Snapped: Women Who Murder - Roxanne Buck

Episode Date: February 20, 2022

When authorities discover a young woman’s body in a shed, they struggle to determine whether her killer is someone under her own roof or the result of an illicit affair.Season 23, Episode 2...0Originally aired: June 24, 2018Watch full episodes of Snapped for FREE on the Oxygen app: https://oxygentv.app.link/WsLCJWqmIebSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of Wonder East Podcast American Scandal. Our newest series looks at the story of OxyContin, a popular painkiller that helps spur an epidemic of addiction and drug abuse, in which prompted a broad campaign to hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable. Listen to American Scandal on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. When a mother and daughter opened their doors to a long-lost family member, it seemed like the perfect union. My daughter was all excited because she thought of her as her aunt.
Starting point is 00:00:34 I think she just wanted to turn over a newly ferocious Ohio and start over. But this newly forged bond is suddenly shattered by a horrific crime. My first reaction was holy s**t. shattered by a horrific crime. My first reaction was holy s***. There was a plant everywhere, everywhere. It's like somebody just came in and painted the apartment red. The ensuing investigation will put a seemingly close-knit family under the microscope. And in the process, reveal a sorted tale of addiction, mistrust, and infidelity. I don't know that there's anything else in the world
Starting point is 00:01:07 that can create a firestorm like that. The night before the murder, they had observed a police cruiser in the driveway. He totally denied having any kind of affair. All this was building. And unfortunately, she was there at the time when it was the first time she was in the hospital. He totally denied having any kind of affair. All this was building. And unfortunately, she was there at the time when it finally exploded.
Starting point is 00:01:31 This was probably the biggest case we had to handle in our city. It's been all my three or five years there. March 15, 2014, 5.30 pm. It's a quiet afternoon in Stowe, Ohio. Police officer Jason Bailey is on patrol when he receives what seems to be a routine radio call. I was dispatched to return a phone call to a mother that was concerned that she cannot contact her daughter.
Starting point is 00:02:23 The concerned caller is Diana Johnson, the mother of 21-year-old Michelle Johnson. Diana left for a trip for a couple of days, and fairly quickly, after she was gone, wasn't able to establish contact with Michelle. She didn't see her on Facebook, she wasn't responding to phone calls and text messages. I started to get a little worried. She always had her phone on. She went to sleep with her phone on. So if I ever needed to get a hold of her,
Starting point is 00:02:51 I could always get a hold of her. She felt helpless because she was hours away and couldn't check for herself. After speaking with Diana, Officer Bailey makes a b-line to Maple Park Drive where Michelle and her mother live. When I began an knock on the door, I immediately hear a large dog barking. No one's coming to the door. I decided I'm going to walk around, try to make sure no one's in the backyard. There's a makeshift shed and the side of it towards the back door is open.
Starting point is 00:03:37 You can see stuff stored in there. There's blankets over top of something and a tire, and I walk up to it. I remember seeing a hand sticking out. My initial thought was that it was one of those things that someone six and their trunk during Halloween. It didn't look real to me. As Officer Bailey takes a closer look, it's clear this isn't some sort of prank.
Starting point is 00:04:07 I could see dry blood under the nails. And at that point, I realized that it's a real hand. Michelle Johnson was born November 30, 1992 in Stowe, Ohio, the youngest of Diana Johnson's four children. From the day she was born, that child was the glue of that family. She was the light in every single person's eyes. She was the baby, so I got to spend more time with her. I think that Michelle and I were closer than most parents are with their
Starting point is 00:04:46 children. Everybody would probably describe her as being bubbly, very loving, very caring, and nurturing. I always wanted to help other people. The she had the ability to like make friends wherever she went and really light up her room. Growing up she wanted to be a veterinarian because she always was hanging around animals She'd see a dog along the side of the road. All mom we got to stop and save it It's like well make me Can't save all of them When Michelle was in ninth grade her mother and father's marriage disintegrated Michelle and Diana moved to Florida for a fresh start.
Starting point is 00:05:28 But five years later, Diana decided to return to Ohio, while 18-year-old Michelle chose to stay in Florida with a family friend. I wanted to be closer to my other children and grandchildren. So it was time to move back. The weather, the people. I knew she just needed a little bit more time down there. Back in Ohio, Diana rented an apartment with an extra bedroom,
Starting point is 00:05:54 just in case Michelle ever wanted to come visit. But in September of 2013, it wasn't her daughter who moved into the room. It was close family friend Roxanne Buck. Roxanne was married to my cousin on the point. It's how we came to know her. Throughout the years, we kept in contact here and there. For 44-year-old Roxanne, life had never been easy.
Starting point is 00:06:20 Roxanne was born in California. She had an older brother. They were pretty hard up, pretty port growing up. There was some abuse in the family. She ran away a couple times as a teenager. She never really had a stable home life. Roxanne worked hard to overcome her turbulent upbringing. By her late 20s, she had two failed marriages behind her
Starting point is 00:06:44 and struggled to stay on the straight and narrow. Though in 1996, Roxanne seemed to turn a corner when she married her third husband, Wesley Buck. After we started seeing each other, Bell and Love got married, and figured we'd go ahead and try going alike together. At first, the relationship was smooth sailing, but over time, it became one thing that we didn't like and figured we'd go ahead and try going a light together. At first, the relationship was smooth sailing, but over time, it became one filled with heartache
Starting point is 00:07:12 and most of the emotional wounds were inflicted by Roxanne. Roxanne had a little problem with being in a monogamous relationship. She would venture out and find someone for fair or one night's stand. Some of her friends from work had told me that she was out doing things that, you know, she shouldn't be doing last one night. More or less, that's it I'm done. In 2001, Wesley filed for divorce.
Starting point is 00:07:47 And for the next 12 years, Roxanne drifted from one bad relationship to the next. She just felt like she never fit in anywhere. I think she just wanted to turn over a new leaf here in Ohio and start over. And in 2013, she reached out to her distant cousin, Diana Johnson, for help. We decided to help her help me give her better life to where she was at. For Roxanne, the move gave her a new lease on life. But she did eventually find work, working fast food restaurants, also worked for an ambulance company, doing some coding.
Starting point is 00:08:27 She was trying to make a goal of things in Ohio. Just a few weeks after Roxanne moved in, she and Diana welcomed Diana's now 21-year-old daughter, Michelle, into the home. She missed everybody. She decided to move back up here. She was extremely happy to be home.
Starting point is 00:08:50 She had her dog, she had her family. She was all excited that Roxanne was staying there because she thought of her as her aunt. So she thought we was just all gonna just have all come into fun. It seems Roxanne was looking forward to it as well. She hadn't seen Michelle since, you know, she was a littler. She thought it would be nice for Michelle to come and stay with us. Shortly after moving in, Michelle landed a couple of part-time jobs. After moving in, Michelle landed a couple of part-time jobs. She was a waitress at one of the local restaurants.
Starting point is 00:09:27 Then she took a job at a gas station as a cashier. In her downtime, Michelle was also able to pursue her dream job. As she grew older, police work seemed to interest her. So she would do right alongs, and that's when she decided she wanted to be a king and an officer. She was working in just trying to like get her money together to go do that kind of thing, and then eventually
Starting point is 00:09:55 go to the academy. She had it all laid out, and she knew what she wanted. And that was a fantastic path for her. I think it was her calling because she wanted to help, and she did have an outstanding gift of animals. She was going to be a fantastic police officer. In early 2014, Michelle Diana and Roxanne signed a lease on a duplex on a quiet street in one of Stowe's nicer neighborhoods.
Starting point is 00:10:30 It was a two story, two bedrooms, but we made a bedroom downstairs for Roxanne and Michelle and I got the upstairs, part of the house. It was like really nice for them to be together, you know? A couple months after settling into their new home, Michelle's mother Diana took a trip back to her hometown in West Virginia. Diana had gone home to see her father for his birthday. While she was in West Virginia, Diana repeatedly called to check up on her daughter, but Michelle never answered. Nor did she return any of the other messages Diana sent her.
Starting point is 00:11:09 When I left the message on Facebook, that afternoon, still no response. So I decided to call her workplace to see if she had shown up that Friday night for work. And her manager said no. That's when I started freaking it. It's Diana's call that leads officer Jason Bailey to make the gruesome discovery in the shed behind the house.
Starting point is 00:11:37 I move some stuff to try to make sure that this is who I think it is. I look and I see the hair that matches Michelle Johnson. Coming up, another grisly discovery leaves investigators with an added fear. We have one dead woman. We have another woman missing. Is she a victim here?
Starting point is 00:11:59 Is she been abducted and kidnapped. Early 2014, 21-year-old Michelle Johnson, her mother Diana Johnson, and longtime family friend Roxanne Buck, were living comfortably together in Stowe, Ohio. But on March 15, Diana is in a state of panic when she can't reach Michelle, and finds out that Michelle missed her shift at work. That's not like her not to show up for work. And since nobody could get a hold of her,
Starting point is 00:12:45 that's when I called the Sto Police Department. And told him that I would be up here in about three and a half four hours, and I couldn't get there fast enough. As Diana rushes home, Officer Jason Bailey discovers Michelle's gravely battered body in a shed behind the house. I could see injuries. It was very obvious that there were no signs of life.
Starting point is 00:13:09 I checked for a pulse. It was very cold to the touch, and I knew that she had been there for a while. Michelle is so badly injured, officer Bailey can't immediately determine the cause of death. Her throat was slipped, and she had numerous stab wounds in her upper body. It's hard to tell if Michelle was still fighting the whole time,
Starting point is 00:13:32 or if one of the stab wounds incapacitated her and she was down, and still being stabbed. There was a lot of rage involved, it seems. I was wondering how Diana was going to take this. I mean, I knew it was going to be very painful for her. She was on her way up from West Virginia, and that was a big concern of mine was when would she be advised of this?
Starting point is 00:13:53 The end of the story The end of the story As Diana promised, she arrives at the Stowe Police Department within hours of her call. An officer came out out and I asked him if they had found her yet. The officer told me that they had found her body. In the backyard. You'll never hear that pain in somebody's voice except for when a mother's lost a child. So obviously, it syncs in pretty quickly.
Starting point is 00:14:31 Back at the crime scene, Michelle isn't the only person police are curious about. There could be possible other victims. Certainly, if you find someone who's been murdered and they're in a shed, there's going to be concern as to, are there more dead people inside the house? What's going on in there?
Starting point is 00:14:50 Roxanne Buck, a friend of the family, also lived there. Roxanne's not in the house. Is she a victim here? Has she been abducted and kidnapped? They didn't know what's happening here. We have one dead woman. We have another woman missing. This is pretty serious and it's very alarming
Starting point is 00:15:08 to the people who are investigating us. Inside the darkened residence, police find Michelle's dog, but no sign of anyone else. Not everything was disorganized or knocked or turned over, like it was a recent struggle. But you really couldn't tell there were signs of a struggle. Although the crime scene appears ordinary, the officers waste no time calling in the state bureau of crime investigation known as BCI.
Starting point is 00:15:37 BCI investigates our bigger crimes. We don't deal with a lot of homicides and stone. This is obviously a very important case that we want to make sure it's handled properly. Once on the scene, VCI technicians spray the residents with lumenol, a substance that illuminates when it comes in contact with human blood.
Starting point is 00:15:57 It became apparent that there was a large area that at one point in time was covered in blood. They could see the swoosh marks from where a rag or a mop had been used to clean up through a house of horrors, based on the amount of blood that they find inside the house. Blood evidence on the walls, high up on the walls. You could tell it was a very violent struggle. My first reaction was holy s***.
Starting point is 00:16:28 There was blood splatter on some of the walls and bookshelves and laundry room area and stuff like that. The bulk of the crime scene was located in Roxanne's living quarters in the area by the end of her bed. Now there is some evidence that someone tried to clean up the blood there, but there was such a vast amount of blood that it was just fruitless. Whoever was trying to clean it up just decided to abort
Starting point is 00:16:55 and move on and do something else. Diana Johnson informs investigators that Roxanne is employed at a local fast food restaurant. Officers are dispatched there immediately. Part of the effort to locate Roxanne so quickly was to make sure that she was not injured, that she was okay. Much to their relief, officers find Roxanne behind the cash register, unhurt, and apparently unaware of the horror that's unfolding back at the house.
Starting point is 00:17:26 Sergeant Brison had gotten her back to the station to talk to her about, you know, if she knew anything about what was going on. Do you have any reason why they called you down to the station? No. Okay. Michelle's been seriously injured. OK.
Starting point is 00:17:47 They suspect foul plays involved. Roxanne seems stunned and asks what hospital Michelle has been taken to. So they let me see her at the top of the ground. No. Oh. I can't see. No.
Starting point is 00:18:01 She'll dead. So when they broke the news of Michelle's death to Roxanne, she was devastated. I was there all day, when. But its investigators who hope Roxanne can help them narrow down the timeline. According to Roxanne, she last saw Michelle the day before on Friday, March 14th, around noon.
Starting point is 00:18:24 Roxanne said that her and Michelle were out in the garage having a smoke. And that's when Michelle told her that she was having friends coming over about 12, 30 that afternoon. Roxanne says that she returned home around 5 p.m. The house was empty and nothing seemed out of place. Then when you came home, where was Michelle? I didn't see her and she was home. No.
Starting point is 00:18:53 When Roxanne woke up that morning, she was gone. So she figured that there was no big deal. She was not alarmed at this time. Roxanne says that when she got up for work the following morning around 8 a.m., there was still no sign of Michelle, though Michelle's dog wouldn't stop barking. Roxanne called Michelle's mom or center messages that Michelle wasn't around. I talked to Diana on the phone and I am I am terrified.
Starting point is 00:19:22 I am to Michelle saying, hey, your dog is driving me crazy. Where are you? Roxanne tells police that she had no idea that Michelle's body had been in the backyard shed the entire time. Does it surprise you that Michelle's her hesitant? I mean, could you see this coming?
Starting point is 00:19:40 Something like this, never? I repeatedly asked Roxanne, who might have harmed Michelle. I asked her if she knew anybody that would do her harm and repeatedly she said no. And she said, who was going to come over? Where do you think was coming from? I have no idea. Do you know who her, Michelle?
Starting point is 00:19:58 No. I don't know any of her people. Does she hang around so of the animal here? Though Roxanne says she has no clue who would want to harm Michelle, she does offer investigators some insight as to why so much blood was found in the area near her room. My room is like the doggy and smoking highway because you have to go through my room to the laundry room, to the garage. As you go through the bedroom,
Starting point is 00:20:25 towards the back of the house, there's a laundry area and a bathroom there, which leads into the garage and which leads out to the backyard to where the shed was. This information leads investigators to believe that Michelle might have encountered an intruder in the living room area, then tried to flee through the garage before being subdued. The first thought here is, it's very possible at the outset
Starting point is 00:20:47 that, you know, this could be a burglary gone wrong. The door's open. There's less access to the house. After completing her statement, Roxanne voluntarily submits to a DNA cheek swab before being released by detectives. She wasn't a suspect, but we would have needed DNA from most of the people that lived there.
Starting point is 00:21:08 Coming up, new allegations surface, and investigators are confronted with their worst nightmare. There was a sexual relationship between Michelle and a police officer who had probably visited Michelle's residence within hours of her death. Ah, the Bahamas. What if you could hang out with celebrities living a penthouse above the crystal clear ocean with all your best friends and have it be 100% paid for?
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Starting point is 00:22:58 And investigators in Stowe, Ohio are scrambling for answers. I began to investigate, you know, through talking with a Diane on friends that Michelle had, things that she liked to do or places that she may go, did she have boyfriends from past history on the job. News of the brutal slaying in one of Sto's more peaceful neighborhoods fills local residents with anxiety and fear.
Starting point is 00:23:26 This is really shocking because it's a young, beautiful girl killed inside of her house. You know, that resonates with people in this little town. With the killer still on the loose, police phone lines are flooded with potential leads. When you are in a suburb or a community where there aren't a lot of murder cases, people are really paying attention. I think there were a fair amount of people that were calling in tips that were saying, maybe I saw something, maybe I know something, there definitely was quite a bit of that. Most of the tips proved to be little more than speculation,
Starting point is 00:24:07 but one lead, offered up by a clerk at a local convenience store, seems promising. A number of hours after Michelle's body was discovered, a man was talking with some of the clerks there about how there had been a murder and how the body was found in the shed and how a tire was placed on top of the body. Not of this information had been released publicly, so how is this guy know all this information? The clerk, I think, also found it to be suspicious and called the police. Investigators head to the convenience store to speak to the clerk about the man in question
Starting point is 00:24:45 and learn of another telling remark he made. She's hearing all this, you know, these comments from this stranger about, you know, a murder. A lot of times, if someone knows that kind of detail, they could be a suspect. They were able to get footage of the German purchasing this stuff and he used a credit card, so we were able to locate his name. The man is identified as Joshua.
Starting point is 00:25:11 And on March 17th, police pay him a surprise visit. So you want to talk to them, you know, without them knowing you're coming, so they have time to prepare. They want to talk to them to find out, OK, how do you know all this stuff? Joshua is the stepfather of my grandchildren. It was discovered that his wife had been down at the police department
Starting point is 00:25:31 shortly after Diana had been informed of what had happened to her daughter. Joshua explains that his wife had let slip some of the details of Michelle's murder. Joshua sheepishly admits that from there, he formed his own theory about the crime. He goes out, labbing what he knows when nobody else is supposed to be talking about it, so he was quite embarrassed about the whole...
Starting point is 00:25:57 ordeal and the fact that he couldn't keep his mouth shut. He was concerned that he might have hindered the investigation in some manner. Even when so far as a check out his album, he's clean. He was not involved in this killing. That same day, investigators receive Michelle's official autopsy report.
Starting point is 00:26:20 The brutality of the attack speaks volumes. Her throat was slid. She was stabbed over 32 times, various parts of her upper torso. This was a very violent murder. She had a really deep, large gash right on her neck. She was the victim of a just a tremendous amount of rage. Her throat was slashed, literally from here to here.
Starting point is 00:26:48 This attack was personal. It was not a burglary. During the autopsy, the coroner collected multiple DNA samples from under Michelle's fingernails, which investigators hope will help their case. And with the level of violence indicative of a personal attack, investigators redouble their canvassing efforts in the neighborhood where Michelle resided.
Starting point is 00:27:12 One of the neighbors had reported that the night before the murder at around two or two thirty in the morning, they had observed a police cruiser in the driveway, and they saw Michelle get out of the cruiser and go into her house. It was known that Michelle really went to be a police officer. She had previously been on a number of ride-alongs.
Starting point is 00:27:39 Investigators pull up the list of ride-alongs in which Michelle had recently participated. Many of them had been conducted by one policeman in particular. And the officer, he'd gone on some ridealongs with her and talked to her and befriended her, showing her the ins and outs of law enforcement. With no ridealongs scheduled on the night in question,
Starting point is 00:27:59 investigators decide to look deeper into his relationship with Michelle. And we had a subpoena or search warrant for the phone company that she had to get all the phone records for probably the day before and prior to that. Anybody she would have contacted. It became apparent from reviewing the evidence, the text messages that Michelle was having
Starting point is 00:28:24 and affair with the Stowe police officer. The text messages indicate that the affair started shortly after Michelle returned from Florida. It started out by her shadowing him going along with a what they call a ride along, but it was clear from the evidence that that friendship turned into a sexual relationship. He was married, however, at kids.
Starting point is 00:28:53 So there were some boundaries that were going to be crossed here that made some folks a little uncomfortable. Including Michelle, at least according to some of the text messages. The relationship with this officer went a little further than Michelle was comfortable with. And at some point, Michelle, she tried to break off this relationship. It was clear from the text messages that... Michelle wanted more than just sex,
Starting point is 00:29:17 but she felt that he only wanted sex. The text messages between Michelle and the officer suggesting let's meet, let's have one final hurrah, if you will, before they go their separate ways. The Stowe Police Officer had probably visited Michelle's residence within hours of her death. Here we have an ex-boyfriend who's parked hours of her death. Here we have an ex-boyfriend who's parked outside of her house. Around the time that she's killed,
Starting point is 00:29:53 when you think about a motive to commit a crime of such tremendous passion, I don't know that there's anything else in the world that can create a firestorm like that, a married man, and a fair he had with somebody he met at work. Armed with this new information, detectives bring the officer in for a formal interview. They said we have reason to believe that there's a relationship between you two, the sexual relationship, which he denied. His denials though only raise the suspicion
Starting point is 00:30:33 of his own officers. But even though detectives are convinced their fellow officer is lying about the affair, they have no evidence that ties him to the murder. What the police have at this time is his car's there. There's really no evidence connecting this officer to Michelle's death, so they let him go. Shortly after that, he was placed on administrative leave.
Starting point is 00:30:54 The investigators, they didn't give up on this officer in his relationship. They started doing internal affairs investigation because basically they're accusing the officer of, you know, my. Coming up, as internal affairs close in on one of their own, an explosive allegation surfaces and adds another layer of scandal
Starting point is 00:31:20 to an already salacious case. People do strange things when they're at the under the influence of illegal drugs. 21-year-old Michelle Johnson was a bubbly, small-town girl who dreamed of being a cop. But her alleged affair with a married police officer has become the pivot point in the investigation into her brutal murder. The most layering person of interest, in my opinion, was an officer with the Stowe Police Department. The extramarital affair that the officer was having, the fact that they were going to break it off,
Starting point is 00:32:10 he totally denied having any kind of affair with Michelle. His denials, though, only raised the suspicion of his own officers. Looking for answers, investigators continue to pour through Michelle's phone records. When Michelle's cell phone was reviewed, we found a number of texts. The ones though that were more critical to the investigation is a text that was sent in the morning.
Starting point is 00:32:36 It's a text message from Michelle to the officer dated 6.30 a.m. on the day of the murder. Michelle had found out that she, Roxanne, was doing drugs. But Michelle, like, obviously, didn't like that since she was going to the Academy for police work. As the text exchange continues, it becomes clear that Michelle's roommate and de facto aunt Roxanne Buck
Starting point is 00:32:59 was now using crack cocaine under Michelle and her mother's roof. And Michelle wanted no part of it. You know, it's cocaine, high grade drugs, very dangerous. Here you have Michelle who wants to be a police officer. She can't be living in a house with a crack head. For investigators, this final exchange between Michelle and the officer places Roxanne Buck squarely on their radar.
Starting point is 00:33:24 People do strange things when they're the under the influence of illegal drugs. On the afternoon of March 18th, investigators speak with Michelle's mother Diana about Roxanne's alleged drug use. Diana states that she and Michelle discovered Roxanne was using just a few weeks earlier. I confronted her about it, and I told her well, we won't tolerate it. She was told that she has to leave. If she's going to continue doing drugs.
Starting point is 00:33:57 Diana tells police she was willing to give Roxanne until April to clean up her act. But according to a text exchange between Michelle and her mom the morning of the murder, it seems Michelle was ready to send Roxanne packing that day. Had Michelle attempted to kick Roxanne out of the house, only to have Roxanne explode into a murderous rage,
Starting point is 00:34:19 initially Michelle's mother doesn't think so. That never crossed my mind that Roxanne would have ever done it. I don't feel that Roxanne was really a person of conflict. She was just usually got quiet when she got upset. She didn't usually explode. When investigators speak to Roxanne's co-workers, they tell police Roxanne did come to work on the day of the murder, but quickly left because of some fairly nasty injuries.
Starting point is 00:34:47 She had some pretty significant cuts on two of her fingers. The cuts were bad enough that they had to be stitched up. She told them that she cut her hand because she fell while she was holding a knife. She's becoming more and more of a suspect. I mean, we started treating her like that. The second time we brought her in, date her viewer.
Starting point is 00:35:11 However, Roxanne denies the cuts on her hands have anything to do with Michelle's murder. Instead, Roxanne claims they are the result of a drug-related accident. Based upon Roxanne's admission, she had purchased close to $200 worth of drugs in the 24-hour period before Michelle was murdered. I went to go see my dealer, and then we came back and
Starting point is 00:35:33 smoked in the bathroom, and I just smoked it. Can? Yeah, can. She didn't have anything to smoke them in, so she fashioned a pop can into a makeshift pipe, breaking the can apart. You poke a hole, like a blow hole, towards the end of the can,
Starting point is 00:35:52 towards the end so that you can put your finger on it while you're holding it in and let it go. And then you put ashes on it, and then you put that on top, and then you light it while you're doing the sacred things. So I'm gonna try. I'm not sure. Roxanne told me that her hand was cut on the aluminum can when she was using crack cocaine.
Starting point is 00:36:12 I have a razor knife in my car. I cut the can with the razor. Right. And I took one of the fair razors from inside it. The razor thing has a hold in spot, and you scrape the resin like that. She said she used a razor knife, and that's how she cut her hand.
Starting point is 00:36:32 The cut was so severe that she had to go to a local hospital to get stitches in the hand. I went to the emergency room around, and I guess that was a little after two. That, or at least, is verifiable. I didn't wait for there until after four. So you were there at about two? Yeah, around two.
Starting point is 00:36:51 I mean, by that time, I'm in shock. I mean, I have my good. That's not a good thinking right. Given Roxanne's admission, detectives ask her point blank. Isn't it possible that when Michelle demanded she move out, she murdered her in a drug-fueled rage? You guys get an argument or something? Do I?
Starting point is 00:37:11 And then piss you off after the crappy conditions that you lived with over at the end of the birth before one of them, how she's kicking you out? I think that's a good thing. I'm so sure. She said that was plenty of time. There was no reason. Could you have done this and realized?
Starting point is 00:37:25 I should have did it. I've never done anything like that. I am not a violent argument person. She was not confessing to anything. She was not admitting that she was part of this. With Roxanne unwavering in her statement and with no physical evidence tying her to the crime, detectives have no choice but to release her. We really didn't have anything to keep her on,
Starting point is 00:37:49 so we allowed her to leave that night. They needed physical evidence to have the probable cause to make the arrest. We decided that maybe we should get a search warrant for the residents and for her car also just in case there's any type of evidence or anything like that. They were looking for anything that they thought could be tied in with a homicide.
Starting point is 00:38:13 They were keeping their eye out for a weapon. Detectives don't find a murder weapon, but they do find other physical evidence. There were books in the car that belonged to the Stowe Library that Roxanne had checked out, and they had led on them. other physical evidence. There were books in the car that belonged to the Stowe Library that Roxanne had checked out, and they had led on them. Investigators send the books to the crime lab for analysis. And when the results come back on March 20,
Starting point is 00:38:40 there's a match. And when we hold the Bloody Library books come back to Michelle. It's Michelle's blood in Roxanne's car. And that's not all the crime lab results reveal. When some of the blood evidence was tested, it was discovered that there was DNA that belonged to Roxanne underneath Michelle's fingernails.
Starting point is 00:39:03 It was also discovered there was a mixture of Roxanne and Michelle's blood on a paint can that they located within the house. It showed that Roxanne was bleeding at that time and so was Michelle. So if Roxanne would have stabbed her and cut her hand then both of their blood would have been on the paint can at the same time.
Starting point is 00:39:23 And the DNA certainly eliminated the officer as a suspect at that point. So based on the totality of all the evidence, it was pretty clear to the detectives that Roxanne, in fact, was the killer. When the police came to arrest Roxanne, it was no surprise. She knew what was coming. She was standing outside, smoking.
Starting point is 00:39:48 And she said something like, here I am. She was charged with first degree murder and tampering with evidence. We handcuffed her and put her in the back to the police car. When word of Roxanne's arrest gets out, friends and family are stunned. I was angry and didn't understand why. She would do something like that.
Starting point is 00:40:13 I wanted to get my hands on her. I was married to this woman, and those kind of hostilities was never revealed to me in any way. As far as whipping out a knife and brutally murdering somebody that kind of liked through me for a loop, I couldn't believe it. Coming up, Roxanne stands trial for her alleged crimes and prosecutors spell out Michelle Johnson's
Starting point is 00:40:45 harrowing final moments. All this was building. And unfortunately, Michelle Johnson was there at the time when it finally exploded. She just snapped and became angry and lost it. October 7, 2014. In a common please court room in Summit County, Ohio, Roxanne Bucks trial for the murder of her roommate, Michelle Johnson, gets underway.
Starting point is 00:41:30 Prosecutors waste no time laying out their theory. So as best we can tell, we believe there was a confrontation between Michelle and Roxanne over Roxanne's drug use. And that Roxanne became very angry. Roxanne was high. She was under drugs. She just snapped and became angry and lost it
Starting point is 00:42:01 and violently attacked her. She continued to stab and stab and stab and stab. She dragged her out of the house into the shed and tried to clean up the crime scene. You know, the blood evidence was really key, I think, for connecting what was happening. There was a footprint that was near the shed as well that ended up being a match to the shoes that Roxanne wore that also had some mud on them.
Starting point is 00:42:38 The autopsy photos were probably the worst photos that I'd ever seen. They were very gruesome and horrific. We had a pretty strong case. We had good DNA evidence. We had a lot of good statements that Roxanne had made. They had DNA, which is the best evidence you can have. It only took the jury like three hours to come back with the verdict.
Starting point is 00:43:06 They convicted her of murder, tampering with evidence. She received, you know, the maximum sentence of life in prison. Though the sentence is severe, Roxanne's reaction is one of indifference. It's almost as if she felt it coming. There was not much emotion from her. This reaction is one of indifference. It's almost as if she felt it coming. There was not much emotion from her. Even as Roxanne is carted off to prison, Michelle's friends and family are left coping
Starting point is 00:43:33 with what they feel was the ultimate betrayal of a once beloved friend and roommate. Well, it's been three and a half years. And it seems like yesterday. I have no trust in hardly anybody anymore. Raxan Buc. The most evil person on this planet that does not deserve to be breathing the air that all of us are breathing.
Starting point is 00:44:08 I don't think Diana will ever be the same after this, and she'll always be so heartbroken, and I mean, it's just like terrible. Michelle was the most vivacious person I'd ever met, and that never changed. She was just always that magnet for love. Everybody in that family lost more than I can ever tell you when they lost her. Roxanne Buck will be eligible for parole in 2032.
Starting point is 00:44:42 She will be 62 years old. Michelle's mother, Diana Johnson, along with members of the Stope Police Department, have vowed to make sure that Roxanne never gets paroled. For more information on snapped, go to oxygen.com. you

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