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Monday, December 19, 2022

The Jason Young Murder Trials

     In November 2006, 29-year-old Jason Young and his 26-year-old wife Michelle lived in a suburban home outside of Raleigh, North Carolina. They had a two-year-old daughter named Cassidy and Michelle was five months pregnant with their second child. It was not a happy marriage. Jason had several girlfriends, and as a salesman for a medical software company, spent a lot of time on the road. Michelle told friends and relatives that she hated her life.

     On the morning of November 3, 2006, Jason Young was out of town. The previous night he had checked into a Hampton Inn in Huntsville, Virginia 169 miles from Raleigh. At nine that morning he left a voicemail for Michelle's younger sister, Meredith Fisher. Jason asked Meredith to stop by his house and retrieve some papers for him. (Presumably, he told Meredith he had called home and didn't get an answer.)

     Later that morning, Meredith Fisher entered the Young house on Jason's behalf. When she climbed the stairs to the second floor she was shocked by the sight of bloody footprints. In the master bedroom she discovered her sister lying facedown in a pool of blood. The victim, wearing a white sweatshirt and black sweatpants, had been bludgeoned to death beyond recognition. Meredith found Cassidy hiding under the covers of her parents' bed. She had not been harmed, but her socks were saturated in her mother's blood. Meredith Fisher called 911.

     According to the forensic pathologist who performed the autopsy, the assailant had struck Michelle Young at least thirty times in the head. The attacker had tried to kill the victim by manual strangulation before beating her to death. The extent of the head wounds suggested an attack by an enraged, out-of-control killer who hated the victim.

     The authorities, from the beginning, suspected that Jason Young had snuck back to North Carolina from Virginia, murdered his wife, then returned to the Hampton Inn. The killer had entered the house without force, nothing had been taken and the little girl's life had been spared. At the time of the murder, Jason was having an affair with one of his wife's friends. The couple had been fighting and Jason had made no secret of the fact he wanted out of the marriage.

     From a prosecutor's point of view there were serious holes in the Jason Young case. The suspect had an alibi 169 miles from the murder scene and there was no physical evidence linking him to the carnage. Moreover, no one had seen him at the house on the night of the murder. Even worse, investigators had not identified the murder weapon. As a result of these prosecutorial weaknesses, the Wake County District Attorney's Office did not charge Jason with the murder of his wife.

     Michelle Young's parents were convinced that Jason Young had murdered their daughter. When it became apparent that the authorities were not taking action they filed a wrongful death suit against him. In March 2009, two years and four months after the homicide, the civil court jury, applying a standard of proof that is less demanding than a criminal trial's proof beyond a reasonable doubt, found the defendant responsible for Michelle's brutal killing. The jurors awarded the plaintiffs $15.5 million in damages.

     Eight months after the civil court verdict, a Wake County prosecutor, based on a three-year homicide investigation conducted by the City-County Bureau of Investigation, charged Jason Young with first-degree murder. Police officers, on the afternoon of December 15, 2009 arrested Young after pulling over his car in Brevard, a town in southwest North Carolina. The local magistrate denied him bail.

     The Jason Young murder case went to trial in Raleigh in June 2011. The prosecutor, following his opening statement in which he alleged that the defendant had drugged his daughter that night with adult-strength Tylenol and a prescription sedative, put on an entirely circumstantial case that relied heavily on motive.

     The defense attorney hammered home the fact the prosecution could not place the defendant at the scene of the murder. The state did not have a confession, an eyewitness or even the murder weapon. Jason took the stand on his own behalf and told the jurors that when his wife was murdered he was sleeping in a hotel 169 miles away. He said he had loved his wife and their unborn child.

     On Monday morning, June 27, 2011, the foreman of the jury of seven men and five women told the judge that the jurors were "immovably hung" on the verdict. "We currently sit," he said, "at a six to six ration and do not appear to be able to make any further movement. Where do we go from here?"

     The trial judge instructed the jurors to return to the jury room and try to reach a verdict. But later in the day, after deliberating a total of twelve hours, the foreman announced that they were deadlocked in an eight to four vote in favor of acquittal. The judge declared a mistrial.

     The Wake County District Attorney, determined to bring Jason Young to justice, announced that he would try him again. Jason, who had been incarcerated in the Wake County Jail since his arrest in December 2009, went on trial for the second time on February 10, 2012.

     The prosecutor, in his opening statement, alleged that the defendant had checked into the Hillsville Hampton Inn just before eleven on the night of November 2, 2006. An hour later, he left the building through an emergency exit he had propped open with a rock to avoid using his computer card key to re-enter the hotel. According to the prosecutor, the defendant arrived at his Birchleaf Drive home at around three in the morning. Shortly after his arrival, he drugged his daughter and murdered his wife. After cleaning up and disposing of his bloody shirt, shoes and trousers, and ditching or cleaning off the murder weapon, he returned to the hotel, arriving there around seven in the morning.

     Following the testimony of the victim's sister, Meredith Fisher, and the testimony of several other prosecution witnesses, a Hampton Inn hotel clerk took the stand. According to this witness, he had found the emergency door on the first-floor stairwell propped open with a rock. He also noticed that in the same stairwell someone had unplugged the security camera and turned its lens toward the ceiling.

     One of the City-County Bureau of Investigation crime scene officers testified that it appeared that someone had moved the victim's body to get into the defendant's closet. The detective said that despite all of the blood on the upstairs floor, certain items such as the sink drain had been sanitized by the killer. The investigator said he did find traces of blood on the knob to the door leading from the house to the garage. The detective said he had been present when, on the day after the murder, the suspect's body was checked for signs of trauma related to the killing. No injuries were found.

      A second detective testified that the dark shirt the defendant was seen wearing on hotel surveillance video footage was not in the suitcase he had used on that trip. The implication was that the defendant had disposed of the bloody garment.

     Included among the prosecution witnesses who took the stand over the next two weeks were two daycare employees who said they had seen Cassidy Young acting out her mother's beating. The girl was using a doll to demonstrate the attack. A therapist took the stand and testified that a week before her death, the victim had come to her seeking counseling to cope with her unhappy marriage. In the therapist's opinion Michelle Young had been verbally abused by her husband.

     Jason Young's mother and father took the stand for the defense. On November 3, 2006 Jason had driven from the Hampton Inn in Virginia to his parents's home in Brevard, North Carolina. His mother testified that when they broke the news to him that Michelle had been murdered, "you saw the color just drain from his face."

     On February 29, 2012, the defense rested its case without calling Jason Young to the stand. (The defense attorney was probably worried that the prosecutor, having studied Jason's direct testimony from the first trial, would rip him apart on cross-examination.)

     The prosecutor, in his closing argument to the jury, said, "This woman wasn't just murdered, she suffered a beating the likes of which we seldom see. This woman was punished. The assailant struck her over thirty times with a weapon of some sort, and she was undoubtedly unconscious after the second or third blow." In speaking to jurors, the prosecutor mentioned the 2009 wrongful death verdict against the defendant.

     The defense attorney during his final jury presentation pointed out the weaknesses in the prosecution's case, talked about reasonable doubt, and reminded the jury that being a bad husband did not make his client a murderer.

     On March 5, 2012, after the jury of eight women and four men deliberated eight hours, the judge, before a packed courtroom, read the verdict: guilty of first-degree murder. The 38-year-old defendant, after the judge announced the verdict, showed no emotion. Facing a mandatory life sentence without the chance of parole, Jason Young was escorted out of the room in handcuffs.

     Following the trial, several of the jurors spoke to reporters. Two members of the jury said that the lack of physical evidence in the case pointed more to the defendant's guilt than his innocence. For example, what happened to the shirt and shoes he was seen wearing on the hotel surveillance footage? A third juror found it incriminating that Cassidy had not been murdered and possibly cleaned-up after the attack.

     The prosecutor in the Jason Young murder trial, the second time around, turned a weakness--a lack of physical evidence--into a strength. In the era of the "CSI" television shows, advanced DNA technology, and high forensic expectations on the part of juries, this was an unusual case.

     Shortly after the murder conviction, Jason Young's attorney filed an appeal raising, among other procedural issues, the fact the jury had been improperly prejudiced by the prosecutor's mention of the 2009 verdict in the wrongful death case.

     On April 1, 2014, a North Carolina panel of three appellate judges unanimously set aside the Jason Young murder conviction and ordered a new trial. In the 58-page opinion, the justices ruled that the prosecutor's reference to the wrongful death verdict had seriously diminished the defendant's presumption of innocence. He had thus been denied a fair trial.

     On August 21, 2015, the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the state appeals court's new trial ruling. The Jason Young murder conviction would stand. 

46 comments:

  1. i was a very good friend of alan, michelles father. this monster, jason, killedchis wife.

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    1. Do you know if Jason's father was a pediatrician from Greensboro?

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    2. That ain't no lie. Murdering scumbag

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  2. The verdict was unanimously reversed April 1,2014.
    Innocent or guilty(and the defendant is again presumed innocent)justice required them to set the verdict aside.

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    1. On August 21, 2015, the North Carolina Supreme Court reversed the state appeals court's new trial ruling. The Jason Young murder conviction would stand.

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    2. Actually the NC State Supreme Court returned it to the NC Appellate Court which sent it back the Wake County Superior Court. In Aug, 2017, that Superior Court Judge said the two defense attorney's were not incompetent as Jason Young claimed. That is disputed because a judge should not have allowed the prosecutors to introduce the results of a civil trial in a criminal trial. A default judgment simply means the defendant lost the judgment by not responding. It had nothing to do with guilt or innocence.

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    3. I agree with you 100 percent bringing up wrongful death suit biased the jury.

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  3. The verdict was unanimously reversed April,2014,by the North Carolina Appellate Court. The State is appealing to the NC Supreme Court but it is a very rare occasion indeed when the state Supreme Court reverses a unanimous Appellate verdict.

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  4. in your first sentence your facts are wrong. Michelle was 29 when she was murdered in 2006 and would have been 30 3 months later. if nothing else, be accurate, please!

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    1. I believe he is accurate. Michelle was 26 when she was murdered. Her husband was 29. I say this is accurate inasmuch as this is the information stated repeatedly with respect to this incident.

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    2. Young, 29, was found beaten to death in her Wake County home on Nov. 3 with her 2-year-old daughter unharmed by her side. Young was five months pregnant at the time of her death.

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  5. At nine that morning, he left a voicemail for Michelle's younger sister, Meredith Fisher.

    That is incorrect. It was 12:14.

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    1. Oh my goodness! A three hour difference in time of his call to Meredith. Let's cry INNOCENT! Like your book, your so=called disputed evidence, and so=called "professionals", all you do is pick apart testimony and actual evidence. This man is guilty as hell. He slaughtered his wife, the mother of his children, and will spend the rest of his life paying for his crime. I, along with MANY others know he is exactly where he should be.

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    2. He isn't "guilty as hell" based on the evidence. Like so many trials, the jury is predisposed to guilty. The evidence, by any reasonable evaluation, points to innocence. Unfortunately, the psychotic groupies of websleuths and other ultra-biased websites will never admit to basing their opinions on evidence. It all about intuition and emotion. Which is why innocent people suffer.

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    3. He is guilty as hell based on the evidence... that's why he's in jail.

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    4. WHO moved the camera in the hotel? Who else knew she was HOME ALONE and beat her and tried to strangle her (very personal attack) HE WAS HAVING AN AFFAIR - one of many.

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    5. SOOOO guilty!! Who else had a motive? Her sister? Give me a break - it was a personal attack full of hate.

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    6. Sorry, but the manner in which she was killed suggests an unpremeditated act of passion, not careful planning as you and the prosecution allege. If he had planned it out, as you allege, he would have had a simpler, less personal, less intimate way of killing her. He wouldn't have arranged it so that he had to strangle or bludgeon her. That is absurd. I like the sister Meredith for the crime for a number of reasons.

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    7. gym825, it is not nick picking. Trials and verdicts are based on facts and details. This case involved a short window of opportunity when you factor in 6-hours roundtrip driving time, and possibly a stop for gas. Then there is only 2.5 hours left to commit the murder, stage the crime scene, and to clean up that poor child. BTW, thousands of people are wrongfully convicted every year around the country. I am not defending Jason, Young. I am just pointing out your reaction. If you are ever on trial I am sure you will understand. I am also sure you would appreciate anyone or group that was trying to help you prove your innocence.

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    8. I can appreciate any innocent person having aid in proving their innocence. Jason Slayer Young is not innocent. He slaughtered his wife so viciously, even seasoned LE were bothered profusely. The attack on Michelle was perpetrated out of pure hatred and testimony proved this fact. Yes, a short window, but time enough to commit his deed, deal with Cass, shower off in the back yard with a hose which HOURS later was found to be still running in a pool of water in the backyard with all blood evidence conveniently washed away. Yes, thousands are wrongly convicted, but this NCDOC prisoner is not!! He will take his final breath in the confines of a prison exactly where the murderer should be.

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  6. He did another appeal in March of 2016 why hasn't the courts decided on that appeal yet?? Does it usually take this much time?

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  7. Not an appeal. Unless the US Supreme Court takes his case, he will remain in prison for life. What you may be talking about is a last ditch motion filed back in Wake County Superior Court that alleges his attorneys were incompetent. Extra funny, considering his lead counsel is now a Wake County Superior Court Judge!

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  8. HE moved her body to get into HIS closet and get different shows/shirt.

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    1. Right, that makes sense. Why would he need to move her body in order to get one of his shirts? He could simply get the shirt without moving her body. If anything this too points to the sister, who would likely try to pin it on the husband. It is also the sister who told police the daughter mentioned her father. Sure she did, Meredith ...

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    2. Your comments continue to point to your ignorance in this case. IF Michelle was leaning against his closet door, of course he would have to have moved her. LE surmised she was attacked first in bed. She fought back as her defensive wounds showed and feel from the bed at some time during Jason's attack on her. The bed was very close to the closet so of course she probably was in that area, prohibiting him from opening his door without moving her. Meredith had nothing to do with her sister's murder and continuing with such heinous accusations are repulsive!!

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  9. Interesting case. Just a note that in the second paragraph, reference is made to Jason "checked into a Hampton Inn in Huntsville, Virginia 169 miles from Raleigh." That should be HILLSVILLE, Virginia. It's correct further on.

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    1. Right. And the cell phone was used at the Hampton Inn in Hillsville, not Whytheville as one article mentioned.

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  10. No physical evidence .civil trial testimony allowed in agai st north Carolina law ,with the civil court judge being the riminal trial judge and all of the jury hearing this. Of course he will be found guilty . What is amazing is that if a man is having sex not an affair just sex with another woman , he is guilty. There are so many inflammatory and illegal prosecutorial entries allowed in it makes me sick . What about the unknown DNA in the bedroom . ? and if a woman will not put it any 29 year old man will go elsewhere . Women are in control of that and use it as leverage. There is a good Chan e he did it but without DNA and any physical evidence you can't convict. And forget the retard from the minimart ,she couldn't get past j on her abcs. ,i for one am sick of prosecutors getting convictions on emotions and hearsay and not on lack of evidence. Why find evidence when you can seat a mostly female jury and secure a conviction based on emotion. This has to stop

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    1. I totally agree. It really makes me sick when people automatically judge someone guilty because they were cheating. It's ridiculous. I also agree with you about the "witness". She absolutely was a retard. I hope Jason is freed one day. It's sad how many innocent people are in jail because all these people and the fact that the KNOW someone is guilty. Look at Curtis Lovelace!

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    2. Of course you can convict without DNA or physical evidence. He was, indeed, convicted. And the North Carolina Supreme Court upheld that conviction. Do you think you know more than the court?
      The problem is that people like you are suffering from the CSI effect. You believe that without clear physical evidence, there is no case. Circumstantial evidence is evidence and often the entirety of it is just as good, if not better than direct evidence. But by the way, circumstantial evidence includes things like fingerprints. Direct evidence is stuff like confessions or video/audio, direct witness statements. Most cases that conclude in a verdict of guilty after trial are based on circumstantial evidence. Sometimes there is little physical; evidence. And that's okay.

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    3. Not guilty. It is really simple, but we now very often have an INJUSTICE system ... run by state officials with a convict at any cost mentality. The balances of power and resources tilt way in their favor ... and all too often they immediately pounce on a family member ... who has already had to endure a great tragedy.

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  11. He clearly should not have been found not guilty. The police have very little linking him to the crime, no physical evidence, and he has a very good alibi. Also, are we supposed to believe that he had this elaborately planned out but had no plan for how to kill his wife aside from attempted strangulation then bludgeoning? No chance. If he had planned it out, he would have had a simpler, less personal, less intimate way of killing her. No, the way she was killed suggests an unpremeditated act of passion. I like the sister Meredith for the crime for a number of reasons.

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  12. A few more things that do not add up: the prosecution claims that Cassidy's being cleaned up proves Jason was the killer (for only he would have taken the time to clean his daughter up). Quite the opposite: her being cleaned up pretty much proves he was not the killer. One, do you mean to tell me that after planning this whole thing out so that he would have an alibi, he decided to clean his daughter up and put socks on her feet (after murdering her mother) so that his very smart and verbal two-year old could tell police she had seen her "daddy" that very morning, that he had put socks on her feet? No chance.

    Two, far more importantly, if he had killed Michelle when the prosecution says he did (around 3am,) then he would have had no reason to clean Cassidy because Cassidy would have been asleep in bed. Even if she had woken up as a result of the sound of the assault, he wouldn't have allowed her to walk around in her mother's blood and place her hands on her mother's bloodied body. That Cassidy was covered in her mother's wet blood and that someone cleaned her up points to someone other than Jason, namely Meredith.

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  13. I have just finlshed reading the book and I believe the sister killled her that is if the book was genuine ,I was always of the belief to be found guilty it had to be beyond a reasonable doubt .well in my opinion there was so much reasonable doubt . Too many people are convicted who are innocent .the people who are calling Jason all sorts of names do they personally know him .

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  14. Why don't they just ask the daughter what happened she clearly witnessed it.

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  15. This has a lot of similarities with the Scott Peterson case. Both men seemed capable of the crime, but they were convicted by emotion and because of their demeanor and adultery. They may be guilty but in each case there is not enough evidence to convict them. That's how it works: you have to put aside your moralizing and "gut feelings" and actually weigh up the evidence. That didn't happen in either of these cases.

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  16. He is GUILTY GUILTY GUILTY!!!

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    1. Where I hope he suffers greatly for this heinous act of violence against the mother of his children!!

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  17. On Dateline, or whatever TV show I just saw this on, it said at the end of the show that Jason took out a $4 millon dollar Life Insurance policy out on his wife. That would definitely point to his guilt. On the other hand, the fact that he had no blood anywhere on himself or his clothes or inside his car would point to innocence. P.S. Why are some people saying the sister killed Michelle? What would be her motive?

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  18. So he gets home at 3am and drugs his Daughter of 2 with enough drugs to really put her to sleep yet proceeds to kill his wife in front of her? Seeing as the daycare employee said Cassidy was recreating her Moms attack she had to have witnessed it then. So he gets to hotel at 11pm, hops on his laptop and quickly looks up sport related websites, rushes to grab a newspaper to show up on camera to support his alibi and all within an hour before quickly sneaking out the propped open door, arriving back at home at 3am and proceeding to drug his Daughter, murder his Wife, clean up parts of the crime scene, ditch his clothes and the murder weapon all within an hour roughly so he could then race back to the hotel to arrive there by 7am, sneak back in and pretend he was there all night? That's a fairly tight timeline with a lot to accomplish in.

    To top it all off he must have lost time at the gas station, which oddly enough, didnt contain timestamps on the video footage which is weird in itself. Taking into account the impromptu gas station stop he was operating on an even tighter return window. He might be guilty as hell but there sure is a lot of holes in the states case.

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  19. For God's sake, Meredith did NOT murder her sister. The two of them had a close, good relationship and those who even suggest Meredith could have done this vicious deed don't know this case inside and out, don't know the family dynamics, and certainly don't know Meredith! Meredith is giving Cass the best life possible, loving her, providing for her, and keeping her mother's memory alive. Shame on those who perpetrate this atrocious theory that Meredith had anything to do with her sister's murder. Jason Young brutally murdered his wife and will spend the rest of his life in prison where I hop he suffers greatly!

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  20. To clarify some of the facts - Cassidy's feet were bare and cleaned up with a small portion of dried blood under her toenails. Cassidy did not have on bloody socks. Jason cleaned up her bloody feet before putting her back to bed with a dose of adult Tylenol to knock her out. What stranger would clean up Cassidy? Jason removed Michelle's engagement and wedding rings, similar to how he yanked the rings off of his ex-fiance during a fight. Jason was involved with more than one woman. He was having an affair with Michelle Money; had sex with another woman in their house 10 days before the murder; emailed his ex-fiance proclaiming love for her the previous month and carried condoms in his suitcase. The civil cases were resolved by a default judgment rendered by the judge, not a jury trial. Jason did not respond to the wrongful death or custody cases in any manner, because he could not defend those cases without hurting his attempt to avoid criminal prosecution. At 3:00 a.m., the paper delivery person observed Jason's SUV at the house and most of the lights in the house illuminated. Jason's comment to Michelle's Mother after learning of her brutal murder was "I am going to take a hit on the house" (while knowing that he stood to collect 4 million dollars in life insurance). Jason hated and resented Michelle because she asked him to be a loving, honest responsible husband and father. Jason's vile narcissistic character prevented him from every living up to Michelle's expectations. This hatred culminated in Jason planning Michelle's murder and strangling and bludgeoning her 30 times. The testimony of the credible gas station attendant proves Jason's guilt beyond any doubt without looking at any other evidence. The fact that the clothes Jason's clothes worn the night of the murder went missing proves his guilt beyond any doubt without looking at any other evidence. Jason is shown on the Cracker Barrel video wearing the Hush Puppy Orbital shoes that left a bloody print at the murder scene. Jason admitted to owning that brand of shoes. The evidence against Jason Young is overwhelming. Jason Young deserves worse than life in prison.

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  21. There's Too Much Reasonable Doubt To Find Him Guilty Of This Crime.
    And Had I Been On Jury -- No Way Would I had Voted Guilty.
    There Are Just Too Many Holes In This Case.
    Yes, He's A Playboy- but you cannot prove, I Feel, beyond A Reasonable Doubt That He Did This.
    So If He Didn't Do It -- Now What?
    This Still Doesn't Equal Justice For The Victim Or Her Family. & They Surely Do Deserve It.

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  22. Does Jason have any visitation rights with Cassidy? I assume he's lost all custody.

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