On April 15, 1994, on Sunset Cliff in San Diego, California, two surfers noticed what appeared to be seagulls on top of a floating pile of kelp. However, as they drew closer, they discovered that it was the body of Michelle Von Emster. Michelle was found naked, with only a brass bracelet on her left arm, along with two rings. She had a butterfly tattoo on her shoulder and long brown hair, which helped identify her. The body was taken to San Diego Lifeguard Headquarters at 4 p.m.
Michelle Von Emster was known for going on naked midnight swims
Her lack of clothing was attributed to Michelle being reported to go on naked midnight swims, which a lifeguard had seen her doing, and which a work acquaintance, Edwin Decker, supported, saying that Michelle had told him that she “liked to surf naked.” However, no local surfers, nor her friends, ever recalled her surfing.
Robert Engel, medical examiner, reported that she had “large, tearing type wounds with missing tissue,” as the body was also missing its right leg from the thigh down. Engel also believed Michelle had not been in the water a long time, but did not mark down a cause of death.
A day later, on April 16, an autopsy was performed by Brian Blackbourne, a San Diego medical examiner. Blackbourne discovered that Michelle’s neck had been broken, “as if she’d been in a car wreck,” and had broken ribs, scrapes, and bruises. Sand was also found in her mouth, throat, lungs, and stomach. Blackbourne concluded that Michelle had been alive when the injuries had been inflicted, and created a timeline.
Michelle was last seen April 14 at 8 p.m.
At 8 p.m., April 14, Michelle had last been sighted wearing a green trench coat, and at midnight, she had likely entered the water. Blue sharks also fed on her body, although Harry Bonnell, a pathologist, stated that there was no evidence these bites occurred before her death. Glenn Wagner, a medical examiner who re-examined her body in 2008, agreed with this, saying that blue sharks scavenged her body after she died.
Only two suspects were seriously considered: Edwin Decker and an unknown stalker; Decker was suspected because of his interaction with Michelle and behavior towards the case, and the stalker because he had been sighted by Michelle, watching her.
Ryan and Shane explore the spot near where Michelle’s body was found, along with the cliff from which she may have fallen. Ryan remarks that it isn’t an “ideal” place for a naked midnight swim, while at the cliff he and Shane agree that it looks dangerous and easy to fall from, but could not cause “[her] leg to fall off and sharpen to a point.” Shane remarks that he believes Edwin Decker is Michelle’s murderer, as his “poem is unforgivable.”
Blackbourne decided that the case must have been a shark attack due to agreement from marine biologists at Scripps Institute and harbor police, and it was marked as an official cause of death. It was unknown where Michelle was buried.
Michelle Von Emster Death Theories
Theory #1 – Michelle died as a result of a shark attack
- Blackbourne’s autopsy, revealing that Michelle had a broken neck and ribs, along with sand in her mouth, throat, lungs, and stomach; and scrapes and bruises along her body, lined up with his theory that a great white shark may have grabbed Michelle, bit off her leg, and forced her to the bottom of the ocean, breaking her neck and filling her mouth with sand, which she subsequently choked on and swallowed. Then, she would have died from blood loss and drowning.
- However, Blackbourne had never seen a death caused by a shark attack before, and neither had anyone who had looked at the body. The marine biologists that had agreed with him had never seen the body. This could make their consensus questionable, due to the lack of interaction with shark attack cases (in Blackbourne’s case) and the body (in the biologists’ case).
- Ralph Collier, leading expert in Pacific Coast white shark behavior and ecology, on seeing Michelle’s broken leg bone, remarked that “when a white shark breaks off part of a limb, the break is clean, almost like you put it on a table saw. What remained of Michelle’s femur was anything but. It looked like what happens when you get a piece of bamboo and whittle it down to a point with a knife… I’ve looked at close to 100 photos of cases over the years, and I’ve never seen any bones that come to a point.”
- Collier also said that it was “strange” for Michelle to have sand in her stomach after her leg had been severed, saying, “the damage would have severed her femoral artery and she would have bled to death quickly. But for her to have sand in her stomach, she had to take a big gulping breath as she made contact with the sand.” He finishes with “there are too many things in this case that are not consistent with white shark behavior.”
- Richard Rosenblatt, the chairman of Scripps Institute at the time, after being given the measurements of the injuries on Michelle’s body, said that none of them were caused by a white shark, and that if she had been bitten by one, they most likely would have found a great white shark tooth in her body, which they had not. Rosenblatt finished by saying that because Michelle’s leg was missing, “it could only have been a white shark,” and not any other type of shark. If only a white shark could have taken the leg, and it was proven unlikely that a white shark had made the attack, it was unlikely altogether that Michelle had been killed by a white shark.
Theory #2 – Michelle died as a result of drowning
- Her lack of clothes would be explained as a midnight naked swim, and injuries caused by being caught in a current, where she would be knocked against the rocks, died, and then fed upon by blue sharks.
- However, the temperature of the water was too cold to swim, at 59° Fahrenheit, and the temperature at night being 57°. A counter for this, however, is that she could have been wearing the green trench coat, and possibly nothing underneath, for protection against the cold, and then had taken it off for the swim.
Theory #3 – Michelle Von Emster died as a result of a fall from Sunset Cliffs
- A San Francisco medical examiner declared that her neck, rib, and pelvic injuries were consistent with those of a fall.
- Sunset Cliffs is known as one of the most beautiful sightseeing cliffs in San Diego, but is also known to be be dangerous, with reports of crumbling rocks. People have died in this spot before.
- However, falling off of a cliff would not explain her leg injury.
Theory #4 – Michelle was murdered
- The neighborhood that Michelle lived in had a reputation for drugs and was known as “The War Zone.”
- Michelle’s purse was found about 2.5 miles away from her body, containing her keys, driver’s license, makeup, pay stub, and a fanny pack with twenty-seven dollars in cash. It was discovered on a heavily-used stretch of beach, meaning it probably wouldn’t have been there long, or else someone else would have taken it.
- Edwin Decker may have murdered Michelle. Decker worked as a bartender next to the coffee shop that she had once worked at. He claimed that he and Michelle had drinks April 13 after flirting for weeks and had kissed in his apartment. According to his testimony, she left his apartment at 5 a.m. the next day, the day she had died.
- Decker felt that “there was a total intellectual connection. I felt there was an emotional connection, too, at least, on my part there was, and we also had a physical connection… I was so bummed when a couple of days went by and she hadn’t called. I was about to give up on the idea.” Decker even published a poem after finding she had died, which read “The reports said there was a tattoo/ a butterfly on her shoulder/ which I remembered that night/ on my couch when I/ like the shark/ chewed on her lips and took off her shirt.”
- However, Decker also teamed up with an investigator in 2008 and wrote to the San Diego medical examiner, asking them to re-evaluate Michelle’s case.
- An unknown stalker may have murdered Michelle, who had noticed him stalking her at her previous job at a coffee shop. Michelle had turned to a different job at a stationary and office supply shop because she felt he wouldn’t stalk her there. Michelle also mentioned that she did not know the man, but knew he drove a motorcycle.
- Her former boss, Denise Knox recalled that the day after Michelle’s death, a man came in to make copies of her autopsy report. In 2014, she told the San Diego Reader that “the weird guy who wanted all those copies of her autopsy? He rode a motorcycle, too.”
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