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Susan Snapped: The Murder of Jeff Wright · 10 Minute Murder | Bingeable True Crime Stories

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Discretion is advised. This is tenedmitted murdered on the twenty fourth of April nineteen
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seventy six. Susan Wright was born in Houston, Texas. Her childhood and
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teenage years were nothing out of the ordinary, unless you count the two month
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stint where she worked as a topless dancer at the age of only seventeen.
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As Susan grew older, she kept working entry level jobs, and it was
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at one of these entry level jobs in nineteen ninety seven, she was a
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waitress in a restaurant that in walked Jeffrey Wright with that James Dean daydream look
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in his eye. Jeff was eight years older than Susan had previously been engaged
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to another woman. Susan fell for him almost immediately, and the pair entered
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into a world wind romance, getting engaged and married even quicker within the following
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year. At their wedding, Susan was almost nine months pregnant with Jeffrey's child,
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which may explain the whirlwind. Susan and Jeff's friends believed that the couple
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were happy together. Jeffrey continued working his sales job while Susan stayed home to
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take care of their son Bradley, and then their second child, Kayley.
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But behind closed doors, the story might have been different. According to Susan,
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Jeff became more and more controlling. She felt like a prisoner in her
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own home, living in fear of the emotional, physical, and sexual abuse
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that became more and more common in her marriage. It was the thirteenth of
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January two thousand and three when everything changed. Behind the doors of their white
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picket fence home in northwest harrist County, Jeff lay down on the bed.
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Whether he was physically restrained, overpowered, or merely caught by surprise, he
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kept lying there while Susan began stabbing him over and over again. She used
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two different kinds of knives to carry out the attack, swapping them out before
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continuing to stab at Jeff's body. By the time she was done, the
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bed was soaked with blood, and after receiving a total of one hundred and
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ninety three stab wounds, Jeff was undeniably dead. Susan got to work.
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She dragged Jeff's body out to the yard and buried him in a partially dug
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hole that the couple had planned to make into a water feature. Then she
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attempted to cover up the blood soaked crime scene that was waiting for her in
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the bedroom. She cleaned as much as she could, decided to repaint the
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walls, and attempted to get a restraining order against her now dead husband by
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filling out a falsified police report of domestic abuse. Five days after Jeff's death,
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Susan called her attorney, Neil Davis, and asked him over for a
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visit at her house. Shortly afterwards, the Harris County District Attorney's office received
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an alarm arming phone call from Neil. He told them that Susan Wright had
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just confessed to killing her husband and burying his body in the yard. At
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this point, Jeff's body was only partially concealed in the hole. The family's
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dog had smelt the corpse and tried to dig it up. After turning herself
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into authorities for the death of her husband, Susan Wright was arraigned on murder
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charges and her trial was set to take place in just over a year after
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that. By the time the trial began, Susan had already pleaded not guilty
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to murder, claiming that she had killed her husband in an act of self
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defense. This is what the prosecution believed took place that day, Susan Wright
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coerced or seduced her husband to trick him into lying down on the bed before
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tying him up and stabbing him to death so that she could cash in on
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his life insurance money. The fact that Susan had buried Jeff's body herself and
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concealed his murder for a period of time, and the violence of the attack
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just added to the circumstantial evidence. Susan decided to take to the stand during
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her trial, wanting to testify in her own defense. Her testimony in court
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painted a very different picture of what happened the day that her husband died.
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According to Susan, Jeff was in the middle of a cocaine binge that day,
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something that wasn't unusual for him, and he was lashing out violently,
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just like he always did when he was high. This time, however,
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he'd been violent to his young son, Bradley, and Susan had retaliated in
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defense of her child. Jeff had been the one to grab the knife,
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Susan insisted she was simply forced to wrestle the weapon away from him and ended
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up stabbing him in self defense. Medical examiner testified to support Susan's story about
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the cocaine, and autopsy found so much cocaine in Jeff's system that his body
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had been physically unable to process the drug. This would have made him severely
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intoxicated and possibly prone to behaving erratically or violently. There was also another finding
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which contradicted the prosecution's belief that Susan had restrained Jeff by tying him to the
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bed. As well as the enormous amount of stab wounds, Jeff also had
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a collection of defensive wounds located on his forearms and hands, as well as
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the back of his legs and his lower back. The location of the wounds
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didn't make any sense. Why would Jeff receive the wounds on his back and
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the undersides of his legs if he was tied to the bed for the entire
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duration of the attack. I couldn't stop stabbing him, Susan said, through
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floods of tears. I couldn't stop. I knew as soon as I stopped,
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he was going to get the knife back, and he was going to
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kill me. I didn't want to die. Susan's mother, Sue, supported
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Susan's story in courts, telling the jury that she knew that Jeff had been
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abusive after seeing Bruce's that he'd left on Susan's body. Susan's defense attorney Neil
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Davis told the court that Jeff had inflicted emotional and physical harm on Susan for
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the duration of the couple's relationship. Susan had killed Jeff and self defense,
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fearing that Jeff would kill her or their two young children. Defense attorney Tommy
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la Fawn spoke about the number of stab wounds that Jeff had received. Quote,
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you don't stab someone one hundred ninety three times for no reason. He
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said, It's the result of years of pent up frustration, anger, abuse,
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and terror. The prosecution alleged that Susan's emotional testimony was all a show,
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a display of emotion, and tried to gain sympathy from the jury.
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In highly unusual turn of events, the prosecution brought in a piece of physical
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evidence that may have never been transported into a courtroom before, the actual bed
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from Susan and Jeff's bedroom frame and all. Although a showy move, it's
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not likely that the bed itself provided any compelling arguments for the case. Kelly
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Siegler, an assistant district attorney, was quick to bring up Susan's past as
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a topless dancer as a way to discredit her story. Partly, she was
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playing to her audience this kind of sex work would be frowned upon by the
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jury, making them less sympathetic to Susan. Despite her emotional testimony. In
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the trial's closing arguments, Kelly didn't hold back describing Susan as a quote card
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carrying obvious no doubt about it, caught red handed, confirmed documented liar.
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The jury deliberated for five hours before reaching a verdict. On the third of
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March two thousand and four, Susan Wright was found guilty of murdering her husband
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Jeff. Despite her tears on the stand, Susan didn't show much emotion when
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she was read the verdict or during her sentencing. The sentencing was polarizing.
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The prosecution argued that Susan should see a minimum of five decades of prison time,
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whereas her defense team believed that she should receive probation. The court came
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to an almost perfect compromise when Susan was convicted to spend twenty five years in
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prison. Susan's original appeal for her sentence was denied by the court in two
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thousand and five, and her conviction was upheld. During a reappeal in two
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thousand and eight, a new witness came forward, another woman who had previously
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been in a relationship with Jeff. Misty McMichael had dated Jeff Wright for four
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years, and this is the lady that I mentioned at the beginning that Jeff
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had previously been engaged to. Misty was willing to testify in Susan's defense,
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recalling the physical and emotional abuse that she herself received from Jeff during their four
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year long relationship. It was exactly the kind of testimony that had been missing
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from Susan's trial, and this time the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was willing
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to listen. Susan was granted a new sentencing hearing one year later, and
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in November two ten, her twenty five year sentence was reduced to twenty years.
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She became eligible for parole in two fourteen, but it was initially denied
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several times. Finally, Susan's parole was approved in July twenty twenty, and
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on the thirtieth of December twenty twenty, at the age of forty four,
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Susan Wright became a free woman again. That is ten minute Murder for today,
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brief and bingeible true crime. I'm Joe the host, and thank you
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so much for listening today, and also thank you for ignoring the fact that
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my air conditioner popped on and off about seventeen times during that episode. I
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live in the South, then it's summertime in the South, and if I
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don't have it on, I will melt. That's how it's got to be.
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Okay, So the question I'm answering today is from Lacy in Austin,
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Texas. And no doubt, Texas, it's hotter than it is here,
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so you can't judge me for the air conditioner. Okay, Hey, Joe,
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ten minute Murder is great, but do you sometimes add in lyrics the
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And the answer to your question is, yeah, yeah, I do that,
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