Michelle Reiter anticipated a magical first date, unaware of the grim fate that awaited her.

“She anticipates encountering Romeo,” former Texas Ranger Nick Hanna shared on Oxygen’s Killer Relationship with Faith Jenkins in the Dec. 7 episode, “but instead, she faces the Grim Reaper.”

Reiter vanished after her date on September 10, 2012, and it wasn’t until two weeks later that her remains were uncovered in a shallow grave beneath a bridge about 30 miles from Brownwood, Texas.

As investigators unraveled the tragic case, they found out that the man Reiter thought she was meeting was a fabrication. Instead, she had been deceived by a figure from her past.

Michelle Reiter Disappears

After weeks of online conversation, the 38-year-old divorced mother of two eagerly anticipated her first encounter with a man she knew as Rocky Switzer.

She told her friend and roommate Denny Worrell that she’d be back by 11 p.m. because she had to work early the next morning. 

Worrell remembered, “Michelle was excited about meeting Rocky in person.” 

But, according to Worrell, Reiter never returned and didn’t reply to any of her text messages later that night. When she still wasn’t home the next morning, Worrell called the police to report her friend missing.

Worrell wasn’t the only one concerned. Her children Alexis and Ty Reiter—who lived with their father—were also worried about their mom, who they described as “tough as nails” and “very funny.”

As Alexis recalled of being woken up to hear the news, “I thought I was in a weird dream.”

Investigators Make Chilling Discovery

After checking the area hospitals, Brownwood Police Detective Brian Tompkins was surprised to discover the steakhouse Reiter claimed she was having her date at was closed the night she disappeared. Even more concerning, Switzer’s Facebook profile had been taken down, erasing almost any trace of him. 

“I was thinking, ‘Why would he delete it?’” Tompkins asked. “Why would he cancel his Facebook site? That didn’t set right with me.” 

Although Reiter believed that Switzer had gone to her same high school, others who had been in school at the same time didn’t remember him. Detectives also couldn’t find any evidence of a man by that name working in the area as an airplane mechanic, as he claimed in the messages to Reiter.

“At this point in the investigation,” Tompkins said, “I’m starting to wonder if Rocky Switzer even exists.”

Investigators Look at Man From Michelle Reiter’s Past

Detectives began to take a deeper look into Reiter’s past. They quickly ruled out Reiter’s ex-husband, who seemed to be genuinely concerned about her whereabouts, but there was also another ex in her life. 

Reiter dated Lanny Bush—a man with a long record of petty crimes—for four years after her divorce. The relationship didn’t end well and when Reiter went to pick up her stuff, Bush called 911 and told police she was abusing him. Reiter was arrested, spent a night in jail and had a protective order issued requiring her to stay away from him. But those who knew her, questioned Bush’s account of the night.

After their breakup, Bush moved about 100 miles away to San Angelo, Texas to live with a new girlfriend. 

He told authorities that he was supposed to meet up with Reiter the night of her date, but she called the meeting off. 

“He just kept talking and talking. He was just overly excited to talk to us,” remembered Gary Cole, an investigator with the Tom Green County Sheriff’s Office. “I mean, my red flag meter was just going up and up and up.”

Lanny Bush Admitted to Creating Fake Persona

As the investigation continued, authorities found Reiter’s vehicle abandoned in the parking lot of a Brownwood sports complex. There were no obvious signs of foul play, but her driver’s license and credit card had been left behind in the center console of the vehicle. 

Then, in another interview with detectives, Bush made a bombshell admission. He admitted to being the fictional Switzer, claiming he’d used an alias on Facebook to try to rekindle a romance with his ex because they weren’t supposed to be communicating in light of the protective orders in place by the court.

“At this point in the interview,” Tompkins shared, “Lanny started shedding tears talking about how scared he was, how much he missed her, how he hoped nothing was wrong with her.”

Investigators didn’t buy his story and believed he likely played a role in her disappearance, but they had no evidence to prove it.  

After bringing the Texas Rangers into the investigation, authorities discovered through Reiter and Bush’s cell phone records that GPS data put them together at the sports complex on Sept. 10. Their phones traveled together to an area near Highway 67, before Reiter’s cell phone stopped providing data.

While search teams scoured the area, Bush was brought back in for questioning. He admitted to seeing Reiter that night, but claimed he went home on his own. He was arrested on a felony charge of false impersonation for the online ruse.

Then, five days after his arrest, Reiter’s body was discovered in a shallow grave under a bridge about 30 miles outside of Brownwood, not far from where her cell phone last pinged. Due to the state of decomposition, the medical examiner was unable to determine a cause of death, making a murder case against Bush more difficult. 

Through their investigation, however, investigators uncovered surveillance footage that showed Bush buying ammunition for a 32-caliber gun the same day Michelle disappeared. The purchase was made not long after the same caliber weapon had been stolen from Bush’s grandmother’s house. They also found a shovel in his truck that looked recently used and uncovered some troubling search history on his computer. 

“He had a list of different searches, you know, leading up to this time period that were just highly suspicious,” District Attorney Micheal Murray explained. “He had looked at homemade knockout drops, can putting Visine is somebody’s drink knock them out? What’s the missing person protocol?”