A Poisoned Passion

A deep dive into the murder of Air Force Sergeant Michael Severance, from the acclaimed true crime author seen on 20/20, 48 Hours, Snapped, and more.

By the age of twenty-four, Air Force Staff Sergeant Mike Severance had already survived a series of missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. But his life back at home, in Texas, would prove a lot more dangerous . . .

In the winter of 2005, Mike's wife, a veterinarian named Wendi Mae Davidson, reported him missing. Wendi told police that Mike had been acting erratically—visiting local clubs, staying out late, sometimes not coming home at all. She filed for divorce the very next day.

Eventually Mike's body turned up in a stock pond on a private ranch. Investigators described a corpse that was weighed down with two cinder blocks, a rock, a boat anchor, and other equipment. It had also been stabbed forty-one times with a knife. But an autopsy report told a different story: That the cause of death was exposure to pentobarbital and phenobarbital, drugs commonly used in veterinary medicine. All the evidence pointed to Wendi . . . and soon she would be found guilty of murder in the first degree.

Diane Fanning's A Poisoned Passion is the true, shocking story of a war hero and a marriage that ended in cold-blooded murder.