THE DEVIL MICK

"If you're the Devil, take me to Hell."

—Mick Fletcher to Leann Misener, dressed in a sexy red cape and horns the night they met at a

Halloween party in 1990 at Michigan State University.

Leann Fletcher's murder created headlines and water-cooler gossip from the start. And Mick Fletcher was the too-good-looking, spit-curled smug-seeming lawyer people loved to hate. Something about even his head shots in the papers just made people want to smack him. He was the heavy, no doubt about it.

If there was a demonization process at work, it didn't seem like it. After all, you can't demonize the devil. He somehow, in pictures in the newspapers or the TV news, just looked evil. Handsome yet repulsive, but you couldn't put your finger on it. Of course, nobody who looked at him was ignorant of the fact that he'd been accused of shooting his wife in the head. And none of the newspaper readers or TV watchers would ever read or hear anything about his childhood or close family or any of the things that made him human, not in the months leading up to his trial, not through it, not in the months after it.

He'd been the heavy since his arrest on August 19, but the image was most clearly painted in a prominently played story in the joint edition of The Detroit News and Detroit Free Press on Sunday, September 25. Headlined "A Journey in Hell," it was written by Tamara Audi and included Mick's infamous come-on line to Leann.

The story would continue one of the dynamics that had started the day of Leann's shooting—a lot of juicy quotes by her friends and innately media-savvy relatives, who took a large framed photo of Leann with them in the days after her death, much to the delight of all the photographers and TV crews following them around.

The article would also help create one of the many myths that would later be repeated as dogma. "Her savings bought their Hazel Park home in 1993," wrote

Audi. It wasn't true—she didn't even have the $1,000 in earnest money to put a bid in on the house, and got the money from Darla Fletcher—but the Fletchers weren't talking, the Miseners were, and that's what they said.

Audi's story, and subsequent stories, didn't paint a pretty picture. It was one that seemed consistent with someone who could shoot his wife in the head.

The story accurately described the differences in the Misener and Fletcher families—the Miseners are gregarious, fun-loving types who show up places with their coolers of beer, many of them smoking cigarettes. The Fletchers are reserved, teetotalers, non-smokers who never felt at ease with their in-laws.

It detailed what seemed to be a growing rift between Leann, who'd never had an interest in college and was employed part-time as a nail technician, and her young attorney husband.

"It was like he had this attitude that she wasn't good enough for him, not good enough to be married to a lawyer," it quoted one of Leann's bowling buddies, Maddy Glefke, who had also been one of her customers.

Glefke told of Leann coming to her in puzzlement one day, saying she'd found a credit-card application Mick had filled out that listed his wife's occupation as "consultant."

"Why would he do that?" Leann had asked her.

"Because he's ashamed of what you do, honey," said Glefke.

This was played up big in the press. The point no one cared to make was that there might be a more innocent explanation than shame—don't people routinely inflate earnings or puff up job descriptions on credit-card applications? Nonetheless, it fixed in many people's minds the notion that Mick was now ashamed of his nail-tech wife.

He was, wrote Audi, a frequent attendee at social events put on by the Young Lawyer's Section of the Macomb County Bar Association, coming alone. "We never met his wife. I don't recall him wearing a wedding ring," Jacob Femminineo, Jr., chair-elect of the organization, was quoted.

"But he wasn't alone at the parties," wrote Audi. "Lawyers said he usually showed up with Chrzanowski, a Warren judge. Sometimes, they were seen holding hands or kissing at parties, other lawyers said."

That might have been what they were telling Audi after the fact, with Fletcher in jail and Chrzanowski in disgrace. But Kevin Schneider, an up-and- coming young criminal defense attorney who is frequently in the Warren district court, and also counts himself among the young Warren lawyers who routinely get together after work for a drink, tells a different story. He was in a good position to know—he was Fletcher's best friend in law school and a good friend of Chrzanowski's. He never saw them kissing or snuggling, never suspected they were having an affair until it came out after Leann's death.

And it seems unlikely the prominent judge would blatantly advertise her romantic relationship with an attorney she gave so much work to, not in front of other attorneys eager for that work themselves. Certainly she was aware of the conflict of interest, and while she allowed it to continue, she wouldn't have wanted it widely known.

*

"Generally, the prosecution is much more adept at using the press than the defense. And they use it. They use it," said defense attorney Legghio after Fletcher's trial.

If the prosecution took an advantage by getting its side out to the media, Legghio can share the blame. He kept a tight lid on, preferring to try the case in the court of law, not in the court of public opinion. But reporters had stories to write and space to fill.

The day after his arrest, the Detroit Free Press ran a story on Fletcher's arraignment in Hazel Park district court by Brian Murphy. Its lead paragraph was: "An apparently grieving Michael Fletcher told police he was in another room in their Hazel Park home, but authorities said Thursday the blood-spattered shirt he was wearing told them he is a killer."

Jennifer Stout, an assistant Oakland County prosecutor, said at the arraignment and in the article that the blood spatters on the right sleeve of Fletcher's shirt could only have come from his having fired a shot at close range

—"this is a cold, calculated murder," she said.

Moreover, she asked that Fletcher be held without bond as a flight risk.

Murphy wrote in paragraphs number four and five: "Fletcher was arrested Thursday afternoon at his parents' St. Clair County home. Hazel Park police had him under surveillance since Wednesday, and officers observed him packing a trailer, Stout said."

It was a strong image—the accused murderer packing his getaway vehicle while surveillance officers kept an eye on him. As a result the judge ordered him held without bail. In fact, Stout's allegations were without merit. Whether she didn't know the truth or chose to play fancy with it isn't clear. In interviews for this book, police say they never saw Fletcher load anything into the trailer. The trailer was a huge fifth-wheel owned by his uncle and trailered across the state from the Lake Michigan town of Holland. The trailer wasn't being loaded, it was being unloaded. (And, just for the record, Fletcher wasn't arrested at his parents' home, but on the freeway many miles away.)

Up until his trial more than eight months later, the image persisted in people's minds that Fletcher had been ready to skedaddle.

The image of the blood-spattered sleeve stayed in people's minds, too. And in the press. There was also another damaging image—that of Fletcher handing the gun to his wife, who was afraid of guns, and asking her to load it because he was having trouble. It sounded ridiculous, an obvious lie to cover up a murder. Another Free Press story by Murphy on August 19 was headlined: "He Asked His Wife to Load Handgun, Police Say." In fact, the handgun was already loaded. Fletcher said he gave her a second clip to load while he went to the bathroom. Police reports written the day of the murder even differ on whether Fletcher was having trouble loading that clip; one report said he was loading the clip by hand because an automatic loader he owned had never worked properly. In any event, it would be a red-herring throughout the trial and jury deliberations, as well. It sounded ominous but in fact had nothing to do with the shooting. The clip wasn't in the gun, and the bullet he handed Leann never was put in the clip, but the impression remained that his alibi was that he'd given her a balky gun, told her to finish loading it and that it had later discharged.

On September 3, 1999, Murphy wrote a follow-up story with Dr. Ljubisa Dragovic as the main source. "What's more," Murphy wrote, "blood spatters

were found on the right sleeve of the shirt Michael Fletcher wore that day. None was found on Leann Fletcher's right arm that would be consistent with a self- inflicted shot, he said."

An article by Mark Truby in The Detroit News on September 27 repeated the refrain, under the sub-headline of "Story Falls Apart." Truby wrote: "His story fell apart, though, when forensic tests on his shirt cuff showed a distinctive blood spatter pattern that prosecutors say prove his right hand was inches away from her when the gun went off."

That same day, Fletcher was bound over for trial in Circuit Court in Oakland County. Audi wrote in the next day's Free Press: "Blood was found on Fletcher's shirt, but no blood was found on his wife's hands or arms."

In that article, assistant prosecutor Lisa Ortlieb laid out the prosecution's motive: "We know that four days before the killing, Leann told him she was pregnant, and that triggered something in Michael Fletcher."

Truby also covered the hearing and recounted the testimony of David Woodford, a forensic scientist with the state police, who said he found blood spray on Fletcher's shirt and, wrote Truby, "Woodford also said he found fresh blood in the Fletchers' bathroom sink."

The shirt would be crucial to the case, and in the trial the following June. But in ways no one could imagine. As for the blood in the sink, its presence would turn out to be less of a sure thing—but far more important—than anyone could imagine as the tests were being run.

*

Proving motive isn't an essential part of a prosecution—it's not a required element of the case under Michigan law—but prosecutors always feel better if they can come up with one. Juries don't like motiveless murder, especially when it's the husband being accused.

Prosecutors floated three different motives in the weeks after his arrest. First and most obvious—the only one that would still be floating come the trial— there was Fletcher's love for another woman, a love that could have been jeopardized if the judge found out his wife was pregnant. As Ortlieb said,

something snapped.

Then, there was the porno angle. Police had found several discs containing pornography in his computer, and there was potential testimony that Leann had found a credit-card bill showing Fletcher had made charges on an Internet porn site. Judge Keith Hunt wouldn't let any of it into evidence, but the press and public had heard the arguments being made to allow it in, and so another stroke was added to the picture. Fletcher was a pornographer, too.

The motive? That maybe Fletcher killed Leann because he wanted custody of Hannah and was afraid Leann would use the pornography against him in court.

The third motive? As Audi wrote in the Free Press on September 28, "The Fletchers separated in January and he filed for divorce that month. Michael Fletcher stood to collect a large settlement from a malpractice suit, Termarsch testified, and her sister wanted that to be part of any divorce settlement."

Love, pornography and greed—three good reasons to pull the trigger.

Or so it seemed. But what no one in the media knew, or would find out, was that the fear of pornography affecting a potential child-custody divorce couldn't possibly have been a motive. Sure, police found porn, but some of it involved Mick and Leann together, and there were explicit sexual photos that had clearly been taken by Leann.

At trial, greed as motive was never even alluded to. While the Miseners continued to believe—and hope, for the sake of Hannah's trust fund—that there was a settlement in the millions coming Fletcher's way, investigators concluded that if Fletcher had, as the family claimed, talked about a huge settlement, it was just that: talk. His share of any windfall would be so small that, in the word of assistant prosecutor Greg Townsend after the trial, "We didn't think it was a motive."

But it was a motive in September, and it added yet another brushstroke to the image of the evil young attorney.

*

Mick Fletcher seemed an easy guy to dislike. Lord knows the Miseners hated him, with good reason. They were convinced, along with the general public, that

he had brutally murdered the family's favorite member, their gregarious, cheerful daughter/youngest sister who seemed to have touched everyone she ever met.

They had liked him well enough in the early days. He was, they thought, the answer to their prayers when she brought him home, smitten and hopelessly in love, to meet her parents and siblings a week or two after meeting him at Michigan State. She'd been going out with a rock musician with a bad Rod Stewart haircut and they didn't like him at all.

Leann had gone up to MSU for a Halloween party, which she attended in a sexy red cape and horns. Mick had captured her fancy when he walked right up to her and said: "If you're the Devil, take me to hell."

Fletcher seemed perfect. "Oh, boy!" said Gloria Misener to herself when she met him. He was the answer to their prayers—clean-cut, good looking and a college boy.

"He seemed to be an awfully nice guy. And she was in love. They were inseparable," said Jack.

Soon, she was spending every weekend at his dorm at Michigan State. It was a fairytale romance. Both were good looking, both had good senses of humor and laughter came easy. And, the uninhibited Leann would tell her friends—and even Mick's shocked, conservative sister—the sex was great. Great!

Three years after meeting, on September 18, 1993, Leann and Mick were married at his family's old church in Croswell. They honeymooned in Jamaica— Leann came back with her hair in beads—and settled into the small, sturdy brick home they bought on Hazelwood Avenue, just down the block from the first home Leann's parents had owned.

Things were perfect, everyone agreed. Sure, they fought—even her family admits Leann was spoiled and liked to get her way, and she had a lively temper. She could blow up and cool off in a hurry and didn't think much of it. She liked a good fight and never took one too seriously.

Mick enrolled in law school full-time at the University of Detroit–Mercy and worked part-time at Radio Shack. It was, say the Miseners, the beginning of the end, now that they look back on it.

"When he became a lawyer, he changed. He wasn't the same guy," said Gloria. It is a Misener family mantra: Mick got too good for Leann when he got out of law school.

After graduation, there was a ceremony at the court in Warren where Fletcher was sworn in as a member of the State Bar. The other attorneys getting sworn in thanked their families and wives. Instead, say the Miseners, Mick thanked his sponsor, Warren Judge Dawnn Gruenburg, and never mentioned Leann. And Dawnn, they say, treated Leann rudely.

Soon, Leann, with one or another of her friends or family, would be cruising past Gruenburg's house, looking for Mick's truck. They never saw it, but they were sure something was up.

*

Lindy Termarsch, Leann's oldest sister, has some kind words for Fletcher

—"There was nothing that would steer me to say, 'No, Leann, he's trouble. He's bad.' Even my husband, who's zoomed in on a lot of guys my friends date, said there was nothing, not a clue that he could do this."

But she recounts a litany of sins—Fletcher was always out with his lawyer friends, telling Leann no one ever brought their spouses. Lindy said that he was a bad father, never showing any warmth to Hannah. "If I was holding her or someone else was, he'd come up and coo, 'How's my princess?' She would literally look at him like he was nuts. She'd never reach out her arms to him. She didn't know him. She didn't see him much. He was just pretending to be this wonderful father. Just like he pretended for the judge."

Saturday was Fletcher's day to babysit for Hannah while Leann worked. According to Lindy, when Leann would get home, Mick'd be lying on the couch, the house would be a wreck, the dishes would be piled up and Hannah would often still be in pajamas.

The only reason Mick wanted to go back with Leann the last time, at Easter of 1999, was that she'd decided to move on with her life. She'd decided the marriage wasn't going to work and "she started remodeling the house. She dropped like 10 pounds. She was dressing up, feeling really good about herself. I

remember babysitting for her when she was going out with the girls and she'd be so giddy. She'd borrow clothes and be trying things on in the mirror. She was much happier."

Whether Fletcher thought she was seeing other guys—she had dated a pizza delivery guy who worked in the same strip mall she did—or just felt lonely, "He came crawling back with this letter," said Lindy. "'Oh my gosh, I've made the biggest mistake of my life. I'll do whatever it takes. I swear, please take me back. We'll be a family. I'll be the husband you always wanted. I'll be involved in everything. I'll make you involved in everything.'"

Soon after their reconciliation, though, Mick was up to his old tricks, staying out and blaming it on the young lawyers' club. "He was just the master of manipulation."

Lindy is a hairdresser. Once a month she cuts everyone's hair in the family, for free. When Mick sat in the chair and began talking, she said, "It was always Mick, Mick, Mick, Mick. He would never say, How are you, What are you doing? All I had to say was, 'What are you working on now?' and it was like, woooh, I'd get done with the haircut and say 'Next!' before he could even finish his story, which I wasn't even listening to.

Lindy and others in the Misener clan all had a favorite Fletcher-as-villain story—the time a bird flew in their chimney and instead of opening a window and trying to shoo it out, he picked up a broom and, as Leann begged for the bird's life and Hannah watched in horror, Fletcher beat the bird to death. "Leann was hysterical. Hannah was going, 'Don't cry, Mommy, don't cry.' Hannah still tells that story."

And the New Year's Eve party of 1998, when Leann was the prettiest woman in the place but Mick ignored her all night. He got a page at midnight, then moments later said he had a headache and wanted to go home. She was, he said, free to stay. Suspicious, she insisted on leaving with him. Within weeks, Mick had moved out once again.

*

By the time Mick's trial rolled around, Jeni Hughes had compiled, based on her

own diaries, a two-page typewritten chronology of lowlights in the Fletchers' marriage, in case anyone was interested. The Michigan Judicial Tenure Commission was, and it used her timeline in helping to build its case for removing Chrzanowski from the bench. (The dates aren't entirely accurate but are close.)

It read:

1996—Mick is attending law school. Dawnn Gruenburg is his "sponsor." Leann suspects that Dawnn is after Mick.

Jan. 1997—Leann and Mick are having problems. Dawnn is a factor in their problems. Leann moves to her parents for a week.

May 1997—Leann throws a surprise party for Mick for finishing law school.

May or June 1997—Mick passes the bar exam. He attends a party [where] Dawnn gives a speech about him. Mick then says a few words and thanks only Dawnn. Leann is very upset that he never mentions or thanks his family, Leann and Hannah.

Dec. 1997—Mick and Leann sit with Sue Chrzanowski and her husband at a Christmas party. Leann tells me that she and Sue talk all night about Dawnn Gruenburg and it turns out Sue conveniently dislikes Dawnn as much as Leann. Leann is happy to have an ally. She thinks that Sue and her husband are very nice.

March 1998—Mick starts wiring Sue's house for phones and computers. He said it was a side job for extra money. However, there was never any "extra money" to be found.

April 1998—Leann is sick one evening and Mick is supposed to be taking care of Hannah. While Leann is in bed, Mick gets a phone call from Sue at the house. He tells Sue that he will be right over. He then tells Leann that he has to go to Sue's to fix her computer line. Leann is mad that he is leaving because she is so sick and she cannot take care of Hannah. She tells him that he can't go. Mick gets very angry and calls Sue in front of Leann and tells her that he can't come over because he is on babysitting duty.

May 1998—Mick starts making negative comments about Dawnn to Leann. He tells Leann that Dawnn is angry that he is talking to Sue and that Dawnn told him that it didn't look very good for Mick to be associating with Sue [another judge] when he was working for Dawnn. So Mick supposedly told Dawnn, "Well, I guess I don't work for you, anymore." At first Leann is happy about this, but then she gradually begins to wonder now if something is going on between Mick and Sue.

June 1998—Mick moves out for a few weeks. Leann and I begin staking out Sue's house to see if Mick's truck is there. We also check his office. We could never catch him or find any proof.

July 1998—Mick moves back home.

Aug. 1998—Leann's sister has a cookout and Mick is drinking. Later that night, Mick and Leann get into an argument and I try to talk to Mick. He tells me that he thinks the only reason he is still married is because of Hannah.

Oct.–Nov. 1998—Mick moves out for a week, then moves home for a week, then moves out for

a few more weeks. He is finally home before Christmas.

Dec. 1999—New Year's Eve. We are at a hall party and Mick receives a page at 12:00 midnight. Lindy notices and tells Mrs. Misener. She then follows him to the pay phone. The line, however, is too long and he returns to the table. Ten minutes later, he tells Leann that he has a headache and needs to go home. He tells her that she can stay if she would like to. Leann doesn't trust Mick, so she calls his bluff and leaves with him.

Jan. 1999—Mick moves out and files for divorce. He claims that he doesn't think he is capable of loving anyone.

April 1999—Mick begs Leann to take him back. He tells her that he will now be the husband that she deserves and he should have been all along.

All in all, it wasn't a pretty picture Leann's family and friends painted of Mick, a picture the media avidly bought and sold. Just when it seemed it couldn't get any worse, it did. In a half-hour news show on Detroit's local ABC affiliate, Fletcher was about to be "exposed" as a Devil worshipper.