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Update:  On April 1, 2014 the NC Court of Appeals ordered a new trial for Jason Young, citing that it was improper for the judge to allow testimony about civil judgments. In August, 2015 the NC Supreme Court reversed the CoA decision. Parts of the appeal are still underway and the next hearing is tentatively scheduled for June, 2017.

Jason Young was wrongly convicted of the murder of his wife, Michelle in March, 2012.  The first trial in 2011 resulted in a hung jury and mistrial.

Michelle was found dead in her home in Raleigh, NC on the afternoon of November 3, 2006. She was 4 ½ months pregnant.  The Young’s daughter Cassidy, age two and a half at the time, was unharmed.  The body was discovered by Michelle’s sister, Meredith Fisher.

Jason was in Virginia on a business trip.  He spent the night of November 2, 2006 at the Hampton Inn in Hillsville, VA, approximately 170 miles from their home.  It was approximately a three-hour drive, and he arrived at the hotel at 10:49p.m., verified by surveillance videos.  The next morning, he departed the hotel and continued his drive to Clintwood, VA where he had a 10 a.m. meeting scheduled. Though he is not seen leaving the hotel on cameras, he did have his receipt that was placed under the door, so he was definitely there that morning. His appointment at Dickenson Community Hospital was verified, although he arrived about twenty minutes late. It was his first visit to the account and he got confused with the directions.

He called Meredith and left a message at 12:10 p.m., asking her to stop by the house to pick up some papers from his office printer regarding some purses he was considering buying for Michelle for a late third anniversary gift.  The gift was to be a surprise and he was worried Michelle would find the print-outs. Meredith retrieved the message and went to the house. When she arrived, she found her sister lying face down on the master bedroom floor.  Blood was visible on the bed and near the body, and bloody footprints were visible on the child’s bathroom floor.  Before checking on her sister, she immediately called 911.  The call was placed at 1:30 p.m. Meredith told police that when she went to the right side of the bed to retrieve the house phone to call 911 Cassidy popped out from beneath the covers.  In all, she would tell three different versions of how she found the child that day.

At the beginning of the call, Meredith first asks for an ambulance, and then states that she believes her sister may be dead. Throughout the call, the 911 operator asked Meredith several times to check on her sister and to roll the body over to attempt CPR. Meredith seemed more concerned with shielding the child from the scene than administering aid to her sister, though she insisted at trial that she did not know her sister was dead at that time. Not once did she plead in desperation for them to send immediate help for her sister.  She said she was unable to roll the body over, and stated that her sister felt cold to the touch.  The paramedics arrived shortly after that. The next day the medical examiner determined that Michelle died as a result of blunt force injury to the head.

At this time, Jason was driving toward his mother’s home in Brevard, NC.  He had decided to visit and spend the night there after his sales calls were completed.  His mother and step-father were informed of Michelle’s death, but decided not to tell Jason about it until he arrived at their home because they didn’t want him driving after hearing such shocking news.  He arrived sometime later that afternoon and was shocked and devastated at the news.  He, his mother, his sister, and her husband began the four-hour trip to Raleigh. While en route, Jason’s friend, Ryan Schaad called and advised him that he should contact an attorney right away because police were already asking lots of questions about him.  When he arrived in Raleigh, he did not speak to police.  Police seized his Ford Bronco and all of the items in the vehicle.

The murder investigation lasted until December, 2009 with Jason being the only suspect. At that time, he was arrested and charged with the murder of his wife.  The first trial was in June, 2011.  It ended in a hung jury:  4 guilty, 8 not guilty.  The judge declared a mistrial.  The second trial was in March 2012.  This time the jury reached a guilty verdict. They convicted him based on “absence of evidence.”

Prosecution theory:  Young left the hotel at midnight, made the 170mile trip back to Raleigh, murdered his wife, cleaned up his daughter and then returned to the Hampton Inn early that morning.

Key facts and evidence:

• No sign of forced entry found at the Young home. The back door was found unlocked.  The sister entered the home by raising the garage door. The door that leads from the garage to the kitchen is always unlocked.

• Michelle was last seen alive at 10:30 p.m. Her friend Shelly Schaad was visiting with her that evening and left the home at that time. She testified that she felt uneasy that evening and felt like they were being watched.  She even asked Michelle to walk her to her car that night.

• Cassidy Young was found to be “shockingly” clean after being alone in the home all throughout the night and morning. She had no visible blood on her and was found in the same pink flannel pajamas that she was dressed in the night before, no diaper, no socks or shoes.

• Meredith Fisher gave police three different versions of how she found Cassidy. She found her under the covers in the master bedroom bed; she found her wandering around the house; she found her hiding in a closet.

• A strand of hair was found on a picture frame by a private investigator hired by the Young family after police had released the house. The DNA was unidentified. (this wasn’t mentioned in trial 2)

• Two footprints in blood were identified on a pillow near the body: One was a Hushpuppy shoe (approximate size, 12) and the other was a Franklin athletic shoe, size 10. Police ignored the clue that two people were involved in the crime and suggested the size 10 foot-print was staged.

• Police determined that Jason purchased a pair of Hushpuppy shoes approximately 15 months before the murder. This would be one of the reasons given for the guilty verdict.  The jury expected Young to present those shoes.  Remember that the contents of his vehicle were never inventoried.  Young testified at trial 1 that he thought his wife may have donated the shoes to charity, but he wasn’t certain what may have happened to the shoes. Furthermore, it was never proven that the shoe print found matched the pair of shoes that Young once owned.  The size wasn’t even certain, and the print could have been left by 3 different possibly styles of that brand of shoes.

• Police claim they were unable to find the shirt Young is seen wearing in the Hampton Inn video. A search warrant was issued in February ’08 to search the homes where he had been staying with family, as well as some vehicles and a storage shed.  This would be another reason given by the jurors for convicting him.  They wanted him to present the shirt to prove his innocence. Police did not inventory the items seized from his vehicle on 11/3 and throughout the time that they had possession of the vehicle, they were in and out of it several times. There were other loose items that were never collected and it’s possible the shirt was still there when the vehicle was returned to Jason.

• No blood was found on Jason Young and no scratches on his body. Investigators searched his car and his hotel room and no blood was found anywhere.

• Unidentified DNA was found on a jewelry box in the Young’s bedroom. Two drawers from the jewelry box were stolen.

• Unidentified fingerprints and palm prints were found in the Young home, some near the body.

• Gracie Calhoun testified that she saw Jason Young enter the gas station where she worked in King, NC. She said it was at 5:30AM the morning of 11/3.  She said he was upset that the pump wouldn’t activate since he was paying with cash.  She said he went into the store, threw a $20 at her, swore at her, then got $15 worth of gasoline and left. She was shown one photo, she incorrectly described him as short and balding at a pre-trial hearing and the store didn’t have any surveillance cameras to verify any of this (how convenient for the State). Gracie receives disability due to a head injury she suffered as a child.  This would be one of the many “coincidences” described by the jurors that led to the guilty verdict.

• Keith Hicks was working the night shift at the Hampton Inn and testified that he noticed one of the cameras at a side exit door was unplugged sometime early that morning. The maintenance worker plugged it when he arrived, sometime around 5AM.  Hicks said sometime later the camera was pointed up toward the ceiling.  A fingerprint was found on the camera that did not match Young’s but the jury was still convinced that he must have tampered with it. Again, this would be another “coincidence” that the jury couldn’t overlook.  No evidence of the camera tampering was presented in court — no screen shots showing the times of the camera tampering (very odd).

• Hicks also testified that while delivering receipts that night, which are placed under each door, he noticed that same exit door where the camera tampering occurred was propped open with a rock. He secured it, thus removing Jason’s ability to re-enter that door when he was alleged to have been returning to the hotel.

• Jason’s only hotel room key usage occurred six minutes after checking into the hotel. He was seen in the hallway after that and in the lobby close to midnight but he said he didn’t close his door completely so he didn’t have a need to re-enter with his room key.

• The State asserts that Young’s alibi was dependent on both the exit door and his room door remaining propped open all night. Since the exit door was locked, Young would have had to enter through the adjacent glass door that Hicks testified would normally be unlocked at six a.m.  He wasn’t seen on any cameras entering the building that morning. Hicks would have had to place a bag with his newspaper on the door that morning and never mentioned anything about finding it ajar.

• The jurors stated that Jason must be guilty because his daughter was found clean, and no one but him would have taken the time to clean her up. No one even seemed to consider the possibility that the victim’s sister had every opportunity to clean the child.  It isn’t logical to believe that the child got into her mother’s blood, left footprints all over the floor, that Jason cleaned her and that she remained clean for what would have been 10 hours before Meredith found her.

• Meredith Fisher testified that she left work at 9 o’clock p.m. the night of the murder. She stated that she was at a bar with a friend, that she left at about 2:30 a.m., sat in her car for a while to sober up, then stopped at a Sheetz on the way home for a pretzel.  She is seen on the Sheetz camera — 3:37-3:59a.m.  The Young’s home would have been on Meredith’s way home from the Ale House.

• Meredith Fisher’s car keys were found by police on the hood of Michelle’s car. She had no explanation for how they got there and insisted that she placed her keys on the kitchen counter.

• A neighbor, Cindy Beaver testified that she saw an SUV type vehicle exiting the Young’s driveway at approximately 5:20 that morning. She said there was a male driver and a female passenger with thick, bushy hair.  This would eliminate Young’s involvement since the State placed him in King, VA at that time via Gracie’s testimony.

• Another neighbor, Fay Hinsley testified that she saw an SUV at the end of the Young’s driveway at 6:15AM that morning.

• Jason was having frequent communication with Michelle Money. Although she lived in Florida, he had recently visited her there and they were having a long-distance affair.

• Genevieve Cargol, Young’s ex-fiancee testified that her relationship with him was volatile and that he once pinned her down to try to remove her engagement ring from her hand while they were arguing.

• The jewelry in the Young home had been sorted; the costume jewelry was left behind.

• Alleged motive: The state asserted that Young killed Michelle because he was tired of his meddling mother-in-law and he was pursuing a relationship with Michelle Money.

I don’t normally follow trials, but after watching the Brad Cooper trial and feeling convinced that he was completely railroaded, something drew me to this case.  I wanted to see if Wake county prosecutors were capable of prosecuting a case honestly.  Like the Cooper case, I kept waiting to see the evidence….but it never surfaced. In fact, there were many similarities to the Cooper case, in that the State presented several instances of baseless theories, suggesting to the jury that they “could have” done this and that with nothing concrete to back it up.  To the jurors it sounded like “so many coincidences” but the reality is that the evidence was fabricated.  Circumstantial evidence is supposed to be fact based but it wasn’t in these cases.

The character assassination in both cases was offensive.  As well, the prosecutor had no problem attacking the families of the accused.  It was over the line and extremely inappropriate.

In both cases there was zero evidence presented that connected Brad or Jason to the murders.  In both cases there was actually evidence pointing away from them.  In Brad’s case there were 16 witnesses who believed they may have seen Nancy that morning.  Their own daughter told a neighbor that she saw her mother that morning.  And evidence at the scene – tire tracks and shoe prints indicated someone other than Brad Cooper.  In Jason’s case, foreign DNA and fingerprints were found at the crime scene.  Two pairs of shoe prints were found and jewelry was stolen.

In both cases there were others who should have been considered suspects and should have been fully investigated; but it didn’t happen.

I believe there is a pattern in Wake county in the way these cases are handled and people need to understand it.  These men were convicted simply because “the spouse is always a suspect”.  It doesn’t matter to prosecutors that investigators were never able to find any tangible proof that they were in any way involved in the murders.  I believe that both of these murders remain unsolved and that is sad for everyone involved and it is not justice for Nancy and Michelle.  As citizens we must demand that the State meet the burden of proof.  They failed in both of these cases and as a result, we must not forget about these cases.

I published books about both cases, which include information that was not presented at trial and was never before shared with the public. Please take the time to learn more about how easy it is for the government to manufacture a case against an innocent person.

Michelle Young was living the American dream. The former NC State cheerleader was married to Jason. They had a beautiful two year old daughter and a son on the way. The couple enjoyed a comfortable life in the quiet Enchanted Oaks community of Raleigh, North Carolina.

It was autumn—a time for football games and holiday plans, but on November 3, 2006 Michelle was found beaten to death in her home. It shook the community and quickly attracted national attention.

Police immediately began investigating Jason . . . but he was out of town at the time of the murder. Would they discover enough evidence to solve the crime? Discover the facts about this fascinating and controversial case.

Can the government withhold evidence that could prove your innocence? In this shocking case, the state of North Carolina cited national security reasons for doing just that. It crippled any possible defense case for Brad Cooper who was charged with the murder of his wife, Nancy in 2008.

Nancy left home to go jogging and never returned. She was later found murdered. A shoddy and corrupt investigation followed, as evidence was destroyed and mishandled; witnesses were coached and evidence of innocence was ignored.

Learn the facts about this tragic case that will leave you appalled at the state of our justice system.

**Note that this book was previously published as Framed With Google Maps**

My other blogs:

Justice for Brad Cooper

Stop Wrongful Convictions

You can write to Jason Young at:

Jason Young

DOC # 1309245

Alexander Correctional Institution

633 Old Landfill Road

Taylorsville, NC 28681