know his fantastic son. >> and it's hurtful. it's painful. >> because you -- i would give nothing more than to watch mike give his boy a hug. >> i didn't just lose my brother. dad didn't just lose his son. shane didn't just lose his father. the world, the country, lost a soldier, lost one of the most decent human beings ever, for what? i don't know.

>> even among all the futilities of homicides, this is one of the most future futile. >> wendi says she last spoke to her parents in 2009, more than 12 1/2 years ago. she says, she hasn't seen her sons since they were two and five years old. >> are you hoping to be able to see them again one day, too? >> >> i would hope so. yes. >> at the start of our interview, wendi told us she wanted to tell her side of the story and now having served 15 of her 25-year sentence she still seems disappointed that she never got her day in court and she still refuses to confess to michael's murder. >> would you say in all of this story, wendi mae davidson is a victim? >> no.

i think my husband was a victim. i think my children were victims. i think mike's family are victims. i did what i did. i think it was horrible. i think that i made a bad choice. that there were better choices to be made. but i still didn't kill him. what i did was horrible. there is no excuse. i might have had crazy reasons in my head but there is no excuse. >> whatever wendi might say she did or didn't do, the authorities have absolutely no doubts about the facts of this case. >> i can speak to the fact with 100% certainty that we found no evidence that anybody else but wendi mae davidson was responsible for michael's murder. ♪ >> what strikes me after leaving

the gatesville correctional facility, and then -- is how raw the pain still is for les severance. >> wendi was kind of happy because she didn't get life. she got 25 years. she'll be out in a while walking the streets. michael is not out. he got life. he's gone. she took his that's forever.

>> building a better bay area, moving forward, finding solutions. this is abc7news. dan: live -- ama: live look over san francisco bay. the unofficial start of start that we are used to seeing. ama: let's bring in sandhya patel for the 24 hour accuweather forecast. what's it looking like for the weekend? sandhya: