In the autumn of 2011, the life of 36-year-old Michael Paul Pies, a White/Caucasian male from Blaine, Minnesota, came to a tragic and violent end in a motel room in Ashland, Wisconsin. His body was discovered on November 2, 2011, after relatives, concerned for his welfare, requested that police perform a check. Upon entering the room, which had been checked out in Pies' name, authorities were met with an odor and the grim discovery of his body; he had been shot in the head.
The
investigation quickly focused on his girlfriend, 38-year-old Angelina Mae O'Mara. After being taken into custody, O'Mara's account of what transpired shifted dramatically. Initially, she attempted to deflect blame, claiming that members of the Hell's Angels were responsible for Michael's death. Her story then evolved into a tale of self-defense, alleging that Pies had pulled a gun on her and that it had discharged accidentally as she struggled to take it from him. However, this narrative began to unravel as investigators questioned how the gun, if pointed at her, ended up being turned on him.
Confronted with inconsistencies in her story, O'Mara eventually admitted that she and Pies had been arguing, though not physically fighting, when she gained control of the gun, pointed it at him, and pulled the trigger. In a chilling confession, she revealed that after shooting him in the early morning hours of October 31, she placed the gun in her trunk and returned to the motel room to sleep next to his body.
The investigation into Michael's murder also uncovered a second homicide. Just a day before Pies' body was found, O'Mara's ex-husband, James Kelly O'Mara, was discovered dead in his Sauk Rapids, Minnesota apartment, also from a gunshot wound to the head. Angelina O'Mara was subsequently charged with both murders. In 2013, she pleaded no contest to the first-degree intentional homicide of Michael Pies and was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. This sentence was to be served consecutively with the life sentence she received for the murder of her ex-husband in Minnesota.
