James Daveggio Michelle Michaud
I could not find a picture of the victim, unfortunately. If someone has one that they would like to share, please let me know. Thanks!
DAVEGGIO ARRAIGNED IN RAPE, ABDUCTION
Pair planned strangers slaying, Grand Jury told
GRIM TALE OF WOMAN IN SEX CASE
Opening arguments allege sex murder glorification
DAVEGGIO, MICHAUD CONVICTED OF MURDER
Death sentence for couple who tortured Pleasanton woman in minivan
Vanessa Lei Samson Trial Stories
Michaud appeal
Wicked Attraction: Minivan Murderers
The Charley Project: Ilene Beth Misheloff – another case where they are suspects)
crimeZZZ.net: DEVEGGIO James “Froggie” and MICHAUD, Michelle
Books
Hunting Evil
Movies/Documentaries
Wicked Attraction: Minivan Murderers
If you are looking for a picture of Vanessa Sampson, you will find it in the Pleasanton news paper online.
Search for funeral notices or I know when they had her funeral her picture was there.
As for Michelle, I knew her and she was very .As for Michelle, I knew her and she was very muniplulitive. She was very jealous of me. Why, because the man I married was once her lover and they had a daughter to whom is mentioned as one of their kids who they kidnapped and raped.
Michelle had used her daughter as a way of getting back into JG’s life by saying his daughter wants to get know her dad. She made it a point to call here late at night and both she and JG would talk for hours.
During her calls she would try to get JG to meet her someplace so she could use sexual advances as a way of getting him back. When her sugar daddy bought her the house and green minivan, she made it a point to brag to JG
and even came here to show it off and he went for a drive with in it.
One night JG got a from his daughter (long distance) and she was if he would wire $300.00 because they were stuck up in Oregon with no gas money. JG said no, and we found out much later from his daughter what her mother and James had done to her and her girl friend.
We had even gotten calls from Michelle telling JG she needed money to get out town because James and her had robbed some bar and they were after them. Again, we said no, we did not want any involvement with actions and the trouble she had created for herself.
Michelle even went so far as to try and convience JG she had breast cancer and thats why she looked skinny and sick. A feel sorry and help me out lure figuring JG would fall for it and leave me for her.
When all of her attempts failed to get JG back into life the way she wanted it, she and James later we found out had plotted to kill JG. James hated JG and wanted to rid him once and for all. So, she called our house late one night, and asked JG AKA she called him (J), to meet her at the seven eleven on Watt Avenue. Once there James was going to shot and kill JG. JG refused to go after I told him that she is doing her best to get you there and something isnt right .
We did not hear from her after that. JG may have, since he was at home and I was working. It wasn’t until he saw the both of them on TV, the pictures you have posted, that we knew how bad she really became. He JG had been in contact on a regular basis with his daughter (R) and found out everything her mother had done, the plot to kill JG etc.
Vanessa did not deserve to die the way she did and she certainly did not deserve the way in which she died. She was young and beautiful and on her way to becoming something. They took all that away from her and I am greatful that the both of them are on Death Row.
To this day I wait for news that she will going to her death. I would love to be there just to see her face and somehow let her know the hate I have for her. She has written JG from prison and even had the nerve to ask me if I would subscribe to some magazines for her. I told JG HELL NO that woman can just in there and rot. She can keep herself amuzed with other woman there as she is bisexual and craves every bit of it.
So anyone out there who feels sorry for them, DON’T, she was a very smart woman and knew right from wrong. She always looked for trouble and found it. Only this time trouble caught up with her.
May she go to hell!
By: Sandra Rader on September 21, 2008
at 2:55 pm
Sandra,
After all that your family has gone through I hope that you, (JG & R) get the justice that you so richly deserve. The actions of one person must feel like a death sentence for you all as well. I know because I am also the parent of a child that was victimized! People like that should be sped through the peanal system and fried a lot sooner! I pray for you, as I do R as well! E-Mail if you ever want to talk……I know that I am a perfect stranger, but my heart is pure, and I know your pain!!! Cindy
By: Cindy Coan on September 24, 2008
at 11:13 am
I am watching the mini van murder documentary on tv as I write this note to you. I am michelle’s first cousin from massena, new york. I had no idea about michelle’s murders and mental probelms until another first cousin of mine murdered his wife in 2006. my mother told me about her. I then went onto the internet and discovered all this brutal information along with two books written. Michelle’s family here never talks about it. they are quite embarrased — especially when the ones that knew about it never told me. her father is my uncle. When i was ten years old, in 1984, I traveled to california with my parents to see her and the rest of the michaud family. I have some photos from 1984. look at them and shake my head. at that time my parents had no idea what she was doing in her secret life. nobody knew — i think in our family until later. — john
By: john d. michaud III on October 5, 2008
at 9:59 pm
well……….. i know (R) who’s name is Rachel Garcia now…. she changed it. she didn’t deserve what happened to her, but none the less she isn’t a nice girl…… she has been harassing people for no reason. and she looks a a lot like her mother, maybe that’s why she is such a harsh person. her demeanor isn’t attractive and i have been victimized by her jealousy and temper as my friends have as well. and i barely know her, a close personal friend told me who she really was…. i think poor rachel needs more therapy….. because i believe she is taking her anger out on innocent people, just like her mother.
By: a girl on December 7, 2008
at 3:37 pm
I am married to one of James’ daughters and she sometimes mentions her father and the occasional letters he sends her from prison. Also she sometimes considers visiting him and I don’t know if we should go or not?
By: Justin on February 23, 2009
at 6:54 am
I’m french, living in paris and 6 years I have some correspondance with James, in order to visit him by this way. His letters are sweet and he is really converted to the Lord. His letters reflected peace anyway, maybe has he a psychiatric treatment?
Once I went to internet to know about him and I was really surprised to learn about such terrible histories. Anyway, I am Christian, naturally not affect as James’ daughters can be I imagine and I keep on writing, but for two years his letters are rare now. I never forget to send him a birthday card.
I don’t know when his trial is, but if Justin could tell me when the sentence is and the result.
Bye
note from blog owner
Isabelle,
James has already been tried and convicted, sentenced to death. In my opinion, it does not matter that he has, after his heinous crimes, “converted to the Lord”, as many do to avoid taking responsibility for their actions. He killed more than one person and his crimes are as bad as they come. He deserves the death penalty and I hope he is executed soon (but he won’t be). If he has truly turned to religion and is serious about it, why has he not apologized to his victims and their loved ones? Why? Because he is a sociopath. No, he is not mentally ill. He knew what he was doing was wrong and he enjoyed it Don’t let him play you, because he has, just like he has so many others. You are not the only one writing to him like that.
Isabelle from France.
By: isabelle on April 21, 2009
at 4:08 am
These two monsters are nothing but the devil’s children. I was sickened when I saw them on “Wicked” They’re both heartless and pure EVIL! I feel so bad for their victims and their families. It’s awful that it takes years for death penalty sentences to be carried. Just another example of our messed up justice system. Of course James claims he has found god. He’s fighting to avoid the death penalty and would say anything.
Both of them will ultimately have to answer up to a higher power(God)for their actions,before they go to Hell for eternity.
By: Peter on May 7, 2009
at 6:18 pm
I read Michelle’s pen pal request on another site. What nerve. Whining that she is lonely, and that she never hears her name at mail call. I am glad that no one writes her, she is evil and deserves nothing. To betray her own daughter is the epitome of evil. How can she even plead for communication, when her innocent victims plead for mercy and found none?
I eagerly await her execution date.
By: B J on May 10, 2009
at 9:04 pm
James Daveggio had been to prison once before this crime spree he went on with Michelle. James and another man ( I can’t remember his name now) both kidnapped a woman from a bar one night in Tracy. They took her out into the country a couple of miles north of Tracy and raped her at gunpoint. Afterwards they were driving back into Tracy with the victim and they failed to dim their highbeams to oncoming traffic, which was me, an on-duty police officer. A traffic stop was made on this car for the highbeam violation and I was thinking that at this time of the night the driver might be a DUI. I approached the right side of the stopped car and contacted the 3 occupants of the car. The woman in the back seat looked terrified and it looked like she wanted to say something to me but couldn’t with the other two men still in the car. The men were told to step out of the car and move to the rear of the car where they were covered by another back-up officer. I then contacted the victm still in the car and she told me that she had just been kidnapped and raped and that one of them had a gun. Both men were taken into custody without incident and eventually sent to prison.
When James and Michelle were convicted of the murder in Alameda County the District Attorney subpoenaed me and the victim in my case from many years earlier. During the penalty phase of the trial the District Attorney wanted the jury to hear about James’ prior case in Tracy where he committed this other kidnap and rape. Obviously James was not rehabilitated after that stint in prison and went on to bigger and worse crimes. The victim from the prior case in Tracy and I were both glad to testify against Daveggio during the penalty phase of this murder trial.
Several times I have seen the documentary of this case televised on the Investigation Discovery cable channel. The program is called “Wicked Attraction” and I think this particular episode was called “The mini-van murder” During this program nothing was mentioned about this prior case in Tracy.
If there is anyone out there who thinks James has seen the light, you might want to re-think about it, because James is a downright evil murdering predator.
By: Mike on May 13, 2009
at 8:01 pm
In France we stopped with death penalty.
Anyway, James is ill, psychopath or anything else, fool, a monster you said ,so you accord to me that he is not normal, do you?
In France the justice do the difference between fool people and people not fool when they kill.
To do what he did, he is obviously totally sick, people!
Anyway he has to pay, be in jail, and better to be cured than to be sent to the hell as I read above . But in jail they don-t give treatment or cure people, so how can we expect they change?
It is normal to feel like killing somebody who did such terrible things (I would, but couldn’t), but as it is not naturel to kill for us, so the easy way to do it is asking someone else, by giving death penalty.
Anyway I do understand that it is quite difficult and surely impossible for his victims and the families to forgive him.
Hitler for example saw at the end of the war a bop, but he never apalogized, recognized, realized. I guess he is in hell or definitivly destroyed.
In his letter James says that if nobody forgive him, he knows that the Lord Will. He is enough lucide to know and understand that, and if there is some little light in his mind, a little faith, then he won’t died, God will cure him. But if no light and faith, surely he will go to hell.
I never felt manipulated by James letters, I Just read from him “I know the Lord will forgive me”. Not to me or nobody to judge if it is sincere or not. Who knows?
But I promise that in my next letter to him, I will ask him if he has regrets, apalogized to do etc… And I will tell you
You should pray for his soul and not send him to hell if you are christians. But I understand that his victims still alive, and familly cannot do it. But you people not directly involved with this story if you are christian you should know what to say and do.
From a christian girl amazed because American people are reputed in the world to be christians.
Isabelle
By: Isabelle on May 23, 2009
at 1:26 pm
“Fueled by their methamphetamine addiction, James Daveggio and Michelle Michaud embarked on a violent three-month crime spree while living out of a green minivan”.
So How can people under drugs influence be judged as if they were normal and responsible of their acts?
Drugs are responsible, destroy life, mind etc…
You american christian people should pray for him better than to send him to the hell!
By: Isabelle on May 23, 2009
at 1:39 pm
Isabelle: There is no treatment for psychopathy. You would do good to read “Without Conscience” by Robert Hare and get yourself out of Daveggio’s web.
By: Clementine on June 20, 2009
at 4:53 pm
Isabelle…
All of James life he was violent and abusive….what on earth makes you think that he is a “new man” all of a sudden…
Yes, I am a Christian…however, that doesnt have to mean i am gullible..
So incredibly frustrating to read your comments….
I have one question to ask…would you be so keen to write to this man if he had abused YOUR daughter?
WAKE UP!
By: Tracey Butler on June 30, 2009
at 6:28 am
Both my husband and I have a read a book regarding crimes committed by James and Michelle. The book also talks about Michael Idhe’s crimes. My husband believes they should both be murdered and I am undecided. However, I can agree that what they did was absolutely appalling. I couldn’t imagine what I’d do if it was my children they had attacked.
To the people who are related to them, it must be extremely hard to forget let alone forgive. It’s true with what they say, you can’t pick your family! To Michelle’s daughter, I hope she realises that no matter what it is her mother has done, it does not mean that she is like her. We may inherit our looks from our parents but the ability to choose how we live our life is ours alone. I hope that she is able to grow up with support and the knowledge that she can choose not to follow in similar footsteps to her mother.
To others that may write to them, you need to remember one thing and one thing only – a prisoner will say whatever they can to let you believe that they are good and kind. Majority of the time, it is a lie so that on the off chance a person is released (not that James ever would be), then there is someone on the outside ready to be his next victim. Don’t be fooled by the kindness in the letters.
By: Bec on July 3, 2009
at 8:19 am
I knew Michelle fairly well way back in the 80’s and part of the 90’s. Her and Froggy were really wacked back then. I remember being in their house in South Sacramento one day and the two teenage daughters were there and one of them was given drugs by Froggie, in their “computer room”. I was disgusted with both of them, Froggie and Michelle. One of the girls was a tweak and the other was a brainiac. They were both underage at the time, as was Michelle’s daughter. Michelle told me she had cancer, and I knew it was the crank, I told her to stop, but she didn’t and one night late at night “Froggie” called my house demanding to know who it was because he found my number on an old phone bill. I cut my ties with them LONG before any of those crimes happened and then one night I saw them on the news and I read the books and I got a sick feeling in my gut about those poor children for one, and the victims. I never, ever thought that someone I knew would be on the news like that. Michelle had these two old men who were her sugar daddies and one day one of them came over to the house, pre Froggy days, and she actually brought them home where her kids were. Funny thing about Michelle, she once told me this wild story about being raped in a van driven around. Sick, she was sick and any guy she got involved with was just as sick. Froggy was the worst one though. I could write a book about some of the shit that went on in that house. OMG, she deserves every little bit of what she got.
By: Mary on July 17, 2009
at 7:40 pm
I have never responded to a blog until I read comments from a few people feeling sorry for James and Michelle. In nearly twenty years in law enforcement these were two of the most evil people I ever dealt with. And Frog and Lizzie can not hid behind Meth as an excuse, they were pure evil. Everytime we interviewed family or friends about the Sampson case we heard one horrible story after another of rapes and abuse to family and their friends at the hands of James and Michelle. The last days of Vanessa Sampson were hell on earth and she was a completely innocent young lady from a very loving family. As I testified in the murder trial James kept passing notes to his defense attorney and I at first thought the testimony or evidence was a concern for James. I found out later James was not worried about the trial or even on a larger scale what he had done… instead he wanted to know how long until a lunch break. Vanessa’s family huddled together every day of the trial enduring the shocking testimony of how she was raped and murdered and foremost on James’ mind was lunch. Pure evil.
By: Dan on August 6, 2009
at 11:44 am
Dan,
I completely agree with you. I do not understand how people can sympathize and condone what these sadistic killers did. They chose to do what they did. They need to take responsibility and not hide behind excuses.
By: mylifeofcrime on August 6, 2009
at 2:34 pm
I agree with Dan and mylifeofcrime.
By: Shauncey on August 6, 2009
at 4:23 pm
Hello people; still Isabelle from France. Sure it is quite difficult to forgive. But if death penalty is not any more in France and many others country, it is just because of a lord commandment, you won’t kill.
I repeat, in France sick people, committing compulsive acts without consciousness are not judged and condamned the same way.
This doesn’t mean that I don’t understand how painfull it is for James family, and victim families.
I am not personnaly involved and suffering as you people, so this is why i can have this distance to think this way and write to James.
If it was my children, I would pray as Jesus command it. A christian cannot pray for the death of somebody. I would definitively pray to ask Jesus to give me some peace in my suffering. And let him judge this guy, as He will.
I wish it for you , that one day to be free from this troubles James did in your lives and families.
By: machado on August 22, 2009
at 1:37 am
The death penalty is too good. vanessa did not get a nice, sterile death did she. i think they should let them spend the rest of their days in isolation in a prison. The death penalty gets them too much sympathy.
isabella, maybe he has found God, but so what. If he was a true christian he would do everything he can to make the victims and their families feel better , including not fighting the conviction and sentance, even if it is the death penalty. Any good person who relaised they had tortured a young woman to death would go crazy with guilt not whine about how bad their punishment is.
And this couple were not crazy, they were just evil. They did not do it because they were sick, in America sick people are also not judged in the same way, but because they enjoyed it. They are certainly not normal, but they are in no way insane (if they were their defence would have relied on this). If it is God’s place to judge then let him do it, leave them in jail and God can chose to do with them what He will.
The only good thing is that this happened in America, as in Europe they would have ended up spending only twelve years in prison if that (see the Louise Jensen case in Cyprus, a young dane kidnapped off the street by British soldiers, gang raped and hacked to death-they got ten years for manslaughter and laughed at her family throughout the trial)
By: anna on August 24, 2009
at 2:38 am
Hello Anna, yes it is, leave them in jail.
But if they don’t apalogize or even say ok, I merece to be locked in cage, they really are crazy, sick, mad, etc…They didn-t realize what they did? God, people, they are sick.
So just let them in a cage, otherwise they will do it again, too dangerous.
Now in France, I say in France, with the new government the justice is changing and sentences are severe, hard enough. Too many case of recidivits we got this last few years, SARKOZY said NO MORE!
Last week I wrote to James and said him I spoke with his familly : “man, your familly, and Vanessa’familly is not able to forgive you, they suffered too much, so if you believe in God, you have to pray for them in order they find peace and save your soul”.
Anyway, as he doesn’t feel like having death penalty, I guess he won’t respond on this subject . But he can also no respond because he realises.
Also he can say he has nothing to do with this story, so that will be a way for me to appreciate his mental or spiritual condition.
This is the way for me a christian writing to people in jail to help them to find Jesus, and hang on, whatever they did.
I will tell you if he answers or not. Sometimes he doesn’t write for months, but this is the case of most people in jail no matter what they commited, they pass throuh depression, bad times, so they keep silence.
But I guess that james is a real psychopath or I don’t know what.
By: isabelle on September 6, 2009
at 9:21 am
does anyone know if Vanessa Lei Samson was Asian American? I cant find a picture of her anywhere. I was curious. What a terrible tragedy.
Thanks
By: chris on December 21, 2009
at 1:19 am