Let's Go To Court! - 8: The Blue-Eyed Butcher & the Illegitimate Con Artist

Episode Date: March 28, 2018

WARNING: The audio in this episode is rough. What can we say? We were young(ish), dumb, and thought we’d save a little money by sharing one microphone. Yeah. The audio quality improves drastically after episode 9.  Susan Wright stabbed her husband 193 times, left his dead body half-buried in the backyard, then asked police for a restraining order against him. A restraining order against her dead husband. So, what was up? It depends on who you ask. Some say she’s a cold blooded killer. The media even dubbed her the Blue-Eyed Butcher. But Susan tells a different story. She says that her husband had abused her for years and that she killed him to protect herself and her children. Lifetime movie aficionados Brandi and Kristin think the truth lies somewhere in between. Then Kristin talks about con artist Cassie Chadwick. This woman knew her craft. In the late 1800’s and early 1900’s, she talked countless people and banks out of millions of dollars. How did she do it? By starting a rumor that she was the illegitimate daughter of Andrew Carnegie. For years, her scheme worked perfectly. Until it didn’t. And now for a note about our process. For each episode, Kristin reads a bunch of articles, then spits them back out in her very limited vocabulary. Brandi copies and pastes from the best sources on the web. And sometimes Wikipedia. (No shade, Wikipedia. We love you.) We owe a huge debt of gratitude to the real experts who covered these cases. In this episode, Kristin pulled from*: “The High Priestess of Fraudulent Finance,” Smithsonian Magazine “Carnegie On Chadwick Case,” New York Times “Hoax of ‘Heiress’ Ruined Bankers,” Sarasota Herald-Tribune “The Turbulent Life of Cassie Chadwick,” Vintage News “Cassie Chadwick,” Biography.com The book “Whoppers: History’s Most Outrageous Lies and Liars” by Christine Seifer *Please note that Cassie Chadwick was full of shit, so details differ from story to story. In this episode, Brandi pulled from: “193” by Skip Hollandsworth, Texas Monthly “Wright Case Goes To Jury After Graphic Testimony” by Andrew Tilghman, Houston Chronicle “Susan Wright Guilty Of Murder” by Andrew Tilghman, Houston Chronicle

One semester of law school. One semester of criminal justice. Two experts! I'm Kristen Pitts. I'm Brandi Egan. Let's go to court! On this episode, I'll talk about con artist Cassie Chadwick, who told a lie so big that almost no one questioned it.

Until they did. And I'll be talking about the blue-eyed butcher, the Texas woman accused of stabbing her husband to death. Was she a battered woman or was she just after his life insurance? I am so excited about my case this week. I can't wait to hear about it. This is a totally nuts story. And this is the second week in a row where I've researched something, read about it, and been like, that's

it. I'm going to dedicate my entire life to this. And then I forget about it in two days. Okay, so I'm going to talk about Cassie Chadwick. Or was it Elizabeth Bigley? Oh! Or Emily Heathcliff? Who the hell knows?

I love these names! I left out Marie La Rose. Oh, but I thought it rhymed with who the hell knows. I really didn't want to do that. You didn't want to be too right. I didn't want to be too cute about it. You know, because it's such a serious, very serious podcast back to the business. Okay. So what we do know about Cassie Chadwick is she's one of the most famous con artists of all time. At least in my mind, I think she should be the most famous because in the late 1800s, she talked banks and people out of millions of dollars. Holy shit. In the late 1800s. Holy shit. Yes.

Adjusted for inflation. I can't even imagine how much money that would be. $11 billion. What she did was insane. You know what? You would have blown my mind just now if you could have actually told me the amount. So if I had taken like 20 seconds to Google this. Sorry, your mind will not be blown okay so a quick note before we get started yes so cassie chadwick changed her name a million times like eight times that we know of and in every article

i read like every paragraph god bless these They were like, and at this point in time, she was blah, blah, blah. She was Nancy blah. And then I'm just not going to do that. You're just going to have to every few minutes just churn out a new woman's name in your head. But I'm going to be calling her Cassie this whole time because that's the name she became famous with. That's the name she died with. Love it. Great.

Let's go. Cassie, let's go. That's the name she died with. Love it. Great. Let's go. Cassie, let's go. Okay, so Cassie Chadwick was born in 1857 in Ontario.

As a child, she had... Canada or California? Did I say California? No, Canada. Canada. I'm just curious. Definitely Canada. At least I think.

You know what? I assumed. Hold on no definitely canada yes it's canada because i unless it's california please don't question us i'm pretty sure i saw her on a website for famous canadians anyway love it okay famous canadian from canada or california I'm pretty sure I saw her on a website for famous Canadians. Anyway. Love it. Okay. She's a famous Canadian from Canada or California. So she was born in 1857. Where? Who cares? Yeah.

As a child, she had a speech impediment and lost hearing in one ear. As a result, she developed a very unusual way of talking. So she had this really severe lisp. Why are you laughing? Because I'm hoping so hard you're going to try and imitate it. No, that's the thing that kills me about this, is because it's such an old case, I can't, like, pull her up on YouTube.

But I am dying to know how she sounded. Yes. Because people described her as hypnotizing. Really? Yeah, because she... Now I'm about to try to imitate it but she she had this really like she had this really quiet way of speaking and she severely limited her vocabulary unlike me which it's like it's not a choice i make but like she she knew which words would

trigger the lisp and so she stuck to a really tight limit of what she would say. And it kind of made her seem mysterious and intriguing to people. Yeah. I could see that. So that's the first thing you have to know. Yeah. So she pulled off her first con when she was 13 years old. What the fuck?

Got started real early. Here's what she did. got started real early here's what she did she wrote a letter to herself saying that her uncle was dead and that she was owed an inheritance she drew up very fancy papers to um you know imitate a certificate of inheritance she did such a good job that when she took it to the bank, the bank gave her money. Holy shit. Yes. Which I wish I had found more information on this because she was growing up on a small farm. She had a ton of siblings. And all of a sudden she's 13 and she's got a boatload of money. And her parents not question where this money came from? Like how long did she get away with it? I know that eventually she did get caught. But here's the thing.

So the bank caught her. She was arrested for forgery. But they released her pretty quickly. They were like, do not do that again. OK? So believe it or not, that was not an effective punishment. Because they were like, don't scam banks. And she's like, got you.

Get better at scamming banks. So she did. So nine years later, she's 22. She takes that scam she did when she was 13 and like turns it up a notch. She saves up her money for really nice stationary oh my gosh like beautiful stationary and she does kind of the same thing she says some rich guy died and she's gonna inherit a bunch of money this time it's 15 000 which in today's money is 350 000 why i looked up that small figure and not like her actual figure uh i got busy i think i wanted a snack the wisps we're calling the wisps

um so let's see yada yada yada so she's got this nice stationery. She gets all dressed up. And the other thing she does, and this is just so unbelievable. Okay, so calling cards were really popular back then, kind of like business cards. Yeah. So she made some up for herself. And it's like a picture of her in profile view with a big fancy hat yeah and in the background of this calling card is a massive brick mansion and then in the upper right hand corner there's a smaller picture of this old rich white dude and then at the bottom of the calling card it says i am an heiress to fifteen thousand dollars and that was all it took that's what my business card says too don't question it i think it must have fallen under the realm of well you'd have to be crazy to print this up if

it wasn't true so people believed yeah here. Yeah. Here's what she did. She would go into stores, pick out an expensive item, and she would, I don't really get this, but she would offer to write a check for more than the amount of the thing, and then the cashier would give her money. Yeah. You know, that worked like crazy crazy and if anyone questioned her or seemed a little leery she'd just pull out that calling card and be like oh well there there you are you're an heiress oh i'm sorry you're an heiress excuse me goodness gracious eventually she got caught if you can believe it so she actually went to trial wow but here's the crazy thing

she spent the entire trial making weird faces at the jury what i'm not kidding you she made just kooky weird faces made them very uncomfortable they decided she was insane so they they acquitted her oh my god yes wow so she's learning things from all this first she learns get better at scamming people yes then like i guess you can trick people the other thing she learns is it's time to find a new town because i told all these people i was crazy um i'm not gonna keep that up so i need to go to cleveland she moves to cleveland with her sister and her sister's new husband but things are kind of lame because uh she doesn't have much money and cassie chadwick loves having money wait where did her $15,000 go? When they found out.

The fun ended. So here's what a good house guest Cassie Chadwick is. You know, she wants money. Totally unacceptable that she's broke. So she gets a bank loan using everything in her sister's house as collateral. Holy shit. That's a terrible house guest. So Cassie's sister was miffed.

No, so her husband and Cassie's sister, they were just pissed off. And they were like, you need to get the hell out. So now she's kicked out. She's penniless. what does she do i'm guessing she comes up with a new scam no she she took night classes and did a vision board and she got the end gosh this was a quick one. What was that, 13 minutes? No, so she meets a dude. She meets a doctor. Great stuff. He's rich. Again, this is... What dreams are made up. Yeah, yeah. What more do you want? A ton of money. I don't know what kind of magic she had,

but she immediately charmed him, was like, let's get married right this instant and he's like absolutely how could that be a bad idea so they get married right away and of course the local newspaper printed up a little notice you know cassie chadwick and you know whoever doctor whatever get married doctor whatever doctor whatever chadwick whatever way that's right And of course she was going by a different name. So who the hell knows? Two people get married. Yes. That was a problem that created a problem that she did not anticipate because the problem with being a con artist and always sticking with your same name is that then when you're in the newspaper, everyone you've ever wronged is like, oh, I gotcha. She lives here now? Okay.

So all these people come out of the woodwork. Shop owners she's screwed over. Her sister comes back. Like, everyone's like, okay, now she's with a guy who has money. I'm going to get my money back from her. This poor husband. Oh, no. At first, he was like, what? get out of here not my cassie this wonderful sophisticated

woman no but eventually he realizes it's not that everyone else is full of shit it's that my new wife is full of shit and so he kind of has this moment where he's like, crap, I'm in a terrible situation. I've married this woman. I barely know her. Her debts are now my debts. So he paid everything off. Oh, my gosh. And he divorced her.

Their marriage lasted 12 days. What? All this happened in 12 days? Yes. Yes. Holy shit. All this happened in 12 days? Yes, yes, yes.

Holy shit! He was like, I'm going to take care of this, be done, lesson learned. Oh my gosh. Yes, yes. So what did Cassie learn from this? Keep on truckin', just change your name next time. So at this point, she starts moving around, changing her name and testing out any scheme she can on anybody with a pulse. In Pennsylvania, she tries this one. She tells everyone she's the niece of Civil War General William Sherman, and people were kind of impressed. But after a while, people start to catch on. You know,

you can only scheme so many people before eventually word gets out. So she decided she needed to go back to Cleveland. There was just one problem. She was out of money. Again. So what does she do? Oh, Lord. She, this is so gross. She extracted blood from her gums to make it look like she was hemorrhaging. The look on your face. Oh my God. Yes. I'm just trying to figure out where this is going. So everyone thought she was horribly ill without enough money to get back home to be with her family when she was so horribly ill people took pity on her

and they collected enough funds to get her back to cleveland this is like victorian age go fund me yes and she's like thank you guys so much this is so wonderful appreciate this. I will pay you back as soon as I get back to my family in Cleveland. Whose fucking mind comes up with a twisted fucking plan like that? I don't know. I mean, that is so I just I can't imagine any of it. No, it's disgusting. Yes. Look at this next part. Okay. So she's back in cleveland now and you know the people in pennsylvania are expecting to be repaid and so they're waiting and waiting and waiting and so finally they send her a letter and they're like no this isn't gross it's just it's more funny than gross so they send her a letter they're like hey, feel free to pay us back whenever.

Whenever you feel comfortable. She writes them back a letter saying that. So she went by Marie in Pennsylvania. She goes, oh, I have terrible news. Marie is dead. And then she wrote a glowing, loving tribute to her dead self rest in peace me no one was better than me oh my gosh around this time she becomes a fortune teller. What?

Why not? Okay, now, hold on. I need your reaction, because I think being a fortune teller is, like, the best thing for a con artist. That is, like... Okay, but what a fucking turn. Like, I'm sorry. I just don't see, like, scamming banks and scamming people. And then, oh, now I'm a fortune tellerer which i guess is still scamming people but listen it seems like quite a turn to me sometimes in life you're not on a ladder you're on a jungle

chair i think i've seen that on an inspirational poster somewhere is there a cat hanging off of the jungle chair are you inspired right now or not? She had to test out a bunch of different stuff. Turns out she was pretty good at being a fortune teller or manipulating people, you know, however you want to see it. So she was great at being a fortune teller. She could really, really read people. People found her intriguing and mysterious because, again, she had this funny way of talking that drew people in yeah i forgot about the speech impediment yes okay take it all back she was made to be a fortune teller thank you thank you okay i have something to say that is not nice and it has no place here but i'm just throwing it in. Okay. My thought on con artists, and I love, you know, I'm obsessed with con artists.

You love con artists. I think that came out like corn artists, but I, of course, meant con artists. If you can do something fancy with corn, I'm a fan of that, too. So, my assumption about them is that they're all super good looking. That's just what I have in my head. That in order to con a bunch of people, then you have to be good looking to really get away with stuff. Yeah, I could definitely see that. Well, I mean, at least it makes it easier, I would guess.

I would think so. Yeah. And I don't know. I guess when I was reading. I think it would be much harder to be a successful con artist if you're ugly. Well, prepare to admire Cassie Chadwick. Oh, gosh. Because here, I'm just going to read some of the things that other people have written about her, okay?

Mm-hmm. Smithsonian Magazine had an awesome article about her, and they wrote, She was rather plain, with a tight, unsmiling mouth and a nest of dull brown hair. Oh, God. Where can I get somebody to describe me like that this next one is called is from the book whoppers history's most outrageous lies and liars described her as having mousy brown hair a round face with no discernible chin and a smug thin-lipped smile. No discernible shit.

I thought that was so funny. That's a rough one. But, anyway, the bottom line is, so, looks had nothing to do with her schemes. Like, it was all about her ability, I think, to read people, to manipulate people. She had this intriguing way about her, and, you know, that was it.

That sexy speech impediment that she had. A classic way to win a guy. So she starts this fortune-telling business and marries one of her clients. And it's kind of unclear what happened with that marriage, but it ended, obviously. So what does she do then? Because, again ended people were on to her she moves to toledo changes her name i feel like she's not moving far enough away think but those this is back in the whoa that was You also have a super sexy feet. Are you intrigued? Randy, I have a business card I'd like to show you. Please give me $200.

So she moves to Toledo. Oh, okay, what I was about to say, when all my words came at you at once. This was the late 1800s. So I feel like you didn't have to move too far away. I true yeah for people to be totally isolated yeah yeah all right yeah so just i guess i'll buy all right so she marries another one of her fortune telling clients and this poor dude is just as dumb as a rock. He's just not bright. She starts writing up these checks. And so she gives them to the husband and says, hey,

go to the bank and cash this knowing that he has a good reputation in town. He's lived there. You know, people aren't going to suspect him. So he's taking these checks to the bank. Yeah. And yeah. So they,

they get away with that for a while and then all of a sudden the police arrest both of them because they're like you're both in on this you're both doing something bad here and the poor guy's like what so it doesn't take people long to realize, he's not the mastermind of this operation. He is literally just a guy who walked to the bank. Oh, gosh. At one point, he said that he felt under her hypnotic spell or something. Mm-hmm. So, he's let free.

She goes to jail. She's sentenced to nine years in prison. Wow. Yes. But. Oh. But. Oh, gosh. But once she's in prison, she starts scamming people immediately. Oh, my gosh.

And not just the inmates. Oh, gosh. So I'd like to think that some people were skeptical of her. But here's the thing. She told the warden, you're about to lose $5,000 in a business deal. And you're about to lose five thousand dollars in a business deal and you're gonna die fortune teller yes because she that's the thing she goes i'm clairvoyant yeah you know just accept that she the tragedy is that we don't have a video set up so you are so pleased with yourself

oh god so m. Voyant tells... She tells the warden, you're about to lose five grand in a business deal and you're about to die of cancer. Then both things happen. Shut the fuck up. I'm serious. I'm serious.

He loses five grand, dies of cancer, and everyone's like, whoa, holy shit. Cassie knows her stuff. Cassie is magic. So she's got all that going on. And she starts up this letter writing campaign to the parole board. She's like, I am sorry.

I have learned my lesson. I will never scam another person. Trust me. As she's scamming the Pearl Harbor. But it worked. Oh, gosh. So then Ohio governor and future president, William McKinley, signed the release.

Oh, my gosh. So she got out of prison after four years. Wow. Yes. Yes. Wow. This is when it gets really good as soon as she's released she moves back to cleveland and she opens up a brothel sure at the brothel she meets leroy chadwick and leroy chadwick is everything she could ever want in a man.

He is rich. He's a doctor. He's part of Cleveland's most prominent family, one of them anyway. So she's like, gotta have him. Yeah. Must have. So she presents herself as a wealthy woman from a prominent New York family. And she says, you know, hello, I am the owner of this boarding house for women. And he's like, I know this is a brothel. So what does she do? She's like,

oh, no, I'm trying to present myself as his next wife here. And he knows that i own a brothel so she faints she pretends to pass out and then when she comes to uh she's like oh my goodness i had no idea this is horrifying get me away from here i'm sorry what i didn't know i was running a brothel? That's what she's trying to sell? She tried to paint herself as like, I'm, this is a boarding house where I teach young ladies etiquette. And they have taken it to the next level. Very hospitable ladies here. very hospitable ladies here. So that worked. No!

I'm serious. And once again, with astonishing speed, they get married. What the hell? I know. She moved fast. I want to have a dinner party with her. She'd probably leave with all my money. I think she would.

But I'm just, I want to know what it was about her. Wow. So almost immediately, she moved into his home on Euclid Avenue, which at that time was known as Millionaire's Row in Cleveland. This, I looked up pictures. It is gorgeous home after gorgeous home after gorgeous home, huge places. Euclid Avenue back in the day, back in the late 1800s, was just incredible. Relatives of the Rockefellers lived there. They had a couple U.S. senators nearby. They had the former private secretary to Abraham Lincoln.

So Cassie's like, finally, finally, I am amongst my people. I am living in the house I was meant to live in. I have money. At last, things are how they should be. You know, she'd been the owner of a brothel five minutes ago in jail 10 minutes ago but now she's now she's like excellent this is my station in life yes this is where I'm meant to be so that good feeling lasts for about 10 seconds because two big problems emerge so she starts spending money like crazy and dr chadwick is like whoa

whoa i am rich i'm not that rich you i mean you've really got to cool it yeah so that wasn't okay at all no did not appreciate that then the other thing was you know she thought she would come live on millionaire's row and then all the other millionaires would accept her and yeah you know become her friends uh no they thought she was a big sketch ball uh yeah because because she was because they were right yes who's clairvoyant now so yeah she thought she'd be immediately accepted but the thing was this all moved way too fast because there was never a period where dr chadwick leroy was like um hey guys meet my fiance or meet this woman i'm courting it was just boom here's my wife yep hope you like her so the chadwicks would get invited places but it was really only as a

favor to leroy chadwick because they liked him but they they were whispering like didn't she used to run a brothel i'm pretty sure yeah so people kind of thought so this is not good no none of this is good uh budgets no good and the rumors are not good. No. None of this is good. Budgets, no good. And the rumors are not good. So what does she do? This is, this next part is beautiful. I love, love, love this. Okay.

So Leroy Chadwick, her husband, had a friend named James James Dillon Dillon was a lawyer and a big gossip the guy loved to tell all kinds of stories one day Cassie found out that James was going to be in New York she got on the train and went to New York she found out what hotel he was going to be in she went to that hotel she waited in the lobby she waited was going to be in. She went to that hotel. She waited in the lobby. She waited for him to appear in the lobby. Then she walked over to him, brushed past his shoulder. Oh, my gosh. Of course, whenever someone brushes by you that close, you might turn and say, excuse me. He turned, said, excuse me.

And then she's like, oh, my goodness, James Dillon, what are you doing here? Oh, how strange. And he's like, oh, you know, what are you doing here? Yeah, this is great to see you. And she's like, oh, I'm just here visiting my father. He's like, oh, okay. Because she told people she was this wealthy aristocrat from New York. And she goes, you know something, the aristocrat from New York. And she goes, you know something? I'm here alone. Would you mind accompanying me to my father's place?

And he's like, well, sure, that's fine. So this is going to be a difficult thing because her father's not fucking there. Oh, just you wait. So they get in a carriage. She gives the driver this address. They pull up to it. It is a 52,000 square foot mansion. It's fucking incredible. It's in the middle of New York City.

It sits on, I believe, a little over an acre. Wow. Gardens. I mean, a little over an acre. Wow. Gardens. I mean, it is just beautiful. It is now owned by the Smithsonian Institute. So at this point, James Dillon is like, whoa, what the hell? I just hit my microphone. I apologize if that interrupted your story.

I'm going to need a five-minute break to recollect myself. Okay, so James Dillon is blown away. He's like, I can't believe this is your father's house. And she's like, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, you wait here in the carriage. I'll be back in just a bit. She goes up to the house, knocks on the door. Butler answers.

She quietly asks, could I please speak to the head housekeeper? They let her in. She speaks to the head housekeeper. She says, hi, I'm here to check the references of Hilda Schmidt. I'm thinking about hiring her to clean my home. And I just, I know she used to work here. So I want to make sure she's a good worker she's reliable blah blah blah and the head housekeeper is like oh my goodness um we've never had someone by that

name here and Cassie's like oh no no that can't be true so she launches into a long description of this fake person she just made up oh my god and the lady's thinking and thinking she's like no and Cassie's like, oh, this can't be right. Let me tell you a little bit about her history. Makes up the history. Cassie drags this out for half an hour. Oh my gosh. This conversation. Then she

walks out. And from underneath her coat, she pulls out an envelope so that it will look to James Dillon like she walked in empty handed, but she's leaving with this envelope. She gets back to the carriage. What slips out of the envelope? Oopsies. It's a two million dollar promissory note signed by Andrew Carnegie.

What? So Andrew Carnegie was one of the wealthiest men in the world at this point yeah that maybe you've heard of a little hall huh what now so you know james dylan looks down at this promissory note with Andrew Carnegie's signature on it. And he's like, whoa, what? And she goes, look, I'm going to tell you this, but you have to swear you will not tell anybody. So, of course, he agrees. Sure. Yeah.

What do you want to tell me? She goes, I am the illegitimate daughter of Andrew Carnegie. What? She's, that's what she claims she says i'm the illegitimate daughter of andrew carnegie founder of carnegie steel company um then you know since she's unburdening herself she goes ahead and opens the envelope and shows james even more stuff so she's got five million dollars worth of securities promissory notes for half a million dollars, quarter million dollars. And she's like, this is just a small piece of the pie.

I've got way more back home. And when Daddy dies, I'm going to inherit millions. He, you know, we've got to keep this quiet because obviously it's an embarrassment. But he feels obligated to take care of me because I am his flesh and blood. Oh my gosh. But again, James, don't tell a soul. I would just hate for this to get out. But of course he told everybody. Yeah. Okay. I think this is a brilliant scheme because James went around telling everybody, but he always said it in like, you can't tell anybody. So then it becomes an open secret that no one, no one's going to call anybody out on, but everybody knows it.

Yeah, that's true. So it changes the way she's treated by the people on Millionaire's Row. So it changes the way she's treated by the people on Millionaire's Row. And more importantly, once all the banks find out, they're like, whoa, we've got to get this woman's business because she's a millionaire right now. She's going to become extremely wealthy when Andrew Carnegie dies. We have to get her business. So they offer her massive loans. And homegirl buys everything. She goes nuts.

Oh, gosh. Diamonds, pearls, a gold pipe organ. I'm sorry. A gold pipe organ? Yes. Yes. Everybody needs one of those. It was only the necessities that she went after.

Basically, my understanding is if it was gold, she needed to have it. Yeah. She brought in furniture from Europe, which I don't even know. That has to be the most crazy expensive thing you could do. It would be super expensive at that time. Yeah. Bring in furniture from Europe to Cleveland. Yeah. That's nuts. So she brings in designer clothes from New York. She became a big fixture at all the shops in Cleveland. According to a newspaper article I read, she thought nothing of spending $10,000 in a single shopping day. In the late 1800s. Yes. Fuck. I mean, I know it's nothing for you and i right now right now i mean that's just you know pennies can you imagine no i can't fucking imagine yeah um she even bought a

chair that made a musical sound whenever when anyone sat in it what and my understanding is not like a whoopee cushion yes that's exactly what i wrote down i wrote down old- like a whoopee cushion. Yes. That's exactly what I wrote down. I wrote down old timey whoopee cushion. Because my understanding is it was like one note, which sounds like a terrible joke to play on someone. And then, you know, she starts really rubbing in her wealth into people's faces. She bought grand pianos to give out as gifts like eight grand pianos just here you go yeah thank you for coming to dinner have this grand piano um for wedding real bitch to get in the Good luck with this. Hope you've got space.

So she gave people expensive cars as wedding presents. Oh my gosh. And this was when she became nicknamed the Queen of Ohio. This went on for eight years. Oh my God. Yes. Eight years. Can you imagine?

How many grand pianos could she have bought in eight years? Oh, my God. Yes. Eight years. Can you imagine? How many grand pianos could she have bought in eight years? They say eight. I would believe more. I believe more, too. Yes. She took out millions of dollars worth of loans. Yeah.

So an article from the Vintage News said she took out $20 million. I think the Smithsonian once said $16.5 million. I mean, either way. Shit ton. Shit ton. Yes. Why didn't these articles just say shit ton? I know.

Yeah. Come on. She became so well known as Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate daughter that Andrew Carnegie's friends started loaning her money. Yeah. Oh, my God. Because, you know, everyone knew she'd be able to pay because, you know, Andrew Carnegie. Oh, my God. Mm-hmm.

So let's get into more detail about the Carnegie scam. In a second. I thought you intentionally raised your voice to cover up peanut barking. Uh, no. If people hear that, that's just part of the charm. That is the joy of this podcast. Yes. Maybe you hear a cat.

Maybe you hear a dog. Maybe you hear Norm opening 800 doors. Yes, yes. Definitely you hear Norm opening the door. So she pulled off this scam at dozens of banks, mostly in Ohio, but also on the East Coast. She took out a ton of loans and would usually, like, pay off one loan with another loan. So people, you know, it kind of hit her tracks a little bit. And she didn't just scam the banks.

She scammed wealthy people, too. And that's how she finally got into trouble. Oh, God. people too. And that's how she finally got into trouble. Oh, God. So quite a few years into the scheme, she meets up with an investment banker from Boston. He knows all about how she's Andrew Carnegie's illegitimate child, and he wants in on this. He's like, absolutely, I can loan you money. He wrote her a check from his business for $79,000. He wrote her a personal check from his own account, and then he gave her a promissory note for almost $200,000. Holy shit. These people had too much money. Clearly. Yeah. Here's where his own greed came into play, and I think this is kind of fun.

He tacked on an insane interest rate to all these loans. He was like, He tacked on an insane interest rate to all these loans. He was like, mm-hmm. Yeah. This is going to be great. I'm getting that Carnegie money. Yep. Because he wanted to cash in on the connection. And, of course, Cassie was like, sure.

I'll pay whatever interest rate you want. She wasn't going to fucking pay it anyway. No way. Yeah. Never had any intention of paying it. Yeah. Make it $11 billion interest rate. Sure.

I'll pay that. So he's like, excellent. She is so rich and so naive perfect then i kind of love that it made me really happy too so but then you know he feels really good but then he's like, uh-oh, because he starts talking to other people in the finance world and realizes that everyone's loaning her money and no one's getting it back. So, he got suspicious. Yeah. It's about time somebody did. Yes. So, he finally did what no one to that point had done

he called andrew carnegie oh even andrew carnegie's friends weren't like because it was they didn't want to have the embarrassing conversation about the illegitimate child all right i get it that's you've totally filled it in. Everyone was, no one wanted to embarrass him. Yes. And I think, again, going to the greed thing, I think they felt like they were kind of getting away with something by loaning her this money. Yeah. And so, yeah, no one wanted to talk to Andrew Carnegie about it. Yes. Oh, oh no so he calls up andrew carnegie and andrew carnegie is like uh who so the guy was pissed he's like oh shit she's not the dummy i'm the dummy so in 1905 he sued her and that's when shit hit the fan.

All of a sudden, everyone started to realize, oh my gosh, we've all been scammed. All these banks got into trouble. Here's the thing that's tough. I saw this in the Smithsonian article, and I totally agree. There's this theory that we don't know how much she really took from wealthy people because wealthy people would be too embarrassed to admit what they got scammed out of. Exactly. Absolutely. And it's like, if you can take that financial hit, it's just better to not take the ego hit. Exactly. And the other thing that I think plays into this, because first of all, I think that's just human nature in any situation. Yes. But the other thing was that when Andrew Carnegie found out about this,

he gave interviews to newspapers where he was just like, I can't believe people are this naive. Yeah. This is so, he, he made it, I think, so that people would be really embarrassed. Yeah. Which I'm sure he was pissed, not only at her, but at all these people who were like waiting for him to die. Yeah. You know? So, yeah, he told the New York Times, I can't believe this. I can't believe so many people were so naive as to fall for this.

And he's like, and I can't believe nobody asked me. If they had just asked me, I would have told them. nobody asked me if they had just asked me yep i would have told them so again 1905 she is getting sued she tries to escape she makes it all the way to new york she is caught and arrested with a money belt clipped to her filled with one hundred thousand dollars the trial became national news and i don't have a ton of info on the trial but um a lot of what are we doing a court podcast certainly not no this is a con artist podcast let's go to con artist school. Let's get con. So a lot of prominent people attended this trial, including Andrew Carnegie. He stayed for the whole trial. Of course he would be there.

Yeah. He was like, oh, hello, folks. Yeah. The trial lasted six days. Cassie pled not guilty. And she claimed that she never said that Andrew Carnegie was her father. What? Which I wonder...

How could anybody prove that she did? That's kind of what I wonder. Yeah. Because if it was this super secret thing and everyone was kind of loaning her this money with like a wink, but anyway, nobody believed that. So I guess it doesn't matter. After five hours of deliberation, the jury found her guilty of conspiracy to defraud a national bank. She was sentenced to 10 years in prison. Afterward, Andrew Carnegie was able to actually look at some of these forged documents.

And he said, if anybody had seen this paper and then really believed that I had drawn it up and signed it, I could hardly have been flattered. And he pointed out all these spelling errors and grammar errors. And he's like, do you people think I'm dumb? Oh, my God. And then he said, why, I have not signed a note in the last 30 years. Wow. So a little while after that, Cassie showed up for prison. She brought furniture, designer clothes, animal skin rugs.

What the hell? And the warden allowed all of it. What? Yeah. She was kind of a celebrity. I mean, it was just one of those weird things. Two years into her sentence, she died in prison on her 50th birthday. What'd she die of?

Oh, God. I can't remember. Just being 50 in 1905. They wrote that on the tombstone. No, I think she had, I feel like she went blind. I mean, stuff happened to her. Yeah. Prison life wasn't good to her.

She really needed the high life. Oh my gosh. Is that not the craziest story? I just can't believe that she's not more well known than she is. Yeah. Oh my gosh.

I think that there's the fact that such a high profile, wealthy celebrity. Yeah. At that time, I think that's Andrew Carnegie would be considered a celebrity. Absolutely.

To be so closely involved in that. That's bananas. Yes. Yes, it absolutely is. That's good thank you i am a little bit um concerned with your obsession with connor yeah i don't know what it is but you told me to listen to that podcast, Dirty John. Yes. I listened to it alarmingly quickly. You know, just blew through it.

I don't know what it is. I just, I'm fascinated. I don't get it. Is it because you don't trust anyone? Yeah. You know what? Very good. Very good.

Yeah. Duh. What am I like? It's a mystery. No, I have trust issues. That's why. Oh good. Yeah. Duh. What am I like? It's a mystery. No, I have trust issues. That's why. Oh, my gosh. Because I was thinking like.

This has been therapy hour with Kristen and Brandy. I love that you just immediately were like, boom, there's your answer. Because I have been thinking this for like, you know. So it's to you. It has to be just mind boggling that people would trust people so much that they could get conned to that level. Good God. Anytime I wonder anything about myself, I need to call you up. And then you can just be like, boom.

But no, you're totally right. I am a fortune teller. Yeah, I think it's because I'm so skeptical about everything. I'm, yeah, I just, I don't get it. I don't get any of it. Right. I don't get a 13-year-old showing up at a bank saying, I'm inheriting a ton of money. No, don't get that.

No. Don't get. I don't even get where someone comes up with the ideas that she came up with. No, no. I can't even wrap my brain around that part of it. The whole scene of her going to New York, brushing up against James Dillon. I mean, what the hell? Yeah, that is nuts.

It is. I find her completely fascinating. I agree with you. Yes. I think she is nuts. It is. I find her completely fascinating. I agree with you. Yes. I think she is fascinating. Do you have trust issues too? Is that what this is coming down to? You've got to be just as messed up as me.

That's right. Huh. I liked that one. That was very interesting. Next time, I'll try to include more trial stuff as you wisely pointed out we are a trial podcast hey i mean there was a there was a trial in it i think that met the requirements of the podcast kristin you know it was one of those things where i i read that story about james dylan and like she did. And I was so sucked in by that,

that by the time I got to the point of the trial and there was like nothing, I was like, um, I'm in too deep. It's Tuesday at 10 o'clock at night. This is just the way it's going to be. Yeah. It's our fucking podcast.

If you don't like it, you don't fucking listen. Whoa. No, please listen. Good God. Please listen. I'm taking it all back. podcast if you don't like it you don't fucking listen oh no please listen please listen good god otherwise we're just two crazy ladies talking to each other in this tiny room every week i was gonna say brandy i looked at the itunes analytics on our podcast we can't be turning anyone away bring us your crazies all All right, we'll take all

of the crazies. All right, are you ready to hear about the blue-eyed butcher? I, I love, I loved your intro. I'm so excited. Battered worm, well, battered worm. Battered worm. Battered woman or insurance scam. Very excited. Okay. So as I was talking about the podcast at work one day, so, you know, as you know, I work in a salon. So there's girls around me all the time and we love talking about this kind of stuff. So we're talking about the podcast and one of the girls at the salon told me about this case. She had seen the Lifetime movie about it and love it.

She said it was really interesting. And so I looked it up and holy shit, was she right? So shout out to Maya for introducing me to this case. Thank you, Maya. This is the tale of the blue eyed butcher. I got my info from an amazing article in Texas Monthly by Skip Hollinsworth, which I love that name. I feel like I know that name. Well, I feel like maybe he was Blanche's grandson.

That's how I know that name. Oh, my God. that name oh my god do you know how humbling that is to be like i think i know this journalist name maybe it's because i'm so well read no it's because i watch golden girls on the hallmark channel all the time um and then i pulled from another article from the Houston Chronicle by Andrew Tillman. It's spelled T-I-L-G-H-M-A-N. Yeah, I have no idea. Tillman. I'm sorry, Andrew.

If you'd like to send me over a phonetic pronunciation of your name I'd be happy to correct it right now I'm going with tilt me because if the GH are silent why fucking have them in there I agree I totally useless yes

alright January 18th 2003 we are uh juniors in high school yes yes we are juniors in high school uh-huh okay oh um you have more to add to that i was just gonna say for our first episode i don't know if you noticed this but we said we were sophomores in high school. And I guess it was like 2002 or yeah. Wow, we just established that. And I cut it out, out of paranoia. I cut out sophomore.

So it just says in high school, like really, really terrible audio editing. And it was because I was like, well, you know, what if this podcast, like what if we get weird stalkers? And like that in my mind was the way to save us from terrible deaths. I didn't give our fucking addresses, Krista. I know. See, this is why I'm obsessed with con artists and stuff. I'm like, even the slightest detail, you know, it'll be ruined for us.

Well, January 18th, 2003, Kristen and I were in some form of high school. What year? We'll never tell you. Maybe elementary. Maybe. Maybe we were 80 year old women already by that point. And we're like Benjamin buttoning it and we're getting younger. Very hard to stop yes so lawyer neil davis walks into the harris county district attorney office and says that he represents a client who has led him to believe that a body could be found at a

small patio home in the white oak bend subdivision in northwest Harris County. So Harris County is a large county in Texas where Houston is located. Okay. So this is just like just north of Houston. It's a nice neighborhood, but smaller homes, very like solidly middle class. very like solidly middle class. So he refuses to give any other details citing client-attorney privilege. Oh my gosh, just... Attorney-client privilege?

Is there a way to say it right? I think it's attorney-client. Okay, attorney-client privilege. That's my one semester of law school at work. They do it alphabetically. So he says, that's all I can tell you wait and he so he just says there's a body i bet my client has led me to believe there may be a body at this address oh my god so the police are like okay and so they go to this address and there they discover the nude body of 34 year old jeffrey wright

half buried in the backyard ew what oh my god which half it's like he's like face down and just like you know parts like there's like a leg i think oh no like a hand out oh god oh my And oh, God. Oh, my God. So the family dog has begun digging him up. He has neckties tied around his wrist. Oh, no. There's a bathrobe sash tied around one ankle. And one hand has been chewed off and is laying on the patio. Oh, no. Because the family dog, as as i mentioned that's a bad

dog that's uh if my my fucking dog if my dead body's laying there and they start chewing on me i'm gonna come back and haunt that that's right you'll ruin all walks for them that's right um police enter the home and they find blood fucking everywhere oh my god there's blood spattered throughout the master bedroom including the bed the floors the walls the ceiling the ironing board what just it's like somebody just sprayed blood all over the master bedroom. Oh, my God. Yes.

So police call up this lawyer, Neil Davis. And they're like, hey, does your client happen to be Susan Wright? Uh-huh. Jeffrey's 26-year-old wife. And he's like, oh, yeah, that's my client. Um, she won't be speaking to you though, because she's currently in a mental hospital because she believes that her

husband is still alive and is coming to kill her at any moment. Okay. And so the police are like, okay. Pretty sure he's dead. The police, it turns out, were familiar with Susan. Oh. Because days earlier, on January 14th, she had been in the police department and filed a request for a protection order against her husband citing domestic abuse.

Oh. against her husband citing domestic abuse. Oh. As it turned out, on that day, January 14th, Jeffrey was already dead. Oh. Because on January 13th, Susan tied him to the bed and stabbed him 193 times.

What? 193 times yes so 193 times um is like the official amount that is given in the autopsy but the medical examiner says that was the number they could count they believe that there are probably more upwards of 200. Well, of course, because I mean, if you're going that crazy, you're going to hit some of the same spots twice. Oh, my God. So what Susan gets out of this mental hospital where she's at and she turns herself into police on January 24th and she's arraigned on murder charges three days later. She enters a plea of not guilty by reason of self-defense.

How do you feel about that, Kristen? Well, I feel like it's going to be one of those things where I'll say something and then you'll tell me more and I'll be like, I take everything back. I have learned something from last week but my my question is oh shit oh sorry for i mean i barely bumped the mic one time during your segment you just fucking pulled the whole thing off i am not used to this kind of equipment we We've really upgraded the equipment, and I'm used to our old dog and pony show. I have trouble with the information that we have at this point, understanding how 193 stab wounds could be self-defense.

Yeah, unless she has, like, 116 on her. You know, my problem is, so he was tied up, right? Correct. Yeah. So that's my problem with self-defense. Yeah. How was he going to come after you if he was tied up? Well, let's get there.

Okay. 13 months later, on February 24th, 2004, the trial that some called a study in courtroom sensationalism began. So there was no mystery about how this guy died. So this was not something that stretched out. There was no search for the perpetrator. Like, turn yourself in. This trial started almost exactly a year later. The trial was so lurid and the details so gruesome that Court TV covered this

trial gavel to gavel. 48 hours devoted an entire episode to the case and Lifetime tossed around ideas for a made-for-TV movie. It was this movie that Maya saw and told me about leading to me covering this case for this episode. Excellent. So this, all of this media coverage, they started referring to Susan as the blue-eyed butcher. She was young, 20, 26, I think, blonde, these big blue eyes, very attractive. And so that's just kind of the, you know, the fun nickname that the media gave her

and the name of the lifetime movie okay um the prosecution led by assistant district attorney uh kelly siegler would argue that susan killed her husband for his two hundred thousand dollar life insurance policy while susan's defense attorney neil Davis, argued that after suffering years of abuse, she had killed her husband to protect herself and her children. So they had been married for four or five years. I think four years because they had a four-year-old son, but she was pregnant at the time they got married.

Okay. So they had a four-year-old son and like a two-year-old daughter. Gotcha. Don't question me on those ages. I imagine that's very important to the case. Susan took the stand in her defense on this trial. Oh, people never do that. Never do it. Yes. She tearfully told, tearfully told jurors one horrific tale after another about the abuse she had secretly endured during her five-year marriage. You've said that like Ricky Ricardo. About the abuse. I know.

My mouth is so dry, but I'm afraid to take a drink take a drink people won't care if they hear your ice sorry if you heard the ice in my cup I would not think my beverage joints through okay so she told one horrific tale after another about the abuse she had secretly endured during her five-year marriage.

Beneath her husband's congenial, back-slapping persona, she testified, was a sadistic, drug-abusing brute who'd belittled and controlled her, kicked and punched her when she didn't do what he he wanted and sexually assaulted her whenever he felt like it. On the evening of January 13th, 2003, Susan said Jeffrey returned home from a boxing lesson high on cocaine. Tried to get Bradley, their four-year-old son, to box with him. Popped him in the face with his, and later attacked her after she told him he had to get help for his anger. He then ordered her to get into bed where he raped her. Afterward, he left for a few minutes, and when he returned, he was holding a butcher knife. He waved it over her head, shouting, die, bitch. Oh, God. She testified, I threw my hands up, then I grabbed the knife and I started kicking him

with my right knee. His grasp on the knife loosened just a little bit and I got it from him. She said she first stabbed him in the neck and then kept stabbing him because she knew that the second she stopped, he was going to kill her. At one point during the frenzied stabbing, Bradley, the four-year-old son, knocked on the bedroom door. Despite the fact that she had already stabbed Jeffrey multiple times, she was convinced that he was going to get up and come after her.

So Wright said that she tied her husband's arm to the bed with a necktie before hiding the knife and walking Bradley back to his room. Then she got another knife from the kitchen thinking Jeffrey might have found the first one. She said, I knew he was going to kill me and I was so scared because I didn't want to die. I started stabbing him again. She said she began stabbing his legs for all the times he kicked her her, and she stabbed his penis for all the times she made her have sex when she didn't want to. And so in her mind, in her testimony, she's saying that she's on him, and she's just stabbing and stabbing because she fears the moment

she stops stabbing that he's going to kill her. So is the theory PTSD? Yeah, I think the theory is like battered wife syndrome yeah yeah yeah um finally she testifies that she cut the night or cut the tie connecting his hand to the bedpost and pulled him off the bed she says his shoulder hit the nightstand spilling the wax from a red candle Jeffrey had lit earlier that evening onto his body. She brought a dolly into the bedroom, propped him on it, used another necktie to fasten his left hand to the dolly. Why do they have a dolly? Sorry. I guess I don't need to judge what people have in their homes. No, they have a dolly,

Kristen. Lots of people have dollies. He seemed to be, I think he had like a tile company, worked for a tile company. Okay, then that makes sense. That makes sense. You know, not everybody's husband is a video game. Don't make the people jealous, Brandon. I don't want to bum anybody out because I got the YouTube sensation. So she testifies that she brings the dolly into the bedroom, props him onto it, and then used another necktie to fasten his left hand to the dolly and used the sash from her bathrobe to secure his feet. Then she rolled Jeffrey outside to a hole that he had dug months earlier to install a fountain.

Which, gentlemen, if you're listening, let this be a lesson. If you start a fucking project, finish it or your dead body's gonna end up in the hole. I am so glad you're giving this lesson. Complete it 100%. Kyla,

Kyla, wow. Oh God, what kind of weird psychological issue is that? I was trying to say my husband's name and I said my sister. Norman. So Norman and I had this really condescending home inspector one time. And he said this, that in retrospect was totally true and dead on. He said, whatever project you start, complete it 100%. Don't start a kitchen renovation and just leave the trim off and you're going to get to it later

because... You'll never come back to it. Yeah, it'll never come back to it. And he was putting it in terms of like, the wife will always be upset because in her mind, the kitchen isn't done. Yes.

I'm sorry. It's just not done. It's just not done. I don't know what the, I don't care who's the wife, whatever. It's not fucking done. Yeah, yeah. If it's not done on under, okay, I'm with you. Yes. Thank you. So Jeffrey had dug this hole in the backyard like four months earlier

to put in a fountain. And now his dead body is in it. Project complete. I'm sorry. that's messed up yeah bad stuff because i guess right now i'm i've kind of bought into this that he was abusive and so part of me is kind of like yeah and now he's in a fountain hole. So what do I know? He could be innocent. Exactly. Okay. Either way, he probably doesn't deserve to be in a fountain hole. So she crams his six foot two inch body into the fountain hole, covers him with dirt and goes

inside. But she testifies that she still believed her husband was alive she said she sat on the sofa for the rest of the night with the knife in her hands and watched for jeff to get up because i was afraid the second i went to sleep he was going to get up and come after me again right told the jury that on the night of the killing she experienced some sort of mental breakdown which lasted for days she explained that the reason she didn't initially tell anyone about what she had done was because that her brain still wouldn't accept it he was still alive and i was scared of him and it wasn't until sunday morning five days after the killing that she began to realize that something horrible had happened. So after the killing,

she does a couple of weird things. Weirder than what we've already heard. So the first of which is her effort to clean up the scene. So she goes to the store. She buys all of these cleaning products and paint and topsoil. So she buys topsoil because she feels like she needs to add a layer on top of him because this fountain hole is not that deep. And so she's going to put a layer of dirt over him to, you know, conceal him better.

And it's going to keep him weighed down so he can't get up and come after her. This is what she testifies. Okay. She goes in and she like bleaches the whole bedroom and starts to attempt to paint the walls paint over the blood in the walls but as mentioned earlier she did a fucking terrible job because when the police come in there's blood everywhere and so she testifies that she did these things because in her mind, Jeffrey was going to come home at any minute and he was going to be pissed that the house was a mess. I.

Yes. Oh, man. So it's her testimony that she was in some kind of fog, some kind of dissociative state at this time, where she realized that there was clearly this giant mess from killing her husband but that she did not grasp that her husband was dead okay so yeah i mean i think it's hard to reconcile those two things but i've never been a battered wife. Yeah. I think, so I can't put myself in that situation. I think that's what's hard for me is I feel like there's, if we had a real expert, you know, I think maybe some of it could be explained, but

hearing it with what little I know now, I'm kind of like, uh, I don't get it. Yes. And so then the other thing that she did was that she went and filed for the restraining order after he was already dead. And so there's a couple of theories on this. So the first is that she truly believed that he wasn't really dead and that she was truly seeking it to protect herself. The other is that people had started to ask where Jeffrey was. Yep. He hadn't showed up for work. His parents were calling. His parents were calling.

Her parents were calling. She had to come up with some excuse. And so what she told the police when she filed for this restraining order was that they had gotten in this big argument. He had popped Bradley when they were, you know, when he'd come home all coked up. And so they'd gotten in this big fight. She told him he needed to get help for his anger problems whatever and he stormed out and so she was terrified that he was going to come back and do something terrible so the idea would be that then she could say oh i murdered him in

self-defense because he came back even though the correct body's clearly dead at that time do you know what the backyard situation is? Like, they couldn't have been too close to other neighbors, right? They were close to other neighbors, yes. But I think it was like, I don't know, like this patio area, there was like a screened-in porch and then the patio. I don't know. So something kept it from this body just being easily viewed by a neighbor

looking over. Okay. Because it was, it's in, it's in a regular neighborhood. So. Can you imagine? Yeah. Like what if you looked over? I know that's what I'm saying. Like, can you imagine you're, you're in your bedroom and you look out the window and there's someone half buried? Yes. Oh my God. And, um, one article that I read, um, said that that in the in the days leading up to where she finally went and talked to this lawyer and was like hey i'm realizing what happened that she was like in the kitchen looking out in the backyard and was like holy shit the dog's digging up my husband right now what should i do about that and so i mean i just don't know how to explain what was happening in her brain during this time i doubt she could explain what was happening in her brain at that

time or maybe she could i here's i see i'm so afraid to say stuff. Say something terrible, Kristen. Okay. My, the thing that makes me a little skeptical is that she had the presence of mind to call an attorney rather than the police. Yep. Okay. Exactly. Okay. Yeah. That's, that's what's going through my mind. Because to me, that's, that's someone who's kind of got their wits about them. Yep. That's my thought, too. Mm-hmm. Okay, so she's laid all this out. She's testified to all this information on the stand. A major problem the defense faced was that there was almost no evidence to corroborate anything Susan claimed. A neighbor testified that he saw Jeffrey angrily grab Susan's arm a couple of times. A couple of friends testified that Susan had once had what they believed was a black eye, but that she explained it away by saying one of the kids hit her with a toy. But at the same time, that's normal. I feel like, yes, someone who's receiving abuse isn't going to say, oh, yeah, my husband hit me. Yeah, because I always hate when people are like, they hear a story about an abusive guy and they're like, well, he's such a nice guy.

And okay, maybe you just don't know him very well. Maybe you don't know what it's like to be his wife. Yeah. Susan's mother took the stand and testified that she had seen black eyes and bruises and that she'd witnessed her daughter cry out in pain because her back hurt so bad from the abuse. because her back hurt so bad from the abuse. However, none of them could provide any evidence, such as medical reports, pictures, nothing, that Susan was a battered wife. There was no concrete evidence

other than these people's accounts of what they may have seen. Right. Prosecutor Kelly Siegler was calling bullshit on this whole defense. Wow. She told the jury that Wright had most likely lured her husband to bed and tied him to the post, leading him to think that they were going to engage in some sexual game playing. Okay. To get him even more aroused, she had poured candle wax on his body.

So this is what I think is really interesting is because that was something that was in the autopsy that you know had to come up with an explanation so it's the prosecution's um claim that they were you know that she was pouring the wax on him for sexy time or whatever yeah and to the point that susan knew enough about it to work it into her version of events too that she she accidentally bumped the nightstand and the candle had fallen on him and gotten wax on him. I think there's something to that. Okay. She. Okay. Go on, go on. This is, this is where my, my brain is. Okay. Okay. You've just stabbed your husband 193 times. Yes. You're. you yes he's you know 230 pounds she's 120 pounds whatever you know ish sure and she's hoisting him onto this dolly and he's fucking bleeding

everywhere and is she really taking the time to notice that she's knocked a candle onto him ding ding ding thank you that's yes that is exactly what I'm thinking. That would be so low. On your priority list of things to take note of. I completely agree. This is the piece of evidence that I was like, I don't know if I'm buying her story. For me, it's the calling the lawyer instead of the police.

And yeah, that seems like, that seems like an odd detail. It seems like an odd detail to stick out in your mind. Like, I think you wouldn't even fucking notice that that had happened. No, no. It would be the last thing on your mind.

Even if you did notice it, which I don't think you would, why would you mention it? I mean, you've, you, I would never. You tied him up, stabbed him a whole bunch and buried him halfway in the backyard. Yes, exactly. Oh, and buried him halfway in the backyard. Exactly.

Oh, and don't mind the candle wax. Yeah. No, who cares? Yes, exactly. Yeah. So, okay. So this is the prosecutor saying, you know, she poured the wax on his body. And then as he's tied up, you know, he's thinking he's having a sexy time with his wife.

Right. Pulls out a knife and turns the bedroom into, quote, a torture chamber. The motive, according to Siegler, Wright wanted to cash in on a $200,000 life insurance policy. All that battered wife abuse was bull. It was just bull. That's what Siegler said. No. See, okay, other side of this. Yes. If you wanted $200,000, which to me that doesn't seem like a lot, I feel like you'd do the push off a cliff thing. Right. I mean, this seems like a really overkill. Yes. So maybe it's not in self-defense.

Like maybe he didn't, her versions, maybe not true. Maybe he wasn't coming at her with a knife that night. Maybe she was a victim of abuse and she finally had enough. And so maybe it's a mashup of the two versions. Yeah. I think I could see that. She has been a victim of abuse, but she did lure him into the bed that night and tie him up and then kill him because she'd had enough. Which to me, that makes

total sense. And I don't know, I get frustrated with some of the laws on that because I think if you've been... That's just as much self-defense as if he was coming at you with a knife. Absolutely. If you've been beaten by this guy for 10 years and the most dangerous time to be in an abusive relationship is when you're trying to leave. That's when you're more likely to be killed. So if you do go ahead and kill him, to me, that's still self-defense. Yeah. Yeah. I could see that completely. Well, I guess I'm right. completely well i guess i'm right oh this is such a tough one i love this okay so siegler says all that battered wife

abuse bull was just that it was bull so this is what she's like okay yeah really ramp it up making her point it's te. She's going to play great about herself. In response to Susan's claim that she fought her husband for the knife, Siegler said, almost laughing, she says, You managed to stab a guy who outweighs you by 100 pounds and was so much stronger than you? And when you stabbed him the 56th time or the 89th time or the 158th time was your arm tired oh my god yeah oh ouch as for susan's remarks that she kept stabbing jeffrey in a sheer panic convinced he

was going to get up and come after her. Siegler snapped, and in this state of sheer panic that you were in, you were able to stop when you heard that knock at your door, get off of Jeff, answer the door, grab Bradley, walk him down the hall, put him in his room, shut the door, go get another knife, go back into the bedroom, and start stabbing him some more.

Is that right? Damn, she's good. She is good. She needs a TV show. So it's funny you say that because her antics in the courtroom and I'll get to the biggest thing next. uh one of the one network seriously considered um like spinning a like starting a like hour drama based on the things that she did these unconventional methods yeah it would be like a courtroom drama type show and the prosecutor had these unconventional methods that led to convictions every time yes what stopped that from happening oh i would watch that okay okay this is the best part oh my god in what some called an effort to shock the jury the prosecution offered an unusual

reenactment oh my god so they brought in the actual bed and mattress from the crime scene. Brought it in as evidence in the courtroom. Okay. So they've got the bed. Picture this. The bed. The mattress. The mattress is covered in plastic.

But there's fucking blood everywhere. The headboard and the footboard are covered in blood. There's just this bloody ass bed in the middle of the courtroom. Oh, my God. footboard are covered in blood. There's just this bloody ass bed. Oh my God. Siegler has one of her associates

laid out on the bed. No, no, no, no. Oh my God. Are you serious? She ties him to the bed. Oh, what? She has on this like, she was like kind of known as like a snappy dresser. She has on this really form fitting black pantsuit and heels

she climbs on the fucking bed no straddle no no no takes a knife from evidence one of the actual knives from the case and pantomimes stabbing him 193 times okay okay this this lady One hundred and ninety three times. OK, OK. This this lady. She was the president of her high school theater department and her parents were like, you can't pursue acting. You have to go to law school. That's what happened there. That's ridiculous. I think partly that.

And I think that she was just like fucking loving that this was getting so much media attention. She was like, oh, I am on display. I am rocking and rolling. I'm going to straddle my associate. Can you imagine being that guy? So here's the funniest part about this. So that guy, he was not a lawyer. He was just some law clerk that worked in her office or something like that. And I don't know if he didn't know what he was getting into,

but he had just put in a big dip in his mouth. Oh, no. Before he got tied to the bed. And all of this writhing she was doing on him caused, like, the juice to go down his throat. So he was literally, like, choking while she's doing it. And so he's fighting back against her because he can't breathe. Oh, my God.

Wait. Holy shit. Did you watch footage of this? No, I just saw, like, a really detailed. Oh, my God. I hope there's footage of it. I want to go back and watch it. I cannot believe any of this.

This is crazy. I cannot believe any of this. This is crazy. So the judge didn't at any point say, how about you cool it? According to the articles that I read, no. Like, he was cool with this reenactment. The defense didn't object to the reenactment as far as I know. Are you kidding me?

Right. What's amazing to me is I feel like at least once a week, one of us will say, and then the judge said, hey, everybody, let's keep this civil. But not in this situation. In this case, the fucking prosecutors straddling a guy, rising on top of him, stabbing him 193 times. And I bet she counted every time, right? Oh, I'm sure she counted them out loud. I have no doubt.

That's fucking nuts. Okay. Jesus. So, they've done this crazy reenactment, you know. So, now we're at closing arguments. During her closing, Siegler told the jury.

Who did she straddle this time? Siegler told the jury that the defense was an insult to their intelligence. Oh. You are left with the word of Susan Lucille Wright. The word of a card-carrying, obvious, no doubt about it, caught red-handed, confirmed, documented liar. Siegler said, she cries when you're in the room and she stops when you leave. What? What?

Defense attorney Neil Davis reminded jurors of the testimony by Wright and others that Jeffrey was abusive towards his wife. This was Jeff's physical and mental punching bag, Davis said, adding that 193 stab wounds shows how much Susan feared her husband. I can see that. Yeah. The jurors deliberated for only five hours. Oh, my God. What do you think they decided? Oh, shit.

Okay. Okay, I have a question. Okay. Did they bring any experts in to testify on the effects of domestic violence or PTSD or any of that? I did not come across that information in my research. Okay. Okay. Because I'm thinking if they had, then there'd be a chance she'd be found not guilty.

Like if... Okay. Let me think here. I think they went guilty. They did. Yeah. They dismissed her claims of self-defense and convicted her of first degree murder.

And she was sentenced to 25 years in prison. Wow. So. As I mentioned earlier, though, is there more to this? There's more. Oh, my God. This trial was heavily covered by the media. Each day, the gallery was full of legal correspondence for different media outlets. One of those correspondents was Brian Weiss, who, in addition to being a legal expert for a local Houston television network, also happened to be a seasoned appellate lawyer. He was outraged by Siegler's portrayal of Susan and what he called her blatant attempts to mislead the jury with myths, misconceptions and stereotypes about battered women. He was almost as concerned about about the way rights defense had handled the case.

So he felt like she was, you know, misportrayed by the prosecution. And he also thought she was poorly defended by her own lawyer. So after her conviction, he asked her family to let him file her appeal pro bono. Wow. Yeah. So in my mind, there are a couple of, there's, I think, a big, a big mistake that the defense made. And that is by going not guilty by reason of self-defense, not going not guilty by reason of battered woman syndrome. Yeah.

Why didn't they do that? I think those are two very different things. Yes. And I don't know the state law in Texas, so maybe in Texas they're not that different. But my understanding of the law is that they are very different. Self-defense means in the moment you acted in self-defense. Battered woman syndrome or battered wife syndrome is you suffered years of abuse, which culminated in this act where you. Yeah. Yeah. So I do think a big mistake was made on the part of the defense. Yeah. big mistake was made on the part of the defense yeah um in 2005 the 14th court of appeals of texas upheld her conviction okay we need to explain why we're laughing i'm sorry the cat is meowing very loudly in the background she wants in here so bad we have her food hostage okay so i'm sorry say the appellate stuff again. Okay, so in 2005, the 14th Court of Appeals of Texas upheld her conviction.

Okay. They said no to the appeal. Ugh. So they reappealed in 2008 with the testimony of a new witness, an ex-fiancee of Jeffrey Wright. Whoa. They were together for four years, maybe longer. She testified that she had also been a victim of abuse at his hands.

Oh. Multiple times he pushed her down the stairs, that he had hit her, you know, all kinds of different, very much corroborating what Susan Wright had said. So in 2009, the Texas Court of Appeals granted Wright a new sentencing hearing after determining that Wright's counsel rendered ineffective assistance during the punishment phase of the trial. So this is interesting to me because that doesn't directly correlate with the new testimony that they brought forward. So I'm wondering in this, you know, I didn't look into it in the first place. Just curious. Not curious to...

Not curious enough to Google it, apparently. Jesus. So the Court of Appeals says, you know, you did get ineffective counsel during the punishment phase so you will get a new punishment phase so you're still convicted okay but you're we're gonna relook and we're gonna see a new jury they're gonna hear just the punishment phase and then they're gonna re-sentence you okay there's a risk in this though because they could hear the same testimony and decide that 25 years isn't long enough i'm so sorry would you mind just letting her in she is going nuts out there ma'am come on in kiki can

you get it together we're trying to record a podcast she's brushing up against you hello okay i see but i that's a risk i would take because i feel like 25 years is about what you would get yeah 25 years on the low side what yeah oh for a brutal murder 193 stab wounds kristin i don't know 25 years is what i would expect but it wasn't 25 years to life. It was. Oh, just 25 years. Without the possibility. No, with the possibility of parole. Oh, OK. OK. That is a little light. It seems light. Yeah. OK. So, yeah. So she she rolls the dice. She's like, yes, let's take the new punishment phase. So they seat a new jury. And on November 20th, 2010, the new jury reduces her sentence to 20 years, which essentially means that she's eligible for parole two and a half years earlier. Okay.

Yeah. It's not much. Yeah. She became eligible for parole in 2014 and has been denied twice. Once on June 12, 2014, and again on July 24, 2017. Her next parole hearing will be in July of 2020. Wow. Okay, what do you think?

So there's some... I don't know. I'm kind of torn. I'm actually. I'm afraid to say it. Say it. I actually think that the prosecution might be closer to right than the defenses. Oh, I don't think so. I think that there's a there's a good possibility. I think it's like we said earlier. I think it's very possibly a mashup of the two scenarios. She was a battered wife. She had seen, she had been abused and the only way she saw of getting out of it was to murder her husband.

And so I think that I would have been way more behind to defense that said battered wife syndrome. I think the story of self-defense where he came at her with a knife and she fought him off and turned around and stabbed him. I don't think that's true. Yeah. I don't buy that story. Yeah.

I think that the scenario where she has been abused and she sees her opportunity. The only opportunity she sees to leave is to kill her husband. And so she does. She lures him into bed, ties him up, thinks he's going to have sex with his wife. And she instead stabs him, like the prosecution says, I do think that is more plausible. But I do not agree that she did it for the $200,000. No, absolutely not.

I don't think that's the motive at all. I think that it is likely that she was a battered wife and that this was her way that she saw out of it. Case solved. she saw out of it case solved so it's interesting this article um by blanche deborah's grandson skip holland can't you just hear her oh skip um was excellent and um like i said it was in it it was in texas monthly and i loved the title of it. What was it? 193. Oh. I thought that was so good.

Yeah. But it's interesting because he writes, like, he inserts himself a little bit into the article where he's so. This article, he's actually interviewing her. He's gone to the prison where she's being held, and he's interviewing her. And he's making notes about her mannerisms that she has. And so a couple of the things that he's like, okay, maybe she is a battered wife or is she putting on a show for me?

What were the mannerisms? Because a couple of times, the things that she does is she like talks about how she wonders what the guard is thinking about. Like, oh my gosh, I think the guard is tired of me being here because the guard has to watch her the whole time while they're having this interview. And so she's like like i think the guard's ready for me to go back to my cell like she's up she's worried about angering the guard yeah so there was just a

couple of different things okay um i didn't note them here so i really urge you to read this article it's excellent and report back to you report back to me on your findings but um i just think that even he was like okay is this real or yeah putting on a show for me did he come to any kind of conclusion or no just just he was wondering to read the article oh yeah mystery i didn't read the whole article but i can't is this like an elementary school book report where you didn't read the whole thing and you're like if you want to know what happens no i swear i read the whole article but i don't remember if he came to a conclusion okay it was just it was an open-ended question okay draw your own conclusion it's just an open-ended question. Okay. You draw your own conclusion. It's just weird because usually Golden Girls episodes, they wrap up in like half an hour or so.

Just odd that they would leave us hanging. So what do you think about The Blue-Eyed Butcher? First of all, that was amazing. Maya. Right, Maya? Thank you. Yes. That was amazing.

That was so good. And now I want to watch the Lifetime movie. Yeah, which is something I've never said in my life. Me either. Certainly not. Lifetime movies. What? You have to head home now.

I gotta tuck in. No, so everything about this is fascinating to me. Yes. I want to know so much more. Yes. It's funny because I took such a hard turn on that prosecutor from being like, she's amazing. She's the best.

She needs a TV show. And then there's something about, oh, she wants a TV show. Yeah. I don't know i get i i think i feel the same way you do which you know probably yeah battered woman syndrome and um yeah i i do think she would have had to lure him to bed and tie him up if they had that kind of a weight difference a height difference and he's all coked up because he the autopsy showed that he had he had coke in his in his system yeah yeah i don't i don't see how she could overpower him tie him up yeah yeah i'm just not buying her version of events i want to know more about that candle wax because that is see to me that is damning evidence yeah yeah oh yeah. Oh, that was such a good one.

Yeah, I really enjoyed that one. Shout out to Maya. Okay. All right, are we ready to wrap this up? God, I guess so. I guess the cat has joined us, so. Oh, jeez. She had stuff to do in here.

Yeah, she's very busy. She's playing with the curtains right now. It's her office, too. That's right. We can't just kick her do in here. Yeah, she's very busy. She's playing with the curtains right now. It's her office, too. That's right. We can't just kick her out of here. No. Okay. Now I'm thinking of all those dumb business cat things.

She had a little business hat. You know, the business cat things where you're like, we need to think outside the box because I just pooped in it. Oh, God. That's a good way to end, right? Anyway, join us next week when we'll be experts on two whole new topics. Podcast adjourned. And now for a note about our process.

I read a bunch of stuff, then regurgitate it all back up in my very limited vocabulary. And I copy and paste from the best sources on the web, and sometimes Wikipedia. So we owe a huge thank you to the real experts. For this episode, I got a lot of great info from Biography.com, Smithsonian Magazine, and the New York Times Archive. Please note that Cassie Chadwick was full of shit, so if you look her up, you'll see that each article tells a slightly different story. All of them are entertaining, though. And I got my info from an amazing article in Texas Monthly by Skip Hollingsworth.

Worth noting that he's not really Blanche Diffro's grandson that we know of. And another article in the Houston Chronicle by Andrew something or other. So call them in. For a full list of our sources, visit lgtcpodcast.com. Any errors, like mispronouncing poor Andrew's last name, are of course ours. Please don't take our word for it. Go read their stuff. Seriously, the article 193 amazing