SHAWN ROCCO - srocco@newsobserver.com
Jason Young, whose new trial begins Jan. 17, opened lines of credit after his wife's death.
RALEIGH -- Agents with the State Bureau of Investigation retrieved banking records belonging to Jason Young in an apparent search for evidence of a financial motive for the murder of Young's pregnant wife five years ago, according to search warrants made public Thursday.
Young has been charged with first-degree murder in the 2006 death of Michelle Young. His first trial ended in June when Wake County Superior Court Judge Donald Stephens declared a mistrial after jurors informed him they were deadlocked.
Young's new trial is scheduled to start Jan. 17, according to the Wake County District Attorney's Office.
Young and his attorneys will be in court today, asking a judge to give them a file used by lawyers who represented his mother-in-law, Linda Lee Fisher of Sayville, N.Y., in a wrongful death lawsuit. Fisher filed the suit in October 2008, asking that all of Michelle Young's assets and life insurance payouts go to the couple's young daughter, Cassidy. In March 2009, a judge awarded Michelle Young's mother $15.6 million.
Since the mistrial, SBI agents have continued to work the case, searching for more evidence that will link Jason Young to his wife's death.
The investigators filed four search warrants Thursday at the Wake County Clerk of Courts Office. Each warrant was obtained in October to comb through Jason Young's banking and credit records with First Citizens Bank and the N.C. State Employees' Credit Union and his credit card accounts with American Express and Chase Bank.
Michelle Young was expecting her second child on Nov. 3, 2006, when her sister Meredith Fisher found her body on her bedroom floor. The couple's 3-year-old daughter was also in the home.
Investigators did not see any signs of a forced entry, ruled the case a homicide and arrested Jason Young in 2009. The Wake County Sheriff's Office first investigated the case and described Jason Young as being uncooperative with their efforts to find his wife's killer.
Family members told police that the Youngs were struggling financially and that Michelle Young was stressed about their finances, according to the search warrants.
Sheriff's investigators handling the case say that Fisher told them that at the time of her daughter's death that the "heating unit" in the couple's home was not working. Fisher believed that repairs to the heater would cost about $4,000 and that the Youngs had only $4,000 in the bank.
SBI agents say the Chase Bank credit card had a credit line of $6,000 and was opened a month after Michelle Young was killed. Investigators also found that Jason Young had opened a line of credit three months before his wife's death with American Express for $35,000, court records show.
Young was released from Wake County jail after the mistrial on a $900,000 bond.
