Going West: True Crime - Susan McFarland // 96

Episode Date: November 25, 2020

*In 2002, a woman planned to go away for Thanksgiving, but days later, her car was found abandoned in an area near her house. After incredibly strange clues were found in a neighbors garage, police were lead in many different directions looking for answers. And then one day, a man called with an important tip. This is the murder of Susan McFarland.* *BONUS EPISODES* patreon.com/goingwestpodcast *CASE SOURCES* https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/92528802/susan-smith https://www.legacy.com/obituaries/sanantonio/obituary.aspx?n=susan-burris-smith-mcfarland&pid=88831593 https://texasequusearch.org/found-deceasemissing-susan-mcfarland-43-yrs-san-antonio-tx-112502/ https://hearst.blueconic.net/s/16FL?profileid=3703060c-67f9-4cdd-a3ca-85b195c26018 https://law.justia.com/cases/texas/fourth-court-of-appeals/2003/16263.html https://www.upi.com/Top_News/2003/01/17/Murder-charge-in-Texas-disappearance/45041042839078/ https://groups.google.com/g/alt.true-crime/c/3ZKW93ER3ZU?pli=1 Advertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brands Privacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What is going on True Crime fans, I'm your host Teef and I'm your other host Daphne and you're listening to Going West. Thank you everybody for tuning in to Holiday Week for us here in the US. So I hope everybody has a safe and fun holidays. Just gonna be me and Heath this Thursday but that's alright, right? Yeah, yeah, we're just gonna be chilling together. Well, fun. Making some food.

You know, well fun. Also I want to let you guys know we have a PO box. So this isn't something I've mentioned before. We got it very recently. But we've gotten a bunch of emails from people asking if we have one, if they wanna send us a letter, or it's a letter, I don't know what have you. So in case anybody wants to, if you're into that,

I thought I would just kinda put it out here since we've been getting those emails. So for those who are interested, it's PO box 5428, Eugene Oregon 97405. You absolutely do not have to send us anything. Just wanted to put it out there. Yeah, I actually thought it was kind of interesting that people did want to send us stuff.

So if you do want to, that's awesome. If you don't, that's also cool. Also, we have a Patreon where you can get bonus episodes. We say this every episode because it really helps out our show and we have a whole catalog of bonus episodes for you guys to dive into. So make sure you head over to patreon.com slash going west podcast and subscribe. You can subscribe to get one bonus episode a month or you can subscribe and get two bonus episodes a month. It's awesome, we love the community over there, so join up.

Yeah, Patreon is super fun, we've already released one bonus episode this month, and we're about to release another one this weekend. So, if you need more content, check that out. And again, we also have a second podcast called The Dark Parts. It's super fun, a lot of people ask us if it's scary because we do cover hauntings and urban legends and stuff like that, but it's actually so much fun. We laugh a lot, we joke a lot, and it's a lot more light-hearted. There's definitely some scary aspects to the show, but it's also kind of funny. It's kind of a comedy show as well. It's silly, it's a very silly show, so if you want to check it out, we have now 11 episodes. Yeah, 11 episodes.

All right guys, without days later, her car was found abandoned in an area near her house. After incredibly strange clues were found in a neighbor's garage, police were led in many different directions looking for answers. And then one day, a man called with an important tip. This is the murder of Susan McFarlane. Susan Smith was born on December 31, 1958 in St. Louis, Missouri to parents Mary Elizabeth and Alan Smith. And she also had three much older siblings, Harley, Anne, and Pete. So she grew up in a big family in the suburb of Webster Groves and she was known to be very close to her parents and siblings

Despite the fact that she was 11 years younger than the next oldest sibling. Oh wow 11 years, huh? Yeah, she was definitely a lot younger than everyone else But she was still really close with them and just everyone in general loved Susan because she was so incredibly thoughtful Super silly and very hardworking Someone in general loved Susan because she was so incredibly thoughtful, super-silly, and very hardworking, she would just all around had a very sunny disposition all the time. In 1977, Susan graduated high school and then went on to a private girls' college in Fulton, Missouri to study accounting. And this was kind of a surprising career choice for her since she was so fun and carefree,

but she was also incredibly organized and intelligent, so she thought accounting was a really good path for her. After graduating in the top of her class in college, she went on to work and accounting job in Amarillo, Texas, so she moved out of state for the first time. After working for this company for a while, she moved to Midland, Texas to work for an even bigger company. But just six months into this job, she was transferred to the company's Houston office, where she worked for a while and really enjoyed it. But after a couple of years, she decided to take a job back in St. Louis, Missouri, so she could be closer to family and friends.

And she was so happy to be back. But in the late 1980s, when Susan was approaching her 30th birthday, she worried about finding a good partner who could raise a family with her. She loved her job and she loved working, but her main goal in life was to be a mom and have a loving husband who supported them while she raised the kids. And around this time, Susan was at a party in St. Louis, and she met a man named Richard McFarland. Weirdly enough, he had gone to her high school, but she didn't know him at the time because he was a couple grades above her. And upon them meeting at the party, she really liked this guy. At this time, Richard worked as a stockbroker, and they had

entirely different personalities. Like Daphne said, Susan was the life of the party, but Richard was very serious and actually quite awkward. But their opposite personalities seem to work out because they fell in love with each other and within the next year, they'd be married. Something that Susan loved about Richard was how well he did for himself. And not in like a gold digging way, she just really admired that. He worked hard and he earned himself a really nice car. He drove a beamer and he lived in a beautiful house at the age of 30 and he really did seem like a nice

and good guy. He wasn't necessarily her perfect match. You know, he didn't have like a wildly clever personality like Susan did and he wasn't super likable amongst people, but she saw something in him that others didn't. And he also had ADD and that made it hard for him to get through college, but he persevered and became fairly successful. So she just really admired a lot of things about him.

But for some reason, after they got married, all of this went away. So first of all, right before they got married, Richard came clean about the fact that he had switched jobs, but he had done so almost a month before, and he had waited all that time before telling her. This was really strange to Susan, and she told her sister about it. It made her upset that Richard hadn't just been honest about it when it happened, and it weirded her out that he held onto that like it was a secret. But she hoped it was a huge fluke thing and that they could just move on and get married and have a great life together.

The wedding was amazing and it was huge like they had over 400 guests at their wedding. So pretty big wedding there. And after the wedding, they moved into a beautiful home together in a suburb of St. Louis. But shortly after this, Susan discovered that Richard was in a massive amount of debt. He hadn't mentioned any of this to her, and now they were married. So she's got to take on this whole other problem. Yeah, which is huge because if you're with someone who has debt and like why didn't you mention that, you know? They only really knew each other for a year or less before they got married, but like how did that not come up? Yeah, that's definitely something that you want to disclose with your partner before getting married. Right, but I mean all Susan could really do was keep working hard at her job and hope that Richard did the same

so that they could get through it. But later that year, so a few months after the wedding, Richard changed jobs once again. He was now working for a real estate company, but he didn't last very long there just a few months. So he got yet another job for insurance sales, which he wasn't great at. He was a super awkward person. I mean, a lot of people very uncomfortable with how hard he tried to sell things. And this really embarrassed Susan because he would even

try to sell to friends of her family. So whenever they were at gatherings, he would kind of like try to talk people into buying insurance from him and she was like, oh my god, stop. Oh my god. Yeah. This guy sounds like for those of you who watch the show, what we do in the shadows, this guy sounds like an energy vampire. He does. Like just cornering you, cornering you at a party and just being like, hey, so I've got these things I could sell, yeah. Like, oh, that's so funny, that's true. He just, he doesn't read the room, you know, he's one of those people. He doesn't like catch the vibe that you need to stop talking. But still, Susan stayed by his side and just hope that things would get better. Within a couple years of their marriage, Susan gave birth to their first child, a son named Charles.

But since she was the main breadwinner of the home, and she had worked her way up through the company she worked for and was doing really well, she couldn't stay home and raise him like she wanted to. A lot of Richard's job could be done from home, so in the early 1990s he helped with Charles for the most part. However, a couple months into Charles being born, Richard lost his job. And he was unemployed for nearly a year and a half, which was really hard on Susan. So finally, after all that time, she had to get him a job at the company that she worked for, which worried her a lot. Because since they had gotten married,

he had switched and lost multiple jobs. So she was just hoping he wouldn't somehow ruin her career or taint her name within the company that she works for. And when Charles was two years old, shortly after Richard began working at Susan's job, they had another son named Thomas. Yeah, Richard was just so different from Susan. Like, Susan worked so hard at her job. She was a total super mom. And she was a part of a cooking club and a book club

and still had time for family and friends. And she always had an amazing attitude. Meanwhile, Richard was just a total slacker and pretty much just wanted to coast by, but still have the finer things in life. So here's Susan having to support him and their child when all she wants to do is stay home and raise Charles herself, but Richard won't step up to the plate.

Yeah, and that's like the one thing, the one big reason why she married Richard in the first place was that he seemed to have a shit together. Great, exactly. And then after they got married, it just all fell apart like clockwork. So after Richard got the job at Susan's company, just right off the bat, he started rubbing people the wrong way. He was working in telemarketing and just really seemed to overstep his boundaries and act like a big shot in the office when he was really just the new guy. But almost a year into this job, he was fired. Of course. Yeah. So Richard told Susan that he was fired unfairly and that the only reason they let him go was so

they didn't have to give him a pay raise and promote him at the one year mark. And Susan was shocked by this because she only knew the company she worked for to be fair and wonderful. So she decided to secretly look into this. And she discovered that a couple employees at the company had asked to be transferred to different offices just so that they didn't have to work near Richard because he made them uncomfortable

and made a poor work environment. And a couple other employees had told higher ups that if Richard wasn't fired, they were going to quit because he made their work lives that difficult. So that's at least four people within the office who were so against Richard as a coworker that they told management. So you can only guess there were probably more that didn't step forward. It's just crazy to think about the fact that

this guy is so cringy, so cringy that people are like, I will not fucking work for your company. If you let Richard continue to work here, like I will quit this job if Richard isn't gone. Yeah, that's huge. That's like, that's crazy. You hate that guy. Like, he sucks. I mean, everybody has like that one person

that you kind of dislike at work and you're like, ah, god, that guy's kind of like, kind of an idiot, you know. But this is like a whole new level. Well, exactly. We've all had co-workers that we didn't really like, but I have never once been like, I'm gonna quit this job because I cannot stand this person. Like, that's a big deal. Yeah.

So on top of all of this, the manager who fired Richard was actually a bit scared of him. Because when she sat Richard down and explained that he was being let go, Richard became irate and threatened her. So for the next few weeks, the manager asked security to walk her two in from her car each day

in case he was going to do something out of rage for firing him. Which is pretty insane. Like, she really must have been afraid of him to request an escort every day for a while, and you can only imagine how embarrassing that was for Susan. Oh my god, totally. Because she had talked the company into giving him a chance. And now everyone just knew that Susan's husband was a total weirdo that made people in the office really uncomfortable. And he was let go for it. Within a couple months, Richard got a new telemarketing job, which he was able to keep for a while. What I wonder is if he's lost this many jobs, like how are people still hiring him?

Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that dude's definitely not getting a letter of recommendation. I wonder if he like fudged his resume because this is just a lot. Yeah, probably. So a couple years later in 1996, Susan unfortunately suffered a miscarriage

with her third child. But shortly after, she decided to try again and was able to have a successful pregnancy and give birth to a third son named George in 1997. Around this time, Susan got the opportunity to work for another big company that was opening an office in San Antonio Texas. And she had already lived in Texas and did enjoy it. And although she loved being close to family in Missouri, she also really liked the idea of trying something new again, and she also loved the city of San Antonio.

So she applied for this job, and thanks to her amazing experience, she was hired. And just so, Richard also got a job in San Antonio at the same time as a salesman. So things were really looking up for their new life in Texas. The McFarlane's moved to a beautiful home in the middle-class suburb of Terrell Hills in San Antonio, which is close enough to downtown while still being a good place to raise a family. Susan quickly moved up in her job and got along really well with neighbors,

but Richard, not so much. In fact, just shortly after they made their move, their next door neighbors went on a short vacation and came back to find that one of their trees had been cut down. This was incredibly strange to them and they didn't know who could have done this. It was just such an odd and random thing, but while inspecting it, the man noticed Richard in the backyard with his sons and decided to introduce himself over the fence, and while doing so, he asked Richard if he had any idea what had happened to his tree. The trees sat on the fence that connected to the McFarlane's house, so he figured Richard may have seen something,

and Richard outright said that he had cut it down himself, as if it were a casual and normal thing to do. And he cut it down because a lot of the trees leaves were falling into his yard, and he didn't like it. But this meant that Richard had gone into the neighbor's private yard and cut down their tree, like a psychopath. Who does that? It's so odd, like you don't do that. But Richard acted like it was nothing.

You know, just, yeah, I cut down your tree. Again, read the room. Yeah, you need to have a conversation with your neighbor before you just go cutting down their tree and maybe be like, hey, do you mind like hedging back your tree a bit so it doesn't fall over onto my property? Like that's the normal thing to do. That would be the normal thing to do, but unfortunately Richard doesn't fall over onto my property. Like, that's the normal thing to do. That would be the normal thing to do,

but unfortunately, Richard doesn't think that way, and he just went and cut it down, and he's new to the neighborhood. He just moved there. They hadn't even met yet. So upon them meeting, this is what he has to say, oh yeah, I cut down your tree. And even weirder, he offered to make the neighbor

a website for his business. You know, he kind of said, oh, well, to make it up to you, I'll make your business his website. And obviously, the neighbor thought that this was Richard offering to make him a free website. So he kind of just agreed, but thought the whole thing was so weird. It didn't really make up for it. He was just kind of like, okay, sure. And when Richard was done building it, he asked the neighbor to pay him over to grand for it.

Uh, okay, so you cut down your neighbor's tree and then your apology used to build a website and then you charged your neighbor for said website. Exactly, it doesn't make any sense, but he really did try to get this money. And the neighbor was like, absolutely not. Like, I didn't even ask you to build it. You offered and now you want me to pay you? No way.

And that just really shows you how sketchy Richard is. And there was a lot of situations like this with neighbors, co-workers, and everyone else who Richard came into contact with. Yeah, Richard did a lot of sketchy and scammy things and he kind of seemed like he was conning people. In another instance, he had a work phone that was given to him by his employer and after

he stopped working there, he kept the phone and I guess the employer didn't shut the phone services down, so Richard had racked up a bill of a couple thousand dollars just to see if he could get away with it and get something for furry. He's that guy. Yeah. Susan found out about this in the year 2000 and was so weirded out. And she even brought up the thought of divorcing him to her sister Anne if he kept up with these

bizarre and unethical antics. But in the late 1990s, Richard joined the nonprofit organization called Promise Keepers. Oh my god. Oh fuck. What? I know all about Promise Keepers. What do you mean? Okay, so basically, let me read the rest of this. So Promise Keepers, which is an evangelical Christian parachurch for men only. So I grew up Christian, my family was Christian, and when I was younger, the promise keepers would hold these big rallies, basically these big concerts and rally things for men. And you would go there and you would like pray and you would sing and there would be like speakers talking about Jesus and stuff like that. And I don't know anything about

it and if you're a part of it, I'm really sorry. You look okay over there. He does like freaking out. He just had like a flashback. Literally, yeah, I just, that name, promise keepers just brought back so many awkward and weird memories. Why don't you tell them a little bit more about it

so we can get more of the vibe? Okay, so they basically have very traditional biblical values, including living a sinless life, believing in miracles, and also in their religion, they're very much against divorce. So in Susan's eyes, if the marriage isn't working, she wants out, but that's not something that Richard would ever agree upon. So that's really important, an important element to discuss in this story is that in the late 90s, this, he joined this group and he started, you know, they both, I forgot to mention this earlier, but they both did grow up in Christian households, but as adults, they weren't super religious,

except when Richard joined this nonprofit organization, this parachurch, he became very religious again and Susan, obviously, since this is only for men, Susan wasn't a part of it, but he had a lot of these values that Susan didn't share, including how he felt about divorce. Right. So even worse than all these awful scams, it appeared that Richard physically abused their boys. One day in 2001, George, the youngest son, was at a swim class when the coach had noticed some bruises on him.

And he decided to ask George if everything was okay at home and how he got those bruises, which go coach because that's a really important step to take as a teacher. If you feel like something's wrong, you are a parental figure in a sense to the child. So, you know, if something's going on at home and they're not going to tell anyone and you notice it, say something. Yeah, I love when teachers do that. I love when they step forward and act like an adult when the parent can't do that. I know me too. Love all you teachers out there. Good job. And George was actually totally honest about it to the coach. And he said that his dad had caused the bruises

while trying to teach him a lesson for not cooperating during a sports game. And what Richard had done was basically chuck tennis balls at George on purpose in order to hurt him. Luckily, the coach did report this. And Susan found out and was obviously incredibly upset and she had no idea what to do. She really wanted to leave Richard, but she was afraid that he would somehow gain custody of the boys since she had such a busy work schedule,

and she couldn't care for the boys the way she wanted to because of that busy work schedule. So it was just a whole mess. All she could do was talk to Richard, talk to the boys, show up as much as she could as a mom, and kind of ask other parents, teachers, and coaches to watch after the boys when they were around and she wasn't. And that's horrifying. That's a horrifying thought. And another report that came a bit later revealed that Richard had hit one of the boys with a baseball bat. So that abuse didn't stop.

Fast forward to late 2002, a few weeks before Thanksgiving. Susan had her very first appointment with a divorce attorney behind Richard's back. She explained that her husband was an unstable parent and an incredibly difficult and temperamental partner. She worried that he had some kind of mental issues that caused him to be this way, and it made her afraid for her kids to be around him, and she didn't want to deal with that anymore, so she wanted to go forward with the divorce and get him out of her life. Susan told her boss, some very very close friends and her sister about the fact that she was going to have divorce papers served to Richard in a few weeks time, and

because of that, she didn't want anyone telling him and she didn't want to spend thanks giving with him. So she called Richard's parents and set up a plan for Richard to spend thanks giving with them while Susan took the boys to a friend's house in Amarillo, Texas. What Susan really wanted to do was have Thanksgiving at her own house and invite some friends over to spend it with her and the boys, but only if Richard left town. If he didn't, she would be going to Amarillo. At that point, just days before Thanksgiving, Susan wrote an email

to her sister Anne explaining her worries about Richard and how he seemed to be incredibly secretive himself, and she was concerned he was planning something. She was just days away from the divorce papers being served, and she just wanted it to happen already so she could breathe. But around this time, Richard told Susan that he was going to stay home for Thanksgiving after all and would not be going to St. Louis. With Richard's continued strange behavior, Susan worried that he would become irate if she decided to leave for Thanksgiving with the boys while he stayed home alone. So she just decided to cancel the trip to Emerylo and stay home.

A few days later, on Thursday, November 28th, 2002, at 3am, so very early Thanksgiving morning, a local patrol officer was driving through the suburban neighborhood of Terrell Hills, which again is the area Susan and her family lived, when he noticed a Ford Explorer parked in an isolated area on Lazy Lane, so he figured it was a couple teenagers who drove out there to make out and be somewhat private. But when he got out of his car and shined his flashlight, he didn't see anyone in the car. The car keys were in the car's ignition and the hood of the car was cold, so he wondered

if someone had locked themselves out of their car and left it for a while. With that assumption, he ran the plates and determined that the car belonged to Susan McFarland, so they called the house to explain their findings and Richard answered the phone. When the officer told him that Susan's car was found abandoned on lazy lane, Richard was very confused. He told them that he had no idea where that even was or why Susan's car would be out there because his wife was supposed to be visiting a friend in Amarillo, Texas, which is a whole seven hours away.

So her car being abandoned right there and tarot hills and San Antonio, Texas just didn't make any sense at all. Richard then got off the phone with police to call Susan's friend in Amarillo and see if she was there. But she explained that Susan had canceled her trip almost one week prior and she had no idea where Susan was. And mind you, this is the middle of the night, so it's like past three in the morning and he's calling her. Yeah, that's a little strange. Well, I mean, if he is looking for his wife, then fair play.

Considering Susan had been gone for three days at this point, red flags were starting to raise, and Richard went down to the police station to report Susan missing. At that point, a couple officers headed over to where Susan's car was parked to inspect it further and make sure there weren't any signs of foul play. And that's when they noticed a small blood stain on the media console of the vehicle. But that was the only piece of evidence they could find in the car. And they fully searched it for any kind of evidence that could point to a crime, but all they had was that blood, which is significant still, and they were able to determine that

it did indeed belong to Susan. When police checked Susan's phone records, they noticed that it hadn't been used in three days, since she was last seen. So now we have the blood and the lack of phone use, so none of this is really sounding good. That's when police and dozens of local volunteers came together to search the wooded areas around her car and hopes of finding Susan. On day one, they didn't find anything at all, which was very discouraging. So the police called the Texas Rangers to help with the case, because they're extremely skilled and trained when it comes to complicated investigations.

One of the Texas Rangers headed over to the McFarlane home with another investigator and got a signed consent from Richard to search their home and try to track Susan's steps, but upon checking Susan's personal belongings, they didn't notice any of her things missing and the house wasn't in any kind of disarray. In fact, the only thing strained to the Texas Rangers was Richard himself. He was being very uncooperative when it came to questions regarding Susan. Richard was just sitting there sucking on tubes of frozen Italian ice and giving extremely unrelated and confusing responses to the ranger's questions. Richard was just acting very odd, which wasn't unusual for Richard obviously because he's a

fucking weirdo, and he wasn't giving as much detail as the investigators were hoping that he would. And on top of Richard just being a weird dude, he wasn't out there with volunteers looking for his wife, which is even more odd. He's just sitting at home not doing anything. Yeah, he's just with the boys, not out there looking for her. Because police got word from people who knew the family, just how strange and unlikeable Richard was, police wondered if Susan just ran away and staged her own disappearance so that she could get away from him.

But the following days discoveries would point them in a different direction. That Friday, November 29, so the day after Susan's car was found and the day after Thanksgiving, the McFarlane's neighbor who lived right across the street found something strange in her garage. They had just recently moved to a different house, but they still went to check on their other house every day since it hadn't sold yet. So the neighbor, Harriet Wells, went to park her car in the garage when she pulled up. But to her surprise, there was someone else's car parked inside.

She had no idea whose car it was and was very concerned about this, so she called the police. And when they arrived, they found an incredibly strange scene. Inside Harriet's garage was charcoal, gas cans, various cleaning products, and paper towels, none of which belonged to Harriet. And as for the car, it was a 1995 grey Chevy Suburban. On the back bumper of the car was a blood stain, being in the car is that the car itself didn't belong to Richard. It belonged to a man named Roger Mallet, who was one of the producers for the show America's most wanted, which is super ironic, very weird, but knowing that Richard's car was the one found in the vehicle,

police wondered if he was being framed. And when they asked Richard about this, he acted completely dumb-founded and said that he had no idea whose car that was and why his insurance card was in it. Then they called Roger Mallet, who was all the way in Florida with his family at SeaWorld and asked him if he knew where his car was, and Roger's response was, yeah, in his driveway at his house. Of course, he didn't know this for sure since he'd been at a town for a few days, so he called his housekeeper to check the car, and sure enough, his car was sitting in his driveway at home.

However, his license plates were missing. Also, I will add how odd it was that the Italian ice pop wrapper was in the suburban too, because Richard ate those all the time. Now that police know that the car in Harriet Wells's garage didn't actually belong to Roger Mallet, but that someone had just stolen his plates, they ran the Vinn number on the car and discovered that it belonged to a man named David Riger who also lived in Terrell Hills. When police called him, he was confused about how it would have ended up in someone's

garage unless it had been sold. The thing is, David had been trying to sell this car for a while, and he had a conversation with a local gas station owner about that, and the owner said that he'd be happy to sell the car for him and advertise it in his parking lot if he could have a small cut of the sale. So they agreed on that, all was good, but Dave and hadn't been told the car sold, so he was super confused as to how it would have gotten anywhere else except for where it was parked at the gas station. With this new information, the lead Texas Ranger on the case headed over to the Texaco gas station and spoke to the owner, a man named Richard Clemer about the car.

Richard Clemer was incredibly confused as to why the police were there because, yes, he had noticed the car was gone too. Three days prior, he saw that it was gone, so he just figured the owner of the car David Riger had come by and picked it up and decided against selling it. So this is a really really weird situation. It's a big web. Let's just unpack this for a second. So there's a guy in Florida whose license plate is now switched with a different car.

But he lives in Texas though, he was just on vacation. Oh, it's okay. He lives in Texas, but he's in Florida on vacation. And the car also doesn't belong to Richard. It belongs to a guy named David who is trying to sell his car. It's just like, what? And that's what the investigators were saying. They're like, what, this is so weird.

We have one man's car, another man's license plate, and then another man's insurance ID card in the front seat. So strange. And in somebody else's garage. The investigators thought that Richard Clemer's story was strange. And they didn't know if they believed it. So they showed him Richard McFarlane's insurance card and asked him if he had heard of this man because this card was found inside the suburban. Richard Clemmer said, no, he had never heard of that name before. Investigators then asked him if anyone had shown interest in the car during the time that it was in the lot and Richard said yes, someone had even test-driven it. And he had even written down the man's name and phone number. He described the man as a white male and the name written

down was Mark Lynn and the phone number was local to the area. Investigators called that number but it was out of service. So they felt confident that whoever had test-driven the suburban had stolen it, and they gave a fake number and fake name. Investigators felt a bit stuck after this, because they just had no idea who had stolen this car. Was it Susan's husband Richard setting this whole thing up, or was Richard Clemer, the gas station owner, lying about something?

The next step was to talk to Susan's co-workers and get a better idea of where her head was at that week. And they told the Texas Ranger that Susan had been talking about visiting a friend in Amarillo, Texas for the Thanksgiving holiday. So they assumed that that's why they hadn't seen her or heard from her in a few days. And this is the same story that Richard McFarlane had told them, so it seemed no one knew that Susan had canceled this trip. The Texas Ranger went to Susan's desk to see if there were any notes or just any kind of other indicators regarding her whereabouts, and all he could find were some voicemails on her office phone that had not been listened to yet, from her husband Richard wondering where she was.

But these voicemails were left the day after he had last seen her, so two days before he reported her missing. And this was strange for a couple of reasons. First of all, Richard acted completely shocked and confused that Susan's car was abandoned in their neighborhood because she had been an amarillo visiting a friend. And then he called this friend to see if she was there, apparently having believed she had been there for three days now. So why did Richard call Susan's work phone days prior asking her where she was in multiple voicemails and seeming worried?

Because according to Richard, he didn't believe she was missing at all until police found her car. So this was a huge red flag to the investigators, and they went straight over to the McFarlane home to ask Richard about this. Richard acted confused at first and couldn't give them a straight answer, but then he finally confessed that he didn't actually know if Susan was going to Amarillo, or if she was making that up. Susan had recently brought up the topic of divorce to Richard, so he wondered if she had lied to him.

So now Richard's basically saying, you know, I actually don't know if she's in Amarillo. Maybe she's lying because she doesn't want anything to do with me because she wants a divorce. Right, right, so he's kind of backtracking a little bit. Yeah, he's backtracking for sure. And this confession really didn't help Richard's cause because now police were aware that he and Susan had marriage troubles, which they did a pretty good job of hiding

from their loved ones. You know, obviously as of late, Susan's friends and her boss even and her sister knew that she wanted a divorce. But in general, they hid their problems from other people. So obviously Richard is standing out to them. But because they still didn't know where Susan was, they didn't want to get tunnel vision. And crazy enough, they found out something wild about Richard Clemer, who again is the owner of the gas station.

He had a connection to Susan McFarland. Earlier that year, which again is 2002, Susan had been on jury duty for a case involving Richard Clemer. Richard had been charged with fraud after he'd been caught running a religious scam where he convinced older folks to give him a lot of money. God damn promise keepers. Different, different thing, different thing. No, no, no. So ultimately Richard was found guilty of the crime, but he wasn't imprisoned for it. Instead,

he had to pay everyone back and was put on probation for two years. So he got to go back to work and Susan made sure to let everyone know about Richard's scam so that they wouldn't support his gas station and go there and get gas. Because Richard's Texaco gas station was so close to the McFarlane's house. So she made sure that all of her friends and neighbors knew about what an asshole Richard Clemer was. Yeah, but she openly boycotted this gas station and Richard knew about it. So this gave him a potential motive to do something to Susan. And he had the keys to the suburban, so he could have easily planted that car and just put Roger

Mallet's plates on it to confuse police. So obviously it's still like there's so many little pieces to this suburban puzzle, but Richard Clemer is looking pretty good. Yeah, he's looking pretty good as a suspect. Since they didn't have any hard evidence that Richard Clemer had anything to do with Susan's disappearance, they didn't approach him right away, but instead just kept a very close eye on him. Just while police felt confident that Richard Clemer was behind Susan's disappearance, he confessed something to them. Richard went down

to the police station and explained to them that he knew who planted the suburban in that garage, and he was willing to give a written statement to help them solve Susan's disappearance. Richard explained to them that the man who was supposedly named Mark Lin who had test-driven the suburban was actually Richard McFarland, and that the only reason he didn't tell that to police was because a few days before they came in to question him, Richard McFarland had come by and asked Richard Clemer to cover for him in case police came by. This was big information, especially since police had been quite suspicious of Richard McFarland for many reasons. However, they were

also suspicious of Richard Clemer, so they many reasons. However, they were also suspicious of Richard Clemer, so they didn't really think they could trust what he was saying, because maybe this confession was just to get the target off of his own back. So all they could really do at this point is put a wire on Richard Clemer and see if he could get a confession out of Richard McFarland because they really didn't have any physical proof that what Richard clamor was saying was true. After a few days, Richard clamor was able to record a call between him and Richard McFarland. Clemer said,

My biggest concern about this whole deal is what if they find your wife dead or something and then I lied to them about the key issue. And what Clemer means about the key issue is that he actually gave the suburban keys to Richard when he borrowed the car. So it's kind of like a thing did Richard make a copy of the key. That's what a lot of people think. And Richard McFarlane's response to this was, no, don't say anything about the keys. And Clemer said, you know, because I could have nothing to do with this, but if I lied

about the key issue, I'm just as guilty as if I participated in the crime. Then Richard McFarlane responded, no, so don't say anything. I don't want, I mean, I'm not asking you to do or cooperate with me. The only real touchy thing is that, if you would, is just to make sure that what details you might recall don't make me look bad so things don't get goofier. Although Richard McFarland didn't come out and say I killed my wife during this call, he was basically trying to make a plan with Richard Clemer on what to do about police regarding the keys. And that basically proves that Richard McFarland did indeed move the suburban, which connects him to Susan's disappearance.

So this was really big for police to hear, but at the same time, since he didn't say the words, they didn't want to screw up the investigation by arresting him on that phone call alone, because sometimes that happens, they arrest people prematurely, and it doesn't work out for them. But this at least gave them the confidence to pursue Richard McFarlane for the crime, and after all, they still didn't have Susan's body, so they wouldn't be able to prove in a court of law that Richard had actually done anything to her. The next thing for them to do was follow Richard's every step.

And the best way to do that was by putting a secret tracking device under Richard's car. This proved to be a great method to prove Richard's guilt. Because just shortly after installing the tracker to Richard McFarland's car, just a few weeks after Susan's disappearance, he went to a local spy shop and asked the employee about a device that could help remove and detect phone taps.

And this shows us that Richard is worried about police listening in on his calls and finding out what he had done, which was just super suspicious to police. Yeah, and for me, that call that Clemer had made to McFarland trying to get him to kind of say something about the murder, I think that Richard McFarland already knew that that's probably what Richard Clemer was doing by calling him. I think he knew and so that's why he wasn't going to outright say,

yeah, I killed my wife like blah blah blah on the phone call He probably already knew this well I wonder if he knew or if he suspected it afterwards, but either way He he had a feeling that someone was listening and he didn't want to get caught that way so he went to a freaking spy shop and Although this made police feel even stronger about Richard McFarland's guilt, this also worried them that he knew that they were on his tail, and if he knew, he could be a major flight risk, and he could even do something with the kids or to himself.

So police were feeling a ton of pressure. Within a few days, on December 16, 2002, police received a search warrant for the McFarlane's home and scoured the place for any evidence that would help them nail Richard. They did find traces of blood in the house using lumenol, so the blood had been cleaned up, but the spots were still there under the black light, but it was only small traces of blood, not nearly enough to kill a person. So again, they just had this small lead, but this wouldn't be able to prove that Susan was dead, nor that Richard killed her. On January 12, 2003, so two and a half months after Susan disappeared, a groundbreaking

tip came into the police department. It was about a man who seemingly had information that could relate to Susan's case. This man lived on a farm on the outskirts of San Antonio, Texas, which was about 15 miles or 24 kilometers from the McFarland home, and around the same time that Susan disappeared, this man saw something. He didn't connect this information to Susan's disappearance until he saw information about her on the news, and that's when he decided to call the police. Since he lives on a big piece of flat land in a rural area, he doesn't see many cars

passed by his house, so when they do pass by, he takes notice. And he remembered that on the week of Thanksgiving just a couple months prior, he saw a Chevy Suburban drive down the road in front of his house. He didn't recognize this car, and usually the cars that pass by are those of his distant neighbors or people who live in the area, but this car was different. Just a short time later, he saw smoke coming from the direction in which the suburban had driven, and the smoke was coming from an abandoned farm that was nearby. It wasn't a great deal of smoke that the man thought that something bad was happening, but it was peculiar nonetheless. Not peculiar enough to call the police at the time, but enough to remember.

So he took police down to that abandoned farm so they could investigate it. And upon arriving at the property, they went inside the farmhouse to make sure it was vacant and nothing suspicious was inside. Weirdly enough, it looked to have been abandoned for quite some time, but it looks like people just kind of up and left because there was still food in the fridge and furniture all over the place. But aside from that, nothing strange was found inside. So the police split up and looked around the property. And while doing so, the major Texas Ranger smelled something strange near a super old and

rusted pickup truck. It was just the bed of the truck abandoned in this field so it wasn't even a full car. When the Ranger looked inside the truck's bed, he saw burned items including various electronics. And then he noticed that the biggest item in the truck appeared to be burned human remains. Remember earlier we mentioned that Richard was sucking on a tube of frozen Italian ice pops when investigators originally questioned him and they were also found in the suburban? So these were his favorite and he ate these a lot.

Well get this. Inside the bed of this truck was a rapper for the same Italian ice pops that he always ate, which is just incredibly stupid of him to leave these behind. But this really tied it together for investigators at the scene that these were Susan's remains and Richard was behind her murder. Investigators called this discovery into the police station right away and had a whole forensics team head down to that farm. The human remains were brought down to the medical examiner's office for a full autopsy, but since they couldn't take fingerprints since the remains were completely burned,

they used the skull's teeth to determine if they were a match to Susan's dental records. Things were moving very quickly, but identifying the remains takes time. And unfortunately, the media had caught wind about the potential remains of Susan McFarland being found. So they started reporting on this immediately. But police became worried that Richard would hear this and run for the hills or do something drastic knowing that he was going to go to prison, so they had to think fast on what to do before that could happen.

They felt so sure that these resusons remains, so they decided to find Richard and arrest him for unauthorized use of the vehicle, which is the suburban that he borrowed, and witness tampering because he had tried to make Richard clamor lie about what he'd witnessed and this was caught on tape. And then within that time that they could hold him, the dinner records would hopefully come back positive for Susanne McFarland and they could stick that on him too to seal the deal for Susanne's murder. Because they could still track him, investigators found Richard driving in downtown San Antonio,

and they pulled him over and arrested him. And when I say hopefully they were Susan's reigns, obviously this is so tragic and nobody wants her to end up dead, but just for the sake of if she was dead and, you know, they were hoping they were hurt so that they could nail Richard, but it's so sad. Yeah, and I think at this point, they know that Susan is probably dead. The probability of her being alive is not real high, and they really feel like Richard is a scummy guy, and he's most definitely has something to do with this. Within a few days after arresting Richard, the dental records proved to be a match, meaning that 43 year old Susan McFarland had been murdered. And with that, police were able to charge Richard with that murder. Sadly, since he and Susan's sons, who were 5, 9, and 11, were then without

both of their parents, they were put into the foster system. Meanwhile, 45-year-old Richard McFarland remained in police custody over the next year and tell his trial in January of 2003. During his time in custody, police questioned him countless times hoping that he would confess, but he never did. During their investigation, police learned that on December 2, 2002, just about a week after she disappeared, Susan was going to file for divorce. And the medical examiner determined that Susan had died from blunt force trauma, so police speculate that Richard found out that she was going to leave him,

and they got into an argument, which turned physical. And whether it was in the heat of the moment or he meant to do it, Richard hit Susan with something in the head and she died. We know that Susan was last seen by co-workers on Monday, November 25, so it's three days before Thanksgiving. After work, she went to the grocery store to get some food and then headed home to help her sons with homework before making dinner and putting them to bed. It's believed that on that evening, while the boys were asleep in their rooms, Richard beat Susan to death, wrapped her body up, and cleaned up the mess in their bedroom.

Because they did find some blood, small blood stains in the bedroom as well. Like some blood traces? Yeah, like there was on the doorway, on part of the bed, and on the floor somewhere. But it does appear that Susan put up a fight because some of Richard's blood was also found in the bedroom. Oh, thank God. I know. It's still really, really sad. And thanks to Richard Clemer's statements, it's known that a couple days before this, Richard had been looking at the suburban. So after keeping her body somewhere in the house overnight, the following day, which was Tuesday, Richard went back to the Texaco gas station, stole the car, put Susan's body in it, and disposed of it.

That same day, Richard called Susan's work and planted those voicemails to seem concerned about her whereabouts, which ended up backfiring. Neighbors also reported that days prior, Richard had been trimming hedges in the across the street neighbor's house, the Wells's, which is very odd, sorry not in their house on their front lawn. Their property, yeah. Yeah, which is weird. Like, not in their house on their front lawn. Their property, yeah. Yeah, which is weird.

Like, why would he be doing that? So it seems that Richard probably stole the license plates, broke into the Wells's house and opened the garage, and for some freaking reason, planted the suburban there after disposing of Susan's body. And I just wonder if he had put the car insurance card there on purpose, or if he left it behind like what was his thought process with this whole car planting thing? I don't know. He seems like the type of person to me that thinks that he's smarter than police.

And so I'm sure every little thing that he did throughout throughout this case, I'm sure it was meticulously planned and he thought, oh, well, this is going to throw them off. Oh, if I do this, this is going to help help me in this case. So I mean, he just seems like an arrogant person. I mean, going back to the fact that when he worked at Susan's company, he was acting like this big shot, even though he was the new guy, this goes to show me that this guy thinks he's smarter than police. Anythings he can get away with murder. Well, and we know he's a con man, you know, so that makes sense too that he thinks that he can be sneaky and get away with things. But guess what?

It didn't fucking work. Get a divorce, get a divorce, don't kill your partner, get a divorce. Seriously. So when the trial was approaching, Richard accepted a plea deal. With this plea deal, he would accept guilt for Susan's murder, but wouldn't have to publicly admit that he actually committed it, though police knew that he did. With the plea deal, he would receive 40 years in prison, meaning he would get out at the age of 85, if he would live that long.

But he'll be eligible for parole in 2023, so just 20 years into his sentence at the age of 65. He's currently still in prison in Huntsville, Texas, and he and Susan's children were raised by foster parents. If anyone wants to learn more about this incredibly tragic case, make sure to pick up Gone Forever, a true story of marriage, betrayal, and murder written by Diane Fanning. Thank you so much everybody for listening to this episode of Going West.

Yes, thank you guys so much for listening to this episode of Going West. Every true crime case makes me really sad, but these kind of cases are so heartbreaking because Susan, by all accounts, seriously, was such an awesome lady. And she had so much to live for, and she loved her kids, she loved her job, she loved her family and friends. And again, this asshole just took it all away and then got caught, completely pointless crime that I just wish so badly didn't happen. Not only did he take away Susan's life, but he honestly took a huge part of the boys'

lives as well, so that's very sad and I just, I hope this guy doesn't get out of prison. But thank you again for listening to this episode guys. Remember we have some new merch in our merch store so you can head over to goingwestpod.com and click the shop tab. There's some new stuff in there and some fun sweatshirts and stuff for the cold season so make sure you pick up your merch. Yes and we also remember have bonus episodes. I know we always bring it up, but it's such a great way to help support the show. And you can go ahead and do that over at patreon.com slash going west podcast.

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