Latest / Crime and Horror / She had a second chance at life, but the DEVIL had other plans...

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She had a second chance at life, but the DEVIL had other plans... · Crime and Horror

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Speaker 1: One night in December of two thousand and nine, a
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Speaker 1: man dug through a pile of papers and photo albums
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Speaker 1: inside of an RV that was parked in Texas. The
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Speaker 1: man had recently bought this trailer after its previous owner
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Speaker 1: had died, and so now he was finding it was
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Speaker 1: full of junk that he was trying to sort through.
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Speaker 1: And as he rifled through the documents, he stumbled on
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Speaker 1: a stack of old notebooks. He opened one and he
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Speaker 1: began reading it, and as he did, he felt his
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Speaker 1: heartbeat pick up because the notebooks were actually diaries, and
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Speaker 1: they were full of handwritten rantings about demons and monsters
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Speaker 1: in a deal with the devil. But that wasn't what
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Speaker 1: scared him. What really scared the guy was this writer's
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Speaker 1: horrifying confession. But before we get into today's story, if
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Speaker 1: you're a fan of the strange, dark and mysterious delivered
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Speaker 1: in story format, then you've come to the right place,
0:49
Speaker 1: because that's all we do, and we upload two, three,
0:51
Speaker 1: even four times a week. So if that's of interest
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Speaker 1: to you, please replace the light button shampoo with motor oil. Also,
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Speaker 1: so you don't miss any of our uploads. Okay, let's
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Speaker 1: get into today's story. On the night of July twenty fourth,
1:29
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven, thirty year old Susan Woods stood at
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Speaker 1: the entrance to a local fair in a little city
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Speaker 1: called Haiko, located in central Texas, along with her best
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Speaker 1: friend and her best friend's boyfriend, and the three of
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Speaker 1: them were standing there trying to decide if they wanted
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Speaker 1: to continue to.
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Speaker 2: Stay here or leave now.
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Speaker 1: As they're standing there, they can hear people having fun
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Speaker 1: on all the rides. There's kids laughing and they're screaming.
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Speaker 1: I mean, it's a Friday night. They had chosen to
1:55
Speaker 1: come here, this was the activity, but you know, so
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Speaker 1: far the night had really not been that great. So
2:01
Speaker 1: Susan's best friend, whose name was Cindy Hallmark, and her boyfriend,
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Speaker 1: whose name was Roy Hayes, had convinced Susan to come
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Speaker 1: out with them and come to this fair because Susan's
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Speaker 1: life of late had been really quite bad. She was
2:15
Speaker 1: in the middle of this very ugly divorce and the
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Speaker 1: new guy that she was dating had sort of wound
2:20
Speaker 1: up being very pushy when it came to physical intimacy,
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Speaker 1: and so she had recently dumped him too, and so
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Speaker 1: you know, Susan's life, certainly her relationships anyways, were sort
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Speaker 1: of in rough shape. And so Cindy and Roy had
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Speaker 1: convinced Susan to come out with them and just at
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Speaker 1: least for one night, come enjoy this fair, just forget
2:37
Speaker 1: about everything else and just come have some fun. And
2:40
Speaker 1: so Susan had agreed to go. However, sort of ironically,
2:44
Speaker 1: once they actually got to the fair and the three
2:47
Speaker 1: of them were walking around and playing games and going
2:50
Speaker 1: into the haunted house and doing all the things you
2:52
Speaker 1: do with the fair, it had been Cindy, not Susan,
2:55
Speaker 1: who had ultimately said that they weren't really having a
2:57
Speaker 1: good time, that they were feeling kind of bad. Cindy
3:00
Speaker 1: said that she just had this really intense feeling that
3:04
Speaker 1: something bad was about to happen. It was like this
3:06
Speaker 1: constant anxiety and she couldn't shake it, and it was
3:09
Speaker 1: making it really hard to enjoy the night. And so
3:12
Speaker 1: that was why the trio is, you know, standing at
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Speaker 1: the gate, wondering if it's even worth staying here any longer.
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Speaker 1: And ultimately Roy finally just said, you know what, why
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Speaker 1: don't we just leave? And head back to Stephenville. That's
3:22
Speaker 1: where they all lived, It's where they grew up too.
3:24
Speaker 1: And he said, why don't we go back to Stephenville
3:26
Speaker 1: and we'll just drive around for a bit and eventually
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Speaker 1: we'll go to the Dairy Queen restaurant and we'll get
3:31
Speaker 1: some ice cream. And when Roy suggested this, both Susan
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Speaker 1: and Cindy thought that was a great idea, and so
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Speaker 1: they left.
3:37
Speaker 2: They hopped in Roy's truck and.
3:39
Speaker 1: They began to drive back to Stephenville. About an hour
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Speaker 1: and a half later, Susan, Cindy, and Roy walked into
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Speaker 1: the Stephenville Dairy Queen. They ordered ice cream Sundays and
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Speaker 1: then sat down at a booth. By this point, Cindy's
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Speaker 1: feeling of dread, you know, that something bad was gonna happen,
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Speaker 1: had mostly gone away, and so the mood was much lighter,
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Speaker 1: and Susan and especially was actually having kind of a
4:02
Speaker 1: great night, you know, the first in a long time.
4:04
Speaker 1: It felt like the last six months or so had
4:07
Speaker 1: been some of the worst in Susan's entire life. Her
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Speaker 1: ex husband Michael Woods, who she had been with since
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Speaker 1: she was in her early twenties, had effectively abandoned her
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Speaker 1: back in February, taking her car and also some expensive
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Speaker 1: crystals that she had collected, and he had left behind
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Speaker 1: a viciously mean tape recording of all the things he
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Speaker 1: hated about her, along with dozens of cruel notes with
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Speaker 1: insults on them hidden all over the place, And so
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Speaker 1: Susan had filed for divorce, and then instead of trying
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Speaker 1: to get her car back from her husband, who was
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Speaker 1: long gone, she just began doing a ton of overtime
4:41
Speaker 1: at the sandpaper factory in order to afford another car.
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Speaker 1: And so in these few months immediately following the breakup
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Speaker 1: with her ex and all this extra work she was doing,
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Speaker 1: Susan had really fallen into a deep depression. But it
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Speaker 1: had been Cindy and Roy who had helped kind of
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Speaker 1: pull herself back together. Susan was now naturally very shy,
5:01
Speaker 1: and she did not have a big social circle. But Cindy,
5:04
Speaker 1: on the other hand, was very extroverted, had a ton
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Speaker 1: of friends and a lot of close cousins, and so
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Speaker 1: she had persuaded Susan to begin coming to their regular
5:12
Speaker 1: meetups with all her friends and cousins. The core group
5:15
Speaker 1: that typically attended these meetups was Cindy, Roy, Cindy's cousins
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Speaker 1: Regina and Scott Hatley, and then maybe one or two others,
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Speaker 1: and collectively they referred to themselves as the members of
5:27
Speaker 1: the round Table, because often these meetups consisted of just
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Speaker 1: spending the whole night sitting around Cindy's round kitchen table,
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Speaker 1: talking and drinking. The first time Susan had gone that
5:37
Speaker 1: it seemed like such a tight knit group that she
5:40
Speaker 1: really just kind of felt like a third wheel and
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Speaker 1: did not belong. But everyone had really treated her like
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Speaker 1: she did belong, and these days she did not miss
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Speaker 1: a meetup because this was like her new community. It
5:51
Speaker 1: really made her happy. And so slowly but surely, Susan
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Speaker 1: had begun to feel better largely because of these meetups.
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Speaker 1: And so now as she looked across the table Cindy
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Speaker 1: jokingly trying to force feed Roy all this ice cream,
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Speaker 1: you know, Susan just smiled. Roy was this big guy,
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Speaker 1: but he was losing the fight and he had chocolate
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Speaker 1: sauce all over his chin.
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Speaker 2: They were just kind of goofing around. She just thought
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Speaker 2: to herself, you know what, tonight was a great night.
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Speaker 2: My life.
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Speaker 1: It's turning around and suddenly she had an idea.
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Speaker 2: Susan stood up.
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Speaker 1: From the table and without saying anything, she walked up
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Speaker 1: to the counter and she promptly ordered.
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Speaker 2: A second hot fudge Sunday.
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Speaker 1: And when she carried it back over to the table
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Speaker 1: with a big grin in her face, Cindy and Roy
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Speaker 1: kind of looked at her surprised, you know, and we're
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Speaker 1: kind of impressed even, which was exactly the reaction that
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Speaker 1: Susan was hoping for. Normally, Susan was very conscious of
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Speaker 1: her weight and wouldn't even finish one Sunday. But tonight
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Speaker 1: she just felt like, you know what, I have been
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Speaker 1: set free.
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Speaker 2: I'm just gonna have fun.
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Speaker 1: But unfortunately for Susan, the ice cream Sundays were really
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Speaker 1: the last fun thing she got to enjoy that entire weekend,
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Speaker 1: because she spent all day Saturday on the lane line
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Speaker 1: at the sandpaper factory where she worked, and then all
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Speaker 1: day Sunday she was grocery shopping, doing laundry, and straightening
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Speaker 1: up the house. By about eight pm Sunday night, she
7:10
Speaker 1: had put away all of her laundry, she had made
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Speaker 1: the bed and picked up the last few items off
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Speaker 1: the bedroom floor. Her house was small, but it was
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Speaker 1: finally starting to feel like hers again. When her ex
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Speaker 1: husband Michael had first left, even though he had gone
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Speaker 1: a thousand miles away to Indiana, she had felt afraid
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Speaker 1: in her house, like he might suddenly come back, and
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Speaker 1: so she'd actually had Cindy sleep over her house for
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Speaker 1: a while to help her feel safe, and also she
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Speaker 1: asked Roy to literally nail all her windows shut. But
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Speaker 1: despite fortifying her living space, what Susan couldn't escape from
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Speaker 1: were all these awful little notes that Michael had left
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Speaker 1: behind and hidden all over the house. All these awful
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Speaker 1: messages just basically telling Susan all these terrible things about
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Speaker 1: her and how much he hated her. She kept finding
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Speaker 1: them all the time, but as of right now, the
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Speaker 1: house was neat and tight, and Susan by this point
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Speaker 1: believed she had found almost every note, or certainly close
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Speaker 1: to every note. So to celebrate, Susan headed over to
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Speaker 1: the couch and sat down and turned on the TV.
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Speaker 1: Her plan was just to watch a couple of shows
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Speaker 1: and just enjoy the peace and quiet and then go
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Speaker 1: to bed because tomorrow she would have to get up.
8:19
Speaker 2: Early for work.
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Speaker 1: As she was sitting there, flipping through the channels, trying
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Speaker 1: to figure out what she wanted to watch.
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Speaker 2: She heard a knock on the front door.
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Speaker 1: Two days later, at six pm on the afternoon of
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Speaker 1: July twenty eighth, Susan's father, Joe Atkins, was at home
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Speaker 1: when his phone rang, and when he picked it up,
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Speaker 1: it was Susan's manager at the sandpaper factory, which was weird.
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Speaker 1: The manager told him that he was calling because Susan
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Speaker 1: had not shown up to work for the past two
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Speaker 1: days and nobody could get a hold of her, and
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Speaker 1: so he was wondering if Joe knew where she was.
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Speaker 1: Joe frowned and said no, he didn't know, but he
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Speaker 1: would go find out. He hung up, and he immediately
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Speaker 1: dialed Susan's number, and when she didn't answer, he.
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Speaker 2: Didn't think twice.
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Speaker 1: He just put the phone down, grabbed his keys, hurried
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Speaker 1: out to his truck, and started driving towards Susan's place.
9:17
Speaker 1: Half an hour later, Joe pulled up outside of Susan's
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Speaker 1: house and he went up to her front door, and
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Speaker 1: when he knocked, nobody answered, but he could hear the
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Speaker 1: TV on inside, and when he tried the doorknob, he
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Speaker 1: found the door was unlocked. He opened the door up
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Speaker 1: a little bit and he poked his head inside and
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Speaker 1: he called his daughter's name, but he didn't get a response,
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Speaker 1: so he stepped all the way inside. The house was
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Speaker 1: basically clean, except there were snacks out on the coffee
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Speaker 1: table and the TV was still on and it was
9:47
Speaker 1: on pretty loud. But also there were some cigarettes that
9:50
Speaker 1: had been burned out in an ash tray on the
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Speaker 1: coffee table, and Joe knew his daughter didn't smoke, and
9:56
Speaker 1: so at this point everything told him something is wrong.
9:59
Speaker 1: So oh, Joe walked through the living room and into
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Speaker 1: his daughter's bedroom, and his daughter was not in there,
10:05
Speaker 1: but the bed was a mess. The sheets and the
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Speaker 1: bedding had all been ripped off and were sitting in
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Speaker 1: a heap on the floor, and the mattress itself was
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Speaker 1: hanging off the box spring. Joe was about to leave
10:16
Speaker 1: and search the rest of the house when he noticed
10:18
Speaker 1: the bathroom door in the bedroom was open. Joe forced
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Speaker 1: himself to step toward the door, and as he did,
10:24
Speaker 1: his heart began to hammer in his chest, and then
10:28
Speaker 1: when he leaned around the door and looked inside the bathroom,
10:31
Speaker 1: he just froze for what felt like a very long time,
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Speaker 1: but was very likely only a few seconds. Joe didn't
10:38
Speaker 1: move or breathe. Then it's like he broke out of
10:41
Speaker 1: his fog. He stumbled backwards. He ran to the living room,
10:44
Speaker 1: grabbed the phone, and he called nine to one one.
10:47
Speaker 1: Sergeant Donnie Hensley of the Stephenville Police Department had just
10:51
Speaker 1: gotten home after a pretty long shift when he got
10:53
Speaker 1: a call from dispatch to head back out again. A
10:56
Speaker 1: homicide had just been called in and every available officer.
10:59
Speaker 2: Had to head to the s right away.
11:01
Speaker 1: The dispatcher did not have many details, but they did
11:04
Speaker 1: know that the victim was a young woman and that
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Speaker 1: she had been found by her father inside of her home.
11:13
Speaker 1: When Hensley got to the address, he found there was
11:15
Speaker 1: an ambulance there, and a couple of fire trucks and
11:18
Speaker 1: police cars, and a whole bunch of police officers that
11:21
Speaker 1: were already out and about stringing up crime scene tape.
11:24
Speaker 1: But he also saw someone that he was not.
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Speaker 2: Expecting to see.
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Speaker 1: It was a friend of his, a guy he knew
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Speaker 1: who volunteered at the town's golf course.
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Speaker 2: His name was Joe Atkins.
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Speaker 1: So he walked over and he asked Joe, like, Hey,
11:36
Speaker 1: what are you doing here? But the instant he asked
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Speaker 1: that question, and when Joe turned around to look at him,
11:42
Speaker 1: Hensley understood why he was here. He suddenly remembered that
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Speaker 1: Joe had a daughter, and based on the look on
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Speaker 1: Joe's face, clearly his daughter was the murder victim Joe
11:53
Speaker 1: had found her. Hensley was a hardened detective who had
11:56
Speaker 1: been to plenty of crime scenes by this point, and
11:58
Speaker 1: he had seen some terrible things, but the pure grief
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Speaker 1: on his friend's face was too much for him to bear.
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Speaker 1: He knew there was nothing he could do to take
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Speaker 1: Joe's pain away, so instead, without saying anything, Hensley took
12:10
Speaker 1: Joe's hands and the two men just stood there and prayed.
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Speaker 1: And then after a few minutes, he let go of
12:15
Speaker 1: Joe's hands, and then he turned and walked up Susan's
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Speaker 1: front steps to begin the search for her killer. The
12:27
Speaker 1: crime scene unit was already inside of Susan's home, hard
12:30
Speaker 1: at work by the time Detective Pensley walked through the
12:32
Speaker 1: front door. A supervisor walked over and brought Hensley up
12:36
Speaker 1: to speed. They told him that Susan's body was in
12:38
Speaker 1: the bathroom, and from the looks of bit she'd been
12:41
Speaker 1: dead for a while. The front door had been unlocked,
12:44
Speaker 1: and there was no sign of forced entry, which suggested
12:47
Speaker 1: that Susan may have let her killer inside. Detectives were
12:50
Speaker 1: now dividing up the house into quadrants to examine each
12:53
Speaker 1: part of the crime scene, and Hensley would be working
12:56
Speaker 1: primarily in the bedroom. But the supervisor warned Hensley that
13:00
Speaker 1: the crime itself was incredibly brutal, likely bordering on torture,
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Speaker 1: and he should just mentally prepare himself. Nsley nodded, and
13:08
Speaker 1: for a moment he just stood there and collected himself
13:11
Speaker 1: and took stock of the scene. He looked over at
13:14
Speaker 1: the coffee table in the living room, and he saw
13:16
Speaker 1: it was covered with snacks, including a bag of potato chips,
13:19
Speaker 1: a pack of Twinkies, and an open coke can, and
13:22
Speaker 1: there was an ash tray with six cigarette butts inside
13:24
Speaker 1: of it. It looked like more food and more cigarettes
13:28
Speaker 1: than one person would reasonably consume, and so maybe Susan
13:31
Speaker 1: had had company.
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Speaker 2: But otherwise the house was clean.
13:34
Speaker 1: And pretty unremarkable, except for one thing that took Hensley
13:38
Speaker 1: a minute to notice, and what it was is all
13:41
Speaker 1: the windows were nailed shut from the inside, Susan clearly
13:46
Speaker 1: must have been scared of somebody breaking in, and so
13:49
Speaker 1: naturally Hensley wondered if maybe the person she was scared
13:53
Speaker 1: of breaking in was the same person who wound up
13:55
Speaker 1: killing her. But if that was the case, why had
13:59
Speaker 1: she apparently opened the door for this person? At this point,
14:02
Speaker 1: Hensley moved into the bedroom, and as soon as he did,
14:06
Speaker 1: he could tell there had to have been a struggle
14:08
Speaker 1: in here, because the mattress was hanging off the box spring,
14:10
Speaker 1: the sheets had been pulled off and they were heaped
14:12
Speaker 1: up on the floor, and there were all these scuff
14:15
Speaker 1: marks on the floor that suggested the bed very likely
14:18
Speaker 1: had been moved dragged around inside of the room. There
14:21
Speaker 1: was also a white extension cord lying on the mattress,
14:25
Speaker 1: and also there was this pillow that had all these
14:27
Speaker 1: strange black smudges on it. Hensley walked over and looked
14:31
Speaker 1: at this pillowcase, trying to figure out what the smudges
14:33
Speaker 1: could be, and then he realized it was mascara. The
14:36
Speaker 1: pillow must have been held over Susan's face to suffocate her.
14:41
Speaker 1: But when Hensley walked into the bathroom and saw what
14:44
Speaker 1: was in there, despite the warning, he was given about
14:47
Speaker 1: how brutal it was, he still was taken aback and
14:50
Speaker 1: found himself gasping. Susan's body was draped over the side
14:54
Speaker 1: of the tub with her head still in the water.
14:57
Speaker 1: At first glance, it was obvious Susan was dead because
15:00
Speaker 1: her head and shoulders that were underwater were severely decomposed
15:05
Speaker 1: from being in the water, and so at this point
15:08
Speaker 1: Hensley realized that whoever murdered Susan had likely sexually assaulted her,
15:14
Speaker 1: strangled her, smothered her, and then held her body underwater.
15:18
Speaker 2: I mean this had been a savage attack committed by
15:22
Speaker 2: a monster.
15:23
Speaker 1: However, Hensley also realized that this monster, whoever had done this,
15:27
Speaker 1: had made at least one mistake, because one of the
15:30
Speaker 1: crime scene texts that was in the bathroom was pointing
15:33
Speaker 1: at the tub with excitement, and when Hensley looked at
15:37
Speaker 1: what they were pointing at, you could see perfectly clearly
15:40
Speaker 1: there was a set of palm prints, almost certainly left
15:44
Speaker 1: behind by the killer. The following morning, at around ten am,
15:50
Speaker 1: Sergeant Hensley walked into the Stephenville Police station and promptly
15:53
Speaker 1: filled up a paper cup from the Bullpen water cooler
15:56
Speaker 1: and drank it down. It was over ninety degrees outside,
15:59
Speaker 1: and he had just all morning and a lot of
16:01
Speaker 1: the previous night canvassing the neighborhood where Susan had been murdered.
16:05
Speaker 1: But despite all their efforts, they really hadn't gotten much.
16:08
Speaker 1: Susan had been found on Tuesday, but nobody had reported
16:12
Speaker 1: seeing her on Tuesday, or the Monday before or the
16:16
Speaker 1: Sunday before, which left a window of three days for
16:19
Speaker 1: this murder to have taken place. One of Susan's neighbors
16:22
Speaker 1: did remember seeing a quote large framed man parkerstruck near
16:27
Speaker 1: Susan's house on Sunday night, but that described a lot
16:30
Speaker 1: of the men in Stephenville, so that didn't really narrow
16:32
Speaker 1: anything down. Now, the police chief had not yet assigned
16:35
Speaker 1: a lead investigator to Susan's case, but because Sergeant Hensley
16:39
Speaker 1: knew Susan's father personally, he was hoping to stay involved.
16:43
Speaker 1: So after drinking a second cupful of water, Hensley headed
16:47
Speaker 1: down the hall to the chief's office, where he asked
16:49
Speaker 1: to see Susan's autopsy report. The Chief secretary handed it
16:52
Speaker 1: over and Hensley quickly began to thumb through the pages,
16:56
Speaker 1: but he quickly realized there really was almost nothing here
16:59
Speaker 1: that he didn't already know. The report confirmed that Susan
17:02
Speaker 1: had been sexually assaulted, but her body was so decomposed
17:06
Speaker 1: it was impossible to determine exactly how or when she
17:09
Speaker 1: had died, although the coroner estimated she'd been in the
17:12
Speaker 1: tub for roughly two days. But right at that moment,
17:16
Speaker 1: another investigator named Lieutenant Ken Maltby walked up and grabbed
17:20
Speaker 1: the report right out of Pensley's hands, and before Hensley
17:23
Speaker 1: could protest, Maltby walked back to the bullpen and wrapped
17:27
Speaker 1: his knuckles on a doorframe to get everybody's attention. Then
17:30
Speaker 1: Maltby announced that he would be taking over Susan's case,
17:34
Speaker 1: so everybody else, Hensley included, should back off. And Hensley
17:38
Speaker 1: did not like this, not only because you know, he
17:41
Speaker 1: had this closeness with Susan's father, but also because he
17:45
Speaker 1: had a feeling that Maltby was only interested in this
17:48
Speaker 1: case because he thought it would help his career. However,
17:51
Speaker 1: Maltby out ranked Hensley, and Hensley already had a full
17:55
Speaker 1: caseload of work, so there really was very little he
17:57
Speaker 1: could do here, So with a resign side, he headed
18:01
Speaker 1: back to his desk. Two days later, around two pm
18:09
Speaker 1: on July thirty, first, Sergeant Hensley stood in the back
18:12
Speaker 1: of a small crowd, sweating through his suit as Susan's
18:15
Speaker 1: casket was lowered into the ground. Hensley was at this
18:18
Speaker 1: funeral really to support Susan's father, Joe, because he was
18:22
Speaker 1: not really a part of the investigation. However, he couldn't help,
18:25
Speaker 1: you know, scanning the mourners, you know, through a detective's
18:28
Speaker 1: lens to see if anybody seemed suspicious. There was a
18:31
Speaker 1: group of people in their twenties and thirties that were
18:33
Speaker 1: standing towards the front, and Hensley assumed they must be
18:36
Speaker 1: Susan's friends. He remembered what one of Susan's neighbors had
18:40
Speaker 1: said about a large framed man, and he looked at
18:43
Speaker 1: all the men, taking note of their size. At the
18:46
Speaker 1: center of the group, there was a blonde woman who
18:49
Speaker 1: was sobbing, and Hensley recognized her as Susan's best friend,
18:52
Speaker 1: Cindy Hallmark, who was leaning on her boyfriend Roy Hayes.
18:56
Speaker 1: The two of them had actually come to the crime
18:58
Speaker 1: scene by coincidence on the day Susan's body was found,
19:01
Speaker 1: and they had totally broken down when they realized what
19:04
Speaker 1: had happened. But now Hensley was suddenly noticing just how
19:08
Speaker 1: physically enormous Roy was, and so in that moment, Hensley
19:13
Speaker 1: thought to himself, if he was in charge of this case,
19:15
Speaker 1: he knew Roy would be somebody he'd take a close
19:18
Speaker 1: look at, but that was not his decision. But then
19:21
Speaker 1: Hensley noticed that there was actually one person who was
19:24
Speaker 1: conspicuously absent from this funeral, and that was Susan's ex husband,
19:29
Speaker 1: Michael Woods. From what Hensley had heard around the station,
19:32
Speaker 1: nearly all of Susan's friends and family were convinced that
19:35
Speaker 1: it was Michael who was the killer. But there was
19:38
Speaker 1: a problem with this theory. Michael lived a thousand miles
19:42
Speaker 1: away in Indianapolis, and word around the police station was
19:46
Speaker 1: that during that window of time where Susan was murdered
19:49
Speaker 1: over those three days, Michael was in Indianapolis, and he
19:52
Speaker 1: was around loads of people who would vouch for him
19:55
Speaker 1: being in Indianapolis, which meant that, as far as Hensley knew,
20:00
Speaker 1: there really was no way for Michael to be the killer,
20:02
Speaker 1: and so Hensley just hoped that Lieutenant Maltby had another
20:05
Speaker 1: better suspect in mine For the next few weeks, Sergeant
20:10
Speaker 1: Hensley focused on his own cases while still keeping taps
20:13
Speaker 1: on Susan's. Every couple of days, her dad would call
20:15
Speaker 1: him up and ask why Michael hadn't been arrested yet,
20:18
Speaker 1: and Hensley would always tell him that the case was
20:20
Speaker 1: in good hands and they're working on it. But as
20:23
Speaker 1: the weeks passed by with no arrests Hensley started to wonder,
20:27
Speaker 1: what was going on here?
20:28
Speaker 2: Something needs to happen. Why is nothing happening.
20:30
Speaker 1: Then one day in early October, so roughly two months
20:34
Speaker 1: after Susan's murder, Hensley walked into the bullpen to find
20:38
Speaker 1: Maltby celebrating, not because of any progress in the case, though,
20:42
Speaker 1: but to celebrate his big promotion. Maltby was going to
20:45
Speaker 1: be the lead of a new narcotics unit, and his
20:48
Speaker 1: open cases that he had been working on were just
20:50
Speaker 1: going to be given to other investigators or filed away altogether.
20:54
Speaker 1: And so as Maltby accepted congratulations from other officers and
20:58
Speaker 1: just made a whole scene, all Sergeant Hensley could think was, well,
21:02
Speaker 1: what's going.
21:02
Speaker 2: To happen to Susan's case?
21:03
Speaker 1: It could easily fall through the cracks here, and so
21:06
Speaker 1: without even talking to Maltby, Hensley walked straight to the
21:09
Speaker 1: chief's office and asked to take the case over. The
21:12
Speaker 1: chief shrugged and just said, sure, you're welcome to try,
21:15
Speaker 1: so long as this case does not get in the
21:17
Speaker 1: way of his other work. Hensley agreed and then went
21:20
Speaker 1: to get Susan's file, and then after he had it
21:22
Speaker 1: in hand, he hurried back to his desk and began
21:25
Speaker 1: rifling through the pages, and he was stunned to find
21:28
Speaker 1: that there was almost nothing in there besides the original
21:30
Speaker 1: autopsy report.
21:32
Speaker 2: And that's when Hensley.
21:33
Speaker 1: Remembered that Lieutenant Maltby claimed to have this photographic memory,
21:37
Speaker 1: and so he almost never took notes, and so Hensley
21:41
Speaker 1: was basically going to have to start all over from
21:43
Speaker 1: square one. At nine am the next morning, Sergeant Hensley
21:57
Speaker 1: sat down in the kitchen of Susan's best friend, Cindy
21:59
Speaker 1: Hollmar as Cindy poured them both a cup of coffee,
22:02
Speaker 1: and then Cindy started talking, and she had a lot
22:05
Speaker 1: to say. She was absolutely convinced that Susan's ex husband,
22:09
Speaker 1: Michael Woods was the giller, and she just could not
22:12
Speaker 1: understand why it was taking detectives so long to arrest him.
22:16
Speaker 1: Cindy said, you know, for most of Susan and Michael's relationship,
22:20
Speaker 1: Michael was just kind of a loser. He couldn't keep
22:22
Speaker 1: a job, and he just lift weights and play guitars
22:25
Speaker 1: shirtless in the front yard. However, when they had broken up,
22:29
Speaker 1: Michael had recorded this totally unhinged audio recording about how
22:34
Speaker 1: awful Susan was and left it for Susan along with
22:37
Speaker 1: all these notes he had hid all around the house
22:40
Speaker 1: and the property, which also just said terrible things about Susan.
22:45
Speaker 1: And this behavior by Michael had scared Susan so much
22:49
Speaker 1: that she had asked Cindy and Cindy's boyfriend Roy to
22:52
Speaker 1: help nail all her windows shut, specifically to prevent Michael
22:58
Speaker 1: from coming into the house. Hensley listened and wrote everything
23:01
Speaker 1: Cindy said down, but he really wasn't as sold on
23:04
Speaker 1: the Michael Woods theory as everybody else in Stephnville seemed
23:08
Speaker 1: to be. And that was primarily because the police in
23:11
Speaker 1: Indianapolis had spoken to Michael and apparently he had given
23:15
Speaker 1: them a rock solid alibi, and so realistically it didn't
23:18
Speaker 1: make sense for him to be the killer. That said,
23:21
Speaker 1: Hensley was pretty confident that the killer had to be
23:24
Speaker 1: somebody Susan knew. The lack of forced entry, coupled with
23:27
Speaker 1: all the snacks and the coke can and cigarettes on
23:29
Speaker 1: her coffee table, suggested that Susan might have entertained her
23:33
Speaker 1: murderer before they killed her. And so at this point
23:36
Speaker 1: Hensley was much more interested in learning if there were
23:40
Speaker 1: other romantic interests in Susan's life, you know, besides Michael.
23:45
Speaker 1: And when he asked Cindy that question, she said, yeah,
23:48
Speaker 1: there was one other guy, she said, right before Susan
23:51
Speaker 1: was killed, she was seeing this bartender named J. C.
23:54
Speaker 2: Bawman. However, they'd only gone on a few dates.
23:57
Speaker 1: Cindy said that JC had put a lot of pressure
24:00
Speaker 1: on Susan to sleep with him, and so she had
24:03
Speaker 1: just broken up with him. And when Hensley heard this,
24:05
Speaker 1: he felt like this was really promising. And so when
24:08
Speaker 1: Cindy finished telling her Jac story, he asked her if
24:12
Speaker 1: she knew where he could find Jac and she said yeah,
24:15
Speaker 1: and she gave him the address of the bar where
24:17
Speaker 1: he worked. Forty five minutes later, Sergeant Hensley pulled up
24:23
Speaker 1: in front of the bar. It was still too early
24:25
Speaker 1: for business, but there was a delivery truck out front,
24:28
Speaker 1: and there were a few men who were unloading kegs
24:30
Speaker 1: and bringing them inside, and so Hensley walked up to
24:33
Speaker 1: these guys and he asked if any of them knew
24:35
Speaker 1: a J. C. Bauman, and this tall bearded man raised
24:39
Speaker 1: his hand and said, actually, that was him. A few
24:42
Speaker 1: minutes later, Hensley and j. C were sitting at the
24:45
Speaker 1: empty bar. Hensley watched Jac's face very closely as he
24:50
Speaker 1: explained to him that he was here to talk about Susan.
24:53
Speaker 1: Jace nodded and ran his fingers through his hair like
24:55
Speaker 1: he was nervous, and then he said his throat was dry,
24:59
Speaker 1: and asked Sergeant Hensley if he wanted something to drink.
25:01
Speaker 1: Sergeant Hensley said he was okay, but JC. He got up,
25:05
Speaker 1: went behind the bar and then came back with a
25:07
Speaker 1: can of coke, and after sitting down and opening the
25:10
Speaker 1: drink up and taking a sip, JC also lit up
25:13
Speaker 1: a cigarette, and so immediately Hensley thought of the coke
25:18
Speaker 1: can that was on Susan's coffee table, as well as
25:21
Speaker 1: the ashtray full of cigarettes.
25:22
Speaker 2: Despite the fact.
25:23
Speaker 1: That Susan was not a smoker, and so the interview
25:26
Speaker 1: had barely even started, and Hensley was already very suspicious
25:30
Speaker 1: of JC, so he decided to push pretty early and
25:34
Speaker 1: see how JC reacted under some serious pressure, and so
25:37
Speaker 1: right out the gate, he asked JC where he was
25:40
Speaker 1: on Sunday, July twenty sixth, which was the day investigators
25:45
Speaker 1: at this point believed Susan was murdered, based primarily on
25:48
Speaker 1: the autopsy report, and when j C was asked that,
25:51
Speaker 1: he swallowed and said he couldn't remember, which was possible.
25:54
Speaker 1: I mean, the murder happened two months earlier, but it
25:57
Speaker 1: didn't make JC look that good.
26:00
Speaker 2: Oh.
26:00
Speaker 1: Hensley asked JAC if it was true that he and
26:02
Speaker 1: Susan broke up ultimately because he j C had pressured
26:07
Speaker 1: her for sex. JC turned beat red and said he
26:10
Speaker 1: had never pressured Susan. He said they had been intimate,
26:13
Speaker 1: but just once in Susan's bathtub, and when Hensley heard this,
26:16
Speaker 1: he nearly dropped his pen. It seemed extremely suspicious that
26:20
Speaker 1: j C was claiming to have been intimate with Susan
26:23
Speaker 1: in the same bathtub where she was found dead, and
26:27
Speaker 1: so Hensley wondered if he was maybe trying to get
26:29
Speaker 1: ahead of the fact that his fingerprints would be found
26:32
Speaker 1: on or in that bathtub. Now, legally, Hensley knew he
26:36
Speaker 1: could not compel JC to offer up his fingerprints without
26:40
Speaker 1: charging him first, but he took a chance and just
26:44
Speaker 1: asked anyway, and to his surprise, j C said yes,
26:48
Speaker 1: you can have my fingerprints, and he almost seemed relieved.
26:51
Speaker 1: He said, you know, whatever you need to help solve
26:53
Speaker 1: Susan's murder, I'll do it. Two hours later, Sergeant Hensley
26:58
Speaker 1: was back at his desk in the Stevenville Police station
27:01
Speaker 1: looking at a card that had Jac's finger and pomp
27:04
Speaker 1: prints on it, and as he looked at it, he
27:06
Speaker 1: began thinking about those pom prints on Susan's bathtub. In
27:10
Speaker 1: nineteen eighty seven, fingerprints and pom prints were just much
27:13
Speaker 1: slower to process than they are today, and the closest
27:17
Speaker 1: lab that analyzed these prints was an hour and a
27:20
Speaker 1: half away in Fort Worth, and Hensley knew they were
27:23
Speaker 1: always working with a backlog, so his results could easily
27:26
Speaker 1: take months. But Hensley was not going to just sit
27:29
Speaker 1: around and wait, because he had one more suspect he
27:33
Speaker 1: wanted to talk to. The following afternoon, Sergeant Hensley walked
27:43
Speaker 1: into an interrogation room at the police station, and sat
27:45
Speaker 1: down across from Roy Hayes, who was Susan's best friend
27:49
Speaker 1: Cindy's boyfriend. Hensley wanted to speak to Roy for two reasons. One,
27:53
Speaker 1: he matched the physical description of the large man seen
27:56
Speaker 1: near Susan's house around the time of her murder. And two,
28:01
Speaker 1: there just weren't that many people who were close to
28:03
Speaker 1: Susan and Roy saw her when she was both with
28:06
Speaker 1: Cindy and also when she would attend those members of
28:09
Speaker 1: the Roundtable get togethers Now, that was not that incriminating,
28:13
Speaker 1: but Hensley knew that catching the killer was as much
28:15
Speaker 1: about ruling suspects out as it was about ruling them in.
28:20
Speaker 1: So that was really all he was trying to do
28:21
Speaker 1: here with Roy is just maybe find a way to
28:23
Speaker 1: say Nope, not him. But before Hensley could even begin
28:27
Speaker 1: asking Roy questions, Roy.
28:29
Speaker 2: Just started talking.
28:30
Speaker 1: He told Hensley that he had been thinking about Susan's
28:33
Speaker 1: case NonStop. He said that his mind had been running
28:37
Speaker 1: wild with all the possible ways the killer could have
28:40
Speaker 1: gotten inside, and so now Roy was eager to share
28:43
Speaker 1: his theories. After all, he said, he was the one
28:46
Speaker 1: who nailed those windows shut, so he knew where the
28:49
Speaker 1: weaknesses in her house were, and so Hensley said, okay,
28:53
Speaker 1: let's hear your theories, and Roy began listing all the
28:56
Speaker 1: ways a person might be able to get inside of
28:59
Speaker 1: Susan's house, including what Roy said was the most promising,
29:03
Speaker 1: which was a six inch crack in the window above
29:05
Speaker 1: the kitchen sink. And as Roy did this, all of
29:09
Speaker 1: a sudden, he was at the top of Hensley's suspect list.
29:12
Speaker 1: And when Roy was done rattling off all the ways
29:15
Speaker 1: he would break into Susan's house, Hensley asked him where
29:19
Speaker 1: were you on the evening of Sunday, July twenty sixth,
29:22
Speaker 1: and Hensley watched as Roy's expression changed from very intense
29:26
Speaker 1: to surprise as he realized he was now being asked
29:30
Speaker 1: for his own alibi. Roy started stumbling over another very long,
29:34
Speaker 1: rambling answer, and what he had to say ultimately just
29:37
Speaker 1: made him look even more guilty because Roy told Hensley
29:40
Speaker 1: that on the night Susan was killed, he had been
29:43
Speaker 1: over at a friend's house playing a game called Dungeons
29:46
Speaker 1: and Dragons. So today people know Dungeons and Dragons as
29:50
Speaker 1: a harmless fantasy role playing game, but at this time,
29:53
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven, it was viewed very differently. In
29:56
Speaker 1: the late nineteen eighties, in America, there was this huge
29:59
Speaker 1: fear that sir in games, books, and heavy metal songs
30:02
Speaker 1: were all linked to devil warship. The TV news ran
30:06
Speaker 1: regular stories across the country about how Dungeons and Dragons
30:10
Speaker 1: specifically encouraged players to cast spells and practice witchcraft, and
30:16
Speaker 1: the local paper in Stephenville had carried a full page
30:18
Speaker 1: ad calling the game satanic. So when Roy told Hensley
30:23
Speaker 1: he had been playing Dungeons and Dragons on the night
30:25
Speaker 1: Susan was killed, Hensley immediately thought back to the horrible
30:29
Speaker 1: brutality of the crime scene, and he wondered if maybe
30:33
Speaker 1: Susan's murder could have been tied to some kind of
30:36
Speaker 1: dark ritual.
30:37
Speaker 2: And so Hensley looks at Roy and says, okay, well,
30:40
Speaker 2: are you prepared to give us your fingerprints? And Roy
30:43
Speaker 2: said yeah.
30:45
Speaker 1: A half an hour later, a very disappointed Sergeant Hensley
30:49
Speaker 1: watched Roy walk away from the station. Just like with JC,
30:53
Speaker 1: Roy had seemed incredibly suspicious at the start of the interview,
30:56
Speaker 1: but then he'd easily offered up his fingerprints like he
30:59
Speaker 1: wasn't dicerned at all about whether they'd matched the killers,
31:02
Speaker 1: so Hensley was not sure what to expect in terms
31:04
Speaker 1: of results here, but he still sent Roy's Prince off
31:07
Speaker 1: to the outside lab to be added to the queue
31:10
Speaker 1: behind jc's. Hensley was contemplating his next move when the
31:14
Speaker 1: station receptionist walked over and said that someone from the
31:17
Speaker 1: Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department was on the line for him.
31:20
Speaker 1: They were following up on the inquiry he had made
31:23
Speaker 1: a few days earlier to double check the alibi of
31:25
Speaker 1: Susan's ex husband, Michael Woods. Hensley eagerly ran to the phone,
31:30
Speaker 1: and when he heard what the officer had to say,
31:32
Speaker 1: he practically jumped out of his chair because, according to
31:35
Speaker 1: the Indianapolis Police officer, it was true that Michael said
31:39
Speaker 1: he had an alibi with lots of witnesses, but he
31:42
Speaker 1: had promised to provide the names and contact information for
31:45
Speaker 1: all those witnesses and he had never done it, which
31:49
Speaker 1: meant Michael's alibi the same one Stephnville police used to
31:53
Speaker 1: rule him out as a suspect, or more specifically, they
31:56
Speaker 1: used the idea of his alibi, the belief that alibi existed.
32:01
Speaker 1: That's what they used to rule him out. Well, clearly
32:04
Speaker 1: it was totally unverified. Lieutenant Ken Maltby, who was in
32:08
Speaker 1: charge of the case when this decision was made, had
32:12
Speaker 1: just completely dropped the ball. Somebody had to check Michael's alibi.
32:26
Speaker 1: On a bright morning in April of nineteen eighty eight,
32:29
Speaker 1: Sergeant Hensley walked out of the Indianapolis International Airport with
32:33
Speaker 1: a single Duffel bag of luggage slung over his shoulder.
32:36
Speaker 1: He was here to try to collect the fingerprints of
32:38
Speaker 1: Susan's ex husband, Michael Woods, who was now Hensley's primary suspect.
32:43
Speaker 1: Hensley had been trying to coordinate the investigation into Michael
32:46
Speaker 1: from Stephenville, Texas, but it had proven to be kind
32:49
Speaker 1: of cumbersome, and so he decided to just take matters
32:52
Speaker 1: into his own hands and actually go to Indianapolis. He
32:55
Speaker 1: knew Michael did not have to submit to fingerprinting unless
32:59
Speaker 1: he was charged with a cross t so Hensley had
33:01
Speaker 1: come up with a plan. He was going to put
33:03
Speaker 1: Michael under surveillance and wait for him to do something illegal.
33:07
Speaker 1: Maybe he gets into a fight or an altercation, or
33:09
Speaker 1: he buys some marijuana or even jaywalked.
33:13
Speaker 2: Anything. Hensley would use it as.
33:15
Speaker 1: An excuse to arrest him and get his prints. For days,
33:21
Speaker 1: Hensley sat in an unmarked van outside the house where
33:24
Speaker 1: Michael lived, watching the front door through a telephoto camera lens.
33:29
Speaker 1: But Michael and his roommates seemed pretty boring. They barely
33:32
Speaker 1: even left the house. Hensley was beginning to think that
33:35
Speaker 1: his big plan to catch Michael doing something illegal was
33:38
Speaker 1: a huge waste of time.
33:39
Speaker 2: It just was not going to happen.
33:41
Speaker 1: But then one morning he noticed some unusual activity in
33:44
Speaker 1: Michael's front yard. Michael and his roommates were laying out
33:47
Speaker 1: furniture and clothing on their front lawn, clearly getting ready
33:50
Speaker 1: for a yard sale. Sergeant Hensley was snapping photos of
33:54
Speaker 1: everything they were bringing out, and at one point he
33:56
Speaker 1: saw something that gave him a rush of excitement because
34:00
Speaker 1: through his lens he spotted these crystal figurines that appeared
34:05
Speaker 1: to be the exact same type of crystal figurines that
34:08
Speaker 1: Michael had allegedly stolen from Susan's house in Stephenville when
34:12
Speaker 1: their marriage had ended and he had left to go
34:13
Speaker 1: to Indianapolis. Hensley practically laughed out loud, I mean this
34:17
Speaker 1: was too easy, This was his chance. So he called
34:20
Speaker 1: the local police and they stormed the yard sale, and
34:23
Speaker 1: they arrested Michael for theft. Two weeks later, now back
34:29
Speaker 1: in Stephenville, Sergeant Hensley walked into the police station to
34:32
Speaker 1: start a shift and he found a Manila envelope waiting
34:35
Speaker 1: for him and had a return address that said it
34:37
Speaker 1: was from the Texas DPS crime Lab in Fort Worth, Texas,
34:41
Speaker 1: where he had sent all of the suspect's fingerprints. Hensley
34:44
Speaker 1: ripped open the envelope and dumped the contents onto the table,
34:47
Speaker 1: and as he began looking through them, he realized the
34:50
Speaker 1: lab had already analyzed all three sets of prints that
34:53
Speaker 1: he had sent in. They were Susan's ex boyfriend, jac Bauman,
34:57
Speaker 1: her best friend's boyfriend, Roy Hayes, and her ex husband
35:01
Speaker 1: Michael Woods. Now, at this point, if Hensley had had
35:04
Speaker 1: to guess who the killer was, he would have guessed Michael,
35:07
Speaker 1: because Michael is this estranged ex husband who had left
35:10
Speaker 1: behind these terrible recordings and notes, and he had spooked
35:13
Speaker 1: Susan so badly at the end of their relationship she
35:16
Speaker 1: had nailed her windows shut to keep him out. And
35:19
Speaker 1: then also his alibi was sort of up in the air.
35:22
Speaker 1: They didn't really know if he had one or not,
35:24
Speaker 1: they hadn't been able to actually verify it or not yet.
35:28
Speaker 2: Jac also had basically no alibi.
35:31
Speaker 1: He drank coke and he smoked cigarettes, just like the
35:33
Speaker 1: killer had left in Susan's living room, or is believed
35:36
Speaker 1: to have been the killer who left those behind, and
35:38
Speaker 1: Roy in virtue of playing Dungeons and Dragons, could potentially
35:42
Speaker 1: be involved in Satanism. And also he seemed way too
35:45
Speaker 1: eager to talk about how.
35:47
Speaker 2: He might break into Susan's house.
35:49
Speaker 1: However, for Hensley, he felt like one of these three
35:52
Speaker 1: men is the killer. He's about to get his answer.
35:55
Speaker 1: But as he read through each of these reports, he
35:59
Speaker 1: went from exhilaration to confusion and finally just total disbelief
36:05
Speaker 1: because none of these prints that he'd submitted matched the
36:09
Speaker 1: ones from Susan's top. Hensley wanted so badly to solve
36:13
Speaker 1: this case, to give Susan's father, Joe his friend, some closure,
36:18
Speaker 1: but now he felt like he was totally out of ideas.
36:26
Speaker 1: Susan's case ultimately went completely cold. Sergeant Hensley retired and
36:31
Speaker 1: nineteen years passed by, and then one day in early
36:35
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, Lieutenant Don Miller of the Stephenville
36:38
Speaker 1: Police Department. Took a box labeled Susan Woods down from
36:41
Speaker 1: a shelf and evidence storage and carried it back to
36:44
Speaker 1: his office, sat down at his desk and began to
36:47
Speaker 1: look through its contents. Miller had recently been tasked with
36:50
Speaker 1: reviewing the department's unsolved cases, including Susan's. He read all
36:54
Speaker 1: of Sergeant Hensley's notes, he studied the crime scene photos,
36:58
Speaker 1: and he reviewed all the witness statements.
37:00
Speaker 2: None of it looked very promising.
37:01
Speaker 1: In fact, it looked like all the suspects had basically
37:04
Speaker 1: been ruled out. But then he saw those pomp prints
37:06
Speaker 1: that had been lifted from Susan's bathtub, which had never
37:09
Speaker 1: been matched to anyone, and he had an idea. Back
37:13
Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty seven, there had been no centralized database
37:16
Speaker 1: of fingerprints. This meant that unless you had a specific
37:19
Speaker 1: suspect to compare an unknown prints against, the unknown print
37:24
Speaker 1: was effectively useless, and that's really what had happened in
37:27
Speaker 1: Susan's case. None of the suspects had matched this unknown print,
37:32
Speaker 1: so the case was put on a shelf. But in
37:35
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, the FBI now had a national
37:38
Speaker 1: database of all the fingerprints of everybody in America who
37:42
Speaker 1: had ever been arrested and fingerprinted. And this meant that
37:45
Speaker 1: if Susan's killer had ever been arrested for any crime anywhere,
37:50
Speaker 1: their fingerprints would likely be in that database. Now, Lieutenant
37:54
Speaker 1: Miller did not have the budget or the time for
37:57
Speaker 1: a full blown reinvestigation here, but he certainly had the
38:01
Speaker 1: time and money to just submit those prints into this
38:04
Speaker 1: FBI database to just see if there was a hit.
38:07
Speaker 1: So he submitted them and then put her case file
38:10
Speaker 1: back in storage, and sure enough, a few days later,
38:14
Speaker 1: Miller was at his desk when his phone rang and
38:17
Speaker 1: it was the FBI, and they told him they had
38:19
Speaker 1: found a match. But when the FBI agent told Miller
38:23
Speaker 1: the name of the person whose prints these matched, it
38:26
Speaker 1: meant nothing to Miller. He didn't think he'd actually even
38:29
Speaker 1: heard the name before, and the person had been arrested
38:31
Speaker 1: for robbery in Nevada, not Texas. Miller thanked the agent
38:35
Speaker 1: and he quickly began digging through this person's history, and
38:39
Speaker 1: he also went and got the Susan Woods case file,
38:41
Speaker 1: and slowly but surely, it all began to come together.
38:45
Speaker 1: And as Miller read through in her file, all the
38:48
Speaker 1: names of the people that Susan spent her time with.
38:51
Speaker 1: He noticed something, and finally it all just clicked. Lieutenant
38:56
Speaker 1: Miller had found the killer based on evidence collected at
39:07
Speaker 1: the crime scene and the killer's written confession. The following
39:11
Speaker 1: is a reconstruction of what police belief happened to Susan
39:14
Speaker 1: Woods on the evening of Sunday, July twenty sixth, nineteen
39:18
Speaker 1: eighty seven. Stephenville's main street was busy as the killer
39:28
Speaker 1: drove through town in their brown pickup, sipping a mixture
39:31
Speaker 1: of soda, vodka and cough syrup. They stared out their
39:34
Speaker 1: window at all the happy people in the restaurants and
39:37
Speaker 1: the storefronts. And as they stared at these people, a
39:40
Speaker 1: darkness stirred inside the killer. This darkness had been there
39:44
Speaker 1: for years, telling the killer they were no good and
39:47
Speaker 1: they would never be close to anyone. Alcohol was the
39:50
Speaker 1: only thing that seemed to make this darkness go away,
39:53
Speaker 1: so the killers stayed half drunk most of the time,
39:55
Speaker 1: but sometimes even the alcohol wasn't enough. A few years back,
39:59
Speaker 1: when the TV news had been running non stop would
40:02
Speaker 1: talk about devil worshiping. The killer had been sort of
40:06
Speaker 1: inspired and they thought they might try that, And so
40:08
Speaker 1: they had lit a bunch of candles and set them
40:11
Speaker 1: around their room in the shape of a pentagram, and
40:14
Speaker 1: then the killer stripped off their clothes. They stretched out
40:17
Speaker 1: on the floor, and they offered up their soul to
40:19
Speaker 1: the devil in exchange for freedom from this darkness. But
40:24
Speaker 1: unfortunately the darkness remained. And so now the killer, feeling
40:28
Speaker 1: very riled up, took another drink and thought of Susan
40:32
Speaker 1: and the way she'd smiled at them the last time
40:34
Speaker 1: they had seen each other. The killer had not had
40:36
Speaker 1: the courage to make a move back then, but now
40:39
Speaker 1: you know, with this buzz that they had from their drink,
40:42
Speaker 1: they really couldn't see a good reason not to make.
40:44
Speaker 2: A pass at Susan.
40:45
Speaker 1: So they turned off the main road and they drove
40:48
Speaker 1: the short distance to Susan's house. In a matter of minutes,
40:51
Speaker 1: the killer was at her door knocking. Susan opened the door,
40:55
Speaker 1: and surprise flashed across her face, but then it softened
40:59
Speaker 1: into a smile and she told them to come on in.
41:02
Speaker 1: Susan told them to get comfortable, and as they sat
41:04
Speaker 1: down on the couch, she went to the kitchen to
41:07
Speaker 1: get the killer a coke and some snacks. Then she
41:09
Speaker 1: brought them back and she sat down on the couch
41:12
Speaker 1: next to the killer to talk and catch up, and
41:14
Speaker 1: that was when the killer made their move. They leaned
41:17
Speaker 1: in to kiss her, but Susan immediately pulled back, suddenly angry.
41:22
Speaker 1: The killer grabbed her and Susan slapped them.
41:25
Speaker 2: Across the face, and right then the killer exploded.
41:29
Speaker 1: They would take almost twenty years, but that single action
41:33
Speaker 1: of the killer placing their hands on the bathtub did
41:36
Speaker 1: eventually give Lieutenant Miller the killer's identity. He was the
41:40
Speaker 1: younger cousin of Susan's best friend, Cindy Hallmark, and he
41:44
Speaker 1: was one of the members of that round Table group
41:46
Speaker 1: who supported Susan through her divorce. He had also been
41:50
Speaker 1: at Susan's funeral and helped her friends through the aftermath
41:53
Speaker 1: of her death. The killer's name was Scott Hatley, and
41:57
Speaker 1: just a week before he killed her, he had been
41:59
Speaker 1: hanging out with the members of the Roundtable and Susan
42:02
Speaker 1: was there. And Susan, who was this you know, very
42:04
Speaker 1: shy gentle person, had sort of opened up around this group.
42:08
Speaker 1: You know, she was feeling happier and happier, largely because
42:11
Speaker 1: this group of friends, including Scott, had been so supportive.
42:15
Speaker 1: You know, she really felt like she belonged here and
42:18
Speaker 1: was safe here. And during that meeting amongst the members
42:21
Speaker 1: of the roundtable, just sort of inexplicably, Susan had looked
42:25
Speaker 1: over at Scott and simply smiled at him, and for
42:28
Speaker 1: that reason, pretty much alone, Scott a week later had
42:32
Speaker 1: shown up on her doorstep and murdered her. By the
42:35
Speaker 1: time Lieutenant Miller put all of this together, Hatlee was
42:39
Speaker 1: forty one years old and was still a free man,
42:41
Speaker 1: and so on June seventh, two thousand and six, Miller
42:44
Speaker 1: had him arrested and charged him with Susan's murder. He
42:47
Speaker 1: would ultimately take a plea deal and was sentenced to
42:50
Speaker 1: thirty years in prison, but would only serve eleven years
42:52
Speaker 1: before he was released for good behavior. However, three years
42:56
Speaker 1: after Hatley got out of prison, he was found dead
42:59
Speaker 1: inside of RV from cancer complications, and among his things
43:04
Speaker 1: investigators would find this handwritten diary where he confessed to
43:08
Speaker 1: Susan's murder.
43:09
Speaker 2: The pages were.
43:10
Speaker 1: Also filled with references to Satan and demons, and Hatley
43:13
Speaker 1: specifically wrote that some kind of outside presence had been
43:17
Speaker 1: responsible for pushing him to ultimately assault and kill Susan.
43:32
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for watching. Let me know what
43:35
Speaker 1: you thought of today's episode in the comments, and remember,
43:37
Speaker 1: we have a whole playlist of true crime episodes ready
43:40
Speaker 1: for you to binge right now, so click here and
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Speaker 1: give them a watch.
43:44
Speaker 2: All Right, until next time, see ya,