BEAVER COUNTY, Utah (ABC4) — A Minersville woman admitted to conspiring with her lover to kill her husband and discussing different ways in which they could do it.
Victoria Elyse Woerth, 30, pleaded guilty on Aug. 4 to criminal solicitation in relation to the death of her husband in 2021.
In Sept. 2021, the Beaver County Sheriff’s Department was called to a Minersville home where they discovered Shane Davis, Woerth’s husband, bleeding out in the garage. He was semi-responsive and told medical staff the wound was not self-inflicted. He soon after died due to his injuries.
Investigators were directed to 25-year-old Mike Miller, Woerth’s lover, who allegedly had been arguing with Davis earlier in the day. When questioned, Miller told officials he shot the male victim in self-defense, adding that he “thought he was protecting other residents in the home.”
According to court documents, Woerth was originally additionally charged with aggravated murder and conspiracy to commit aggravated murder, and faced life in prison, but these charges were dismissed as part of a plea deal.
Miller, 27, pleaded guilty to murder and felony discharge of a firearm causing serious injury, and conspiracy to commit aggravated murder. According to charging documents, Miller signed a plea deal, which if enacted would lessen the murder charge to manslaughter.
In his plea deal, he said he believed he was acting in self-defense, and intentionally caused Davis’ death. However, according to charging documents, it was all part of a scheme thought up by Woerth and Miller. They allegedly conspired to kill Davis and make it look like an accident so they could be together.
According to charging documents, a witness overheard someone on the day of Davis’s death telling someone, “The only way that Mike can marry her is if Shane is dead” and that Woerth sent a Snapchat message saying, “Once he is gone, we can get married.”
The prosecution will decide Woerth and Miller’s fate on Oct. 16 in the Fifth District Courthouse in Beaver for their sentencing.
