For Lee native, personal nightmare began with telephone call

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With his 11-month-old grandson, Shane, cooing happily in the next room, Leslie Severance could be excused for feeling pride for how he handled his June trip to Texas.

The truth is that he dreaded going to San Angelo and Abilene and couldn’t leave the Lone Star State fast enough.

Except for 10 months of U.S. Air Force training in Illinois and 13 years spent in New Jersey as a young man, the 47-year-old millworker had never left Maine, he said.

Everything Les faced in Texas was new to him.

“I was almost sick to my stomach the whole time I was there because of the unknown,” Les said during a recent interview at his cluttered but neat home on Cobb Road. “I had to do a deposition for a child custody fight, and I had no idea what it was about. I had never been in court in my life, and I had to testify, and I had never had to deal with police before.

“You just don’t want to make a mistake that’s detrimental to something.”

The whole time, Les was grieving the loss of his son Michael Leslie Severance, 24. The Air Force staff sergeant disappeared on Jan. 15, and his poisoned body, clad only in boxer shorts and riddled with 41 stab wounds, was pulled from a San Angelo, Texas, pond on March 6.

Michael Severance was buried with full military honors on March 25 at Stevens Cemetery in Carroll Plantation.

To get to Texas, Les endured the indignity of needing fundraisers to pay for the trip and, upon arrival, of being snubbed by his daughter-in-law’s parents, Judi and Lloyd Davidson of San Angelo.

The Davidsons lied repeatedly, Les said, calling his son a thief, a lazy drunk and an AWOL airman. They said Michael might have been a suicide or a drug overdose and defended their daughter, murder suspect Wendi Mae Davidson, whom police also charged with dumping the body in the pond owned by Terrell Sheen, a friend of the Davidson family.

Les and his girlfriend, Brinda Leighton, remembered their nightmare beginning when Wendi telephoned at about 6:15 a.m. EST Jan. 16 to say that Michael had been missing since the day before. Brinda telephoned Wendi 13 times that day from 7:55 a.m. to 6:31 p.m. She also called the clinic, Michael’s friends, Judi’s cell phone and San Angelo bus stations, motels and taxicab companies in search of Michael because she didn’t trust the Davidsons’ answers and feared the worst.

“Wendi said, ‘Mike’s missing, do you know where he is, Brinda?’ I said no and she says, ‘Well, I haven’t seen him since 3:30 yesterday,'” Leighton recalled. “It was just one lie after another. Things just didn’t add up.

“Judi told me later that Wendi was taking a nap because she had been up all night,” Leighton added. “I was like, ‘What, are you crazy? Her husband’s missing and she’s laid down for a nap?’ Then I had to get ahold of myself.”

The lies became more cruel when the custody battle began. After saying in depositions that they feared giving Shane to Les because he might be a child molester and that Les should get “the hot seat” for initiating the custody battle, the Davidsons forced Les to meet Shane in a McDonald’s restaurant and a public park. They limited the visits to 11/2 hours each.

The brutal behavior of the Davidsons, who have refused to comment, stunned Frank Severance, Les’ 21-year-old son, and gave him more respect for his father’s toughness.

“It’s unbelievable that they would do all of this given what we’re going through,” Frank said. “It’s like they are trying to turn the tables and say ‘poor us’ when we’re the ones who have lost someone.

“My father is very angry, but he has put aside his feelings to get what needs to be done accomplished. He has been outstanding to do all that and not just fall apart,” Frank added.

“There have been times when I have felt overwhelmed, but the focus has always been on Shane,” Les said. “I told Mike that I would always do my best, and my best would not be ducking tail and running.”

Frank Severance has seen his father display such strength once before.

“When my mother died, he told us regardless of whatever happens, you have to keep going,” Frank Severance said. “People will still call and still keep coming, and you can’t stop just because of a personal tragedy.”

Kindness from strangers

The elder Severance said he knew little of the Davidsons’ hatred before he went to Texas in June. At his son’s Sept. 13, 2004, wedding in San Angelo, Wendi was very nice to Les, and fun, but her parents were a different story.

“They were very rude,” he said. “They ignored me.”

Les happily spent most of the weeklong vacation caring for Shane and Shane’s half brother, 3-year-old Tristan, during his September visit to Abilene and San Angelo. When he returned to Texas in late June, Les kept his whereabouts secret because he feared retribution, especially after winning 60 days’ custody of Shane, he said.

“The day I got the baby, if I could have gotten out of there then, I would have been gone,” Les said. “My son tried to take that baby to Maine, and he did not make it.”

Michael was on leave from Dyess Air Force Base and had planned to fly to Maine on Jan. 16, the day after he disappeared.

Les Severance has been buoyed by the kindness of strangers and by being able to talk about Michael with his son’s friends. A candlelight vigil, yard sale, picnic and dinner are among the fundraiser events during which Maine residents have given money and emotional support.

“People have been wonderful,” he said. “I don’t mind asking for donations because I know that the community has been behind us 100 percent.”

He recalled a wrong number he dialed. The man who answered the telephone recognized his name and congratulated him on returning from Texas with Shane, Les said.

One visitor, retired Air Force Tech. Sgt. Randy Pelfrey, came from Ohio to Maine in mid-July to bring part of the front door of Michael Severance’s race car, which the Severances had presumed lost when Wendi Davidson sold it.

About 16 of Michael Severance’s Abilene friends autographed the door for his father.

When he first saw the gift last month, Les Severance bent over the decal-studded hunk of sheet metal and declared himself delighted.

“This is pretty cool,” he said. “I don’t know how they pulled this off.”

Pelfrey and the Severances stared at the door silently until Frank accidentally dropped a wrench on it with a loud clang.

“That’s good, Frank,” his father teased, deadpan. “That’s why you’re not allowed to touch tools.”

Visitors aside, Les sees difficult times ahead. He thinks the Davidsons have hired as many as eight attorneys to defend their civil court interests and their daughter at her trial next spring. He hopes to attend the March trial, but needs more fundraisers to stay in the fight.

Les dreads Aug. 23, the day he is due to turn Shane back to Judi and Lloyd Davidson, and he still has to grieve his son. He plans to honor the custody arrangement, but he and his attorney, Thomas Goff of San Angelo, do not rule out further legal action that might keep Shane in Maine.

“I think I have my grief under control because I have to keep my focus, and that’s Shane,” Les said. “I probably will never stop grieving over Michael. I don’t think anybody who grieves a child ever gets over it. I don’t see how you could.”