Left inset: Michel Fournier (Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office). Right inset: Susan Lane-Fournier (Facebook/Always Our Phoenix). Background: Susan Lane-Fournier’s abandoned truck in Mount Hood National Forest near the area where her body was found (KGW/YouTube).
An Oregon man who allegedly shot his wife dead after she served him with divorce papers admitted he “lost it” in jailhouse calls to her son, with prosecutors and family saying he was “narcissistic” and didn’t want to lose the property that the couple shared. The husband is accused of hiding her body in a forest near their home.
“She ended up, instead of starting that new chapter, wrapped in a tarp and dumped in the woods,” Deputy District Attorney John Millar told jurors on Tuesday during opening statements of Michel Fournier’s murder trial, according to The Oregonian.
Fournier, 72, is charged with second-degree murder for the death of 61-year-old Susan Lane-Fournier, who was reported missing in November 2024 after her truck was found abandoned in Mount Hood National Forest. Deputies with the Clackamas County Sheriff’s Office discovered Lane-Fournier’s body on Friday in the Welches area near East Highway 26 and East Miller Road. Fournier was arrested “shortly after the discovery,” according to police officials.
Lane-Fournier’s death was ruled a homicide, with prosecutors saying she was shot in the head, neck and chest by Fournier. A GoFundMe launched by her family says she was killed “after serving [Fournier] with divorce papers.”
Jailhouse calls made by Fournier to Lane-Fournier’s adult son in early 2025 feature multiple statements in which he allegedly confesses, The Oregonian reports.
“I’m sorry,” Fournier allegedly said in one call, according to prosecutors. “I lost it.”
Fournier allegedly added, “I will be paying for it for a very long time.”
After Lane-Fournier disappeared in November 2024, it was initially thought that the woman was a “missing hiker” who had gotten lost with her two Malinois-mix dogs after the discovery of her truck, according to Clackamas officials. Fournier is accused of killing the dogs, too.
“My sister lost her life because of a narcissistic, immature little man,” said Lane-Fournier’s brother, Michael Lane, in an interview with local CBS affiliate KOIN after opening statements this week.
“His name was never on the lease,” Lane told local NBC affiliate KGW, in reference to the home the couple shared. “He had to kill her to mute the divorce so he could keep the property.”
Online filings viewed by Law&Crime show there was an unsuccessful attempt to serve Fournier on Nov. 8, 2024. The couple had been married since May 2012. Lane-Fournier had filed for divorce on Oct. 31, 2025, citing “irreconcilable differences” that caused an “irremediable breakdown of their marriage.”
As people were searching for Lane-Fournier, prosecutors say her husband called police two days after she was reported missing and said, ‘I think you guys want to talk to me. I was just served divorce papers. I’ve got a target on my back,'” according to The Oregonian. Lane-Fournier’s family and friends, including her mom, have said they suspected early on that something sinister happened to her.
“The first thing out of her mouth was, ‘That son of a b— killed her,'” Lane said of his mother to KOIN.
“She’s ex-search and rescue in California, so she’s well aware of safety procedures when it comes to being out in the woods,” Lane-Fournier’s other son, Dakota Lane, told Portland CBS affiliate KOIN while authorities were searching for her. “I don’t think she’s a missing hiker at all,” added James Evans, a friend of Lane-Fournier’s who spoke to KOIN during the search.
Evans wound up being the one who found Lane-Fournier’s body, hidden underneath a tarp.
“When I reached down to pick up the tarp, I looked up and I saw a pair of boots,” he told KOIN.
A post on the “Always Our Phoenix” memorial page dedicated to Lane-Fournier describes her as “an artist, a creator, a healer, and a connector” who lived in a “small, sunlit home on the edge of the forest, where her walls bore the hues of her soul.”
Fournier’s trial is expected to last two weeks.
