John Lawrence hopes wife, others arrested in last week's killings pay dearly

John Lawrence wants his wife, Michelle R. Lawrence, to pay dearly for allegedly urging her boyfriend, Ryan Patterson, to murder him.

The attack at his home last week that killed his fiancee, Jamie Lynn Orman, 30, her unborn child and her 15-year-old son, Derrick Orman, occurred because Michelle Lawrence wouldn't accept that their marriage was over, he said Tuesday.

As he sat on the couch of the 1224 N. Missouri Ave. home where the killings took place before dawn Oct. 27, Lawrence said the single count of conspiracy to commit first-degree murder isn't enough. If convicted, Michelle Lawrence, 39, could be sentenced to five to 15 years in prison.

Patterson, 28, faces three counts of first-degree murder, among other charges, and could receive the death penalty. A third suspect in custody, Samuel R. "Ray Ray" Hughes, 25, is charged with three counts of second-degree murder along with other charges and faces life in prison if convicted.

Michelle Lawrence and Patterson will be in court Nov. 25 in Jackson for a preliminary hearing. Hughes will go before a judge Nov. 23 to determine if he has been able to hire a private lawyer to represent him.

"I hope she fries," John Lawrence said. "I hope all three of them fry. They took my life away from me. Why can't somebody take their life away from them?"

Michelle Lawrence was increasingly erratic in the last years of their marriage, he said. Her actions included starting fights during which their teen daughter would separate them, visiting Jamie Orman at her job and reminding her that she and John Lawrence were still married.

"'Don't let John forget he is still my husband,'" John Lawrence recalled Jamie Orman telling him after one encounter. "'If something happens to him and he gets on life support, I will be the one to decide if they pull the plug or not.'"

After he filed for divorce, the police became involved in a number of incidents. According to Cape Girardeau Police Department records, officers visited the home 18 times after the filing.

Patterson and Hughes are accused of going to the home in the early morning hours while Jamie Lynn Orman and her three children slept. Hughes is accused of breaking into the home's garage as part of a burglary, then acting as lookout in front of the home while Patterson went inside and shot the Ormans in their beds.

While Patterson and Hughes were at the house, Michelle Lawrence allegedly was at the apartment she shared with Patterson at 921 Hackberry St. with the daughter and son from her marriage to John Lawrence.

"I think she should face the same charges as Ryan," he said. "I think she was the brains behind the whole situation, that is what I think."

Cape Girardeau County Prosecuting Attorney Morley Swingle has said he filed a charge against Michelle Lawrence that he believes can win a conviction, based on admissions she made to police that she wanted her husband dead. But John Lawrence said his wife knew that he would be working a night shift at Nordenia and would not be home until 7 a.m. He and Michelle Lawrence had spoken the previous afternoon to arrange when their children would be at his house that week, he said.

In the interview, John Lawrence described an 18-year marriage that began deteriorating after the birth of their daughter. That deterioration escalated in the final years of the marriage as Michelle Lawrence became more and more erratic and jealous of his attention toward the children, John Lawrence said.

'A competition'

At times, he said, her actions were those of a spoiled child: "Once we had kids, it was a competition with Michelle and my kids," he said. "If my kids got something, Michelle thought she had to have something, too."

Other times, however, the disputes became dangerous, he said. While disciplining his son for making a mess with snacks while driving home from St. Louis, he said, "she grabbed the wheel on highway 55 in the Blazer and spun it completely around, me and my kids and the vehicle."

Fortunately, he said, he regained control and avoided a wreck. "For the sake of my kids, after my son was born, it took everything I had to stay," he said. "It took everything I had. It was just a constant fight. I didn't know what to expect when I walked through the door of my house."

Still, John Lawrence said he didn't believe Michelle Lawrence was responsible for the killings during the first hours after he learned about the shootings in a phone call from Jamie Orman's 14-year-old son.

"I was in shock," he said. "I couldn't believe it. I wanted somebody to wake me up from this."

He began seeing Jamie Orman, Lawrence said, after beginning the divorce proceedings. At the time of her death, they were planning a May wedding at Cape County Park South.

"She had a heart of gold," Lawrence said of Orman. "She was a very wonderful, caring person. She was a wonderful mother. I loved her very much. She loved me very much."

The difference, he said, was "heaven versus hell. That is exactly what it was ... heaven with Jamie, hell with Michelle."

Jamie Orman even visited Michelle Lawrence and Ryan Patterson at one point in an attempt to calm relations.

"Something Jamie always told me was that Michelle 'will never get past you. Michelle just can't let you go,'" John Lawrence said.

His children and Jamie Orman's three boys got along well, and John Lawrence said he was excited about both having a bigger family and the new baby that was two months from being born.

"We were all a big family," he said. "In a blink of an eye, all that was gone."

As the interview closed, John Lawrence said he needed to send a message to Jamie Orman's surviving sons and her ex-husband. "Please let the Orman family know ... how sorry I am that this happened. And let the boys know how much my kids love them and I still love the boys, too."

rkeller@semissourian.com

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Pertinent addresses:

1224 N. Missouri Ave., Cape Girardeau, MO

921 Hackberry St., Cape Girardeau, MO

100 Court St., Jackson, MO