Dateline NBC episode The Ultimatum, aired on November 16, 2018, explored the mysterious death of 46-year-old Michele Neurauter in August 2017. New York State Police reportedly uncovered some harrowing details while investigating Michele's apparent suicide.
The first report of the incident came from one of her neighbors who had called 911, saying that he saw Michele standing motionless near the stairway of her house in Corning, New York. She was divorced at the time of her death and was living with her younger 14-year-old daughter, Charlotte.
According to New York State Police's retired investigator Mark Procopio, it was “a gruesome scene" when they discovered Michele's body - she was found hanging from a railing in her house. What initially looked like a suicide turned out to be a twisted family plot leading to the New York woman's unfortunate death.
What happened to Michele Neurauter?
When the police discovered Michele, she was found hanging by a cord around her neck. It initially looked like a suicide until the investigators found ligature marks and small scratches on her face.
Allison Regan, a New York State Police's retired detective, reportedly said in a statement:
"Perhaps it was a last minute panic where she didn’t want to kill herself."
According to Michele's autopsy reports, she died on August 26, 2017, and the cause of her death was asphyxiation. However, the investigators could not figure out the exact manner she was killed.
The authorities could not reach Michele's ex-husband, Lloyd. But their 19-year-old daughter Karrie got in touch with the police and told them that her friends informed her about her mother's death.
Was a disturbed marriage the cause of Michele's death?
According to Mark Procopio:
"Karrie described the relationship between her mother and father as having been a crummy marriage, followed by a bitter divorce, followed by a long legal battle."
At the time of Michele's death, Llyod was stationed in New Jersey. He was fighting his wife to get the custody of their daughter Karrie.
According to Llyod's statements, he was in New York on the day of the incident and was staying at a Rochester hotel to meet his daughter. As reported on Dateline, he later took a flight to California.
Llyod further reported that his wife displayed sudden violent outbursts. He also had alibis for the time of Michele's death, which he confirmed by sharing receipts for his movements. But whether a disturbed marriage was behind all these still remained in question.
How did the investigators have a breakthrough in the case?
A few weeks after the initial investigation, some photos of the crime scene led to a harrowing revelation. The detectives found that Michele's bed was not in the right place, and there was a faint mark of blood smeared on the adjacent wall- it was Michele's.
As per Dateline, they took a second opinion and got to know from a medical examiner in Albany County that Michele's cause of death was manual strangulation. It thus turned out to be a case of cold-blooded premeditated murder.
Who was convicted of Michele's murder?
When the detectives dived deeper into Michele's family, they got to know from her friend and attorney, Susan Betzjitomir, that she was close to her children until her husband 'started to poison them against her.'
On going through the past phone records, it was revealed that Michele's elder daughter Karrie was in Corning for at least two hours, while she had earlier said that she spent only 15 minutes at her mother's place on their last night together. The detectives eventually learned that Lloyd had a huge debt because of child support and alimony.
According to Dateline, Michele made her younger daughter Charlotte the sole beneficiary of her $200,000 life insurance policy - quite a motive for Llyod to kill his wife. Karrie had always been on her father's side as the latter had alienated her from her mother long ago.
When Karrie was later brought in for questioning, her answers sounded totally rehearsed. On further pressing, she spilled the beans. Llyod had planned the entire thing, and Steuben County District Attorney Brooks Baker reportedly mentioned in a statement about Llyod:
"He said, 'I’m either going to kill myself or I gotta kill your mother."
Karrie later revealed that she chose her father's side after she got his 'ultimatum.' Moreover, CCTV footage from outside the hotel in Rochester confirmed that Lloyd was not in when the murder took place.
According to Dateline, the police arrested Lloyd and Karrie Neurauter on January 24, 2018, on grounds of Michele's murder. Karrie pleaded guilty in court and agreed to give testimony against her father.
Furthermore, DNA reports confirmed Lloyd's contact with Michele's clothes at the time of her murder. He was thus sentenced to life imprisonment without parole in December 2018. Karrie was charged with second-degree manslaughter and got one to three years in prison. However, she got parole in January 2020.
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