Episode 26: Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies, I’m your host Julie Mattson. Today on our series ‘Men Who Kill Their Wives’, we are talking about a very recent case of familicide that occurred in Utah on January 4th, 2023. The husband/father Michael Haight is being called a family annihilator for killing his wife Tasha, who was 40, their three daughters, 17, 12 and 7 and two sons who were 7 and 4, as well as his mother in law who was 78. Michael and his wife Tasha had been married for about 16 years and on December 21 of 2022, Tasha filed for divorce which ended in this tragic story.
Listen in while I share the story of the Haight family murders…
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EPISODE TRANSCRIPT:
0:06 Welcome to Pushing Up Lilies.
0:08 I’m your host, Julie Mattson. Pushing up Lilies is a weekly true crime podcast with spine tingling, unusual and terrifyingly true stories from my perspective as a forensic death investigator and a sexual assault nurse examiner.
0:24 Do I have some stories for you?
0:26 Are you ready?
0:31 So we’re back now talking about familicide and I know that this month we’ve covered a lot of really interesting cases.
0:40 I know the Laci Peterson case as well as the Chris Watts case really sparked my attention.
0:46 I did actually get to see the scene photos from the Andrea Yates case when I worked in Harris County.
0:55 You know, I was new to the business of course took a lot of course is when I first went to work there, one of the doctors that reviewed some of his cases actually worked the Andrea Yates murders and so I was actually able to see all the crime scene photos from that particular case.
1:14 So it really sparked my interest and her case was a little bit different than some because she did not actually kill herself, which many people do.
1:26 And the case we’re talking about this week, that’s exactly what happened, familicide, again is it’s just a type of murder or murder suicide when someone actually kills multiple close family members.
1:41 One after the other.
1:43 Most often it’s their own Children, spouses, siblings, siblings, Children or their own parents or even their spouses parents.
1:56 So in half the cases the killer actually ends up killing themselves.
2:02 And this is also referred to as family annihilation When we get to the case that we’re talking about this week.
2:11 I know that that’s what he is being called a family annihilator.
2:16 And I know the statistics say that between 1900 and 2000, there were 909 victims of mass murder That is defined as four victims within a 24 hour period.
2:30 So basically these family annihilator are mass murderers.
2:34 They’re killing four or more people and sometimes themselves within a 24 hour period, more than half of those occurred within an immediate family.
2:47 So although cases are rare, the data is difficult to establish because there’s always, you know, discrepancies in reporting and that kind of thing, but familiar that is different than other forms of mass murderer because the murder actually kills their own family or loved ones other than just an anonymous person or someone they don’t know or someone on the street.
3:12 The significance is more psychiatric, but they studied 30 cases in Ohio and found that most of the killings are motivated by the parent believing that their Children are suffering somehow.
3:27 And so they focus on killing the Children in an effort to save them.
3:33 For some reason, people responsible for killing their families tend to be white males in their thirties, many of those crimes occur strangely enough, right before school starts around august typically, and I’m not sure why, but that’s just what studies have shown and of course marital separation or impending divorce is many times the cases and something that actually triggers this marital discord.
4:08 Unhappiness, domestic violence, sexual abuse, that kind of thing.
4:13 They’re not really sure what could be done in terms of prevention.
4:16 In many of these cases, a lot of men who murder their entire families do so because they think their spouse maybe did something wrong and somehow needs to be punished or they are disappointed by their family members or they’re having financial problems.
4:37 They view killing the family as saving them from some sort of perceived threat.
4:43 There’s not very many women who commit familicide, but they usually have different reasons, but it’s typically males.
4:54 They’re driven by loss of control, financial crisis, divorce separation.
5:02 Unfortunately, there are a lot of these now the case that I want to talk about this week is actually one that happened this year.
5:12 So it’s relatively new and there’s not a lot of information in the media about it yet.
5:18 I know that it’s still under investigation.
5:21 It happened in a small town of Enoch, Utah, which is about 250 miles south of Salt Lake City.
5:29 Again, it happened on January four.
5:31 So it’s relatively new.
5:33 I know that the investigators are still looking into why this happened, but I do know that they are suspicious that it was because the wife had filed for divorce.
5:45 But this is the case, he was actually 42 years old.
5:50 Michael Haight actually killed his wife, Tasha who was 40, their three daughters, 17, 12 and 7 and two sons who were 7 and 4 as well as his mother in law who was 78.
6:07 So this falls right into the pattern of familicide that we’ve talked about now.
6:13 Tasha reportedly had filed for divorce two weeks prior.
6:18 And so again, one thing that tends to trigger this, But then in going back through the case in 2020, Macy, who was the oldest daughter, was 14 at the time and she had reported assault and abuse at the hands of her father.
6:37 She said that he choked her that she was actually afraid he was going to kill her.
6:43 She was unable to breathe.
6:46 She called the police back in August of 2020 and she had said that the abuse had been going on for three years.
6:55 So he shook her, slammed her along the back of a couch where there was like a little wood slat.
7:03 Of course, when she reported it, CPS got involved, the police were involved, questioned Tasha as well as Michael and of course Macy and he denied assault.
7:19 He said that she was a mouthy teenager.
7:23 He tend to blame his aggression on his father’s death and his brother had just gotten a divorce.
7:32 And so he was really focused on, It sounds like almost making the police felt sorry for him.
7:39 So he also belittle Tasha according to Macy, he had taken Tasha’s iPhone and her iPad to see if she was talking bad about his family.
7:51 So maybe a little bit of paranoia going on there.
7:55 She did not want to file criminal charges.
7:57 Tasha was not interested in that at all.
8:01 CPS was involved again and the case did not apparently meet requirements for prosecution.
8:09 Ultimately victim services were made available to the family And that’s the end of it.
8:16 So what happens in many of these cases?
8:18 And I know we see and some of us have lived it.
8:22 You are then threatened although the abuse continues, you’re threatened not to go to the police again, not to tell anybody.
8:31 And in many, many cases the abuse continues.
8:34 So very good chance that between 2020 when it was reported and criminal charges weren’t filed that the abuse continued up until he killed the entire family.
8:48 So obviously had a lot of aggression and had some issues that were going on and whether that’s what caused Tasha to file for divorce or not, who knows?
9:02 We’ll never know.
9:04 I know that there was a lot of media coverage talking about the actual investigation.
9:15 Did the police do their job?
9:16 Did CPS do their jobs?
9:18 Should there have been criminal charges filed against him.
9:22 I have a lot of questions about that as a death investigator and also as a previous victim.
9:30 I mean, I would want to know of course, you know, a lot of time went by from the time the abuse started until Macy reported it and so I think a lot of people get caught up in the need for physical evidence, but I feel like when a child actually goes to the police and reports abuse that it shouldn’t just be swept under the rug and assumed that the parent is punishing them because of something that they did.
10:01 I feel like that, you know, to go to the police is a huge deal to actual reach out to law enforcement because you can’t get help anywhere else, especially at the age of 14 is a huge deal.
10:16 And again, I’m not privy to anything about the investigation or who always involved or what the questions were that were asked and I’m assuming there was no physical evidence.
10:28 Again, I think a lot of people get caught up on the fact that there has to be, I just think in all my years of doing sexual assault cases and interviewing Children, they’re not making these stories up.
10:41 And I feel like a lot of people believe that they are, I feel like a lot of people tend to believe the adults because teenagers can be maulvi, you know, so there’s a very good chance that the police were like, oh, you know, another mouthy teenager, whatever dad’s punishing her and she’s blowing this way out of proportion.
11:03 So I don’t know, I mean, I wish I was privy to that information, I’m sure all of you do too because you like to true crime and so you have inquisitive minds just like I do and we all want to ask the same questions, but we can’t now.
11:19 But what happened in this case, officers called for a welfare check.
11:23 Tasha didn’t show up for an appointment.
11:26 And again, thank God that we have friends who pay attention to what’s going on in our lives and know and realize when we do something unusual, like not showing up for an appointment or not showing up for work.
11:43 And we have many cases in our county where that’s where people are found deceased, right?
11:48 They didn’t show up for work.
11:50 Their coworkers are concerned because it’s very abnormal for them.
11:53 And so they called the police and asked that the person be checked on and they’re found deceased at home.
11:59 Of course not always familicide, but many times natural death or whatnot.
12:04 So this person, of course we don’t know who it is, but it’s not a family member was concerned because Tasha didn’t show up for an appointment which was abnormal for her.
12:14 And that’s when officers were called.
12:16 Now, days prior to this incident, Michael Haight actually removed the firearms from the home.
12:25 Tasha and her mom were both trained to use firearms so they knew how to use them.
12:31 It’s believed that Michael removed the weapons from the house prior to the incident because he knew that if the guns were there, Tasha and her mother would be able to protect themselves because they knew how to use the guns.
12:45 So he was basically trying to keep them from being able to defend themselves.
12:50 Now, the couple had been married for about 16 years and Tasha Filed for divorce, December 21 of 22.
12:59 So this is super recently.
13:01 And then Michael was served papers on December 27 and then a lot of the reports say that he had actually been staying in the basement of the house since he was served papers back in December.
13:15 Tasha of course, you know, hired an attorney to file for the divorce and never indicated to him that there was any kind of abuse or anything like that.
13:24 Again, it’s a new story.
13:26 So there’s not a lot of information and I’m sure in the coming weeks there’ll be a lot of new information coming out on this particular familicide.
13:34 But he basically shot all of them in the home.
13:39 There’s not a lot of information that has come out yet about what order they, I think he did it in or anything like that.
13:47 Again, it’s so, so new.
13:49 But he did actually turn the gun on himself interested to see what comes of this.
13:57 As far as the investigation.
13:59 I know they’ll look into financial difficulties and there may even be some previous police reports of abuse, but so far the only thing that’s come Is the report from 2020 that Macy made.
14:12 But I think what really irritated most people is when the newspaper printed this obituary that made hate out to be this father who made it a point to spend quality time with his kids and coached their sports teams.
14:34 It was written and submitted by a funeral home.
14:36 And, and in the obituary, the crimes were not mentioned at all.
14:40 It made him out to be this amazing man who cared for nothing but his family.
14:46 And of course that outraged many many people because we, we all know what he did and he should not be made a hero.
14:54 He’s a murderer and a family annihilator.
14:57 So that made many, many people angry.
14:59 And of course the newspaper apologized and said that the obituary was written by the funeral home and that they just printed it again.
15:08 I’m just super curious to see what comes of this, what they find when they investigate the case further.
15:15 And of course he killed himself.
15:16 So there’s not gonna be any kind of a trial or anything like that.
15:20 I will definitely keep you all posted as I stay on top of this because again, it’s super interesting and I don’t know why.
15:28 I think we’re all so inquisitive and that’s why y’all are listening.
15:32 You like the same types of things I do and have a lot of the same questions, but it’s just such a shame.
15:38 Again, I’ll keep you posted on this story.
15:41 But you know, the Andrea Yates story and Chris Watts, Laci Peterson, all those cases and there’s so many cases of familicide, it’s crazy.
15:51 We’ve had some here locally in the years and, and again, I’ve had some in Houston hard, hard cases to work as an investigator because you know, when kids are involved, they’re so innocent and had so much to give and will never have a chance to do the things that they could have done.
16:11 So, it’s always such a shame.
16:13 I am again interested in the coming days to see what comes of this investigation and I will definitely keep you posted.
16:20 Thank you so much for joining me today on Pushing Up Lilies.
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