A Washington woman is facing charges of murdering her husband who went missing 10 years ago after detectives uncovered human remains buried on her Arlington property last week.
But 48-year-old Michele Donohue is sticking to the story she told husband Byron Wright’s company and a divorce court when he disappeared in 2004 – that he left her for a young, rich, redheaded woman.
Detectives never even knew Wright was missing, though his sister says she tried to report his disappearance in 2009 and was turned down.
Past crimes: Michele Donohue, 48 (pictured), has been charged with second-degree murder after detectives found human remains on her property they believe belong to her ex-husband who disappeared 10 years ago
They only started investigating his death in December when a jailhouse informant stepped up, saying he knew someone involved in the murder cover-up.
That informant knew a man named Michael Hueslein that lived on the property and helped bury the body with two other men, including the suspected murderer’s current husband Joel Donohue.
The informant was sent on a visit to Hueslein who told him that the body was buried in a garage on the property underneath a concrete slab.
Detectives dug up the ground in the garage on Thursday and found severed arms and legs in the dirt and the remainder of a human body in a large plastic tote.
Underneath: Authorities searched a garage on Donohue’s property Thursday and found severed hands and legs in the dirt and the rest of a human body in a plastic tote buried underneath a concrete slab
In the ground: Detectives say they didn’t even know Wright was missing since his wife claimed he had simply run off with another woman
Cause of death and identity of the remains have not yet been released by the medical examiner’s office – but the body is presumed to be Wright’s.
When interviewed by police, Donohue’s husband Joel recounted how his wife confessed to stabbing her husband.
Apparently Donohue told witnesses her husband was abusive and that’s whey she stabbed him.
After the attack, Wright asked her to call police and she said she would once he ‘apologized’.
But he never did apologize so she left him on the floor to die while she went to work.
Initially, she buried Wright under a pile a dirt, but after meeting future-husband Joel, he offered to help find a more permanent spot.
Her story: Donohue filed for divorce from Wright soon after he went missing, and said she couldn’t serve him with the papers because she didn’t know where he was. The court awarded her their house as part of the settlement
So the couple enlisted his best friend and a tenant who lived on the property to help bury Wright in a plastic bin, underneath a concrete floor and two feet of dirt ‘where ground-penetrating radar could not find it’.
The men allegedly looked up tips on the internet on how to best dispose of the body.
Despite her husband admitting to hiding the body, Donohue wouldn’t budge and acted in ‘disbelief’ when officers came to arrest her – uttering the same story about how Wright left her.
When Wright started not showing up his job at Boeing (where he worked for 23 years) in the fall of 2004, his bosses called Donohue up and she repeated the same story.
She continued that line when she filed for divorce soon after his disappearance, saying she couldn’t serve him with papers because she didn’t know where he was.
Still a mystery: Authorities have yet to identify the remains or what the cause of death was
The divorce was made official and the court awarded Donohue her former husband’s house, the lot next to the house, eight vehicles, Wright’s Boeing stock, and half his pension.
Donohue sold the adjoining lot for $110,000 and received approximately $125,000 of Wright’s pension.
But there were some inconsistencies in her story. While Donohue told the divorce court that the other woman had red hair, she told Wright’s sister-in-law that the mistress was a blonde.
The family thought his disappearance was strange as well, since they never once heard from him. They also said he would never leave his treasured cars. The family grew up poor and he took great pride in his home and car collection, his siblings said.
Donohue was arrested and charged with second-degree domestic violence murder on Thursday and is being held on $1million at the Snohomish County Jail.
The men who helped hide Wright’s body will not face any charges since the statue of limitations have run out on their specific crimes.
