In the early morning hours of July 6, 2021, a single gunshot shattered the quiet of a Magna, Utah martial arts studio, leaving 57-year-old Michael Vincent, a White male, dead on the floor just inside the entrance. The call to 911 came from his wife, Cynthia Vincent, who admitted to shooting him, claiming it was an act of self-defense after he had assaulted and strangled her.
Responding officers found Michael Vincent at his business, Vincent's House of Goju on Main Street, where the couple also lived. A revolver lay on the ground next to his body.
Cynthia Vincent, then 41, was taken into custody and booked into the Salt Lake County Jail for investigation of murder. She told detectives that after being assaulted, she retrieved her gun and told her husband to leave. She claimed he then lunged at her, prompting her to fire the single shot. While officers noted a large scratch under her chin, they found no other injuries and determined the evidence did not support a claim of self-defense. Investigators noted that police had been called to the couple's residence twice in the previous year for domestic disputes, though no arrests were made in those instances.
Six months after the shooting, the Salt Lake County District Attorney's Office formally charged Cynthia Vincent with murder. Prosecutors argued that the evidence was inconsistent with her story, suggesting instead that Michael was leaving through the front door when he was shot in the side of the head. They also pointed to security footage from the day before the shooting that showed the couple interacting normally, with one video capturing Michael kissing his wife just two hours before her 911 call. During the investigation, it was also revealed that Cynthia had attempted to access and close financial accounts she shared with her husband, but was unable to because he had removed her from them prior to his death.
Facing a murder trial, Cynthia Vincent's story changed over the course of two interviews with police regarding where her husband was standing when he was shot and whether he had lunged at her. Ultimately, in October 2022, she pleaded guilty to a reduced charge of manslaughter, a second-degree felony. In her plea statement, she maintained that she believed at the time that her actions were legally justified but acknowledged that she now understood they were not. In December 2022, a judge sentenced a tearful Cynthia Vincent to a term of one to 15 years in the Utah State Prison. The sentencing hearing revealed conflicting portrayals of Michael Vincent, with his family remembering him as a loving father and community member, while the defense characterized him as an abuser.
