257\. The Blue Eyed Butcher - The Murder of Jeff Wright
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Hey everyone and welcome back to the podcast. This is Murder With My Husband. I'm Peyton Moreland. And I'm Garrett Moreland. And he's the husband. And I'm the husband. Again, if you are on YouTube right now, you will notice that we are definitely in a different set. If you're on audio, maybe we sound different, maybe not. There's no pop filter on this one, so I hope I'm not popping peas the whole time. No, I'm sure you're good. But Garrett's probably going to use why we're

I had a different set for his 10 seconds. But before we jump into that, I actually dropped new into the dark merch, which is my solo show, if you didn't know. And I'm pretty sure there's a few left over. So if you were listening and missed it, go over to into the dark. The links are everywhere and snag the little last bit of that merch. But yeah, I don't want to bore everyone with it. So let's jump into your 10 seconds. That's kind of all we got going on here. Um,

We are not home, as you can tell. We have been swimming with Daisy. So she's been living it up the last couple of days. Best day of her life. She's been crying 24/7 'cause all she wants to do is swim 24/7. - She literally, the second she wakes up, runs to the door. - It's getting out of hand. - Yeah, I don't know what we're gonna do. - Yeah, we have a monster in our hands. But yeah, for 10 seconds, I have been getting a lot of questions about

I've been getting a lot of questions about my hair transplant. Oh, yeah. Because Peyton posted some stories. I actually posted a picture of his eyes super swollen. Like swollen shut. It's a process. A lot of people have been asking me, messaging me about it.

Basically, right now it's like a shedding phase. So for the next month and a half, my hair just kind of sheds. It doesn't look great. It's called the ugly duckling phase. And then it'll kind of all come back in and everything will be good. But the first two to three months is kind of just I keep a hat on,

And just suck it up for the most part. I will say I have followed a lot of hair transplant journeys as Garrett was prepping to get his. And yours is looking good. Yeah, no, it's looking good. I would say yours is above average. I think because I've had a lot of hair already. Yeah. I mean, just like it was like the fronts that I kind of got touched up and thickened.

Anyways, that's my 10 seconds. If you have any more questions, feel free to shoot me a message. Again, a lot of people asked about it. And again, I went somewhere in Salt Lake City. I did not go out of the country. Yeah, that's kind of all I got. Also, we'll kind of, we'll tag below where we're recording at. If you're ever in St. George, Utah and need somewhere to record.

and go check it out. But on that note, let's hop into today's podcast. Our sources for this episode are abc13.com, oxygen.com, caselaw.com, yahoo.com, clicktohouston.com, kiro7.com, abc7news.com, texasmonthly.com, cbsnews.com, cron.com, abcnews.go.com, and hubpages.com. A lot of sources. A lot. Okay, so...

No matter how big or small a case, how violent or discreet it all may have been, in the end, the entire investigation typically amounts to one big finale, and that is the courtroom hearing. A trial is supposed to be the most critical part in the justice system machine, but at the same time,

It's theater, right? And you hear Garrett talk about this all the time and how annoying it is. All the time. A good performance by either the accused, a witness, an expert, or more importantly, the counsel can make or break a juror's opinion of the case. Was their lawyer convincing? Whose story was stronger, that of the prosecution or the defense? The

These are all things the jury has to keep in mind when they choose the fate, sometimes of someone's life.

But the problem with courtroom theatrics is they aren't always an accurate interpretation of the truth. They're a best guess. And sometimes all it takes is an Oscar-worthy reenactment to convince a jury of guilt, wrongfully or otherwise. It's actually funny because just the other day, I think I asked you why sometimes there are a judge and sometimes there is a jury. And you were saying... You said if I was...

going to trial would i pick a judge only trial or would i let it go to a jury and i would and i said a hundred percent i would pick a jury and i said it would depend on the crime yes because and the literally the reason i say that is because is the exact thing i'm talking about you can manipulate a jury way easier than you can manipulate a judge especially someone who's a prominent figure like a judge right so you gotta rely on your stupid peers yes not your very smart judge who does this all day every day

So today we are headed to Houston, Texas, where Susan Weish is born on April 24th, 1976. Susan and her two siblings were brought up in an upper middle-class household. Their mother was the textbook definition of a homemaker. She watched the kids every day, made everyone freshly cooked meals, and tended to the home while Susan's father would head off to work each morning.

And Susan's father was a mechanical engineer by day and then a husband with a temper by night. Okay. When he wasn't laying a hand on Susan's mother, he was taking his rage out on his three children. As you can imagine, Susan and her siblings sort of had to learn how to walk on eggshells around him, as they put it. When he got mad, they learned to scatter and hide. But for Susan...

She grew up kind of thinking that this is what a normal marriage looked like, that everyone fell in love, got married, had kids, and then started hitting each other. It was just another step on the path of life. Still, every day when Susan and her siblings left the house, they put on their smiles and went about their business pretending that nothing was abnormal at their home.

And of course, the weight of it all did end up taking a toll on Susan's grades. But as you probably know where this is going, the relationship with her father and how he acted at home most affected the way she sought attention from other guys.

So Susan said she craved male attention and was willing to do whatever it took to get and maintain it. So when a boyfriend of hers made some snide remarks about her looks, instead of breaking up with him, Susan dropped 19 pounds to try and please him. And then during her senior year of high school, she realized she could actually make money this way by seeking attention of men, especially because she likes it.

So this is when she actually got a job as a dancer. What year are we in again? She was born in 1976 and now we're around her.

Just graduating high school life. I figured you said that. I just wasn't sure if this was going like OnlyFans route or like dancer route. No, no. This is going dancer route and not the type of dancers that we were talking about at UDA college competition. Yeah, different type. This was temporary for Susan, just a quick means to an end. Also, I didn't mean to make that sound like I...

I don't support dancing as well because I support everything. - Get your bag, man. - I support everything. So this though was temporary for Susan. It was just a quick means to an end. For the eight weeks she worked as an exotic dancer, she stashed away her cash because she wanted to go to nursing school.

Now, eventually, Susan had enough to begin her education and juggled that with her new job of working in a hair salon. So she danced just enough to rake in some dough and then was like, I'll get a job at a hair salon and I'll start going to school. So she was just doing it to save up money. Yeah.

She's on the grind. Don't cash away and try to, okay. But those dreams of becoming a nurse were too time consuming and expensive for Susan to stay committed to. So she ended up just quitting and working at the salon full time. Okay. And then in April of 1997, the 20 year old Susan went on a trip with one of her girlfriends to Galveston, Texas. Okay.

And it was during that little vacation that Susan locked eyes with a 29-year-old man named Jeff Wright. Now, remember, Susan is 20. She's still very young. And he's 29? And he's 29. Okay, look. I don't know.

doesn't bother me okay i'm just okay i'm just saying maybe when you're maybe when you're the type of girl who's trying to please a guy even at your own expense stories where it's like 19 and like 50 so i'm saying i know i know i know we're gonna compare this isn't as bad correct and i'm not even saying it's always bad it's not bad but with the wrong personalities this could be harmful yeah

Right away, the two became inseparable. Jeff appeared to be everything Susan wanted in a partner. He was kind. He was caring. He bought her flowers. He took her to expensive restaurants. And only a few weeks in, he was already telling Susan he loved her. I know that love can move fast, but sometimes, again, with the wrong personalities, this could be called love bombing. That's what I did to Peyton. Yeah.

- No, I had to pull it out of him. - Kind of true. - So when she took him home to meet her parents, they actually loved him too. He talked about his dreams for the future, how he hoped to start his own carpeting and flooring business. He would provide for their daughter. He would care for her. And Susan was smitten.

So when Susan found out just a few months into their relationship that she was already pregnant, she wasn't panicking. She honestly was like, I love him. He's great. He treats me well. The pieces are kind of falling into place. But when she told Jeff, hey, I'm pregnant.

He honestly seemed indifferent about the matter. He told her, I'll be fine if you want to terminate the pregnancy. I don't care. Now, this wasn't an option for Susan. She told Jeff she was keeping the baby. And in October of 1998, when Susan was just a month shy of delivering, the two were married in a tiny little ceremony right outside of Houston. But after their son Bradley was born, Susan says she saw something change in Jeff.

Keep in mind, the two had only been together for about a year by the time they got married. So you're still learning things about people at that point, right? And now you have a baby and you're married, but you're still going to learn things. But what she was uncovering now, post marriage and baby, it wasn't just like, oh, I learned that he leaves the sink on while he brushes his teeth.

It wasn't good. Okay. Suddenly, Jeff began getting nasty with Susan. He often called her names and criticized her weight after she gained a few pounds from her pregnancy. And when she was suffering from postpartum depression with their son, Jeff refused to let Susan take the medications that her doctor had prescribed to her. He said, quote, suck it up and do your job.

So from there, he supposedly only got more and more controlling over Susan. It was kind of this downward spiral. Susan said she could only leave the house to make quick trips to the grocery or drugstore or to visit her mother. But if she was ever gone for more than two hours, she would not hear the end of it. Interesting. When she told Jeff she wanted to start taking college courses again, he was like, absolutely not.

So Susan snuck away one night to the college campus to see if there was like an online course that she could take from home. But when Jeff found out that she had done this, he began accusing her of cheating on him, calling her horrible names. And there were also things about Jeff's past that were now coming to the surface in this new marriage.

Like the fact that just a year before she met Jeff, he had pleaded guilty to felony drug possession. Now, according to some sources, this wasn't a big deal. Well, it wasn't a one off event. Apparently, he didn't tell her, but Jeff had had a pretty rocky past when it came to drugs and alcohol, particularly in his high school years. Yeah.

And apparently Jeff's past was back to haunt them both because not only was Jeff smoking marijuana almost every single day, which I know a lot of people do. So but on top of that, Susan said she's trying to raise this baby and suffering with postpartum depression and he's super controlling.

He would go out drinking and doing harder drugs all at night and then would come home angry because the drugs were making him angry. And she doesn't really have any family she can go to like escape, correct? Well, yeah. I mean, it's like living with her father all over again. This is what her home life looked like.

Susan also claimed that when Jeff was in this state, he began physically abusing her. This was something that got even worse when they moved into a new home by the year of 1999. That's when Susan said every little thing, like every little thing began to set Jeff off.

If there was a problem with a client or if the utility bills were too high or if dinner wasn't cooked exactly how he liked it, he would fly off the handles and the abuse never let up. He was kicking, punching, throwing her up against walls and windows. On one road trip to see his parents, Susan said Jeff slammed her head into the dashboard while they were driving and the child was in the backseat.

And Susan kept all of this to herself. This is what she'd always said. I mean, you have to realize she grew up in this environment and kept it a secret as well. We talk about DV a lot. I feel like a lot of our cases involve DV. I mean, we kind of say it every time. It's so hard to get out of. Yes. Like, you obviously want to tell the person to get out of it. And they know it. They know. But it's just a...

the trauma and the manipulation and just actually everything that involves it is wild Garrett and I were just talking about this last night yeah domestic violence really is one of those things that you should not be judging until you're living that experience because we truly we can't put our mind where where it's hard I would say probably before we started this podcast I would just look at

I mean, usually I males too, but usually it's a female in the DV situation. I would just look and be like, what are they doing? Just leave. Just go somewhere. Just get out. And yeah, I mean, obviously it's easy to say that, but there's, there's, you realize how even more complex, there's just layers to it. There's a lot to it. P.S. If you are watching on YouTube and you see me itching my head,

it's been a very common occurrence the last few weeks i told him today in public i said stop itching your head people are gonna think you have lights i said i don't even care um okay so yeah i think i think domestic violence is just a very complicated and complex thing that you truly can't wrap your head around it until you've been through it all right you guys i just wanted to take a moment to talk about something that has become an essential part of my daily peace of mind

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And now as an adult, she still kept this abuse from her friends and now her family. She painted the picture of a happy wife in a happy marriage. If things weren't good, she just didn't leave the house. Which may be why so many people thought Jeff and Susan honestly had a perfect little life.

But in the summer of 1999, Susan had reached a breaking point. After another beating from her husband, Susan called her sister Cindy for help while Jeff was at work one afternoon. You have to imagine how mind-blowing this was for Cindy, who didn't know anything was going on in this marriage. So she tells Cindy about the abuse and

And Cindy and her husband arrived hours later in a U-Haul and they helped Susan pack up all of her and Bradley's things and she got them out of there.

But the following morning, Jeff called her threatening her. He said he was sending a moving van back over. And if she didn't pack it all up and come home, he was going to kill her and Bradley. So cops, what happens? No, she feels like she has no choice and things only get more complicated because Susan got pregnant. Okay. But then had a miscarriage when Jeff died.

was beating her in the stomach and she lost the baby. And, but it's just this toxic cycle of being scared, you know, just your, your, what you can usually see. So then in December of 2001, she gets pregnant again, this time with a little girl they named Kaylee. And now Susan has three lives to protect hers and her two kids. Um,

This is all while Jeff lived his life doing whatever he wanted, including dating women. Like he would just cheat all the time. He gave Susan an STI that he had gotten from one of the women he was sleeping with. It's really so much for Susan or anyone to bear. And with Jeff literally threatening to kill her if she tries to leave again, that's when Susan realized. And this is Garrett literally just said this on last week's episode.

But Susan comes to the realization he'll never let me leave peacefully. I will die. So it's either kill or be killed. So on the night of January 13th, 2003, that decision would be made.

So that evening, Jeff came home from his weekly boxing lesson with a look in his eye. Susan knew it all too well. Jeff was high on cocaine. And that's when he started taunting the now four-year-old Bradley, trying to get him to box with him. Jeff began taking jabs at the little boy's face, eventually hitting him pretty hard on the cheek. And the more Bradley tried to run away and resist the fighting, the more Jeff was badgering him, calling him a sissy. He was four?

Yes. So Susan removed the children from the situation, putting them on the bed. But at this point she was like, I can't, I, I cannot do this anymore. I can't. Susan at her breaking point, went to the bedroom and confronted Jeff.

She said it is time for you to find other ways to deal with your rage. You need to get help for your addiction. You need to go to therapy. I'm sure that went over amazing. No, Jeff does not appreciate it. He throws her against their bedroom wall, tells her not to give him any ultimatums.

Then he pushed Susan to the bed and began sexually assaulting her. Susan closed her eyes. Insane, dude. She was scared of what was coming next because this was a really, really bad fight. And when she opened her eyes, according to her, Jeff is holding a knife above her. This has escalated to that point. So Susan did the only thing she could think to do at that moment, which she hadn't really done. She fought back. She

She kicked Jeff. She actually managed to grab the knife from his hands and she just began stabbing him in the bedroom while her kids are in the other room. I didn't see this going this way. So as soon as she gets the knife, she's stabbing him over and over again. She stabs him in his chest, his neck, his stomach, his legs, his genitals. Holy crap. Everywhere on his body. How many times? Well, 193 wounds on his body.

So 193 stabs or 193 wounds? Probably just cuts and stabs altogether. Okay, so even if we take 50% of that, let's go, let's just say 90-ish stabs. I mean, Peyton and I talk about this on the podcast a lot. I'm trying to figure out how to say it. I mean, she obviously is angry and we talk about how intimate. Stabbing is. When someone kills someone with a knife, it's anger. It's other things that are involved. It's rage. It's rage, right?

I keep going. According to Susan, she like fully admits now something came over me and I couldn't stop. Like once I started, I did not stop. Okay. Um, I mean, I don't blame her. I don't know. And you have to like, uh, this story is just like, wait, was her kid in the room, in the room, in the next room. Okay. The reason that Susan stopped stabbing is cause she hears a little knock on the door. Got it. And Bradley is asking if everything's, are you okay? Uh,

Now, Jeff is already dead, but Susan wasn't convinced. So she hid the knife. She wiped the blood off herself. She walked.

back to the bed. She tucked him in. She said, everything's fine. But in the back of her head, she's like, what if he's alive? Like, what if he's alive? What if he's going to get up, you know, on the movies? So as soon as the kids are back tucked in, she goes back to the kitchen. She grabs a brand new knife. She goes back to the bedroom and stabs him several more times. That part's kind of wild. So this comes to a grand total of 193 wounds. And this is why

I opened this. I didn't expect this part. Because this case is complicated and you now understand why trial is going to be probably the biggest part of this case because you do have...

a woman who was threatened who was be who probably did feel like she was well she was fighting for her life i mean for sure but is this self-defense is 193 wounds can you argue self-defense does it matter like does it matter if it's self-defense i mean well that's why you're not on the jury i mean does it matter if it's a mix between self-defense and also being angry like you know i just think that's up to the jury i know it's up to the jury okay let's hear what they say

So after this. Sorry, we talked about it, I think, a couple of weeks ago. Put me on the jury. No, they never will. I'll never be on a jury because of the podcast. You know, I might squeak through. When you say kill or be killed, you will never know. I think as soon as they look into what we do for a living, they'll be like, nope, not happening. So I will leak out. No, I'm just kidding. So Susan is done now. And she's like, oh,

What do I do? Now what? Yeah. How is she going to clean up this mess? Get her husband out of the house without anyone knowing? The only thing she could think of was a dolly that they had outside. So she goes out. She didn't call the police. I told you this case is going to be complicated. Okay.

She I'm trying to just give you the facts as is. I'm trying to give you Susan's history and background and the reality of her life, but also give you how horrific this murder was, how she had thought about killing him before. Does that make it premeditated? Even though it was self-defense, it is so complicated.

So she brings the dolly into the bedroom. She pushes Jeff off the bed and onto the cart and she wheels him into the backyard. Conveniently, Jeff had dug his own grave just a few months earlier. There was a hole in the backyard that he had dug because he was planning to install a fountain, but he hadn't done it yet. Okay. So Susan dragged him off the dolly, put him in the hole and then covered it with dirt.

But even as the 26-year-old Susan, so young, caught her breath, the reality of the situation hadn't sunk in yet. She said even at this point, she was worried that Jeff wasn't dead.

And I think that this is coming from her lawyer trying to argue the amount of fear. The psychology behind it. Yeah, like the amount of fear she had and how that proves that this is self-defense. I understand it to an extent, right? She starts having all this PTSD and...

I'm not saying I don't believe her. Like, I totally, it totally makes sense that that can't happen. I mean, she's not sitting here panicking going, oh, shoot, how do I get out of this? She's sitting here panicking going, oh, shoot, what if he's alive and gets out of this? I mean, think about last week's case. He had to remember, he had to pretend he was dead. Yeah. Like the cops set up a whole stint. He had to pretend that he was dead. So, I mean, this happens. Yeah.

So she actually goes back inside. She sits on the couch. She stays up all night, a knife in her hand, staring at the door. Okay. Just to make sure that he doesn't get up and come back in again, according to her story and her lawyer for the next few days, Susan says she remained in a hazy fog just on autopilot, but Jeff's parents obviously knew something was wrong. So on the afternoon of January 14th, Jeff's parents called Susan worried. They said they were expecting to hear from Jeff last night.

Last night, the night she that she killed him, but he never called. Is everything OK? Did he come home? Susan was like, yeah, but we got into a terrible argument. She said Jeff got so mad at her that he actually poured a bottle of bleach all over their bedroom.

Which in her mind, she's trying to now cover up what she's done. So she's like, if I tell his parents that there was bleach in the bathroom or in the bedroom, then if police find the bleach, they're not going to think it was me. Why not just call the cops? She's just too scared. I think she's just in. Like, is she having a mental breakdown? Yeah. I mean, I don't know if I go that far, but it's like, what do you do? Okay. So, I mean, 190 wounds. How are you going to explain that to the cops?

Yeah, I get that. So to the rights, his parents, this just doesn't make sense. They're like, Susan's acting weird. Why would he have poured bleach? This is not right. Yeah. And Susan actually told this same story to Jeff's boss when he called later that day looking for him and then also to a neighbor who called to check in. And after hearing the story, the neighbor told Susan she should file a report with the police because the entire situation sounds like domestic abuse. She's like, well, if Jeff really did that, you should go file a police report.

Which was actually something Susan took them up on the following afternoon. So January 15th. So this is two days after cleaning up the crime scene and emptying the joint bank account she shared with Jeff. Susan walked into the Harris County constable's office. There she told them the same story she had shared with the others, including the fact that he had hit their son on the night of the 13th. She also showed them pictures on her phone of

cuts and bruises that she had. She told police she wanted a restraining order from her husband for both her and her kids, and she officially filed a domestic violence complaint.

Okay. Now, obviously we know her husband is deceased in the backyard at this point. And she still hasn't told them that obviously. No. So by January, could you imagine calling and filing a DV complaint, but then being like, my husband's dead because I killed him. Yeah. So by January 18th, the pressure was too much for Susan. Everyone's calling. Everyone's asking, where's Jeff? Where's Jeff? And it was only a matter of time before someone would come to the house and

and noticed things are wrong. And that evening presented another huge hiccup for Susan because their dog had been in the backyard digging at the grave and he had allegedly exposed a part of Jeff's head. He had also chewed- This is wild. Well, he had also chewed off Jeff's hand and she found the dog gnawing at it on their patio. This is wild. So that's when Susan was like,

I've got to get out of here. So she grabbed the kids. She threw them in the car and she went to stay with her mother. When she got there, Susan's mother finally confronted about it. She's like, where's Jeff? Did you do something to him? And Susan confesses to her mother that she murdered him. Now I can only imagine what it was like for Susan's mother. I'm sure she's in panic. She tells Susan, go send the kids to stay with Cindy. That's their aunt, her sister. And we are going to find an attorney. So, yeah,

It's that's... She's like, you're turning yourself in. Well, no. It's like the first time I've heard someone say, I'm getting an attorney before the cops start questioning me. Yes. Well, I mean, as the mom, you're like, listen, you're not going to hide. You're going to admit to the murder, but we're going to find you an attorney first. So...

They lock in on a guy named Neil Davis. And before going to the police, she tells her attorney everything, which... We talked... Okay. Yeah, I know. I've talked about this with you guys many times. All of you attorneys and lawyers who have sent me DMs. But we don't want a murderer getting an attorney before. But you also...

a victim you do want getting an attorney before and so it's this weird thing because it two statements can be true at once she can be a murderer and also a victim that's true i guess i was referring to something different when i asked them about attorneys lying and oh the attorney's not gonna lie no no but i'm saying i guess it's a different situation yes because it's who you

we think is probably the quote unquote good guy in this story. Even though she killed someone, she's technically the good guy. It's a twisted story. Yeah. So Neil Davis, she tells him everything. She's like, listen, I don't know what to tell you. Not only did I kill him, I stabbed him 197 times. I snapped. She's like, I snapped. Enough was enough. I could not take it anymore. She said, I thought he was going to kill me.

and the kids if I didn't kill him first. So only hours after confessing everything to her mother and attorney, Neal Davis was walking into the Harris County District Attorney's office, and he said, if you go to the address, you will find a dead body in the backyard. Now, when the police pushed for more details, Neal said, nope, attorney-client privilege, but hey,

When a lawyer says there's a dead body somewhere, the police are going to go. So he's like, I'm not telling you any details, but I'm just letting you know this is us officially turning in that a crime has been committed. So smart. But he doesn't make her go in. So smart. The police do. They sent a team down to the home. And sure enough, after barely scanning the backyard, they found him partially buried. His head, his arm and shoulder at this point were exposed.

He's also completely naked aside from the neckties around his wrists and a sash from a bathrobe that was tied around his ankles. It doesn't take much for them to realize, okay, this is obviously the homeowner. I mean, they looked up the home before they went. 34-year-old Jeff, right? But of course, they know that Jeff has a wife and kids and they're missing. So the police let themselves into the home because it's empty. They let themselves in to investigate.

And when they get to the primary bedroom, it looks like a tornado has hit. There is stuff everywhere. There's fresh paint, bleach. A giant piece of carpet has been cut out from the floor. Like it looks like someone was trying to take every piece of evidence they could find, but didn't do a very good job. There's still blood on the curtains, the nightstand, the walls, and even more damning. Detectives locate a receipt for two gallons of bleach.

Obviously for afterward and a hunting knife in a pot outside that looked like it had been tried to be hidden, but it was obviously the murder weapon. I'm so curious to see what the jury says, like what conclusion they come to, because I know what conclusion they're

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So this whole thing's a disaster. Should be a pretty open and shut case when you consider the evidence. Like they have enough evidence. And naturally. For murder, yes. But I mean, obviously they're going to claim self-defense. It's not a question. So it's a completely different. They have a giant hunch about who's done it, obviously. So they call the lawyer back and they say, any chance your client, Susan, weren't right? And he's like, yep.

And he says she will not be speaking to police, though, because she's been checked into a psychiatric ward at the hospital. The mental break that she has suffered and originally started on the night of the murder has not subsided. She's still not convinced that he's fully dead and she still believes that he could come for her any moment.

Holy crap. Okay. So. This is wild. The police are like, oh gosh, is this a lie? This is the pros of getting a lawyer before you turn yourself in. Yeah. Because whether it's a lie or not. Well, then also now the DA has to be like, where do I go with this? Yeah. Like, where do I go with this case? She's in a mental hospital. Yeah. Because she still thinks her husband's going to kill her. Yeah.

So the police are like, okay, we get what you're saying. And we get that this is obviously going to, she's not denying the murder. So this is going to be a self-defense murder case. And also they discovered the injuries were so violent that the tip of the knife had actually snapped off and was still lodged inside Jeff's head. So she was stabbing his head. Okay. But they find something else in the autopsy that's going to

Throw a wrench into her case. It's actually going to be a huge part of the debate. They find red candle wax on his thigh and around his genitals, which doesn't match any part of the story that Susan has told so far. Right? Yeah. So.

Neal Davis at this point released a statement on Susan's behalf stating that she had been abused by her husband, Jeff, for upwards of four years leading up to his death.

But murder is murder. And Susan knew there was no getting herself out of this one. So on January 24th, 11 days after stabbing her husband, Susan Wright turned herself into police with every intention of pleading not guilty and letting the court know exactly what she went through to be pushed to this point. And she's going to argue that anyone who went through what she went through would snap. Okay.

An opportunity that finally came for Susan a little more than a year later in February of 2004. So during this year, she's not in prison? No, she's prepping for trial. And when Susan took the stand, it was obvious that for a year she had been prepping very hard with her lawyer for this trial. She does not miss a beat.

She offers up the same exact story I told you earlier. That is the story she tells. How Jeff had come home that night from a boxing match high on cocaine, how he was hitting their son, how later that evening in the bedroom, Jeff came at her with a knife in the middle of their attack and she fought back thinking it's either him or me. And that the reason she didn't go to the police right after was because she was having a mental break and still crying.

Literally confused, thinking that her husband was going to be able to get to her and her kids at some point. The prosecution sees holes in Susan's story. Holes that would convince them that Susan wasn't being totally honest with how that night actually went down. There might be pieces of truth, but there were definitely pieces missing according to the prosecution. Okay, like?

This hinged on two giant things found on Jeff after he died. Number one, he had ties on his wrists and feet. If a body is already dead, why would you tie the feet and wrists up? You would tie feet and wrists up on a person who's alive to keep them from moving. Was it tied with what they were saying earlier? The neck ties and bathrobe. And the bathrobe? Yes. Okay.

I mean... You're thinking maybe just to move him? Yeah, just to move the body. That would be my initial thought, 100%. Number two, the wax near his groin that does not come up at all in her story. I don't even know if I want to know. That's weird. Shit.

She thinks this doesn't look like a situation where someone fought back from self-defense. She thinks Susan decided a couple days earlier, it's me or him. He's going to kill me if I don't kill him. So she lured Jeff into the bedroom, seduced him with what he thought was going to be maybe... And then started killing him. Tied him up. Okay. And then started killing him. I mean, I guess I could see what they're saying just because... That she had tied him up.

that she had poured the wax on him, that it was a whole thing, and then got the knife and stabbed him. Well, also, the chances, I'm not saying this doesn't happen, but he's going to stab her and then she somehow gets the knife from him? You know what I'm saying? Like, he sounds like he was... Yes, but it does happen. I know, but he's high on cocaine. Yeah. And apparently over top of her, which is an even harder place. It's possible.

It's just unlikely in your mind. In my mind, unlikely. So if you're sitting on this jury, you're thinking that's a little. Yeah, I would. I would start to raise some red flags. OK, so this is where the prosecution comes in. They said, yep, we agree that she murdered him. We're not even really arguing that she wasn't abused by him.

What we're arguing is that this was not self-defense. This was premeditated murder. First degree premeditated murder. They said it had nothing to do with protecting her children. They actually said, and they brought her past of dancing into the trial, like trying to smear her reputation, you know, make the jury think different of her. They said, also Jeff had a $200,000 life insurance policy. And what was she going to do? How was she going to provide for her kids? Yeah.

Which the prosecution even called a witness to support. Kevin Conboy was a co-worker of Jeff's and he recounted a time just a week or so before Jeff's death where Susan called the office. He said he could hear Susan screaming over the phone at Jeff asking him whether or not he completed the insurance policy paperwork. So a week before she murders him, a co-worker...

Is coming forward saying she called him at work complaining about the insurance policy. That's a $200,000 payout. Did he? I don't know. It would be so hard to be on the jury because this is where the reasonable doubt starts inching away at your mind, right? So Kevin says Jeff even ended the call saying if I die, like as a joke saying if I die, you'll be a very rich woman. So Jeff's brother-in-law. Very rich. I mean.

Yes, but I mean, how many times do you joke about insurance? Yeah, I get that. I get that. So Jeff's brother-in-law, Brian Roberts, also testified against Susan. He said there was one occasion where he was at their house for dinner and Susan and Jeff got into an argument. He then said Susan, who was using a knife, turned and pointed it at Jeff in a threatening manner.

Which doesn't really mean Susan's lying. But also Brian claimed he never once saw or heard any abuse from Jeff towards his wife or kids. I would say that majority people don't ever see the DV actually happening in relationships. So I take that with a grain of salt. And the prosecution sort of takes that and runs with it. They say this this relationship could have been toxic. OK, but is this domestic abuse or murder?

No, is this domestic abuse defense exaggerated? Like, was this like something that was conjured up after the murder that was made to be even worse that she created this huge lie about the history of their relationship?

And because Susan didn't file a police report until after Jeff was dead, there's really no evidence like of her going to the police and filing domestic violence report or cops coming. You know how sometimes you have that evidence. Which I get, but again. Doesn't mean it's not happening. I take it with a grain of salt because the amount of DV cases where people are actually filing police reports, it's a very small percentage. Well, so people.

People come to Susan's defense. A neighbor testifies and says, no, I saw Jeff angrily physically grab Susan a few times. A few friends testified that she had shown up with black eyes to places claiming, oh, it was just a fall or kid accidentally hit me. Others said she was completely terrified of Jeff. Like they said, no, Susan was terrified.

Though her best friend claimed there was one instance where she confided in her that Jeff had hit her after an argument on his birthday. So there are times before this murder happened that she was telling people. So this whole idea that the abuse was something Susan conjured up after the fact, it doesn't really land after the jury hears testimony from other witnesses saying, no, there were little clues here and there. But it's all he said, she said. Though when it came to the real hard evidence, like the wax and the ties, she said,

Susan said there's not a simple explanation for it. She says the wax from the candle came from when she pulled Jeff off the bed that night after killing him, that his shoulder had hit the nightstand and the candle fell over and poured wax on him. She also said the neckties and bathrobes were

She never used them to secure Jeff to the bedpost or tie him up. She said, those are what I was using to secure his body to the dolly while moving him. I mean, they both got good points, man. Still, the prosecution had one more trick up their sleeve at trial. One more attempt at proving Susan wasn't telling the truth about what went down that night. And to pull it off, it required them to bring the Wright's actual bed to the courtroom.

And this is where I was saying theatrics and theater. We see this with the OJ Simpson trial. It's big. Okay. So on the most shocking day of the trial, prosecutor Kelly Siegler had the rights blood stained mattress and bed set rolled into the courtroom.

Then she asked another young male prosecutor from her team to step up and lie down on the mattress. And then she climbed on top of him to show a reenactment. What the freak? She tied both of his hands to the bedpost, took the actual knife from evidence and began recreating her own version of what happened that night. The prosecution's theory.

To give the jury a visual stimulant of like, this could happen. This could be real. Okay. She said afterwards that the reason she did this was you have to make it come alive. This is a quote. You can't just sit in your chair and talk to the witness in the stand and discuss it theoretically. She said, I chose to take it to the next level, offering an Oscar worthy performance. One that seemed convincing enough for the jury. No way.

Some people call it genius. Some people call it completely inappropriate. But the jurors called it the truth. After five hours of deliberation, they came back with a verdict. They found Susan Wright guilty of murder in the first degree. She was sentenced to 25 years in prison.

Susan has since said that her defense kind of failed her at trial. They had a lot of regrets about how it was handled. For example, they failed to call to the stand the psychologist who treated Susan after her arrest. Yeah. I mean, that psychologist says she was in a dissociative state. She was suffering from PTSD. They never had him testify. Yeah.

They also weren't aware of a sworn statement given by one of Jeff's ex-girlfriends 10 months before the trial. Her name was Misty Michaels. She was working as an exotic dancer when she met Jeff. And she said he was abusive towards her as well, that he hit her across the face, threw her down a flight of stairs. So they could have had her testify at trial. She even filed a police report. So there was evidence to back it. Jeff was actually arrested and spent the night in jail.

for beating up his girlfriend. She said he was controlling. She basically mirrored her story. He's controlling. He monitored my every move. The jury never got to hear a word of it. They didn't get to hear from domestic abuse experts. So people are like she could have had a better defense. So in November of 2004, Susan and her new lawyer, Brian, began filing appeals stating that her lawyers were inexperienced and ineffective and

There was evidence that should have been given at trial. He also argued that Kelly Siegler's courtroom reenactment was should not have been allowed, that that is made for TV nonsense. And the whole thing was just confusing. And how can you say,

separate acting and dramatizations from what actually happened. It took nearly five years, but after a judge also heard Misty Michaels testimony, this is the ex-girlfriend, they granted a new sentencing hearing for Susan Wright. In 2009, a court ruled that Susan's counsel was in fact ineffective. They shaved five years off her sentence. So in 2020, after being denied parole twice, Susan Wright was released from prison. And so she's out. Yes.

Up until 2024, Susan was on intensive supervision. She was required to wear a GPS monitor, had to attend anger management classes, but now she's a free woman. We may never know for sure what happened in the Wrights' home behind closed doors on that night, but Susan said even jail was better than the way she was living before.

And she put it to reporters saying, isn't it strange that I had to come to prison to finally feel safe? And that is the case of Susan Wright. I think that, I mean, you're probably not going to express your opinion, but I'll express mine because it's what the listeners want. I kind of think Susan's innocent. You wouldn't have had her serve any time. Okay. I know this is probably a, I think this is going to be- Don't you think that's blurring the lines a little too much? It's hard. I'm pretty drastic as far as like-

Here are my thoughts. If you're abusing someone, what would you expect, man? To not be killed, Garrett. You shouldn't be abusing someone. I agree. It's the same reason you shouldn't steal. You shouldn't abuse someone. There's things we just don't do in life. And guess what? This is if the self-defense thing is taken out. If he was on top of her with a knife.

Then that's self-defense. Okay, so you're saying you take that out? Did he deserve it? I don't know. If you're hitting girls when you're hitting your wife. And also, I'm not going to say you deserve to die, but maybe. How many times have we seen women in cases who are being abused?

who don't kill their husbands and end up dead. And they get killed. It's like, what do you expect? It's a very complicated topic and it's a very complicated thing to go to trial for when a woman fights back to what I think is provable that he was abusive. People saw it. His ex-girlfriend came forward and basically shadowed her statement. So I think it's pretty safe to say no doubt that he was abusive. But you also...

I mean, did she plan a murder? Yeah, I don't know. You can't just plan a murder and get away with it. It's just a complicated case, you guys. Obviously, I don't think that either of us are like 100% right or wrong. I think that this is one of those cases that is so far in the gray. It just depended on what jury she had. You know what I mean? But let us know in the comments what you think about it. And we will see you next time with another episode. I love it. And I hate it. Goodbye.

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