August 16, 2024 • 21 mins
🎥✨ Prepare yourself for a rollercoaster of emotions! In this jaw-dropping episode, we dive deep into the shocking tale of the Reuschel Family — a story that began with joy but spiraled into a nightmare. 🌪️🖤 What started as a picture-perfect life quickly turned dark, revealing desperation and heartache that few could imagine. 😲💔 Join us as we uncover the chilling details behind their downward spiral, the hidden struggles, and the unforeseen events that changed everything. Don’t forget to LIKE, SHARE, and SUBSCRIBE for more gripping stories, and let us know in the comments what you think happened! 📩 #FamilyNightmare #ReuschelFamily #mikereuschel
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
What would drive a millionaire to end up being accused of stabbing his new wife?
(00:04):
Who was responsible for this attack? What created the friction between them to start with?
Was it because she thought that spending $100,000 was too much? Let's find out here together.
Mike Met Dee Dee While Attending the University of Florida
While at the university, Mike met a woman named Dee Dee Hoffman and their young love
(00:24):
sparked a 25-year marriage. Dee Dee said that Mike is a gentle and kind man and was the father to
their two daughters, Caroline and Kate. Despite their marriage not working out, the two of them
had a pretty amicable breakup. The reason they actually got divorced was because Mike was a
millionaire working in the tech industry and seemed to want to prioritize work and travel
(00:45):
over his family. Dee Dee said that Mike never had a history of abuse or violent behavior.
He may not have always been around when she wanted him there, but when he was around,
he wasn't some terrible person. When they got divorced in 2005,
Dee Dee moved out and allowed Mike to stay in the home so their college-aged daughters could
always return to the house that they were raised in. It wasn't long after Dee Dee moved out that
(01:09):
49-year-old Mike met a 38-year-old registered nurse named Susan on Match.com and they hit it
off incredibly quick and she ended up moving into his home not long after. When Sue moved in,
it felt like she sort of just took over everything and including their family doc. She said that
everything that was once hers was now Sue's. And even though she only knew Mike for a short
(01:31):
period of time at this point, she became very possessive over him, his time in their home.
The two of them ended up getting married in August of 2007 and shortly after that,
Sue quit her job as a nurse and Mike significantly scaled back his traveling for work and even bought
a local dental practice. And I think saying they lived luxurious lives is really an understatement.
(01:53):
Mike made millions of dollars and with that money they traveled all the time.
They took tons of really fancy vacations. They were able to do a bunch of really expensive
renovations. They never seemed to be short of anything and that's how they both liked it.
Mike actually called Sue his trophy bride and I think that speaks for itself. They lived in a
wealthy upper class neighborhood called Hale Plantation, which is just southwest of the city
(02:17):
of Gainesville, Florida. For a little while, things between them seemed perfect, but by 2015,
texts between them showed that their relationship was anything but perfect.
And one of the biggest problems in their relationship was that Sue seemed to have a
big issue with Mike's daughters, specifically his daughter Caroline. Something initially caused
(02:38):
the rift between the two of them because they had a pretty mutual dislike for one another.
Sue would text Mike calling his daughters cuss words and frequently complained about the
relationship that they had. And for that reason alone, I can see why Caroline didn't think too
fondly of her dad's wife. Caroline claims that things got so bad that Mike could only answer
(02:58):
the phone and talk to her when Sue wasn't around because she didn't like him spending time speaking
to her. Things continued to just get worse and worse and they sort of hit their peak,
so to speak. In November of 2017, when Caroline got married for some context,
Mike told Sue that the wedding was going to cost $100,000, which is insane. And it gets crazier
(03:19):
because it went significantly over budget, $150,000 over budget. This whole wedding cost like
$250,000 and Sue was not happy about it. But it was held at the Oka Castle on the north shore of
Long Island and it seemed to become the straw that broke the camel's back in Mike and Sue's
relationship. And what's interesting is Sue and Caroline seemed to have somewhat of a bonding
(03:41):
moment over her dress. And you know Sue had gone shopping with her and told her,
you have to have this dress. This is your dress. And she bought it for her. She bought her an
$11,000 Bergdorf Goodman dress with no problem. She was really enraged at the idea that Mike spent
way more than he said he would. Some sources say that Caroline and her husband paid for a lot of
(04:02):
the wedding on their own. Sue was not happy with how much was being spent on this wedding. And you
know she's entitled to her opinion, but what she wasn't entitled to was being physically violent
with Mike. As a result of her anger three weeks after the wedding, Mike confided in his daughter
Caroline that Sue had been not just recently violent towards him, but that it had been going
(04:22):
on for quite some time. And it didn't take much for Caroline to be convinced of this because on
her wedding day, she'd actually noticed a long white scar going down the side of her dad's face.
He told her it was from one of the instances where Sue abused him. And Caroline strongly believed
her dad was telling her the truth because he actually sent her photos as further proof,
(04:43):
not that she really needed it. And the confessions about his relationship didn't stop there because
Mike also told Caroline that Sue had recently been arrested. Apparently when Sue found out how much
the wedding actually costs, she went crazy on him. She threw her phone at him. She began beating on
him. And what's interesting is she was actually the one who called 911. Things had really escalated
(05:06):
and apparently, she thought that officers would help de-escalate things. When officers got there
and talked with Mike and Sue, they came up with a solution that they thought would help. She should
go spend some time at their beach condo and cool down, which sounds pretty nice. She agreed. But
after 30 minutes when she didn't leave, they ended up arresting her and charged her with domestic
(05:27):
battery. Not only that, but she was also ordered to stay away from him at least temporarily.
Mike tells his daughter Caroline that he was scared to tell her about all this because at first,
he and Sue agreed to keep this a secret. But the more he thought about it, he felt like it's
something that his daughter should probably know. As for her arrest, the charges were dropped when
(05:47):
Mike decided he didn't want to press charges. The chaos didn't end there. Sue did end up moving into
the beach condo by herself so that she and Mike could take some time apart. And during this time,
she also sought out alcohol and anger management counseling. Not surprisingly, the more she drank,
the less she was able to control her anger, which is very common. And she decided that she wanted to
(06:11):
work on herself for the sake of their relationship. And it wasn't too long until they started seeing
each other again. By January of 2018, they were beginning to rekindle things. On the night of
Friday, February 2, 2018, Mike invited Sue to come to their house for the weekend and she agreed.
And they decided to go to dinner that night in hopes to get things back on track. Dinner went
(06:34):
very poorly. While they were discussing things, Caroline was brought up and they began fighting
just like they had many times before. Sue just could not get over how much money Mike spent on
Caroline's wedding. And based on the text that she was sending to Mike about Caroline before the
wedding, it's very clear that she had a problem with his daughter long before this. Sue literally
(06:55):
called Caroline a bitch to her own father. And I mean, that's fact she has admitted to it. And yeah,
it'd be hard hearing that as a father. Dinner ended badly and Mike left. He drove home on his own and
Sue followed behind in an Uber. Surveillance footage from his home security system shows them
both entering the house through different doors. And once they were inside, they went into separate
(07:19):
bedrooms. Mike went to their bedroom and Sue went to the guest bedroom. And this is when the story
gets muddled by lies and a whole lot of he said, she said, around 3 30am on February 3,
Mike called 911 and said that he and his wife had been stabbed inside of their home by an intruder.
(07:51):
When first responders arrived, he shared that a masked intruder entered their home. And the
next thing he knew they had been attacked. And he noted that his wife sustained more serious injuries
than he did. And it was clear by Sue's condition that her injuries were significantly worse.
She was immediately brought to the hospital to be treated for life threatening injuries.
(08:12):
Meanwhile, Mike escaped with minor cuts and bruises. But here's where things get really weird.
When officers began surveying the crime scene, they noticed that there was no sign that an intruder
had entered the home whatsoever. There were no broken windows. There were no broken locks,
no sign of forced entry at all. Maybe it was possible that the intruder got in through an
(08:33):
unlocked door. And because they saw the house was equipped with 10 security cameras, they hoped this
would give them an answer. But it didn't take long. And by the next morning, the police were no longer
concerned with this anonymous assailant. Because after Sue woke up from surgery, she told investigators
the truth. Mike was her attacker. There was never a home invasion to begin with. According to Sue,
(08:55):
the two of them got in a fight at dinner and things escalated. She had sent some angry texts
to him about his daughter saying, Good luck with your daughter. She will ruin any relationship you
have. And also said, I'm filing for divorce. I will leave in the morning. And the last of these
texts was sent at 10.13pm. And it reads, You have serious boundary issues with your daughter. I will
(09:18):
not tolerate this behavior. After returning home and sending these text messages, Sue said that she
went and slept in the guest room and then had plans to leave in the morning, like she said. But as we
know, there was a lot more that happened that night. According to Sue, in the middle of the night,
Mike came into the guest room and got on top of her. And that's when she said she felt a sharp
(09:39):
pressure in her stomach. And she looked down and saw that she had been stabbed. And she asked Mike
if he stabbed her. And he said yes. From there, she says a fight broke out between the two of them
and they were struggling and struggling. And she ended up getting stabbed a few more times in her
wrist, in her thumb and in her neck. She believes that Mike did this because he didn't want to get
divorced. And she says she believes this because according to her, that's what he said while he
(10:04):
was doing it. And not just that. But while Sue is begging him to call 911, he says, No, we're just
going to lay here until you die. And keep in mind, this is well before midnight. And he didn't call
911 until about 330 in the morning. Sue claims that she just did her best to stay awake while
she's laying there bleeding profusely. Eventually, she decides that maybe it will save her if she just
(10:27):
tells him what he wants to hear. She told Mike that she won't leave him, that they won't get divorced.
And according to her, this worked. When Mike finally decided that he was going to get his wife
the help that she needed to survive, he panicked because he realized that he'd probably get arrested
for what he had done. And that's when according to Sue, he came up with the intruder story and
(10:48):
that he made her agree to lie so that he would be protected. And as they were thinking about it,
she voiced some obvious concerns that they had a security system. They had cameras on the inside
and the outside of the house. They're going to see all of this. But Mike had a solution for that.
He decided to go and turn off the system for a period of time. I'm guessing he's hoping it'll
(11:09):
look like the intruder turned the system off, disabled it. And Sue, to save her life, agrees
to go with this lie. But as soon as she has the chance, she tells investigators what really
happened. Mike pleaded not guilty to the charges and awaited his trial at the Alachua County Jail.
His daughter Caroline says she remembers that day vividly. She was in Chicago with her husband
(11:31):
when she got a collect call from the county jail. She was confused and accepted the call only to
hear her father's voice on the other end. In the short amount of time that he had on the phone,
he briefly explained his point of view and also asked that she contact his lawyer.
And from the beginning, Caroline believed that her dad was innocent and she's not the only one.
(11:52):
His ex-wife, Dee Dee, and many, many others, including friends and colleagues, all say that
Mike is not the type of person who could do something like this, that they just don't believe
he was capable of doing this. They say that he had always been a reasonable, kind, and nonviolent man.
So why would he all of a sudden snap like that? Well, according to prosecutors, Mike snapped when
(12:14):
his wife told him that she wanted a divorce because he couldn't stand the idea of losing half his
fortune to her. When the trial began, that was the motive that the prosecution drilled into the jury.
A Gainesville man is on trial this week accused of trying to kill his wife last year. She survived
multiple stab wounds and could take stand to testify. Mike and his defense team had a pretty
(12:36):
tough road that they were looking down because now that people knew that there wasn't an intruder,
he needed an explanation for how and why Sue was stabbed. And while on the stand, Mike admitted
that the intruder story was a hoax and that the real story is nothing like Sue had been saying.
So here's Mike's version of events. On the night of February 2nd, Mike says that they came home
(12:56):
from dinner where they had been fighting. They go into the separate rooms just like she said,
but he decides that he wanted to reconcile things with his wife. He goes into the guest room a little
after 10pm and this is when he sees Sue kneeling at the end of the bed holding a knife. He says
that he feared that she might hurt herself or even him with the knife. He asked her to just give him
(13:17):
the knife so they could talk. And this is when he says they broke out in a struggle on the bed for
the knife. He says that as they fought, he feels the knife go into her stomach and that's when he
immediately rolls off of her to make sure that it didn't puncture her. They continued to fight over
control of the knife until he was able to get it from her and put it out of reach of both of them.
(13:38):
And by this point, they had both sustained wounds from the knife. And here's where his story gets
even more interesting. Mike says that he was the one who was begging to call 911 and that Sue told
him not to. He said that she was worried that she would get arrested because she had that prior
arrest for domestic battery. And this is when, again, according to Mike's story, she came up
(13:59):
with a plan to say that an intruder entered the house and attacked them both. And as for the
obvious discrepancy in time, Mike claims that they just laid in bed for hours having the best
conversation of their lives. He talks about how they talked about their future travels, how they're
going to go to Tuscany and Greece and these places, that they haven't gone before. And it was one of
(14:20):
the best conversations of their marriage. Here was his wife lying in bed with him, bleeding out from
her stomach. And he claims that they're just having one of the best conversations they've ever had.
And his version of events doesn't end there because Sue sustained one more extremely
life threatening injury. And that was the cut to her wrist. Sue's wrist had been slashed down to
(14:41):
the bone, literally cut through an artery, which is almost fatal. And how she sustained this injury
would be well, the million dollar question. Mike says that after they talked, they came up with a
plan to blame the attack on an intruder and that their dog wandered into the room sometime around
3am. And when he went to make sure that the dog didn't jump up on the bed, he says that's when Sue
(15:02):
took the knife and cut her own wrist. This is when he says he needed to stage the break in.
He runs out of the room to disable the security system. And then after turning them off, he claims
he waited an additional 25 minutes before calling 911. But like we already know, when first responders
get there, the scene tells a much different story because there was more than just blood in that
(15:24):
room. There was feces and vomit as well. A detail that Mike and Sue leave out of their stories and
his story also didn't include any explanation for how she ended up with a cut on her collarbone.
And these are all things pointed out by the prosecution leaving the defense the difficult
job of trying to prove Mike's innocence. The defense had two pretty big strategies that they
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used to argue their point. The first being that this was not the first time that Sue had threatened
to divorce Mike. And as we know, the prosecution is arguing that the reason Mike snapped that night
was because Sue threatened to divorce him and take half his money. But if this wasn't the first time
that she threatened to leave, why would he suddenly snap? What makes this night so different from all
(16:07):
the rest where she made the same threats to leave him? And the second part of their strategy was to
paint Sue as a woman with a violent past. Of course, they pointed to her previous arrest and
Mike's claims of repeated physical abuse. Not to mention that his computer search history shows
multiple times where he looked up resources for battered husbands. They brought up her angry and
(16:29):
violent text messages. And they also brought up the idea that she had previously experienced
suicidal intention. And I mentioned the suicidal intention only because it would corroborate Mike's
claims that she was the one to cut her wrist so deeply. But Sue and her lawyers deny all of this.
And Sue took the stand as well and shared her version of events. But she also shed light on
(16:50):
some other important things. She says that she had never been violent with her husband and because
he never reported the abuse that everything he's saying is a lie. Now, I don't know how they got
around the fact that he did look up resources for battered husbands, but I'm guessing they
just really honed in on the fact that he never reported that abuse. Even when those photos of
(17:11):
his injuries were shown in court, the prosecution waved those off as instances where Sue had to
protect herself against Mike, not the other way around. Now we can all tell this is a classic he
said, she said situation. We really need to get into what the actual evidence said, which brings
us back to the blood. According to the defense who brought in their own blood pattern analysts to
(17:32):
testify, they argued that the spurt patterns and timeline clearly show that Mike was telling the
truth. And it all goes back to the cut on her wrist. Their analyst says that Mike's story of
Sue cutting her wrist around 3am has to be true because if her wrist was cut around 1030pm,
as Sue says she would have died within an hour, they argued that because she was still alive when
(17:52):
EMS got there, that she must have sustained that injury very recently. They argued that if we can't
trust Sue's timeline, then we can't trust anything else she says either. And not only that, but their
expert testified that blood patterns found on the pillowcase and nightstand had to have come from
her wrist because blood would have spurred out causing the patterns they found. So that was their
(18:13):
big argument. And the prosecution refuted the expert's testimony adamantly first and foremost.
They brought into question the character of this expert. It turns out that this guy had his medical
license suspended after storing body parts in Tupperware containers in a refrigerated storage
unit. The prosecution also argued that those blood stains on the pillowcase and nightstand
(18:35):
actually came from cast off from the knife, as Mike was violently attacking Sue. This proved that he
constrained her and held her down during a violent struggle. And not just that, but they pointed out
that it would have been very difficult and unlikely for Sue to have cut herself that deeply on her own
because it's sort of against human nature and your own instincts to inflict a knife cut that severely
(18:56):
to yourself. Of course, it's possible when it happens. They also noted that Mike's lack of
injuries should be considered as well. If Sue was really the assailant, then how come Mike walked
away with very minor injuries, cuts and bruises, and she was the one with life-threatening injuries?
Sue even testified that Mike put the knife in her hands and then proceeded to cut himself so that
(19:19):
his story looked more believable. The prosecution also went on to share that Mike clearly didn't
want to fix the relationship and that he had been done with Sue for quite some time. They pointed
to the fact that during their brief time apart, he visited three dating sites to which he claimed
he just wanted to look at profiles and see their response to how they would quote, treat a man.
(19:39):
But after all was said and done and the jury heard all the facts on both sides,
they concluded that Mike was guilty. The defendant is guilty of attempted first-degree murder as
charged and count one of the information. Emotions erupted from Michael Rochelle's family inside the
courtroom Thursday night as a jury found a 63-year-old Gainesville man guilty of attempting to
(20:01):
kill his wife Susan O'Brien Rochelle the night of February 2, 2018. It only took them four hours of
deliberation to come back. With that guilty verdict, Mike was found guilty of attempted murder,
false imprisonment, tampering with evidence, refusing medical care to a victim of a crime,
and intimidating a witness. In December of 2019, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the
(20:26):
charge of attempted murder and five additional years for each additional charge. However,
those will be served concurrently or at the same time. And he has also been asked to pay an
unconfirmed amount of restitution. Now, Mike's story doesn't quite end there because after trial,
it came out that an informant came forward and claimed that Mike tried to hire a hitman to kill
(20:46):
Sue while he was in jail awaiting trial. It's unclear if there was enough evidence of this for
another conviction. But considering his age, 64, he is going to be in prison pretty much the rest
of his life. Mike is serving his 30-year sentence at the Gulf Correctional Institution in Florida,
and to this day, his family and friends believe he's innocent. As for Sue, she has since filed
(21:09):
for divorce and is living life out of the spotlight. Please leave your thoughts below.
Thanks for joining us again for another episode. Until next time,
please remember to be safe out there and to try to take care of yourself and others.
Please subscribe and like.
What would drive a millionaire to end up being accused of stabbing his new wife?
(00:04):
Who was responsible for this attack? What created the friction between them to start with?
Was it because she thought that spending $100,000 was too much? Let's find out here together.
Mike Met Dee Dee While Attending the University of Florida
While at the university, Mike met a woman named Dee Dee Hoffman and their young love
(00:24):
sparked a 25-year marriage. Dee Dee said that Mike is a gentle and kind man and was the father to
their two daughters, Caroline and Kate. Despite their marriage not working out, the two of them
had a pretty amicable breakup. The reason they actually got divorced was because Mike was a
millionaire working in the tech industry and seemed to want to prioritize work and travel
(00:45):
over his family. Dee Dee said that Mike never had a history of abuse or violent behavior.
He may not have always been around when she wanted him there, but when he was around,
he wasn't some terrible person. When they got divorced in 2005,
Dee Dee moved out and allowed Mike to stay in the home so their college-aged daughters could
always return to the house that they were raised in. It wasn't long after Dee Dee moved out that
(01:09):
49-year-old Mike met a 38-year-old registered nurse named Susan on Match.com and they hit it
off incredibly quick and she ended up moving into his home not long after. When Sue moved in,
it felt like she sort of just took over everything and including their family doc. She said that
everything that was once hers was now Sue's. And even though she only knew Mike for a short
(01:31):
period of time at this point, she became very possessive over him, his time in their home.
The two of them ended up getting married in August of 2007 and shortly after that,
Sue quit her job as a nurse and Mike significantly scaled back his traveling for work and even bought
a local dental practice. And I think saying they lived luxurious lives is really an understatement.
(01:53):
Mike made millions of dollars and with that money they traveled all the time.
They took tons of really fancy vacations. They were able to do a bunch of really expensive
renovations. They never seemed to be short of anything and that's how they both liked it.
Mike actually called Sue his trophy bride and I think that speaks for itself. They lived in a
wealthy upper class neighborhood called Hale Plantation, which is just southwest of the city
(02:17):
of Gainesville, Florida. For a little while, things between them seemed perfect, but by 2015,
texts between them showed that their relationship was anything but perfect.
And one of the biggest problems in their relationship was that Sue seemed to have a
big issue with Mike's daughters, specifically his daughter Caroline. Something initially caused
(02:38):
the rift between the two of them because they had a pretty mutual dislike for one another.
Sue would text Mike calling his daughters cuss words and frequently complained about the
relationship that they had. And for that reason alone, I can see why Caroline didn't think too
fondly of her dad's wife. Caroline claims that things got so bad that Mike could only answer
(02:58):
the phone and talk to her when Sue wasn't around because she didn't like him spending time speaking
to her. Things continued to just get worse and worse and they sort of hit their peak,
so to speak. In November of 2017, when Caroline got married for some context,
Mike told Sue that the wedding was going to cost $100,000, which is insane. And it gets crazier
(03:19):
because it went significantly over budget, $150,000 over budget. This whole wedding cost like
$250,000 and Sue was not happy about it. But it was held at the Oka Castle on the north shore of
Long Island and it seemed to become the straw that broke the camel's back in Mike and Sue's
relationship. And what's interesting is Sue and Caroline seemed to have somewhat of a bonding
(03:41):
moment over her dress. And you know Sue had gone shopping with her and told her,
you have to have this dress. This is your dress. And she bought it for her. She bought her an
$11,000 Bergdorf Goodman dress with no problem. She was really enraged at the idea that Mike spent
way more than he said he would. Some sources say that Caroline and her husband paid for a lot of
(04:02):
the wedding on their own. Sue was not happy with how much was being spent on this wedding. And you
know she's entitled to her opinion, but what she wasn't entitled to was being physically violent
with Mike. As a result of her anger three weeks after the wedding, Mike confided in his daughter
Caroline that Sue had been not just recently violent towards him, but that it had been going
(04:22):
on for quite some time. And it didn't take much for Caroline to be convinced of this because on
her wedding day, she'd actually noticed a long white scar going down the side of her dad's face.
He told her it was from one of the instances where Sue abused him. And Caroline strongly believed
her dad was telling her the truth because he actually sent her photos as further proof,
(04:43):
not that she really needed it. And the confessions about his relationship didn't stop there because
Mike also told Caroline that Sue had recently been arrested. Apparently when Sue found out how much
the wedding actually costs, she went crazy on him. She threw her phone at him. She began beating on
him. And what's interesting is she was actually the one who called 911. Things had really escalated
(05:06):
and apparently, she thought that officers would help de-escalate things. When officers got there
and talked with Mike and Sue, they came up with a solution that they thought would help. She should
go spend some time at their beach condo and cool down, which sounds pretty nice. She agreed. But
after 30 minutes when she didn't leave, they ended up arresting her and charged her with domestic
(05:27):
battery. Not only that, but she was also ordered to stay away from him at least temporarily.
Mike tells his daughter Caroline that he was scared to tell her about all this because at first,
he and Sue agreed to keep this a secret. But the more he thought about it, he felt like it's
something that his daughter should probably know. As for her arrest, the charges were dropped when
(05:47):
Mike decided he didn't want to press charges. The chaos didn't end there. Sue did end up moving into
the beach condo by herself so that she and Mike could take some time apart. And during this time,
she also sought out alcohol and anger management counseling. Not surprisingly, the more she drank,
the less she was able to control her anger, which is very common. And she decided that she wanted to
(06:11):
work on herself for the sake of their relationship. And it wasn't too long until they started seeing
each other again. By January of 2018, they were beginning to rekindle things. On the night of
Friday, February 2, 2018, Mike invited Sue to come to their house for the weekend and she agreed.
And they decided to go to dinner that night in hopes to get things back on track. Dinner went
(06:34):
very poorly. While they were discussing things, Caroline was brought up and they began fighting
just like they had many times before. Sue just could not get over how much money Mike spent on
Caroline's wedding. And based on the text that she was sending to Mike about Caroline before the
wedding, it's very clear that she had a problem with his daughter long before this. Sue literally
(06:55):
called Caroline a bitch to her own father. And I mean, that's fact she has admitted to it. And yeah,
it'd be hard hearing that as a father. Dinner ended badly and Mike left. He drove home on his own and
Sue followed behind in an Uber. Surveillance footage from his home security system shows them
both entering the house through different doors. And once they were inside, they went into separate
(07:19):
bedrooms. Mike went to their bedroom and Sue went to the guest bedroom. And this is when the story
gets muddled by lies and a whole lot of he said, she said, around 3 30am on February 3,
Mike called 911 and said that he and his wife had been stabbed inside of their home by an intruder.
(07:51):
When first responders arrived, he shared that a masked intruder entered their home. And the
next thing he knew they had been attacked. And he noted that his wife sustained more serious injuries
than he did. And it was clear by Sue's condition that her injuries were significantly worse.
She was immediately brought to the hospital to be treated for life threatening injuries.
(08:12):
Meanwhile, Mike escaped with minor cuts and bruises. But here's where things get really weird.
When officers began surveying the crime scene, they noticed that there was no sign that an intruder
had entered the home whatsoever. There were no broken windows. There were no broken locks,
no sign of forced entry at all. Maybe it was possible that the intruder got in through an
(08:33):
unlocked door. And because they saw the house was equipped with 10 security cameras, they hoped this
would give them an answer. But it didn't take long. And by the next morning, the police were no longer
concerned with this anonymous assailant. Because after Sue woke up from surgery, she told investigators
the truth. Mike was her attacker. There was never a home invasion to begin with. According to Sue,
(08:55):
the two of them got in a fight at dinner and things escalated. She had sent some angry texts
to him about his daughter saying, Good luck with your daughter. She will ruin any relationship you
have. And also said, I'm filing for divorce. I will leave in the morning. And the last of these
texts was sent at 10.13pm. And it reads, You have serious boundary issues with your daughter. I will
(09:18):
not tolerate this behavior. After returning home and sending these text messages, Sue said that she
went and slept in the guest room and then had plans to leave in the morning, like she said. But as we
know, there was a lot more that happened that night. According to Sue, in the middle of the night,
Mike came into the guest room and got on top of her. And that's when she said she felt a sharp
(09:39):
pressure in her stomach. And she looked down and saw that she had been stabbed. And she asked Mike
if he stabbed her. And he said yes. From there, she says a fight broke out between the two of them
and they were struggling and struggling. And she ended up getting stabbed a few more times in her
wrist, in her thumb and in her neck. She believes that Mike did this because he didn't want to get
divorced. And she says she believes this because according to her, that's what he said while he
(10:04):
was doing it. And not just that. But while Sue is begging him to call 911, he says, No, we're just
going to lay here until you die. And keep in mind, this is well before midnight. And he didn't call
911 until about 330 in the morning. Sue claims that she just did her best to stay awake while
she's laying there bleeding profusely. Eventually, she decides that maybe it will save her if she just
(10:27):
tells him what he wants to hear. She told Mike that she won't leave him, that they won't get divorced.
And according to her, this worked. When Mike finally decided that he was going to get his wife
the help that she needed to survive, he panicked because he realized that he'd probably get arrested
for what he had done. And that's when according to Sue, he came up with the intruder story and
(10:48):
that he made her agree to lie so that he would be protected. And as they were thinking about it,
she voiced some obvious concerns that they had a security system. They had cameras on the inside
and the outside of the house. They're going to see all of this. But Mike had a solution for that.
He decided to go and turn off the system for a period of time. I'm guessing he's hoping it'll
(11:09):
look like the intruder turned the system off, disabled it. And Sue, to save her life, agrees
to go with this lie. But as soon as she has the chance, she tells investigators what really
happened. Mike pleaded not guilty to the charges and awaited his trial at the Alachua County Jail.
His daughter Caroline says she remembers that day vividly. She was in Chicago with her husband
(11:31):
when she got a collect call from the county jail. She was confused and accepted the call only to
hear her father's voice on the other end. In the short amount of time that he had on the phone,
he briefly explained his point of view and also asked that she contact his lawyer.
And from the beginning, Caroline believed that her dad was innocent and she's not the only one.
(11:52):
His ex-wife, Dee Dee, and many, many others, including friends and colleagues, all say that
Mike is not the type of person who could do something like this, that they just don't believe
he was capable of doing this. They say that he had always been a reasonable, kind, and nonviolent man.
So why would he all of a sudden snap like that? Well, according to prosecutors, Mike snapped when
(12:14):
his wife told him that she wanted a divorce because he couldn't stand the idea of losing half his
fortune to her. When the trial began, that was the motive that the prosecution drilled into the jury.
A Gainesville man is on trial this week accused of trying to kill his wife last year. She survived
multiple stab wounds and could take stand to testify. Mike and his defense team had a pretty
(12:36):
tough road that they were looking down because now that people knew that there wasn't an intruder,
he needed an explanation for how and why Sue was stabbed. And while on the stand, Mike admitted
that the intruder story was a hoax and that the real story is nothing like Sue had been saying.
So here's Mike's version of events. On the night of February 2nd, Mike says that they came home
(12:56):
from dinner where they had been fighting. They go into the separate rooms just like she said,
but he decides that he wanted to reconcile things with his wife. He goes into the guest room a little
after 10pm and this is when he sees Sue kneeling at the end of the bed holding a knife. He says
that he feared that she might hurt herself or even him with the knife. He asked her to just give him
(13:17):
the knife so they could talk. And this is when he says they broke out in a struggle on the bed for
the knife. He says that as they fought, he feels the knife go into her stomach and that's when he
immediately rolls off of her to make sure that it didn't puncture her. They continued to fight over
control of the knife until he was able to get it from her and put it out of reach of both of them.
(13:38):
And by this point, they had both sustained wounds from the knife. And here's where his story gets
even more interesting. Mike says that he was the one who was begging to call 911 and that Sue told
him not to. He said that she was worried that she would get arrested because she had that prior
arrest for domestic battery. And this is when, again, according to Mike's story, she came up
(13:59):
with a plan to say that an intruder entered the house and attacked them both. And as for the
obvious discrepancy in time, Mike claims that they just laid in bed for hours having the best
conversation of their lives. He talks about how they talked about their future travels, how they're
going to go to Tuscany and Greece and these places, that they haven't gone before. And it was one of
(14:20):
the best conversations of their marriage. Here was his wife lying in bed with him, bleeding out from
her stomach. And he claims that they're just having one of the best conversations they've ever had.
And his version of events doesn't end there because Sue sustained one more extremely
life threatening injury. And that was the cut to her wrist. Sue's wrist had been slashed down to
(14:41):
the bone, literally cut through an artery, which is almost fatal. And how she sustained this injury
would be well, the million dollar question. Mike says that after they talked, they came up with a
plan to blame the attack on an intruder and that their dog wandered into the room sometime around
3am. And when he went to make sure that the dog didn't jump up on the bed, he says that's when Sue
(15:02):
took the knife and cut her own wrist. This is when he says he needed to stage the break in.
He runs out of the room to disable the security system. And then after turning them off, he claims
he waited an additional 25 minutes before calling 911. But like we already know, when first responders
get there, the scene tells a much different story because there was more than just blood in that
(15:24):
room. There was feces and vomit as well. A detail that Mike and Sue leave out of their stories and
his story also didn't include any explanation for how she ended up with a cut on her collarbone.
And these are all things pointed out by the prosecution leaving the defense the difficult
job of trying to prove Mike's innocence. The defense had two pretty big strategies that they
(15:45):
used to argue their point. The first being that this was not the first time that Sue had threatened
to divorce Mike. And as we know, the prosecution is arguing that the reason Mike snapped that night
was because Sue threatened to divorce him and take half his money. But if this wasn't the first time
that she threatened to leave, why would he suddenly snap? What makes this night so different from all
(16:07):
the rest where she made the same threats to leave him? And the second part of their strategy was to
paint Sue as a woman with a violent past. Of course, they pointed to her previous arrest and
Mike's claims of repeated physical abuse. Not to mention that his computer search history shows
multiple times where he looked up resources for battered husbands. They brought up her angry and
(16:29):
violent text messages. And they also brought up the idea that she had previously experienced
suicidal intention. And I mentioned the suicidal intention only because it would corroborate Mike's
claims that she was the one to cut her wrist so deeply. But Sue and her lawyers deny all of this.
And Sue took the stand as well and shared her version of events. But she also shed light on
(16:50):
some other important things. She says that she had never been violent with her husband and because
he never reported the abuse that everything he's saying is a lie. Now, I don't know how they got
around the fact that he did look up resources for battered husbands, but I'm guessing they
just really honed in on the fact that he never reported that abuse. Even when those photos of
(17:11):
his injuries were shown in court, the prosecution waved those off as instances where Sue had to
protect herself against Mike, not the other way around. Now we can all tell this is a classic he
said, she said situation. We really need to get into what the actual evidence said, which brings
us back to the blood. According to the defense who brought in their own blood pattern analysts to
(17:32):
testify, they argued that the spurt patterns and timeline clearly show that Mike was telling the
truth. And it all goes back to the cut on her wrist. Their analyst says that Mike's story of
Sue cutting her wrist around 3am has to be true because if her wrist was cut around 1030pm,
as Sue says she would have died within an hour, they argued that because she was still alive when
(17:52):
EMS got there, that she must have sustained that injury very recently. They argued that if we can't
trust Sue's timeline, then we can't trust anything else she says either. And not only that, but their
expert testified that blood patterns found on the pillowcase and nightstand had to have come from
her wrist because blood would have spurred out causing the patterns they found. So that was their
(18:13):
big argument. And the prosecution refuted the expert's testimony adamantly first and foremost.
They brought into question the character of this expert. It turns out that this guy had his medical
license suspended after storing body parts in Tupperware containers in a refrigerated storage
unit. The prosecution also argued that those blood stains on the pillowcase and nightstand
(18:35):
actually came from cast off from the knife, as Mike was violently attacking Sue. This proved that he
constrained her and held her down during a violent struggle. And not just that, but they pointed out
that it would have been very difficult and unlikely for Sue to have cut herself that deeply on her own
because it's sort of against human nature and your own instincts to inflict a knife cut that severely
(18:56):
to yourself. Of course, it's possible when it happens. They also noted that Mike's lack of
injuries should be considered as well. If Sue was really the assailant, then how come Mike walked
away with very minor injuries, cuts and bruises, and she was the one with life-threatening injuries?
Sue even testified that Mike put the knife in her hands and then proceeded to cut himself so that
(19:19):
his story looked more believable. The prosecution also went on to share that Mike clearly didn't
want to fix the relationship and that he had been done with Sue for quite some time. They pointed
to the fact that during their brief time apart, he visited three dating sites to which he claimed
he just wanted to look at profiles and see their response to how they would quote, treat a man.
(19:39):
But after all was said and done and the jury heard all the facts on both sides,
they concluded that Mike was guilty. The defendant is guilty of attempted first-degree murder as
charged and count one of the information. Emotions erupted from Michael Rochelle's family inside the
courtroom Thursday night as a jury found a 63-year-old Gainesville man guilty of attempting to
(20:01):
kill his wife Susan O'Brien Rochelle the night of February 2, 2018. It only took them four hours of
deliberation to come back. With that guilty verdict, Mike was found guilty of attempted murder,
false imprisonment, tampering with evidence, refusing medical care to a victim of a crime,
and intimidating a witness. In December of 2019, he was sentenced to 30 years in prison for the
(20:26):
charge of attempted murder and five additional years for each additional charge. However,
those will be served concurrently or at the same time. And he has also been asked to pay an
unconfirmed amount of restitution. Now, Mike's story doesn't quite end there because after trial,
it came out that an informant came forward and claimed that Mike tried to hire a hitman to kill
(20:46):
Sue while he was in jail awaiting trial. It's unclear if there was enough evidence of this for
another conviction. But considering his age, 64, he is going to be in prison pretty much the rest
of his life. Mike is serving his 30-year sentence at the Gulf Correctional Institution in Florida,
and to this day, his family and friends believe he's innocent. As for Sue, she has since filed
(21:09):
for divorce and is living life out of the spotlight. Please leave your thoughts below.
Thanks for joining us again for another episode. Until next time,
please remember to be safe out there and to try to take care of yourself and others.
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