Devyn Michaels (Henderson Police Department)
A woman reportedly married to her boyfriend’s son faces a murder charge after her boyfriend’s headless corpse was found smoking from a mixture of bleach and ammonia in his bed at his home near Las Vegas.
Devyn Michaels, 45, was booked into jail on an open murder charge on Tuesday in the death of Johnathan James Willette, 46, and is being held without bail. Her arraignment is set for Monday, online court records show. It was unclear Friday whether she had an attorney.
Neither police nor the coroner revealed details about the case. An email to the Clark County District Attorney’s Office wasn’t immediately returned. Willette’s cause and mode of death were pending, coroner’s officials confirmed in an email to Law&Crime.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal detailed the Aug. 7 case, citing an arrest report detailing the crime at a residence in the 2000 block of Pala Dura Drive after Willette’s mother called police saying she found him “wrapped up in blankets and bloody.”
“Johnathan’s head had been severed from his body, and was not observed to be in the room,” the paper reported, citing the arrest report.
Police smelled chemicals and saw smoke coming from the body they believe had been doused in bleach and ammonia, Las Vegas CBS affiliate KLAS-TV reported.
Police said the suspect was the victim’s boyfriend. The victim’s mom reportedly told police Michaels was Willette’s ex and they were trying to get back together.
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The suspect allegedly told police she married Willette’s son a couple of years ago to “help each other out,” and she and Willette have two daughters, the paper reported.
The son told investigators he and Michaels got married “so he could help Devyn with her medical issues,” the newspaper reported.
Police used a lie-detector test after officers said they found the victim’s keys, wallet and bloody phone in her house, News 8 reported.
In that interview, she alleged the victim “was abusive to her” and had a child “take showers in front of him.” While they were in bed, she allegedly hit him in the head with a stick, and his arms went limp while they were in bed, according to the arrest report, the Review-Journal reported.
“Devyn stated that she did not want to kill Johnathan and only wanted to hurt him enough that he would have to go to the hospital because she wanted him out of the way so she could figure out what she could do with her children,” the report stated.
The victim’s mother told police a meat cleaver was missing from the kitchen, the paper reported.
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