A Deadly Affair: The Shocking True Story of a High Profile Love Triangle that Led to Murder

392 Pages·2001·1.43 MB·English

by  Fletcher

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Contents
Title Page
Copyright Notice
Acknowledgments
Prologue
Good Times
“How Much My Life Was About to be Changed”
“Woman Shot”
The Miseners Wait
The Word Goes Out
The Fletchers Find Out
Autopsy
Search Warrant
Picking Up Steam
Surveillance and Arrest
Miseners: The Early Years
Early Fletchers
Leann
Delayed Funeral
Preliminary Exam
The Devil Mick
A Devil in Disguise
The Angel Mick
A Tie at Jury Selection
The Attorneys
Opening Arguments
Dr. Dragovic Testifies
Dragovic Profile
Dragovic Cross-Exam
A Mother Testifies
A Prelude to Judge Sue
Judge Susan
A Judge Testifies
Reaction to the Judge
The Prosecution Continues
Prosecution Day 4
Prosecution Day 5
Prosecution Finishes
A Jailhouse Lawyer
Mr. Blood Spatter
A Short Bird Story
Defense Day 7
Judge Cooper
The 911 Call
911
Last Prosecution Witness
Closing Arguments
Deliberations
The Sentencing
Epilogue
Afterword
An Interview with Michael Fletcher
Titles by Tom Henderson
Copyright
Instead of heading north the two or three miles to Leann’s parents’ home, the
Dakota turned south. The couple, Mick would tell police later, had decided to
take advantage of Hannah’s absence and race home for some time together. It is
about 15 minutes from the Double Action in Sterling Heights to the house on
Hazelwood Avenue. So that would have gotten them there about 12:30, 12:35.
Much of what happened next is disputed. Leann went to the bathroom,
removed her blue shorts and underpants, washed her hands and returned to the
small bedroom.
At some point very soon, the Smith & Wesson boomed out with a roar made
deafening by the closeness of the wet-plaster walls.
At 12:48 P.M., Mick Fletcher called 911 at the Hazel Park police station. His
wife, he said between gasps of hysterics and a high, keening whine, had shot
herself.…
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As Red Smith, the legendary New York Times sports writer, once said when
someone suggested that writing must be a simple way to make a living: “It’s
easy to write. You just sit down at a typewriter and open a vein.”
This book was particularly tough, especially the way it evolved. It was tough
because of the circumstances—a beautiful young wife and her unborn child shot
to death. It was tough, too, because what was needed to do the story justice was
to get to know both families, whose lives were forever ruined in one loud, brief
moment late in the summer of 1999. If you think it’s an easy or fun job to come
into a mother and father’s home and talk to them about their dead daughter, or
about a son accused of murder, give it a try.
And it was made all the tougher because at the end of the eight months that it
had consumed of my life, to my great surprise and that of my editors, I was no
longer sure I even had a villain to blame. Things were not as simple as they had
seemed.
I will forever be grateful to Jack and Gloria Misener for not only inviting me
into their home repeatedly, but for making me feel welcome. I will forever be
grateful to Darla and John Fletcher, too, who against the advice of their attorneys
finally gave in to my entreaties and believed me when I said I wanted to tell their
son’s side of the story. They also are wonderful people.
I want to thank Leann’s sisters and friends for sharing their stories and tears,
and Michael Fletcher’s siblings and friends for doing the same.
I also want to thank Hazel Park Police Chief David Niedermeier for asking
his troops to cooperate; Assistant Prosecutor Greg Townsend for being gracious
and accommodating and down to earth from the moment I introduced myself
during jury selection; Dr. Ljubisa Dragovic, the engaging, colorful shoot-from-
the-hip medical examiner who was so generous with his time and spirit; Judge
Jessica Cooper, who told me she had nothing to say and then charmingly proved
otherwise; defense attorney Brian Legghio, who, against the advice of his co-
counsel, took a chance that I would be fair and finally opened up his files and his
feelings as the deadline loomed; and court reporter Karen Hollen, who provided
encouraging words and court transcripts at way-below-market rates.
My apologies, too, to the Miseners and to Leann’s sisters, who certainly
envisioned this book would end up as something rather different than it did.
They will likely feel some sense of betrayal by me, for which I am sorry. The
book, as books tend to do, just became what it became, and it fooled me, too. I,
like the prosecutors, had assumed going in this was an open-and-shut case.
That’s what made this book so difficult. A beautiful, warm woman—beloved
by most of those who knew her—is dead. Two families are shattered. And there
is not even a clear “why.”
All the characters who follow are real. Where possible, all quotes came from
trial transcripts, police reports, court documents or the many interviews I
conducted. In recounting some scenes, I have relied on people’s memories of
what was said, and, with only a rare exception, when it could be verified by
others.
No quotes were made up. Nothing is fiction. Any deviation from reality is a
mistake and my fault alone.
Hannah Fletcher, precocious, charming, witty, as pretty as her mother, is the
biggest loser in this book of losses. One hopes at least a few readers will care
enough about her loss to send a check to her trust fund, a registered non-profit
and tax-deductible charity, at: The Hannah Fletcher Trust Fund, c/o First Federal
of Michigan, 2225 Eighteen Mile Road, Sterling Heights, MI 48083.
Mick, if you did it, may Gloria’s curse for you come true. If you didn’t,
you’re the unluckiest guy on earth. What ultimately made this book so tough to
live with is that, all these months and all these words later, those last two
sentences can be written one after the other.
PROLOGUE
Mid-August of 1999 seemed the best of times in the tumultuous marriage of
Michael and Leann Fletcher.
His fledgling legal career was finally taking off, with regular assignments to
handle cases for the indigent who came before Judge Susan Chrzanowski of the
bustling 37th District Court in Warren, Michigan, Detroit’s largest suburb and
the third-largest city in the state with a population of 144,864. The court was
easily the busiest in Macomb County and a good place to be making the kinds of
contacts Fletcher had made.
Their marriage, which had survived several separations in the last two years,
was better than it had ever been since Mick—that’s what everyone called him—
moved back into their suburban Detroit house over Easter. Everyone had noticed
how sweet he had been toward Leann the last few months, cooing in her ear at
family functions, calling her “honey” and “sweetheart,” and Leann told her
friends and sisters she’d never been happier.
However, her parents, Jack and Gloria Misener, thought Mick was laying it
on a little thick. “Every time he walks by her, he’s got to bend his head and kiss
her. It really looked stupid, when he started kissing her all over the place,” Jack
would say later. And Mick was doing stuff he’d never done before, like help
load the car when they were leaving the Miseners’ after family get-togethers.
On Thursday, August 12, Leann had given Mick the happy news that she was
nearly a month pregnant with their second child.
Saturday, they double-dated with her oldest sister and best friend, Lindy, and
her husband, Mark. The sisters squealed and hugged over the pregnancy.
Sunday, the Fletchers took her parents, Gloria and Jack Misener, out to the
nearby Outback Steakhouse, a place the Miseners had heard about for its
monster steaks but had never been to. The dinner was two-fold—to celebrate the
new baby and to thank the Miseners for loaning them money to pay various bills
over the last few months as Mick waited for invoices to be paid by the court.
Monday morning, the good mood and good times continued. Mick stopped
off at drugstore to buy a card for Leann, the kind of thoughtful, loving act he’d
been doing with some regularity lately. He wrote a message inside expressing
his love for her and his excitement over the baby. When he came back from the
office, he handed her the card, which she read with joy, then tucked into her
purse to show Lindy later.
They dropped Hannah off at her parents’, chatted a few minutes, then left for
the short ride to the range. Leann’s good mood held until just inside the doors,
where the joy quickly turned to discomfort bordering on chagrin upon arriving at
the gun range at noon. Too loud, too scary. She hated the gun, she hated firing it,
she asked if they could leave before their time was up.
Like many young parents who have some time away from a young child,
they decided to take advantage of it. Though Leann had told her parents she’d be
back in about an hour, they raced the ten miles or so in Mick’s Dodge Dakota
truck back to their house in the working-class suburb of Hazel Park for an early-
afternoon quickie.
Within minutes, Leann was dead, shot behind the right ear with the Smith &
Wesson and lying naked from the waist down in a swamp of her own blood on
their bedroom floor. Mick’s hysterical 911 call summoned police from the Hazel
Park police station three blocks away. There’d been a horrible accident while he
was in the bathroom, he told them. His wife had picked up the gun and somehow
it had gone off.
Soon, two judges would be under a cloud of suspicion because of affairs with
the young, extremely handsome attorney, and one of their careers would end up
in tatters. Mick had gone with Leann to church on Sunday, and out with her and
her parents to dinner Sunday. But after the steak and the beers, he hadn’t gone
back to his nearby office to wrap up some work, as he’d claimed. He’d gone to
Judge Susan Chrzanowski’s house, where, she told police, he’d had sex with her
and told her he loved her. Mick hadn’t told her Leann was pregnant; the police
broke that news to her.
By Thursday Mick Fletcher would be in the Oakland County jail, accused of
first-degree murder in the deaths of his beautiful young wife and his new baby.
Prosecutors would allege that he was so cold-hearted and brutal that, moments