Latest / Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast / The Blue Eyed Butcher - Susan Wright

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The Blue Eyed Butcher - Susan Wright · Wicked and Grim: A True Crime Podcast

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: In January of two thousand and three, a Houston mother
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: named Susan Wright walked into a police station to file
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: a domestic violence complaint, and she did so two days
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: after she viciously stabbed her husband and buried him in
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: the backyard. What unfolded next was a case that gripped
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: the nation, blending claims of long term abuse with one
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: of the most brutal homicides in Texas history. Was Susan
• 0:32
  Speaker 1: a battered wife pushed to the edge, or a cold
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: calculated killer hiding behind a carefully crafted tail. This is
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: the story of the Blue Eyed Butcher.
• 0:44
  Speaker 2: My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked Ingram,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: a true crime podcast.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: The following material intended venture audience. Happy, Oh, I think
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: we were both about to stay at the same time.
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: Happy Canada Day. Yes, July first, it's Canada Day.
• 1:26
  Speaker 2: It's Canada Day.
• 1:27
  Speaker 1: And then of course you know we got July fourth
• 1:30
  Speaker 1: coming up for those who are in the US and everything.
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it's just good times all around. Yeah, it's
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: quite a week, and you're annual reminder of be careful
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: with fireworks. In all honesty, we I just don't use fireworks.
• 1:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I mean I get they are pretty. They're
• 1:45
  Speaker 2: pretty purpose and stuff. But yeah, some people are against fireworks,
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: and I guess our hosthold is a.
• 1:50
  Speaker 1: Little They're bad for the environments, you know. They terrify animals,
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: birds die, and dogs run away off leash out of yard.
• 1:58
  Speaker 1: They're scared.
• 2:00
  Speaker 2: It does a lot of damage, but it brings up
• 2:02
  Speaker 2: PTSD for some people.
• 2:03
  Speaker 1: It does. So I mean, enjoy what you need to enjoy.
• 2:07
  Speaker 1: We totally get it. Don't let you, don't let us
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: stop you. However, if you can make the choice, you know,
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: just just think of those around you.
• 2:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Ben's tip of the Day, Yeah, tip of the day.
• 2:18
  Speaker 2: I get those all the time, little like do you
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: know this? Do you know this?
• 2:23
  Speaker 1: Like, I don't know, You're just bends facts the day.
• 2:25
  Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, that's what I called it. I'm always like,
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: oh is that a fat Ben's fact of the day?
• 2:29
  Speaker 1: Yeap, Just little facts that pop up my head all
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: the time. I do a lot of cruising on the
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: internet since I'm like researching true crimes, so I learned
• 2:36
  Speaker 1: a lot of little facts, and yeah, I like to
• 2:38
  Speaker 1: share them.
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: We had to re record our intro because we had
• 2:41
  Speaker 2: a chicken doing an egg song. Our chickens, I feel like,
• 2:45
  Speaker 2: are so loud. I don't know if I need to
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: spend maybe some time with other people's chickens, but I
• 2:51
  Speaker 2: think ours are freaking loud chickens.
• 2:53
  Speaker 1: I think you're just loud in general.
• 2:55
  Speaker 2: I don't the perception of them is they're not. And
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: like when we first got our and they were doing
• 3:00
  Speaker 2: this egg song, I was like, holy shit, what is that.
• 3:03
  Speaker 1: Yeah, people are like, oh, I'm just gonna get hens
• 3:05
  Speaker 1: and not a rooster, because roosters are loud. No, hens
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: are fucking loud.
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: They're loud. Yeah.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: Yeah. They lay an egg and then they sing what
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: they call the egg song. It's basically like, oh my god,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: I just laid an egg and they're like searching for
• 3:16
  Speaker 1: like a rooster to like come over and you know,
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: like protect it and well, you know.
• 3:21
  Speaker 2: And maybe they don't do that so much if there
• 3:24
  Speaker 2: is a rooster, because we don't have a rooster so
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: and we may end up getting one this year, so
• 3:29
  Speaker 2: maybe we'll see.
• 3:30
  Speaker 1: I think they do still sing the egg song, it's
• 3:32
  Speaker 1: just maybe they won't carry on quite as much as
• 3:34
  Speaker 1: ours do. Yeah, they have the rooster. I don't know, huh, Anyways,
• 3:38
  Speaker 1: we got quite the story today. The blue eyed Butcher.
• 3:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that is okay. When you gave me the title
• 3:44
  Speaker 2: the other day, I for some reason didn't think it
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: was a woman.
• 3:47
  Speaker 1: I don't know.
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: I mean because generally, you know, nine times out of ten,
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: I feel like the case is the bad person is
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: the male.
• 3:52
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, perpetrators generally are our men. I'm not
• 3:56
  Speaker 1: going to say it's not true, because it is true.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: So hey, if you went in the direction of thinking
• 4:01
  Speaker 1: it was a dude at first, I can understand.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: Yea whoever, but there are bad women out there too,
• 4:06
  Speaker 2: so I don't if you're a male, I'm not saying
• 4:09
  Speaker 2: you know, it's always you.
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: But and here's the thing though, too, the dude might
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: still be the bad guy in this case.
• 4:16
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, that's true. Actually just throw Yeah.
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: So there is a heated topic about whether Susan is
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: the bad person or not.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: Okay, well, I'm very intrigued to hear. But we do
• 4:29
  Speaker 2: got some patrons to thank for.
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: We do, We certainly do. So shout out to j
• 4:33
  Speaker 1: m Ashley, Lynn, Megan Nak Caprice, and Marie Pierre at Cornew.
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: Hopefully I pronounce your name right.
• 4:41
  Speaker 2: Haunded like you did.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I think I think they might be French.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: And yeah, they just got an episode yesterday exclusive, so
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: that's pretty cool.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: Yeah, a good mystery one too. And there's gonna be
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: a little bit of changes happening over on Patreons soon.
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: We're thinking of we've had a lot of troubles with
• 4:57
  Speaker 1: getting the ad free episodes out to our patrons. It
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: was never really something that we like, oh, you know,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: it's definitely part of Patreon. It was just always just
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: thrown in there because it was it was a good
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: thing to throw in there, you know. But it's just
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• 5:13
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• 5:16
  Speaker 1: to working with different platforms. Everyone works differently, so it's
• 5:19
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• 5:22
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• 5:24
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• 5:27
  Speaker 2: Here soon, yeah, which will be easy peasy.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: So yeah, it will. So it'll make life a lot
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: easier for us and for our patrons. They'll get the
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: ad free all that extra bonus content. So if you're
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: interested in that, go ahead and sign up over in Patreon,
• 5:38
  Speaker 1: you can be that little you know, that community that
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: supports us over there.
• 5:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, we love our patrons for sure.
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: Yeah and if not, hey, we still appreciate you. You
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: can listen to episodes like this the Blue ad Butcher
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: right now.
• 5:49
  Speaker 2: Yeah, okay, I mean I'm going in this in this
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: case for some reason with a judgment just from your intro.
• 5:58
  Speaker 2: So I need to probably like wipe my little.
• 6:00
  Speaker 1: On what's your judgment. I'm curious. I don't know.
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: I think that she was probably provoked.
• 6:07
  Speaker 1: You think she was provoked over I just.
• 6:08
  Speaker 2: Have this feeling, but I have literally no facts about it.
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: So let's hear okay and see.
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: Well, let me tell you the story and you can
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: form your opinions with the actual facts.
• 6:18
  Speaker 2: Yeah sounds good.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: So Susan Wright was just like any young girl growing
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: up in the Houston suburbs. She was born in April
• 6:24
  Speaker 1: twenty fourth of nineteen seventy six, and she was the
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: middle child in a household that, at least from the outside,
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: seemed solid and stable. Her father was a mechanical engineer.
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: Her mother stayed home raising the children, cooking the meals
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: and tending the house. The classic image of a middle
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: class American family sort of thing.
• 6:40
  Speaker 2: I love it now.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Susan's father, by her account, was not just a disciplinarian.
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: He was, in fact violent. His temper loomed over the
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: family like a storm cloud, ready to break at any moment.
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: When he wasn't directing his rage at his wife, It's
• 6:54
  Speaker 1: spilled over under the children. Susan and her siblings learned
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: early to read the room, to stay quiet and disappear
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: when things turn dark.
• 7:04
  Speaker 2: I don't love that, and I think that's sometimes kind
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: of common, too common in which regard well maybe that era,
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: I don't know, but yeah, kids having to like read
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: the room and stuff, you know, like that that goes
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: with you as you get older.
• 7:19
  Speaker 1: What do you mean common though? Common amongst who.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: Like that generation where like kids, you know, the dad
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: has a temper or whatever, and then kids are kind
• 7:28
  Speaker 2: of having to be like, Okay, well I have to
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: act this way if my dad's like in this mood.
• 7:32
  Speaker 1: I'm not I understand what you're saying. I'm not sure.
• 7:34
  Speaker 1: If i'd say it's common in that generation, I would
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: say it's it was more prevalent, get more the farther
• 7:40
  Speaker 1: back you go. But like in the nineteen seventies, you
• 7:43
  Speaker 1: still had a lot of happy, good families and stuff
• 7:44
  Speaker 1: like that.
• 7:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean, I think it can still be a
• 7:47
  Speaker 2: little bit prominent to this day. Like lots of times
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: kids have to be like weary of their parents' mood. Yeah.
• 7:54
  Speaker 1: I think what you trying to say is it's unfortunately
• 7:56
  Speaker 1: more common than we think. Yeah, probably something like that.
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: There you go. I'm not saying all that. Okay, people
• 8:00
  Speaker 2: are gonna be like, holy shit, Nicole's just like, you know,
• 8:03
  Speaker 2: not all dads are like that, but even moms can
• 8:06
  Speaker 2: and like kids have to read rooms and I think
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: that sucks definitely.
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: Now, they didn't talk about these sort of things. They didn't,
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: you know, always ask for help or anything. They smiled
• 8:14
  Speaker 1: in public and walked on eggshells at home. Sort of situation.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: For Susan that childhood it shaped everything. Abuse wasn't something
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: to be escaped from or anything. It was something to
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: be endured, hidden and just absorbed, live with it sort
• 8:29
  Speaker 1: of thing. It was what marriage looked like to her,
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: what love looked like to her. In high school, Susan's
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: sense of self worth was already tangled up in approval,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: especially from men. She craved attention, validation and clung to
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: it whenever she got it. One boyfriend that she eventually
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: had in high school, in fact, even made a cruel
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: remark about her appearance, specifically her weight, and instead of
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: walking away from the situation, she dropped nearly twenty pounds
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: in response.
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: Oh shit, yeah, oh man, probably twenty pounds She didn't
• 9:05
  Speaker 2: even need to drop probably.
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: Yeah. Now, when she was a senior, Susan took a
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: job as an exotic dancer. Not out of rebellion, she
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: would later explain, anyways, but more out of necessity. The
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: work was temporary, just long enough to make enough money
• 9:19
  Speaker 1: to enroll in nursing school. So for eight weeks she danced,
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: saved her tips and her money, and then left that
• 9:26
  Speaker 1: world behind.
• 9:27
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, that's actually surprising. She could just do that
• 9:29
  Speaker 2: for eight.
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: Weeks, say, yeah, didn't get entrapped in that.
• 9:32
  Speaker 2: Or anything when the money is like real good?
• 9:34
  Speaker 1: Yeah, or you know, potentially people who who lure in
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: and trap her in other ways. But I digress. Now,
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: she enrolled in school and started and she took a
• 9:43
  Speaker 1: job at a hair salon to continue to pay bills. However,
• 9:46
  Speaker 1: the demands of education, work and financial pressure eventually became
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: too much for her, and nursing school kind of faded
• 9:53
  Speaker 1: into the background, and this lawn job is kind of
• 9:56
  Speaker 1: all that really remained. That Then, in April of nineteen ninety,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: at just twenty years old, Susan went on a trip
• 10:03
  Speaker 1: to Galveston, Texas with a friend, and that's where she
• 10:06
  Speaker 1: met Jeff. Right. She was just twenty and he was
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: twenty nine, nearly a decade older. He was confident and charismatic.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Jeff swept her off her feet almost immediately, the kind
• 10:18
  Speaker 1: of man who brought flowers without reason, opened car doors
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: and said all the right things. To Susan, whose past
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: relationships had been marked by insecurity, self doubt, Jeff felt
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: like safety. He told her he loved her. Within weeks,
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: he talked about building a future together, starting his own business,
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: raising a family, providing everything they'd ever needed. He made
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: her feel chosen, protected and adored. And when Susan brought
• 10:43
  Speaker 1: Jeff home to meet her parents, they loved him too.
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: There were no red flags then, just plans and promises.
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: When she found out she was pregnant a few months
• 10:52
  Speaker 1: into the relationship, Susan didn't panic. To her, It's just
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: the next step in the family life that finally seemed
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: to be falling into place for her. Jeff's reaction, however,
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: was a little bit more detached. He didn't get angry
• 11:05
  Speaker 1: or anything. He didn't celebrate really either, but he did
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: offer that if she's open for termination, he would be fine.
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: With that, because he was feeling like it was a
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: bit early or something.
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: Maybe potentially he wasn't opposed to a child. He just
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: made sure that, you know, if you want to terminate it,
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: I'll be okay with that. Oh, you know. So it
• 11:24
  Speaker 1: wasn't exactly the reaction she's looking for, but it wasn't
• 11:28
  Speaker 1: the worst reaction in the world either. He wasn't asking
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: her to terminate, just stating he'd be fine with the option.
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: There was that option there available to them if they
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: wanted it exactly.
• 11:37
  Speaker 1: It wasn't exactly what she expected to hear, but Susan
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: did already decide that she wanted to keep the baby,
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: and so the two were married in a small ceremony
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: just outside Houston in October of nineteen ninety eight, just
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: a month before their son, Bradley was born. That should
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: have been a new beginning, but Susan would later say
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: that it was the beginning of something else. Entirely, Jeff changed.
• 12:00
  Speaker 1: The man who once brought her roses now brought insults.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: When Susan gained weight after the pregnancy, Jeff ridiculed her,
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: and when she struggled with postpartum depression he dismissed it.
• 12:11
  Speaker 1: He even refused to let her take her medication that
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: a doctor prescribed her, saying just suck it up and
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: go do your job. Control crept into their relationship like
• 12:19
  Speaker 1: water through a crack, slow and very steady. Susan said
• 12:23
  Speaker 1: that she only was allowed to leave the house for
• 12:26
  Speaker 1: short errands or to visit her mother. If she stayed
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: out too long, she'd come home to shouting in accusations.
• 12:32
  Speaker 1: When she tried to take college classes again, though Jeff
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: said no, however, she went anyways quietly, just once, just
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: to talk about potential online courses. And Jeff found out
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: about this, and the accusation started more. He called her
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: names and accused her of cheating. See, Jeff had a history,
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: one that he never told her about. A year before
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: they met, he pleaded guilty to felony drug possessions. Susan
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: didn't know what the time, but Jeff had been struggling
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: with drugs and alcohol since high school, and now those
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: habits were creeping back into his life. No, according to Susan,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: he smoked marijuana daily, he drank heavily, and some nights
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: he used harder drugs, and when he did he came
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: home angry, and that anger turned violent. Susan said he
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: began hitting her, slamming her against walls, throwing her to
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: the floor, kicking her when she curled up in fear.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: On one road trip to visit her parents, she said
• 13:29
  Speaker 1: that he slammed her head into the dashboard of the
• 13:31
  Speaker 1: vehicle while her young son sat in the back seat.
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: Susan didn't tell anyone, not her family, not her friends.
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: She did what she always did. She stayed quiet, made excuses,
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: and kept the abuse behind closed doors. From the outside
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: the rights, they still looked normal. Their new home that
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: they purchased in nineteen ninety nine sat in a quiet neighborhood.
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: They had a son and a steady income from Jeff's
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: flooring business, and another child now on the way. But
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: Susan would later describe this move not as a fresh start,
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: but as a turning point. Inside the walls of that
• 14:06
  Speaker 1: new home, the abuse worsened. Jeff's temper had become volatile,
• 14:10
  Speaker 1: and the smallest things a late bill, an overcook dinner,
• 14:13
  Speaker 1: or even just a stressful day at work could set
• 14:16
  Speaker 1: him off. She claimed that he would throw her into
• 14:19
  Speaker 1: the walls, punch or kick her, even beat her while
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: she was pregnant, and when she was pregnant. This second time,
• 14:26
  Speaker 1: she said, Jeff assaulted her during an argument, hitting her
• 14:29
  Speaker 1: in the stomach, and not long after she miscarried.
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: Oh no, oh no, oh no okay.
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: There were no police reports, there were no hospital records
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: tying injuries to abuse, no cries for help, But according
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: to Susan, the silence was part of survival. She had
• 14:46
  Speaker 1: grown up in a home where hiding violence was second nature,
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: and now, as a wife and a mother, she was
• 14:51
  Speaker 1: repeating the same pattern, and she stayed. In the summer
• 14:56
  Speaker 1: of nineteen ninety nine, Susan finally broke after another alleged beating.
• 15:01
  Speaker 1: She picked up the phone and called her sister, Cindy,
• 15:04
  Speaker 1: asking for help. For the first time, she admitted that
• 15:07
  Speaker 1: things were bad, worse than anyone knew. Cindy was blindsided
• 15:11
  Speaker 1: by the confession came immediately, bringing her husband and a
• 15:15
  Speaker 1: moving vehicle as well. Together, they helped Susan and little
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: Bradley pack their things and left Jeff behind. It could
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: have been the start of a new chapter, but by
• 15:26
  Speaker 1: the next morning, Jeff was on the phone. His voice, though,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: wasn't apologetic like what many would think. Instead, it was threatening.
• 15:35
  Speaker 1: He told Susan to come home, and he told her
• 15:37
  Speaker 1: to load her things into the van that he was
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: sending and to bring their son to and if she didn't,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: he threatened he would kill them both.
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: Oh okay, this is like messy hay very, and so
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: Susan went back.
• 15:55
  Speaker 1: That return marked another shift, but not in Jeff's behavior,
• 15:58
  Speaker 1: but in Susan's perception of it. She no longer believed
• 16:01
  Speaker 1: that he would stop. She no longer thought that she
• 16:03
  Speaker 1: could wait it out, and when she got pregnant again,
• 16:06
  Speaker 1: she feared it was another reason Jeff would just never
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: let her go. It was December of two thousand and
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: one when Susan was pregnant again, and this time she
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: did carry to term and they had a daughter they
• 16:19
  Speaker 1: named Kayleie. She was born into a household that, according
• 16:22
  Speaker 1: to Susan, was already suffocated with fear, control and violence. Jeff,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: she claimed was still using drugs, including cocaine, which for
• 16:30
  Speaker 1: my research seems to be as drug a choice, and
• 16:33
  Speaker 1: still coming home angry, still accusing her of cheating, still
• 16:36
  Speaker 1: monitoring every move that she made, and through it all,
• 16:39
  Speaker 1: Susan didn't really tell anyone. There was no police reports,
• 16:43
  Speaker 1: friends didn't know, no official files or anything. Just trying
• 16:47
  Speaker 1: to maintain the happy wife, happy home sort of lifestyle
• 16:51
  Speaker 1: and picture that you know, people see from the outside.
• 16:55
  Speaker 1: If she didn't have to leave the house, you know,
• 16:58
  Speaker 1: people didn't see her bruises, they wouldn't ask questions to
• 17:01
  Speaker 1: the outside world. Jeff and Susan were just another young
• 17:03
  Speaker 1: couple raising two kids in a modest Texas home, but
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: behind closed doors, Susan said she was waiting for the inevitable,
• 17:11
  Speaker 1: a moment when Jeff's anger would boil over and she
• 17:13
  Speaker 1: wouldn't survive. That moment she believed was coming fast. And
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: it was Monday, January thirteenth, two thousand and three, and
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: Jeff had just returned home from his weekly boxing class.
• 17:28
  Speaker 1: The kids were getting ready for bed when the house
• 17:30
  Speaker 1: was quiet, but Susan said she knew something was wrong
• 17:33
  Speaker 1: the moment Jeff walked through that door. His eyes were
• 17:36
  Speaker 1: wide and his movements were erratic, and she recognized the
• 17:39
  Speaker 1: signs he was high and from accounts, he was especially
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: wired this time. Jeff called over their four year old son, Bradley,
• 17:47
  Speaker 1: and tried to get him into a little friendly father
• 17:49
  Speaker 1: son sparring match together. It was playfleft first, with little
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: light jabs, teasing, that sort of thing. But then Susan said,
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: Jeff hit their son across the face a little bit
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: too hard, hard enough to leave a mark. When Bradley
• 18:02
  Speaker 1: turned and tried to run, Jeff mocked him and called
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: him names, cruel ones. Susan stepped in, pulled the kids
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: out of the room and got them settled into bed,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: But inside her something had shifted. She said she was
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: done being afraid at this point, done staying quiet, and
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: that night she walked into the bedroom and confronted Jeff.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: She told him that he needed help, that his rage,
• 18:25
  Speaker 1: his addiction, the violence, it had to stop. She told
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: him that he needed to go to therapy or do
• 18:31
  Speaker 1: something before he destroyed their family. Now Jeff, of course,
• 18:36
  Speaker 1: didn't take it.
• 18:36
  Speaker 2: Well, well, yeah, I'm like this, this is not going
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: to go well.
• 18:40
  Speaker 1: According to Susan, Jeff exploded. He shoved her hard against
• 18:45
  Speaker 1: the wall, and then she said he threw her down
• 18:48
  Speaker 1: on the bed and began to sexually assault her. She
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: closed her eyes and braced herself for it, and then
• 18:54
  Speaker 1: when she opened her eyes she saw he had a knife,
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: and in that inn instant she knew he's going to
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: kill me. It was either kill or be killed. For Susan,
• 19:07
  Speaker 1: instincts took over and she kicked him off of her
• 19:10
  Speaker 1: and fought back, and she reached for that knife. She
• 19:13
  Speaker 1: took control and raised the blade over her head and
• 19:15
  Speaker 1: then stabbed Jeff again and again and again. In the
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: moments that followed, Susan said she completely lost control. She
• 19:25
  Speaker 1: didn't count the wounds. She just continued to thrust the
• 19:28
  Speaker 1: knife into the flesh across Jeff's body, into his chest, neck, stomach, legs,
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: and groin. It was rage, terror, and something entirely primal.
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: When it was over, she said she wasn't even sure
• 19:42
  Speaker 1: it was over. In the next room, she heard a
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: small knock at the door. It was her son, Bradley.
• 19:51
  Speaker 1: He said, Mommy, are you okay. Jeff wasn't moving, but
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: Susan said that she couldn't be sure he was dead.
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: She wiped the blood from her skin, tucked Bradley back
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: into bed, told him everything was fine, and went back
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: into the kitchen, grabbed a second knife, and returned to
• 20:07
  Speaker 1: the bedroom, where she stabbed him several more times.
• 20:11
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, okay.
• 20:13
  Speaker 1: That part the second knife would later become a critical
• 20:16
  Speaker 1: detail in the prosecution's argument. But that night, in Susan's mind,
• 20:20
  Speaker 1: she said she wasn't trying to hide a murder. She
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: was trying to make sure he couldn't get back up. Afterwards,
• 20:26
  Speaker 1: she sat down on the couch, knife in hand, staring
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: at that bedroom door, certain Jeff would come through and
• 20:32
  Speaker 1: finish her off, and finish whatever he started at any minute.
• 20:37
  Speaker 1: But Jeff didn't come through that door. He was already dead,
• 20:42
  Speaker 1: and Susan had just crossed the point of no return.
• 20:47
  Speaker 1: When morning came on January fourteenth, two thousand and three,
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: Jeff was lifeless, long lifeless. But the rest of the
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: world didn't know that, and Susan wasn't ready to tell
• 20:56
  Speaker 1: them either. She later claimed that she had been in
• 20:59
  Speaker 1: a emotionally shut down, functioning on instinct, and she did
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: What she did next wasn't planned on in advance or anything,
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: she said, but what followed looked, at least on paper,
• 21:12
  Speaker 1: like a cover up. The bedroom was saturated in blood. Carpets,
• 21:17
  Speaker 1: the curtain, furniture, all of it. There was blood everywhere.
• 21:22
  Speaker 1: She cleaned what she could with bleach, cut out sections
• 21:25
  Speaker 1: of the bedroom, carpet, painted over stains, scrub surfaces. She
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: brought bought more cleaning supplies and tried to make it
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: look like nothing had happened in that room. But the
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: mess was just way too big to get under control.
• 21:36
  Speaker 1: She hadn't called police over the incident. Instead, she turned
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: to the backyard. See a few months earlier, Jeff had
• 21:42
  Speaker 1: dug a hole outside planning to install a fountain, but
• 21:46
  Speaker 1: he hadn't finished the project yet. The hole was still
• 21:48
  Speaker 1: there and it was deep enough, Susan thought to serve
• 21:52
  Speaker 1: a new purpose. She used a dolly from the garage
• 21:55
  Speaker 1: to move Jeff's body, and then she wheeled him through
• 21:58
  Speaker 1: the house, out the back door, and into the new
• 22:01
  Speaker 1: makeshift grave. He was buried naked in a shallow hole
• 22:05
  Speaker 1: beneath the swing set their kids played on. When Jeff's
• 22:08
  Speaker 1: parents called later that day, she answered the phone and
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: told them that he had gotten angry and left after
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: a fight. Even added that he poured bleach on the
• 22:17
  Speaker 1: bedroom carpet before storming out to almost seemingly cover up
• 22:20
  Speaker 1: the chemical scent in their home. She told the same
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: story to a neighbor and Jeff's boss. When he called
• 22:28
  Speaker 1: she was laying groundwork. Jeff was angry, unpredictable, maybe dangerous,
• 22:31
  Speaker 1: but no one knew the truth just yet. Then on
• 22:34
  Speaker 1: January fifteenth, Susan did something no one expected. She walked
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: into the Harris County Constable's office and filed a domestic
• 22:42
  Speaker 1: violence report against her husband. She told police that Jeff
• 22:47
  Speaker 1: had been physically abusive, that he hit her, he'd struck
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: their son, and she showed officers photos of bruises and
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: injuries on her body, and she asked for a restraining
• 22:55
  Speaker 1: order to protect her and her kids. But she still
• 22:59
  Speaker 1: didn't tell them really happened, that Jeff was dead, that
• 23:02
  Speaker 1: she was the one who killed him, that his body
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: was in the backyard buried. In the days that followed,
• 23:08
  Speaker 1: friends and family kept calling, but Susan avoided them. She
• 23:11
  Speaker 1: stayed in the house. She tried to act normal, but
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: the guilt, she would later say, was starting to surface,
• 23:17
  Speaker 1: and so was the fear. Then came the night of
• 23:20
  Speaker 1: January eighteenth. That was the night that the family dog
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: was digging in the yard and began pulling something out
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: of the dirt. Oh Man, Susan walked outside and found
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: the dog chewing on what looked like a piece of
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: meat on the patio shit. It was Jeff's hand. Part
• 23:39
  Speaker 1: of his head and shoulders had been exposed from the
• 23:41
  Speaker 1: dirt too. Susan panicked and she packed the kids in
• 23:44
  Speaker 1: the car and drove to her mother's house. There, she
• 23:47
  Speaker 1: broke down and told her mother everything that had happened,
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: that Jeff was dead, that she killed them. Her mother
• 23:55
  Speaker 1: sent the children to stay with her aunt, and together
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: they found a lawyer, Neil Davis, before they went to
• 24:01
  Speaker 1: the police. But it wasn't them who went to the
• 24:04
  Speaker 1: police though. Hours later, the lawyer Davis walked into the
• 24:09
  Speaker 1: Harris County District Attorney's office with a message, if you
• 24:13
  Speaker 1: go to this address, you'll find a body buried in
• 24:16
  Speaker 1: the yard. He offered no explanations, no names, just the facts.
• 24:21
  Speaker 1: By the time detectives arrived at the right residence on
• 24:24
  Speaker 1: January eighteenth, two thousand and three, and stepped into the backyard,
• 24:27
  Speaker 1: it didn't take long. Under the swing set buried in
• 24:30
  Speaker 1: a shallow grave was a partially uncovered body of Jeff Wright.
• 24:35
  Speaker 1: His head, arm, and shoulders had been exposed. His hand
• 24:38
  Speaker 1: had been gnawed off by the family dog, and pieces
• 24:40
  Speaker 1: of it were scattered across the patio.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, that is just like like quite a scene.
• 24:46
  Speaker 1: It is the scene.
• 24:47
  Speaker 2: Literally.
• 24:48
  Speaker 1: The next words I have is the scene was grim.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and plus still there would be like some
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: evidence and shit in the bedroom and I guess feeling
• 24:56
  Speaker 2: like this might not have been handled the best of ways.
• 24:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so the scene was grim, but inside the house
• 25:03
  Speaker 1: was just as telling. You're nailing what I'm talking about here.
• 25:06
  Speaker 1: Investigators found a master bedroom in disarray, furniture move bleach stains,
• 25:10
  Speaker 1: and a large section of carpet cut out. There was
• 25:12
  Speaker 1: still blood in the curtains, the walls, the mattress, the nightstand.
• 25:16
  Speaker 1: There was also a seat for two gallons of bleach
• 25:18
  Speaker 1: found in the trash out in the flower pot on
• 25:21
  Speaker 1: the patio, police discovered a hunting knife that had been
• 25:24
  Speaker 1: tucked away poorly concealed.
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: Huh.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: There was no question of violent confrontation had taken place here,
• 25:29
  Speaker 1: The only question was what kind. Within hours, detectives confirmed
• 25:34
  Speaker 1: the identity of the body. It was, in fact Jeff Wright,
• 25:37
  Speaker 1: age thirty four, and house clearly belonged to Susan Wright,
• 25:40
  Speaker 1: but she was nowhere to be found. But they didn't
• 25:43
  Speaker 1: have to search long. Susan had already confessed to her
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: attorney and her mother, and according to Davis, her lawyer,
• 25:49
  Speaker 1: Susan was not hiding. She was being held at a
• 25:51
  Speaker 1: psychiatric facility, still experiencing what he called a mental break
• 25:56
  Speaker 1: that began the night of the killing and had not
• 25:58
  Speaker 1: ended yet.
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: I could say one quick thing, so I don't forget,
• 26:01
  Speaker 2: but like the fact that a hunting knife was concealed
• 26:07
  Speaker 2: is kind of that kind of shows that maybe he
• 26:09
  Speaker 2: did actually start it, because I don't feel like that
• 26:12
  Speaker 2: would have necessarily been her weapon of choice initially. So
• 26:17
  Speaker 2: that story of him, like her opening her eyes and
• 26:20
  Speaker 2: him having a knife, it kind of makes sense that
• 26:22
  Speaker 2: it would be like a hunting knife.
• 26:24
  Speaker 1: H I disagree, do you? I do disagree. I mean,
• 26:28
  Speaker 1: maybe he's more likely to have a hunting knife than her.
• 26:31
  Speaker 1: You can argue that, sure, But maybe if she's angry
• 26:34
  Speaker 1: at him and she attacks him, she finds the knife,
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: she grabs one of his knives closed by in the bedroom.
• 26:39
  Speaker 1: Maybe in fact, she wants to use that knife because
• 26:42
  Speaker 1: she wants to use his own knife against him. There's
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: reason for her to use it.
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Yeah, just so far, I'm like this, I mean, we
• 26:50
  Speaker 2: very much so are only getting one side one hundred percent.
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: But like everything I've talked about so far is what
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: Susan reported exactly.
• 26:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, but it also doesn't seem like she really went
• 27:03
  Speaker 2: about planning this per se, because like she's done some
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: shit wrong from my perception.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Well, possibly there are some details that might might make
• 27:15
  Speaker 1: you think a little bit differently, but we'll talk about it,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: don't you worry. Okay, So she was having her her
• 27:20
  Speaker 1: mental break still and was in a psychiatric facility. She
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: reportedly refused to sleep, was staying up all night, sat
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: on the couch with a knife in her hand, convinced
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: Jeff would come back for it any moment, even after
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: she buried him. But when law enforcement called her attorney
• 27:35
  Speaker 1: for details, Davis refused to share more, citing attorney client privileges.
• 27:40
  Speaker 1: But the one thing he did confirm was yes, Susan
• 27:43
  Speaker 1: did kill her husband. The autopsy soon confirmed the brutality
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: of the attack too. Jeff had been stabbed a staggering
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: one hundred and ninety three times.
• 27:56
  Speaker 2: Holy shit, that is.
• 28:00
  Speaker 1: The wounds were all over his body, chest, neck, abdomen, groin, thighs, back, face,
• 28:06
  Speaker 1: you name it. Some cuts were shallow, others were deep
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: enough to sever arteries. The tip of the knife, in fact,
• 28:13
  Speaker 1: had even been broken off inside his skull.
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh.
• 28:17
  Speaker 1: But one discovery stood out amongst the chaos. Red candlewax
• 28:22
  Speaker 1: was found on Jeff's inner thigh and around his genitals.
• 28:26
  Speaker 1: That detail did not match any of Susan's story.
• 28:31
  Speaker 2: Huh yeah, that's a bit odd, hey.
• 28:34
  Speaker 1: And neither did the bindings they found around his wrist
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: and ankles when they removed him from the dirt.
• 28:40
  Speaker 2: Uh oh.
• 28:42
  Speaker 1: He was bound using neckties and bathrobe sashes, tightly secured.
• 28:46
  Speaker 1: If Jeff had been the one to attack Susan and
• 28:50
  Speaker 1: Susan was doing it in self defense, as she claimed,
• 28:53
  Speaker 1: why was he tied up?
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: So it almost seems like they were maybe doing some
• 28:57
  Speaker 2: sort of other act and she and took advantage of something. Hmmm, okay, okay.
• 29:05
  Speaker 1: So to police and prosecutors, this looked less like a
• 29:08
  Speaker 1: spontaneous act of fear and more like something else. By
• 29:11
  Speaker 1: the time Susan turned herself in on January twenty fourth,
• 29:14
  Speaker 1: two thousand and three, eleven days after killing her husband.
• 29:17
  Speaker 1: Her defense team had a clear message, this wasn't murder.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: This was a battered woman pushed beyond her limit, a
• 29:23
  Speaker 1: wife who had tried everything, who was convinced that she
• 29:26
  Speaker 1: and her children wouldn't survive unless she acted first. But
• 29:29
  Speaker 1: the Harris County District Attorney's office didn't see it that way.
• 29:32
  Speaker 1: The prosecutor, Kelly Siegler. The scene told a different story
• 29:37
  Speaker 1: to Kelly, and it didn't match Susan's version. Yes, Susan
• 29:40
  Speaker 1: admitted to stabbing Jeff, but she also claimed she did
• 29:43
  Speaker 1: it in the middle of an assault, that he was
• 29:45
  Speaker 1: on top of her, armed with a knife and she
• 29:47
  Speaker 1: grabbed it to defend herself, that she snapped, that she
• 29:51
  Speaker 1: acted out of terror. The physical evidence painted a far
• 29:54
  Speaker 1: more calculated image. Jeff was tied up brist's ankles, bound
• 29:59
  Speaker 1: before or during the attack. Medical examiners said that he
• 30:03
  Speaker 1: was alive during the first wave of stabbing, that the
• 30:06
  Speaker 1: number and location of wounds suggested not a frantic act
• 30:10
  Speaker 1: of self defense, but a prolonged assault. So, as far
• 30:14
  Speaker 1: as I'm aware, there were no defense wounds on Jeff.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: Oh boy, And I'm saying that with a caveat as
• 30:23
  Speaker 1: far as I'm aware, far as what I could find,
• 30:25
  Speaker 1: there were no defense wounds. And then there's a candle
• 30:28
  Speaker 1: wax found near Jeff's groin. It suggested something ritualistic, maybe sexual,
• 30:34
  Speaker 1: or even staged, and Susan had no explanation for it.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: Later she claimed that the candle maybe fought, fell over
• 30:41
  Speaker 1: during the fight and the wax spilt accidentally, but prosecutors
• 30:45
  Speaker 1: found that hard to believe, especially when paired with the bindings,
• 30:49
  Speaker 1: not to mention that he was found buried nude.
• 30:53
  Speaker 2: And so the bindings were left on him correct at
• 30:58
  Speaker 2: once she buried him?
• 30:59
  Speaker 1: Yes, okay. Even more damning, there was a life insurance
• 31:04
  Speaker 1: policy involved. Jeff was insured for two hundred thousand dollars,
• 31:09
  Speaker 1: and just a week before his death, a coworker testified
• 31:12
  Speaker 1: that Susan had called the office, pressuring Jeff to complete
• 31:16
  Speaker 1: the paperwork related to this policy. That same coworker remember
• 31:20
  Speaker 1: Jeff joking on the phone saying, quote, if I die,
• 31:23
  Speaker 1: you'll be a very rich woman.
• 31:27
  Speaker 2: Oh my goodness, this is not going well.
• 31:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, this doesn't sound like a frantic decision of someone
• 31:33
  Speaker 1: in fear. It sounds more like a motive.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it's going downhill, that's for sure.
• 31:39
  Speaker 1: They also presented a character argument, painting Susan not like
• 31:43
  Speaker 1: not just as a manipulator, but as a woman who
• 31:45
  Speaker 1: had been planning this killing.
• 31:47
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
• 31:48
  Speaker 1: They brought up her past work as a dancer, suggesting
• 31:51
  Speaker 1: she used her sexuality to control the situations. They pointed
• 31:55
  Speaker 1: to the fact that Susan didn't file a police report
• 31:57
  Speaker 1: until after the murder, and only when people started asking questions.
• 32:03
  Speaker 1: When questioned about the restraints, Susan claimed that she used
• 32:06
  Speaker 1: the necktie and bathrobes bathrobe sash I should say after
• 32:11
  Speaker 1: Jeff was dead to secure his body to the dolly
• 32:14
  Speaker 1: so that she could move him outside and prevent his
• 32:16
  Speaker 1: body from falling off in that process of moving him.
• 32:20
  Speaker 1: She insisted they weren't used to tie him down during
• 32:22
  Speaker 1: the attack. However, prosecutors weren't buying it. The prosecution's position
• 32:28
  Speaker 1: was clear, Susan lured Jeff into the bedroom, tied him
• 32:31
  Speaker 1: up under the pretense of sex, and executed a calculated,
• 32:36
  Speaker 1: vicious murder on him. They weren't denying the possibility that
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: abuse had occurred in the marriage, whatever the severity, But
• 32:44
  Speaker 1: they argued it didn't justify what happened that night, Not
• 32:47
  Speaker 1: one hundred and ninety three stab wounds, not the cover up,
• 32:51
  Speaker 1: not the lies. This wasn't about escape, they said. It
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: was about control, anger, and money. The trial of Susan
• 33:01
  Speaker 1: Wright began on February two thousand and four, just over
• 33:04
  Speaker 1: a year after Jeff's death. It was, by all accounts,
• 33:07
  Speaker 1: a courtroom drama unlike the Harris County had seen in
• 33:11
  Speaker 1: so many years.
• 33:12
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, this would be like a hot new hot news. Really.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: At the center of it all was prosecutor Kelly Siegler,
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: a season's attorney with a reputation for sharp instincts and
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: commanding presents. She wasn't just a wasn't just presenting a case.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: She was building a whole performance. She knew how to
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: hold the jury's attention. But before she can get to
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: this performance, we'll call it first, the defense had their say.
• 33:39
  Speaker 1: Susan took the stand and told her story with remarkable poise.
• 33:43
  Speaker 1: She described years of a brute abuse, physical, emotional, sexual.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: She told about being slammed into walls, beaten in front
• 33:50
  Speaker 1: of the children, controlled, insulted, isolated, told the jury about
• 33:54
  Speaker 1: January thirteenth, two thousand and three, when Jeff came home
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: high and cocaine allegedly hit their son, about how she
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: confronted him, and about the moment that he threw her
• 34:03
  Speaker 1: onto the bed, and about the knife. She said she
• 34:07
  Speaker 1: was terrified, that she believed he was going to kill her,
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: that she started stabbing and she couldn't stop herself. It
• 34:14
  Speaker 1: was the same story that she told her lawyer, her
• 34:16
  Speaker 1: mother hang even eventually police. She told it calmly, without hesitation,
• 34:20
  Speaker 1: sticking to every detail, but the prosecution still was not convinced.
• 34:25
  Speaker 1: Siegler believed Susan's testimony was practiced a little too practiced.
• 34:31
  Speaker 1: The prosecution, when it was their turn, brought in Jeff
• 34:35
  Speaker 1: and Susan Wright's actual mattress from the murder scene, the
• 34:39
  Speaker 1: blood stained one. It was all caught up the real
• 34:42
  Speaker 1: bed where the murder had taken place. In front of
• 34:46
  Speaker 1: the jury. Siegler instructed a young male helper to lie
• 34:49
  Speaker 1: down on the mattress. Then she climbed on top of him,
• 34:53
  Speaker 1: tied his wrist to the bed posts with a neck tie.
• 34:56
  Speaker 2: She's really committing.
• 34:58
  Speaker 1: And she held the actual murder weapon up in the air,
• 35:01
  Speaker 1: the knife taken from the right home.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, I didn't realize people did stuff like
• 35:06
  Speaker 2: this in court.
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: And she began to reenact the murder step by step,
• 35:10
  Speaker 1: mimicking what she said Susan had done to Jeff that night.
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: Whoa.
• 35:15
  Speaker 1: The room was silent. Some called this brilliant trial strategy.
• 35:22
  Speaker 1: Others said it was pure theater sensationalism, meant to shock
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: the jury. But whatever you want to call it, it worked.
• 35:29
  Speaker 1: In Siegler's words, you have to make it come alive.
• 35:34
  Speaker 1: She believed the jury needed to see it, to feel
• 35:36
  Speaker 1: the rage, the intent, the brutality, not just hear it.
• 35:40
  Speaker 1: When the dramatization was over, the message was clear. It
• 35:43
  Speaker 1: wasn't a frantic struggle. This was a deliberate act. And
• 35:46
  Speaker 1: the jury deliberated for just five hours and they found
• 35:50
  Speaker 1: Susan Wright guilty of first degree murder and she was
• 35:53
  Speaker 1: sentenced to twenty five years in prison.
• 35:57
  Speaker 2: Damn. I'm just sitting here shock too that the lawyer
• 36:01
  Speaker 2: did that. Yeah, I don't know, I haven't heard anything
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: like that before.
• 36:05
  Speaker 1: That's a picture. Hey, not even just fully re enacting,
• 36:09
  Speaker 1: you're taking in the real mattress, the real murder weapon, damn.
• 36:13
  Speaker 1: And it's not like mannekins. No, She's literally climbing on
• 36:17
  Speaker 1: top of this dude, like full out.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: It almost seems like completely like, yeah, it seems completely savage,
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: but also like potentially brilliant.
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and that's what she was relying on, was basically theater.
• 36:30
  Speaker 2: It almost seems like that shouldn't be allowed though to
• 36:34
  Speaker 2: I don't.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: Know, fair, fair, I don't know. So with this verdict,
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: the national media gave her a name that would follow
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: her for the rest of her life, the Blue Eyed Butcher.
• 36:46
  Speaker 1: After the trial, Susan Wright was led away to begin
• 36:49
  Speaker 1: her twenty five year sentence, But even as a public
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: absorbed the drama from the verdict, her legal team was
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: already planning a comeback. By late two thousand and four,
• 36:58
  Speaker 1: Susan had a new attorney, and Weiss. His goal wasn't
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: to argue innocence. That part was over. Everyone knew she
• 37:05
  Speaker 1: killed her husband. The strategy focused on how the trial unfolded.
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Weiss believed Susan's original defense failed her, and he had
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: a list of many reasons why first key witnesses were
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: not called to the stand, Among them a psychologist who
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: had treated Susan after the murder. He would have testified
• 37:25
  Speaker 1: that she was suffering from a post traumatic stress disorder
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: or PTSD, and that she entered a disassociative state during
• 37:32
  Speaker 1: the stabbing, the kind of psychological break commonly seen in
• 37:35
  Speaker 1: survivors of long term abuse. Then there was Misty Michaels,
• 37:40
  Speaker 1: a former girlfriend of Jeff Wright. See Misty had filed
• 37:43
  Speaker 1: the police report years before Susan never met Jeff. She
• 37:46
  Speaker 1: said Jeff had beaten her, thrown her down a flight
• 37:48
  Speaker 1: of stairs, and spent a night in jail for it.
• 37:51
  Speaker 1: Even wooh. She also described his controlling, manipulative, and violent
• 37:55
  Speaker 1: traits that mirrored Susan's own claims. None of this was
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: present presented to the jury.
• 38:01
  Speaker 2: What the like in the first one? You mean?
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Correct?
• 38:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah?
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: The defense also never brought in a domestic violence expert
• 38:08
  Speaker 1: who explains how cycles of abuse can trap victims in
• 38:12
  Speaker 1: silence and why so few survivors leave and how fear
• 38:15
  Speaker 1: becomes normalized over time. Meanwhile, Siegler's theatrical courtroom reenactment had
• 38:21
  Speaker 1: left an outsized impression towis it blurred the line between
• 38:26
  Speaker 1: evidence and drama. He argued that the mattress scene might
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: have won a conviction, but it clouded the facts with
• 38:33
  Speaker 1: performance and may have unfairly swayed the jury.
• 38:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I agree there.
• 38:39
  Speaker 1: In two thousand and nine, after years of legal motions,
• 38:43
  Speaker 1: the judge agreed Susan's defense at trial had been ineffective,
• 38:47
  Speaker 1: and the court ruled that she was to have a
• 38:50
  Speaker 1: reopened case for resentencing, not conviction, because that's already done. Yeah,
• 38:56
  Speaker 1: just resentencing. This time. The court for Misty Michaels from
• 39:01
  Speaker 1: mental health professionals, from experts who testified about Susan's mental
• 39:04
  Speaker 1: state and the psychological toll of long term domestic abuse.
• 39:08
  Speaker 1: The original conviction was upheld. She remained guilty of murder,
• 39:12
  Speaker 1: but the sentence was reduced and Susan's right's time in
• 39:14
  Speaker 1: prison was cut from twenty five years to twenty years.
• 39:18
  Speaker 1: It wasn't freedom, but it was a shift. After the resentencing,
• 39:23
  Speaker 1: Susan Wright served several more years in prison. Her story
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: largely faded from the headlines, but behind the scenes, her
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: attorney continued advocating for parole, and in twenty twenty she
• 39:33
  Speaker 1: finally was granted it. After nearly sixteen years behind bars,
• 39:38
  Speaker 1: Susan Wright walked out of prison, but her release didn't
• 39:41
  Speaker 1: come out come without restrictions. Let's say, for the next
• 39:45
  Speaker 1: several years, she remained under intensive supervision. She wore GPS
• 39:49
  Speaker 1: ankle monitor, attended anger management classes, and was monitored closely
• 39:54
  Speaker 1: by parole Board. She was free, was able to see
• 39:57
  Speaker 1: her children, who were now grown in live a life
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: that had once seemed impossible. For many. Her release stirred
• 40:04
  Speaker 1: renewed debate. To some, she had served her time. They
• 40:07
  Speaker 1: saw a woman who had endured abuse, snapped under unbearable pressure,
• 40:11
  Speaker 1: and paid dearly for it. They saw the broken legal defense,
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: the mist evidence, the signs that Jeff had indeed been
• 40:19
  Speaker 1: violent and abusive. They believed prison had done their job,
• 40:22
  Speaker 1: and that Susan, once a victim, deserved a second chance.
• 40:26
  Speaker 1: But to others, the crime still spoke much louder. They
• 40:30
  Speaker 1: saw one hundred and ninety three stab wounds, the bleach,
• 40:34
  Speaker 1: the lies, the hasty burial. They remembered the bindings, the candlewax,
• 40:39
  Speaker 1: the re enactment in the courtroom, the life insurance policy.
• 40:43
  Speaker 1: To those people, Susan Wright wasn't just a victim. She
• 40:47
  Speaker 1: was also a cold blooded killer who manipulated the system. Susan,
• 40:52
  Speaker 1: for her part, hasn't spoken publicly at length since her release,
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: but one quote made years later still lingers in the air.
• 40:59
  Speaker 1: A bit quote, isn't it strange that I had to
• 41:02
  Speaker 1: come to prison to finally feel safe? Whether it was
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: a confession of trauma or a line of sympathy, it
• 41:11
  Speaker 1: still says everything. The story of Susan Wright isn't an
• 41:14
  Speaker 1: easy one to categorize or digest. On the surface, it's
• 41:18
  Speaker 1: a case of murder. A man stab one hundred and
• 41:21
  Speaker 1: ninety three times, his body, bound, buried his wife, cleaning
• 41:24
  Speaker 1: a crime scene, told no one, no police reports or anything,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: and only did talk about it when people grew suspicious,
• 41:31
  Speaker 1: and for many it's unforgivable. But underneath that there's another story,
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: one filled with trauma, silence, and survival. Susan Wright told
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: a consistent narrative of abuse, years of violence, fear, humiliation.
• 41:48
  Speaker 1: She said she was trapped, isolated, and convinced Jeff was
• 41:52
  Speaker 1: going to kill her if she ever tried to leave again.
• 41:56
  Speaker 1: There's even supporting testimony photos an ex girlfriend and with
• 42:00
  Speaker 1: a nearly identical story, even a psychologist who diagnosed her
• 42:03
  Speaker 1: with PTSD. So which is it a premeditated killing? Carried
• 42:08
  Speaker 1: out under the guise of victimhood or a victim's last
• 42:12
  Speaker 1: desperate act to survive. The truth may live somewhere in between. Honestly,
• 42:18
  Speaker 1: in that gray space where trauma meets violence, that self
• 42:22
  Speaker 1: defense that bleeds into rage, there's justice that has to
• 42:27
  Speaker 1: navigate what can can't always be proven. The law demands clarity,
• 42:34
  Speaker 1: juries want answers, but real life, especially behind closed doors,
• 42:37
  Speaker 1: rarely offers either of these. What the Susan Right case
• 42:41
  Speaker 1: exposes was a justice system not only interpreting evidence, but
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: deciding how much abuse is enough to justify a violent
• 42:49
  Speaker 1: act and how to weigh a victim silence, when so
• 42:53
  Speaker 1: often silence is how victims survive. Jeff Right lost his
• 42:58
  Speaker 1: life in a horrific way. We can't deny that his
• 43:00
  Speaker 1: children lost a father, his family lost a son and
• 43:03
  Speaker 1: a brother. It can't be softened, and it shouldn't be.
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: But Susan Wright lost something too, And to me, the
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: real tragedy began in that long before she ever even
• 43:14
  Speaker 1: picked up that knife. And that's the story of the
• 43:17
  Speaker 1: Blue Eyed Butcher. Susan Wright.
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: Damn, I was just like very quiet during that episode.
• 43:26
  Speaker 2: I feel like midway through maybe because I was just
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: like actively listening in all the frickin' details.
• 43:35
  Speaker 1: There's a lot in this one, and it is. It's
• 43:37
  Speaker 1: one of those ones where you can't be sure of
• 43:39
  Speaker 1: either side. Yeah, no matter how strongly you feel on one,
• 43:42
  Speaker 1: there's a bit drawing you to the other side too.
• 43:46
  Speaker 2: Well. Okay, I do have like a lot to say
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: because I think people can turn into complete assholes under
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: the influence, and he did have a problem, oh yeah.
• 43:55
  Speaker 2: And I do think she could have gotten away with
• 43:58
  Speaker 2: this if she say, you know, stabbed him maybe even
• 44:03
  Speaker 2: outwards of forty times and then but like one hundred
• 44:07
  Speaker 2: and ninety three or whatever the hell it was is unreal.
• 44:11
  Speaker 2: And then say she stabbed him like, let's just say
• 44:13
  Speaker 2: forty one times and then phoned the police. Yep, then maybe,
• 44:19
  Speaker 2: you know, maybe, But I feel like everything that she
• 44:23
  Speaker 2: did too, it's just it's very questionable, I guess.
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah. See, I do think that she I mean, I'm
• 44:32
  Speaker 1: not questioning at all the abuse she went through. Now,
• 44:35
  Speaker 1: I firmly believe that she was significantly abused.
• 44:39
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and that's what I'm saying, Like, she probably went
• 44:40
  Speaker 2: through some shit, and that's why I'm like, you know,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: if this was handled maybe a bit differently, she could have, yeah,
• 44:48
  Speaker 2: got away with it. I guess.
• 44:49
  Speaker 1: So in all that, she's definitely the victim. But I
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: also think that she is a cold blooded killer because
• 44:55
  Speaker 1: I think she planned this. Now, she may have been,
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: like it may have been a revenge because of all
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: this shit he's not saying he didn't kind of fucking
• 45:03
  Speaker 1: deserve it.
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: Well, like, yeah, she her life was probably at risk.
• 45:07
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so I do think that this started off under
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: the guise of some sexual act. Him being tied up,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: As far as I can find, no defensive wounds or
• 45:16
  Speaker 1: minimum defensive wounds, the candle wax on the genitals, him
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: being nude. It leads to the fact of him potentially
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: being on the bed and her taking advantage of the situation.
• 45:27
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it wasn't what she said where he was about
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: to kind of like assault her.
• 45:33
  Speaker 1: I don't think she snapped in a moment in defense.
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: She planned an attack. She may have had reasons to
• 45:40
  Speaker 1: plan an attack, very good reason to potentially plan an attack,
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: But I do believe was planned. I do believe was premeditated.
• 45:46
  Speaker 1: I do believe she was searching for a life insurance
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: policy out of him.
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, because that was even when you said the
• 45:55
  Speaker 2: original story that she had where he was, you know,
• 45:59
  Speaker 2: about to like assault her and had a weapon. Yeah,
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: it did seem far fetched to me that she would
• 46:05
  Speaker 2: be able to turn this around and go about killing him.
• 46:08
  Speaker 2: Say he would, he would you know, most likely be
• 46:11
  Speaker 2: stronger than her and be able to like defend himself
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: from that exactly.
• 46:14
  Speaker 1: And anything I can really find, there's not a whole
• 46:16
  Speaker 1: lot of description on like how she overpowered him really.
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, So, I mean he was under the influence most likely,
• 46:24
  Speaker 2: so maybe you know, and he was taken aback that
• 46:28
  Speaker 2: she turned on him, but I feel like he probably
• 46:32
  Speaker 2: would have been able to defend himself from that.
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: I And honestly, like if someone's hiding cocaine too, it's
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: almost like he kind of like don't get me wrong,
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: this isn't coming from experience, never done it, but for
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: my perception people, it's almost like a superpower. Like you
• 46:46
  Speaker 1: take cocaine, you're like whoa, like you're fucking ready to
• 46:48
  Speaker 1: go sort of thing.
• 46:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah. So so I yeah, when you were saying that,
• 46:53
  Speaker 2: I did find that a little bit odd that she
• 46:56
  Speaker 2: was able to just easily do that.
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So, in my opinion, she is a murderer, but also,
• 47:05
  Speaker 1: in my opinion, she served time for the crime. She's
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: out I think completely slight clean now because she deserved
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: to serve the time. But she deserves a life away
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: from him, and she deserves a fresh start, so she
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: did the crime, serve the time. I am one hundred
• 47:23
  Speaker 1: percent being like, you go, girl, go live your life now.
• 47:25
  Speaker 1: You know what. I'm not going to sit here and
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: say you are the blue eyed butcher. This story sure
• 47:30
  Speaker 1: has that title.
• 47:31
  Speaker 2: But Susan Wright, well, yeah, that's that kind of title.
• 47:34
  Speaker 2: Almost seems like it would be for like a serial killer,
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: which she is not.
• 47:38
  Speaker 1: Well, I think that comes because of the almost two
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: hundred stab wounds.
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: Okay, I think that's right, I guess. But yeah, it's
• 47:46
  Speaker 2: pretty terrible too, Like I know, it's it's hard to
• 47:50
  Speaker 2: understand too, because like she was a mom, and she
• 47:53
  Speaker 2: would know that what she did here like would make
• 47:56
  Speaker 2: her kids all of a sudden, you know, not have
• 47:59
  Speaker 2: a mom or dad? Yeah, right, was she not think
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: like did she not think that?
• 48:03
  Speaker 1: Well at that point though too, like you gotta you
• 48:05
  Speaker 1: don't have a whole lot of options, right.
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: Well, and I guess if he's you know, was moving
• 48:09
  Speaker 2: to abuse them and stuff, exactly.
• 48:11
  Speaker 1: So she's protecting them, right, So her and her kids
• 48:15
  Speaker 1: are definitely victims. Like I said, I don't doubt that.
• 48:18
  Speaker 1: But at some point she moved from victim to murderer.
• 48:21
  Speaker 1: Now she took.
• 48:22
  Speaker 2: Sit in her own hands. Really, at some.
• 48:23
  Speaker 1: Point she may have had reason to do so, which
• 48:26
  Speaker 1: is why I don't hold anything against her. Yeah, did
• 48:28
  Speaker 1: the crime, she served the time done. We're over, Susan,
• 48:33
  Speaker 1: you go do you no? You know what I mean?
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, and yeah it does. There's a lot
• 48:39
  Speaker 2: leading to that it was probably premeditated, right.
• 48:42
  Speaker 1: So well, there's a lot of like serial killers and
• 48:44
  Speaker 1: stuff where like I hope they fucking burn, hopefully they rot.
• 48:46
  Speaker 1: They should be locked behind bars forever. That's not the
• 48:49
  Speaker 1: case with Susan in my opinion. No, you killed someone. Yes,
• 48:54
  Speaker 1: you need to be apprehended, and you can't just go
• 48:58
  Speaker 1: about doing that. They really she had reason.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: They really weren't together long either, Hey, like no, not
• 49:03
  Speaker 2: really five years or something.
• 49:05
  Speaker 1: So this is one of those ones where we get
• 49:08
  Speaker 1: pulled in both directions and it's like there's no real
• 49:10
  Speaker 1: definitive answer. But if you guys have a thought on it,
• 49:12
  Speaker 1: make sure you message us, give us an email. We're
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: curious and where your head lays, we'd love to know.
• 49:17
  Speaker 1: All the links are in the description of this podcast.
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: We are an independent podcast produced, researched, host, recorded, audio
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: engineer all the stuff we do on our little lonesome
• 49:27
  Speaker 1: in our little tiny home.
• 49:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah, our little life, our little life.
• 49:33
  Speaker 1: But yeah, thank you for being here. Hopefully enjoyed the episode.
• 49:36
  Speaker 1: Like I said, message us if you have thoughts, and
• 49:37
  Speaker 1: until next one, stay wicked.