Kimberly Fletcher Groh

0:00A Father's Life comes to a violent end. Officers observed a large amount of blood and obvious gunshot wound to his chest. But the sole witness says it was a tragic accident. He had the firearm in bed with him? Yeah, and I just tried to leave it. He jerked and it went off. The investigation reveals a murky history of mental health struggles. I don't know the exact year that my father was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. Depression increases the likelihood of suicidal ideation. Until a deeper look into his personal life raises startling questions. He didn't understand where the money was going. There were discrepancies in the stories he was looking for proof. And evidence mounts that this was no mere accident.

1:02We found plastic baggies that contained power. She said that he was crushing them up. A lot of grown man crushed up pills and put into his food. Leading investigators to a desperate killer will go to any length to get what they want. They have conducted a search for top 10 most deadly poisons to humans. It was hard to understand. Did you always have this plan? They felt he was worth more dead than he was alive. The small town of Lexington, South Carolina is known for its family-friendly atmosphere. There's lots of great schools. There are fun things for families to do. It's a really great place to live.

2:04Though it is one of the fastest growing areas in South Carolina, nights in Lexington are usually peaceful. But that isn't the case on November 30th, 2016. At approximately 142 a.m., our NAMO 1 communication center received a call. The Lexington County NAMO 1 safety address of your emergency. I need an ambulance right away. My husband was asleep. He said he was coming to the society and went off. I don't know what to do. He shot him, tell? Yes, he's sorry. He's not here. The NAMO 1 caller was Kimberly Gros. During the course of the call, the NAMO 1 dispatcher learns that Kimberly Gros' husband is Michael Bryan. Okay, where did he get shot at? I just can't see her. I can't see. He's waiting over. Where did he hold ever, can't see? NAMO 1, do not miss him.

3:06All right, Dan, line out a few more questions for you where it's to go now. I got some with them. Officers arrived to the scene. Within minutes, they were met by Kimberly Gros. She was distraught. When the officers enter the bedroom, they find the scene much as Kimberly described. Michael was laying on the right side of the bed. On his left side, officers observed a rifle that was laying, pointing towards him, but pretty much at a 45 degree angle on the left side of the bed. They walked around the foot of the bed and observed a large amount of blood and obvious gunshot wound to his chest. He has his arm laid across a blue towel with a remote control in his right hand. They did not get a pulse from Michael. They were able to determine that Michael was not alive anymore. Lexington police encounter hunting accidents every season, but a man shooting himself in his own bed is a rare occurrence, especially with a rifle.

4:15Due to the fact that it was initially reported and believed to be a suicide, each individual piece of evidence had to be scrutinized. As an investigator, you would want to try to figure out why that person would want to harm themselves. However, the rifle laying on the bed was very odd. Nobody sleeps with a rifle in the bed. Also, because of how far he would have had to reach to pull the trigger. That alone didn't say that it was not a suicide, but it's very uncommon to see people use a long gun or rifle to commit suicide. The responding officers asked Kimberly if there was anyone else in the house other than Michael, and she said that her daughter was upstairs in her bedroom asleep at the time. Kimberly's daughter from a previous marriage. She was asleep in bed. And once she was awakened, the officers escorted her outside of the residence.

5:17Once backup arrives, the officers put Kimberly and her daughter in a car while the house is secured for investigators. We treat all suspicious deaths, which would include a suicide, as a crime until proven otherwise, whether you believe it's suicide or it isn't accident. It's important to keep an open mind and in any investigation. Michael Bryan was born on October 11, 1961 in Charlotte, North Carolina. His early years were marked by a love of family, God, and the outdoors. My dad had two older sisters and one younger sister. He was a handful. He loved to have fun and he loved to help people since he was little. Faith was the centerpiece of my dad's life. He was raised up with a strong faith from my grandfather and my grandma.

6:21I think my father thoroughly enjoyed the great outdoors just because he got to see God's beautiful Earth and just sit there and listen to the animals. As he grew older, Michael's interests expanded into more practical pursuits. After high school, Michael trained to be a plumber. In 1999, he opened his own plumbing company here in Lexington, South Carolina. My dad and my mom, I'm not exactly sure when they got married. But my father had my brother in 1991 and I was born in 1994. It was a happy household. My dad was always in a good mood and that mood was contagious. As a family, we did a lot together. We'd go to church, obviously, and we'd go out on the lake, we'd go camping. We were very close.

7:21Although he was an ideal father, Michael struggled in his marriage. My father always expressed to me that he loved my mother, but things had just changed. I was in middle school when they finally divorced. When my parents divorced, actually, my father had so custody of us both. But I would see my mom. I really looked up to my dad for stepping up and being a single dad and he was at every basketball game. He was at every football game for my brother in the marching band. Michael divided his time between raising his boys and building up his plumbing business. Michael did work in the Luxembourg area and all over the state. He was a pretty profitable business for him at the time. Despite his career success, the life of a single father grew lonely for 46-year-old Michael. By 2007, two years after his divorce, he was ready to try again at love.

8:23When my dad told me he was on e-harmony, it was surprising, but it also was geared for men like him. Find another person who's into their faith as much as you are. I was probably 13 when Kim and my dad met. Michael was new to dating, but 41-year-old Kimberly Fletcher-Gro seemed to be everything he was looking for in a woman. She was a single mom that was strong in her faith and hard working and loving and caring. I think she checked a lot of the boxes that my dad was looking for. She had a sense of humor and family meant most to her. I thought she was a nice woman and she made my dad happy. That's really all that mattered. Kim had two daughters. One was much older and then one was younger than me. Like Michael, Kim ran her own business, renting out property she owned in the area.

9:27Before long, she was helping Michael manage his company as well. Kimberly joined Michael in the plumbing business, taking over the finances and the bookkeeping. When Kim stepped into the business, I think everything kind of grew exponentially and we were doing really well. I think it was purely because Kim was there and she was smart and she was hard working. In 2008, after a year and a half together, they decided to get married. Their wedding was local and it was mainly family there. My father and Kim had a great relationship and they loved each other very strongly and they were supportive of each other and growing. Now their happy home has been torn apart by Michael's stunning apparent suicide.

10:29They began speaking with Kimberly Grove concerning the events that had transpired. Officers got verbal statements from her that were recorded on body camera about what had happened. Despite what she told 911, Kimberly says Michael didn't take his own life. According to her, Kimberly went off by accident. The barrel was pointed up toward him. Yeah, I grabbed the bottom and he jerked it back and it went off. When officers learned that it was Kimberly's hand that was on the gun when the gun went off, that changes the trajectory of the investigation. After speaking with Kimberly Grove, police questioned her 17 year old daughter as well. She tells them she was asleep when the shooting happened and doesn't remember hearing the gun go off, leaving no one to corroborate Kim's version of events.

11:38Now investigators have a more keen interest in investigating whether that's what actually happened. The difference between a suicide and accident or night and day. How do you confuse? Coming up. Kimberly gives investigators a detailed account of the accident. She actually did a drawing of the bed and location of the gun. Investigators must question if any of it is true. I've seen suicides, I've been to homicides. I knew something about this scene was just not adding up. After hearing Kimberly Grove's initial statement about her husband's death, Lexington police open an official investigation. Kimberly now has to be ruled out as having any sort of malicious tent and potentially killing Michael.

12:45So officers are obviously very interested in bringing Kimberly into conduct a interview with the detectives with the Lexington police department. It's not unusual for people who have experienced a traumatic event to not exactly have the exact facts. So we continue to just let her try to pin down the best that she could exactly what had happened. Can you kind of go over what happened starting with yesterday morning when you guys got up? Well, he's bipolar. He's chasing them all day. Kimberly said that this type of behavior from Michael was something that had been ongoing but had been getting worse over time. I don't know the exact year that my father was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, but I believe he'd probably always struggled with it.

13:45He kept some notes of that stuff to himself and didn't want to see Moody. Bipolar can be triggered by extremely stressful events which may trigger an episode whether it is mania or depression. When asked what could have prompted this behavior, Kimberly explains that Michael's passion has always been hunting. And his latest depression was caused by tremors which prevented him from shooting accurately. He has been really assessing the other effect that he hadn't had in a year. So he shot at him, he shot at there and sent him there with him. And that's unusual. Kimberly says it also caused Michael to obsess over his guns. Kimberly told law enforcement that Michael would consistently leave guns, laying around the house.

14:46She didn't know if they were loaded or not, but she was afraid that something like this might happen. And so he started laying them in the bedroom and they were laying everywhere. When someone's going through their depression, they are more likely to be fatigued, not wanting to engage in activities of daily living. Kimberly had advised us that Michael had pretty much slept all day while she had run a whole bunch of errands. Kimberly says when she came home later that day, Michael was still in bed. He hasn't had an episode where he stayed in bed a lot, the last couple of months. I made dinner and I woke him at 8 o'clock and said it's 8 o'clock and you need dinner. And what kind of, so you heated up like a... A roast beef meal, he said okay I'll eat now and he had me get him his medicine and bring it to him. Kimberly says they watched TV together before falling asleep.

15:48She remembers getting up around 1 a.m. to let the dog out and when she returned, she was met with a disturbing sight. I walked into the bedroom, the TV was on. And the dog was on the bed. I was the dog on the bed before you got up. I was looking with the dog. She obviously was concerned for Michael's safety. I was like, uh, Michael, Michael. Why is it going to bed, Michael? He just mown and I would pull it and he jerked and even off. Has he jerked? Did he actually grab the gun? Did jerk me back and I dropped it on the bed. Kimberly says she can't be sure how the gun went off. It's possible Michael's finger was on the trigger when she moved it. Anytime you have firearms, there's always the potential for accidents to happen.

16:49And they do happen, unfortunately, a pretty frequent basis. We have to quiet. I'm in a tough situation, okay? I don't know why it is living like that. Kim's attitude during her interview was she was cooperative. She made a written statement. She actually did a drawing of the actual bed and location of the gun and orientation to the room. She allowed photos to be taken of her. They noticed that she had a small abrasion on her forehead. She stated that when the gun went off, it hit her in the head. They hold Kimberly in a room for further questioning. Although investigators find her to be cooperative, they do have some questions regarding her story. One of them is why Michael brought a loaded rifle to bed in the first place.

17:52Depression increases the likelihood that someone is to have thoughts of suicidal ideation, which would also help explain why the gun have been a weapon in bed. But since Michael cannot speak for himself, investigators must find evidence that corroborates Kimberly's story. They obtain a search warrant for the house. Nothing really jumped out to me. There is no struggle they're taking place. I may not wait down the hallway. I went into the bedroom. The coroner has not arrived yet. So Michael's body is still at the scene. In South Carolina, we don't touch the body until the coroner's office arrives on scene. So while I'm waiting, I observed Michael lying on his left side. The only visible injuries that we could see at that point in time was a single gunshot wound to his chest.

18:56The rifle found on the bed was a windchester 223. I observed the rifle laying at that 45 degree angle that was pointed toward him. It appeared to be fairly close. They find various other firearms as well, just as Kimberly said they would. However, none of them are loaded with ammunition. It tells me that Michael knew his way around guns and wouldn't store a weapon with ammunition in it. To detectives, it means the rifle Michael took to bed was loaded for a reason. The question remains whether he did it himself. I had 25 years of public safety experience. I've seen suicides, I've been to homicides. I knew something about this scene was just not adding up. The

19:58detectives are searching the Brian Grow home for evidence regarding 55 year old Michael Brian's death. They collect all the electronic devices in the house hoping those might provide some answers. So in this case, phones that belong to Kimberly, to Michael, laptops and iPads were collected and analyzed by forensic digital analysts. The analysis will take days to complete. In the meantime, police continue their search. During our search, we also located a life insurance policy. Investigators learned that Michael had a $500,000 life insurance policy on his life that Kimberly was the sole beneficiary of. To seasoned investigators, a substantial life insurance policy hints at a motive to murder Michael.

21:00And in the garage, they find another curious piece of evidence. We moved on to Kimberly Gross, a vehicle. Her purse was in her car. Within her purse, investigator located an eyeglass case. And within the eyeglass case, he found plastic baggies that contained capsules and some baggies contained powder. We discovered that they were sedatives that were commonly used to treat insomnia. Michael was known to take the drug to Mazapam, which matches the description. When they asked Kimberly about it, she provides an innocent explanation. Kimberly told investigators that earlier that morning on the 29th that she had taken those pills from Michael that he was crushing them up.

22:00She stated to the investigator that that was because Michael had been abusing his medication and that he had been opening capsules and sprinkling in on his food. It didn't close the door to my questions. It just absolutely made everything even more questionable. Despite their doubts, investigators have nothing to hold her on. Though Kimberly is allowed to leave, detectives are beginning to wonder if anything she's told them can be trusted. A lot of grown men crush up these pills to put into his food instead of just popping it, like taking a capsule. It would be a lot easier. Anytime you're investigating the death of someone, you don't leave any stone unturned. In this case, they found food in the trash can that Kimberly had indicated that Michael had eaten early that evening. The investigators took that food into evidence to be tested later by the toxicologists.

23:09Investigators reach out to the Brian's loved ones for more information on Kimberly and Michael's marriage. Everybody that we spoke with said that Kimberly was a good wife. She had been taking care of Michael while he was suffering through a little bit of depression and that she had also been busy running the business. We spoke to one of Michael's friends and he said that Michael had been down on himself lately about his ability to shoot his rifle that he had missed a couple of deer this year. Pretty much kind of depressed over the whole situation. But opinions are mixed on the state of Michael's mental health. His son, John, refutes claims that he was depressed over hunting. He could go to the woods, not see anything and come home super excited because he got to sit out there in the peace and quiet.

24:10And so I don't think he'd get that upset over missing a deer. Honestly, there were conversations with my father about his emotions where he would say he'd have thoughts that scared him. But he truly felt suicide is the most selfish thing you can do. He would have never done that. When asked by investigators whether they ever knew Michael to crush up his medications and put them in his food, all of his friends and family members indicated that they had never seen Michael do that. Investigators spoke with a number of Michael's hunting buddies who all indicated that Michael was always very safe with the handling of the guns and the storage of the guns that he had and that he never left them loaded. Michael's brother-in-law, Jerry, says he knows how careful Michael is, so he was surprised by a text from Kimberly in the days leading up to the shooting.

25:15According to Jerry, Kimberly indicated that Michael was leaving guns lying around the house in a reckless manner and that he was even falling asleep with guns in the bed with him. The week prior to the shooting, Kimberly did approach him and ask him about how to operate and render safe this specific rifle that was used the 223 Winchester. Investigators wonder why Kimberly didn't make sure the safety was on before she tried to move the rifle. An interview with the couple's pastor provides them with a possible answer. Their pastor told investigators that he had spoken to Michael on multiple occasions. He said they had a large amount of money coming in but they also had an even larger amount of money going out. He didn't understand where the money was going. Michael had confided to Pastor Ken that Kimberly was stealing from the business. There were discrepancies in the stories that Kim was telling him about the day-to-day and the business.

26:20I could see how much it was hurting him and I kind of put together that he was looking for proof. He was trying to determine that he was being lied to on a daily basis. Tensions were high for sure. It was their financial things going on that maybe they couldn't take anymore and maybe they just reached a breaking point. Coming up, a marriage full of secrets and lies. She had wrote that their marriage was crumbling. And investigators find evidence of a murder plot. She conducted a search for how to poison your spouse and go undetected. Given this new information from a trusted source, the Grove family's pastor, investigators collect Kimberly Grove's personal journal for further insight on the state of their marriage.

27:28There were recent entries where she expressed frustration with Michael's bipolar disorder that it was becoming a burden on her. She was also expressing that she didn't believe that Michael was necessarily in love with her anymore, that she was in love with Michael. She had wrote that she felt like her and Michael were growing distant and that their marriage was crumbling. Obviously, you know, it's when you have a, you know, a death of a spouse and you have indications that the marriage may have been on the rocks. That's always going to add to the suspicion. Kimberly's search history paints an even clearer picture of a woman desperately looking for a way out. During the forensic analysis of the electronic devices that belong to Kimberly, investigators learned that in May of 2016, she conducted a search for how to poison your spouse and go undetected.

28:31Then later, much closer to the time of the incident, on November 1st, Kimberly searches top 10 most deadly poisons to humans. Investigators find irregularities between their personal and business accounts but aren't able to confirm any theft. However, there is a record of Kimberly placing an online order for arsenic. She orders arsenic to be delivered to the business that's located next to her business, which was also suspicious to investigators. While they await Michael's toxicology reports, investigators focus on the gunshot wound that killed him. During further analysis of the electronic devices, investigators found a search for how to operate the 223 Winchester rifle.

29:33This also adds to the suspicion that just a few weeks prior to the shooting using a 223 Winchester, she's searching on the internet how to operate that specific gun. The coincidences are really starting to stack pretty high and investigators are fairly convinced that this was not an accident. At this point in time, we now are believing this is absolutely a premeditated murder. After collecting a mountain of circumstantial evidence, police confront Kimberly with their findings. Once again, she seems to have an answer for everything. One of the common themes that she pick up on is that Kimberly oftentimes thinks that she is the smartest person in the room. Investigators also asked her about the search that she did for the 223 Winchester. She indicated that was because Michael was leaving these guns lying around the house, so she wanted to be able to make sure that she knew how to render these weapons safe.

30:41In regards to the search about ways to kill a spouse without detection, she stated that she was interested in crime dramas and TV shows. Kimberly explained to the investigators that the reason she ordered the arsenic was because she was going to use it as a cleaning solution for the pipes in their plumbing business. She had no nervousness. Any one of those could have potentially been plausible, but the more that she spoke and the more things that she said, the more questions we had. Investigations you want to, what we refer to as lock them into a story as soon as possible. If the evidence doesn't go with what they're telling you, you know that there's something missing. But when detectives ask Kimberly if she'd be willing to take a polygraph test, her confidence evaporates.

31:45I think she had that aha moment when we asked her to take a polygraph that she realized, wait, they think I did this and it caused her to stop and request an attorney. Based off all the evidence that we had thus far, absolutely moved her from being just a innocent widow and witness to a suspect. Police are four months into the investigation of the death of 55-year-old Michael Bryan. Kimberly Gros had ample defense for her suspicious behavior leading up to his death, so now investigators must try to refute her claims. We went to several master plumbers and they could think of no situation or no mixture or no concoction where any plumber would ever want to use arsenic.

32:49Police hope Michael's toxicology report will prove whether Kimberly had a different use for the poison. Dr. Janice Ross conducts the autopsy. Arsenic is sort of a natural mineral. The normal person may have as much as one microgram of arsenic. Michael Bryan had 39 micrograms, which is higher than it should be, but it's not lethal. That amount of arsenic probably came from somebody putting it in his food or drink. I think potentially what she wanted to do was try to slowly poison Michael with arsenic and that she actually did so over a period of time. I believe arsenic played a role to explain some of his physical ailments that he was experiencing. I believe it was just wasn't at lethal amount because she wasn't sure how much to give him.

33:54It's found that Michael had to maza-pan and to maza-pan pills inside his stomach. The food that we had seized out of the trash can that Kimberly had fed him that night also included positive result for containing to maza-pan. This analysis points in the direction of her now having intentionally medicated him prior to her shooting. To prove the shooting could not have been an accident, detectives turned to pathologists and ballistic experts. In this case, the disease was shot in the chest. When a bullet comes out of a gun, so does powder and sook. But the powder and soot only go a certain distance depending on the caliber, the length of the rifle. There are the type of ammunition.

34:55With the stippling as large as it was indicated to me that the barrel of the gun was a fair distance away from the person. In this case, it turned out to be 12 inches. One of the things Kimberly said was that Michael had reached down and pushed the trigger himself. But it wasn't a close contact wound. That further solidified and took it off the table. That Michael had anything to do with pulling the trigger. There would just be too far of a distance for him to reach. As far as investigators are concerned, its irrefutable proof Kimberly murdered her husband. And a blood spatter expert reveals evidence that before calling 911, she staged the crime scene to look like an accident. It was observed that blood had been running out of the bullet wound.

35:55Blood is always going to flow in the direction of gravity. So in Michael's case, the blood that was on his chest initially went straight down, which would indicate that he was sitting up in the bed. However, the blood pattern then begins to turn, which indicates that during the course of him bleeding out, that his body moved from an upright position to now laying on his side position. So this all indicates that he was potentially manipulated after he had been shot. If there was any doubt left who pulled the trigger, it vanishes once DNA tests are performed on the right fall. The DNA analysis from the trigger of the gun comes back as a DNA match for Kimberly. Despite the mountain of evidence, investigators must be sure they have a case that can get a conviction at court. So we've now reached a point in the investigation where it's becoming clear that if Kimberly did plan a murder, she certainly didn't plan it very well with all the loose sins that she left untied.

37:01So they didn't want to get the rest of the work before we believed that we had enough to prove her guilty beyond her reasonable doubt of trial. Ten months after the death of Michael Bryant, investigators believe they have enough evidence to prove he was murdered by his wife, Kimberly Grouw. I think that night was clearly premeditated. I believe that Kimberly waited for Michael either to go to sleep or she medicated him to the point that he passed out. And she took his gun, she loaded it, and she shot him in the chest from the foot of the bed. However, investigators theorize not everything went smoothly. When I was the first to encounter Kimberly Grouw, they noticed that she had a small abrasion on her forehead. I think it could have been that she had the scope up and she didn't have it firmly seated in her shoulder.

38:05And if you don't have this firm was seated when it fires, it kicks back and what you call scoped. You know, you get hit with the rim, the metal rim of the scope, and it leaves a mark. If we ruled out domestic violence or self-defense, we can look at money issues or for financial gains. That obviously points you the direction of the $500,000 life insurance policy that he had. Phone record show Kimberly called their insurance company to cash in the day after Michael's death. The call was recorded through the insurance company. When you get into call centers and say this call may be recorded for quality insurance, well guess what? They're recorded. No, I listen to it. I even hear about the passing of your husband. His name is Michael Brian, DRY and Ian. She didn't seem upset when she was calling the life insurance company. She just was monotone. She had no emotion.

39:09I absolutely believe that Kimberly felt that Michael was worth more dead than he was alive. Further investigation reveals she also had Michael's sons written out of his well. We were not going to get anything and that was shocking to not only me and my brother, but the entire family. Everything he did in life was for his family. Why would he write me and my brother out? I think a combination of greed and the burden that Michael's bipolar disorder that she felt led her to snap and kill her husband Michael. After all the evidence came back, we were able to obtain her rest warrant for Kimberly Groh for the commission of murder of Michael Brian. We made arrangements through her attorney and she turned herself in to us on September 26th.

40:10COVID delays Kimberly's trial for over a year, but when the time finally comes, she chooses not to face a jury. We were able to reach a plea agreement with Kimberly's defense attorney that she would enter an offer plea to voluntary manslaughter. After the presentation by the state and after hearing the emotional testimony of Michael's family, the judge ended up imposing the maximum 30-year sentence. It was hard to understand. I still sometimes wonder how you do that. How do you go from loving him to that? Did you always have this plan? I think Kimberly Groh has an absolute disregard for human life. I think that she was selfish. I think that she was greedy and I think she was cold-blooded. I think Kimberly thought she could get away with murder.

41:25My father loved Kim. He loved her with everything he had. And I just, it's hard to wrap my head around how she responded to that. It's affected the entire family and ways I think will live on with us. I believe my father would be proud of all of us and the way we've carried on. He will live on through us and the impact he made on all of us. Under South Carolina law, Kimberly Groh is not eligible for parole. When she is released from prison, she will be 79 years old.