My Thoughts: Michelle Renee

When I watch Michelle Renee in this video from 48 Hours, I see a lot of red flags that make me question her.

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1. Renee displays multiple subtle grins in the intro (and the entire video) when she says, “We had gotten home right around 6:30, the sun was setting and we were getting ready to go into the house and make homemade pizzas. I was a single mother and my daughter loved when we got to spend time together. We decided to sit down on the couch and play game boy to unwind from the day, and then everything… was completely shattered… in one… blink of an eye.”

   When I saw this, I said to my husband, “Where is the fear in her face? Where is the terror? The pain? The difficult emotions that are so tightly connected to our memories? There is absolutely none. Instead I see these sharky grins! Something is very wrong here.”

   People don’t live through something as traumatic as this, but have no emotional memory. Even if you are a psychopath, you feel your own emotions of fear and violation, even if you don’t feel for anyone else! But Renee doesn’t. Why? Did Renee know what was going to happen? You sure do wonder in the first 45 seconds alone, don’t you?

2. Renee also talks in what I call a “nice girl voice”. It’s not Renee’s normal voice in that her inflections are so soft and light. People often use this voice when they want to impress someone that they are nice and kind, and sweet. It always a red flag for me that someone isn’t being their true and genuine self. While we all use this voice from time-to-time when we want to impress someone, I don’t expect to see it when someone talks about one of the most traumatic events in their life. If they do start an interview like this, it usually fades once their emotions kick in, and when it doesn’t, it concerns me. I never see Renee talk outside of this “nice girl voice”. It’s very notable.
3. Listen to the tone and inflection in Renee’s voice when she says, “The back door just came crashing in…with a sound that is completely…indescribable.” As she continues, it’s like she is telling us how her daughter brought her the most beautiful bouquet of flowers instead of talking about a traumatic event. There are no emotions in her voice or on her face at all of fear or terror or panic. This is very strange.
4. Notice the pauses as she talks? This is indicative of thinking-on-your feet behavior…like perhaps, she is “telling…. a… story,” instead of recounting the truth?
5. Renee says, “They grabbed us, threw us to the floor, one man was on my back, the gun’s to my head and the duct tape started to unroll and rip. My daughter was out of sight, couldn’t hear her, did know what was going on and I was screaming for our life.”

   When you look at this statement above, there are many details that are missing. Notice the pronouns disappear at the end of her statement? Many experts agree this is usually a tip off to deception. I don’t disagree.

6. Renee then says that she couldn’t hear her daughter. Why couldn’t she? Why the lack of details so we could understand why? This is abnormal. Also, logically, if a mom is screaming for her life, you can be pretty certain a child would be, too. Why doesn’t Renee hear her anymore?
7. Renee says the gunman held her and her daughter for 14 hours. What gunmen are going to hang out at a house for 14 hours? What is the point of this? It defies logic. Most perpetrators don’t want to hang out in a place where they can get caught for 14 hours, where they are exposed, out of their element, where the victims could get free, where visitors could discover something is amiss, where someone could escape?

   Furthermore, why would they want to pull off a heist in the morning after they are sleep deprived and much more likely to make mistakes? Logically, most criminals would decide to break in at 4:00 a.m. or later to reduce exposure, to be prepared and well rested for the endeavor, and when they had the least exposure to be seen! But these criminals didn’t think about this? Was that because they didn’t feel exposed?

8. Watch Renee when she says with a smile, “And then I became a bank robber.” Why on earth would that make her smile? Notice she is pursing her lips? This is what people do when they want to hold themselves back from smiling. Renee does it several times. Being forced to rob a bank would be the most scary thing in the world for anyone who has dynamite tied to their back, but it causes Renee to smile? This is a huge red flag something isn’t right here.
9. Furthermore, what victim would give themselves this horrific label of “bank robber” if they were forced to do this against their will? It is a huge insult and exceptionally strange that Renee even thinks in these terms. Yet Renee seems to enjoy saying that she became a bank robber and is not insulted at all. Instead, she almost appears proud. It defies logic. Her emotions and her thoughts are contradictory to what wants us to believe.
10. Listen to the way Renee says, “Oh my god, my daughter.” Notice there is no voice inflection at all? When we’d most expect voice inflection, its missing! Her tone and inflection is so flat here, I’d think she was saying, “Pass me the ketchup.”
11. Renee says, “I was just begging for her life. Please don’t hurt her, please don’t hurt her.” Didn’t Renee say she was screaming for their lives?? Why didn’t the intruders duct tape her mouth? I find this very strange.
12. Renee says the perpetrators said, “You know why we are here.” She clearly says it as a statement and not a question. Renee responds, “No, you know, we don’t have anything. Why are you here?” What perpetrator would say that unless Renee knows more? Was this a subconscious slip of the tongue?
13. Renee says the perpetrators tell her that they’ve been following Renee for weeks. Renee says they said, “We know everything about you. We know you have a roommate, when is she coming home?” Wait a minute! If they have been following Renee for weeks and know everything about her, wouldn’t they know her roommates schedule, habits and time she is likely due home, too? Most criminals would pick a time where they could be sure when people would come and go, and these guys don’t know? Give me a break! Her statement is flat out inconsistent.
14. As 48 Hours retells the story, they say the perpetrators turned off all the lights, duct taped Renee and her daughter’s ankles and wrists and dumped them on the couch. Why didn’t Renee mention these details earlier?
15. Renee says, “At that point, they were really graphic with their sexual talks…super…super bad.” This is almost comical. What bank robbers “talk” graphic but don’t actually do anything? They just talk dirty? Most men I know don’t like to talk dirty unless they get some action. Hello! Very strange. It’s as if Renee wants to paint these guys as “bad, bad, bad”. Furthermore, notice Renee doesn’t give any details about the “sexual talks”, did you notice?
16. Renee says about the guy in charge, “He was sort of giving the orders. And he was really in control.” The word “sort of” is what I classically call a hedge word. Either he was giving orders or he wasn’t. You don’t sort of give orders. Was he in control? Or was he “really” in control? Very strange language.
17. Renee says once she realized she recognized the woman’s voice, “It just clicked in and I started to pay attention to everything.” What? Why wouldn’t you have been doing this all along? For Pete’s sake, they didn’t tape your eyes closed, which baffles me.
18. In the morning, they duct tape Renee’s roommates eyes, mouth, hands and feet and throw her on to a bed, and they throw little Breea into a closet. Why would the perpetrators not cover everyone‘s eyes immediately? Does this make sense? Also, is duct tape sufficient to hold people captive? Really?
19. When Renee says, “The weight of their lives was enormous for me.” I believe her. If you are going to rob a bank (regardless if she is the perpetrator or the victim), you are risking that you might not come home, that you could be killed. I am sure Renee didn’t want to leave her daughter without a mother. I suspect that weighed heavily on her mind regardless of who did what. I suspect this is the truth for Renee. Why isn’t she smiling here? Why did all her joy disappear?
20. Why would prepetrators allow Renee to say goodbye to her daughter? What would be the point? Criminals are not soft, mushy men who have feelings as far as I know or they wouldn’t hold people up at gunpoint. It sounds more like something from a fiction novel, or a romance, doesn’t it?
21. Renee says, “I just told her [daughter] that she was everything.” Renee’s emotions here are genuine and real. Renee was taking a huge risk regardless of whether or not she was a victim or a prepetrator.
22. Renee’s co-worker, Loretta Myers, recounts how Renee was “stoic and off center”. Again, regardless of who did or didn’t put Renee up to this, she would feel this way. Of course, this was not like Renee. This witness account doesn’t support or disprove anything. The fact that Renee was there and did the deed is not in debate.
23. Renee grins when she says to the teller, “You need to help me.” Renee grins so many times in this interview, I didn’t take the time to write them all down.
24. Renee says again as she is talking to the teller, “I have to rob the bank”. Isn’t that just bizarre? Who thinks like this when they are forced to do this?
25. Don’t you think it is weird Renee took the time to talk to Loretta Myers, her co-worker (not the teller) to tell her that she had an appointment to go to after she cleared the vault? You would think she was so nervous, she’d never even think to say that! Furthermore, she had already told the teller she was being robbed, I’m sorry, she was “robbing the bank” so why lie to this other co-worker, unless she wanted to have more time? I suspect Renee knew she had to buy time with Myers. I would think if she was truly a victim, once she had the money, she would have ran out of that bank so fast, because if the perps saw her talking to anyone after that, they might take it as a reason to blow her up. But she didn’t worry about that, did she?
26. Notice Renee’s shoulder shrug when she says, “I robbed a bank to save our lives.”
27. I get really confused about the vehicle situation. Renee says, “”He let me out of the Jeep. I was to walk back to where my Jeep would be waiting. And then I was to go straight home.” Whose Jeep does she get out of? Hers or the perpetrators? Were their two Jeeps? Did someone else drive her vehicle to this apartment complex, and risk being seen driving it and getting out of it in daylight? Really? Or was there only one Jeep? When did the perps separate, if they did, and who rode with whom? All of this information is missing for me. I wish they had covered it more in detail.
28. Renee says she knew her daughter was at home. Did any of the gunman stay there? How could she be so sure her daughter was still there and didn’t run for help?? Or wasn’t moved to another location? Did she really trust these perpetrators? It seems she didn’t question them, did she?
29. Renee says, “I was crouched down. I was just in front of her, holding her, getting the tape off of her. It hit me right then – ‘Oh, my gosh – I’ve got dynamite on my back still.”

    How could she forget about the dynamite? How come she didn’t worry about getting the dynamite off of Breea first, or realize it was gone and Breea was safe? When did the gunman remove it? Were Breea and her roommate left alone while every else robbed a bank?

30. I find it fascinating that a guy who planned on robbing a bank, who stalked Renee for weeks would have a desire to go to that bank the day before the robbery, “talk about opening an account”, and give Renee a photography business card with his real information on it, don’t you? It defies logic, again. I wonder if the bank security was ever checked to see if that guy showed up. I’d be so curious.
31. While Renee had a colorful past, that doesn’t bother me. But her deception and interests do. Psychopaths often stand out in their sexual behavior, have a history of lying and lying big. Renee shares similarities here. It would be interesting to talk to an expert about what they think of Renee.

    Renee doesn’t have a high school diploma, but clearly she is not dumb. She is an intelligent woman, so why didn’t she try achieve things in life the right way? Did she think she was smarter than everyone else–that she didn’t have to do what everyone else did–that she could cheat her way to the top? Her history is supportive of this. We certainly can’t say her history is contradictory to the plausibility she would try to pull something like this off.

32. Isn’t it awfully strange that the timing of this robbery coincides within four weeks of when she filed for her second bankruptcy? What are the odds? One in a million?
33. Why on earth would Renee lie about an appearance on America’s Most Wanted, if she was a victim? What would be the point? Can anyone come up with one good reason?
34. Why would Renee go on America’s Most Wanted if she was a victim? If someone put a gun to your head and put your life in grave danger by making you rob a bank, do you want to go on TV and get your face in front of them again, when they haven’t been caught?? Wouldn’t you worry about your safety, showing your face? Wouldn’t you worry about your daughter? It’s like she had no fear of these men. Most people would be scared to death to show their face, let alone go home again until these guys were behind bars! Why wasn’t Renee?

I could go on and on with Michelle Renee, but then I would write a book. I think you see how I feel about her. There are too many inconsistencies for me…