A Florida mother has been convicted of accusing her 7-year-old daughter of shooting her husband, a Disney mechanic, in the back of the head and then burying his body under a concrete slab.
After five hours of deliberation, jurors found Laurie Shaver, 41, guilty of second-degree murder with a firearm in the death of her husband, Michael Shaver, 36. WFTV reported.
Prosecutors said Rowley shot her husband in the back of the head at their home in Claremont, west of Orlando, in November 2015, then spent the next three years pretending he was still alive.
Michael's body wasn't discovered until 2018, when police were called to conduct a welfare check on him, a Walt Disney World employee. His body was eventually found buried under a concrete slab in the family's backyard.
After her husband was murdered, Laurie took to Facebook impersonating her husband, telling her boss she was resigning and moving to Georgia and urging others to “leave me alone.” Law&Crime reported.
Authorities say Laurie continued to claim Michael's identity in text messages even after his death. WESH reported.
Laurie maintained her innocence and even claimed that her 7-year-old daughter shot Michael when he was beating her and threatening to kill her.
Her daughter, who called her mother her “best friend,” repeated Ms Rowley's story on the witness stand.
“I grabbed my mom, I took the gun from her, and we went outside, we went to the door, and the door was already open, and he had her on the ground, and she was still on the ground, and he was still kicking, and so I shot him,” her daughter told WESH.
Ms Rowley later claimed that her ex-boyfriend, Jeremy Townsend, rushed over to Michael and shot him a second time to ensure his death.
Ms Rowley also accused Townsend of disposing of Michael's body while on his way to take the children to school.
Laurie, Townsend and their daughter all took the stand Thursday, with Townsend testifying that she never met Michael or was present at the scene of his death.
“I didn't know who Mike was,” Townsend said, denying the defense's claims that Mike lied about his interactions with the family.
Laurie testified that Michael was upset that she was having an affair with another woman and grabbed her and held her down. She said Michael had punched her and held her head and neck under his feet.
When their daughter, who had just turned 16, took the stand she described regular arguments between her parents that often escalated into violence, and said that Laurie had always been the parent, and that Michael did not have a special relationship with his two children.
During her daughter's cross-examination, jurors appeared to avoid looking at her as she struggled to explain some of the details of her memory of the incident, including why she thought the shooting occurred in May and not November.
Laurie also had a hard time remembering where her husband was during the six-month gap in the story.
Her lawyers said they plan to appeal the sentence.
Rowley is scheduled to be sentenced on November 25. He could face life in prison, according to WFTV.
