WEBVTT - Wicked Words - Bryan Burrough: Stephenville 0:00:00.800 --> 0:00:04.640 This story contains adult content and language, along with references 0:00:04.640 --> 0:00:07.840 to sexual assault. Listener discretion is advised. 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.000 It starts praying that God take care of us, fix 0:00:17.040 --> 0:00:19.400 this for me, and after a period of time, God 0:00:19.440 --> 0:00:21.560 has it fixed it. So you said, well, if God's 0:00:21.600 --> 0:00:23.400 not going to help me, I'm going to reach out 0:00:23.440 --> 0:00:25.720 to say. 0:00:29.240 --> 0:00:33.239 I'm Kate Winkler Dawson, a nonfiction author and journalism professor 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:36.239 in Austin, Texas. I'm also the host of the historical 0:00:36.280 --> 0:00:39.600 true crime podcast tenfold More Wicked and the co host 0:00:39.640 --> 0:00:43.559 of the podcast Buried Bones on Exactly Right. I've traveled 0:00:43.600 --> 0:00:46.600 around the world interviewing people for the show and they 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:50.040 are all excellent writers. They've had so many great true 0:00:50.040 --> 0:00:52.720 crime stories, and now we want to tell you those 0:00:52.800 --> 0:00:56.360 stories with details that have never been published. Tenfold More 0:00:56.360 --> 0:01:00.360 Wicked presents Wicked Words is about the choices that writers make, 0:01:00.640 --> 0:01:04.039 good and bad. It's a deep dive into the stories 0:01:04.200 --> 0:01:09.720 behind the stories. Best Selling author and my buddy Brian 0:01:09.800 --> 0:01:13.399 Burrow returns to his small town, Texas roots in the 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:18.319 podcast by Texas Monthly called Stephenville. This season, he explores 0:01:18.360 --> 0:01:21.720 a murder case that went cold for nearly two decades 0:01:22.360 --> 0:01:25.720 to tell this amazing story. Brian is armed with the 0:01:25.760 --> 0:01:30.080 newly discovered diary of the killer himself. A trigger warning 0:01:30.120 --> 0:01:33.480 here we do talk about a serial rapist and killer. 0:01:36.120 --> 0:01:39.400 Let's dip into how you came across with the story, 0:01:39.440 --> 0:01:40.600 and then we can move from there. 0:01:40.720 --> 0:01:45.600 I had all but retired from any type of magazine journalism. 0:01:46.319 --> 0:01:49.240 The economics of it aren't as compelling as they used 0:01:49.280 --> 0:01:52.160 to be. I'm sixty one and not looking for as 0:01:52.240 --> 0:01:56.520 much work outside books as I used to be. But 0:01:56.720 --> 0:01:59.920 I got an email from a TV producer on Forensic File. 0:02:00.360 --> 0:02:04.440 We did a show on a cold case killing in Stephenville, 0:02:04.480 --> 0:02:07.840 Texas a few years back, and the lead detective found 0:02:07.880 --> 0:02:11.080 something new. Found that the bad guy left behind a 0:02:11.120 --> 0:02:14.720 two hundred page autobiographical essay that for the first time, 0:02:15.360 --> 0:02:19.520 told the story of fairly well known events from his 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.160 point of view. He had spent his entire life denying 0:02:22.160 --> 0:02:26.640 it all, and this was a fairly run of the 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:30.760 mill bad guy who wrote kind of an extraordinary document 0:02:30.880 --> 0:02:36.919 that traced the development of his internal angers, passions, sexual 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:40.239 proclivities from the age of eight through early teen, through 0:02:40.280 --> 0:02:43.840 his twenties into adulthood, as well as dealing with the 0:02:43.880 --> 0:02:47.040 stories of the crimes that he committed. So I thought, gosh, 0:02:47.160 --> 0:02:49.600 we've got a very different take on the story. 0:02:50.120 --> 0:02:55.720 So set the scene. Where are we when this story starts. 0:02:55.639 --> 0:02:58.320 Well, it starts with a murder, and that's kind of 0:02:58.320 --> 0:03:01.520 the best way to introduce the cat characters. In July 0:03:01.680 --> 0:03:05.520 nineteen eighty seven, in Stephenville, Texas, which is southwest seventy 0:03:05.520 --> 0:03:09.799 miles southwest of Fort Worth, supervisor at a sandpaper called 0:03:10.040 --> 0:03:12.080 a man in town and says, your daughter has not 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:14.080 showed up for work two days in a row. And 0:03:14.320 --> 0:03:17.440 his name was Joe Atkins. And Joe went on over 0:03:17.639 --> 0:03:20.359 to his daughter's little white bungalow, a little rendered white 0:03:20.400 --> 0:03:23.800 bungalow there in the Old Air area of Stephenville, walked 0:03:23.880 --> 0:03:26.560 up to the front door, found at a jar, went 0:03:26.600 --> 0:03:30.040 in and found his daughter, Susan Woods, naked on the 0:03:30.080 --> 0:03:32.840 floor of the bathroom with her upper body plunged into 0:03:32.880 --> 0:03:34.320 a tub full of black water. 0:03:34.760 --> 0:03:36.280 How long had she been in the bathtub? 0:03:36.400 --> 0:03:40.280 Two days? Last scene on Sunday night. They found on 0:03:40.360 --> 0:03:43.400 a Tuesday night, Susan Woods in the summer of nineteen 0:03:43.440 --> 0:03:46.120 eighty seven was a very quiet young woman, a factory 0:03:46.120 --> 0:03:49.680 worker who had grown up in Stephenville. Quiet as a child, 0:03:49.720 --> 0:03:53.680 didn't date close to her parents. Everybody said, you know, 0:03:53.800 --> 0:03:56.720 she was just the sweetest thing, just nice to everybody, 0:03:56.760 --> 0:04:00.000 a little trusting, a little naive. Graduated from Stephenville High 0:04:00.120 --> 0:04:03.320 with honors, and within a year or two, having at 0:04:03.320 --> 0:04:05.680 that point going to work for a nursing home, she 0:04:05.800 --> 0:04:09.240 met a young man, a newcomer to town named Michael Woods. 0:04:09.960 --> 0:04:13.400 And Michael came from El Paso. This was the late seventies. 0:04:13.760 --> 0:04:16.880 You know, Susan was five to seven, long brown hair. 0:04:17.600 --> 0:04:22.080 Michael was a little shorter, but very attractive, certainly to Susan. 0:04:22.480 --> 0:04:24.520 And the most notable thing about Michael was at a 0:04:24.560 --> 0:04:29.080 time when rural Texas was not only as conservative as 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:32.080 it may be today, but it was kind of pushing 0:04:32.120 --> 0:04:35.320 back against the excesses of the sixties. Michael had long hair, 0:04:35.360 --> 0:04:39.000 and he was a musician. He stood out in town Stephenville. 0:04:39.080 --> 0:04:42.039 Keep in mind, is bills itself as the cowboy capital 0:04:42.080 --> 0:04:45.240 of the world. It is a town then and now 0:04:45.880 --> 0:04:50.120 where you know cowboy hats, ffa jackets, close crop hair 0:04:50.279 --> 0:04:53.560 are most common, and Michael Woods stood out. Michael was 0:04:53.560 --> 0:04:57.400 actually just visiting, kind of hanging around unemployed as he 0:04:57.520 --> 0:04:59.800 tended to be most of the time, wanted to be 0:04:59.800 --> 0:05:02.600 a position, but nobody in Stevenville wanted to hear rock 0:05:02.640 --> 0:05:04.520 and roll. Let me tell you, they might listen to 0:05:04.640 --> 0:05:08.760 Johnny Cash back in the days. And Michael stayed to 0:05:08.800 --> 0:05:11.440 be with Susan, and he hated. He had a bit 0:05:11.480 --> 0:05:14.880 of an attitude because, especially when he grew a beard, 0:05:15.279 --> 0:05:16.920 you know, he got picked on. People would call him 0:05:16.960 --> 0:05:19.440 fur face and stuff. And Michael did not look like 0:05:19.480 --> 0:05:22.760 anybody else in town. He wore a leather jacket, engineer boots, 0:05:22.839 --> 0:05:25.479 and he drove Harley. Michael was also not one to 0:05:25.560 --> 0:05:29.120 suffer any type of abuse. If you said something insulting 0:05:29.160 --> 0:05:31.880 to Michael, he would pop in the mouth. He was 0:05:32.000 --> 0:05:35.560 repeatedly in fights, rarely in a job. He worked at 0:05:35.560 --> 0:05:38.360 a sonic, he worked in a cornfield, I mean all 0:05:38.400 --> 0:05:41.400 sorts of jobs that just never really took. And after 0:05:41.440 --> 0:05:43.839 about a year or two of this, around nineteen eighty, 0:05:44.240 --> 0:05:46.520 he said, I can't take it anymore. I've got a 0:05:46.600 --> 0:05:48.840 job offered from an uncle. I think he ran an 0:05:48.839 --> 0:05:51.560 auto repara shot back in l Passo. Come with me 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:53.440 to l Passol, was trying to make a go up there. 0:05:53.480 --> 0:05:56.320 Susan had never been outside Stephenville, but she thought it 0:05:56.360 --> 0:06:00.560 sounded like a grand adventure, right, So they go to Steveville, 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:04.359 and for whatever reason, the job fell through, and within 0:06:04.440 --> 0:06:08.200 a matter of weeks they are living in what Susan 0:06:08.240 --> 0:06:11.560 famously said in wonder her letters home on bacon bit sandwiches. 0:06:11.920 --> 0:06:14.400 They're not quite living out of the car, as one 0:06:14.480 --> 0:06:17.359 report had it, but Michael said they were living in 0:06:17.360 --> 0:06:20.960 an apartment with no furniture. When they couldn't make that happen, 0:06:21.000 --> 0:06:23.839 they moved in with his mother and that didn't go 0:06:23.920 --> 0:06:27.440 real well either, and they ended up coming back. So 0:06:27.480 --> 0:06:30.320 by let's say early eighty one, they're back in Stephenville. 0:06:30.920 --> 0:06:33.800 Michael continues to act out. I've got police reports of 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:37.520 fights he got into. He was not happy there. He 0:06:37.600 --> 0:06:41.440 had family in Indianapolis, brother, and at least once, and 0:06:41.640 --> 0:06:44.680 it sounds like twice, he moved up to Indianapolis and 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.680 she came with him. And then Susan was just never 0:06:47.720 --> 0:06:51.320 happy away from Stephenville for whatever reason, maybe being far 0:06:51.400 --> 0:06:54.280 away from family or just smalltown Texas. It has it's 0:06:54.320 --> 0:06:57.159 a lure. She went up to Indianapolis, stayed with him 0:06:57.360 --> 0:06:59.400 a time or two, and came back and Michael says, 0:06:59.760 --> 0:07:02.560 you know, during their about roughly five years of marriage, 0:07:02.680 --> 0:07:05.920 he was gone about half the time. By the summer 0:07:06.040 --> 0:07:09.559 of eighty six, they had moved into this little white 0:07:09.560 --> 0:07:13.000 bungalow by downtown and they were trying to make a 0:07:13.080 --> 0:07:15.560 last go of it. As Michael tells that, the final 0:07:15.600 --> 0:07:20.400 straw was he had had some success flipping cars, buying 0:07:20.400 --> 0:07:22.360 a used car, fixing it up and reselling it. He 0:07:22.360 --> 0:07:24.880 wanted to do this with Holmes. Apparently his brother was 0:07:24.920 --> 0:07:26.840 doing that in Napolis, and he thought he could do 0:07:26.880 --> 0:07:30.160 it too. Unfortunately, Michael had no money, and Susan, who 0:07:30.200 --> 0:07:33.880 is by now working in sandpaper factory, didn't really want 0:07:33.960 --> 0:07:38.360 to invest her money in Michael's new venture. Michael accused 0:07:38.400 --> 0:07:42.000 her of emasculating him and taking away his only livelihood, 0:07:42.000 --> 0:07:45.320 and so he left. There was a series of letters 0:07:45.320 --> 0:07:48.640 between them. It was heartbreaking because they were not angry 0:07:48.640 --> 0:07:50.840 at each other. They loved each other. They both said 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.200 they want to be with each other, but she couldn't 0:07:53.240 --> 0:07:56.360 live outside at Stephenville and Michael couldn't make it work 0:07:56.440 --> 0:07:59.480 in Stephenville. He came back one last time in February 0:07:59.520 --> 0:08:01.520 of eighty seven, and this would be now four months 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:05.560 before her murder, and it didn't take and he didn't stay. 0:08:05.920 --> 0:08:08.760 There's a letter in the DA's files in which one 0:08:08.760 --> 0:08:11.880 of her co workers said, basically, he gave her an ultimatum, 0:08:11.920 --> 0:08:14.760 me or Texas. She chose Texas. 0:08:15.160 --> 0:08:19.240 Did you get a sense that Michael was physically abusive 0:08:19.400 --> 0:08:20.440 emotionally abusive? 0:08:20.720 --> 0:08:25.280 I talked extensively with Susan's three closest friend, her best girlfriend, 0:08:25.560 --> 0:08:28.120 the girlfriend's husband, and another young woman. Who were the 0:08:28.160 --> 0:08:30.400 three people who went through all this with him, And 0:08:30.440 --> 0:08:33.400 they said no, Michael was always kind to her. Did 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:38.480 they have arguments, yes, but no, nothing unpleasant until the end, 0:08:38.720 --> 0:08:42.559 until February eighty seven. In februaryy seven, when Michael came 0:08:42.559 --> 0:08:45.520 back for their final attempt at or Approchemont, he left. 0:08:45.600 --> 0:08:47.840 He took a bunch of her things, and most important 0:08:47.840 --> 0:08:50.280 thing was he took their yellow Mustang. And so for 0:08:50.360 --> 0:08:52.880 the next four months after he left, she worked six 0:08:52.960 --> 0:08:54.560 days a week to trying to raise money to get 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:56.160 a new car. She was having to have friends take 0:08:56.200 --> 0:08:58.960 her to work. But when Michael left, he left behind 0:08:58.960 --> 0:09:02.280 two things. He left behind a series of folded up 0:09:02.400 --> 0:09:06.040 little paper notes that he put in cabinets. He put 0:09:06.080 --> 0:09:09.560 in shirt pockets you put in her underwear drawer, and 0:09:09.600 --> 0:09:12.280 they were just all about what a sea word she was, 0:09:12.360 --> 0:09:14.640 what an awful person, how this was all her fault. 0:09:14.800 --> 0:09:18.120 Her parents hated him from the word go. Michael tells 0:09:18.160 --> 0:09:21.040 these stories of the father threatening with a gun and 0:09:21.080 --> 0:09:24.200 things like this. But even worse, Michael left behind a 0:09:24.240 --> 0:09:28.040 thirty minute cassette tape in which he excoriated Susan in 0:09:28.080 --> 0:09:30.880 the most unpleasant way for breaking up the marriage, for 0:09:30.960 --> 0:09:33.319 not allowing him to be a man. And at one 0:09:33.360 --> 0:09:38.160 point Susan was so shaken she called in the three friends, Roy, 0:09:38.480 --> 0:09:41.240 Cindy her best friend, and Gloria. It said, I've got 0:09:41.280 --> 0:09:42.600 to go to work. Can y'all listen to this and 0:09:42.640 --> 0:09:44.480 just tell me if I'm crazy because that this scares me? 0:09:45.120 --> 0:09:47.680 And they were all deeply shaken. And by that night 0:09:48.040 --> 0:09:51.640 Roy Hayes wonderful guys still alive, came over, nailed all 0:09:51.679 --> 0:09:54.600 her windows shut, gave her a gun, and Cindy for 0:09:54.679 --> 0:09:58.960 about the next month slept on her couch. Look. Nobody 0:09:59.120 --> 0:10:02.080 knew Michael to be violent. The fights that he would 0:10:02.120 --> 0:10:05.360 get in always seemed to be some guy would insult 0:10:05.400 --> 0:10:08.080 in me. It was like Michael was out picking fights 0:10:08.080 --> 0:10:11.400 with people. So despite the fist fights he'd gotten, and 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:14.440 nobody really thought of him as a violent guy. But 0:10:14.480 --> 0:10:16.199 the fact, does they anyone to find out if he 0:10:16.280 --> 0:10:17.200 had that in it? 0:10:17.360 --> 0:10:21.120 Was there contact between the two of them between February 0:10:21.160 --> 0:10:25.040 when this escalates in July when her father finds her dead. 0:10:25.240 --> 0:10:27.840 No physical contact. We believed that there might have been 0:10:27.880 --> 0:10:30.360 a phone call or too. I think Michael dimly remembers 0:10:30.360 --> 0:10:32.920 a phone call in the letter, but nothing really of significance. 0:10:33.000 --> 0:10:35.719 Once Michael left, she went to a divorce attorney and 0:10:35.760 --> 0:10:39.040 filed the horse papers and so between Februar of eighty 0:10:39.040 --> 0:10:41.520 seven when he left, over the next three or four months, 0:10:42.080 --> 0:10:44.680 it was a pretty dark time for Susan. Initially, she's 0:10:44.679 --> 0:10:46.640 working six days a week, trying to get a car. 0:10:46.720 --> 0:10:49.280 I mean, this is just basic stuff. She's thirty years old, 0:10:49.800 --> 0:10:52.200 she's never really lived on her own. She either lived 0:10:52.200 --> 0:10:54.080 with her parents or then with Michael, off and on, 0:10:54.800 --> 0:10:56.959 and it's a tough time for her. She doesn't really 0:10:57.000 --> 0:11:01.400 have time to socialize. And then after about out three months, 0:11:01.520 --> 0:11:04.920 say in the maytime frame, things begin to light. She 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:08.240 realizes her life is probably not at risk from Michael. 0:11:08.240 --> 0:11:11.200 He hasn't showed up to Killer. She goes out one 0:11:11.320 --> 0:11:14.280 night with a group of work friends to the nearby 0:11:14.400 --> 0:11:17.679 town of Granbury. Stephenville was dry at the time and 0:11:17.679 --> 0:11:20.439 flirted with a bartender, and he started coming over a 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:23.079 couple of three Friday nights, watched TV on the couch. 0:11:23.200 --> 0:11:26.079 On the fourth one they had sex, and the next 0:11:26.160 --> 0:11:29.000 day or so, after a day, Susan calls up another 0:11:29.000 --> 0:11:30.880 girlfriend and said, oh my god, you've got to come 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:33.599 down here. She was hysterical, and she came down and 0:11:34.040 --> 0:11:38.400 Susan had dark marks all over her neck. JC apparently 0:11:38.440 --> 0:11:40.080 had gotten a little carried away and given her a 0:11:40.080 --> 0:11:43.199 series of hickeys. And it's a measure of Susan's modesty 0:11:43.679 --> 0:11:47.480 and Stephenville's modesty. She was paralyzed with fear of going 0:11:47.480 --> 0:11:50.000 out in town and having people see this and think 0:11:50.040 --> 0:11:52.760 she was that type of girl. By the end of May, 0:11:52.800 --> 0:11:54.120 you know, she was able to get a new car. 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:57.440 Roy and Cindy, who are now married all these years later, 0:11:57.840 --> 0:12:01.319 thirty five years later, noticed that she was brightening a little. 0:12:01.640 --> 0:12:05.360 There came a night in late July when they said, hey, 0:12:05.480 --> 0:12:08.640 we're going We're taking one of Cindy's young cousins over 0:12:08.679 --> 0:12:11.880 to a carnival in a nearby town called Hiko. Why 0:12:11.880 --> 0:12:13.320 don't you come on with us, it'd be good for 0:12:13.360 --> 0:12:15.200 you to get out, And so she went on over 0:12:15.240 --> 0:12:18.360 there and they didn't have much fun for whatever reason. 0:12:18.640 --> 0:12:20.680 So they came on back and Roy said, tay, what, 0:12:20.800 --> 0:12:22.760 I'll make it better. Let's all go to Dairy Queen. 0:12:22.800 --> 0:12:26.240 So they went to Dairy Queen and Susan, who was demure, 0:12:26.559 --> 0:12:30.280 careful about her physical appearance, had a hot fudge Sunday 0:12:30.400 --> 0:12:33.280 and then she did something Cindy said she'd never seen 0:12:33.360 --> 0:12:35.079 or done in her entire life, and these kids had 0:12:35.080 --> 0:12:38.680 been best friends from like twelve thirteen. She had another 0:12:38.920 --> 0:12:43.280 hot fish Sunday and smiled, and Cindy doesn't remember the 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:46.880 exact words, but it was very clear that she was 0:12:46.920 --> 0:12:49.720 turning a corner. She could see a path forward for 0:12:49.840 --> 0:12:52.520 herself and her life, and four nights later she was 0:12:52.520 --> 0:12:53.000 found dead. 0:12:53.679 --> 0:12:58.559 So her father finds her submerged partially in this bathtub. 0:12:58.640 --> 0:13:02.240 She's been sexually assaulted. It's summer of eighty seven. He 0:13:02.320 --> 0:13:04.319 calls the police. I have to assume is that the 0:13:04.360 --> 0:13:05.280 first thing that happens. 0:13:05.440 --> 0:13:07.520 He steps into the living room, calls him on the 0:13:07.520 --> 0:13:10.160 house phone and then steps out into the yard which 0:13:10.200 --> 0:13:13.720 is pitch dark, and pretty much the whole Stephenville Police 0:13:13.720 --> 0:13:16.839 force shows up. You know. There was clearly pretty nasty 0:13:16.840 --> 0:13:19.480 struggle in the bedroom. The bedroom was topsy turvy. The 0:13:19.520 --> 0:13:22.720 mattress was off the box springs and the pillows were 0:13:22.720 --> 0:13:24.680 strown everywhere, and the beding was strown everywhere, and there 0:13:24.720 --> 0:13:27.800 was an electrical cord that it was laying across the 0:13:27.800 --> 0:13:30.600 bed with the plug in on the floor. When they 0:13:30.840 --> 0:13:33.679 squatted down the side her and lifted her head, they 0:13:33.720 --> 0:13:36.720 saw a red ligature mark. He was suspected that perhaps 0:13:36.760 --> 0:13:39.440 the cord had been used on her. As they studied 0:13:39.440 --> 0:13:42.320 the crime scene, the one thing that stood out was 0:13:42.520 --> 0:13:44.480 there's no sign of forced entry in a house with 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:47.520 a you know, everything nailed shut. It looked from all 0:13:47.559 --> 0:13:52.360 angles as if Susan had invited her murder into the house. 0:13:52.600 --> 0:13:56.199 And on the living room table there were six cigarette 0:13:56.240 --> 0:13:59.680 buts in an ash tray and an open cann of coke, 0:14:00.120 --> 0:14:04.559 suggesting that perhaps she had sat and had some cigarettes 0:14:04.640 --> 0:14:07.920 with whoever it was. But that was it. You know. 0:14:08.040 --> 0:14:10.439 They canvassed the neighborhood. They went up and down the street, 0:14:10.880 --> 0:14:13.400 nobody had seen anything strange. It was Sunday night. It 0:14:13.440 --> 0:14:15.520 was a quiet Sunday night in Stephenville, Texas. 0:14:15.800 --> 0:14:19.760 So what happens next? The investigators, we would assume, would 0:14:19.760 --> 0:14:22.520 look at her inner circle first and find out she 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:23.440 has an ex husband. 0:14:23.720 --> 0:14:26.320 Funny thing happened the next morning. There was a lieutenant 0:14:26.400 --> 0:14:28.600 on the force who announced to the gathering the next 0:14:28.600 --> 0:14:30.520 morning in the police department that nobody else needed to 0:14:30.520 --> 0:14:32.720 work the case. He was going to take it on himself. 0:14:33.000 --> 0:14:35.320 And I talked with an officer who was in the 0:14:35.400 --> 0:14:37.240 room that day, I said, what was that about? He said, 0:14:37.280 --> 0:14:38.840 the guy just wanted to be a hero. He knew 0:14:38.840 --> 0:14:41.240 we don't have a lot of cases like that, and 0:14:41.280 --> 0:14:43.120 he was looking to move up. This guy's name was 0:14:43.200 --> 0:14:46.000 Ken Maltby, and I'm sure he was otherwise a terribly 0:14:46.000 --> 0:14:50.760 effective policeman. Early on, from all indications, Lieutenant Maltby focused 0:14:50.800 --> 0:14:54.320 on Michael Woods. The Atkins family, Susan's maiden name was Atkins. 0:14:54.720 --> 0:14:57.520 Was absolutely I mean, it was just obvious Michael Woods 0:14:57.520 --> 0:14:59.360 has done this. I mean she was living with the 0:15:00.240 --> 0:15:04.080 guy in town, right obviously. Hello. He somehow came back 0:15:04.360 --> 0:15:08.760 and Maltby and a Texas Ranger went up to Indianapolis. 0:15:08.800 --> 0:15:11.880 Within forty eight hours of the killing. They had reached 0:15:11.880 --> 0:15:15.160 out to Indianapolis PD to interview him, and they had 0:15:15.240 --> 0:15:19.440 there had been some interviewing, but he denied everything and 0:15:19.840 --> 0:15:22.800 didn't seem to want to be cooperative. They confronted him 0:15:22.800 --> 0:15:24.760 in his front yard and he declined to go back 0:15:24.800 --> 0:15:28.440 to Texas, and so Lieutenant Wontby and the Ranger came 0:15:28.440 --> 0:15:33.440 back to Texas and about a month later, Lieutenant Maltby 0:15:33.680 --> 0:15:37.800 was transferred onto a narcotic squad to supervisor narcotic squad. 0:15:37.840 --> 0:15:40.080 And you know, by the first week of October, and 0:15:40.120 --> 0:15:41.920 this is two and a half months after the killing, 0:15:42.160 --> 0:15:45.360 it's orphaned. There's nobody assigned to take this over. So 0:15:45.400 --> 0:15:48.360 what happened is one of the original officers, the guy 0:15:48.360 --> 0:15:51.520 who canvassed the bedroom, Donny Hensley, said well, I'll take 0:15:51.560 --> 0:15:53.440 it on in a spare time, and he went to 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:55.960 look for Maltby's notes or to debrief, and he couldn't 0:15:55.960 --> 0:15:57.640 get Maltby to talk with him, and he couldn't find 0:15:57.640 --> 0:16:00.280 any notes, and Donny said, I don't know what's tell you. 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:03.080 I'd start over from scratch, and he pretty much did. 0:16:03.320 --> 0:16:05.280 For the next couple of months, you know. He does 0:16:05.320 --> 0:16:09.080 his best to widen the focus of the investigation. He 0:16:09.160 --> 0:16:12.520 discovers the bartender in Granberry. By the way, I didn't 0:16:12.520 --> 0:16:14.840 mention they've got prince in the bathroom and on the 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:18.320 coke can. He goes and fingerprints and gives light of 0:16:18.320 --> 0:16:22.280 detector tests to the bartender. He passes. He then brings 0:16:22.280 --> 0:16:24.960 in Roy Hayes, the best girlfriend's husband, the guy who 0:16:25.080 --> 0:16:28.640 nailed the windows shut. And Roy was a little iffy 0:16:29.400 --> 0:16:32.480 in the eyes of Stephenville because he played dungeons and dragon, 0:16:33.160 --> 0:16:36.040 which back in those days carried the faint whiff of 0:16:36.080 --> 0:16:40.280 the Satanic. Now Roy's a big old boy, nice kid. 0:16:40.680 --> 0:16:43.160 Roy says, okay, I'll take your light detector test. Sure, 0:16:43.280 --> 0:16:44.920 So they take him down to Waco to a ranger 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:47.360 station for a light detector test. Does that for about 0:16:47.400 --> 0:16:50.320 an hour, walks out and Donnie says, you did it. 0:16:50.760 --> 0:16:53.040 You did not pass, And Roy's like, I did not 0:16:53.520 --> 0:16:55.920 I did anything to do this. He said, These machines 0:16:55.960 --> 0:16:58.360 do not make a mistake. Roy, I know you did it. 0:16:58.520 --> 0:17:00.640 This is just the way it is. About that moment, 0:17:00.680 --> 0:17:03.320 the door opens behind him and the ranger who took 0:17:03.360 --> 0:17:07.160 the test comes out. And says, congratulations, mister Hayes, you passed. 0:17:07.280 --> 0:17:09.439 To this day, nobody knows what the mix up was. 0:17:09.640 --> 0:17:13.280 At that point, Donny Hensley doesn't have a bunch of suspects, 0:17:13.520 --> 0:17:15.960 and you know, everybody in town is saying Roy Hayes, 0:17:16.000 --> 0:17:20.600 what he nuts? Everybody knows. Everybody knows it's Michael Woods. 0:17:21.359 --> 0:17:24.840 And so Donnie rededicates himself to hounding Michael Woods, who 0:17:24.920 --> 0:17:28.879 remains out of state outside in Indianapolis. He shows his 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.520 picture picture of the yellow Mustang to every service station 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:35.359 in the county that rings no belts with anyone. Finally 0:17:35.440 --> 0:17:38.280 he realizes he's got to take the case to Indianapolis, 0:17:38.280 --> 0:17:41.400 so he goes up there and the Indianapolis PD gives 0:17:41.480 --> 0:17:44.199 him a fancy surveillance van that actually has one of 0:17:44.240 --> 0:17:47.199 these like a submarine periscope out the top, so you 0:17:47.200 --> 0:17:49.040 can sit in the back of this van. And after 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:52.119 a week or two of surveilling, they see Michael and 0:17:52.240 --> 0:17:54.520 his brother set out a bunch of stuff for garage sale, 0:17:54.840 --> 0:17:57.160 and they see some items that they believe they can 0:17:57.400 --> 0:18:01.600 argue we're stolen from Susan. A figure, a fur coat, 0:18:01.600 --> 0:18:03.800 this type of thing. So they swoop in the next 0:18:03.880 --> 0:18:06.640 day with an arrest warm and arrest them all because 0:18:06.640 --> 0:18:09.320 they found a roach, a marijuana roach, right you know. 0:18:09.359 --> 0:18:11.480 It led to no charges, but it gotten the one 0:18:11.520 --> 0:18:14.960 thing that Donny didn't have, which was Michael's fingerprints. They 0:18:15.000 --> 0:18:17.879 needed Michael's fingerprints. Now to this day, Michael will tell 0:18:17.880 --> 0:18:20.399 you he volunteered to give him the Prince and anything 0:18:20.400 --> 0:18:23.320 else they wanted on the proviso that it'd be done in. 0:18:23.520 --> 0:18:26.160 In the end, he wasn't going. He didn't trust Texas Comms, 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:28.840 was not going back to rural Texas where an entire 0:18:28.880 --> 0:18:31.120 town was convinced he was the murder. He just wasn't going. 0:18:31.840 --> 0:18:34.560 For whatever reason. The Texas police wouldn't go up there 0:18:34.600 --> 0:18:36.160 and do it with him, so they felt they had 0:18:36.200 --> 0:18:38.560 to go up and get the fingerprints, which they did. 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:42.000 They came back. Donnie on the flight back from Indianapolis 0:18:42.000 --> 0:18:45.120 with the fingerprints, he is filling out the extradition papers 0:18:45.640 --> 0:18:48.320 to bring Michael back. He's so sure that the Prince 0:18:48.359 --> 0:18:50.960 will match. Now of course I've given away they don't match, 0:18:51.160 --> 0:18:54.359 and Don's like, there's no way Michael Woods did this. 0:18:54.560 --> 0:18:57.720 How is this happening? Pretty much by the summer of 0:18:57.760 --> 0:19:01.639 eighty eight, by the time Donnie came back from Indianapolis 0:19:01.720 --> 0:19:04.040 with those prints. The investigation was over. 0:19:04.760 --> 0:19:06.919 What happens next? This case goes cold. 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.000 Well, actually, what did happen was the family sued Michael Woods. 0:19:10.600 --> 0:19:13.480 He was the beneficiary on Susan's life inschurch. He was 0:19:13.520 --> 0:19:16.240 doing something like eleven thousand dollars. I think they sued him, 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:19.040 and Michael would not go back. A judge hit him 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.840 with a judgment finding hum responsible for his death and 0:19:22.880 --> 0:19:25.760 saying that he had to pay get this seven hundred 0:19:25.920 --> 0:19:29.040 thousand dollars anyway, It was never paid, obviously in part 0:19:29.080 --> 0:19:31.200 because Michael didn't come back anywhere near where they could 0:19:31.240 --> 0:19:34.480 serve him, and then the case was slowly forgotten, not 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:37.399 by the family, not by our friends Roy and Cindy, 0:19:37.400 --> 0:19:40.240 but by the rest of the town. Stephen Villain's important 0:19:40.320 --> 0:19:43.000 note just in terms of context, it is not your 0:19:43.040 --> 0:19:46.560 classic conservative small town. It's actually a college town in 0:19:46.560 --> 0:19:49.840 the middle of farm country. Charlton State is there, and 0:19:49.920 --> 0:19:52.760 during those years following the murder, during the nineties, it 0:19:52.880 --> 0:19:57.320 saw an influx of people, but nothing happened in Susan's case. 0:19:57.840 --> 0:20:01.160 Years went by, and finally in two thousand and five, 0:20:01.800 --> 0:20:04.520 eighteen years later, Michael Woods kind of came to a 0:20:04.520 --> 0:20:08.680 breaking point. Michael never got over this. He wanted to 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:10.880 be a musician, and he tried to His lawyer says, 0:20:10.880 --> 0:20:12.800 you can't leave this town. They'll get you. They'll get 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:15.359 you if you leave Indianapolis. So he and his brother 0:20:15.480 --> 0:20:18.920 start doing Skinnered and Charlie Daniels around town for thirty 0:20:18.920 --> 0:20:21.080 five dollars a pop. But even that became hard after 0:20:21.119 --> 0:20:24.760 the Indianapolis newspaper ran two articles saying that he was 0:20:24.760 --> 0:20:28.879 the focus of murder investigation from Stephenville Well. Michael tried 0:20:28.920 --> 0:20:31.560 to install home alarms. He tried to do this. He 0:20:31.680 --> 0:20:33.960 tried to do that. He didn't keep a lot of jobs. 0:20:34.280 --> 0:20:37.320 What he was good at was drinking and taking every 0:20:37.400 --> 0:20:41.160 drug that anybody ever handed it. And he slowly went 0:20:41.240 --> 0:20:44.600 to a spiral. He tried therapy that didn't work. Finally, 0:20:44.600 --> 0:20:47.320 he says, by the early two thousands, after about fourteen 0:20:47.400 --> 0:20:49.200 or fifteen years, he tried to kill himself. He said 0:20:49.200 --> 0:20:53.400 he took three handfuls of tranquilizers and in a rare 0:20:53.440 --> 0:20:56.000 bit of levity from Michael's side of the story, he said, 0:20:56.200 --> 0:20:57.960