Snapped: Women Who Murder - Susan Monica

Episode Date: December 4, 2022

While investigating a missing Oregon handyman, police stumble upon human remains and are left searching a crime scene straight out of a horror movie.Season 29, Episode 2Originally aired: April 11, 2021Watch full episodes of Snapped for FREE on the Oxygen app: https://oxygentv.app.link/WatchSnappedPodSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hi, I'm Lindsay Graham, the host of One Reast Podcast American Scandal. Our newest series looks at the story of OxyContin, a popular painkiller that helps spur an epidemic of addiction and drug abuse, in which prompted a broad campaign to hold the pharmaceutical industry accountable. Listen to American Scandal on Amazon Music or wherever you get your podcasts. For one veteran, the woods of Oregon seemed like the perfect setting for a new beginning. She spoke of coming to southern Oregon to start a nice, quite simple life away from the city. She was just a ruffle woman that was living off the grid.

But when a traveling handyman goes missing, it sends a chill rippling across this peaceful, rural community. It certainly raises red flags when somebody is reported missing, and they don't have their most important belongings with them. Me that hears, on the back of my neck stand up, we basically all fear something bad that bad. Me that hears on the back of my neck stand up, we basically all heard something bad that happened. As the investigation begins, dark secrets are exposed.

He was having a little hard time with alcohol. I don't know how he was doing dealing with reality. He was distraught. He was very angry. And when the pieces fall into place, detectives will discover a disturbing crime, more twisted than anyone could imagine. I've had nightmares about this case for years.

I'm thinking to myself as we're pulling up, like, are we in the Twilight Zone here? Like, what is this place? It was crazy. It looked like the setting of a little budget horse film. How many more bodies are going to find? Four, five, six? That is what caused us concern that.

Indeed, we were dealing with a serial killer. The New York City The New York New York New York New York New York New York

New York New York New York New York New

York New York New York New York New York 66-year-old Robert Haney gathered in Medford, Oregon to discuss their father. We haven't seen her from my dad for two months now. We just all started to kind of panic and worry. The Haney siblings drive together to the home of Susan

Monica, their father's employer and landlord. When they arrive, Susan says she hasn't seen their father since he quit without notice in September, nearly four months ago. As Susan Monica said that my dad just basically left. She wanted us to come get her retriever, dad's stuff. that are retriever, that's stuff. When Roberts' kids arrive at their father's trailer, they immediately know something is wrong.

His motorcycle and the ant truck was there. His leather jacket was there. His dog was still running around. And all his tools were theirs. Robert Haney always took excellent care of his tools. They were his lightly hood. And he would never leave them just strewn about the location as they found them.

May the hairs on the back of my neck stand up. We basically all fared something bad at that happen. my next stand-up, we basically all feared something bad had happened. Born on June 26th, 1957, Robert Haney had struggled most of his life. Robert wasn't very popular, he didn't have a lot of dates, or friends. He was just quiet. Robert did not finish high school. He took off. Him and his brother, Don, basically ran away

when they were younger and started out on their own. My dad, Robert, who'd do plumbing and construction, who'd basically build a house from the bottom of. As he was establishing himself in the construction business, Robert met a woman named Thalia Larson at a party. The couple married in the early 80s and raised five children, but it wasn't an easy life. My dad was mainly working a lot. He would be working there six days a week. He just wanted to provide first kids.

Then there was issues between my dad and my mom. They were just arguing too much and just kind of no longer be together as far as I know. He basically just kept working to drown out the feelings. In 2003, Robert and his wife divorced, and he and his children moved north to Medford, Oregon for a change of pace. When I was 10, we moved up to Medford, who's definitely a fresh start for me to add.

He was able to get up quite a few jobs. He really wanted to provide first kids. In 2012, after the last of his kids moved out, Robert decided it was time to downsize and bought a dog and a camper. My dad replied to it on Craigslist. They're about a job for a handyman work in exchange to live on a property.

And that's when I might add, met Susan Monica. Susan Monica was born in California on July 8, 1948, but her early days are somewhat of a mystery. Susan didn't open up quite often about her past. Although not much is known about Susan's early life, according to veteran records, she was born a male and served in the Navy during the Vietnam era. From the Department of Veteran Affairs,

I learned that Susan was actually born Stephen Buchan. After being honorably discharged, Susan began living her life as a female. She got into an engineering career and was very successful. She worked on submarines in San Francisco. Susan's demanding job soon had her dreaming of a quiet her life away from the California rat race. So in 1991, she bought a 20 acre farm in Wimer, Oregon. Susan's filter coming to Southern Oregon to start a new life, to have a farm, some animals,

and just a nice, quite simple life away from the city. She lived on her place with no electricity. It was a little shack. She was just a rough old woman that was living off the grid. Susan was a person that isolated herself, except when she needed to go into town to get something, she didn't want to be around people. Susan raised a small crop of pigs

and started a welding company. She made rod iron fences and they were beautiful. She could put anything on them from decorative animals to trees. In her spare time, Susan focused on making improvements to her farm. It was raw land when Susan first got there. She put that huge barn up and then Susan had decided she was going to build a house. She was looking for a handyman to help out. She had put up ads in stores and she had used the internet as well.

And that's how she met Robert Haney. In 2013, Robert and his dog moved out to Susan's property in his camper. My dad in Susan Monica had a deal. My dad would get part of cash and be able to stay on the property. My dad agreed to build a house from the bottom up. He was her handyman, a laborer, carp carpenter, whatever she asked of him he did. By the summer of 2013, Robert seemed happier than ever.

He didn't mind living in the trailer working out there. He really liked just being out in the woods, basically, by himself and just have a nice piece and quiet. I am self and have nice peace and quiet. So when Robert suddenly disappears in September 2013, his children are stunned that their father would abandon such an ideal position, leaving all of his possessions behind. It was really unlike my dad to just leave all stuff like that. So we went ahead and put a missing person's report. This person's already been gone for three months or so.

You know, you're behind the curve already. And you don't know what's happened to this person or if anything bad has happened to them. Coming up, the discovery of a horrific event in the weeks before Robert's disappearance raises new concerns for the Haney family. He was distraught. He was very angry. He wanted to seek revenge. But if he got into something that he was not able to handle and he was hurt or some

one killed him. We called it everywhere that we could think of. We're just all hoping my dad would still be alive. -♪ On January 1st, 2014, Robert Haney's family arrives at the Jackson County Oregon Sheriff's Office to file a missing persons report. They told the Sheriff's Office that the last place

that they were aware that Robert Haney was working on Susan Monica's property. At that point, we had an idea that Robert Haney had been missing for a few months. We know that he had been seen in early September. It certainly raises red flags when somebody is reported missing and they don't have their most important belongings with them. They don't have their dog, especially.

Robert's children admit that since they moved out, their single father has enjoyed a more nomadic lifestyle. It was kind of spotty, like, you know, they would often go a month or two without talking to their dad, but it was still consistent. They always did continue to talk to their father. It can be more difficult to track down somebody if they live a lifestyle where they don't have a regular home. Making matters more difficult, the Haney Children say their father worked in a cash-only business. They asked me in my siblings if my dad had any debit cards,

credit cards, and we told him that he did have eBT card. The Haney children also told me that he didn't have any other bank accounts or anything like that that they knew of. When detectives ask how Robert was behaving in the weeks leading up to his disappearance, his children reveal that Robert was deeply affected by a recent traumatic event.

Someone was assaulted in my family. And so my dad was going through a rough time with that. I know he did love his family, and he cared about what happened. He was distraught. He was very angry. He wanted to seek revenge. The Haney children say that the stress of the situation drove their father to drink. He was likeable enough.

You know, when he wasn't drunk, but when Robert was drunk, he was a little hard to, like most of us are hard to deal with. Just seeing him go through that much pain and be the end that much depression is pretty hard. After speaking with Robert's children, Jackson County detectives head to the last place he was seen. The home of his employer, Susan Monica.

When we were coming down this gravel road, coming up to her property, I'm thinking to myself as we're pulling up, like, are we in the Twilight Zone here? Like, what is this place? The property is wooded. It's cluttered quite a bit with vehicles and outbuildings and makeshift structures. It was really in a state of disrepair.

When I started talking to Susan, she came across as very cordial. She was kind of a cheerful person. It seemed to be helpful about, you know, wanting to help the investigation and help us find it. Robert Haney had lived on her property for about six months or so.

And the initial agreement that Susan told me they had was he would do some handy worker on the property, and then he received a concerning phone call from the family member that she had been the victim of assault, and he was really upset about that. Susan really described Robert Haney during that interview as being a depressed man. After the alleged assault, Susan says described Robert Haney during that interview as, you know, being a depressed man.

After the alleged assault, Susan says her formerly reliable handyman started drinking heavily. He was having a little hard time with alcohol. I don't know how much he remembered. I don't know how Robert was dealing with reality. I have no idea. Through the night, he would down by his trailer by himself. He would yell. You could hear him screaming. He just didn't, you know, why? God, why, and all that kind of stuff. Susan says that on September 9, 2013, she decided to confront Robert about his drinking. But before she could, he approached her.

He had come up from his trailer and handed her some money. He told her, you know, we take care of my dog? I've got some things to take care of. She just assumed that he was going to return, took the money, was going to agree to take care of his dog, while he was gone. He had gotten in this white sedan, driven by another male. She had not seen him since that time.

Robert Ginn mentioned something about the attack and wanting to look for the individuals. That's something we had to consider as investigators. What if he got into something that he was not able to handle and he was hurt or someone killed him. After speaking to Susan, detectives return to the station and attempt to track down Robert. Or the white car Susan says she saw him leaving nearly four months ago. Not having a make or a model license plate, we wouldn't put out a bullow if we don't have

enough information to be descriptive about the vehicle. There was no clues. We did call all the homeless shelters. We called all the hospitals. We called it everywhere that we could think of. We're just all hoping my dad would still be alive. For detectives, the only possible lead is Robert's EBT card. On January 9th, they contacted the state agency

to see when and where the card was last used. There had been activity on Robert Haney's card, and that the last activity was actually in December of 2013. They'd been used at a date after Susamlanaca said that he had disappeared. that he had disappeared. We were able to track down the last couple of purchases that were at a Walmart in Grand Spass Organ. Grand Spass Organ is about maybe a 20-minute, 30-minute drive from Susamon to his house. With this new information, detectives can't help but wonder.

Is Robert's disappearance just a misunderstanding? Maybe it's on the run, maybe it's going somewhere. I met with investigator Avery at the Walmart in Grants Pass and was able to actually look at the video of the person who had been using Robert Haney's cart. And, you know, I'm expecting, well, hopefully it's Robert, but what I saw was Susan Monica. That's when I was like, OK, we got something else going on here.

And I was really concerned that there was some foul play involved in Robert Haney's disappearance. Coming up, this missing person's case takes a disturbing turn. I would describe that property as eerie. There was a very strong odor there, a lot of decay. It kind of stops. And he says, I think that might be a leg.

I knew it was wrong, but I thought we're one of my big suffering out there. I was gonna do the same thing. Hey, listener, it is me, Jason Bateman. I want to tell you that we've struck podcast gold in our new episode with David Letterman available four weeks early on One Dree Plus. It's like a late night talk show hangout,

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possibly contemplating growing a beard like Letterman's. I know I have. You can listen to these episodes four weeks early and add free on Wondry Plus, find Wondry Plus in the Wondry app or on Apple podcasts. In early January 2014, Jackson County detectives discover that months after Robert Haney was last seen, his employer, Susan Monica, used his EBT card at a local Walmart.

We'd worked on a search warrant to search her property for the crime of identity theft. At that point, several detectives were more involved, and we were mobilizing to serve a search warrant at her property. and we were mobilizing to service or to warrant at her property. On January 10, 2014, law enforcement arrives at Susan's farm. And like, Susan, you know, you're on video

using Robert Haney's organ trail card. Tell me about that. Susan was, to me, visibly nervous and what I would describe is worried. Susan said that she had permission from Robert to use the card when she was tasked with having to feed his dog. Susan explained to me that she stopped using

Robert Haney's card because it had actually expired. There was no money left on it. A few hundred yards away, officers begin to scour Susan's property for signs of Robert's possessions. We went on with the search warrant procedure, which involves a video of the property. I would describe that property as eerie.

There was a very strong odor there, a lot of decay. It's like she never threw anything out. It's just piles, piles of garbage, you know, discarded food. Just junk, pieces of metal. There's no running water, no septic system. It looked like the setting of a low budget horse film. Sergeant Nathan Sikler was the one who was doing that videotaping, and as he's

walking around the property and describing the property and video taping the property, he comes to like a catchment pond type of area. He's filming that. And in his camera, you can see come into view something unusual. He kind of stops and he says, I think that might be a leg.

It was clear that it was not an animal bone. It appeared to me to be a human leg that had been severed mid femur down to the toes. Meanwhile, I'm interviewing Susan. I don't know anything about this, what they've discovered. And Detective Steve Bone came over to me. And I remember he just whispered into my ear. We just found a leg.

It was hard not to have a shocked look on my face. And so I, at that point, we, I told Susan, I said, hey, let's go back to the police department for an interview in the office. And so she agreed to do that. At the station, detectives confront Susan with their gruesome finding. To the best of your knowledge, Susan

has anybody ever died on your property? Huh? Would you tell me if they were ahead then? Um... I guess no. Well, I don't know. They said they'd gone away. Confronted with this information, Susan changes her story and explains what supposedly happened in September of 2013. So I went through the gate a little bit and I saw them eating.

Then I walked closer, saw what was going on, took my hand and hit them to try to get them off. I saw that, you know, he was laying there with his back and saw it all over the place. That he was being eaten when I believed to be alive. I thought that I saw his arm move and I did hear a little moaning. When I was unable to evil set, I kept him to move.

I went up to my house and I got my gun and shot him. I put him out of his misery. I do that, and I do that for my animals, and this was the first time I did it for a human being. And I knew it was wrong, but I thought we're one of my pigs suffering out there. I would have done the same thing. After Robert was shot, Susan left him out in the pig pen for a couple of days.

She said she took his clothes off, so that it would be easier for the pigs to have access to him. Susan says after the pigs had eaten their fill, she gathered up what was left of Robert Haney. After a couple of days, I went out and I picked up what I believed to be the rest of him. I put it in a couple plastic bags. It appears that some animal, perhaps a coyote or something

like that had smelled them, had gotten into and torn open one of these black trash bags, and had pulled that leg out towards the pond area in order to consume it. We asked his in Monica why she did not call 911, why she didn't get the pigs off of him, why she didn't shoot the pigs. I was thinking about my pigs and worrying about, if I told anybody that they were gonna come out

and hurt she'd fall my pigs. The only remorse she expressed during this entire time and the only emotion she really showed to us was she did not want her pigs harmed. Robert Haney, she didn't think he was worth a lot as a person, and her pigs were so valuable to her, the way she was talking was probably the most cold and uncaring I had ever encountered before in any person who's killed anyone.

The detectives told Susan that they were going to search every inch of her 20 acre property, and they asked her, what else are we going to find on your property? And that's when she visibly started to break down. And I could see the look on her face and her kind of stumbling with words to say what she was gonna tell me next. She asked for a piece of paper

and she drew a rough outline of the pig pins and the barn. She made an X that was just outside the fence line of the pig pins. and she told the detective that there was something worse in that location. Coming up, what secrets are hiding on Susan's homestead? She had a whole back room full of personal belongings from people. And detectives fear they are sitting across from one of the deadliest killers in America.

She told me that if she told me about the 17 others that she would spend the rest of her life in jail. After confessing to her role in the brutal death of 56-year-old handyman, Robert Haney, Susan Monica tells detectives that there is something even more disturbing buried on her remote or in-home stead. She kind of drew the layout of her barn area and kind of out in the pig pen. She put an X right in the middle. And she said, right there, that's where you're going to find Steve.

Susan says that Robert Haney wasn't the first handyman to work on the property. Or the first to die there. We learned that Steven Delas, you know, was somebody who lived on a neighboring property, and he would do odd jobs for Susan on her property, which was one year prior to Robert's stuff. My dad was a handyman. I always remember him carrying a box of tools.

He was a hard worker. I always remember him carrying a box of tools. He was a hard worker. He was this kind of transient person, loner, you know. Susan liked Stefan. She described Stefan as more of a gentleman that he would open the door for people, and you know, he was kind. Until in the summer of 2012, Susan claims she noticed that two of her guns were missing.

She rifled through his property and she found two guns. One was a handgun, one was a rifle. Susan said she can fronted Stefan about these guns that she believed he had stolen. And that's when things kind of went south. She said that she had her 22 revolver and that they got into kind of a wrestling match over this 22 revolver. She was trying to take it away from him, and the gun went off, and he was shot in the back of this head.

Susan says she was terrified that she had killed her friend, but instead, he stood up still bleeding from the head. She said she ran out into the area in front of the barn. That he chased her. That he grabbed her. She had also managed to grab a rifle at that point. She says that Stephen Delos, you know, grabbed the rifle. And that there was a struggle, that he was grabbing her legs.

At one point during the struggle, Steppen was down on his knees. She was above him, and she picked up the right hole, and she shot him in the head with the right hole. She told me that he ended up dying in the barn area. Stephanie was somebody that was closer to her, and, you know, she didn't... wasn't happy that this had happened to him. She said after that occurred, she was pretty distraught.

She went into the other room to lay down to kind of think about things. She says that while she was lying down, the room to lay down to kind of think about things. She says that while she was lying down, she realized she made a terrible mistake. A little while later, she went back out. And she found that the pigs had actually gotten in to Stefan and actually started to lick some of the wounds that he had on his head. And we're beginning to eat him at that point.

She claimed the pigs then dragged his body back into the pigstye area where she again left his body out there for a number of days for them to consume. And when she returned the only parts of his body out there for a number of days for them to consume. And when she returned, the only parts of his body that were left were basically the skull, some of the bones in his spine. Susan says two weeks later, she buried what was left of Stefan's body behind her bar. But if herself defense story was true, detectives wonder why she hadn't called police.

Her excuse really at that point, for not telling anyone if this case she was worried that the authorities would come and euthanize all the pigs. Susan specifically told us that she valued the lives of animals over people. I asked her, you know, are we going to find more people? Have you done anything like this to anyone else? You know all that?

And she told me that if she told me about the 17 others that she would spend the rest of her life in jail. That is what caused us concern that. Indeed, we were dealing with a serial killer. Detectives arrest Susan Monica for two counts of murder and two counts of abuse of a corpse. The next day, January 11, 2014, dozens of CSI agents and officers descend on Susan's remote farm, where they quickly find the rest of Robert Haney's remains in the barn. You could not smell them because the overall smell was, like I said, not pleasant at all. We would have never located these because we would not likely have been searching that area. These are black garbage bags contained his head.

And other garbage bags contained other body parts just decayed. We began the large scale search of her property. And that involved having an excavator to dig holes, where we thought we may find the body of Stephen Delicino. Human bones were seen actually in the bucket of the backhoe. That was stopped immediately. Those were the remains of Stephen Delacino.

Detectives reach out to both families to break the tragic news. I was really sad about the whole situation. I would never expect something like for what happened to my dad and what all went on. It was just unbelievable. He was a wanderer. He would disappear and come back.

And that's just the person he was, nobody thought that anything happened to him. And there was no real way to get a hold of my dad. We didn't think, oh, years of not hearing from him, he must be dead. We just thought maybe he moved on to something else. But I did feel like a connection was going to happen with me and my dad. I'm very angry that I was robbed of this. Why would somebody do that to him in that way?

Both sets of remains are sent to the lab for analysis. The forensics for both men matched her final stories about how they died. Both Robert Haney and Stephanie Dullesino died from gunshot wounds to the head. Forensic examination was able to show us places on the bones that indicated a consumption by animals. Detectives continue their search efforts to determine if there are more bodies on Susan's property.

We had a big excavator working just around the clock, you know, every day that whole time, digging holes, we dug approximately 136 holes. One of the holes was the size of an Olympic swimming pool. As police dig, they find chilling traces of other potential victims on the compound. She had a whole back room full of personal belongings from people. Furniture and televisions and all stacked in an area near the pigs in the barn. There was a large pile of shoes on the property. I think at that point all in our minds,

we were thinking how many other people are out here. Coming up, a new witness comes forward with a terrifying testimony. She's not what she says she is. She's not just defending herself. She killed people on purpose. That definitely kind of shook the courtroom up a little bit. In January of 2014, Susan Monica stands accused of murdering her two handymen, Robert Haney, and Stefan Delicino, and there could be more victims. I think there were approximately 400 bones that we found on the surface that were later determined

to be animal, not human. Much to everybody's surprise, no other bodies were found. A Susamonicus property, and there was no sign of human remains. We did have to look into Susam's past, identify any people who had stayed on her property over the years, and there were quite a few, but we were able to track them all down and confirm that they were still alive.

On April 15, 2015, Susan Monica's trial gets underway. trial gets underway. Every time I went into the court of the trials, I just seen Susan Monica. It was pretty hard. In their opening statements, prosecutors assert Susan Monica killed her employees during two sheeted arguments, and then fed their bodies to her beloved pigs. Susan did have a short temper.

For certain, for some of her workers, I don't think killing somebody was any different than shooting a pig for her. Susan Monica is an intelligent, calculated woman who knew exactly what she was doing. That made me sick. Just sick to find out that she shot him and fed him to the pigs. He didn't deserve that. Not Robert.

No one deserves that. No one deserves that. After laying out their evidence, prosecutors present a surprise witness, Jordan Ferris, Susan's former cellmate, that she met in custody while awaiting trial. Susan told me that Robert and her got into an argument because he was drunk and he was trying to come onto her. She shot him and then pushed him into the pig bin.

She told me that when she pushed him in, he was still struggling and the pigs started to devour him. She was whining and crying and screaming. Now after she told me, she just chuckled really, creepily like... almost like the chills made you know it was real. To prove that Susan killed without remorse, Jordan shows the court a birthday card

that Susan gave her when they were cellmates in 2015. She signed it from the sweetest murderer in Jackson County, Susan B. Monica. when they were cellmates in 2015. She signed it from the sweetest murder in Jackson County, Susan B. Monk. That definitely kind of shook the courtroom a little bit. She's not what she says she is. She's not just defending herself. She killed people on purpose. However, the defense claims that the birthday card was just a poorly timed joke. It's consistent with Susan's personality and in which she would describe us a strange

sense of humor. Susan, Monica, will make comments and some are very inappropriate. During her interviews, she had often joked in the past about allowing her picks to consume humans. The defense argues that Susan killed only in self-defense, or in the case of Robert Haney for mercy.

Susan is so sure of her innocence that she insists on not only testifying, but representing herself. In addition to her defensive attorneys, Susan Monica wanted to also question witnesses and conduct cross-examination and make statements to the jury on her own. Susan is fairly narcissistic, and the delusional part is just believing that she knows more than everyone and that she can do it better than anyone. Susan Monica would also have outbursts

where she would suddenly stand up and start making statements or answering questions. The trial basically was a bit of a service. Susan's theatrics don't impress the jury. On April 21st, after just an hour of deliberation, they return with a verdict, guilty on all counts. Murder in Oregon carries a life and prison penalty. She's sentenced to a total of 50 years before she could even be considered for parole.

It was a little more of a relief. When we got the verdict, knowing that she's gonna have rotten gel for the rest of her life. a little more of a relief when we got the verdict, knowing that she's gonna have rotten gel for the rest of her life. Though the trial comes to a close, law enforcement is still left to wonder, have all of Susan's victims really been accounted for.

My take on what she told me about the possibility of 17 other people being there was that it was true. I believe 100% that there are more people out there. This is the strangest murder I've ever heard about. That night narrows about this case for years. I think this probably impacted the detectives even more than it did me because they were involved in the actual hands-on searches and discoveries. For the families of Robert Haney and Stefan Delicino,

the nightmares will never end. My dad was a good humble person that shouldn't have been murdered. At least he's able to finally rest in peace. She has changed so many people's lives and taken away two people that were loved. I hope she's remorseful for what she did and that maybe one day she can find it in herself

to forgive herself. And I hope one day I can find it to forgive her. Susan Monica is serving a life sentence in the Oregon Department of Corrections. No other victims were ever found on Susan's property. Oregon Department of Corrections, no other victims were ever found on Susan's property.