Small Town Murder - #515 - Against The Wind - Stephenville, Texas

Episode Date: August 8, 2024

This week, in Stephenville, Texas, a huge mystery unfolds after a young woman is found, brutally murdered, in her own bathtub. Police bumble & stumble through the investigation, moving back & forth between suspects, when everyone in town seems to single out & blame one person. The anger builds, as no one can imagine why he hasn't been arrested. In the end, the guilty party wrote out exactly what happened. Will justice be served???Along the way, we find out that not everyone wants to be called a "cowboy", that Bob Seger might not be the best guy to marry, and that there's a reason that public opinion is not what gets people put in jail for murder!!Hosted by James Pietragallo and Jimmie WhismanNew episodes every Thursday!Donate at: patreon.com/crimeinsports or go to paypal.com and use our email: [e-mail] to shutupandgivememurder.com for all things Small Town Murder & Crime In Sports!Follow us on...twitter.com/@murdersmallfacebook.com/smalltownpodinstagram.com/smalltownmurderAlso, check out James & Jimmie's other show, Crime In Sports! On Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon Music, Wondery, Wondery+, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts!See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Wondery Plus subscribers can listen to Small Town Murder early and ad-free right now. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app or on Apple Podcasts. I'm Dan Tuberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast. What's the answer? And what do you do if they tell you it's all in your head? Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad free on Wondery Plus. This week in Stephenville, Texas, a sprawling mystery unfolds over the particularly brutal murder of a young woman causing the town to believe that one man was a monster when the real monster was hiding in plain sight the whole time. Welcome to Small Town Murder. Hello everybody and welcome back to Small Town Murder.

Yay! Oh, yay indeed, Jimmy. Yay indeed. My name is James Petragallo. I'm here with my co-host. I'm Jimmy Wissman. Thank you folks so much for joining us today on another insane episode of Small Town Murder.

And this is one crazy-ass episode. Lives are shattered, things are messed up, people are dead. Small Town Police Force is dropping the ball left and right. It's one of those type of things. Can't wait for it. Before we get to that quickly, head over to shutupandgivemurder.com. Get your tickets September 20th, Minnesota,

Minneapolis, State Theater. It's gonna be our biggest show ever if you guys sell us out. And I have confidence that you will. Because no one's ever let us down before. So thank you. And thank you to everyone who's bought tickets. Let's sell that bad boy out Let's get the loudest shut up and give me murder. We've ever had let's do it the next night is about sold out in Milwaukee There's a couple like individual tickets, but that's it. Thank you for doing that as well

Everybody get those shut up and give me murder.com as well as the rest of the year to get tickets And they're selling out quick Oklahoma cities about gone Get there, Austin, Kansas City, Boston, New York do your thing there come and see us Patreon.com slash crime in sports is where you get all of your bonus material Let's say you listen to this show and you like it you listen to crime and sports and you like it you listen to your stupid Opinions, which should be doing and you like it. You're like I need opinions, which you should be doing, and you like it, you're like, I need more! We got it all for you right here. We have it, anybody, $5 a month or above,

a mere cup of coffee. Skip one cup of coffee and you're gonna get so much. We're gonna fill your plate with hundreds of bonus episodes you've never heard before that you'll get immediately. New ones every other week, one crime in sports, one small town murder.

This week is no different. This week, what we're gonna do for crime in sports, one small town murder. This week is no different. This week what we're gonna do, for crime in sports we're gonna talk about the worst teams of all time. The most inept teams of all time, losers and failure. It's so much fun. Can't wait to laugh at that for an hour. And then for small town murder,

we are gonna go into some of the weirder points of the Lori Vallow, Chad Daybell murder spectacular. Cause that is a mess, man. What a life ruined. You wanna talk about people losing their minds, that's the one to do it on. It's- Whole family.

Whole family, even the weirdo comedian brother. Two families thrown away, yeah. That we performed at the same place as that, scarily enough in Phoenix. We'll talk all about it, patreon.com slash crimein sports is where you get all of that and more, and you get a shout out at the end of the Show to Jimmy is definitely gonna mispronounce your name, but he wants to get it correct. That said disclaimer time It's a comedy show everybody. It is comedy show. We're comedians and

Unfortunately, though, the stories are a thousand percent real. You've got nothing is made up for comedic, you know Enhancement or anything like that, because you don't have to. These stories are insane. And what we do is, though, is these people go, hey, you do true crime and comedy together. How do you mix murder and comedy? Well, you do it tastefully is how you do it. Thing is, there's nothing funny about the actual killing of a person.

That's not fun. The fun comes when the police then screw up the investigation, let a murderer go free because they're bumbling or little things from a small town or lots of stuff because, you know, it's funny out there. So what we do though is we never make fun of the victims or the victims' families. Why is that? Because we're assholes. Yeah, but.

But we're not scumbags. There you have it. That's how that works. So if you think that sounds good, you're going to hear a wild story. If you think true crime and comedy never ever ever should paths should cross then maybe we're not for you Yeah, who knows get out of the way. We're passing on the left. Let's get to it though But for the rest II, I think it's time to sit back. Let's all take a deep breath What do you say here arms to the sky? Let's all shout

shout, shut up and give me murder. Let's do this. Let's go on a trip, shall we? Get after it. Come on, Jimmy, we're going to Texas, baby. Oh, no. Oh, we're not going in a car because we'll definitely get pulled over and get speeding tickets that we didn't earn. I was excited. No, we were still angry about getting that ticket that we were 100% not fucking. People fly and buy us. They pull us over and give us a ticket for going the speed limit on cruise control. Insane. Impossible.

Impossible. This is in Stephenville, Texas. That's PH, Stephen with a PH. Yeah. It's in central Texas. It's right up in the middle of the state here. It is about two hours to Dallas. If you go kind of northeast to Dallas and then it's about two hours and 45 minutes to

Austin there. So it's in the middle of nowhere is what that says. It's about five and a half hours to our last Texas episode. That was Panhandle, Texas, which we were amazed that there's a town called that. That episode is called Friday the 13th if you want to go back and check that out. That was a creepy one. This is in, I know I'm gonna say it wrong, I don't know if it's Erath or Arath County. Irrational? Irrational Ticket County. E-R-A-T-H so Arath, I'm sure they say there, I don't know.

Arath, Erath, I'm not sure. Area code 254, doesn't really matter. No. Motto here, you're gonna love this, the cowboy capital of the world. Hell yeah. Of the world. Of the world. Didn't we have recently a place claiming to be

the cowboy capital of the world too? I feel like we did in the last month, so this goes around. Little bit of history in this town. But we also did a Patreon episode, which lets you know that cowboy is not, that's a bad thing to be called. It's not good. It was always a negative term. And then like in the early 20th century.

The piece of shit capital of the world? You don't want to be that. And then like when TV came out and we started having westerns, then cowboys were good all of a sudden. Right. When you voted for cowboys against the Indians, which should make you feel like a piece of garbage, too Well, cowboy was synonymous with criminal. That's what that meant like, you know fucking livestock stealer Woman-murderer things like right things like that tears men. You're a cowboy. Yeah, it was considered that Yeah, so a little bit of history

This town was named after John and Stephen who settled there in 1854 and donated the land for the town site, and it was laid out by George B. Arath, or Arath, or whatever. No, so that's how you got the county and the town. The first two years of the settlement, people started coming here, the population got up to 776. Wow. Not too bad.

Then it declined in 1871 because the town site was in Comanche territory. Oh. Yeah. So there was raids always from the Comanches into town. And also, this was just after the Civil War, so things were tough also. So a lot of citizens ended up leaving and moving away

after they just moved there. So then it became agricultural and livestock around here. They found coal. Oh boy. So coal mining became important to the area. This was in like the 1800s. And that lasted about 30 years. And then that was that for coal because, you know, there's only a finite amount of coal here. There is a college in this town, which will account for kind of the number of people because it doesn't feel like there's that many people here. It's just in the college. There's Tarleton State University, which I've never heard of in my life. T-A-R-L-E-T-O-N?

Yes. Yeah, I've heard of it. I just don't know what they do there. I don't think they make the tournament very often. I haven't heard of those guys. No. Oh, no. That's how they spell toilet for hillbillies yeah it's a tar tarlet that's how it goes reviews of this town let's find out what other people think is we're not gonna go there because obviously we'll get a ticket so we're gonna go here I don't get behind the wheel no no five stars although the roads in Stephenville aren't perfect I

love this town and everything it has to offer it is a beautiful town with wonderful people in many churches Stephenville doesn't perfect. I love this town and everything it has to offer. It is a beautiful town with wonderful people and many churches. Stephenville doesn't have many things to do around town. There are farmers markets, sports games, tennis courts, and any miniature golf course. That's the whole review. That's the outdoorsy shit. Just go do shit. Yeah. Three stars. It is a town, but better than a small town for amenities, grocery stores, and restaurants, and a four-year university. So you're saying the benefits of a city in a small town. So can't be anything better here. Two stars,

not everyone here is nice. That's Texas, we assumed that. And the college students tend to be very annoying. Again, we could have saw that from the outside. College students tend to be very annoying. Again, we could have saw that from the outside. That's just science, man. Wait a second. College kids are annoying and people in Texas are mean? Hold on a second. My mind is blown.

Hold on. This is breaking news. This is too much. I can't take it all in. I can't take it all in. I can't. Next thing you know you're going to be telling me lizard alien grays are running the whole universe and government and everything else because this is so big

I'll be just a shot breaking the lid off One star here. This is a very specific review of experience this person had Okay, if you are an expecting parent or have kids This is one of the worst town to be in town singular to be in town The justice of the county will rip your family apart, not even blink an eye. Sounds like just for fun. He's doing it coming over. There's a pregnant bitch. Let's ruin her life. Let's really start following her around. Wait till she has the kid. My family and many more were ripped apart because their justice system. The police are not there for the community. They're

there for the money. If you have the money, they got your time. If you're not there for the community, they're there for the money. If you have the money, they got your time. If you're not, you're on your own and you lose everything. I do not recommend this town to anyone. I need to know so much more. I need to know a whole lot. It sounds like somebody took your kids away for an unknown reason that could possibly be your fault. You're not going into the whole thing at all. Or, who knows? Or, if they're to be believed, this place is just stealing kids. It's stealing whole families, ripping them apart

just for the fun of it, just to go, ha ha ha. Just for giggles. The Joneses can suck my dick, they're all done now. They ain't got kids no more. Man, people in this town, 20,504. That's a lot. A lot of them are college kids, that's how this works. Oh, okay, yeah.

Where kind of the people live outside, it's bigger properties and that sort of thing. Few more females than males, it's almost 53% female because there's more females in college, that's just the way it is. 25.5 is the median age, which is way under the national average, and that is mostly because half the population are kids. It's a little high for a college kid.

Yep. It's a little 20. Well, you figure if everybody else is not a college kid. So family here, about 39 or 38% married because of all the college kids. College, yeah. Drives it down so there's less divorce. There is more people that are single with children though, because college kids, fuck.

That's good. So. A lot of times when you're drunk, you forget. You forget a lot of stuff. I won't forget this time. Yeah, I forgot a whole bunch of stuff here. Race in this town, 74.7% white, 2.8% black, 0.4% Asian, 20.2% Hispanic here.

And the unemployment rate here is about 5.5%, which is little above the national average at this point. Median household income, $50,552 a year, well below the almost 70,000 in the rest of the country. So. Not bad for college kids. Not bad, well yeah, that's the thing. And cost of living here is a little lower

than everywhere else. Really? Here it's, everywhere else 100 is average, here it's 82. So not Not bad. Well, yeah, that's the thing. And cost of living here is a little lower than everywhere else. Everywhere else, a hundred is average. Here it's 82. So not too bad. Median home cost here, $251,700, which is well below the national average at this point. So maybe you have decided, damn it, you want to see a UFO. We have for you. You want to be a cowboy fighting aliens. We have for you the Stephenville Texas real estate report. The average two bedroom rental here goes for $1,070. So that's below the national average. That's not bad. I assume there's a lot of rentals because there's a lot of college kids.

So they don't usually buy homes in their college town. Why not? They're in debt enough. Right? Why not? Why not add to it? Here's a two-bedroom, one-bath, 1,056-square-foot house. From the outside, it looks like it's weathered.

It looks like it's like a house that you'd ride up on a horse after being hell Yeah, lots of planes lots of yeah, you're sweaty and you're like, I hope they have water for the horses They're like that's what it looks like but inside it's not that bad. It's a little outdated, but it's clean and well-kept They have a sign that says many have eaten here few have died Which I think Sarah has that sign too I'm almost positive of it that's somewhere it is don't worry it's pretty safe not everyone dies from my cookie that's a hundred and fifty thousand dollars for that not bad it's a tiny little lot too next up four-bedroom three bath twenty six hundred

ninety square feet this is on seven 7.57 acres. So quite a big lot. The house is, it's a hideous new stone, you know, stone and stucco brand new. Not a lot of charm. No charm whatsoever. Big star over the garage because you know, I want everyone to know that I support the flag. That's all. Everybody here gets their star on support the flag. That's all. Everybody here gets their star on their house somewhere. That's it. And the inside is just, it's done to be sold. It's HGTV'd, you know, very plain, that sort of thing.

Six hundred ninety five thousand bucks for that. Jesus fuck. But it's seven acres. It's seven and a half acres. It's not bad. Then there's a five bedroom, three bath, twenty six,606 square foot house so almost the same size house. This is on 10.5 Acres, which is pretty big, but this is the deal here. It has a fucking There's a rodeo stadium out back. Yeah, just the thing there's bleachers and shit

I mean you could have you could hold you could give a belt buckle away in this place. There's an actual arena there. There's an actual rodeo arena like for, there's like a scoreboard and shit. Like it's, it's not just like to practice on. It's literally to have events. It's not just Jim Bob counting to eight when you get out that chute. We got a man up there pressing buttons. Wild, man. It's wild. So the inside of the house, who gives a shit? There's a rodeo fucking arena. That's crazy.

A lot of land. $1,150,000 for that though. It's a pretty good deal. I guess, if you're into rodeo. I mean, if you want to start a Friday night rodeo. It's now we got the Venn diagram of people who want to have their own rodeo and people who have a million dollars to spend on a house.

I don't know where that intersects, but maybe. There's also another circle up there of people who like UFOs. That's a good place for UFO gazing also. Things to do here, the Moo Law Fest. This is M-O-O-L-A, Moo Law. Ah, cowboys, you gotta stop. It's a salute to our community's rich dairy heritage. Everybody just stomach ache happening, lots of gas.

Yeah, lots of fart shits. We all get together and fart on each other and features fun for the whole family at the park here. So, what we have is there's a carnival that goes on. There's a move it, which is the 5K move it. That's not a dance? No, there's also live music by Scott Kirby and the Bellamy brothers.

I guess Bill and his brothers are gonna come. Oh, the Bellamy brothers? Yeah. Hell yeah. Ralph and Bill, they're all gonna be there. It's not both of them. Those are definitely not brothers either, they're all going to be there. It's not those stuff. Those are definitely not brothers either. That's a very old white guy. And a black guy from the 90s.

Those are very different people. That had fantastic catchphrases. Oh yeah, yeah. Remember when the world bent to Bill Bellamy's will? Remember that? What the hell? What a weird time in America that was. It was like, let's just do whatever Bill Bellamy says.. Remember that? What the hell? What a weird time in America that was. It was like, let's just do whatever Bill Bellamy says. Fucking strange world.

He's a charming, disarming black man with a great smile. Ah, great smile is reasonably funny. Do whatever you want. Yeah, it's weird. I mean, he could do no wrong for like three years. Did he just say damn like funny? Wasn't that what he did? I don't know. I don't even remember really I just remember I remember for three years you couldn't flick three channels without coming across them I saw I was a three-year period you couldn't get you couldn't get down the

cable fucking shit without it popping up and there he is he's there whether it's MTV or BET or somewhere he's gonna be on that shit. I think he went to VH1 eventually. Oh, he did, he did. I loved him, fuck, I loved him so much. He aged out after three years, had to go there. We have the next day, axe throwing. We have the Texas Farm Bureau Learning Barn, I know I'll be there.

Yeah, axe throwing has become so popular. So big. It's crazy. Rodeo Zone Motor Ponies, which is hilarious. I think that's a demolition derby, where your car is a pony. Oh, OK, yeah, all right. Rodeo Zone.

Then the next day, more axe throwing, more Rodeo Zone shit, the Mobile Dairy Classroom will be going on. There's all. Cows in trailers, they're dragging them around, and you can milk them. You go check them out there They have music by Scott Kirby and then Gary P. Nunn Don't don't know either Now on the Saturday, it says 12 p.m. Okay, it starts at 12 the alcohol sales. All right, then there is a

Mechanical bull also that'll be there of course and Bah Ram you Bah Ram you mutton busting Yeah, bah ram you mutton busting as it's called also Tethered hot air balloons and a butt sketch artist. I don't know what that is they draw sketches of your butt as you walk away I Don't get it and also Scott Kirby's gonna come back that night too. Oh, he's gonna get the second set in. And Django Walker and Jerry Jeff Walker Tribute Band also

is gonna be there. And there's also the Cowboy Capital of the World Pro Rodeo that's there as well, where they give out all sorts of spurs and buckles and they're bragging about everything that you have here. Crime rate. Crime thing rodeo, James. Oh boy.

Crime rate in this town, what we are interested in here, property crime just below the national average, just sneaks in under it here. Then violent crime, murder, rape, robbery, and of course assault, the Mount Rushmore of crime, is about half the national average. That's pretty good. So yeah, you'd expect property crime

to be up near the average because you got college kids so there's going to be some pissing outside, some breaking of windows, dumb shit like that, disorderly conduct. But the violent stuff though, about half though, it's pretty safe. That said, let's talk about some murder because- Let's do it. Wow, do we have a fucked up murder here. Okay, gotta give credit where credit is due to TexasMonthly.com, who did just a tremendous, really amazing piece, a long form piece

on this entire case where they got all the facts from everywhere and were by far the most complete source of all information. I mean, the sources are all over the place, but a lot of it comes from this Texas Monthly. All the nitty gritty. It's really good. They did great. Just like the dirt bands.

No, just like it, baby. Now, I'm going to read for you from this article, this couple of paragraphs here about Stephenville in the 80s. This is when some of this takes place in the 1980s. Dairy sprawled across the surrounding countryside. The smell of manure hung in the air some evenings. A fiberglass statue of a dairy cow dubbed Moolah dominated the town square beside the courthouse. They have a giant cow. The county was dry. You couldn't even buy a beer. What?

Dry county. In the 80s. In the 80s, yeah. There's still dry counties now Children's activities were defined by 4h rodeo and on Friday evenings in the fall high school football You know my nightmare all of that shit, Texas God damn it Saturday nights teenagers cruised Washington Street between the Dairy Queens on each side of town. They go from one Dairy Queen to the other.

They've got two though. They got two, one on each side of town. There's a start and a finish line, Dairy Queen. People who did that together, the kids that would do that, they were known as drag buddies, which is a much different connotation now. Did they not realize that they were saying that about themselves? This is my drag buddy. That means you run up and down the drag.

I think I can get my dress together. Yeah, exactly. But this reminds me a lot of Dazed and Confused, which was about Texas in the 70s. And it was the same thing. They just went back and forth from the one drive in to the other drive in. Back and forth and driving up and down, seeing who you run into. On Sundays, just about everything was closed. Everyone was in church. into the other drive back and forth and driving up and down seeing who you run into on Sundays just about everything was closed everyone was in church if you were a man and drove

anything other than a pickup well someone might glance at you funny outsiders got noticed really that's the town we're in here so yeah unless you're unless you're a college kid you are expected to have a pickup truck and a cowboy hat and fucking shut the fuck up and Pearl Snapshirt that's it Hank Williams playing out of the goddamn window and that's that yeah so let's talk about some people let's first talk about Susan Jeanette Atkins okay she's an Atkins Susan Atkins exactly that's why I made sure to put the Jeanette in there as well hoping you notice that yeah she got an unlucky name she was born in in 1957 though, so they had no idea. Oh, she was a Britannian.

Yeah, they had no idea that that was gonna ruin her entire fucking Everything. Identity forever. Her whole teenage years are fucked. When she gets married, she happily changes her name, I'm sure. Yes, absolutely, yeah. Her parents are Joe and Irma Atkins.

She's got a brother named Ronald Joe, so Ronnie Joe in Texas speak there. She's got a best friend also growing up named Cindy and they don't become friends until high school when she's in high school, Susan, and they're both in the clarinet section of the band. And Cindy's two years older, she's a junior when Susan's a freshman, but they get along so well. And yeah, she says this, Cindy Hayes is her name, she says, Susan was the sweetest person

God ever breathed life into. We met in band during high school and both played the clarinet. So they had the same birthday as well, April 6th. April 6th is their birthday, both of them. So they got along swimmingly despite being two years apart in age, which, you know, that doesn't really matter. Exactly.

Exactly two years apart. Now, Susan, known as pretty quiet and shy, kind of a shy young lady. She's five foot seven, so a taller girl here. She's got brown hair and very happy. She seems like a happy young lady. She graduates in 1975 from Stephenville High. And when she's 18, her life's gonna start. She goes into the workforce, into a real exciting job.

And this is what, like kids who are like, I don't know if I should go to college. Well, we didn't say, I don't know if I should go to college. We were like, college, that's fucking crazy. College said, I don't know if I should go to college, you know, like, well we didn't say, I don't know if I should go to college. We were like, college, that's fucking crazy. College said, we don't know if you should do this. I had a guidance counselor actually go, you don't wanna go to college. So I get it.

But she got a real taste of the real world here early. Right out of the gate. Right out of the gate when she gets a job at a sandpaper factory that she's gonna hold for years What is that? That's one of those things where you hear it and you go fuck I mean, I guess they have to manufacture sandpaper doesn't come out of the ground But at the same time you go I never thought of a whole building made just to make sandpaper That's why I make rolls of it. They make pads that are cut to certain

certain rolls of it, they make pads of it that are cut to certain tools, pads. Yeah, so you can... They get the Velcro now, but it used to be fucking tape. You just peel the 3M tape off the back and stick it, then you got to peel that shit off. Yeah, I guess that's somebody's job. I don't even... That's her job. I don't know how you do that. I don't know what she does there, but she works for years coming up in the sandpaper

factory. That's her gig for, you know, like that was gonna be her career. But it seemed like for a while here anyway. So late 1970s, everybody said too, she's not a rebellious type. She's not that, she's not the one that's gonna go out and drinkin' with her friends, sneakin' out of the window when she was a teenager.

None of that shit. She goes to church every Sunday. She's pretty shy. She only has a few close friends. She doesn't really date in high school very much. Her friends said with her, it was Thelma and Louise. We could finish each other's sentences. We were best buddies. She's one in a million. So they said that, you know, Saturday... God breathed life directly into her. Directly, like CPR style. Like really got down low fingers on the nose and really yeah pinch the nose is what it is she's a great kid and they said that they used to Saturday

night they'd go cruising in Stephenville it was called cruising the drag again which is great all the kids she said just drive from one Dairy Queen to the other and you'd stop at parking lots and wait for people You knew to pull in and talk to Again, you know loiter, you know loitering. Yeah, you know pissing off merchants, you know that goes But that's Making bill at the water shop despise all of us. Yes, and this is what people did before cell phones. Yeah You didn't know what people do.

James, they're doing it again though. People go out. They're going out? They're doing it near my place. The kids are doing it again. The Circle K near my home, if I go there at 10 o'clock at night on a Friday night, there's 10 trucks there with boys in the back and girls all over the place. They're just teenage kids.

But they're just there to take videos of each other for social media though. They're not even hanging out anymore. They're like, is this good? What should I do? They're all like social media consultants now. They're not having fun. They're not fucking, they're not doing drugs. I'd pop up there to grab, I don't know, a black and mild or some cigarettes or whatever,

and the guy behind the register got fired because he would go out there and swear at him. That's fun. That's fucking funny. But this is like, this is like a dazed and confused thing again though, because they're stopping. Cause you can't get ahold of anybody. Those kids can be like, Hey, are you here? I'll meet you QT and you go meet up. Then it was, right. You'd had to sit in the tasty freeze parking lot and wait for

a car you recognized to pass by. Hey, there's Johnny. Johnny! Sit there licking on your chocolate, Deft. That's it. I wonder where the beer party is tonight. That's what it was. So Susan and Cindy were always doing that together. One of her friends says she was driving the drag one day and she's literally crossing the railroad tracks, meaning Susan is, and she looks down like an album cover. And she said she sees, this is funny, she looks down in like an album cover, like they said, that's what she looked like, like in the sun. And she sees this long haired guy

coming out of the sun, like, Like he's on an album cover. So she pulls over. She was in a car, but she saw this guy. Hot man. And she was like, yes, that's the one, man. And her friend said, Susan had a tie and it was kind of a rough bad boy type. And they were older than her and a very much macho man type.

That was her type. A 21 year old guy. Yeah, that's what she liked. She liked as clean cut as she was, she liked someone that looked like they maybe dad wouldn't like them so much type of deal. She struck him with her motor vehicle. She had been under the influence, and then she left him there. In January 2022, local woman Karen Reed was implicated in the mysterious death

of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O'Keefe. It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location. What happens next depends on who you ask. Was it a crime of passion? If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling. This was clearly an intentional act.

And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia. Or a corrupt police cover-up. If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover-up to prevent one of their own from going down. Everyone had an opinion. And after the 10-week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision. To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is.

Law and Crime presents the most in-depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen. You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus. Join Wondery Plus in the Wondery app, Apple podcasts or Spotify. Was there a crime committed? As far as I'm concerned, there wasn't. Guilty by Design dives into the wild story of Alexander and Frank, interior designers

who in the 80s landed the jackpot of all clients. We went to bed one night and the next morning we woke up as one of the most wanted people in the United States. What are they guilty of? You can listen to Guilty By Design exclusively and ad free on Wondry Plus. Join Wondry Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify. Which, I mean, that's just outside of what you're used to. That's why you're like, hey, different, cool.

You know, you don't know anybody like that. You don't know what's a leather jacket. Basically, he was like exotic in this town. He's like a long-haired guy with like a leather jacket, no denim, no cowboy hat, no boots, no truck, none of that shit. He instead, he drives a motorcycle, plays the guitar and has long hair. You know, whatever a girl likes. That's it.

And in the late seventies too, you know what I mean? Like, yeah, that was pretty cool, like mainstream, whereas everybody else, if you had the Wranglers in the hat, that was just like small town,, whereas everybody else, if you had the Wranglers in the Hat, that was just like small town, what your parents liked, and that's fucking boring to kids, I don't want that. So this, his name is Michael R. Woods, so Mike Woods here, and Mike, little bit of background on him,

he's born in Indianapolis, Indiana, which will make sense later on why he goes back there, and he moved to El Paso in the second grade with his family Oh you poor bastard Honestly, that's a pretty lateral move from Indianapolis because Indianapolis is fucking awful too I don't know those are I can't think of if you got into my head Where would you rather have to live I'd say pull the fucking trigger because I can't decide they're both terrible I mean at least at least it's it's not

They're both terrible. I mean, at least it's not 130 fucking degrees in Indianapolis. That's a good point. No, it's minus 15 instead. I'd take it. I'm saying put a jacket on. The weather, I don't give a fuck about the weather. Either way, it's flat. Yeah, and there's nothing to do.

It's hideous. Yeah, it's rough, man. So his mother, basically, when they moved to El Paso, it was because of his mother fleeing a marriage that she had to get away from. He'll never find me here. Never find me here. Apparently, no one will look here.

And apparently that happened a lot. There was a series of these. So yeah, this was not. Some bad ones. Yep, he said that basically his upbringing was a lot of abuse, a lot of of moving around a lot of shit like that They were poor single mother with some kids here Basically, she said there was always one of his mother's boyfriends was in the mix always

Just you know living with them or they're living with him or there's something going on He said about his mother quote. She was a little hellion He said about his mother, quote, she was a little hellion about his mom. She liked to party and have kids, which is fucking hilarious. I've never heard those two things put together in one sentence. You can't put those two, those are not the same. She likes to party and have kids.

Well, I guess she likes to party and get knocked up is what he was mainly saying. She liked to party and fuck people and then she was all about keeping it. So yeah, she loves cream pies. My mom. So he ended up with seven siblings because of this. Holy shit. From a variety of different fathers. My God. So when he was 15, his mother remarried again and the family moved to Virginia. And at that point, that's when he started like kind of running away for months at a time Michael because it seemed like nobody really noticed if he was there or not anyway so yeah what's the difference

both are probably about the same on the predictable scale exactly who knows yeah if you're a kid and you can do that so he's 15 he's doing all that he learned to play the guitar he really loved it now keep in mind this is the mid 70s he's really really into Marshall Tucker band fucking yeah and skinnered and southern rock shit Almond Brothers and fucking bad company shit probably a candle in the window 38 special and all that I'm sure so yeah he would do that he would play on street corners okay and the in like around he would go to like Washington or Baltimore go to cities where he thinks he could play on street corners. Okay. And like around, he would go to like Washington or Baltimore or go to cities where he thinks he could play on the corners.

This is Jackson Brown. That's it. And basically, whoever, he would sleep on couches where he found them. And basically, he was like a homeless guy, but he was like a handsome dude with a guitar, so he'll always find a couch to sleep on. Or a bed to sleep in, depending on how lucky. Yeah. That's the difference between homeless and sleeping on chicks' couches is having a guitar

and knowing how to play a few chords. And being handsome. Even if you're just long hair and know how to play the guitar well enough, though. Billy Joel married Christie Brinkley. That's a piano, not the guitar. But what I'm saying is, learn a song. I love it scored pretty high. Guy's not doing so well with the ladies. Learn a a song. I love it, scored pretty high. Yup. Guy's not doing so well with the ladies, learn a fucking song.

You'll be exponentially more attractive to these young women. You have three chords. There's a lot of songs you can play with those three chords. That's all it is. So when he was about 20, a friend in El Paso was moving to Stephenville and asked him to drive a truck there. So he arrived in Stephenville, Michael does, and the friend needed some more help to do stuff,

so Michael stayed on and he was like, maybe I'll just stay here. He had graduated from high school, and yeah, Susan told her friends that she just spotted this guy on the drag, and Michael recalls they met while he was playing pinball in a convenience store. The one friend says she saw him like an album cover coming out of the sun across the railroad

tracks. Like the Lost Almond brother. And he says he was playing pinball in a fucking 7-Eleven and she walked. Way different. It's all personal, James. It's up to interpretation depending on who experienced it. Maybe she saw the sunshine around the pinball machine. You never know.

That's how much she liked him. She liked him, though. She thought he was cute. She liked his hair. She's told everybody, my new boyfriend, I like him a lot. He looks just like Bob Seeger. So handsome. You know it's the 70s, though, when people are like, oh, I want to fuck Bob Seeger. So handsome. Which, you know it's the 70s though,

when people are like, oh I wanna fuck Bob Seeger. Cause then like by the 80s he was like old man, you know what I mean? Like when I grew up he was like, that was like dad rock, you know? And it's great, I love Bob Seeger, but like it was like. Oh fuck, he's a master. He seemed like a guy who'd be like hanging out

with your dad, you know what I mean? Maybe fix him under the He's a master. He seemed like a guy would be like hanging out with your dad You know, maybe under the hood of a car him and Steve Earl are on a race to see who ages work Yeah, that's true. That's true. I think Seeger was he was like cooler though back in the day Seeger was like And he was like super fucking cool. He was cool. And yeah, I meanolfe's awesome too. But those cigarettes ruined his breath he can't breathe his breath I mean his voice I don't know about his breath. That made him though. Maybe. That yeah that voice is what made him that's what made him. But now he can't sing. Oh well he shouldn't be singing. Now he's 75 fucking years old. Good everybody out there you're a great singer smoke four packs a day because I don't want to see you on stage when you're 80 I really fucking don't I don't want to see it. You want to see Bob Dylan today? Nope. I don't want to see you on stage when you're 80. I really fucking don't. I don't want to see it. You don't want to see Bob Dylan today? Nope. I don't want to see Bob Dylan ever. I hate Bob Dylan.

I'd watch him. Fuck I hate Bob Dylan. Bob Dylan, I've never liked Bob Dylan. Also, no, he's fucking terrible. He can't sing. He can't fucking sing. That's it. He rode along the watchtower. I know he did. Great writer. what? He can't do fucking sing his song writing terrific singing Can't fucking do it him Neil Young both of them getting a fucking boat and start rowing out together because you both can't think shit It's inspirational James. It makes it makes a guy that can't sing feel like he could sing It's like watching spud web play in the NBA back in the day. You're like if he can do it at five six day you're like if he can do it at 5 6 maybe I can do it. Now her friends were like so you want to fuck Bob Seeger? They didn't get it. They were like. It's wild. I don't know. Cindy, her friend said I thought he was very immature, meaning Mike here. Sure probably

was. Yeah, Susan was already working long hours at a nursing home and he always wanted to have fun, have a good time. You know, like a 19 year old who's free and clear, doesn't have kids. Like his mom. Like his mom. Like what it seems. Like to party and has kids. Yeah. Fuck it.

Although he doesn't have that many kids though, that's the thing. Really? I guess the only, Cindy said the only fight Susan and she ever had with each other was over Susan's decision to date this guy. Is that right? She's been shy around guys, doesn't date a lot. She finds someone she likes and then her friend's like, don't date him. Like not that one.

Hey, this is who I like. All right. I didn't date anyone. Out of my way. None of these people are my type. I found someone that's I'm not going to fucking get mad at you because you want to fuck a cowboy. Go ahead.

Knock yourself out. Also, I stepped out of my comfort zone, chose to talk to somebody. Let me be. Yeah, let me be a person here Jesus Christ, so they when Michael he goes to meet Susan's parents and they are like Old-timey. Yeah, they're Texas through and through they expect the boy when they're picking their daughter up to come to the door Dress nice. That's it. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, yeah as nice as boots on and shit like that Michael said quote I showed up on her doorstep. It was about 90 degrees outside

I was wearing a pair of cutoffs and sandals and nothing else He came in cutoff sandals to the doors. I'm here for your daughter like rock They're like, I don't know man. I was hoping your daughter would accompany me, you know what I mean? I'm here to put some night moves on your daughter if at all possible, what do you say? And they were like, hmm, I don't know about that. Unreal. Her mother opened up the door and was like, what the fuck, he's wearing short shorts and

no shirt. And that's what she said. She said, her mother opened the door and about fell on the floor. How disgusting, a man walking around with no shirt and short shorts So right from the beginning her family didn't care for me one bit Incredible and with the long hair and everything bad first impression here. Yeah bad first impression now Joe her dad Susan's dad Joe Atkins. He said at one time quote. He had a I think it was a 357 this is Michael talking about Joe he had I think it was a

357 but he showed me the pistol he had in his closet. He said if you ever hurt my daughter, I'm gonna shoot you Which is not even He's not cleaning the shotgun going you kids have fun tonight get her home by 9. Okay, it wasn't even that It was I will shoot you in the face if you hurt my daughter. Here's my gun, just in case. Has the cylinder out just dry firing and running the action?

Nothing, just, see that gun? I'ma fuckin' use it on you. That's what he said. Oh, okay. I'm gonna go home and put a shirt on and never come back, I think, if that's how this works. I won't put five through you. Hang on to the last one one to see if you twitch.

Yeah, well, I do the Wyatt Earp thing. I keep one chamber empty so it don't go off by accident. Unbelievable. So Michael has a hard time getting going in this town. People don't like him. They just see him and they don't like him in this town. And it makes sense. I mean, you know.

It's a small town. They're gonna be a little judgy. That's how it is. It's, have you ever seen a movie? I mean, you know what I mean? So he says that a few people, he couldn't get people to hire him, and or really anybody who had long hair back then.

Because this was still in the 70s. Have you tried putting a shirt on? This is what brought me shows up in short shorts with one ball hanging out at the side with sandals on going, y'all got any work for me? And they're like, no, there's nothing here for you guys like that. No, we can't do it. Texas in the seventies, long hair was not okay. That was, I mean, you had to have crew cut in a cowboy hat. You got a cotton machine, James. Yeah, that's what it is. So he also said that he was a musician by nature and a night owl, so he hated nine to five jobs anyway,

which more sympathetic I could not be. That's my problem, minus the long hair and the music. But he said he worked in a hay field at one point. I don't know what you do in a hay, gather hay, I suppose. Bail it? Run wire around what's already bailed? I guess. He worked at Sonic at one point.

Yikes. Which is nice. I could see him on roller skates. No shirt, short shorts, roller skates. I got your burger. Flowing behind him. Burger in one hand, shaking the other. Sorry about all the hair in it.

So much. He shakes his head and here you are. He worked at an auto parts factory at one point. A factory? A factory where they made auto parts, not sold auto parts, and for a place that made cattle feeders. Another factory. I don't know. What was that? Sawing 50 gallon buckets in half? I don't know what that is. Isn't that just a big trough? I don't know. So he said, Michael said, I just did whatever I could until they got tired of me or I got tired of them. Yeah. Namelessly wandering page.

Turn the page. There it is, brother. Turn the page. All the road again. And it's turn the page. There it is brother. Turn the page. He said I had a bit of an attitude problem because when people would try to say stuff like hey, hey fur face get over here because he had a beard at one point. I would not react well to that. And in Stephenville during that time period big guys like to push their weight around and that just didn't work with me. I figured if you're going to push me around, I just pop you in the mouth. I didn't get along real well. He wasn't going to take this

shit just because you're Hicks. I'm not going to fucking take your bullshit. Like I get it. I get it. I understand. Throwing punches for fur face seems a bit out of line though. I guess. But if the person's trying to get a rise out of you, why let it escalate? Yeah, I guess you'd like it to end up here I'm gonna cut out all the middle bullshit and just all the stuff where I go. What are you talking about? Well, you ain't from around here. Are you and all that shit and I'll just punch you and we'll fight I could see that I'm gonna fucking deal with it. That's I don't blame him

I almost hit that guy for asking me for directions that one day Dare you so 1980 Michael is taught as he's with Susan. They've been together for a couple years he talks her into coming with him to El Paso, which he must be a hell of a talker because Really? What would it take to convince you to move to El Paso? Well an uncle promised him a job there and they arrive and soon after they get there they get married. Wow. They get hitched man. Oh my god.

Wow. He said it this way quote, what she said to me is my parents are going to disown me if you know I'm living with a man out of wedlock, so can we get married? So this is what happens when you tell kids not to live with people out of wedlock. They marry fucking people when they're 20. That's what used to happen all the time. Don't put constraints on your children because they're going to fuck that up. Yeah, don't moral judgments. So Michael said quote and I said, well, okay,

I can take the day off tomorrow. Tomorrow. Tomorrow. Let's just get my as well I guess. I mean if we're going to do it. So they went to a justice of the peace and got married there. Her parents were not happy about this at all by the way. Can't imagine. She thought like, oh, they'll be happy with this now. We're living together, but we're married. They were like, you did what? What the fuck? His job never panned out. It wasn't there.

It didn't exist. So they started pawning their shit, Michael and Susan. Wow. Susan wrote a letter to Cindy and complained that she was subsisting on, and I've never heard of this as an option, bacon bit sandwiches. Like, bacon bits yes That's exactly just like you shake instead of putting it on a salad

That's what they have and she makes sandwiches out of it. Oh my which is very strange and dry freezer You think they're soft ones. I would hope they're the bacon bits probably real bacon bits down there you think so Yeah, they're not good. Soy is for, you know, whatever. Yeah, but I mean like, are they like half done bacon bits or are they bacos? Cause you know what I mean, like, bacos are like dry freeze crisp, are they soy? Yeah, bacos aren't real bacon, they're made of soy.

Oh. Yeah, and they're delicious, you never know it, but they're made of fucking soy, but then they have actual bacon bits, which are like little weird wet chunks of bacon that stick together. Yeah, they're wet and soft. It's no good. It's not good.

Baconos are the way to go there, yeah, for sure. That's soy, no shit. Oh, yeah, I want baconos now. That sounds fucking good. I want a salad with bacon. I want a handful of them. Yeah, I want a handful. Then I want a salad with bacon.

They're like fucking Pop Rocks, but salty ones. That's what they are. Salty, smoky, they melt in your mouth. They're so goddamn good. So good. They make a salad wrap. Oh, we are absolutely going to the store when we're done here I'm getting the biggest thing Like cereal we're gonna be eating handfuls of bacon bits in the car on the way home from the store Do you know that right just shaking them into my mouth like fucking sunflower? Hey hit me off. Give me some

Like when we had that road trip to Austin, and we had the bugles and we were doing that same thing. We'll replace bugles with bagels. So Michael hated all of this basically. They ended up having to move back to Stephenville, which he hated. Didn't wanna go there. Yep, exactly.

So Susan wanted to make him happy, but that she didn't want to be anywhere else but Stephenville. That's where she wanted to be. So once at one point they moved to Indianapolis for a minute to be near Michael's brother, but then they came right back. So it just never worked out. Susan's friend Gloria said two or three times they'd get settled in, get a place, get it fixed up, buy their appliances, then Mike would get itchy feet. We're going, we're going. She'd quit her job, move away, sell all their stuff, stay a month, starve to death, come back and they'd start all over again.

I've never heard of itchy feet. Itchy feet. That's so funny. He's got itchy feet. In like football, a quarterback doing that's called happy feet, not itchy feet. Yeah. It's got itchy feet. I've heard of cold feet, but not itchy feet. In like football, a quarterback doing that's called happy feet, not itchy feet, yeah. It's got itchy feet. And I've heard of cold feet, but not itchy feet. Cold and happy, but never itchy.

Very funny. That is fucking, that is definitely a local, I think. Only way to scratch him is to keep on walking, James. Yeah. Well, you'd say like he had like an itch to move, but he had itchy feet is a weird way to put it. John Madden says you spray tenactin on that and it stops. Tough actin' tenactin'll do it.

So Michael in Stevensville, I don't blame him for not liking it here because he is not liked here. No, he's not Stevenville at all. And they say in this Texas Monthly article They say it was you know future farmers of America jackets cowboy hats and crew cuts were common He wore a leather jacket engineer boots engineer boots. They're the tack of the tight blue jeans. He's in a Billy Joel song They're like motorcycle boots. They're okay ones everybody wore in the 50s. That's what that boot style. Yeah, exactly Not stock marlowe's probably yeah engineer boots. They called them back in the 50s. That's what they're. Fombat boot style. Yeah, exactly. Not Doc Martens. Just a little lower probably. Yeah, engineer boots they called them back in the,

it's a Billy Joel song. It's a scene from an Italian restaurant. Some caterpillars or some docs. We're gonna only sing you songs from the 70s today. He had a brown beard, shoulder length hair, bit of an attitude, drove a motorcycle, which made him an outcast, got into fist fights with people all the time. He's a

sick boy. He's so badass. Didn't have a steady job. Yeah, he sounds like a he sounds like a Bob Seeger song. He sounds like a Bob Seeger song. If Bob Seeger knew he existed he'd probably just take him on the road with him and go like that fucking guy. That's it just see what he does and right, sketch it down. So he's going, pinball at the convenience store. We got tonight. Then I got a tilt. We got tonight.

I broke a flipper. I couldn't hit the ball. So. Wow. He, Susan's the breadwinner of the, of the house here because. Clearly. He can't hit the ball. Ah, so. Wow. He, Susan's the bread winner of the, of the house here. Clearly. Because he can't hold the job. He called himself a musician that didn't make money making music.

You're not a musician. And Cindy, the friend, had a different title for him. She called him a quote bum was a different way to put it. Yeah. Yeah, so. She's the bread winner. He's the bread eater. He's definitely the bread eater.

Everybody around town said that he also sold weed. Now, Michael said he never sold weed, but everybody said he sold weed. Multiple people said, I bought my first weed from that guy. Yeah, he may not be a weed dealer, but he's certainly selling a little. We sell, he gets an ounce, he keeps half and he sells half to pay for it. And then he smokes for free. Probably is. That's all. I'm not a motorcycle parts salesman, but I've sold some motorcycle parts off my bike. That's what I mean. So they say, this is from that article, quote, many days Michael could

be seen lying shirtless in their yard, sometimes lifting barbells, a Harley beside him in the driveway. It's like every prisoner's idea of freedom. He's the boyfriend from fucking, uh, the, uh, the Berkovich. What was her name? The chick? Yes. Aaron Brockovich. Aaron Brockovich. I was like, not Berkovich.

Yeah. He's every time you want to cut to, you want to show, you want to signify this house is trashy. Have a guy in the front yard shirtless lifting weights You got it That's it. We understand the whole house is shitty, but the motorcycle gleams and sparkles Beautiful. Yeah, this is like shining. It sounds like a scene out of Hells Angels by Hunter Thompson That's really what it does. So he they said everyone could tell he wasn't there No one ever saw him at a rodeo or a football game

or a church or anything. So he's an outcast. This is a normal guy. So he's somebody I would rather hang out with. They always would share rental houses with roommates and just so they could make, you know, do. In about 1985, Susan found a bungalow on McNeil Street near downtown Stephenville, and they move in there.

This is where Michael would be hanging around the yard, lifting weights with his shirt off there. Doing the dumb shit. This he began getting in fights with neighbors all the time now, which is strange. Really? He had a disagreement with one neighbor, and the neighbor accused him of pouring sugar

in her gas tank. Okay. Yeah, very mature. He also said that the Stephenville police would stop him for no reason all the time and all of her friends were like, why don't you just fucking divorce this guy? Yeah, let go.

We hate him, the cops hate him. He's pouring sugar in gas tanks. Pouring tanks lifting weights in the and I pictured no grass stick dead grass Just dirt in the front yard. Oh, it's not yeah, he didn't do that in class No, he didn't mow first and then lift weights shirtless shit now So they said please and Susan every day she would come out home from work. She'd make him dinner They love to make Cornish game hens, apparently. That was her favorite to make. Really?

Yeah, I remember in the 80s though, there was a lot of Cornish game hens in the grocery store. They were cheap too. I remember it being a thing that people would say that they were making for, or my friend says it. In the 80s, it was a total 80s dish. I see them there, and it just looks like so much fucking work.

Tiny little frozen chickens now that's all. Tiny bit of nothing. Tiny bit. Tiny tiny. You're not making all that for nothing. So at one point here he told her about his desire to start flipping houses. That's what he's going to do. He's going to start buying houses and flipping them now. In the 80s? Yeah he was well ahead of the curve on that one. Susan said no all the money we money we make, I make, and I don't want to invest in houses that I know you're not going to actually fix up. Don't want to do that. So Michael said, well, you're smothering me and you're emasculating me.

I'm trying to be a man here and have a business for our future and you're telling me that you have all the money. This is bullshit. So then in the summer of 1986, he said, I can't take Texas anymore. And he told a friend said he more or less gave her an ultimatum, Texas or me. And she chose Texas. I'll take the Longhorns. I will take this. So Michael goes to Indianapolis, but then they talk on the phone, they send letters back and forth and he agrees to come back that winter. And

this would be they'd give it their last shot. You know what I mean? They give it their last shot by February 1987, not quite the end of the winter. It's the end of the relationship. Done. Michael leaves, he's done. he's out. He wants out of here. Now, he left and he took their car when he left, by the way. That's nice of him. Yeah. Thanks a lot.

So now she has a problem getting to work now. He not only left, he not only took the car, he left behind all sorts of weird things in the house. He left behind cassette tape recordings in which he was basically yelling at Susan for a half hour. He just recorded that? One of, yeah, on a tape and then he left the tape. One of the friends said it was just 30 minutes of what a bitch she was and how it was all her fault that he was leaving and that the marriage didn't work. He didn't like scream that into a microphone

with her not there. He's saying that to her and he's like, got a machine recording. He tape recorded that ahead of time, left and left the tapes behind for her to listen to about what a bitch she was. Oh my God. Yeah, he's. That's a chicken shit move. That's his dear John, is a fucking, dear bitch.

He wrote a dear bitch letter to her. Dear bitch, I'm leaving because you're such a bitch. I need to do this in a recording session. Yeah, that's what it was. Maybe he sang it to the tune of Like A Rock. I'm not sure. You're a cunt. You're a bitch. Oh, you're a bitch. Cindy remembers him saying that her parents were horrible and they never gave

him a chance. It feels like people in horrible and they never gave him a chance. It feels like people in town might have not given him a chance, but his wife gave him a, they've been together for like nine fucking years. He can't even have a steady job by now. Like at some point. And she gave you space as much as half the fucking country. That's what I'm saying, man. And Michael, in addition to the tapes, he also hid handwritten notes with saying the exact same things.

By the way, you're a bitch, your parents are assholes, they don't like me. Hidden all over the house. Tuck that in the Betsy Crocker, Betty Crocker? Not on the kitchen table, things like in cabinets, like she'd be like, where's my oatmeal? In a cup that she'll one day use. In her coat pockets.

So she'd, like, months later put on a coat and take and what's in this in here? Oh, it's a letter from Michael saying I'm a bitch. Yeah, they said she found it for weeks and weeks She was finding more notes Cindy's mother asked her to move into their spare bedroom at their house. Don't live there by yourself and Susan said no. No, I'm fine. I'm gonna stay here by myself in this house. I can afford it and I like it so Cindy slept on her couch for a time her friend Cindy And Roy who is Cindy's boyfriend or husband later? Nailed the window shut and lent her a pistol in case because she's there alone now So they're like windows nailed shut which that's fun on a nice spring night when you want some air

and a pistol. Yeah. Where's my claw hammer? It's on here. It's fucking on. I'm going to pry my windows open. So Susan in 1987, she's 30 years old. She's living alone.

She has her birthdays in April and she's waiting for the divorce to go through. She's lonely, a little bit sad, and she's 30 trying to put things in order, which is, you know, back then that was a tough thing. She expected to get married and have kids and have a life, and she's lucky they didn't have three kids or anything to leave her stuck west, you know? So Michael, he leaves Texas for Indiana. He slept in a tent that he pitched outside of a shitty house that his brother bought for little money that they're going to remodel.

So literally he lives outside while they remodel a building. Wow. Yeah. That's what he chose instead of being married and having a house. That's what he chose. He did that. They eventually made this house into four apartments and Michael took one of them. So he got to have himself a place to live.

Got out of the tent. apartments and Michael took one of them so he got himself a place to live. Got out of the tent. Now she is still working at the sandpaper factory called Norton Industries which now she's like lonely just got left in a sandpaper. This sounds like a Dolly Parton movie now. Right after 9 to 5 this one came out. So she also doesn't have as many friends as she used to, you know, cause she didn't go out as much.

She had a husband and that's what she was doing. He took their car, which was an old yellow Mustang, and she basically worked six days a week after he left so she could afford to buy another car because she didn't have one. Um, so she would on Sundays, that was her only day off. She just do laundry and buy groceries and, um, you. And she had a couple of friends she hung out with and that was about it. And that was her life was really small at this point. But she starts getting it together.

She did file for divorce and her friends noticed that after a few months, her attitude started to lighten up a little bit. Started to get over it. Started to get a little over it. Yeah, she bought a car and she, as we'll talk about, starts hooking up with a bartender as we'll get to that a little bit later. Roy, Cindy's boyfriend and future husband, said she was kind of like what you'd read

in a book. A person who has turned a chapter. She was the happiest I've seen her in a long time. This was good here. I'm Dan Tuberski. In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York. I was like at my locker and she came up to me

and she was like stuttering super bad. I'm like, stop f***ing around. She's like, I can't. A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms and spreading fast. It's like doubling and tripling and it's all these girls. With a diagnosis the state tried to keep on the down low. Everybody thought I was holding something back.

Well you were holding something back intentionally. Yeah, yeah, well, yeah. No, it's hysteria, it's all in your head, it's not physical, oh my gosh, you're exaggerating. Is this the largest mass hysteria since the witches of Salem? Or is it something else entirely? Something's wrong here, something's not right.

Leroy was the new dateline and everyone was trying to solve the murder. A new limited series from Wondery and Pineapple Street Studios. Hysterical. Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts. You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad free right now by joining Wondery Plus. Scammers are best known for living the high life until they're forced to trade it all in for handcuffs and an orange jumpsuit once they're finally caught.

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You can listen to Scamfluencers early and ad-free right now on Wondry+. One night in July on a Friday night, Roy and Cindy took Susan to a carnival and afterwards they went to a Dairy Queen and ordered hot fudge sundaes. It's just what you do there. That Dairy Queen must be just heaving with business in this place. Yeah, whoever owns that has the biggest house in town. It's the Dairy Queen everyone, look at her castle. When they were done, Susan got a second Hot Fudge Sunday.

She's sad. Dude, have you ever gone to Dairy Queen, ate a whole Hot Fudge Sunday and said, so nice I like it twice, one more time. Never. Run it back. Let's go. He would point to the empty containers and go, do this again. Keep them coming.

Keep them coming. Keep them coming. Cindy said- I did do that with peanut buster parfaits. Remember those? Those things were fucking amazing. This is the hot fudge sundae with peanuts in it. It was fucking great. Yeah, but it was so good.

Well, because they put chocolate too, like layered into it. It was on the bottom and the middle and then on the top and the peanuts were layered and so you dig through it all. It wasn't just like the top with the stuff and then a big thing of ice cream. It wasn't just topping. It was like a blizzard without blending it. It was so good. I loved a peanut buster parfait there. So her friend said, Cindy though, she said,

never once seen her do that before. She said she was doing it not because she was sad because she was happy. She was having a good time. Celebrating. Yeah, she said she was happy go lucky that night, just having fun. So July 28th comes around. This is about a week after she goes out She was happy, she was having a good time. Celebratin'. Yeah, she said she was happy-go-lucky that night, just havin' fun.

So July 28th comes around. This is about a week after she goes out on the town and has her big Dairy Queen outing here. July 28th, 1987. She, by the way, never calls into work. She's never sick. She doesn't come in late. Reliable as fuck. She's worked at the same sandpaper factory

for 10 years now, so she's super reliable. She doesn't show up to work for two straight days without calling. Two days? Two no call, no shows in a row. And her boss after the first day was like, we'll see how tomorrow goes. That's how good of an employee she was

after the first day. They weren't like, where the fuck is Susan? They were like, she musta had, there must be something Crazy going on we'll find out tomorrow when she shows up and then she didn't so her fellow employees because it's a small town They all know her parents and stuff. Yeah, so they call up her parents and say hey your daughter Didn't show up for a couple days everything. Okay, you know is she like sick or something? So her father said I haven't heard anything about her being sick or anything like that.

So he went to check on her. He goes to the house and he said that he, Joe Atkins, the dad said he immediately knew something was wrong and he drove to the house that she rented and the house was dark. He said, you know, it was nighttime when he showed up. It was dark out. There was just no, no sounds, it was nighttime when he showed up. It was dark out. There was just no sounds, no nothing. On the porch, he found the door was unlocked. She's like, why would she leave her door unlocked?

She has her windows nailed shut and has a pistol. Why would she leave her door unlocked? Seems like, you know, I'll try the door first, probably, if I'm an intruder, you know? So he ends up heading through everything, the house, looking for her, not in the kitchen, not in the living room, ends up going into a bathroom, and is near the rear bedroom.

He finds her in the bathroom. She is leaning over the side of the tub, with her head in the water. Oh, water is in the tub. Water is gross looking, dark colored, not looking good, and she is with her head in the water there, clearly not breathing. He called the, he ran out to the living room, dad,

and this is not how you wanna, dad's the last person you want to find, you know, dad or mom. So he calls the police from the living room, runs out in the yard and waits for them to drive up. Sergeant pulls up here about nine o'clock and he hadn't been told anything about it. He just told, go there, there's a dead body.

So he went there and he was surprised to see Joe. Because he knows Joe, because everyone fucking knows everyone in this town and he does. He said he knew him as a volunteer at the municipal golf course So he said I said Joe. What are you doing here? and Joe said Donnie they killed her and He said killed who Joe and he said they killed my daughter

And he said that it looked like Joe was like in shock. Basically. He was just like wandering back and forth So they they huddled and said a prayer The two of them. Yes, how about okay? I'm busy doggy. What are you doing? I have a job to do prayers are later Yeah, we don't do prayers in the middle of a crime scene. Okay, that's not part of this and something against prayers It's just prayers and eating skittles doing anything That's not figuring out crime scene and death stuff is out of the fucking question at this point. But he knows the guy and he's trying to comfort him basically.

So that's nice. And then he urges Joe to go home. He said, go home. There's nothing you can do. Get out of here. Yeah. Go home. He said, you got to go tell your family about this because there's no cell phones.

Yeah. Go break the news. So go break the news to your family. Cindy comes by, Susan's best friend. Really? Happened to drive up with Roy, her boyfriend there, and neighbors said they could hear her screaming two blocks away that Susan had been killed. So inside the house, officers are inside taking photos of everything, trying to figure this

out. Susan has been, this is horrible too, she's been raped and sodomized. Good Lord. And they said there's a very, you know, a very nasty looking red line across her throat that looks like somebody tried to strangle her. And there is like a tank top in the mix too.

It looks like maybe that's, that sits down around her hand. So they're wondering about that. So they examine her bedroom, where there appears to have been a struggle. There's shit everywhere. The covers are thrown over here, pillows are over there. It looks like either an eight-year-old

started jumping on the bed, or people were struggling. They said the mattress was off center. It had been moved. That's a big struggle. They said a white electrical cord, perhaps used in a strangulation attempt, laid across the bed, plug end on the floor. So somebody tried to get her there,

maybe couldn't get her, she was still fighting. Because that's what people don't realize too. When they go to strangle somebody, they don't realize that it takes a really fucking long time. It takes way too long. People struggle while you're doing it. They generally don't want to be strangled to death. So. That's kind of the point.

Yeah. It's not an easy way to do it at all. Because you don't get a cord around their neck, and then they pass out and wait to be strangled. Yeah, they go, ah, and they just pass out. Because that's what I feel like people think. Yeah. They think, oh, just 10 seconds of strangling,

and they'll just die. And it's like, no, no, that takes minutes. Sometimes five. Yeah. And they're going to be fighting the whole fucking time. And they said robbery is not a motive in the killing because there's not a thing missing from the fucking house. All her shit's still here.

All her shit's still there. They find something very disturbing here. Was a pillow case stained with mascara. As the detective studied it, he realized he could see the outlines of the face on it and they say you could see. Like the shroud of Turkin or whatever it is? Yeah Turin yes and yeah that's Turkin. The shroud of a Turducken? Also but this but this is real is the other thing. Yeah that's so crazy. It's not a sham. Well it's a sham they did carbon dating on it from like the 1400s it's not a sham. Well, it's a sham. They did carbon dating on it from like the 1400s. It's not real.

So, they're 800s or something. But he can see her face in it. But he could see her face. Or somebody's face, yeah. He said, I could see where her eyes had been. For years, I mean, all I could see was that eerie mascara. That's creepy. It's really creepy.

They sent the body to the Southwest Institute of Forensic Science in Dallas for an autopsy, which in the 80s is basically a bunch of guys with magnifying glasses looking at her. They don't know what the fuck they're doing. There's no, what the hell are they going to do? DNA is in its infancy infancy at this point. This is just when they're starting, just figuring it out at this point in the mid-80s. So in the bathroom, they find two good sets of fingerprints and palm prints.

Terrific. Which is great. And they're like on, there's palm print on either side of her. Oh, that's not her. No. So it was like they were holding her and they were, you know, obviously. So the problem is though, DNA analysis is years away and fingerprint databases were not yet available in Texas.

So they have fingerprints. So unless they have a person to compare it against, they have nothing. They have no system to run it through. So they had a bunch of physical evidence, but all they could do is wait for a suspect to compare prints with. And that's it. They knocked on doors all the way up and down the street. No one had seen anything weird going on. So they didn't know what to do. The next day, by the way, in the Abilene Reporter News, the obituary for her says that she was found dead, probably murdered. That's what it says.

I don't think that's a suicide. Wow. I mean, Jesus Christ. Big accident. Yeah, a little bit of a big accident there. So the investigation, the next day at the police department, a lieutenant named Ken Maltby, he says that no other detectives are going to be working on this case. It's mine.

I'm taking it to loan. This is me against this murder. That's it. I'm not letting everybody fuck this up. So all the other cops were like, okay, like, why is that? Like, why, this seems like you'd want all hands on deck for this shit, not one guy. Maybe two heads are better than one.

But one of his detectives said, quote, he wanted to be a hero. That was it, he wanted to be the guy that did it all. Now, they asked the parents, do you know anything, anyone who hated your daughter, had it in for your daughter, it had to be, it wasn't robbery, so something had to be going on. Joe Atkins, immediately the father said, I have three suspects that I can think of. Michael, Michael, and Michael.

Oh, all of them are him. All of them are him, basically. Michael, a guy that plays the guitar, and a guy that has long hair. And a guy that rides a motorcycle. And also, I would talk to Bob Seeger, just a hunch. I'm not saying that's possible, but it's possible. Just. Holler at Bob Seeger and all the rest are Michael.

So everybody said agreed. Everyone's like, yeah, it's fucking Michael, obviously. No one else in this town would do this. He's the long hair. It's obviously him. Yeah, and all these notes in the couch are fucked up. Yeah, and you're a bitch on tape and all this shit. So cops, he's in Indiana. So one day, he said he was standing outside when a couple of Indianapolis police officers drove up to

talk to him in Indiana. He and his brother had been arguing with neighbors about a parking situation. Always arguing with neighbors, this guy. And Michael agreed to go to the station house believing that it was to deal with another complaint about the neighbors. They said, will you come with us? We gotta talk to you. And he was like, yeah, I'll fucking, yeah.

I'm getting in the car. I'm gonna tell him everything about these. Once there though, they start asking about Texas. And he's like, well, you're asking me this shit for. What's going on here? And about Susan and whether he had gone back to Texas and just got back. So Michael said just off the wall questions that didn't make any sense to me. And they then they stopped and said, well, you're lying. We know you killed her. She's dead and you killed her.

He said that's how he learned of her death. He said he didn't even know she was dead. He said he ran to the bathroom and threw up when he heard that. When he got back, Michael says, quote, they just said, well, you did it. We know you did it. We'll get you a mental hospital if you'll just admit it. Basically, well, you know, well, just admit it

and we'll say you're crazy. And I'm like, dudes, I have nothing to do with this. Dudes. Don't call multiple homicide detectives dudes while they're interrogating you about killing your ex-wife. That's a crazy thing to do. They then asked him to sign a statement. They typed it up and said sign it saying you did it and he said no and then he demanded a lawyer and then they let him go because he demanded a lawyer and they don't have any proof of anything. So the cops are all over him though.

He said within right after that within the next few days, he said the harassment started. He said cops started acting in Indianapolis the way they had been acting in Stephenville. Just pull over and talk to me for no reason. I got arrested a couple times for being drunk in public when I hadn't been drinking. They just let me go in the morning and say, Oh no, you're fine, there's no court, there's nothing. They'd just arrest me and throw me in the cell with a bunch of rough dudes and let me out the next morning. What the hell?

Fuckin' with him. Yeah. Hoping he'll crack here. So Maltby, the lieutenant, the guy who said, it's all me, babe, he goes to, he's gonna visit Indiana too. And Mike says, Michael says he remembers these two officers coming, it was Ken Malby,

and a Texas Ranger he brought with him. Oh man. Just for the uniform, I guess. He said Michael was standing in his yard, he said, so they pulled up and told me, get in the car, we're going to the airport. And he was like, huh? And Michael said he began carrying a gun because he

feared this type of thing he said he was he said he said when he declined to get in the car they insisted he claims he drove pulled his shirt up to show him the 357 jammed in his belt uh-huh and quote I said nope we can have a gun battle right here go for it. See if you clear leather Jesus Betty said that's an old Texas term. Yes Fucking Wyatt Earp said that maybe what are you talking about? That's fucking hilarious, but that's what he says. Where you go with that shot?

Madcap. Madcap. That's fucking amazing. Wow. So that's what he says. He says that's what he said, and they went away. They were like, I mean, we can't. See if you draw leather.

See if you clear leather. Clearing Leather is the name of this so he was then wary he said he was wary of Stevensville police and Texas police in general but he said this incident cemented it and they didn't have any they couldn't compel him to fly to Texas right that's a really fucked up thing to do just like pull up in front of somebody say get in the plane with us why Why would I? That's what a lot of people, because most people will say, OK, they don't know. They don't know. That's what I mean. They don't know. And I win. I win. Or they just don't know they're not allowed to. They

can say no. You know, he might know that he can say no here. He said that this incident was really cemented the whole thing. His lawyer told him not to cooperate at all. His lawyer said, they're trying to railroad you, don't cooperate. Even to the point that Michael withheld potentially exculpatory information because he wouldn't cooperate at all. He wouldn't talk at all. Yeah, even if he had an alibi, he wouldn't give it to him. So he eventually gets together, Michael does, a dozen statements from people who swore an

affidavit that they'd seen him in Indianapolis at or around the time Susan was killed, at least that day. That's not good for them. No, the lawyer advised him to keep these from police though. Do not give them to police because he said if you give them to them, the cops are going to try to undermine all of these accounts and try to get these people to say they're lying and that'll fuck you. So the case progresses here.

Maltby is investigating for the next couple months with very little progress, getting nothing. In October, we'll talk about here, he steps aside to Maltby steps aside to become the to control take control of the narcotics unit Oh for For a different job job. Yeah, so there's another guy Hensley. He said he's another detective he was gonna take on the investigation at his spare time and He said the weird thing was there was he tried to like look over what the guy had there was no written reports The guy didn't do anything. He just went and talked to people didn't write anything down. You're supposed to have

Like if you look at like a murder trial they have what's called a murder book And it's everything that has to do with the trial in one book anything does do with the case statement You can't have the whole case up here and just not have it in your noggin like that's not good for courts That's a small-town cop. That's not dealing we used to deal with shit like this and that's exactly what it is So Hensley said he remembered quote. I looked but I couldn't find no damn notes I didn't know what people had said to him. So he has no witness statements. He has nothing now Is this Hensley any more fucking competent? Let's find out here

We go because this guy won't be wasted a couple of months jerking off Let's find out here. We go because this guy won't be wasted a couple of months jerking off So this guy's trying to revive the case He said that Susan's remains were badly decomposed because she's been in a tub for two days her upper body appeared to have spent two days in bath water They said it was still unclear whether she'd been smug smothered strangled or drowned. They still couldn't even tell that yet So Hensley said there were basically two possible scenarios is what he said. Susan either was killed by a stranger or by someone she knew, which no shit, really? Is that right?

That was a quote he said. It was either a stranger or someone she knew. Really? That's just good police work right there. Fucking wow. I mean, you want to break it down to its most simplistic form. That's just good police work right there. Fucking wow, I mean, you want to break it down to its most simplistic form, that's it right there. So he said there was no sign of forced entry, which made him think that it was the latter, it was someone she knew. So Hensley studied the crime scene photos and he suspected that Susan had known her killer.

The biggest thing about this is the living room table is the one. There's an open can of Coke and an ashtray containing six cigarette butts. Oh God, that's a fucking gold mine today. That is all you need today. That's it. That's it. We got it.

Now, Susan is not, she smokes once in a while if she goes out with her friends and drinks, but she doesn't sit in her living room and smoke six cigarettes. Not happening. And she didn't drink Coke, cause she didn't drink caffeine either. Oh my god So yeah, they said one friend said she drank nothing but water. That's all she drank So the table suggested she'd hosted somebody who you know was there long enough to have a coke and some sick cigarettes

Which is a lot. It's a long time so they started reinterviewing her friends and family and he realized that not a lot of people would have been invited into her house by talking to her friends and family like who was she hanging out with they're like you know Cindy was like me my boyfriend like hardly anybody so the father Joe Atkins it doesn't understand why they're even bothering with all this shit when Mike is right there in Indianapolis go get him Transcriptions of several of Hensley's interviews here in every one Hensley asked who could have done this because he asked all our friends

Our family everybody and in every single case everybody says Michael Woods did it. It's Michael Woods That's who did it So Hensley said everything keeps going back to Michael Woods and every time I talked to Joe it was just no who did it. So Hensley said, everything keeps going back to Michael Woods, and every time I talked to Joe, it was just, no, Michael did it. Go get Michael. So Hensley wants Mike's prints. Yeah. Let's get this over with.

So they could not get his fingerprints. He tried, yeah, he said that they tried, but they didn't get it. Court records confirm that Michael said he had no problem handing them over, but he wouldn't come to Texas. He'll do it in Indiana, but I'm not coming to Texas. He's afraid what's gonna happen to him. He said, this is what Michael said,

they insisted it be done in Texas where the cops have full reign. I felt like if I went to Texas, I'd for sure get shot and the police would claim it was an escape attempt. Oh, not a bad, yeah. He doesn't trust him. But Hensley needs the prints and he's got no other suspects so he's like we at least

got to compare them. We have to. That's when another thing pops up and that is the bartender that she was seeing. He said, let me know how much she was actually seeing him and his name is J.C. Bowman, okay, or Bowman. Okay or Bowman. According to the notes a friend from work named Deborah Hardy told the cop of a troubling call from Susan a few weeks before her death and Debbie said she was real upset and she said Debbie I've got to talk to somebody and I went down there and she was crying. She had

some dark marks on her neck, hickey looking marks and she said she didn't know how or why she let it happen and she was afraid of what everyone else would think. She's 30 years old, who cares if you have a hickey, but she's so, I don't want everyone to think I'm like, you know, making out out of wedlock, it's so sad. So Susan wouldn't say much more, wouldn't even say who had done it to her. She was just scared she had these on her neck. So her friend Cindy though said the hickies were the work of a bartender in Granbury named J.C. Bauman

who she'd seen a few times. Yeah, it's always the dirt bag. It's always the bartender, yeah. Cindy said, I said, what happened? And she said, J.C. had got a little fresh and a little carried away. Yeah. Now, J.C. recalls meeting Susan and he said,

I was bartending at Norfolk and Granbury. This cute little lady came in one night, cute little lady, and she's wearing this shirt, Einstein sticking his tongue out. And I had the poster of that at the time and she was wearing this and I said, I like that shirt. And that's how he broke the ice. And the next time she was wearing this and I said I like that shirt and that's how he broke the ice and the next time she came in she gave me that shirt. She brought him her shirt. Here you go. Yep. He and they had this wasn't like they weren't planning on getting married.

This was just a little fling ports and storm. You know what I mean? They're both lonely people. Put some hickeys on me. Let's call it a night. Yeah. And he would start coming by her house at night Yeah, that yeah, he says JC says neither of us wanted a serious relationship. We just wanted friends with privileges

Yeah, she would call me when she was in the mood to have company We'd sit there and watch watch a movie and snuggle and all of that. We both like Tarzan They watched old black and white movies. Yeah, we both like Tarzan We both liked Tarzan. They watched old black and white movies. We both liked Tarzan. Original Johnny Weismiller one. Tarzan movies. I drank my Coca-Cola's and she'd drink a beer.

The police learned that JC from him had made one of the visits to Susan's house just days before she was murdered. He says, that's what he says. He says, quote, she and I had taken a bath in the bathtub together. My fingerprints were all over the place and they were already on file for possession of marijuana.

I was in the wrong place at the wrong time. I had no alibi for where I was that night. I was at home alone watching TV by myself. That's the night of the murder. Yeah. Yeah. So this Hensley drives over to see J.C. who said yes we had an affair and you know I met Susan with some work friends and you know they had that night that a few nights before the murder that he had cuddled with her on the couch and you know they had had sex they

only had sex the one time he said which doesn't make sense because they took baths together so okay so the lead detective brings him in for a lie detector test and fingerprints because they didn't have the other town's fingerprints on their smile so they said can you remember precisely what she was doing on Sunday July 26th and he said no I sure can't not to lie to you. The guy said, I realize you're a suspect and you're gonna be a suspect,

can I resolve the fact that you're not a suspect, is what they asked him. Yeah. How do you do that? He said that he, you know, I don't know, how do I do that? How do I figure out how to not be a suspect? And the cop said, well, that's between you and your god. Oh, that's why I don't want to be there.

I don't want to be this. So Susan had ended it after the Hickey affair apparently. Hensley said JC seemed like a decent guy. He passed the polygraph test too. And his prints didn't match any found at the house. Well JC's god's a loving, kind, and loving God. On and off, yep, there you go. So then, then neighbors, they start saying that that night I did see a large guy in the

neighborhood maybe near Susan's house that I didn't really see very often. It was in a red pickup truck and they said a guy, a large frame man, probably at nine or ten or eleven o'clock at night was seen leaving near her house and got in a truck and took off So they said based on the description and the vehicle description They found the guy they thought it was and that's Roy Hayes Cindy's boyfriend. Oh Yes, so Roy Hayes here. He said it was a hunch, but it made sense He described Roy is a big gentle young man who would help Susan around the house gave her a gun nailed her window shut And all that kind of shit

His fingerprints are all over the fucking house. Oh, yeah, which yeah makes sense Susan was by herself there You know all this and she would fear for safety and, and so they'd come hang out and all that. He said, my fingerprints were all over the house because I'd nailed all the windows shut, so I mean, that's pretty much a given. And they said, you know, what was your relationship like? And he says, I knew her, you know, I sat down there,

I've drank a couple beers with her, you know, that sort of thing, but I don't, you know, whatever. They said, you don't think she'd be comfortable sitting on a couch with you? And they asked him and he said, I guess, I don't know. I never thought about it that way. Real weird questions. They said, did you, did she drink, you drank coke? And he said, yes, I drink coke.

And they said, she definitely wouldn't have drank coke. So they're like, okay, we got a coke drinker. Yeah, and the thing is they talking a little more They figured out Roy played Dungeons and Dragons Shot him right to the top of the list of suspects now Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah, that's right Hensley said it's a game where you have a bunch of characters elves and mystics and things and in a Bible Fear in a place like Stephenville it didn't and in a Bible fear in a place like Stephen Ville it didn't in the Bible belt fear in a place like Stephen Ville. It did bear a whiff of the Satanic

That's what they thought Yep So Hensley interviewed him didn't find anything suspicious But said let's go ahead and polygraph you not a a fan of that D&D shit. Not a fan of that stuff. So they administer the test at the Texas Rangers office in Waco. And Roy says, Donnie meets me right at the door. And as I come out, he says, Roy, you failed.

You might as well confess. Oh? And I'm like, there's no way. I didn't have nothing to do with this. And he said, Hensley said, there is no way this is wrong have nothing to do with this and he said Hensley said there is no there's there is no way this is wrong you did it and then the polygraph technician came out and said you passed and he was like what the fuck and then they cleared him that was it Royce

cleared because he's passed the polygraph back to Mike now this is some police work it's terrible police work it's fucking awful small town police work. It's just intimidation trying to get a confession. That's all it is. That's all they have. That's it. They can't find it. It's crazy.

So by Christmas, now five months later, Hensley sees that he's getting fucking nowhere and everyone said, why are you doing this? Just go arrest Mike. It'll work itself out. So April 1988, he found himself in Indianapolis in an unmarked police surveillance van, watching Michael's house through a fucking, through a periscope popping out of the top of the vehicle

like Cheech and Chong up in smoke, literally, and shoot the moon. Somebody might as well be yelling and he watched one day as Michael and his brother and sister began laying out items for what appeared to be a yard sale. They stared in this van for days on end watching this guy. Now Susan's family had made a big deal of the fact that Michael had not only taken the yellow Mustang but also a fur coat and a series of crystal figurines that they said belonged to Susan. Now Hensley saw some of the figurines on the

table, Mike putting them out for sale, so he said if I can arrest him for the theft of the figurines I can get his fingerprints. Okay. Or you could have just followed him around, waited for him to discard literally anything and then grab it and take it to the fucking station, you idiot. So instead they did all of this and they had a search warrant drawn up and then a crew of Indianapolis police officers and Henley raided their house. Michael says they tore it apart and took everything I owned with the exception of my guitars and the clothes on my back.

They took my cassette tapes, they took my underwear, they took my clothing, they took everything that was mine. Then they found after their exhaustive search a marijuana roach in my sister-in-law's purse. So they arrested me and my brother for that roach, put us in jail and let us out the next day. Never went to court on it and no charges were ever filed on any of this shit. But the arrest… I'm sorry about it, man.

That sounds like a hit to me. It sounds like a tell Bob Seeger about it. Yeah. Putting out figurines for a yard sale. Sounds like some Hollywood nights, man. That's no shit. So they did get the prints though. And on the flight back to Texas he was like fuck yeah got the prints

It's all gonna come together. He starts drawing up the extradition request on the flight back to Texas really cuz he's like now I got the proof So then he gets back to Texas fucking get let's get those prints together, baby extradition fucking thing ready and He said quote. This is Hensley, they didn't match. No. Fucking didn't match, he said. It's not the guy, man.

Not the guy. So Hensley doesn't know what to do with himself. Yeah. He said in his bones. He owes a man a flight back to Indy is what he's gotta do. Well no, no, he's back there still, he's still in Indy.

All right. He just got the prints from him. Oh, so he just got the prints and took him back to compare him, didn't take the guy with him. No, he couldn't yet, he didn't have an extradition order. So he said he felt it in his bones that Michael is guilty. Yeah. Fingerprints be damned. He said everyone knew that. He said, but there's no way to tie him to the crime. He's got a spare set of hands. That's what he's got. She used his feet. So Hensley attends an FBI

profilers class to try to figure this out Yeah, after another attendee asked if he had considered the idea of autoeroticism They said you ever consider She did it to herself Are you fucking kidding me women strangle themselves and put their heads in the tub while they diddle themselves that happens all don't you know? that Jimmy What asshole said I want to punch him. Well they said even if it wasn't by herself maybe she had died during some

kind of sex game and it was an accident. So Hensley looked into it but then he dismissed the notion as far-fetched because it's fucking ridiculous. Yeah he mentioned this to his superior and the superior officer said, listen, why don't we just use this as a theory to close the case? He said, why don't we just say that's what happened. She died accidentally. That way the case is closed and we don't look like assholes. You don't understand, mom and dad.

Your daughter was into some kinky shit. Let me explain what happened. Yeah. So Hensley said he tried to go after the cop for saying that. Let me explain what happened. Yeah. So Hensley said he tried to go after the cop for saying that. He tried to go after his boss. He said if another officer hadn't stopped me in the hallway, I'd have killed the guy. Yeah. And soon after that, he's reassigned to patrol duty.

Because, you know, attempting to physically assault your boss usually will get you reassigned. So you get out there and ride some tickets. Yup. 1989 comes around. Mm-hmm. Oh my god. The Atkinsons now, Susan had a life insurance policy and Michael was due the death benefit of $11,000 from that policy.

Boy oh boy. So the family sued Michael, claiming he was responsible for her death and doesn't deserve the life insurance. Okay. claiming he was responsible for her death and doesn't deserve the life insurance. Okay, now it's a civil hearing and they said that also they are trying to compel Michael to give samples of blood and saliva for DNA testing. Because at the time of her death, DNA testing wasn't available and they said the action had been filed by the parents to Forcewoods to court to testify of his whereabouts at the time of the daughter's death. Basically what they did with OJ, get him in a deposition where he's under oath.

So they did that. They have the hearing. It's apparently that he wouldn't come here for it. He would not come to Texas for this hearing. So the judge, because he's not there, awards the family $11,000. But then also gives them a judgment of $700,000 that Michael now owes them. What? For like a wrongful death. Wrongful death lawsuit. What the fuck? Based on we know he did it. I can't believe this.

The court also ordered him to undergo DNA testing by November 27 to determine if the DNA was correct. But basically his lawyer said as long as you don't come to Texas, they can't do shit to you. This is Texas, so stay there. Now they talked to Michael and he at this is Texas so stay there. Now they talked to Michael and he at this point just sank into a depression. I can't imagine. He said it was paranoia he said every day he thought this would be the

day that the Texas cops were gonna kick his door in and drag him away kicking and screaming. He said that he never even thought they were gonna get divorced. He said when this all happened he still loved Susan and he felt certain that she still loved him. He said she'll at the time I thought she'll probably date a couple cowboys and then remember why she loves me. So I thought we were going to end up back together. Yeah. Now the case goes cold obviously. Clearly. And he owes them $700,000 in 1989 money. That's crazy. That's I can't I can't wrap my head around that that poor fuck. He's fucked so The and they have they're basically not no one's even pursuing the case anymore It's just a cold case and Hensley the guy was originally there worked at second there

Yeah said that this thing haunted me for years He ended up resigning from the Stephenville force in 1993 and went to work for an arm of the United Nations. And at one point he was helping investigate atrocities after the war in Kosovo. Oh my God. And he said, Kosovo didn't haunt me, Susan did. I mean, I'm sorry, but every time I talked to Joe Atkins,

my heart broke and I'm a tough old cop. I mean, I thought I was Kosovo doesn't bother no this shit people being exploded doesn't bother me, but Now everybody keeps on saying and Joe Atkins will tell anybody in town that will listen and the cops and everybody else shit Fucking Mike did this Cindy and Roy. It's all Mike. Yeah, that's it They said it was just an article of faith for years Michael Woods was a murderer and the police department somehow let him go That's what Hensley said So Michael while he's in Indianapolis. He's tried he installs burglar alarms for a while He took a few colleges college courses at a technical college

Dropped out wasn't into it He said that he wanted to be a musician. That's what he wanted to be. It's in his blood, man. It's in my blood. So his lawyer said, yeah, but if you travel outside Indiana, you can be, your arrest risk is gonna go way up. And so he and his brother would do local gigs,

small clubs and private parties and all that. They would bill themselves as the Hamilton Brothers, named for their birth father, both of them they shared a father, and they'd split the $35 they'd make for each gig. That was their... Oh my God. $17.50? Which is funny because that was in the 90s and when we were opening in clubs 10 years ago, they only paid us $50 to do it so fuck you comedy clubs so he's doing pretty good it's doing great so the paper then ran

an article about the case in Indianapolis and he said fuck it followed me here he then said I had people come to the stage and say aren't you the guy that killed his wife in Texas oh god kind of puts a damper on the rest of your evening when they do that. And he said he went into a full blown depression. He said I was going to a therapist. I was on anti-depressants. I turned to recreational drugs too.

He said I was taking anything offered me as a gig. And I mean anything. Get me out of this world. I drank like a fish. Nothing seemed to cheer me up. Or if it did, it wasn't for long. I was too far gone for therapy to be much good for me They said that I had an identity crisis and needed to learn how to be without my wife Which at the time I wasn't me without her because I always figured we'd get back together

Then he started figuring they're gonna come and get me and blame me for this. I'm gonna end up going to prison I better get ready for this. I'm gonna end up going to prison. I better get ready for this." Oh, he said, I'm a small guy. So I started working out like a madman. Oh, so he'd be strong in prison to fight people. I thought he was gonna start gaping. Yeah, no, no. It's like I had to get my asshole stretched out. I got to get big. I started putting like a three liter bottle of Pepsi up there. Like I figured if I could do that, nothing could hurt me, right? Road cone.

Every day I'd go about a quarter inch deeper. So Susan's birthday would come every April and he would get sadder and sadder, he said, and then the anniversary of July would come around and he'd be upset. He worked construction and ended up being a carpenter. He dated some people, but he said he never found anyone he liked as much as Susan ever. By 2000 he's not doing great at all. He stopped writing songs, he stopped practicing guitar, he's just depressed. He said he attempted suicide at one point. He said I took a whole bottle of tranquilizers and figured I'll just go to sleep and not wake up. But what I did was I slept for three days and I woke up and I was still depressed

I woke up refreshed and I was still sad Tell you what I am. Oh boy Circles under my eyes are gone, but shit so a summer of 2005 He's performing with his brother at a birthday party and it was right around the time of the 18th anniversary of Susan's death. He said, I got finished playing and left the stage and went around behind the house and broke down and I was crying. The host, who was a lady he knew named Barbara, followed him and said, are you okay?

And he told her about the murder and explained that it remained unsolved and said, everybody blames me for it and says I did it And this lady thought it was terrible and she decided to try to help Real so she sent an email to the Stephenville Police Department Okay, now there's a new cop on the case by now named Don Miller. All right now Stephenville had three unsolved murders including Susan's Which is fucking ridiculous. That small town, small town like this should have zero unsolved murders. I'm sorry.

Like, figure it out. Unless it's like some drifter. So Miller thought out of all of them that Susan's case was the most promising of the three to solve, but he said he couldn't do anything with it. He said now there's DNA testing, obviously. So he sent the six cigarette butts found in the living room in for testing. But the result came back unidentified male, unsub. They don't have any DNA in the system of his, which didn't help a lot.

So he's working another one of these cases of the three unsolved in July 2005 when he heard about this email that came in from Barbara Gary. He called this lady and Gary said the situation was killing Michael and his family and she wanted to know where the case stood. Wow. That's pushy for a friend. Well there's that but there's also as a cop you're like why is it haunting him so much if he didn't do nothing?

Exactly. What's going on? Why does he want to know the status of the case so bad cuz that's what they do murders a lot of times We'll check in because they want to see if they're close So the this guy the cop said Miller said that if he wants closure, he should come talk to me Oh, and he will Miller said he didn't hear anything for five months So he called this lady back and eventually they managed to get Michael on the phone connected with him so Miller basically asked to he said I'm gonna come to Indianapolis and get your

DNA okay and let's get this over with Michael was hesitant first he agreed and then he said well I don't know about that man maybe not and then he canceled after Miller and his partner already bought plane tickets to Indiana. Michael canceled. So the two cops decided, fuck it, we'll go anyway. Let's go. Let's see. It's winter in Indiana. Who doesn't want to be there for that? Let's go. Yeah, it's beautiful this time of year. So yeah, they said all they had was like summer jackets, like Texas winter jackets, which then- Some windbreakers. Hulled up to shit.

So they drove to his address, knocked on the door. They said, he cracked open the door and I told him who I was and he said, Miller, I told you I wasn't going to cooperate. And Miller says, I just started talking. He explained how the cigarette butts were the only way to establish his innocence. And if you don't give me your DNA, if you don't cooperate with me, I'm going to turn around and I'm going to leave and this case is going to go nowhere. You got to help me. So Michael... It's going to be cold as Indianapolis in fucking January. Yeah, no shit in a windbreaker. So Michael eventually said, okay, fine, fine. Now the problem

is, this is wild, They're on his front porch. Neither of these cops have ever used a DNA kit before. Perfect. And have no idea how to do this. So they're reading the instructions. They unfolded all this little piece of paper. Like it's a COVID test. Yeah, trying to figure it out.

And they read the instructions and they eventually figure it out and you know, they get it done here So that must have been a funny scene. How's this thing work? Miller wasn't really like around when this first started when everybody was so concrete that Michael did it so he was never had that idea He said yeah, he's a suspect but who knows he said though, but given that his fingerprints weren't at the scene He said I didn't really know if I didn't think it was him that much He said I know that the DNA is not gonna match the cigarette butts I know that for a fact, but he needed to clear him. So He does it he said, you know if it was another suspect

He said it could have been risky sex. It could have been this it could have been that so he needed somebody to do this and so he needed somebody he said to who could testify that she had no history of wanting to be choked. And Michael's the only guy who can fucking do that. And we're not gonna get him on board until we clear him. Otherwise he's not gonna help us. So he returned to Texas, sent the samples in and they do not match.

It's not him, not him. Poor fucking bastard. This is for 20 years this is going on. He's breaking down in the backyard of a shit gig. Of a shit birthday party. Without a stage even probably. So Miller said, so I called and said Michael you are 100% cleared from the case. Your fingerprints don't match. The DNA doesn't match. You're no longer a suspect. And he said, Michael began to cry.

And that's when Miller said thank you and hung up, because he could hear him sobbing on the other end. So. Thank you. I got to go. Stop crying. Great for Michael. Bad for them.

They're back to square one. It's 1987. Might as well be January 28, 1987. They have zero fucking suspects. At least then they had suspects So they said the only hope here was that the prince lifted from the bathroom mirror and tub Maybe that's it. So in 1999 the FBI Unveiled an electronic national fingerprint database and a department could submit unidentified original prints and have them compared against everything they have

But Miller's request to take the prints to Washington was denied. Really? And he said he couldn't risk mailing them because if you mailed them and they got lost in the mail, it's all there is. They're fucked now. And they literally wouldn't pay for him to go to Washington to do this. So he heard that the Texas Department of Public Safety had gained access to the FBI database. They make it sound like they had to hack into it for Christ's sake. All the cops should have access to this. In May of 2006, Miller drove to Austin and he handed the prints over to a DPS officer

and in a few days later, the officer called back and said, hey, we got a match on those prints. Oh? Who'd they come back to? Tell me. Roy? This one? That, that one, Joseph Scott Hatley. H A T L E Y. Miller says never fucking heard of him. Who the fuck is that? Who's that? The officer said, no idea, but we do know we have files here. He's been arrested

in 1988 for a robbery in Nevada. So then they called the county prosecutor here, John Terrell, who said, do we know of a Joseph Scott Hatley? And Terrell said, yes. Local kid, quote, raped a girl. Grand jury declined to indict. I'll get the file for you. Local rapist, Joseph Scott Hatley, born in 1965,

goes by Scott, by the way, not not Joe Miller reads the file and he goes holy shit this is a rape of a 16 year old girl in 1988 a year after Susan's murder and it sounded pretty brutal he said Hadley came from a family that everybody knew in town in Stephenville his father had operated a Texaco station in town and a wholesale ice business and also a diesel repair shop. So everybody knew the father. And the mother Celia was a homemaker. He's the youngest of three children. They said that kind of seemed to be standard small town Texas life. They're hardworking people. They attend a church every Sunday. His mother and sisters still live in Stephenville, his father's dead.

They said at a glance there's nothing that connects him to Stephen Woods, or to Susan Woods, even to know her, except for the fact that Hatley is Cindy, her best Cindy's first cousin. Oh, what? So he knows Susan Woods. Yeah. OK. And they asked Bob about Roy, Cindy's boyfriend, and said that Woods and Hatley weren't friends, but they were acquaintances.

They'd seen each other. He said, yeah, Roy said, quote, Hatley was like my brother. We were close growing up. Oh, no, this is Cindy. I'm sorry. Hatley was like my brother. We were close growing up. He was quiet this is Cindy. I'm sorry. Hadley was like my brother. We were close growing up. He was quiet and shy and never had any friends when he was young,

but he wasn't a mean kid. Okay. So they're looking at the rape. There is this rape charge. It happened in a roadside park south of town at one point after the girl had already been raped. She got up and ran. Hadley ran after her and chased her then told her she said quote this is from the report he laid on top of me and told me if I didn't mind him he would kill me then told her quote I've done it before oh boy so Miller once he read that his quote was some bitch did it. Some bitch he did it. So Scott, everybody calls him Scotty, his

fans, friends, friends and family and I got fans out. They said that he's an angry guy always. He claims his mother was abusive and beat him up all the time and she would deny that, but he said that the abuse enraged him and he just kept it inside. He said he was bullied like his sister Regina who was three years older. They were both heavy and they were both teased about their weight all the time. So serious anger he said that he can remember here is he heard his sister crying in bed one night after she'd been teased and it made him very mad So by this is at eight years old and this is in 1973

He started to fantasize about getting revenge About people who hurt him and his sister. Yeah, he found He had a fantasy that he was gonna shoot both his parents and then go to school and shoot all the kids. Boy, oh boy, that's early. He's ahead of his time. So that used to happen. It just wasn't that publicized. It was just a sad thing that happened

and everybody would say, oh God, that's horrible. That's fucked up. Yeah, so they said that he found much of life perplexing. He had questions about sex. His parents wouldn't discuss it. He didn't know what to do Even as news stories of sexual violence stirred in him feelings. He couldn't explain how he was into that His family was religious. They'd debate scripture at the dinner table Hmm. Yeah, so that's that's a lot better. Yeah. Yeah

He said that he never quite got into religion and couldn't understand it when he was around 12 his favorite choir leader was fired So he quit church and never went back And yeah, he said that he was plagued by confusion and violent musings We know this because there's some writings that were we'll talk about later. So we know a lot about him because he wrote a lot about himself He said that you know, he grew up in the 70s too. He had a bowl cut, obviously. Had the 77 Pete Rose there. Little fat boy with a bowl cut, uh oh.

Played baseball, basketball, and football. That's the other thing too, he plays sports. It's not like he's like a nerd or, he's just a little bit fat, so they make fun of him. Just got a slow metabolism. Don't worry, you'll own the Raiders one day. He was, yeah, get a bad haircut he's just a little bit fat. So they make fun of him. Slow metabolism. Don't worry. You'll own the Raiders one day. He was a, yeah, get a bad haircut and you'll own the Raiders.

He was a Cub Scout. He loved the Dallas Cowboys. His sister's friend Gloria recalled him as a beaver cleaver type. Okay. Said just a nerdy little guy, kind of chubby and didn't look like he was particularly popular in school. So at Stephenville High, he was quiet and just kind of didn't look like he was particularly popular in school. So at Stephenville High, he was quiet and just kind of didn't do anything.

He would, you know, arrange his classes so he could leave early, get out early, so he could help his father at work. That's all he did. But at home, amongst the family, he was outspoken and pushy, Cindy said. He was his first cousin. Their mothers were sisters, by the way,

and they spent Thanksgiving's and Christmases together, these two. OK. Roy Hayes, who's Cindy's boyfriend, said Cindy always felt Scott was a bully in the family. He often talked down to other family members like they were slow, kicked them about, kidded them about being dumb, and he often

would pick on siblings and cousins. And as he got bigger knowing his mob would not let the family stand up to that to the knowing his mom would not let the family stand up to the baby. He thought he was smarter than everybody. So Roy though Cindy's boyfriend said she could see his dark side a little bit. When Cindy urged Roy to bond with her cousin. Hey you guys both like to read a lot. You guys should hang out. Roy was put off by some of Hatley's preferred reading material which was a lot of true crime that he liked.

Really? Yeah, thought he was a real creep for that. Wow, everybody out there take notice. What a bunch of dirtbags. Jesus. Especially, he especially likes serial killer stories such as Son of Sam. Yeah, so does everyone else who's in the trip. Happens to be fascinating as fuck. Yeah, what the fuck? Anyone who wants to think beyond the shit that's right in front of them and just go,

what, what would make a person do? That's why it's interesting. So Roy said even back then he was drawn to darker stuff By age 13. He started tagging along with his sister who was 16 When she would cruise the drag there back and forth the Dairy Queen when one of them handed him a beer He said he found his first true love booze. It's so good. So what he wrote He's like, yep He said my mind that always worked too fast

So what he wrote he's like, yep He said my mind that always worked too fast Slowed down and I could focus for the first time in my life from the first buzz I knew that alcohol is what I craved what I needed what I had to have Wow, what? He chased it like heroin. That's a lot of people when they get their first taste of something they go That's the thing I've been missing right there boo But booze like I mean I loved it at 13. Yeah that's wild man. That's wild.

I love getting drunk I love like just a buzz but yeah like getting I don't need it like that. I have to have it. What I had to have. What a bizarre choice of phrasing for that. Now his other fixation and his other obsession and in addition to getting drunk was pornography. He loved a lot, loved his porn, which is normal for a kid who just learned to whack off probably.

So that's. A kid that just got drunk and jerked off. Like those are two feelings that you can't rival in this world. He found what he's gonna do for the next 70 years. He just found it. Oh boy, well now that's what I can't live without. That's the next few decades of my life.

Well Budweiser just became number two. So he loved porn. Back then you'd get porn in magazines. We're talking about late 70s. There was like reel to reel porn films you could get, but not a 13 year old. So he would hide his magazines and his vodka in the same place.

That was his little stash that he would hide. This little dirt bag box. Yeah. His little scum box. Don't look in there, mom. Don't look in there, there's bad stuff. He called himself a fat anti-social kid and said that he hated that he never

had a girlfriend at the time. He said, I have often wondered how my life might have turned out if I had learned about relationships at an early age, how to love, care, and share with a woman, rather than my parents not telling me anything, basically. So whenever he would ask about anything, his mother would hit him in the head.

They would smack him. When his mom, he said when he got hit in the head hard, his ears would ring and every time he got mad, then his ears would ring after that. Whoa. He wrote, at one point, I grabbed my mom, wrapped my hands around her throat and whispered to her, I'm going to kill you. I saw it in her eyes. Fear.

I had found a new drug. Fear. And then I came. Booze, porn, fear. Wow. That's what he's into. Wow. And then he came. So, yup, he said that his mother slapping him in the head is what triggered the whole thing. He said that just got me into it. So after they graduated, basically, he would be drinking and smoking and drinking and hanging out. And he said that he'd hang out on the drag, smoking and drinking beer.

He said, I felt like a rock star. Yeah. He said, though, he wanted to always be drunk. And he said, all of his crimes that he did, though, were with a clear mind and a sober mind. So he said that he that everything I ever did I thought about doing when I was sober. He just needed the booze to carry through with it like Dahmer. Right, right. So 1984, he joined the Air Force Reserve during his senior year of high school and was training at Carswell Air Force Base to become a munitions specialist.

After graduation, he did reservist training in San Antonio before transferring to Colorado for technical school and at the dorm, he met a woman from Ohio that he liked. He had never even kissed a girl at this point and he called it love at first sight. He said, late one night they slow danced to Prince's purple rain purple rain that's what she's I'm singing a Bob Seeger for purple rain purple rain just want to hear it ever covered it if he didn't he blew it that would have been great that's good shit so on the weekends they would make love in a cheap motel

Really? He said it was the happiest time in his life. Yeah, he's singing fucking he's singing a Bob Seger song He's singing night moves as well. He's just saying you think for a second. They were quote-unquote making love He was pig. He was fucking I'm finally doing it. Yeah Pig fucking in a shithole is different than making love finally doing it. Yeah. Pig fucking in a shithole is different than making love. Yeah. So neither their commanding officers nor his parents liked this because after this they get married. They get married. Once training ended he opted not to enlist in the Air Force. But his wife did enlist in the Air Force. Oh. So she was a... Yeah she was assigned to a base on Guam, in the island there, and after a few months,

he ended up going there too. And he said though, from the moment they were reunited, he knew something was wrong. He said, it seemed like that the fire that had burned so hot in us had just cooled a little bit. Yeah, she's out in Guam hanging out with guys. I think that's an actual Bob Seeger song and these are called Fire Within or Fire Inside? It probably is, yes. I think you're right as a matter of fact.

That's so funny. Jesus, Bob Seger just has his stamp all over this shit. Bob Seger stink all over this bad boy. Bob Seger's stink is on this as much as this guy's DNA. All over it. As much as the DNA is on cigarette butts, Bob Seger's stink is on this as much as this guy's DNA. All over it, as much as the DNA is on cigarette butts, Bob Seger's stink is on. Did they test Bob Seger's DNA? I don't think they did. So he said, it seemed like the fire that had burned so hot just cooled a bit.

There was a story in her eyes that I could not read. That's what he wrote. She's got another. She rented a small apartment and at first things went well. They're both heavy drinkers, which was fun. You know, I mean, drink and fuck. When she went skydiving with her friends, he would wait on the ground with a machete,

slashing through the foliage when one of them would land in the jungle. He'd have it all get a path for him. Yeah. He got a job. Wait on the ground like a fucking chicken like a fucking idiot. Yeah, he got a job at an insurance agency selling shit Then everything was kind of gone. So as the weeks wore on she was a little bit distant

They'd fight all the time. They wouldn't for not fucking anymore. No matter how drunk they are So he started to pray for the first time in years and when things didn't improve he said, God damn this shit I am gonna pledge my life to Satan. I've been fucking praying God did shit for me. What? He said there was just one problem in this whole thing. He wanted to pledge his life to Satan but he realized once you think about the logistics of it he said how do you get in contact with the devil? Yeah. I can't get a hold of the motherfucker. I don't even know how to tell him I'm on his side.

Anybody got his number? He said he realized he actually didn't know how to contact the devil. That's what he said. He said, I had seen movies and it always seemed to start with candles. My wife had a house full of candles, so I gathered some up and lit them. Maybe the devil will come now." He said, I got on my knees and I asked Satan to help me out of my situation. I prayed that I would give him my soul for my freedom. If I could only have known what consequences of my actions would bring my life, may God have mercy on

my soul. So now he's claiming that Satan possessed him for the rest of this whole story. Okay. So he drank more and more and more. His sales commission shrank at work. He started doing like shit. He basically, when he needed money now, he would basically use an office copy machine to forge company checks and just run them off

and forge shit. Meanwhile, his wife's going out alone at night now and he thinks she's having an affair and he said that this was the moment that changed his life. He said, this was the fuel that I used to destroy my life. I just did not have the maturity or experience to overcome this kind of thing. So he moved back to Texas. Yeah. Divorce? Getting divorced. Okay. He said he stumbled off the plane so drunk I could barely walk. Hell yeah. Yup. And he said everything was the same back there.

He said, but I wasn't the same person. Now I was broken. He went back to work for his father and eventually rented a small apartment. He asked people to start calling him by his first name. He's trying to reinvent himself. So he said, call me Joseph now. Yeah, rather than Scott. But nobody called him that. They just called him Scott. So he said he couldn't put Guam out of his mind. And it was, he said, it's just everything. His embezzlement was discovered, of course. His boss threatened to bring criminal charges and get unless he repaid what he stole. So he basically took out a bank loan in Texas to pay back that shit and then he had a bank loan. Now when he wasn't at work, he has a unique drink that he likes all to himself.

What is it? He likes to drink and he likes to drink vodka. Usually right after breakfast, by the way. Really? Just straight vodka? No, no, no. It's a cocktail. We'll talk about it He starts right after breakfast on non work days, and he said he knew he was losing control of it But he didn't give a fuck he was just fine

He said he would have blackouts and you know all that kind of thing He said after he got a cold and took cough syrup he realized That he liked the cough syrup buzz a lot, so he said, what if I made a vodka cough syrup cocktail? He's making hillbilly syrup. He's making fucking hillbilly lean here. Oh my god. And he fucking, he's mixing it up. He called it V Syrup.

He had a fucking name he made. He made his own cocktail. Vodka syrup. Vodka, V syrup he called it. It became his daily drink. That's what he made. That was his fucking cocktail of choice. Like martini, dear, when you come home, he'd make himself a V syrup.

Some sizerp. Then after a while he said, you know, this would really put a lot of pep in it. Maybe if I put a can of Pepsi in this this I could really take it to the next level So he'd have one of those 44 ounce foam sonic cups and mix it all up in there And then he would sip it during long drives in his pickup truck Wow What just fucking terrifying that's got a taste disgust It's got a taste it probably tastes like, and I like the, don't get me wrong here, I love Dr. Pepper,

but it probably tastes a little bit like Dr. Pepper, like Coke and cough syrup, that's kinda Dr. Pepper. I don't know. Mix vodka in it. The vodka in there's gotta change that flavor, man. Jesus Christ, yeah. Cola vodka, nobody does that. No, it's insanity, I've never heard of that before.

And cough syrup. Can I have a pop-ov and Pepsi, please? What? Nobody asked for that. What the fuck are you doing? So he would cruise around for hours, being pissed off, cranking up the Motley crew. Oh, yeah. Yeah.

That's right. Gotta go in there and shout, babe. Fucking girls, girls, girls. Where are they all? God damn it. Well, listen, the devil won't talk to me. Maybe it's because I haven't shouted at him. That's the thing. Maybe Motley can help me.

I like candles. Maybe Nikki Sixx can make this happen for me. Now his social life, he doesn't have much of it. It all revolves around his sister Regina and her friends, who are like all a little bit older in their 20s. Many nights, he would hang out with Roy and Cindy, Susan's best friend, and four or five others and they would drink and play cards

around his sister Regina's circular kitchen table. They began calling themselves the members of the round table. So he started sleeping with one of the group, a married woman, and he dismisses that as two lonely people trying to feel loved. But he would talk to these people openly about his impending divorce and the others would worry about him a little bit, but you know, not too much. Cindy said, I could tell the drinking was getting more and more.

He was heavier, getting heavier each time we saw him. Oh, he's getting fatter. Getting fatter. All he's doing is drinking Pepsi and vodka and fucking cough syrup. The amount of empty calories he's just throwing down. Good Christ, man. Exercising.

Then on one night in July of 1987, someone new came to the round table. Card gathering. Susan Woods. Cindy's best friend. Susan Atkins. Susan Atkins. Woods at the time card gathering. Susan Woods, Cindy's best friend. Susan Atkins. Susan Atkins, Woods at the time, she's Susan Woods. So she is eight years older than him,

but Scottie said he knew Susan and Michael for years. He says that the first marijuana he ever bought was from Michael. How about that? Michael says that's not true. Now, in his sister's kitchen, he says, Hatley writes, that he was drunk and thought Susan was flirting with him. He remembers flirting back and that that interaction

stuck with him. He said they flirted with each other. So the following Sunday night, he writes in his shit here that he took another drunken drive and decided to swing by Susan's house, unannounced. He said, you must understand that I did not set out that night to hurt anyone. She welcomed him in because she knew him.

In his telling, he says that they listened to records and smoked a few joints, but it's cigarettes, there's no weed in the house. At some point, he writes, quote, I overstepped my bounds and Susan slapped me. And he said, what happened next was a blur. He said, by the time I came out of the fog, I had brutalized her. At first, she said she was going to tell what I had done to her. Then she then said that she would not tell anyone if I just let her go. I found it interesting that she thought any of that mattered. As I asked her if she believed in God, she said she did. I told her, well, you better start praying.

Oh my God. That's terrifying. That is cold shit. He said, all these years later, I still do not know why I said that. I honestly do not know if I was mocking God or if I still had a little humanity left in me. It sounds like you were trying to terrify her.

That's what it sounds like. You know who all said that shit? The fucking Iceman. That's what I mean. Yeah, I'll give you three minutes. I'll give you a half hour. He comes and saves you, great. Yeah.

And do you have any regrets? Yeah, I probably shouldn't have done that. That was some cold shit. Yeah, he said that wasn't necessary, is what he said, I didn't need to do that. Wow, he said, all I know with certainty is that the last minutes of Susan's life were spent in prayer.

That night I took the life of a kind, sweet, loving woman who never did anything to me, but show me kindness my god I had become a monster. Yeah, that's the quote he has He then drove home Wow The police stations on his way home Yeah He said he paused at the stop sign and considered pulling into the station and turning himself in and saying what he just did

And then he just rolled instead. Instead, he kept driving. Four days later, the murder appeared in the Fort Worth Star Telegram. And he said, I wish with all my heart that I could tell you that I mourned for what I had done, but that would be a lie. Reading about it in the paper was a high like I had never felt before.

He jerked off to that man. Oh my god. He used the right word. He's a monster. He's a fucking... This is the type of guy that Dexter would hunt on the fucking TV show. Dangerous human being. Horrible.

He went to the funeral. He signed the guest book. He noticed the loitering police officers. Said he didn't feel anything. No fear. Didn't feel bad. When his group gathered in his sister's kitchen for the first of a series of their roundtable discussions where they would drink and they would all debate

who killed Susan, he was always in the conversation, oh, what about this guy? What about that guy? Oh boy. Roy, Susan's boyfriend, said he was drinking heavily and making jokes. He'd call the cops the Keystone cops. He said, if wanted to find a cop you needed to go to the donut shop. Maybe the murderer would wander in there too. Ha ha ha. He's even hacky. And that's what he says. In his writing he says this, and this is, I actually agree with him, quote, a basic investigation would have identified me in only a few days. Indeed, yeah, indeed. Yep. He said he termed the police hicks and rubes in another part.

He said, I could not believe that they never once interviewed me. A week before Susan was partying with us at the round table. My God, how could they have missed that? Instead the detectives had decided that it had to be the ex-husband. They homed in on him and never let up. Yet another one of my victims, he says, the ex-husband. They homed in on him and never let up. Yet another one of my victims, he says, the ex-husband. Whoa, yeah. Okay, by the way, there's a girl named Shannon Myers,

talk about her quick. She was a younger girl, a teenager who hung out at Regina's house and would drink vodka and smoke in the backyard with them. Jesus Christ. Next door neighbor of Regina. She's 15 at the time, and he noticed her there next door. He's 20 or whatever, 18.

And she's rebellious, and her family had just moved here from Arkansas. She spent a lot of her time, even though she was 15, partying at the university at Tarleton State there, at Frat House, as she goes to. Her mother had given up trying to get her to stop doing shit. She just did whatever she wanted.

So she befriended Hatley's cousin Melissa in the summer of 1987 who babysat Regina's two kids. Shannon started hanging out at the house. She remembers her first meeting with Hatley who was seven years older than her. She said, he walked in and we kind of made eye contact and he just started paying attention to me. No one ever took the time to sit down

and really talk to me. I was like, this is nice. They struck up a friendship, just good old porch conversation. Good old porch conversation. I saw more of the sweeter caring side of Scott than most did then one night. He kissed her She said and we just started having a relationship right there and the next day he had they had sex at the sister's house It was in his house

Then they fell into a routine Shannon would go out partying most nights and then after she would park her she drove She's 15. Wow She would drive and park her she drove she's 15 wow she would drive and park her nobody they drink and drive they drive in their 15 parks her her car back home she would smell cigarette smoke and hear the clinking of ice in a glass like fucking Julian from the trailer park boys and no that's my mating call yeah that is the that's the Air Rath County mating call or ever the fuck it is And that was signs that he was in the backyard waiting for her Yeah, so she would wander over they would have sex often in one of Regina's bathrooms

She said that was the big deal. She said looking back on it now. He was very controlling When I'd leave he'd ask hey, where are you going? And I would tell him, and it was, what time are you going to be home? Controlling also wants to know when he's getting pussy, I think, is this thing. We've got to schedule some. When am I going to molest this teenager? When am I going to molest this sophomore? Scheduling up that statutory rape.

And Shannon had been sexually abused earlier. That's why she's doing all this, obviously, and acting out. She said, I needed to be loved. And Scott played on that. After sex, she said, he kept telling me that I'm special. I'm the special one. And that still today sends shivers through my spine. Now, after a few weeks, Shannon's mom finds out.

She wants to send something else through his spine. Probably a fucking.44 caliber bullet, I would imagine. The mother, this is, I would say, this is an understatement, but Shannon said she didn't like the age difference. No shit. Yeah. So Shannon's mother confronted Hatley in a Kmart parking lot. Oh yeah.

Think about the trashiness of this. We're going to confront you about fucking my 15 year oldley in a Kmart parking lot. Oh yeah. Think about the trashiness of this. We're going to confront you about fucking my 15 year old daughter in a Kmart parking lot while you're drinking Pepsi, vodka, and cough syrup together. This whole thing is just, what the hell is going on here? And if you don't know what Kmart is because it doesn't fucking exist anymore, it's one step below Walmart. Yeah, exactly. No shit, Walmart but couldn't hack it in business. Right. It's

out of business Walmart. Yeah. He promised to end the relationship and Shannon did as well, but they didn't. Pat Lee started renting an apartment and he and Shannon began just meeting at the apartment. One night in September, Shannon took her white poodle, Dee Dee, to the apartment. She had sensed that Scott was under some kind of stress and she speculates that it might have had to do with Susan's murder and she didn't know that at the time. But then out of nowhere, the whole thing weird happened. They began to have sex and he seemed more forceful and aggressive.

She said she kind of backed away and was like, hey stop, you're hurting me. And she remembers quote, and well as soon as I said stop, all hell broke loose. In his eyes was a coldness and I was like, okay what the heck's happening? He took a knife out and held it to my throat. Oh my God. She said she didn't object out of concern that he might hurt the dog,

who had started to growl because she was putting up a fight. And he's being aggressive. Yeah, and she said, me, 15-year-old me, I was worried about my dog. And then I finally pushed him off of me. I grabbed my dog and I ran out. So she starts power walking home when he pulls up alongside her in his pickup truck. He says, let me give you a ride. She said no. So he apologizes. Look, I'm really sorry. I don't know what got out into me, blah, blah, blah. She said, and so I looked at him and I didn't see the anger in his face

anymore. And so she got in the vehicle. In her driveway, she said, he looked at me and put his hand on my face and said, I'm sorry. I love you. And I said, love you back. Then she told her mother about the assault. And her mother insisted on going to the

police while being interviewed at the station. Shannon sensed the officer's skepticism once she heard that they had an ongoing consensual relationship, even though she's 15 and he's 22. That should be enough right there. She said that her reputation as being like a wild child around town, that's what they were treating her like. She's 15! She said they just viewed it as I was the crazy one. Unreal. But according to Hatley's journals, the police gave so little credence to Shannon's story that he didn't even have to contest the accusation.

Police officer came to him and to visit him. He thought it was because he's being linked to the murder and it didn't. He says in his writings, that did not happen. What happened was the officer told me that there was this screwed up little girl so I should stay away from her. Incredible. It was like, yo, bro to bro. Like, what are you kidding me?

Stay away from that little trollop. She's going gonna ruin your life Holy fuck that's wild So they she the police department wouldn't prosecute because the grand jury refused to indict So Shannon cut off contact with Scott though. She continued to visit his cousin His cousin next door on during the daylight hours when he was gone Once she hadn't realized that he was in the house and she overheard him arguing with his sister. She said they were having a conversation about quote,

well you shouldn't have messed with her. And he goes, yes, but I love her. And she goes, but she's 15. You know, it's illegal dog. So the police visit meanwhile left Scotty paranoid that he's gonna be arrested soon He lived near the station and every day just watched the cop cars pull out and pull in and drive by his apartment and waiting for them To come to his house. Yeah, he said he dreamed of taking Shannon on a cross-country crime spree a la Bonnie and Clyde But we'll just do this together and she he said in his writing that she was initially

receptive to this plan. Shannon. She says that's not true. According to Shannon, their only communication was a barrage of phone calls and letters. She said that he basically stalked me and she ignored him. Nine months go by after that. She tried dating boys her own age, but didn't work out. So after a difficult breakup with one of her young boyfriends, she agrees to see Scott again. Good Lord. It was in July of 88, a year after Susan died. She said, I was all I was over at Regina's

house and he was already there. And he goes, Hey, can I talk to you? I miss you. And I'm like, Oh, I miss you too. She said, I didn't really trust him. I feared him a little bit. Which when you're a kid, that's a weird. So it's a rush, man. Yeah, because that's why she's a kid. And an adult shouldn't take advantage of that. And fuck them.

That's gross. So Hattie called her at home one night. He kept saying, Shannon, I really want to see you tonight. I need to explain why I did that to you and she said the 16 year old me wanted answers you know if you love me so much why did you hurt me so they meet in a laundromat parking lot she gets she said the moment I climbed into his truck I immediately knew I made a mistake we drove off and he locked the door and goes come over here and sit beside me. Oh god He said just the way he was talking to me was totally different. He had aggression in his voice

That's also how couples drive and pick up trucks in Texas if you've seen urban cowboy So he had he had aggression in his voice and he was doing exactly what he told me I was doing exactly what he told me because I was afraid as they kept driving He kept telling her they were destined to be together and then she started to warm to him and maybe he's just maybe he just doesn't know how to express him his feelings. So she said I just wanted to be I'm just wanting to be loved and accepted she said. So they pulled up to a roadside park south of town where he parked out of sight of the road. As soon as they got there, she said everything

changed. He turned back to that night when he raped me with a knife and the look in his eyes and everything, I knew I was in trouble. He pressed her to have sex. She refused, so he slapped her. She said they've then got out of the truck and sat on a picnic table. He immediately started taking off my clothes and we ended up having intercourse and it was brutal. He started hitting her so hard. It knocked her unconscious. After she came to, she said she felt blood coming out of her ear and she said he would take breaks of doing this to smoke cigarettes and get a drink. Then thinking he would kill her and hide her body.

She began tossing her things all around so the cops would find them. A hairpin, her bra, she had a beret on that she tossed, hoping that the police might find them later. She just wanted to leave a trail. She said, I fought for my life there. I remember- Do you have a beret?

Not a beret. She was wearing a beret. Really? Yeah, on her head. Okay. Like a raspberry one? Like that kind of beret? Yeah, like, well they danced to Perp.

No, that was, but it's the 80s. The kids were wearing berets for some reason. Yeah, I don't know why but they yeah She that was like, I don't know who the fuck knows maybe kids in college were doing it. I'm not sure So she said I remember going in and out of consciousness and thinking I'm not gonna get out of here alive She said there was this little tiny spring and because it rained a few days before it was a little muddy She said he took me by the water Scott had a fascination with water and having sex in the bathroom the sound familiar Yeah That's where he wanted to have sex every time at Regina's he pushed her face into the little spring as he raped her again Same thing same exact thing. She said it went on like this for six hours.

Oh my god. She said I knew I had to turn the tables on him in order to survive. I knew I had to convince him that I loved him. So eventually they got back into the truck. She sat as far away from him as she could. And he goes, no, I want you over here by me. And that was probably one of the scariest minutes of my life. Do I breathe?

Do I don't breathe? I was scared to make a sound and scared to show my face because if I showed my face he's going to see the damage that he did to me and if he saw the blood and bruises and realized the severity of what he'd done, she was scared that he wouldn't let her go. He wouldn't let her go. He'd go, well, they're not going to sweep it under the rug this time. I beat the shit out of you. So she said, so I looked down real fast and he couldn't see the bruises. He couldn't see the swelling and he was caressing the side of my face and he goes, are you okay? And I'm like, yeah, I'm okay. And I said, I just want to start my life with you. And he goes, I'm sorry for what I did. And I said, it's

okay. I love you. I just need to listen to you. And I remember saying that to him and he goes, don't you turn me in. And I said, I just need to listen to you." And I remember saying that to him and he goes, don't you turn me in. And I said, I'm not gonna say anything. And he believed me. He reached under the dashboard and turned on the ignition, drove her to the laundromat parking lot and left her just before the sun rose.

She said, I've never ran so fast in my life. She got home, ran to her stepfather and they rushed her to the hospital. Now they're taking her story seriously, the cops. Gee, if they would've taken them seriously the first time. The nurses administer a rape kit. By the way, none of them had ever done that before. So no one knew what they're fucking doing.

They're leading instructions. How about just, everybody practice your kits that you have on hand. Take one kit and waste it and just practice. Maybe when you have one and the person in charge, they get a training course on it. That's all, whoever's gonna use this. There's those paddles.

I'm sure they don't go, fuck, what do we do? Get the instructions, he's not breathing. I don't think that's what they do. How do you turn it on? There's none of that. Holy shit, so sheriff's deputies arrive and he, because it's outside of town, proper, so the sheriff's department comes.

Shannon tells them everything. The next morning, Scott is awakened by a knock on his door. He sees the deputy sheriff there. He says he took a big swig of vodka and fetched his pistol. Oh boy. He was gonna shoot the deputy as soon as he entered the apartment, but the officer just left when no one came to the door.

He assumed they returned in force, so he packed a bag, threw in his pistol, drove to the bank and drained his bank account. Headed west, didn't know where he was going. He drank beer in an El Paso motel that night, staring at Mexico going, should I go there? The next day, he said, maybe I'll go see what the ocean's like in California.

Let's go check that out. But then he saw billboards for Vegas and just went to Vegas instead. That place is so much cooler. Whenever you go, why do they have billboards? Do these work? Apparently so. Evidently. So he had no plan.

So he would drink during the day, wander around Fremont Street at night, which is the old strip. He would drink more, think about killing himself,remont Street at night, which is the old strip. He would drink more, think about killing himself, which you would do if you're sitting in a Binion's hotel room. Your stupid opinions, we did that. It's not good. So he said more than once, he put a gun in his mouth and thought about it, but then didn't do it.

But then he said he was running low on money, so he started robbing. He walked in with strip mall shoe store, tried a pair of shoes Then pointed his gun at the saleswoman walked out with the shoes and money and he set a powerful adrenaline rush that made him feel good Yeah, then he tried to rob a hotel clerk, but the guy didn't speak any English So the guy just started shoveling handfuls of coins toward him. They yeah, he was just Shoveling coins at him. Take these quarters, they're yours. That's what we have, quarters. We just take the quarters.

So he was like, fuck. He was getting mad and he said he was about to shoot him, but then someone approached the outside door, so he just took off. The next day he was scouting targets and he noticed a motorcycle cop behind him and then three patrol cars behind them. He drew his gun to his lap he said. Oh the helicopter is now hovering. He said the patrol cars hit their lights. He heard a voice on the loudspeaker telling him to pull over. He pulled into a Denny's parking lot. He said for a second he started thought about going down shooting. He goes let's

start a gunfight. Instead he crawled out, laid on the pavement and got arrested. For the robberies. That's it and he is taken back to, he said he was thrown in the holding tank. He was waiting for the Stephenville police to come and take him to Texas to answer for the rape and probably murder. And no one ever came for him. Cause they're still spinning their wheels on Mike. That's it. So in the courtroom, Scottie was convicted of two counts of armed robbery and faced a 30 year sentence for each. But the judge said he's a young guy without a bad criminal record. So you sir may fuck off 120 days in a youthful offender program.

Oh my god. 60 years or 120 days. Four months? Yeah, so he did like a month and then they let him go. Oh Jesus. And his parents drove him home. So he was like fuck what was I doing? He said once he got back there he realized why did I leave? There's no reason to flee. A grand jury already declined to indict him for rape for some reason. Even though she had that whole story and proof and bruises and rape kits her his parents had fought it in his absence they went to bat for him Wow what Don Miller the cop said his mother went to the church and got all the members of the congregation to sign a

letter about what a great boy he was and they also did a private hired a private investigator who quote did a hatchet job on Shannon Yeah found said everything horrible about this poor girl found every college guy She ever drank with and gave a hand job, too And then obviously she can't is she can't be raped because she's worked off a frat boy one time fucking ridiculous. She's irrapeable irrapeable So ridiculous so miller the cop said at the pro that time, if you could prove the victim was

promiscuous, the charge would more than likely be dismissed. That's so wild. He said, and Hatley was clean cut. He was a Stephenville kid, one of us, you know. Shannon, well, she did not enjoy that reputation. She's a newcomer and considered a young harlot, basically. So Shannon thought that Hatley would be jailed for years in Nevada, so she thought he was gone. And then all of a sudden she saw him back in town and was like, what the fuck?

Why is he here? So she told cops that he's here too. The cops didn't know either. They thought he'd be in jail for years too. So she said, oh, the sheriff's rape investigation will put him away. And then she said a letter came in the mail. She said I was reading it and I'm like, what does this mean?

Not indicting him. What does this mean? Lack of evidence. She went to the neighbors who helped her make sense of it. And she said she's trying to find the words and she goes, they should have indicted him. I was confused. I was hurt. Felt like I was raped all over again.

She said she doesn't miss. She doesn't know what happened inside the grand jury, but that's what happened. Afterwards, she noticed that Scott would just turn up places she was visiting. One would be his sister's house, which I would stay away from his sister's house if I was her.

He showed up at a frat party she was at. Oh boy, he doesn't go to college. No, and the skating rink too, he would show up there. She said he was following me. It was almost like the grand jury had emboldened him. Baby, that's called stalking. It's stalking, yeah. So after seeing him at the rink, she told a friend,

she took a friend with her and drove home, and his truck was already in the driveway next door when they left. She said, I called him out. I'm like, Scott, you need to come out now. He refused. I'm like, quit being a chicken shit and come out and face me like a man.

That's a high school junior out there calling you a chicken shit. Get out there, pussy. A high school junior who's been horribly raped by you. Yeah, he's going, hey, chicken shit. And she's like, come here, pussy. Get out on the lawn, fucking pussy boy, let's go. She said, I stood up to him that night.

We had words out in the front yard and I told him to stop. I'm like, you know what you did to me. He quit harassing her after that, but then her mother and step-father moved away. She stayed with an uncle. This is like a year later. She's 16. Then she got married to a local boy. Oh boy.

Just looking for something. That lasted a month and a half. Sure. And then she would lean on her friends for support, one of her friends, but then he was killed in a motorcycle accident. So she said she thought of killing herself as well. I bet she did. And instead she fled and moved to Pasadena. Yeah.

Outside of Houston, by the way. Not Pasadena, California. No. It's a different Pasadena. Outside of Houston, by the way, not Pasadena, California. No. It's a different Pasadena. Southeast of Houston, very different Pasadena. Somehow sadder Pasadena. Right? With her mother when she was 19. She did seek out professional counseling for years after that. She was in therapy and she told herself that she's still alive. She's a survivor. She got the fuck out of Stephenville and she can make it and so she's doing much better now I heard she knows post-its She goes to her high school reunion and claims it

So detective Miller he says hindsight heck Yeah, we should have known about Hatley but in all the statements and all the reports we did none of Susan Woods his friends ever Mentioned he was in her circle Because he would go there and that was he was like in between circles. He was a floater Yeah He just bounced around The only red flag would have been if somebody in the sheriff's office would have listened to what Shannon was saying and really listened to her And correlated it over to Stephen Woods. He put me in fucking water and raped me head dunked in water and raped me

But to my knowledge no one ever did that. No one knew that they had ever met. I had no idea and Donnie didn't either. So, Hattley's back living with his parents, thinks he's gotten away with everything. But he does think there's like an imminent arrest coming, but they don't know about it. He moves to Nashville in 93, gets married. Him and his wife have two children. Oh my God.

Yeah. He becomes a truck driver like his older brother. So now he's settled family man driving a truck. This scary rapist fuck is driving a truck. What does that say to you? Yeah. Dangerous. That's dangerous, man.

There's definitely bodies everywhere, from here to fucking Kathmandu. For years he does, yeah, yeah, literally. So here to Guam there's gonna be bodies. So he said that he drove long hours, he said he worked very hard, he said his dispatcher once asked him why do you work so much? What are you running from? And he said myself. Wow. Running from myself. That's some Bob Seeger shit there. He said that out alone on the road, he said, I honed my skills at picking up broken women, mostly in roadside bars. He never gets arrested.

He would take pills to stay awake on the road and ended up rear-ending another truck in Dallas, which led to his firing. He then took a job in Nashville at a grocery warehouse. It paid well, but remind but you know, his past was still there He said he was never able to get the murder out of his mind He drank every night and at all hours on the weekends His daughter was his daughter was injured in a car accident required extended bouts of physical therapy His wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis and ends up in a wheelchair

So a tornado then damages their apartment complex. Yeah, you're cursed motherfucker. This motherfucker deserves every bit of this curse. All of this shit. Not the poor people around him, Doug. Not the poor people around him. That sucks, but he's doing this to everyone. It's trying to hit you. Rock and roll never forgets motherfucker. Yeah, that's what it is. That's what it is, man. So then they move into a duplex only to have it destroyed when a drunk driver drives into the house and destroys it. I'm telling you he's fucking cursed. Absolutely.

He began to believe it was all God's punishment for what he'd done. I'm an atheist and I'm starting to believe that. This is amazing. So late 1990s comes around, years have passed, 10 years have passed. His life calmed down like we said. He's doing all this shit. He's promoted to helping him run a warehouse and round rock. He said he hated going to Texas, felt like a serious risk. He said, deep down I knew it was a mistake,

but in the end my ego and greed won my emotional battle. So him and his family moved back to Texas. They found a poolside apartment, but his drinking was fucking everything up, and him and his wife fought violently. I don't know how you fight violently from a wheelchair, but she does. Poor lady with them ass. She later alleged that how you fight violently from a wheelchair, but she does. Poor lady with MS.

She later alleged that he beat her violently all the time. And by 2006, he's working nights and sleeping days, which is what he was doing in 2006 when he, Miller had read the file on Shannon's rape and then tracked Hatley down in Round Rock. June 6th, 2006. Oh my god. Yeah, 19 years. They're driving the cops from Stephenville to Round Rock. Don Miller turned to his partner and said, make no mistake, the day is 6-6 of 06 and

we're about to meet the devil himself. How about it? He asked police in Round Rock to bring him in for questioning and they said the guy who popped in in the interrogation room was a 40 year old warehouse supervisor, 300 pounds, you know, short hair, matching mustache. They told him why he'd come, why they'd come and they said he seemed bored by it. He didn't seem concerned. They said he comes in and tries to act calm, cool, and collected, nonchalant, which to me is a big red flag.

Innocent people tend to heatedly deny false accusations. They're mad that you're accusing them. All right, let's get this over with. That's not what he did. He just said, I didn't have anything to do with it. Maybe I might have had sex with her. I don't remember, but I don't think so. They wanted a confession, even though they didn't need one

because they have physical evidence, and he agreed to provide his DNA, which was dumb as fuck for him. It obviously matched to all the materials found at the scene, and they said, oh, that's easy. So they figured they don't need them to confess, so they didn't push. When he was asked why your fingerprints

were found at Susan's, he said, I don't know. He said, members of the Round Table. I don't know. We used to go from place to place. We probably were there a couple of times. At one point, a Round Rock officer took Miller aside and told him to keep talking. He said, keep him talking because his wife is considering charges of her own now that he's in here.

So. For the abuse. Yeah. For the abuse. So she started telling these horrible stories of domestic abuse while he's in there getting interrogated. She's using a wheelchair. She would say that he pulled her hands behind her back and sexually assaulted her. This is the wheelchair lady. She said it's a vicious attack. And she even notes it on her calendar for that night. It reads, Scott beat the hell out of me. Nose bleed, black eye could barely breathe, and she claims he did this on a number of occasions.

Oh boy. Now the next day, they re-interview him. I don't know why they didn't arrest him on the spot, but they did. Yeah, when did he get to go home? But this time, he claims that he had a kinky affair with Susan. Remember? They said that was going to happen. Oh, yeah. And an assertion that they know was a lie.

And meanwhile, Hatley's wife filed charges against him. And that night, Hatley took his family, his wife and two kids out to an IHOP in Round Rock, and the police rushed to the place, she told the cops that's where they were gonna be, and they arrest him. The results come back on the DNA, matching the cigarette butts, it's this guy. Before the arrest was announced, Miller said he wanted and they arrest him. The results come back on the DNA matching the cigarette butts. It's this guy. Before the arrest was announced, Miller said he wanted to tell Susan's father

before it was announced publicly. So he found him on the golf course. Miller said, we've, we found the man who murdered your daughter. Yeah. And he said, bullshit. It's Michael Woods. You're wrong. Joe, what the fuck, man? Joe, we love you, Joe, and we get your feelings, but D-N fucking A, that guy's cleared. The guy's a monster, Joe. Miller said, nobody believed me. They wouldn't believe me.

Roy and Cindy Hayes didn't believe me even. Nobody. They said it was still as ridiculous. Roy said he was pissed off by his treatment by the police, rumors of his involvement had cost him a career in law enforcement and even one other job he ended up losing because of it. You didn't know it was your own cousin, man. You shouldn't be a cop.

He thinks now that Scott is being wronged in the same way. They did this to me, they tried to railroad me, now they're railroading him This is bullshit. Why doesn't anyone arrest Michael Woods? So this is fucking crazy not and then finally once Miller got to get with Roy and Cindy and explain everything to them Then they went. Oh, okay shit which Caused a big rift in the family Roy remembers Hattley's mother telling them, we need to circle the wagons.

It's our family against the cops. And Cindy said it tore our family completely apart. Oh my god. Miller said, I always knew the case was solvable, but Hatley was never even on our radar. Unreal. Now, they end up, and we'll tell you how, but in his writings later on, they end up finding that, how she was killed It wasn't death by drowning in a bathtub tub. He suffocated her with the pillow. He did he did that's how he killed her

He said this quote. I did not cry. I did not grieve. I was without any doubt evil to my core Wow without any doubt evil to my core." Wow. Now Michael was at a college class when Miller called him. And he'd already been cleared, but he said he still never felt safe. He said they were still going to come for him. He said he heard, got the call, went outside. He said he like broke down. He hadn't had a cigarette in a year, but his professor came out and gave him one.

And he said, I needed it. I cried. He said it finally happened. Shannon felt completely vindicated by this. Like, I fucking told you about you people. She said, when Miller called me, oh Lordy, I was mad. I was relieved. Now you're finally listening, she said.

He kept telling me, I believe you, I believe you. And that's what I needed to hear. So she said because I truly believe there are other victims out there he was a trucker remember I can't be the only one. It's got to be hundreds right. I agree. Yep. The district attorney when they arrest him this clears woods obviously and all that. And they said quote this was a shock to everybody the district attorney said it was notorious because it happened in a quiet community and was unsolved for so long.

He decided he cuts a deal to plead guilty. Natalie, you have to no trial. Yeah, no nothing. No anything. They cut a deal with the time and everything you say may fuck off 30 years. He gets some. Not enough. Doesn't seem like no. Nope. Not enough. Nope.

Not enough. Hard 30? No. We'll find out. Susan's parents said they wanted to avoid the attention of the trial, actually. And Hatley agreed to testify against one of his cellmates, too. So they gave him the deal. That's how it worked. He was sent to Huntsville where he claimed to have discovered religion again. I don't give a fuck. And wrote his manifesto. Oh, by the way, 2016 Lieutenant

Ken Maltby dies and I'm not sad about that. He's a fucking moron. This whole thing is his fault. Hope he took his shit work ethic with him. Right? 2017 Scott is diagnosed with bladder cancer. Wonderful. In jail that goes into remission. Yeah, he's gonna stick around with it. Then in 2018 he is released on good behavior. 11 years he did. Good behavior and cancer. They release him.

Oh my god. That's fucking wild. Hattley's son said he sent an email one day before his father was set free. In his email he wrote that he's unsure why his father's getting another chance and that the community should be made aware of his release. He notified the press. Tell the AP, fuck. Yeah and they said that the Lieutenant Don Miller said it's not uncommon for long prison sentences to be greatly reduced due to prison overcrowding how about let the murderers outlast Their guy that got caught some weed

Anybody here not a rapist murderer anybody an armed fucking robber fine whatever you got Rolling through town in a in a Cadillac with Pennsylvania place Maybe a guy rolling through town in a Cadillac with Pennsylvania plates. Let that guy out for her. Two fucking comedians, not even speeding. Fuck. So Cindy says she was shocked to learn her cousin was responsible for this because she had talked to him the whole time and hung out. She said it was mind numbing.

I just couldn't believe it. And she says that she also nowadays thinks that there's additional victims out there. She said, I think he's a monster. The public needs to be aware that he's out of prison. So he enters a halfway house in Midland, finds a job repairing oilfield trucks and then after being laid off at the beginning of COVID, that's how new this is. Oh my God. He moves into an RV park outside of Abilene to be near one of his daughters Amanda He was sober for a bit and then that didn't last long Amanda said I don't know what happened, but I'm pretty sure he started drinking again. He distanced himself from us He didn't come around for months at a time and then he just pop up at the door

I told him he needed to call and we'd have a big fight got a hold of that new lean. That's right, baby Then Halloween 2021 he told her that his cancer had returned and spread to his spine. Uh oh. And December 9th, 2021 he's dead. Wow. Dead as shit. Amanda the daughter said all those things he did, the rape, the violence, he did those same things to my mom. So it didn't surprise me. I don't know what to tell you. My dad is just a really bad guy. He's found dead in the RV, by the way. Wow. Drank himself to death or just cancer? Cancer and everything else. He was scheduled to start chemo the day he was found. And that's

when they find all of his writings, which is hundreds of pages. And that's where all these descriptions came from. They didn't know the truth about it till 2021. Everything. Awful. So this was kind of a biography. It was hundreds of pages. It's fucking wild. All the reasons to hate him. Jesus, he sucks so much. He really now I'm going to end this with the craziest obituary of all time. God, what did they say? We just told you all the horrible shit. He did this is his obituary and I'll quote Joseph Scott Hatley 55 passed away on December 9th 2021 he was born December 20th 1965 in HECO, Texas a small in a small country hospital

Joseph grew up in Stephenville, Texas helping his parents with their businesses and playing with his two great friends Jay and Brad, and being third wheel to his sister. He was a middle child through and through. Joseph graduated from Stephenville High School and soon after joined the Air Force. He would soon find out the Air Force wasn't for him and would soon find himself with many jobs, with the winner being a truck driver. As a truck driver, Joseph saw the world. He saw every state and every sunset and sunrise. He saw the beauty and magic in this world. On one of his many visits to his trucker bars, it would land him meeting Susan Hatley.

They later, he married a woman named Susan, by the way. Get the fuck outta here. Yeah, they later married and had two children. Joseph loved them so much that eventually he decided to quit the hustle and bustle of truck driving for a 9-5, but in Joseph's case it became a 10-7. Joseph worked night shift at Cisco Foods for years, where he worked himself up to night manager. He took incredible pride in his work. He battled addiction behind closed doors.

Addiction beyond words with alcohol. He didn't know when to stop. This would soon land him in legal trouble and eventually in prison. No. What did? What did? Joseph served 12 years for a crime he committed in 1987. For murder.

Rape and murder. Joseph was released in 2018 and began to try to mend things and move on, trying to put the pieces of the broken family together, especially when it was half the family was harder than they ever dreamt. Amanda watched her father change within the walls of a prison cell and then got to watch him love her daughter. The alcoholic she once knew was now a follower of Jesus and wore a cross and prayed. And boy, boy, did Joseph love his Kaylee.

He took so much pride in his title as Papa. He received the diagnosis of stage four spinal cancer in November 2021 after only three years of being out of prison. In his pain, he chose to give Kaylee his last great memories. He attended her birthday, took her to see Christmas lights and spend his last Thanksgiving with her. Their relationship was a phenomenal one. On the day of his passing, Kaylee said, Mama, he isn't suffering anymore.

He's with Jesus. He's not the safe one. You're the safe one. Oh yeah. Holy shit. He survived by blah blah blah blah blah. There will be no funeral service. He will be cremated at his request.

Joseph fought cancer so long for Kaylee. There's no doubt. You don't have to fight this world or your cancer anymore, Dad. Fly high. Oh my God. Sink life to the fire below. Then the daughter has this long thing about this. My daddy lived a life very few people could fathom for a long time. It was filled with secrecy and lies. Writes this long thing about this. My daddy lived a life very few people could fathom for a long time. It was filled with secrecy and lies. Writes this whole thing about him losing my dad to cancer and then at the end said cancer stole my daddy. Cancer stole my daughter's grandfather. Cancer stole a great man who wanted to change this world after living and doing what he did. A great man.

Cancer's the great equalizer in this case. My love. Jesus Lord. Something he regretted with every being in him. I will lead his change with a fire. I will make my daddy proud. I love you daddy. Unbelievable. Holy shit. That's Stephenville, Texas everybody and some wild shit. I mean, I guess everybody gets gets loved but how do you look beyond all that to be able to love somebody so much? You were hating him because he was baa my head and I can't I can't form words I have no words. You raped your mom lady. You said that repeatedly and violently it's fucking crazy I love you daddy fucking what? So anyway there you go that is is Stephenville, Texas.

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I got to get a shot for my Valeria, okay? Look. But thank you. Yeah. It's dripping all over the place. Shelly Brevik. Crystal with no last name. Gravestones II.

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Yeah, that's, yeah. Although try to put pants on a cat, good luck. That's gonna be hard. It's not easy. Sam Cannon, Nathaniel Osment, Jessica Hoffler, Trent Hickson, Brittany Cornell, Cornell, that's what it is. Tabitha Howard, Anthony with no last name,

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They're terrific. Jeremy would know his last name. Anne Marie Fitzgerald, Gemini Panta, Jola Pantoja, Pantoja, Pantoja maybe. Chad Doutriev Malak. Doutriev, what a great name. That's cool. I love that name so much. It was a character on King of the Hill, right? Bill Doutriev. That's cool. I love that name so much. It was a character on King of the Hill, right?

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