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

Transcript

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

0:00
Speaker 1: One night in December of 2009, a man dug through
0:03
Speaker 1: a pile of papers and photo albums inside of an
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Speaker 1: RV that was parked in Texas. The man had recently
0:09
Speaker 1: bought this trailer after its previous owner had died. And
0:12
Speaker 1: so now he was finding it was full of junk
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Speaker 1: that he was trying to sort through. And as he
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Speaker 1: rifled through the documents, he stumbled on a stack of
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Speaker 1: old notebooks. He opened one and he began reading it.
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Speaker 1: And as he did, he felt his heartbeat pick up
0:25
Speaker 1: because the notebooks were actually diaries. And they were full
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Speaker 1: of handwritten rantings about demons and monsters and a deal
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Speaker 1: with the devil. But that wasn't what scared him. What
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Speaker 1: really scared the guy was this writer's horrifying confession. But
0:41
Speaker 1: before we get into today's story, if you're a fan
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Speaker 1: of the Strange, Dark, and Mysterious delivered in story format,
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Speaker 1: you don't miss any of our uploads. Okay, let's get
1:04
Speaker 1: into today's story. On the night of July 24th, 1987,
1:29
Speaker 1: 30-year-old Susan Woods stood at the entrance to a local
1:33
Speaker 1: fair in a little city called Hico, located in Central Texas,
1:37
Speaker 1: along with her best friend and her best friend's boyfriend.
1:40
Speaker 1: And the three of them were standing there trying to
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Speaker 1: decide if they wanted to continue to stay here or leave. Now,
1:47
Speaker 1: as they're standing there, they can hear people having fun
1:49
Speaker 1: on all the rides. There's kids laughing and they're screaming.
1:52
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
1:58
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
2:08
Speaker 1: out with them and come to this fair. Because Susan's
2:11
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.
2:23
Speaker 1: And so she had recently dumped him too. And so
2:25
Speaker 1: You know, Susan's life, certainly her relationships anyways, were sort
2:29
Speaker 1: of in rough shape. And so Cindy and Roy had
2:32
Speaker 1: convinced Susan to come out with them and just at
2:34
Speaker 1: least for one night, come enjoy this fair. Just forget
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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 at 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
3:14
Speaker 1: the gate wondering if it's even worth staying here any
3:16
Speaker 1: longer and ultimately Roy finally just said you know what
3:19
Speaker 1: why don't we just leave and head back to Stephenville
3:22
Speaker 1: that's where they all lived it's where they grew up
3:24
Speaker 1: too And he said, why don't we go back to
3:26
Speaker 1: Stephenville and we'll just drive around for a bit and
3:28
Speaker 1: eventually we'll go to the Dairy Queen restaurant and we'll
3:31
Speaker 1: get some ice cream. And when Roy suggested this, both
3:34
Speaker 1: Susan and Cindy thought that was a great idea. And
3:36
Speaker 1: so they left, they hopped in Roy's truck and they
3:39
Speaker 1: began the drive back to Stephenville. About an hour and
3:43
Speaker 1: a half later, Susan, Cindy and Roy walked into the
3:46
Speaker 1: Stephenville Dairy Queen. They ordered ice cream sundaes and then
3:50
Speaker 1: sat down at a booth. By this point, Cindy's feeling
3:53
Speaker 1: of dread, you know, that something bad was going to happen,
3:56
Speaker 1: had mostly gone away, and so the mood was much lighter.
3:59
Speaker 1: And Susan, especially, was actually having kind of a great night,
4:02
Speaker 1: you know, the first in a long time, it felt like.
4:05
Speaker 1: The last six months or so had been some of
4:07
Speaker 1: the worst in Susan's entire life. Her ex-husband, Michael Woods,
4:11
Speaker 1: who she had been with since she was in her
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Speaker 1: early 20s, had effectively abandoned her back in February, taking
4:17
Speaker 1: her car and also some expensive crystals that she had collected...
4:21
Speaker 1: and he had left behind a viciously mean tape recording
4:24
Speaker 1: of all the things he hated about her, along with
4:28
Speaker 1: dozens of cruel notes with insults on them hidden all
4:31
Speaker 1: over the place. And so Susan had filed for divorce,
4:34
Speaker 1: and then instead of trying to get her car back
4:37
Speaker 1: from her husband who was long gone, she just began
4:40
Speaker 1: doing a ton of overtime at the sandpaper factory in
4:43
Speaker 1: order to afford another car. And so in these few
4:46
Speaker 1: months immediately following the the breakup with her ex and
4:49
Speaker 1: all this extra work she was doing, Susan had really
4:52
Speaker 1: fallen into a deep depression. But it had been Cindy
4:56
Speaker 1: and Roy who had helped kind of pull herself back together.
4:59
Speaker 1: Susan was naturally very shy and she did not have
5:02
Speaker 1: a big social circle. But Cindy, on the other hand,
5:04
Speaker 1: was very extroverted, had a ton of friends and a
5:07
Speaker 1: lot of close cousins. And so she had persuaded Susan
5:11
Speaker 1: to begin coming to their regular meetups with all her
5:13
Speaker 1: friends and cousins. The core group that typically attended these
5:17
Speaker 1: meetups were was Cindy, Roy, Cindy's cousins, Regina and Scott Hatley,
5:22
Speaker 1: and then maybe one or two others. And collectively, they
5:25
Speaker 1: referred to themselves as the members of the round table,
5:28
Speaker 1: because often these meetups consisted of just spending the whole
5:31
Speaker 1: night sitting around Cindy's round kitchen table, talking and drinking.
5:36
Speaker 1: The first time Susan had gone, it had seemed like
5:38
Speaker 1: such a tight-knit group that she really just kind of
5:41
Speaker 1: felt like a third wheel and did not belong. But
5:44
Speaker 1: everyone had really treated her like she did belong. And
5:46
Speaker 1: these days, she did not miss a meetup because this
5:49
Speaker 1: was like her new community. It really made her happy.
5:52
Speaker 1: And so slowly but surely, Susan had begun to feel better,
5:55
Speaker 1: largely because of these meetups. And so now as she
5:59
Speaker 1: looked across the table at Cindy jokingly trying to force
6:02
Speaker 1: feed Roy all this ice cream, you know, Susan just smiled.
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Speaker 1: Roy was this big guy, but he was losing the fight.
6:08
Speaker 1: And he had chocolate sauce all over his chin. They
6:10
Speaker 1: were just kind of goofing around. She just thought to herself,
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Speaker 1: you know what? Tonight was a great night. My life,
6:15
Speaker 1: it's turning around. And suddenly, she had an idea. Susan
6:19
Speaker 1: stood up from the table and without saying anything, she
6:22
Speaker 1: walked up to the counter and she promptly ordered a
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Speaker 1: second hot fudge sundae. And when she carried it back
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Speaker 1: over to the table with a big grin on her face,
6:29
Speaker 1: Cindy and Roy kind of looked at her surprised, you know,
6:32
Speaker 1: and were kind of impressed even. Which was exactly the
6:35
Speaker 1: reaction that Susan was hoping for. Normally, Susan was very
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Speaker 1: conscious of her weight and wouldn't even finish one sundae.
6:42
Speaker 1: But tonight, she just felt like, you know what? I
6:44
Speaker 1: have been set free. I'm just going to have fun.
6:50
Speaker 1: But unfortunately for Susan, the ice cream Sundays were really
6:54
Speaker 1: the last fun thing she got to enjoy that entire weekend.
6:57
Speaker 1: Because she spent all day Saturday on the line at
7:00
Speaker 1: the sandpaper factory where she worked, and then all day
7:03
Speaker 1: Sunday she was grocery shopping, doing laundry, and straightening up
7:07
Speaker 1: the house. By about 8 p.m. Sunday night, she had
7:10
Speaker 1: put away all of her laundry, she had made the bed,
7:12
Speaker 1: and picked up the last few items off the bedroom floor.
7:15
Speaker 1: Her house was small, but it was finally starting to
7:18
Speaker 1: feel like hers again. When her ex-husband Michael had first left,
7:22
Speaker 1: even though he had gone a thousand miles away to Indiana,
7:25
Speaker 1: she had felt afraid in her house, like he might
7:27
Speaker 1: suddenly come back. And so she'd actually had Cindy sleep
7:31
Speaker 1: over her house for a while to help her feel safe.
7:33
Speaker 1: And also she asked Roy to literally nail all her
7:36
Speaker 1: windows shut. But despite fortifying her living space, what Susan
7:41
Speaker 1: couldn't escape from were all these awful little notes that
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Speaker 1: Michael had left behind. hidden all over the house. All
7:48
Speaker 1: these awful messages just basically telling Susan all these terrible
7:52
Speaker 1: things about her and how much he hated her. She
7:55
Speaker 1: kept finding them all the time. But as of right now,
7:58
Speaker 1: the house was neat and tidy, and Susan by this
8:01
Speaker 1: point believed she had found, you know, almost every note
8:04
Speaker 1: or certainly close to every note. So to celebrate, Susan
8:08
Speaker 1: headed over to the couch and sat down and turned
8:10
Speaker 1: on the TV. Her plan was just to watch a
8:13
Speaker 1: couple of shows and just Enjoy the peace and quiet,
8:16
Speaker 1: and then go to bed, because tomorrow she would have
8:18
Speaker 1: to get up early for work. As she was sitting there,
8:21
Speaker 1: flipping through the channels, trying to figure out what she
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Speaker 1: wanted to watch, she heard a knock on the front door.
8:37
Speaker 1: Two days later, at 6 p.m. on the afternoon of
8:39
Speaker 1: July 28th, Susan's father, Joe Atkins, was at home when
8:44
Speaker 1: his phone rang. when he picked it up, it was
8:46
Speaker 1: Susan's manager at the sandpaper factory, which was weird. The
8:50
Speaker 1: manager told him that he was calling because Susan had
8:53
Speaker 1: not shown up to work for the past two days
8:56
Speaker 1: and nobody could get a hold of her. And so
8:58
Speaker 1: he was wondering if Joe knew where she was. Joe
9:01
Speaker 1: frowned and said, no, he didn't know, but he would
9:04
Speaker 1: go find out. He hung up and he immediately dialed
9:06
Speaker 1: Susan's number. And when she didn't answer, he didn't think twice.
9:10
Speaker 1: He just put the phone down, grabbed his keys, hurried
9:12
Speaker 1: out to his truck and started driving towards Susan's place.
9:17
Speaker 1: A half an hour later, Joe pulled up outside of
9:20
Speaker 1: Susan's house and he went up to her front door.
9:22
Speaker 1: And when he knocked, nobody answered. But he could hear
9:26
Speaker 1: the TV on inside. And when he tried the doorknob,
9:29
Speaker 1: he found the door was unlocked. He opened the door
9:31
Speaker 1: up a little bit and he poked his head inside
9:33
Speaker 1: and he called his daughter's name. But he didn't get
9:36
Speaker 1: a response. So he stepped all the way inside. The
9:41
Speaker 1: house was basically clean inside. except there were snacks out
9:44
Speaker 1: on the coffee table and the TV was still on
9:46
Speaker 1: and it was on pretty loud. But also, there were
9:49
Speaker 1: some cigarettes that had been burned out in an ashtray
9:52
Speaker 1: on the coffee table and Joe knew his daughter didn't smoke.
9:56
Speaker 1: And so at this point, everything told him something is wrong. So,
10:00
Speaker 1: Joe walked through the living room and into his daughter's bedroom.
10:03
Speaker 1: And his daughter was not in there, but the bed
10:06
Speaker 1: was a mess. The sheets and the bedding had all
10:08
Speaker 1: been ripped off and were sitting in a heap on
10:10
Speaker 1: the floor, and the mattress itself was hanging off the
10:13
Speaker 1: box spring. Joe was about to leave and search the
10:16
Speaker 1: rest of the house when he noticed the bathroom door
10:19
Speaker 1: in the bedroom was open. Joe forced himself to step
10:23
Speaker 1: toward the door, and as he did, his heart began
10:25
Speaker 1: to hammer in his chest. And then, when he leaned
10:28
Speaker 1: around the door and looked inside the bathroom, he just froze.
10:32
Speaker 1: For what felt like a very long time, but was
10:35
Speaker 1: very likely only a few seconds, Joe didn't move or breathe. Then,
10:40
Speaker 1: It's like he broke out of his fog, he stumbled backwards,
10:43
Speaker 1: he ran to the living room, grabbed the phone, and
10:45
Speaker 1: he called 911. Sergeant Donnie Hensley of the Stephenville Police
10:50
Speaker 1: Department had just gotten home after a pretty long shift
10:53
Speaker 1: when he got a call from dispatch to head back
10:55
Speaker 1: out again. A homicide had just been called in, and
10:58
Speaker 1: every available officer had to head to the scene 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
11:07
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 expecting
11:27
Speaker 1: to see. It was a friend of his, a guy
11:29
Speaker 1: he knew who volunteered at the town's golf course. His
11:31
Speaker 1: name was Joe Atkins. So he walked over and he
11:35
Speaker 1: asked Joe, like, hey, what are you doing here? But
11:38
Speaker 1: the instant he asked that question and when Joe turned
11:40
Speaker 1: around to look at him, Hensley understood why he was here.
11:44
Speaker 1: He suddenly remembered that Joe had a daughter, and based
11:47
Speaker 1: on the look on Joe's face, clearly his daughter was
11:51
Speaker 1: the murder victim. Joe had found her. Hensley was a
11:55
Speaker 1: hardened detective who had been to plenty of crime scenes
11:57
Speaker 1: by this point, and he had seen some terrible things.
12:00
Speaker 1: But the pure grief on his friend's face was too
12:03
Speaker 1: much for him to bear. He knew there was nothing
12:05
Speaker 1: he could do to take Joe's pain away. So instead,
12:08
Speaker 1: without saying anything, Hensley took Joe's hands, and the two
12:11
Speaker 1: men just stood there and prayed. And then after a
12:14
Speaker 1: few minutes, he let go of Joe's hands, and then
12:16
Speaker 1: he turned and walked up Susan's front steps to begin
12:19
Speaker 1: the search for her killer. The crime scene unit was
12:28
Speaker 1: already inside of Susan's home, hard at work, by the
12:31
Speaker 1: time Detective Hensley walked through the front door. A supervisor
12:34
Speaker 1: walked over and brought Hensley up to speed. They told
12:37
Speaker 1: him that Susan's body was in the bathroom and from
12:40
Speaker 1: the looks of it, she'd been dead for a while.
12:42
Speaker 1: The front door had been unlocked and there was no
12:44
Speaker 1: sign of forced entry, which suggested that Susan may have
12:48
Speaker 1: let her killer inside. Detectives were now dividing up the
12:51
Speaker 1: house into quadrants to examine each part of the crime
12:54
Speaker 1: scene and Hensley would be working primarily in the bedroom.
12:58
Speaker 1: But the supervisor warned Hensley that the crime itself was
13:01
Speaker 1: incredibly brutal, likely bordering on torture, and he should just
13:06
Speaker 1: mentally prepare himself. Ensley nodded, and for a moment, he
13:09
Speaker 1: just stood there and collected himself and took stock of
13:12
Speaker 1: the scene. He looked over at the coffee table in
13:15
Speaker 1: the living room, and he saw it was covered with snacks,
13:17
Speaker 1: including a bag of potato chips, a pack of Twinkies,
13:20
Speaker 1: and an open Coke can. And there was an ashtray
13:23
Speaker 1: with six cigarette butts inside of it. It looked like
13:26
Speaker 1: more food and more cigarettes than one person would reasonably consume,
13:30
Speaker 1: and so maybe Susan had had company. But otherwise, the
13:33
Speaker 1: house was clean and pretty unremarkable. Except for one thing.
13:37
Speaker 1: It took Hensley a minute to notice. And what it
13:40
Speaker 1: was is all the windows were nailed shut from the inside.
13:45
Speaker 1: Susan clearly must have been scared of somebody breaking in.
13:48
Speaker 1: And so naturally, Hensley wondered if maybe the person she
13:52
Speaker 1: was scared of breaking in was the same person who
13:55
Speaker 1: wound up killing her. But if that was the case,
13:58
Speaker 1: why had she apparently opened the door for this person?
14:02
Speaker 1: At this point, Hensley moved into the bedroom. And as
14:05
Speaker 1: soon as he did, He could tell there had to
14:07
Speaker 1: have been a struggle in here because the mattress was
14:09
Speaker 1: hanging off the box spring, the sheets had been pulled off,
14:12
Speaker 1: and they were heaped up on the floor, and there
14:14
Speaker 1: were all these scuff marks on the floor that suggested
14:17
Speaker 1: the bed very likely had been moved, dragged around inside
14:20
Speaker 1: of the room. There was also a white extension cord
14:23
Speaker 1: lying on the mattress, and also there was this pillow
14:26
Speaker 1: that had all these strange black smudges on it. Hensley
14:30
Speaker 1: walked over and looked at this pillowcase, trying to figure
14:32
Speaker 1: out what the smudges could be, and then he realized
14:35
Speaker 1: it was mascara. The pillow must have been held over
14:38
Speaker 1: Susan's face to suffocate her. But when Hensley walked into
14:42
Speaker 1: the bathroom and saw what was in there, despite the
14:45
Speaker 1: warning he was given about how brutal it was, he
14:49
Speaker 1: still was taken aback and found himself gasping. Susan's body
14:53
Speaker 1: was draped over the side of the tub, with her
14:55
Speaker 1: head still in the water. At first glance, it was
14:58
Speaker 1: obvious Susan was dead, because her head and shoulders that
15:02
Speaker 1: were underwater... were severely decomposed from being in the water.
15:07
Speaker 1: And so at this point, Hensley realized that whoever murdered
15:10
Speaker 1: Susan had likely sexually assaulted her, strangled her, smothered her,
15:16
Speaker 1: and then held her body underwater. I mean, this had
15:19
Speaker 1: been a savage attack committed by a monster. However, Hensley
15:24
Speaker 1: also realized that this monster, whoever had done this, had
15:28
Speaker 1: made at least one mistake. Because one of the crime
15:31
Speaker 1: scene techs that was in the bathroom was pointing at
15:34
Speaker 1: the tub with excitement. And when Hensley looked at what
15:37
Speaker 1: they were pointing at, you could see perfectly clearly there
15:40
Speaker 1: was a set of palm prints almost certainly left behind
15:44
Speaker 1: by the killer. The following morning at around 10 a.m.,
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 90 degrees outside,
15:59
Speaker 1: and he had just spent all morning and a lot
16:01
Speaker 1: of the previous night canvassing the neighborhood where Susan had
16:04
Speaker 1: been murdered. But despite all their efforts, they really hadn't
16:07
Speaker 1: gotten much. Susan had been found on Tuesday, but nobody
16:12
Speaker 1: had reported seeing her on Tuesday or the Monday before
16:16
Speaker 1: or the Sunday before, which left a window of three
16:19
Speaker 1: days for this murder to have taken place. One of
16:21
Speaker 1: Susan's neighbors did remember seeing a, quote, large framed man
16:26
Speaker 1: park his truck near Susan's house on Sunday night, but
16:29
Speaker 1: that described a lot of the men in Stephenville, so
16:31
Speaker 1: that didn't really narrow anything down. Now, the police chief
16:34
Speaker 1: had not yet assigned a lead investigator to Susan's case,
16:38
Speaker 1: but because Sergeant Hensley knew Susan's father personally, he was
16:41
Speaker 1: hoping to stay involved. So after drinking a second cup
16:45
Speaker 1: full of water, Hensley headed down the hall to the
16:47
Speaker 1: chief's office, where he asked to see Susan's autopsy report.
16:51
Speaker 1: The chief's secretary handed it over, and Hensley quickly began
16:54
Speaker 1: to thumb through the pages. But he quickly realized there
16:57
Speaker 1: really was almost nothing here that he didn't already know.
17:00
Speaker 1: The report confirmed that Susan had been sexually assaulted. But
17:04
Speaker 1: her body was so decomposed, it was impossible to determine
17:08
Speaker 1: exactly how or when she had died. Although the coroner
17:11
Speaker 1: estimated she'd been in the tub for roughly two days.
17:15
Speaker 1: But right at that moment, another investigator named Lieutenant Ken
17:18
Speaker 1: Maltby walked up and grabbed the report right out of
17:21
Speaker 1: Hensley's hands. And before Hensley could protest, Maltby walked back
17:25
Speaker 1: to the bullpen and wrapped his knuckles on a doorframe
17:28
Speaker 1: to get everybody's attention. Then Maltby announced that he would
17:32
Speaker 1: be taking over Susan's case so everybody else, Hensley included,
17:36
Speaker 1: should back off. And Hensley did not like this, not
17:40
Speaker 1: only because, you know, he had this closeness with Susan's father,
17:44
Speaker 1: but also because he had a feeling that Maltby was
17:46
Speaker 1: only interested in this case because he thought it would
17:49
Speaker 1: help his career. However, Maltby outranked Hensley, and Hensley already
17:54
Speaker 1: had a full caseload of work, so there really was
17:57
Speaker 1: very little he could do here. So, with a resigned sigh,
18:00
Speaker 1: he headed back to his desk. Two days later, around
18:08
Speaker 1: 2 p.m. on July 31st, Sergeant Hensley stood in the
18:12
Speaker 1: back of a small crowd, sweating through his suit, as
18:15
Speaker 1: Susan's casket was lowered into the ground. Hensley was at
18:18
Speaker 1: this funeral really to support Susan's father, Joe, because he
18:22
Speaker 1: was not really a part of the investigation. However, he
18:25
Speaker 1: couldn't help, you know, scanning the mourners, you know, through
18:28
Speaker 1: a detective's lens to see if anybody seemed suspicious. There
18:31
Speaker 1: was a group of people in their 20s and 30s
18:33
Speaker 1: that were standing towards the front, and Hensley assumed they
18:36
Speaker 1: must be Susan's friends. He remembered what one of Susan's
18:39
Speaker 1: neighbors had said about a large framed man, and he
18:42
Speaker 1: looked at all the men taking note of their size.
18:46
Speaker 1: At the center of the group There was a blonde
18:48
Speaker 1: woman who was sobbing, and Hensley recognized her as Susan's
18:51
Speaker 1: best friend, Cindy Hallmark, who was leaning on her boyfriend,
18:55
Speaker 1: Roy Hayes. The two of them had actually come to
18:58
Speaker 1: the crime scene by coincidence on the day Susan's body
19:01
Speaker 1: was found, and they had totally broken down when they
19:03
Speaker 1: realized what had happened. But now, Hensley was suddenly noticing
19:07
Speaker 1: just how physically enormous Roy was. And so in that moment,
19:12
Speaker 1: Hensley thought to himself, if he was in charge of
19:14
Speaker 1: this case, he knew Roy would be somebody he'd take
19:17
Speaker 1: a close look at. But that was not his decision.
19:21
Speaker 1: But then Hensley noticed that there was actually one person
19:24
Speaker 1: who was conspicuously absent from this funeral. And that was
19:28
Speaker 1: Susan's ex-husband, Michael Woods. From what Hensley had heard around
19:31
Speaker 1: the station, nearly all of Susan's friends and family were
19:34
Speaker 1: convinced that it was Michael who was the killer. But
19:38
Speaker 1: there was a problem with this theory. Michael lived 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,
19:59
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 mind. For the next few weeks, Sergeant
20:10
Speaker 1: Hensley focused on his own cases, while still keeping tabs
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, like,
20:27
Speaker 1: what was going on here? Something needs to happen. Why
20:29
Speaker 1: is nothing happening? Then one day in early October, so
20:33
Speaker 1: roughly two months after Susan's murder... Hensley walked into the
20:37
Speaker 1: bullpen to find Maltby celebrating. Not because of any progress
20:41
Speaker 1: in the case, though, but to celebrate his big promotion.
20:45
Speaker 1: Maltby was going to be the lead of a new
20:46
Speaker 1: narcotics unit, and his open cases that he had been
20:49
Speaker 1: working on were just going to be, you know, given
20:51
Speaker 1: to other investigators or filed away altogether. And so as
20:55
Speaker 1: Maltby accepted congratulations from other officers and just made a
20:58
Speaker 1: whole scene, all Sergeant Hensley could think was, well, what's
21:02
Speaker 1: going to happen to Susan's case? It could easily fall
21:04
Speaker 1: through the cracks here. And so without even talking to Maltby,
21:08
Speaker 1: Hensley walked straight to the chief's office and asked to
21:11
Speaker 1: take the case over. The chief shrugged and just said, sure,
21:14
Speaker 1: you're welcome to try, so long as this case does
21:16
Speaker 1: not get in the way of his other work. Hensley
21:18
Speaker 1: agreed and then went to get Susan's file. And then
21:21
Speaker 1: after he had it in hand, he hurried back to
21:23
Speaker 1: his desk and began rifling through the pages. And he
21:26
Speaker 1: was stunned to find that there was almost nothing in
21:29
Speaker 1: there besides the original autopsy report. 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
21:40
Speaker 1: was basically going to have to start all over from
21:43
Speaker 1: square one. At 9 a.m. the next morning, Sergeant Hensley
21:57
Speaker 1: sat down in the kitchen of Susan's best friend, Cindy Hallmark,
22:00
Speaker 1: as Cindy poured them both a cup of coffee, and
22:02
Speaker 1: then Cindy started talking. And she had a lot to say.
22:06
Speaker 1: She was absolutely convinced that Susan's ex-husband, Michael Woods, was
22:10
Speaker 1: the killer, and she just could not understand why it
22:13
Speaker 1: was taking detectives so long to arrest him. Cindy said,
22:17
Speaker 1: you know, for most of Susan and Michael's relationship, Michael
22:20
Speaker 1: was just kind of a loser. He couldn't keep a job,
22:23
Speaker 1: and he'd just lift weights and play guitar shirtless in
22:26
Speaker 1: the front yard. However, when they had broken up, Michael
22:30
Speaker 1: had recorded this totally unhinged audio recording about how awful
22:34
Speaker 1: Susan was and left it for Susan, along with all
22:38
Speaker 1: these notes he had hid all around the house and
22:40
Speaker 1: 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 Stephenville 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 make
23:18
Speaker 1: sense for him to be the killer. That said, Hensley
23:21
Speaker 1: was pretty confident that the killer had to be somebody
23:24
Speaker 1: Susan knew. The lack of forced entry... coupled with all
23:27
Speaker 1: the snacks and the Coke can and cigarettes on her
23:30
Speaker 1: coffee table, suggested that Susan might have entertained her murderer
23:34
Speaker 1: before they killed her. And so at this point, Hensley
23:37
Speaker 1: was much more interested in learning if there were other
23:40
Speaker 1: romantic interests in Susan's life, you know, besides Michael. And
23:45
Speaker 1: when he asked Cindy that question, she said, yeah, there
23:48
Speaker 1: was one other guy. She said right before Susan was killed,
23:51
Speaker 1: she was seeing this bartender named J.C. Baumann. However, they'd
23:56
Speaker 1: only gone on a few dates. Cindy said that JC
23:59
Speaker 1: had put a lot of pressure on Susan to sleep
24:01
Speaker 1: with him. And so she had just broken up with him.
24:04
Speaker 1: And when Hensley heard this, he felt like this was
24:06
Speaker 1: really promising. And so when Cindy finished telling her JC story,
24:11
Speaker 1: he asked her if she knew where he could find JC.
24:14
Speaker 1: And she said, yeah. And she gave him the address
24:16
Speaker 1: of the bar where he worked. 45 minutes later, Sergeant
24:22
Speaker 1: Hensley pulled up in front of the bar. It was
24:24
Speaker 1: still too early for business, but there was a delivery
24:27
Speaker 1: truck out front, and there were a few men who
24:29
Speaker 1: were unloading kegs and bringing them inside. And so Hensley
24:32
Speaker 1: walked up to these guys, and he asked if any
24:34
Speaker 1: of them knew a J.C. Bauman. And this tall, bearded
24:38
Speaker 1: man raised his hand and said, actually, that was him.
24:42
Speaker 1: A few minutes later, Hensley and J.C. were sitting at
24:45
Speaker 1: the empty bar. Hensley watched J.C. 's face very closely
24:49
Speaker 1: as he explained to him that he was here to
24:52
Speaker 1: talk about Susan. JC nodded and ran his fingers through
24:55
Speaker 1: his hair like he was nervous. And then he said
24:57
Speaker 1: his throat was dry and asked Sergeant Hensley if he
25:00
Speaker 1: wanted something to drink. Sergeant Hensley said he was okay.
25:03
Speaker 1: But JC, he got up, went behind the bar, and
25:06
Speaker 1: then came back with a can of Coke. And after
25:09
Speaker 1: sitting down and opening the drink up and taking a sip,
25:12
Speaker 1: JC also lit up a cigarette. And so immediately, Hensley
25:17
Speaker 1: thought of the Coke can that was on Susan's coffee
25:19
Speaker 1: table as well as the ashtray full of cigarettes, despite
25:23
Speaker 1: the fact that Susan was not a smoker. And so
25:26
Speaker 1: the interview had barely even started, and Hensley was already
25:29
Speaker 1: very suspicious of J.C. So he decided to push pretty
25:33
Speaker 1: early and see how J.C. reacted under some serious pressure.
25:37
Speaker 1: And so right out the gate, he asked J.C. where
25:40
Speaker 1: he was on Sunday, July 26th, which was the day
25:44
Speaker 1: investigators at this point believed Susan was murdered, based primarily
25:48
Speaker 1: on 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 J.C. look that good. So Hensley asked J.C.
26:01
Speaker 1: if it was true that he and Susan broke up,
26:03
Speaker 1: ultimately because he, J.C., had pressured her for sex. J.C.
26:08
Speaker 1: turned beet red and said he had never pressured Susan.
26:11
Speaker 1: He said they had been intimate, but just once, in
26:14
Speaker 1: Susan's bathtub. And when Hensley heard this, he nearly dropped
26:17
Speaker 1: his pen. it seemed extremely suspicious that JC was claiming
26:21
Speaker 1: to have been intimate with Susan in the same bathtub
26:25
Speaker 1: where she was found dead. And so Hensley wondered if
26:28
Speaker 1: he was maybe trying to get ahead of the fact
26:30
Speaker 1: that his fingerprints would be found on or in that bathtub. Now,
26:35
Speaker 1: legally Hensley knew he could not compel JC to offer
26:39
Speaker 1: up his fingerprints without charging him first, but he took
26:43
Speaker 1: a chance and just 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 Stephenville police station
27:01
Speaker 1: looking at a card that had J.C. 's finger and
27:03
Speaker 1: palm prints on it. And as he looked at it,
27:06
Speaker 1: he began thinking about those palm prints on Susan's bathtub.
27:10
Speaker 1: In 1987, fingerprints and palm prints were just much slower
27:14
Speaker 1: to process than they are today. And the closest lab
27:17
Speaker 1: that analyzed these prints was an hour and a half
27:20
Speaker 1: away in Fort Worth. And Hensley knew they were always
27:23
Speaker 1: working with a backlog, so his results could easily take months.
27:27
Speaker 1: But Hensley was not going to just sit around and
27:30
Speaker 1: wait because he had one more suspect he wanted to
27:33
Speaker 1: talk to. The following afternoon, Sergeant Hensley walked into an
27:43
Speaker 1: interrogation room at the police station and and sat down
27:46
Speaker 1: across from Roy Hayes, who was Susan's best friend, Cindy's boyfriend.
27:50
Speaker 1: 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 Susan.
28:04
Speaker 1: And Roy saw her when she was both with Cindy
28:07
Speaker 1: and also when she would attend those members of the
28:09
Speaker 1: roundtable get-togethers. Now, that was not that incriminating. But Hensley
28:14
Speaker 1: knew that catching the killer was as much about ruling
28:16
Speaker 1: suspects out as it was about ruling them in. So
28:20
Speaker 1: that was really all he was trying to do here
28:21
Speaker 1: with Roy, is just maybe find a way to say, nope,
28:23
Speaker 1: not him. But before Hensley could even begin asking Roy questions,
28:29
Speaker 1: Roy just started talking. He told Hensley that he had
28:32
Speaker 1: been thinking about Susan's case nonstop. He said that his
28:35
Speaker 1: mind had been running wild with all the possible ways
28:39
Speaker 1: the killer could have gotten inside. And so now Roy
28:42
Speaker 1: was eager to share his theories. After all, he said
28:46
Speaker 1: he was the one who nailed those windows shut, so
28:49
Speaker 1: he knew where the weaknesses in her house were. And
28:51
Speaker 1: so Hensley said, okay, let's hear your theories. And Roy
28:55
Speaker 1: began listing all the ways a person might be able
28:58
Speaker 1: to get inside of Susan's house, including what Roy said
29:01
Speaker 1: was the most promising, which was a six-inch crack in
29:04
Speaker 1: the window above the kitchen sink. And as Roy did this,
29:08
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, he was at the top of
29:11
Speaker 1: Hensley's suspect list. And when Roy was done rattling off
29:14
Speaker 1: all the ways he would break into Susan's house, Hensley
29:18
Speaker 1: asked him, where were you on the evening of Sunday,
29:20
Speaker 1: July 26th? And Hensley watched as Roy's expression changed from
29:25
Speaker 1: very intense to surprised, as he realized he was now
29:29
Speaker 1: being asked for his own alibi. Roy started stumbling over
29:33
Speaker 1: another very long, rambly answer and What he had to
29:36
Speaker 1: say ultimately just made him look even more guilty, because
29:39
Speaker 1: Roy told him Hensley that on the night Susan was killed,
29:43
Speaker 1: he had been over at a friend's house playing a
29:45
Speaker 1: game called Dungeons and Dragons. So today, people know Dungeons
29:49
Speaker 1: and Dragons as a harmless fantasy role-playing game. But at
29:52
Speaker 1: this time in 1987, it was viewed very differently. In
29:56
Speaker 1: the late 1980s in America, there was this huge fear
29:59
Speaker 1: that certain games, books, and heavy metal songs were all
30:03
Speaker 1: linked to devil worship. The TV news ran regular stories
30:07
Speaker 1: across the country about how Dungeons & Dragons specifically encouraged
30:11
Speaker 1: players to cast spells and practice witchcraft. And the local
30:16
Speaker 1: paper in Stephenville had carried a full-page ad calling the
30:20
Speaker 1: game satanic. So when Roy told Hensley he had been
30:23
Speaker 1: playing Dungeons and Dragons on the night Susan was killed,
30:27
Speaker 1: Hensley immediately thought back to the horrible brutality of the
30:30
Speaker 1: crime scene. And he wondered if maybe Susan's murder could
30:34
Speaker 1: have been tied to some kind of dark ritual. And
30:37
Speaker 1: so Hensley looks at Roy and says, OK, well, are
30:40
Speaker 1: you prepared to give us your fingerprints? And Roy 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 concerned at all about whether they'd match 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 prints 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 Susan's ex-husband,
31:27
Speaker 1: Michael Woods. Hensley eagerly ran to the phone, and when
31:30
Speaker 1: he heard what the officer had to say, he practically
31:33
Speaker 1: jumped out of his chair. Because according to the Indianapolis
31:36
Speaker 1: police officer, it was true that Michael said he had
31:39
Speaker 1: an alibi with lots of witnesses, but he had promised
31:43
Speaker 1: to provide the names and contact information for all those witnesses,
31:47
Speaker 1: and he had never done it. which meant Michael's alibi,
31:50
Speaker 1: the same one Stephenville police used to rule him out
31:53
Speaker 1: as a suspect, or more specifically, they used the idea
31:58
Speaker 1: of his alibi, the belief that his alibi existed, that's
32:01
Speaker 1: what they used to rule him out, well, clearly, it
32:04
Speaker 1: was totally unverified. Lieutenant Ken Maltby, who was in charge
32:09
Speaker 1: of the case when this decision was made, had just
32:12
Speaker 1: completely dropped the ball. Somebody had to check Michael's alibi.
32:27
Speaker 1: On a bright morning in April of 1988, Sergeant Hensley
32:30
Speaker 1: walked out of the Indianapolis International Airport with a single
32:33
Speaker 1: duffel bag of luggage slung over his shoulder. He was
32:36
Speaker 1: here to try to collect the fingerprints of Susan's ex-husband,
32:39
Speaker 1: Michael Woods, who was now Hensley's primary suspect. Hensley had
32:44
Speaker 1: been trying to coordinate the investigation into Michael from Stephenville, Texas,
32:48
Speaker 1: but it had proven to be kind of cumbersome, and
32:50
Speaker 1: so he decided to just take matters into his own
32:53
Speaker 1: hands and actually go to Indianapolis. He knew Michael did
32:56
Speaker 1: not have to submit to fingerprinting unless he was charged
32:59
Speaker 1: with a crime, so Hensley had come up with a plan.
33:03
Speaker 1: He was going to put Michael under surveillance and wait
33:05
Speaker 1: for him to do something illegal. Maybe he gets into
33:08
Speaker 1: a fight or an altercation or he buys some marijuana
33:11
Speaker 1: or even jaywalked, anything. Hensley would use it as an
33:15
Speaker 1: 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 and watching the front door through a telephoto
33:27
Speaker 1: camera lens. But Michael and his roommates seemed pretty boring.
33:32
Speaker 1: They barely even left the house. Hensley was beginning to
33:34
Speaker 1: think that his big plan to catch Michael doing something
33:37
Speaker 1: illegal was a huge waste of time. It just was
33:39
Speaker 1: not going to happen. But then one morning, he noticed
33:43
Speaker 1: some unusual activity in Michael's front yard. Michael and his
33:46
Speaker 1: roommates were laying out furniture and clothing on their front lawn,
33:50
Speaker 1: clearly getting ready for a yard sale. Sergeant Hensley was
33:53
Speaker 1: snapping photos of everything they were bringing out, and at
33:56
Speaker 1: one point, he saw something that gave him a rush
33:58
Speaker 1: of excitement. Because through his lens, he spotted these crystal
34:03
Speaker 1: figurines that appeared to be the exact same type of
34:06
Speaker 1: crystal figurines that Michael had allegedly stolen from Susan's house
34:11
Speaker 1: in Stephenville when their marriage had ended and he had
34:13
Speaker 1: left to go to Indianapolis. Hensley practically laughed out loud.
34:17
Speaker 1: I mean, this was too easy. This was his chance.
34:20
Speaker 1: So he called the local police. They stormed the yard
34:22
Speaker 1: sale and they arrested Michael for theft. Two weeks later,
34:28
Speaker 1: now back in Stephenville, Sergeant Hensley walked into the police
34:31
Speaker 1: station to start a shift and he found a manila
34:34
Speaker 1: envelope waiting for him. It had a return address that
34:37
Speaker 1: said it was from the Texas DPS crime lab in
34:40
Speaker 1: Fort Worth, Texas, where he had sent all of the
34:42
Speaker 1: suspect's fingerprints. Hensley ripped open the envelope and dumped the
34:46
Speaker 1: contents onto the table. And as he began looking through them,
34:49
Speaker 1: he realized the lab had already analyzed all three sets
34:53
Speaker 1: of prints that he had sent in. They were Susan's ex-boyfriend, J.C. Bauman,
34:57
Speaker 1: her best friend's boyfriend, Roy Hayes, and her ex-husband, Michael Woods. Now,
35:02
Speaker 1: at this point, if Hensley had had to guess who
35:04
Speaker 1: the killer was, he would have guessed Michael, because Michael
35:08
Speaker 1: is this estranged ex-husband who had left behind these terrible
35:11
Speaker 1: recordings and notes, and he had spooked Susan so badly
35:15
Speaker 1: at the end of their relationship, she had nailed her
35:17
Speaker 1: windows shut to keep him out. And then also, his
35:21
Speaker 1: alibi was sort of up in the air. They didn't
35:23
Speaker 1: really know if he had one or not. They hadn't
35:25
Speaker 1: been able to actually verify it or not yet. JC
35:28
Speaker 1: also had basically no alibi. He drank coke and he
35:32
Speaker 1: smoked cigarettes, just like the killer had left in Susan's
35:34
Speaker 1: living room, or is believed to have been the killer
35:36
Speaker 1: who left those behind. And Roy, in virtue of playing
35:40
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons, could potentially be involved in Satanism. And also,
35:44
Speaker 1: he seemed way too eager to talk about how he
35:47
Speaker 1: might break into Susan's house. However, for Hensley, he felt
35:51
Speaker 1: like one of these three men is the killer. He's
35:54
Speaker 1: about to get his answer. But as he read through
35:57
Speaker 1: each of these reports, he went from exhilaration to confusion.
36:02
Speaker 1: And finally, just total disbelief. Because none of these prints
36:07
Speaker 1: that he'd submitted matched the ones from Susan's tub. Hensley
36:11
Speaker 1: wanted so badly to solve this case, to give Susan's
36:15
Speaker 1: father Joe, his friend, some closure. But now... He felt
36:19
Speaker 1: like he was totally out of ideas. Susan's case ultimately
36:28
Speaker 1: went completely cold. Sergeant Hensley retired, and 19 years passed by.
36:33
Speaker 1: And then one day in early 2006, Lieutenant Don Miller
36:37
Speaker 1: of the Stephenville Police Department took a box labeled Susan
36:40
Speaker 1: Woods down from a shelf in evidence storage, carried it
36:43
Speaker 1: back to his office, sat down at his desk, and
36:46
Speaker 1: began to look through its contents. Miller had recently been
36:50
Speaker 1: tasked with reviewing the department's unsolved cases, including Susan's. He
36:54
Speaker 1: read all of Sergeant Hensley's notes, he studied the crime
36:57
Speaker 1: scene photos, and he reviewed all the witness statements. None
37:00
Speaker 1: of it looked very promising. In fact, it looked like
37:02
Speaker 1: all the suspects had basically been ruled out. But then
37:05
Speaker 1: he saw those palm prints that had been lifted from
37:07
Speaker 1: Susan's bathtub, which had never been matched to anyone, and
37:11
Speaker 1: he had an idea. Back in 1987, there had been
37:14
Speaker 1: no centralized database of fingerprints. This meant that unless you
37:18
Speaker 1: had a specific suspect to compare an unknown prints against,
37:23
Speaker 1: the unknown print was effectively useless. And that's really what
37:26
Speaker 1: had happened in Susan's case. None of the suspects had
37:29
Speaker 1: matched this unknown print. So the case was put on
37:33
Speaker 1: a shelf. But in 2006, the FBI now had a
37:38
Speaker 1: national database of all the fingerprints of everybody in America
37:42
Speaker 1: who had ever been arrested and fingerprinted. And this meant
37:45
Speaker 1: that if Susan's killer had ever been arrested for any
37:48
Speaker 1: crime anywhere, their fingerprints would likely be in that database. Now,
37:54
Speaker 1: Lieutenant Miller did not have the budget or the time
37:57
Speaker 1: for 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 believe happened to Susan
39:14
Speaker 1: Woods on the evening of Sunday, July 26, 1987. Stephenville's
39:25
Speaker 1: Main Street was busy as the killer drove through town
39:28
Speaker 1: in their brown pickup. sipping a mixture of soda, vodka,
39:32
Speaker 1: and cough syrup. They stared out their window at all
39:35
Speaker 1: the happy people in the restaurants and the storefronts, and
39:38
Speaker 1: as they stared at these people, a darkness stirred inside
39:42
Speaker 1: the killer. This darkness had been there for years, telling
39:46
Speaker 1: the killer they were no good and they would never
39:48
Speaker 1: be close to anyone. Alcohol was the only thing that
39:50
Speaker 1: seemed to make this darkness go away. so the killer
39:53
Speaker 1: stayed half-drunk most of the time. But sometimes, even the
39:57
Speaker 1: alcohol wasn't enough. A few years back, when the TV
40:00
Speaker 1: news had been running non-stop with talk about devil-worshipping, the
40:04
Speaker 1: killer had been sort of inspired, and they thought they
40:07
Speaker 1: might try that. And so, they had lit a bunch
40:09
Speaker 1: of candles and set them around their room in the
40:12
Speaker 1: shape of a pentagram... And then the killer stripped off
40:15
Speaker 1: their clothes, they stretched out on the floor, and they
40:18
Speaker 1: offered up their soul to the devil in exchange for
40:21
Speaker 1: freedom from this darkness. But unfortunately, the darkness remained. And
40:27
Speaker 1: so now, the killer, feeling very riled up, took another
40:30
Speaker 1: drink and thought of Susan and the way she'd smiled
40:33
Speaker 1: at them the last time they'd seen each other. The
40:35
Speaker 1: killer had not had the courage to make a move
40:37
Speaker 1: back then, but now, you know, with this buzz that
40:40
Speaker 1: they had from their drink, they really couldn't see a
40:42
Speaker 1: good reason not to make a pass at Susan. So
40:45
Speaker 1: they turned off the main road and they drove the
40:48
Speaker 1: 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
40:55
Speaker 1: door and surprise flashed across her face. But then it
40:58
Speaker 1: softened into a smile and she told them to come
41:01
Speaker 1: on in. Susan told them to get comfortable and as
41:04
Speaker 1: they sat down on the couch, she went to the
41:06
Speaker 1: kitchen to get the killer a Coke and some snacks.
41:09
Speaker 1: Then she brought them back and She sat down on
41:11
Speaker 1: the couch next to the killer to talk and catch up.
41:14
Speaker 1: And that was when the killer made their move. They
41:16
Speaker 1: leaned in to kiss her. But Susan immediately pulled back,
41:21
Speaker 1: suddenly angry. The killer grabbed her, and Susan slapped them
41:25
Speaker 1: across the face. And right then, the killer exploded. It
41:29
Speaker 1: would take almost 20 years, but that single action of
41:33
Speaker 1: the killer placing their hands on the bathtub did eventually
41:36
Speaker 1: give Lieutenant Miller the killer's identity. He was the younger
41:40
Speaker 1: cousin of Susan's best friend, Cindy Hallmark, and he was
41:44
Speaker 1: one of the members of that roundtable group who supported
41:47
Speaker 1: Susan through her divorce. He had also been at Susan's
41:50
Speaker 1: funeral and helped her friends through the aftermath of her death.
41:54
Speaker 1: The killer's name was Scott Hatley, and just a week
41:57
Speaker 1: before he killed her, He had been hanging out with
42:00
Speaker 1: the members of the roundtable, and Susan was there. And Susan,
42:03
Speaker 1: who was this, you know, very shy, gentle person, had
42:06
Speaker 1: sort of opened up around this group. You know, she
42:08
Speaker 1: was feeling happier and happier, largely because this group of friends,
42:13
Speaker 1: including Scott, had been so supportive. You know, she really
42:16
Speaker 1: felt like she belonged here and was safe here. And
42:19
Speaker 1: during that meeting amongst the members of the roundtable, just
42:23
Speaker 1: sort of inexplicably, Susan had looked over at Scott and
42:27
Speaker 1: simply smiled at him. And for that reason, pretty much alone, Scott,
42:31
Speaker 1: a week later, had shown up on her doorstep and
42:34
Speaker 1: murdered her. By the time Lieutenant Miller put all of
42:37
Speaker 1: this together, Hatley was 41 years old and was still
42:40
Speaker 1: a free man. And so on June 7th, 2006, 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
42:49
Speaker 1: 30 years in prison, but would only serve 11 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 his 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. The pages were also filled with references to
43:11
Speaker 1: Satan and demons, and Hatley specifically wrote that some kind
43:15
Speaker 1: of outside presence had been responsible for pushing him to
43:19
Speaker 1: ultimately assault and kill Susan. Thank you so much for watching.
43:34
Speaker 1: Let me know what you thought of today's episode in
43:36
Speaker 1: the comments. And remember, we have a whole playlist of
43:39
Speaker 1: true crime episodes ready for you to binge right now.
43:42
Speaker 1: So click here and give them a watch. All right,
43:45
Speaker 1: until next time, see ya.