Create a free profile to get unlimited access to exclusive videos, breaking news, sweepstakes, and more!
Military Man Fatally Shot After Wife and Colleague She Had Affair with Plot His Murder in Las Vegas
Staff Sgt. Nathan Paet, a 28-year-old U.S. Air Force service member and dedicated husband and father of four, was shot multiple times in the garage of his Las Vegas-area home.
Staff Sgt. Nathan Paet, a dedicated husband and father of four, was shot multiple times in the garage of his quiet suburban community of Mountain's Edge, Nevada, on the night of December 1, 2010 as he was about to head to work.
“My husband — He just walked in the garage. He’s bleeding. Oh my God,” his hysterical wife, Michelle Paet, screamed in a 911 call obtained by Dateline: Secrets Uncovered and played on the “Part of the Plan" episode.
After being shot in the stomach, the 28-year-old U.S. Air Force service member managed to make his way back inside the house before collapsing onto the floor of his home in his military uniform.
“He’s not talking. His eyes are open ... Oh God. Please,” Michelle pleaded on the 911 call.
Emergency personnel arrived just minutes later and rushed Nathan to the hospital, where the beloved serviceman died.
Investigators were left to piece together the shocking crime, which took place in a remote neighborhood just 13 miles from the Las Vegas Strip. They’d ultimately uncover a cold-blooded murder plot so sinister that one veteran detective described it as “almost more than you could bear as a human being.”
Who was Nathan Paet?
Growing up on the U.S. island territory of Guam, Nathan fully embodied the native Chamorro culture and its focus on family and camaraderie with others.
After joining the military and moving to the mainland, he even organized a weekly barbecue at a local park for other families from Guam to get together and remember their roots.
By then, Nathan was a married father and appeared to have an enviable marriage to wife Michelle.
“They actually had a really good balance of taking care of each other and picking up where the other one just couldn’t, or trying even harder or providing more. Like, whatever it was, they were good about that,” Nathan's sister-in-law Veronica Paet told Dateline.
While digging into his background, detectives couldn’t find anyone who had anything bad to say about Nathan.
“The only thing we could find was that he was a dedicated family man, loved his family and there was nothing but pictures of his wife and kids on his phone,” Laura Andersen, a Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department detective who worked the case, told Dateline. “He was just a good guy. He was just a good man.”
Yet, someone wanted him dead.
What happened the night Nathan Paet was shot?
Nathan, who worked the graveyard shift at Nellis Air Force Base, about 8 miles from Las Vegas, had been asleep on the couch when he woke up late and realized that he’d be late to work. He quickly took a shower, got dressed and then headed into the garage to put on his work boots at around 11:30 p.m., when someone opened fire on the young father.
“I hear the garage door open so I lay down, you know, next to my daughter, on the couch. And then I hear two bangs. And I didn’t go outside,” Michelle would later tell detectives. “Because my kids got startled so I just stayed there.”
That’s when Nathan stumbled inside and “just drops” to the ground, according to his wife. Michelle said she rushed to call 911 and performed CPR on her husband until help could arrive.
A seemingly devastated Michelle called her in-laws in Guam and they soon caught a flight so that they could be with Nathan's wife and kids.
Detectives look for clues in Nathan Paet's shooting
The night Nathan died, investigators began searching for clues.
Michelle insisted that she and Nathan had a good relationship and that neither was having an affair.
“We’ve always told each other that if, you know, we’re making each other unhappy, or, you know, we — we feel that, you know, something’s not there, and if you want to go out and venture off, then just let each other know,” she told authorities.
Michelle told the detectives that the young couple had been having some financial troubles and had been behind on bills at the time of Nathan’s death.
Neighbors reported seeing a black car speed off after the shots were fired. It was Michelle who gave detectives one of their first important clues in the case, when she told authorities that one of her co-workers at a telemarketing company, a convicted felon named Michael Rodriguez, drove a black vehicle.
She insisted that although Rodriguez was someone she had innocently “flirted” with, the pair were just friends — a claim he backed up.
“We have had — per se, uh — I don’t know how you’d word it. A little bit more than friends because, you know, she’s cried to me. I’ve cried to her, at times,” Rodriguez would later tell authorities in an interview, while also insisting the relationship hadn’t been physical.
Rodriguez admitted to driving a black Cadillac, but he claimed that on the night of the shooting, he had been at Walmart, where he met a woman named Shannon, and the two hit it off. He told detectives that the pair had gone to the Sunset Station Hotel and Casino in Henderson, Nevada, where they spent the night.
“We got to the door, and the clothes came off,” he told detectives.
Rodriguez gave detectives Shannon’s number and she confirmed his account. The hotel also had a record of Rodriguez being there that night, but investigators noted that he'd checked in later than he'd claimed.
Texts between Michelle Paet, Michael Rodriguez raise alarm
Detectives were also troubled by several strange text messages between Rodriguez and Michelle, who’d gone home sick from work the day that Nathan was shot.
At 11:12 p.m., Rodriguez had texted Michelle, writing that he hoped she was feeling better, and adding, "Just about done with vandykes contract for tomorrow. He’s a pain in the ass.”
Twelve minutes later, Michelle texted back, “I can’t go to sleep ... right now. Got woke up from a man screaming, ‘I’m late.’ He’s rushing out the door,” just minutes before her husband was fatally shot.
RELATED: Border Patrol Agent Murders 4 Sex Workers in Texas While Living Double Life As Family Man
Despite Rodriguez' claim of having an alibi, Andersen couldn’t shake the feeling that he was involved in Nathan's murder.
Without any concrete evidence to tie him to the crime, however, authorities were forced to let Rodriguez go.
Michelle Paet admits to affair with Michael Rodriguez
The morning of Nathan’s memorial service, detectives brought Michelle back in for questioning and she made a stunning admission, saying she'd had an affair with Rodriguez.
“He told me I was beautiful. He told me, you know, um, that I was a great person, and everything like that. And you know, you like to hear stuff like that because after a while, you know, in a marriage, you know, you don’t hear stuff like that all the time,” she said.
She also told detectives that when she lamented that Nathan’s paychecks just weren’t “cutting it,” Rodriguez suggested they “get rid” of him to cash in on the $650,000 in life insurance that Nathan had.
Michelle claimed that she objected to the plan and that Rodriguez insisted, telling her that all she’d need to do was unlock the door of Nathan’s truck to give him and another man named Corry Hawkins a place to hide before the shooting.
Michelle insisted that she had tried to sabotage the plan by not unlocking the door and turning off Nathan’s alarm, so that he would be late.
She told detectives that the strange text messages, including the one she sent telling Rodriguez her husband was “late” was her attempt to try to “save” her husband.
Detectives, however, weren’t buying it and believed the coded messages proved she had been an active part of the planning.
"Almost more than you could bear"
“To find out that his own wife had caused that was just almost more than you could bear as a human being," Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Detective Tod Williams told Dateline.
Rodriguez’s alibi also fell apart after a distraught Shannon came into the police station to reveal what she knew about the sinister plot.
She claimed her friend Jessica Austin had called her over that night and asked her to lie and tell police that she had been with Rodriguez all night. Austin insisted that Hawkins and Rodriguez were “just going to rob a heroin dealer.”
Shannon said that Hawkins and Rodriguez later rushed into the apartment, took off their clothes and burned them in a fire.
Rodriguez grabbed Shannon and together, they went to the hotel to set up the alibi. Shannon agreed to lie and tell police that Rodriguez had been with her earlier that night, until she learned that the two men had killed someone.
“And he thinks he pulled one over on me and everyone else, but he didn’t,” she told detectives. “Like he needs to pay for what he did.”
Four arrested in Nathan Paet's death
Rodriguez, Hawkins, Austin and Michelle were all arrested.
In one final interview with detectives, Michelle lamented as she sat alone in an interrogation room. “What did I do?”
Five years after the brutal murder, Rodriguez was convicted of first-degree murder and conspiracy and sentenced to life in prison. Hawkins agreed to plead guilty and received the same sentence, while Austin agreed to cooperate with authorities and only pled guilty to conspiracy.
Where is Michelle Paet today?
As for Michelle, Nathan’s family asked prosecutors not to seek the death penalty. Instead, she pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and conspiracy and received a life sentence without the possibility of parole.
“I made a huge mistake, and a really bad choice,” she said at her sentencing hearing. “And I’m truly sorry.”
The couple’s children are now being raised in Guam by Nathan’s parents.
