Susan Snapped: The Murder of Jeff Wright

0:01 Discretion is advised. This is tenedmitted murdered on the twenty fourth of April nineteen seventy six. Susan Wright was born in Houston, Texas. Her childhood and teenage years were nothing out of the ordinary, unless you count the two month stint where she worked as a topless dancer at the age of only seventeen. As Susan grew older, she kept working entry level jobs, and it was at one of these entry level jobs in nineteen ninety seven, she was a waitress in a restaurant that in walked Jeffrey Wright with that James Dean daydream look in his eye. Jeff was eight years older than Susan had previously been engaged to another woman. Susan fell for him almost immediately, and the pair entered into a world wind romance, getting engaged and married even quicker within the following year. At their wedding, Susan was almost nine months pregnant with Jeffrey's child, which may explain the whirlwind. Susan and Jeff's friends believed that the couple were happy together. Jeffrey continued working his sales job while Susan stayed home to take care of their son Bradley, and then their second child, Kayley.

1:22 But behind closed doors, the story might have been different. According to Susan, Jeff became more and more controlling. She felt like a prisoner in her own home, living in fear of the emotional, physical, and sexual abuse that became more and more common in her marriage. It was the thirteenth of January two thousand and three when everything changed. Behind the doors of their white picket fence home in northwest harrist County, Jeff lay down on the bed. Whether he was physically restrained, overpowered, or merely caught by surprise, he kept lying there while Susan began stabbing him over and over again. She used two different kinds of knives to carry out the attack, swapping them out before continuing to stab at Jeff's body. By the time she was done, the bed was soaked with blood, and after receiving a total of one hundred and ninety three stab wounds, Jeff was undeniably dead. Susan got to work.

2:22 She dragged Jeff's body out to the yard and buried him in a partially dug hole that the couple had planned to make into a water feature. Then she attempted to cover up the blood soaked crime scene that was waiting for her in the bedroom. She cleaned as much as she could, decided to repaint the walls, and attempted to get a restraining order against her now dead husband by filling out a falsified police report of domestic abuse. Five days after Jeff's death, Susan called her attorney, Neil Davis, and asked him over for a visit at her house. Shortly afterwards, the Harris County District Attorney's office received an alarm arming phone call from Neil. He told them that Susan Wright had just confessed to killing her husband and burying his body in the yard. At this point, Jeff's body was only partially concealed in the hole. The family's dog had smelt the corpse and tried to dig it up. After turning herself into authorities for the death of her husband, Susan Wright was arraigned on murder charges and her trial was set to take place in just over a year after that. By the time the trial began, Susan had already pleaded not guilty to murder, claiming that she had killed her husband in an act of self defense. This is what the prosecution believed took place that day, Susan Wright coerced or seduced her husband to trick him into lying down on the bed before tying him up and stabbing him to death so that she could cash in on his life insurance money. The fact that Susan had buried Jeff's body herself and

3:53 concealed his murder for a period of time, and the violence of the attack just added to the circumstantial evidence. Susan decided to take to the stand during her trial, wanting to testify in her own defense. Her testimony in court painted a very different picture of what happened the day that her husband died. According to Susan, Jeff was in the middle of a cocaine binge that day, something that wasn't unusual for him, and he was lashing out violently, just like he always did when he was high. This time, however, he'd been violent to his young son, Bradley, and Susan had retaliated in defense of her child. Jeff had been the one to grab the knife, Susan insisted she was simply forced to wrestle the weapon away from him and ended up stabbing him in self defense. Medical examiner testified to support Susan's story about the cocaine, and autopsy found so much cocaine in Jeff's system that his body had been physically unable to process the drug. This would have made him severely intoxicated and possibly prone to behaving erratically or violently. There was also another finding which contradicted the prosecution's belief that Susan had restrained Jeff by tying him to the bed. As well as the enormous amount of stab wounds, Jeff also had a collection of defensive wounds located on his forearms and hands, as well as the back of his legs and his lower back. The location of the wounds didn't make any sense. Why would Jeff receive the wounds on his back and the undersides of his legs if he was tied to the bed for the entire

5:26 duration of the attack. I couldn't stop stabbing him, Susan said, through floods of tears. I couldn't stop. I knew as soon as I stopped, he was going to get the knife back, and he was going to kill me. I didn't want to die. Susan's mother, Sue, supported Susan's story in courts, telling the jury that she knew that Jeff had been abusive after seeing Bruce's that he'd left on Susan's body. Susan's defense attorney Neil Davis told the court that Jeff had inflicted emotional and physical harm on Susan for the duration of the couple's relationship. Susan had killed Jeff and self defense, fearing that Jeff would kill her or their two young children. Defense attorney Tommy la Fawn spoke about the number of stab wounds that Jeff had received. Quote, you don't stab someone one hundred ninety three times for no reason. He said, It's the result of years of pent up frustration, anger, abuse, and terror. The prosecution alleged that Susan's emotional testimony was all a show, a display of emotion, and tried to gain sympathy from the jury.

6:30 In highly unusual turn of events, the prosecution brought in a piece of physical evidence that may have never been transported into a courtroom before, the actual bed from Susan and Jeff's bedroom frame and all. Although a showy move, it's not likely that the bed itself provided any compelling arguments for the case. Kelly Siegler, an assistant district attorney, was quick to bring up Susan's past as a topless dancer as a way to discredit her story. Partly, she was playing to her audience this kind of sex work would be frowned upon by the jury, making them less sympathetic to Susan. Despite her emotional testimony. In the trial's closing arguments, Kelly didn't hold back describing Susan as a quote card carrying obvious no doubt about it, caught red handed, confirmed documented liar.

7:23 The jury deliberated for five hours before reaching a verdict. On the third of March two thousand and four, Susan Wright was found guilty of murdering her husband Jeff. Despite her tears on the stand, Susan didn't show much emotion when she was read the verdict or during her sentencing. The sentencing was polarizing. The prosecution argued that Susan should see a minimum of five decades of prison time, whereas her defense team believed that she should receive probation. The court came to an almost perfect compromise when Susan was convicted to spend twenty five years in prison. Susan's original appeal for her sentence was denied by the court in two thousand and five, and her conviction was upheld. During a reappeal in two thousand and eight, a new witness came forward, another woman who had previously been in a relationship with Jeff. Misty McMichael had dated Jeff Wright for four years, and this is the lady that I mentioned at the beginning that Jeff had previously been engaged to. Misty was willing to testify in Susan's defense, recalling the physical and emotional abuse that she herself received from Jeff during their four year long relationship. It was exactly the kind of testimony that had been missing from Susan's trial, and this time the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was willing to listen. Susan was granted a new sentencing hearing one year later, and in November two ten, her twenty five year sentence was reduced to twenty years.

8:50 She became eligible for parole in two fourteen, but it was initially denied several times. Finally, Susan's parole was approved in July twenty twenty, and on the thirtieth of December twenty twenty, at the age of forty four, Susan Wright became a free woman again. That is ten minute Murder for today, brief and bingeible true crime. I'm Joe the host, and thank you so much for listening today, and also thank you for ignoring the fact that my air conditioner popped on and off about seventeen times during that episode. I live in the South, then it's summertime in the South, and if I don't have it on, I will melt. That's how it's got to be.

9:45 Okay, So the question I'm answering today is from Lacy in Austin, Texas. And no doubt, Texas, it's hotter than it is here, so you can't judge me for the air conditioner. Okay, Hey, Joe, ten minute Murder is great, but do you sometimes add in lyrics the difference songs during the process of you telling the story? Either you are or I'm slowly going mad. Anyway, if it's on purpose, I love it. Thank you for the email, and thank you for listening, Lacy. And the answer to your question is, yeah, yeah, I do that, and every now and then someone notices and emails me about it. I do that. I don't know why. There's literally no reason for me to do it, but I'd do it anyway, and I did it in this episode just to make it obvious. I made it. I put a very obvious Taylor Swift lyric toward the beginning, and if you missed it, go back and listen. But it's in there, and I do it. And it's not always super common lyrics. It'll be like some random line from a random song that I am listening to that day, and it I'll just put it in the episode. Usually no one knows except for me, but Lacy figured it out. Hey, if you've got questions about literally anything under the sun, you can email them to me Joe at ten minute Murder dot com.

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