Keeping life on TRACK Racetrack pals recall strained marriage of Michael and Wendi

That Michael Leslie Severance’s innate honor and optimism – or naivete – might have led to his death still makes Jeanie Campbell cry.

Michael married Wendi Mae Davidson, the San Angelo, Texas, veterinarian accused of murdering him, to be a good father for his son, Shane, Campbell said.

“I told him, ‘You don’t have to marry her,’ and he said, ‘I want to be there for my child,'” Campbell recalled during an interview in an RV at the racetrack where Michael raced cars. “I said, ‘I’m proud of you for that, but I don’t want you to get hurt.’

“When he talked about marrying her, it was stressful. It was not happy or joyous,” said Campbell, one of Michael’s best friends in Texas.

A shy man, Michael told his racetrack friends little of the marriage. At times he was happy with it, yet they also recall several telephone arguments.

“He told me once, ‘If I had a tape recorder for the way she talks to me, and we split up, I would get a lot'” in a divorce, said Derrick Fesmire, 25, of Abilene, one of Michael’s close racing friends and a fellow airman.

“She was pretty controlling and demeaning to him,” said Dar Robison, 42, of Abilene, who owns a racetrack where Severance raced ATVs. “It was like she felt he was not good enough for her, which is terrible, because he was such a sweet guy.”

“She made it [their relationship] all about her, all the time,” Campbell said.

The details of the couple’s first meeting, at a dance club, are unclear. Some say it was in Lubbock, others Abilene.

Michael’s younger brother, Frank Severance, thinks Michael met Wendi a few months before her unexpected pregnancy, in October or November 2003, but Campbell and friend Mary Hogue, another dirt car racer, said he told his family that to make her pregnancy more palatable.

“Mike told us Wendi got pregnant the first time they slept together,” Hogue said, “and he did not know who she was when she called to tell him” in the spring of 2004.

Shane Michael was born Sept. 1, 2004. The couple married Sept. 13, according to a marriage certificate filed in San Angelo with Justice of the Peace Eddie Howard, who also signed Michael’s death certificate.

Fesmire suspected Wendi was a lonely woman, and it baffled Michael. “He said to me once,” ‘How can you be from San Angelo and not know anybody?'” Fesmire said.

Campbell met Wendi once, outside a dance club. The veterinarian kept the meeting brief.

“She resented us because we were a part of his life she did not like,” Campbell said.

Michael promised to bring his family to the racetrack, and people disagree as to whether Davidson and the children made it. Frank Severance said Wendi took her son Tristan to the track once, but Michael’s friends say they never saw her or her children at the track.

Wendi’s unwillingness to come to the track, or allow her husband to race, struck Robison as cold.

“He became scarce” from the racetrack, she said.

His patience ebbing, Michael began to rebel against Wendi’s control, according to friends.

The last time Campbell saw Michael, he came to Abilene to get his pickup truck inspected. He was excited about his pending trip to Maine, and he had Shane with him.

“He just took the baby. She did not let him. He said he just had to get away from her,” Campbell said. “I teased him. I said, ‘Don’t you know where your place is?’ and he said ‘Ha!’ really sarcastically.”

Two days later, Campbell’s friend was dead.