Funmurphys: the Blog

Free Spirit or Cold Blooded Killer?

Michael Lee Shaver, Jr. has been charged with at keast one murder after confessing to seven. He made a living off robbing and killing drug dealers. I'm going to skip right over the grisly part of how he hid the evidence, and to right to what his neighbors had to say:

Neighbors on Southfork Drive said Shaver never fit in with other residents of the rural subdivision, where homes are built on three- to five-acre wooded lots.

They said Shaver, his mother and her husband moved into the house more than four years ago when the owner of the home returned from a nursing home stay and needed help. Shaver’s mother, Shirley Bryson, 53, cared for the older man and stayed on after he died earlier this year.

The rest of the neighborhood wasn’t happy with that. Occasionally, unfamiliar people would live there for a while, neighbors said.

Keith McMeins said an ever-changing cast of characters visited the log home. Their musical taste ran to Led Zeppelin and “headbanger crap,” which they played loudly enough for the entire neighborhood to hear, McMeins said.

McMeins said he once caught Shaver walking off with a garden hose, which Shaver dropped after McMeins threatened to call the sheriff.

“What possessed you to take the hose?” McMeins asked.

“Jack Daniels,” he remembered Shaver replying.

Neighbor Russ Feeback said the heavily tattooed Shaver was a “basic, prison-looking guy.” He said people in the area noticed a lot of traffic at the house and often heard Shaver yelling.

Usually the neighbors say "he was such a quiet man", but not this time. And by the way, don't ever call Led Zeppelin "headbanger crap".