Susan Snapped: The Murder of Jeff Wright

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Discretion is advised. This is tenedmitted
murdered on the twenty fourth of April nineteen

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seventy six. Susan Wright was born
in Houston, Texas. Her childhood and

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teenage years were nothing out of the
ordinary, unless you count the two month

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stint where she worked as a topless
dancer at the age of only seventeen.

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As Susan grew older, she kept
working entry level jobs, and it was

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at one of these entry level jobs
in nineteen ninety seven, she was a

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waitress in a restaurant that in walked
Jeffrey Wright with that James Dean daydream look

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in his eye. Jeff was eight
years older than Susan had previously been engaged

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to another woman. Susan fell for
him almost immediately, and the pair entered

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into a world wind romance, getting
engaged and married even quicker within the following

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year. At their wedding, Susan
was almost nine months pregnant with Jeffrey's child,

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which may explain the whirlwind. Susan
and Jeff's friends believed that the couple

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were happy together. Jeffrey continued working
his sales job while Susan stayed home to

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take care of their son Bradley,
and then their second child, Kayley.

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But behind closed doors, the story
might have been different. According to Susan,

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Jeff became more and more controlling.
She felt like a prisoner in her

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own home, living in fear of
the emotional, physical, and sexual abuse

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that became more and more common in
her marriage. It was the thirteenth of

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January two thousand and three when everything
changed. Behind the doors of their white

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picket fence home in northwest harrist County, Jeff lay down on the bed.

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Whether he was physically restrained, overpowered, or merely caught by surprise, he

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kept lying there while Susan began stabbing
him over and over again. She used

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two different kinds of knives to carry
out the attack, swapping them out before

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continuing to stab at Jeff's body.
By the time she was done, the

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bed was soaked with blood, and
after receiving a total of one hundred and

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ninety three stab wounds, Jeff was
undeniably dead. Susan got to work.

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She dragged Jeff's body out to the
yard and buried him in a partially dug

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hole that the couple had planned to
make into a water feature. Then she

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attempted to cover up the blood soaked
crime scene that was waiting for her in

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the bedroom. She cleaned as much
as she could, decided to repaint the

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walls, and attempted to get a
restraining order against her now dead husband by

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filling out a falsified police report of
domestic abuse. Five days after Jeff's death,

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Susan called her attorney, Neil Davis, and asked him over for a

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visit at her house. Shortly afterwards, the Harris County District Attorney's office received

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an alarm arming phone call from Neil. He told them that Susan Wright had

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just confessed to killing her husband and
burying his body in the yard. At

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this point, Jeff's body was only
partially concealed in the hole. The family's

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dog had smelt the corpse and tried
to dig it up. After turning herself

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into authorities for the death of her
husband, Susan Wright was arraigned on murder

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charges and her trial was set to
take place in just over a year after

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that. By the time the trial
began, Susan had already pleaded not guilty

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to murder, claiming that she had
killed her husband in an act of self

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defense. This is what the prosecution
believed took place that day, Susan Wright

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coerced or seduced her husband to trick
him into lying down on the bed before

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tying him up and stabbing him to
death so that she could cash in on

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his life insurance money. The fact
that Susan had buried Jeff's body herself and

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concealed his murder for a period of
time, and the violence of the attack

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just added to the circumstantial evidence.
Susan decided to take to the stand during

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her trial, wanting to testify in
her own defense. Her testimony in court

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painted a very different picture of what
happened the day that her husband died.

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According to Susan, Jeff was in
the middle of a cocaine binge that day,

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something that wasn't unusual for him,
and he was lashing out violently,

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just like he always did when he
was high. This time, however,

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he'd been violent to his young son, Bradley, and Susan had retaliated in

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defense of her child. Jeff had
been the one to grab the knife,

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Susan insisted she was simply forced to
wrestle the weapon away from him and ended

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up stabbing him in self defense.
Medical examiner testified to support Susan's story about

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the cocaine, and autopsy found so
much cocaine in Jeff's system that his body

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had been physically unable to process the
drug. This would have made him severely

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intoxicated and possibly prone to behaving erratically
or violently. There was also another finding

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which contradicted the prosecution's belief that Susan
had restrained Jeff by tying him to the

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bed. As well as the enormous
amount of stab wounds, Jeff also had

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a collection of defensive wounds located on
his forearms and hands, as well as

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the back of his legs and his
lower back. The location of the wounds

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didn't make any sense. Why would
Jeff receive the wounds on his back and

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the undersides of his legs if he
was tied to the bed for the entire

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duration of the attack. I couldn't
stop stabbing him, Susan said, through

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floods of tears. I couldn't stop. I knew as soon as I stopped,

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he was going to get the knife
back, and he was going to

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kill me. I didn't want to
die. Susan's mother, Sue, supported

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Susan's story in courts, telling the
jury that she knew that Jeff had been

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abusive after seeing Bruce's that he'd left
on Susan's body. Susan's defense attorney Neil

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Davis told the court that Jeff had
inflicted emotional and physical harm on Susan for

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the duration of the couple's relationship.
Susan had killed Jeff and self defense,

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fearing that Jeff would kill her or
their two young children. Defense attorney Tommy

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la Fawn spoke about the number of
stab wounds that Jeff had received. Quote,

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you don't stab someone one hundred ninety
three times for no reason. He

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said, It's the result of years
of pent up frustration, anger, abuse,

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and terror. The prosecution alleged that
Susan's emotional testimony was all a show,

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a display of emotion, and tried
to gain sympathy from the jury.

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In highly unusual turn of events,
the prosecution brought in a piece of physical

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evidence that may have never been transported
into a courtroom before, the actual bed

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from Susan and Jeff's bedroom frame and
all. Although a showy move, it's

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not likely that the bed itself provided
any compelling arguments for the case. Kelly

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Siegler, an assistant district attorney,
was quick to bring up Susan's past as

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a topless dancer as a way to
discredit her story. Partly, she was

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playing to her audience this kind of
sex work would be frowned upon by the

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jury, making them less sympathetic to
Susan. Despite her emotional testimony. In

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the trial's closing arguments, Kelly didn't
hold back describing Susan as a quote card

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carrying obvious no doubt about it,
caught red handed, confirmed documented liar.

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The jury deliberated for five hours before
reaching a verdict. On the third of

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March two thousand and four, Susan
Wright was found guilty of murdering her husband

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Jeff. Despite her tears on the
stand, Susan didn't show much emotion when

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she was read the verdict or during
her sentencing. The sentencing was polarizing.

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The prosecution argued that Susan should see
a minimum of five decades of prison time,

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whereas her defense team believed that she
should receive probation. The court came

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to an almost perfect compromise when Susan
was convicted to spend twenty five years in

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prison. Susan's original appeal for her
sentence was denied by the court in two

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thousand and five, and her conviction
was upheld. During a reappeal in two

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thousand and eight, a new witness
came forward, another woman who had previously

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been in a relationship with Jeff.
Misty McMichael had dated Jeff Wright for four

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years, and this is the lady
that I mentioned at the beginning that Jeff

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had previously been engaged to. Misty
was willing to testify in Susan's defense,

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recalling the physical and emotional abuse that
she herself received from Jeff during their four

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year long relationship. It was exactly
the kind of testimony that had been missing

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from Susan's trial, and this time
the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals was willing

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to listen. Susan was granted a
new sentencing hearing one year later, and

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in November two ten, her twenty
five year sentence was reduced to twenty years.

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She became eligible for parole in two
fourteen, but it was initially denied

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several times. Finally, Susan's parole
was approved in July twenty twenty, and

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on the thirtieth of December twenty twenty, at the age of forty four,

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Susan Wright became a free woman again. That is ten minute Murder for today,

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brief and bingeible true crime. I'm
Joe the host, and thank you

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so much for listening today, and
also thank you for ignoring the fact that

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my air conditioner popped on and off
about seventeen times during that episode. I

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live in the South, then it's
summertime in the South, and if I

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don't have it on, I will
melt. That's how it's got to be.

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Okay, So the question I'm answering
today is from Lacy in Austin,

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Texas. And no doubt, Texas, it's hotter than it is here,

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so you can't judge me for the
air conditioner. Okay, Hey, Joe,

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ten minute Murder is great, but
do you sometimes add in lyrics the

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difference songs during the process of you
telling the story? Either you are or

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I'm slowly going mad. Anyway,
if it's on purpose, I love it.

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Thank you for the email, and
thank you for listening, Lacy.

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And the answer to your question is, yeah, yeah, I do that,

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and every now and then someone notices
and emails me about it. I

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do that. I don't know why. There's literally no reason for me to

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do it, but I'd do it
anyway, and I did it in this

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episode just to make it obvious.
I made it. I put a very

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obvious Taylor Swift lyric toward the beginning, and if you missed it, go

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back and listen. But it's in
there, and I do it. And

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it's not always super common lyrics.
It'll be like some random line from a

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random song that I am listening to
that day, and it I'll just put

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it in the episode. Usually no
one knows except for me, but Lacy

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figured it out. Hey, if
you've got questions about literally anything under the

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sun, you can email them to
me Joe at ten minute Murder dot com.

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Also, that's the same place you
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you'd like to appear on this podcast. If this is your first time I'm

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listening to ten Minute Murder, please
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on all the back episodes. Here
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different episodes, and never miss any
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