A Poisoned Passion: The True Story of A Young Mother, Her War Hero Husband, and the Marriage that Ended in Murder (St. Martin's True Crime Library)

By age twenty-four, Air Force Staff Sergeant Mike Severance had survived multiple combat missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. His life in Texas, however, would become far more dangerous. In winter 2005, Mike's wife, veterinarian Wendi Mae Davidson, reported him missing. She told police he had been acting erratically—frequenting local clubs, staying out late, and sometimes not returning home. She filed for divorce the following day. Mike's body was later discovered in a stock pond on a private ranch, weighted down with cinder blocks, a rock, a boat anchor, and other equipment. The corpse bore forty-one stab wounds. An autopsy revealed a different cause of death: exposure to pentobarbital and phenobarbital, drugs commonly used in veterinary medicine. Evidence pointed to Wendi, and she was convicted of first-degree murder. Diane Fanning's account examines the true story of a war hero and the marriage that ended in his death.