The initial mystery surrounding a May 2014 murder in central Iowa will be featured tonight in a Dateline report on NBC-TV. Thirty-year-old Justin Michael was shot death in his Grimes home while he was sleeping next to his fiancee, Angie Ver Huel.
Ver Huel and Justin’s mother, Marie Michael, were interviewed for the program. “I heard the bedroom door open, then I heard a pop, pop, pop,” Ver Huel said in a preview video of tonight’s Dateline episode. “I heard Angie scream and I knew something terrible had happened,” Marie Michael said.
On the day of the murder, police struggled to identify the person who broke into the home and killed Justin Michael. Ver Huel recalled officers talked about a wide range of scenarios.”Drugs, money, gambling,” Ver Huel said, “for a moment, I was thinking, was I about to marry somebody that I had no idea who he was?”
Polk County Sheriff’s deputies later arrested David Moffitt of Pleasant Hill, Ver Huel’s ex-boyfriend. This July, the 27-year-old Moffitt was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Michael. Tonight’s two-hour long Dateline episode focused on the case starts at 8 p.m. on NBC.