Susan Monica

Susan Monica wanted to leave behind a successful engineering career and live a quiet life on a secluded ranch in rural Oregon. Instead, her property became the scene of one of the most disturbing murder investigations in recent memory. Susan was born Steven Buchanan in California in 1948 and served honorably in the U. S. Navy during the Vietnam War Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the crimes committed by Susan Monica. When handyman Robert Haney disappeared in 2013, investigators uncovered a gruesome crime that led to the discovery of another victim, shocking confessions, and allegations that there may have been even more murders hidden on the ranch. You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetime Visit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise, and donation information An Emash Digital production See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

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• 1:49Speaker 00

  Hello, everyone, and welcome to episode 516 of the True Crime All the Time Podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime, Mike Gibson. Gimmie, how are you?

• 1:59Speaker 01

  Hey, I'm doing okay, man. How about you?

• 2:01Speaker 00

  You're doing just okay?

• 2:02Speaker 01

  Just okay.

• 2:02Speaker 00

  I know you got a little troubles going on.

• 2:04Speaker 01

  I do.

• 2:05Speaker 00

  Yeah. With a kidney stone the size of Texas.

• 2:09Speaker 01

  I know, it's big.

• 2:10Speaker 00

  Trying to make its way out of your body. It's invaded your body.

• 2:13Speaker 01

  It's not gonna make its way out.

• 2:15Speaker 00

  No, they're gonna have to break it up.

• 2:16Speaker 01

  They are.

• 2:17Speaker 00

  It's like Armageddon. They gotta send a team in there to drill through it and then they put an explosive down in it to blow it up.

• 2:26Speaker 01

  They're gonna shrink them down like honey, I shrunk the kids.

• 2:28Speaker 00

  Yep.

• 2:29Speaker 01

  All right, we gotta go into Gibby's, uh, you know what part?

• 2:32Speaker 00

  Exactly.

• 2:33Speaker 01

  Take care of this thing.

• 2:34Speaker 00

  Exactly. Let's go ahead and give our Patreon shout outs. We had Laurel.

• 2:37Speaker 01

  Hey Laurel.

• 2:38Speaker 00

  Julie P.

• 2:39Speaker 01

  What's going on Julie?

• 2:40Speaker 00

  Denise Walker.

• 2:41Speaker 01

  Hey, thanks Denise.

• 2:42Speaker 00

  Roscoe the Rescue.

• 2:44Speaker 01

  Oh, I love some rescue.

• 2:45Speaker 00

  Paul Parmley.

• 2:47Speaker 01

  Hey Parmley.

• 2:48Speaker 00

  Josie Anne G C.

• 2:49Speaker 01

  What up G C?

• 2:50Speaker 00

  And last but not least, Whitney Linsley.

• 2:52Speaker 01

  Well, thanks Whitney.

• 2:54Speaker 00

  And then if we go back into the vault. This week we selected Don Black.

• 2:59Speaker 01

  Thanks, Don.

• 3:00Speaker 00

  Yeah, appreciate all of the new support and the continued support. So we have a brand new episode out right now on Unsolved where we're talking about 10 year old Adriana Jackson. She disappeared while walking to school and then months later, her remains were found in a vacant lot. Her cause of death is listed as undetermined, but investigators are treating it as a homicide. And then on Thursday's TCAT, we're discussing the 2006 death of 29 year old Bernadette Vandemere. She fell to her death at the top of Angels Landing in Zion National Park. Now, her death was ruled an accident at the time, but nearly

• 3:42Speaker 00

  20 years later, her husband David came back in focus for very good reasons.

• 3:47Speaker 01

  Very good reasons.

• 3:49Speaker 00

  All right, buddy. Are you ready to get into this episode of True Crime All the Time?

• 3:52Speaker 01

  I am.

• 3:53Speaker 00

  We're talking about Susan Monica. Susan Monica came onto police radar in January 2014 when authorities were notified that her handyman, Haney, had been missing for over three months. When authorities searched her ranch in rural Oregon, they discovered Robert's remains on the property. Susan revealed the horrific truth about how he died and shared what other secrets were hidden on the ranch.

• 4:22Speaker 01

  Other secrets.

• 4:23Speaker 00

  Susan Monica was born Stephen Buchanan in California in 1948.

• 4:30Speaker 00

  Susan served in the Navy during the Vietnam War. After receiving an honorable discharge, she began living as a woman. Susan was a successful engineer and worked on submarines in the San Francisco area, but she dreamed of a quiet life away from the city. She wanted to have a farm and raise livestock.

• 4:52Speaker 01

  Kind of cool to work on submarines, though.

• 4:54Speaker 00

  I would think so. I feel like you have to be really smart to do so, or, you know, very well trained.

• 5:01Speaker 01

  There's a lot of risk there if you mess up. I mean, it is underwater.

• 5:05Speaker 00

  Yes.

• 5:06Speaker 01

  Intense pressure.

• 5:07Speaker 00

  There's a couple of things where there's very little room for error, right? Submarines would be one. Anything that flies into space would be another.

• 5:18Speaker 01

  I would think.

• 5:18Speaker 00

  There's just no tolerance for error.

• 5:21Speaker 01

  And if you're my kidney doctor tomorrow, that as well.

• 5:27Speaker 00

  Is there's no room for error.

• 5:28Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 5:30Speaker 00

  But I do think there's a lot of people, you know, let's say, working in a big city who have, you know, good jobs, demanding jobs, who maybe long to get out in the country somewhere with maybe some land.

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:44Speaker 00

  And I think that's, you know, what happened with Susan.

• 5:47Speaker 01

  There's something to be said about, you know, getting out into the country, getting that fresh air or that manure smelling air.

• 5:55Speaker 00

  Which is where you live.

• 5:56Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 5:57Speaker 00

  In 1991, Susan purchased a 20-acre ranch in Wymer, Oregon, where she owned a herd of pigs and raised chickens. She also started her own company, making custom wrought iron fences and gates.

• 6:11Speaker 01

  Oh, that's cool.

• 6:12Speaker 00

  Yeah. Well, she was an engineer, so, you know, probably not a stretch for her to go into something like that. When Susan first bought her property, it was undeveloped woodland. There was a time when she lived in a shack with no electricity.

• 6:30Speaker 01

  That would be rough in it.

• 6:31Speaker 00

  It would. And, you know, I do want to have some land someday. That is kind of a dream of mine. You know, right now I live in a suburb, there's houses everywhere. I would love to have some acres where... There's nobody right next to me.

• 6:48Speaker 01

  Then you would come out of the basement.

• 6:50Speaker 00

  Probably not, but it would still be awesome.

• 6:53Speaker 01

  No, I'd still be, uh, uh, down below.

• 6:56Speaker 00

  I might come out more, let's see. But you know what I don't want to do is live like the Unabomber for a number of years while the house is being built or I'm, whatever, I'm saving up money to build it. I don't want to do that. Have you ever seen how the, the Unabomber actually lived once they got into his cabin?

• 7:16Speaker 01

  Uh, yeah, pretty rough.

• 7:17Speaker 00

  It was not good, not good.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  I've seen people with that, uh, doing the van life, living better than that.

• 7:23Speaker 00

  Oh, absolutely. I mean, he had no running water. He looked like, you know, he was just dirty from head to toe.

• 7:31Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:32Speaker 00

  Not to mention the fact that he was constantly trying to figure out ways to kill people.

• 7:37Speaker 01

  And he was educated, though.

• 7:38Speaker 00

  Oh, he was extreme. He was a genius.

• 7:40Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 7:41Speaker 00

  You know, we joke about you being a genius. He was a certified genius.

• 7:45Speaker 01

  Well, you gotta say that. Who do you think certified him?

• 7:50Speaker 00

  Probably Mensa.

• 7:52Speaker 01

  I was on that board that did that.

• 7:53Speaker 00

  And probably like him, uh, you were also involved in some of that MKUltra stuff. It's part of the reason why you turned out the way you did.

• 8:02Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 8:04Speaker 00

  In her spare time, Susan made improvements to the property. She started off by building a large barn and then began working on a house. She was mostly isolated unless she needed to go into town for something. She occasionally hired people to work on the ranch. In 2013, Susan decided to hire a handyman to build the house. She posted ads in local stores and even posted on Craigslist. Fifty-six-year-old Robert Haney, a handyman and carpenter, responded to that Craigslist ad. Robert Haney was born on June 26, 1957, and it was said, Gibbs, that he did not have an easy life. According to his former sister-in-law,

• 8:46Speaker 00

  Debbie Almeida Pendry, Robert didn't get many dates and he wasn't very popular in school. He didn't have a large friend group and he was a very quiet person.

• 8:58Speaker 01

  Pretty much a, uh, isolist.

• 9:01Speaker 00

  Or isolationist, I don't think isolist is a word, but we'll go with it.

• 9:06Speaker 01

  You're gonna argue with me.

• 9:06Speaker 00

  Since you are in Mensa, allegedly. But Robert never finished high school. Instead, he and his brother Don left home together and they began working. Robert began working in plumbing and construction and learned how to build houses. And, you know, let's face it, you can make a boatload of money in plumbing.

• 9:27Speaker 01

  You can.

• 9:28Speaker 00

  I had some people I went to high school with who, you know, went into that trade. They ended up making really good money.

• 9:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, the trades, you get in the right trades, you can make some really good money.

• 9:41Speaker 00

  Robert eventually met a woman named Thalia Larson at a party. They got married in the early 1980s and had five children together. Robert worked six days a week to provide for his family. He and his wife argued often because of this. Robert's son Jesse Haney said that Robert worked to drown out his feelings. Okay, that's, that's interesting.

• 10:06Speaker 01

  It is, but I think a lot of people, when I say a lot of people, I think there's people that do that.

• 10:12Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 10:12Speaker 01

  That.

• 10:13Speaker 00

  I agree.

• 10:13Speaker 01

  Choose to work than go home and deal with the situation they need to deal with.

• 10:19Speaker 00

  Oh, especially if they, they think their situation at home's not good.

• 10:22Speaker 01

  Right.

• 10:23Speaker 00

  Right, you can have people who drink. You can also have people who just work a ton.

• 10:29Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 10:30Speaker 00

  Because they don't want to go home.

• 10:31Speaker 01

  Yeah, I better run this TPS report again because I think there's some, uh, it could look better. Honey, I'll be late. I have to run the TPS report again for Bob.

• 10:41Speaker 00

  Robert got divorced in 2003. He and his kids moved to Medford, Oregon for a change of pace. Jesse, who was 10 at the time, recalled that it was a fresh start for Robert. In 2012, after the last of his children moved out, Robert decided to downsize. He bought a dog and a camper.

• 11:01Speaker 01

  That's really downsizing.

• 11:02Speaker 00

  It, it is, but, you know, I think there's an old saying, all you need is a good dog.

• 11:08Speaker 01

  Well, a dog is a big plus.

• 11:11Speaker 00

  And a camper.

• 11:13Speaker 01

  Gotta have.

• 11:13Speaker 00

  I don't know if that is the saying, dog is, but.

• 11:16Speaker 01

  I don't know if it is.

• 11:18Speaker 00

  Then he found the ad on Craigslist for a handyman job where he could live on a remote ranch. So when you break it down, you know, this Craigslist ad, all right, it might not be for everyone, but it sounds like it was hitting Robert at like the most perfect time. You know, he sold his house, he bought a camper. Now he's found a job where he could probably take his camper out there and just live.

• 11:46Speaker 01

  It's like the perfect for a nomad life.

• 11:48Speaker 00

  Yeah. According to Robert's son, Jesse, my dad and Susan Monica had a deal. My dad would get part cash and be able to stay on the property. My dad agreed to build a house from the bottom up.

• 12:01Speaker 01

  Good deal for both people, both parties.

• 12:04Speaker 00

  Well, depending on how much cash he's getting.

• 12:07Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:07Speaker 00

  I'm hoping it's a good deal of cash, but who knows? So Robert moved on to the property in 2013. When he spoke to his family in the summer, he seemed happy. He enjoyed the peaceful, quiet environment out on the ranch. I don't know why he wouldn't. It sounds like, at least for him, not for everybody, but for him, kind of a dream scenario. He'd already bought this camper, Gibbs, what was he gonna do with the camper?

• 12:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 12:34Speaker 00

  Travel around? Maybe? Pay to live on it somewhere? Well, now he has a place that he doesn't have to pay for. And on top of that, he's getting paid to, you know, build this woman's house.

• 12:48Speaker 01

  It's a one win for him, I think.

• 12:50Speaker 00

  Yeah, he's got his dog. What else do you need? He obviously didn't have a good marriage. Right? We didn't dive into it too much, but you know, if you're working to stay away from the house, well, your, your marriage is not good.

• 13:04Speaker 01

  No.

• 13:05Speaker 00

  Now, whose fault that was, we don't know. But even his son said he was a lot happier afterward.

• 13:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 13:14Speaker 00

  But by December of 2013, Robert's family was growing concerned because they hadn't heard from him for a few months. On January 1st, 2014, Robert's children met in Medford to talk about their dad, and they decided to drive out to the ranch to check on him. That makes sense, right?

• 13:34Speaker 01

  It did.

• 13:35Speaker 00

  I'm assuming he's having somewhat regular conversations with at least some of his children, if not all of them. And now, all of a sudden, there's no communication. So they're worried. Well, we better go check on dad.

• 13:51Speaker 01

  Yeah, something's up.

• 13:52Speaker 00

  They talked to Susan, who said she hadn't seen Robert since September, when he quit and left the property. She asked them to collect his belongings. When the kids got to Robert's trailer, they knew something was off. Robert left behind his favorite leather jacket. His dog was just roaming the property, and his tools were left behind. Robert always took care of his tools because he needed them for work. It wasn't like him to leave them just laying around, right, as the kids found him. Jesse recalled that the scene at the trailer made the hairs on the back of his neck stand up.

• 14:30Speaker 01

  And I get it. You know, those are your dad's tools of his trade. He's just not going to let them rot on the ground like that. He's going to keep them clean, keep them collected in an area that he can grab them when he's ready to go to work the next day.

• 14:42Speaker 00

  Well, the whole scene, to me, seems just extremely odd. First of all, you're going to quit and leave, but you're not taking your trailer, you're not taking your dog, and you're not taking any of your stuff, including your tools, which is how you make your living. I mean, what part of that sounds believable?

• 15:04Speaker 01

  None of it.

• 15:05Speaker 00

  None of it.

• 15:05Speaker 01

  Unless you hit the Lotto, and I still don't think you'd leave your dog behind.

• 15:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, you'd at least take your dog, right? Unless you didn't like your dog, but there was no indication of that. The kids were also surprised to hear Robert would want to leave because they thought he was happy on the ranch. And this is the, you know, the thing about when you have someone who goes missing that does have regular communication with their family. Well, you find out a lot about their state of mind, what they were going through in that period of time before they vanish. You know, we've covered many cases where victims don't talk to their family or really talk to anybody.

• 15:50Speaker 00

  And so when they do go missing, oftentimes it's quite a while before anyone notices because they don't talk to the person.

• 15:59Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 16:00Speaker 00

  And they just don't know much about what their life was like. But that's not the same here with Robert.

• 16:05Speaker 01

  No.

• 16:06Speaker 00

  So you would have to believe that he's telling his kids how great it is there and then all of a sudden decides that he wants to up and leave and leave everything behind.

• 16:17Speaker 01

  Which makes no sense.

• 16:19Speaker 00

  No, and, and you can see why the kids don't believe it does either. They filed a missing persons report that same day. From the beginning, it was a challenging investigation, especially because Robert had been unaccounted for, for a few months. And that's what happens when, you know, someone is not reported missing early on. Now, there's a good reason for it here. I don't think anybody knew he was missing, but it does make the investigation tougher.

• 16:48Speaker 01

  Always does.

• 17:21Speaker 00

  It was difficult to track Robert's movements because he only used cash and the kids didn't even know if he had a bank account. However, they knew Robert had an EBT card. And I get it right. Some people use cash. I think it's less and less nowadays than it was. You know, you think about like the eighties, a lot of people used cash in the eighties.

• 17:45Speaker 01

  Oh, big time.

• 17:46Speaker 00

  You always needed cash on you. Now, I can go months without ever hitting ATM.

• 17:52Speaker 01

  A lot of places prefer that you don't use cash.

• 17:54Speaker 00

  Yeah. Now they're getting rid of like the penny. So.

• 17:57Speaker 01

  They are. I'm surprised they didn't get rid of the nickel at the same time.

• 18:02Speaker 00

  No, that's probably next. But then you have this EBT card. And if that's not being used, to me, that would throw up some red flags, right? Because that means you're getting government assistance, whether it's SNAP or whatever it is. Who doesn't want to use that money? It's like free money.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  Yeah, technically, yeah.

• 18:27Speaker 00

  Buy food with it and, and stuff. The kids also noted that ever since they moved out, Robert had been living a nomadic lifestyle. They would sometimes go a month or two without talking to him. I think that's another problem for investigators. You know, when you talk about someone who's got a very specific pattern, they do the same thing every day. And then all of a sudden they go missing. Well, that's a big deal. But if someone lives a very nomadic lifestyle and all of a sudden, nobody can find them, is it as big a deal? Because they pretty much do it quite a bit.

• 19:05Speaker 01

  Maybe this time they decided to take off for a few months to go out west or up north or down south or whatever.

• 19:13Speaker 00

  Any other directions you want to talk about?

• 19:15Speaker 01

  Over there east.

• 19:16Speaker 00

  Over there east.

• 19:19Speaker 00

  Well, he was in Oregon. I don't know how much farther north he can go.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Well, you can go more north.

• 19:25Speaker 00

  Go to Canada.

• 19:26Speaker 01

  You can go more north than you can west.

• 19:27Speaker 00

  Yeah, well, that's true. When asked about Robert's behavior around the time of his disappearance, his kids noted Robert was deeply affected by a recent traumatic event in their family. According to Jesse, someone in the family was assaulted. According to Sean Lamontis, a former employee of Susan's, Robert was distraught and angry and wanted to seek revenge. The stress of the situation led him to drink more. Lamontis recalled that Robert would sometimes shout to himself, why God, why? According to Susan's former neighbor Karen Denman, Robert was likable when he wasn't drunk. But when he was drunk, he was hard to deal with.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Oh, man, we've had that conversation before and some of these people, they're just nasty drunks.

• 20:15Speaker 00

  Yep, both about the podcast and just about our own personal lives.

• 20:21Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 20:22Speaker 00

  And people we know. Detectives drove out to Susan's ranch to ask her questions. Right away, they noticed how the property was cluttered with vehicles, debris, and makeshift structures. Susan was cordial and seemed like she wanted to help with the investigation. That seems like every rural property here in Ohio. I mean, if you don't have three or four cars that don't run, then you ain't got a rural property.

• 20:50Speaker 01

  Now you're making rural Ohio look bad, man.

• 20:54Speaker 01

  But there is some that do have the multiple vehicles, got the, the couch on the porch.

• 21:01Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 21:02Speaker 01

  Not even on the porch. They like dragged it near the porch and.

• 21:05Speaker 00

  Maybe it's out in the front yard.

• 21:06Speaker 01

  Front yard somehow, you know?

• 21:08Speaker 00

  I just always think if you have more cars that don't run than do run. That seems like a, like an issue. Now, maybe you fix him up or something. That would be different.

• 21:19Speaker 01

  If you're parting it out over a long period of time.

• 21:22Speaker 00

  Maybe. Susan told Detective Eric Henderson that Robert had lived and worked on the farm for about six months, but things took a turn in the fall. Robert got a call from a family member who was assaulted and he was upset. He began drinking heavily and behaving erratically. She decided to confront Robert about his drinking on September 9th, 2013, but Robert approached her first. He handed her some money and asked her to take care of his dog because he was going away for a while. She assumed he would return eventually. He got into a white sedan driven by another man.

• 22:00Speaker 01

  Well, now we know what she says happened.

• 22:03Speaker 00

  And I think if you're investigators, right? You go out to talk to Susan. It said that she was cordial. She gives this story. I mean, do you believe it? Do you not believe it? What do you have that would contradict her story at this point in time? And I don't know that you would really have a lot. Now, it does seem weird that he just gets into, you know, a white car driven by some guy and he never comes back.

• 22:32Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 22:33Speaker 00

  Detectives returned to the station and attempted to track down Robert, but they didn't have a make or model for the vehicle. So they couldn't even put out a Bolo. The only lead they had was Robert's EBT card. On January 9th, 2014, investigators contacted the state agency to see when and where the card was last used. The last activity was in December 2013, after Susan claimed Robert disappeared. The card was used at a Walmart in Grants Pass, Oregon, about 20 to 30 minutes from the ranch.

• 23:08Speaker 01

  Well, you used to be a Walmarter.

• 23:10Speaker 00

  I did. I worked at Walmart for a number of years, worked my way up from pushing carts to being assistant manager.

• 23:18Speaker 01

  To the assistant manager?

• 23:19Speaker 00

  Assistant to the assistant manager.

• 23:22Speaker 01

  I'm sure they had cameras, though.

• 23:23Speaker 00

  They did have cameras and this Walmart had cameras. I mean, obviously it was, you know, what, 2013-ish timeframe? And authorities went out, they asked for the security footage and the store still had it. And what it showed when they reviewed it was Susan using Robert's card.

• 23:46Speaker 01

  Well, how interesting is that?

• 23:48Speaker 00

  Well, I just got done saying, right? How do you not believe her story? You don't really have any information to dispute it. Well, now you do.

• 23:59Speaker 01

  Sure you do.

• 24:00Speaker 00

  On January 10th, 2014, officers arrived at the ranch to arrest Susan for identity theft and to execute a search warrant on her property. This time, Susan seemed nervous to talk to Detective Eric Henderson. She claimed she had permission from Robert to use the card because she needed to feed the dog. She stopped using the card because it was expired and had no money left on it. Now, I know that these cards, I think, differ from state to state. I know in some states you cannot use these types of government assistance to get pet food. Maybe some you can.

• 24:43Speaker 01

  They're definitely limited to certain things.

• 24:45Speaker 00

  Yeah, but maybe in Oregon, that's not the same way. While she talked to Henderson, other officers began searching the property. The search team was taken aback by the filthy conditions of the ranch, which included piles of garbage, rotting food and industrial waste.

• 25:04Speaker 01

  Who lives like that?

• 25:06Speaker 00

  Apparently this woman. Susan Monica, but isn't it interesting? The first time they talked to her, she's cordial. She's calm. She's collected. Now they come out with some proof that she was doing something she shouldn't have been doing. Now she says she had permission, but she's very nervous this time around. Well, why is she nervous? Because she's worried that she's about ready to be caught.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 25:34Speaker 00

  The first time she wasn't nervous because they didn't have anything on her. As they continued searching, officers took videos of the property. One officer came to a catchment pond type of area and saw what he thought was a leg. Okay, that's going to change the tenor of the search real quick.

• 25:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, you see a leg bobbing up and down right there. You're like, uh, I better call the guys over here.

• 26:01Speaker 00

  Yeah, let's get everybody over here. And the officer turned out to be right. It was a human leg that was severed mid femur. And that just seems like extremely painful. Now, I know most of these types of things happen postmortem. But my family and I were watching the, the last Saw movie the other night. Cause my daughters and I, we like scary movies.

• 26:27Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 26:28Speaker 00

  My wife hates the Saw movies, hates them because they're so graphic. But in this one, you know, as always, he's making them do things to themselves essentially. And my thought in all those movies is no way you get through hardly any of that before you pass out.

• 26:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:46Speaker 00

  Cause there was one part where a lady saw her own leg off.

• 26:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:50Speaker 00

  There is no way you're sawing your leg off without passing out.

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Cause all, it's all under a, a time, right? You have to get done by a certain time.

• 26:58Speaker 00

  Sure.

• 26:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 26:59Speaker 00

  Another detective approached Detective Henderson and whispered in his ear that a leg had been found. Henderson didn't want Susan to know what they had found yet. So he asked her to come to the station for an interview.

• 27:14Speaker 00

  I don't even know how he stayed so kind of calm and collected at that point. But obviously he did, and it was a good thing, right? You don't want to let on to her that she just found a leg in her pond.

• 27:28Speaker 01

  No.

• 27:28Speaker 00

  You don't want to give her any time to come up with a story.

• 27:32Speaker 01

  Want to hit her with a surprise.

• 27:34Speaker 00

  Yeah, absolutely. At the station, Susan was asked if anyone had ever died on her property. She said, no. And then she was confronted with the finding of the leg. And this is always fascinating to me. It's why I love to watch interrogation videos. You know, when you see the police kind of setting people up. And I don't mean setting them up as in planting evidence or anything like that. Setting them up in these conversations where they already know some very damning facts. But they're not throwing those facts out there. What they're doing is asking questions which cause people to paint themselves into a corner.

• 28:16Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 28:16Speaker 00

  And then they confront them with the facts. And it's like, oh, you just said, you know, this, and now we have evidence to contradict that. That's when they usually pivot. They change their story, they come up with something else. But to me, that stuff is always fascinating.

• 28:33Speaker 01

  The check, checkmate comes into play.

• 28:35Speaker 00

  Yeah. Susan then told a disturbing story to detectives. She claimed that about a month after Robert went missing, she found her pigs in a feeding frenzy. She looked at what they were eating and realized it was Robert. Susan said in her interview, I saw that, uh, you know, he was laying there with his guts all over the place. But he was being eaten what I believed to be alive. I thought that I saw his arm move and I did hear a little moaning. When I was unable to get the pigs to move, I went up to my house. I got my gun and shot him. I put him out of his misery. I do that, you know, I do that for my animals.

• 29:18Speaker 00

  And this was the first time I did it for a human being. You know, I knew it was wrong, but if it had been one of my pigs suffering out there, I would have done the same thing. Whew, okay. We got a real Silence of the Lambs, uh, pigs eating humans, uh, situation going on here.

• 29:36Speaker 01

  Yeah, feeling that vibe. Also feels like a little bit of, uh, was it, uh, Robert Pickman?

• 29:42Speaker 00

  Pickton.

• 29:43Speaker 01

  Pickton, yeah.

• 29:44Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, that was a gruesome one, man.

• 29:46Speaker 01

  Oh, man. I'm glad I was never invited to any of those barbecues.

• 29:51Speaker 00

  Oh yeah, that's right. I forgot. People hate some of, uh, some of that, but you know, here's the thing that, and you do see it sometimes where someone says, I put someone out of their misery. And they always equate it to an animal.

• 30:08Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:09Speaker 00

  Right? If you hit a deer and the deer was dying, if someone had a gun, let's say they were a hunter or something like that, would they put the deer out of its misery? Yeah, they probably would. You think of it with animals, or at least a lot of people do, as being kind of a humane thing to do. But you don't really think about that with humans. Now I understand from the scenario she's painting, this guy's not going to make it.

• 30:37Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 30:37Speaker 00

  His guts are out. He's being eaten alive. And she says, well, I just decided to put him out of his misery. That's what I would do with one of my pigs. But I don't think law enforcement really looks at it that way.

• 30:51Speaker 01

  Well, especially if you're gonna put him out of his misery and then.

• 30:56Speaker 00

  Cut him up and throw him away? Yeah.

• 30:58Speaker 01

  And not call the police and say, hey, terrible thing happened. This is what I did because it was not good. But, you know, now I need you to come get the body and, you know, or give you a statement, blah, blah, blah.

• 31:12Speaker 00

  And wasn't, isn't that the thing, right? If you actually did it that way, even if it wasn't right, but you thought it was right at the time.

• 31:20Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 31:21Speaker 00

  Wouldn't you call the authorities and just be honest and explain what happened? What would be the purpose of hiding it at that point? Cause if you thought you were gonna get in trouble, you wouldn't shoot him.

• 31:34Speaker 01

  No.

• 31:34Speaker 00

  You just let him die and then call the police and say, I don't know what happened. He got in the pigpen. They ate him. I don't know. But that's where everything always falls apart. These stories, they just don't line up.

• 31:48Speaker 01

  I just don't think it passes the mustard.

• 31:50Speaker 00

  Is that the saying? Passes mustard with a D?

• 31:55Speaker 01

  Um.

• 31:56Speaker 00

  Cause how does that, how do you pass mustard? Like, I mean, you can pass it around the table.

• 32:01Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 32:01Speaker 00

  I always thought it was muster. Now I could be wrong.

• 32:04Speaker 01

  Well, maybe it is. Muster, but what is muster?

• 32:08Speaker 00

  Muster, that's like, uh, you muster off of a ship or into a spot on a ship. I don't know. There's a muster station when I go on a cruise.

• 32:19Speaker 01

  So doesn't pass the muster.

• 32:21Speaker 00

  I don't know what that means.

• 32:22Speaker 01

  Can't get past the station.

• 32:23Speaker 00

  It could be muster or mustard, but I'm leaning away towards mustard for obvious reasons. Number one, you said it. Number two, it just doesn't seem to make sense.

• 32:34Speaker 01

  Uh, I know somebody will let us know.

• 32:36Speaker 00

  Yeah, they will.

• 32:39Speaker 00

  She said she left the body in the pig pen until the pigs were done eating. After a couple of days, Susan picked up the rest of the remains and put them in trash bags. However, an animal, possibly a coyote, smelled the remains and tore open the trash bags and pulled the leg out to the pond area. Well, she got an answer for everything.

• 33:01Speaker 01

  He really does.

• 33:02Speaker 00

  Susan said she didn't call the police because she was afraid her pigs would be shot by authorities.

• 33:08Speaker 01

  Cause they hate human?

• 33:10Speaker 00

  Yeah, maybe. We don't care about this guy, Robert, and the fact that he's dead. And now a coyote is eating his remains and taking his bones all over the place. She's really worried about her pigs though.

• 33:25Speaker 01

  Well, if it's now she won't be able to put them on the market.

• 33:28Speaker 00

  Or feed them any other people she might decide to, uh, shoot.

• 33:32Speaker 01

  Well, that's true too.

• 33:34Speaker 00

  Susan was told that investigators were going to search every inch of her property. And they asked her what else they might find. Susan asked for a piece of paper. She drew an outline of the barn and pig pens. She then drew an X and said there was something worse in that location.

• 33:51Speaker 01

  Oh my.

• 33:53Speaker 00

  Worse than Robert being eaten and having his guts torn out in a pig pen?

• 33:58Speaker 01

  Yeah, these guys are probably like, these officers are probably like, what is going on out here?

• 34:04Speaker 00

  They're probably on the radio saying, uh, can we get some backup? I don't know how many units we have, but let's get more. She then told them that this was where they would find Steve. And Steve was Steven De La Sino, a handyman who worked on the property in 2012. Like Robert, Steven moved off. His children had no way to get in contact with him and hadn't heard from him in years. But they didn't think he was dead. Susan claimed that in the summer of 2012, two of her guns went missing. She found them among Steve's belongings and confronted him. They got into a physical altercation. During the struggle, Steve grabbed the rifle and grabbed her legs.

• 34:49Speaker 00

  The gun went off and Steve was shot in the back of the head. But the shot didn't kill him. Instead, he got up and chased Susan to the barn where she picked up a rifle. At one point, he was down on his knees and she was above him. She shot him in the head again and he died in the barn. All right, let's dissect this story a little bit.

• 35:12Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 35:13Speaker 00

  I understand that in a struggle with a gun, a gun could go off, right? And someone could be shot. It did seem a little strange to me that he grabs this rifle. They're kind of in a struggle and he shot in the back of the head.

• 35:31Speaker 01

  Seems bizarre.

• 35:33Speaker 00

  It seems like a weird place. I'm not saying it couldn't happen. It doesn't seem like the most likely place that a person in a struggle over a gun would get shot. And then he chases her to the barn. She's up, let's say in the, in the loft or wherever. He's on his knees and she just what? Zeros down on him and shoots him right in the, in the head?

• 35:56Speaker 01

  That's what it sounds like.

• 35:58Speaker 00

  Okay. These stories are always fascinating and, and you know, I always say it. There are things that could be true, but are they more likely to be true or false? Or a made up story? This one doesn't have a, a great likelihood to me that it rings true. I'll say that. Susan went on to say that she was distraught and she went into another room to think. A while later, she went back outside and found that the pigs had gotten to Steve and were beginning to eat his body. What kind of pigs are you raising here, lady?

• 36:35Speaker 01

  Yeah, magically, they found Steve's body and started eating it while she was, you know, having a moment to think.

• 36:41Speaker 00

  To think. She's reflecting.

• 36:43Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 36:43Speaker 00

  Right after she shot and killed this man, the pigs dragged the body back into the pigsty area. She said she left the body out there for a number of days. And when she returned, all that was left were the skull, spine, and some other bones. And then two weeks later, she buried what was left behind the barn. I mean, it's getting to be like this is a Tuesday for her.

• 37:09Speaker 01

  It really is. I mean, I'm thinking, what, this happened, she went back out after thinking and said, oh, the pigs got him. Well, I'll just let it be for a little bit, you know, wait a day, two days, whatever, and I'll come back out. I mean, no sense of urgency to like, let me try to at least keep the body intact.

• 37:30Speaker 00

  Well, no, because that would be just less she has to bury, right? I just cannot even imagine being a police officer, listening to these stories. I feel like my bullshit meter is just, it's off the charts.

• 37:45Speaker 01

  It is.

• 37:46Speaker 00

  It's just going off like crazy.

• 37:47Speaker 01

  One thing I will tell you is I have no desire to lay down with the pigs.

• 37:51Speaker 00

  I, no, no.

• 37:54Speaker 01

  Someone ever says, hey, Ferg, we need you to, let's play hide and seek. Go lay with the pigs and play dead.

• 38:01Speaker 00

  Are a lot of pigs man eaters? I, I was not aware of this.

• 38:05Speaker 01

  I was not, I don't know.

• 38:06Speaker 00

  I knew, I know they, they do it in movies, right?

• 38:09Speaker 01

  But they always say pigs will eat anything.

• 38:11Speaker 00

  That's true.

• 38:12Speaker 01

  So I'm guessing this is that, anything.

• 38:16Speaker 00

  I'm sure we have folks who have pigs and they're gonna call or write in and let us know. Now, Susan said she didn't call the police in this instance because again, she was worried authorities would put her pigs down.

• 38:29Speaker 01

  Well, yeah, because they ate a human. So most likely they would put them down.

• 38:33Speaker 00

  During your interview, Susan said she vowed animal life more than human life. And I think that's very apparent, right?

• 38:41Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 38:41Speaker 00

  Even through these stories that she's, she's giving police. Whether they're accurate or not, even the way she's telling them. She values animal life more than human life. Detective Eric Henderson asked Susan if there were any other bodies on her property. He recalled her chilling response in his interview with the show Snapped. She told me that if she told me about the 17 others, that she would spend the rest of her life in jail.

• 39:08Speaker 01

  Seventeen others.

• 39:09Speaker 00

  Seventeen others.

• 39:10Speaker 01

  Wow, you found the two, there's 17 more.

• 39:14Speaker 00

  And why is that? Because she doesn't have the same type of stories for the 17 others? She thinks the stories that she has for these two are going to be okay and she's going to get off?

• 39:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:28Speaker 00

  I, I don't know. If, if you're in a rural location, and I get it, you have a lot of other police or deputies around you, but I would think a kind of chill would go down your spine. When a woman says, yeah, you, you know about these two, but if I tell you about the 17 others, I'm really in trouble.

• 39:50Speaker 01

  I mean, that's, that's 19 people on a 20 acre farm.

• 39:54Speaker 00

  That's almost a body an acre.

• 39:55Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 39:58Speaker 01

  And you didn't qualify for Mensa.

• 40:00Speaker 00

  I know, I can't believe it.

• 40:01Speaker 01

  I know it.

• 40:02Speaker 00

  I can't believe that you could figure out that two plus the 17 more was 19.

• 40:07Speaker 01

  That was, uh, did you see me, you know, having a hard time?

• 40:09Speaker 00

  I saw smoke.

• 40:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 40:11Speaker 00

  I saw a little bit of smoke. On January 14th, 2014, Susan was charged with two counts each of murder and first degree abuse of a corpse. And one count of identity theft. I get it, you got to charge her with that. It seems like, uh, almost anticlimactic at this point, right? That she used his EBT card. After the arrest was announced, a former tenant of Susan's came forward to say that she killed three of his animals. Forty-nine-year-old Patifon Pana rented a room at the ranch for three years. Susan shot two of his dogs and one cat and fed them to the pigs. Gibbs, I'm starting to believe that this woman didn't want to spend money to feed these pigs.

• 40:56Speaker 01

  Didn't have to. She was feeding them everything but pig feed.

• 41:01Speaker 00

  For the next three weeks, dozens of crime scene investigators searched the property. Crews dug 136 holes. One of those holes was said to have been the size of an Olympic swimming pool.

• 41:15Speaker 01

  Wow.

• 41:16Speaker 00

  Investigators had to wear respirators because they encountered raw sewage and had to enter buildings that were deemed unfit for humans. Several deputies got sick during the search. Investigators found the remains of both Robert Haney and Stephen Delacino. They also found a section of the barn that contained a large pile of shoes and personal belongings. Okay. What does that mean? Is that all Robert and Stephen's stuff? Or is this where she put the belongings of a bunch of other people she killed?

• 41:53Speaker 01

  Why hold on to that? Why not burn it and bury it so it's not there to?

• 41:59Speaker 00

  Incriminate you later on down the road? 400 bones were found on the property, but they were determined to be animal bones, not human.

• 42:08Speaker 01

  Still a lot of bones.

• 42:09Speaker 00

  It is a lot of bones. The search ended on January 31st with no additional bones found. And that's kind of interesting because, you know, she alluded to the 17 other people. Well, it doesn't mean that she buried the 17 other people anywhere on her property.

• 42:26Speaker 01

  Right.

• 42:27Speaker 00

  She could have disposed of them in other places. She may have lived somewhere else, possibly, when she killed 17 other people. Although she was kind of talking about her place when she mentioned the 17 other people. So it's a little strange that they didn't find any additional bones. The examination of the remains of Robert Haney and Stephen Delacino confirmed- They died from gunshot wounds to the head. There were also marks on the bones that indicated consumption by animals. This partially supported Susan's story, but authorities questioned if she was telling the full truth about her altercation with Steven or finding Robert Haney already fatally wounded in the pig pen.

• 43:11Speaker 00

  And how could you not question it? The fact is, both of these men were handymen, right? On her property. Both of them had little or sporadic contact with their families.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:28Speaker 00

  I guess my question is, what would be the odds? That two different handymen, one falls into the pig pen and is eaten by your pigs and you have to shoot this person. The other, you say stole your guns and then tried to attack you when confronted about it. He's accidentally shot in the back of the head.

• 43:50Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 43:51Speaker 00

  During this struggle. And then you shoot him from a perched position while he's on his knees. Okay. I mean, if you're taking bets, I would think the odds on those two things both happening are pretty astronomical. Susan pleaded not guilty to the charges and asked for donations so her pigs could be slaughtered and the meat given to the Rogue River Community Center.

• 44:17Speaker 01

  Why?

• 44:20Speaker 00

  First of all, who's asking for donations after they've been charged with two murders? Second of all, who's eating up at this community center? Once all of this comes out in the media that these pigs ate apparently two men and possibly some dogs and other pets.

• 44:41Speaker 01

  Do you, do you really want that bacon that bad?

• 44:43Speaker 00

  I do not. And you know how much I love bacon.

• 44:46Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 44:47Speaker 00

  Director Sue Smith said Susan was a regular visitor at the community center where she picked up food for her pigs. Her visits were less frequent over the past year. Smith also said the center could not accept meat donations unless they were processed and certified under USDA guidelines. Now, I don't know a lot about the USDA. I have a strong suspicion. That the USDA is not big on animals eating other people.

• 45:21Speaker 01

  I don't think they would be.

• 45:23Speaker 00

  And then, you know, being processed for human consumption. Is it also interesting, Gibbs, that she was a regular visitor? But then in the last year, she didn't come by as much to get food for the pigs.

• 45:38Speaker 01

  Yeah, it isn't interesting. Is that because she was occupied with everything that she did out at the ranch?

• 45:44Speaker 00

  Or I was thinking she didn't need the, the food because her pigs were getting plenty to eat over that last year.

• 45:52Speaker 01

  The different bodies that she, uh, kinda claimed to be.

• 45:55Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 45:56Speaker 01

  She claimed to have out there.

• 45:57Speaker 00

  Yeah. It's sickening to think about, but I mean, you kinda have to talk about some of these things. Ultimately, authorities euthanized Susan's pigs. And that's sad, but I don't know how they couldn't. Right? Nobody's going to take these pigs. Nobody's going to eat these pigs.

• 46:15Speaker 01

  Who's gonna care for them?

• 46:16Speaker 00

  Who's gonna care for them? I don't know what could be done with them. On May 26th, 2014, Stephen Frank Delasino was identified as the second victim found on the ranch. Up to that point, he had been unidentified in court documents.

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• 47:34Speaker 00

  As she prepared for trial, Susan attempted to fire her defense attorney, but the judge denied her request. She argued that one of her attorneys seemed more interested in her mental health than the case itself. I have a strong suspicion that maybe this attorney had a reason to be. Maybe this attorney thought, you know, she's not operating on all cylinders.

• 48:01Speaker 01

  Cause it seemed like she is.

• 48:03Speaker 00

  At a hearing, she claimed that Robert left her property alive and that she wanted her attorneys to look at his cell phone records to track his whereabouts before his death. The judge told Susan, he would not let her represent herself on two murder and abuse of corpse charges and reminded her she was innocent until proven guilty. She replied, as quoted by the Bend Bulletin, "I realize I'm guilty of a couple of things, but I'm not guilty of murder." Always fascinating when people want to represent themselves in a murder trial.

• 48:39Speaker 01

  And big, huge mistake.

• 48:43Speaker 00

  Yeah, everybody says it. I mean, your life is hanging in the balance. Now, it would be one thing if you were an attorney, had gone to law school, had passed the bar, you know, any of those things.

• 48:56Speaker 01

  Right.

• 48:57Speaker 00

  But, you know, not, I'm sure that she was smart. She was an engineer, after all, but she wasn't an attorney.

• 49:05Speaker 01

  Well, it's one thing to be smart. The other thing is you have to be versed in the law.

• 49:09Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 49:10Speaker 01

  You know, you have to know what you should say, shouldn't say, what you can do, can't, you know, can do, can't do, and.

• 49:17Speaker 00

  Can't do, can't do?

• 49:18Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 49:18Speaker 00

  Cause yeah, if not, you just run into a real Cousin Vinnie situation.

• 49:22Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 49:23Speaker 00

  I mean, when you got the two Utes, then. That's it. That's all you need.

• 49:28Speaker 01

  I mean, I love when he cross-examine that old lady.

• 49:33Speaker 00

  With the glasses?

• 49:34Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 49:35Speaker 00

  You think it's time to maybe get a thicker pair of glasses? Susan's trial started on April 14th, 2015. The prosecution argued that Susan killed Steven Delacina and Robert Haney during heated arguments and fed their remains to her pigs. The defense argued that there was no concrete evidence to refute Susan's claims that she shot Steve in self-defense or to show that Robert was alive when she shot him. Now, there might not be concrete evidence, but that last part came out of her own mouth. It's true, right? She essentially said that she put him down. Susan broke down when the jury saw her confession video telling the judge, "I can't bear to watch."

• 50:21Speaker 00

  In her interview, she seemed to blame her sense of humor for the murder, saying, "I see my stupid sense of humor become a reality." She also said that the thought she had in her head for 10 years became a reality. All right, I don't even know what to make of that. My stupid sense of humor became a reality.

• 50:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, bizarre statement.

• 50:46Speaker 00

  It is. You killed two people because you were too funny? You had this, you know, strange sense of humor? None of that makes sense. And then you've got, you know, thoughts that were in her head for 10 years? Does that mean she had thought about killing people for 10 years? Or had she been killing people for 10 years? I don't know.

• 51:06Speaker 01

  I mean, there's 19 people out there.

• 51:09Speaker 00

  The jury also heard Susan say in the video, "I do not value human life very much. My feeling is the only thing wrong with the planet is there's people on it. If not for us, all the other animals, even dodo birds, would be here." Okay, dodo birds is a strange one, but...

• 51:27Speaker 01

  But I get what they're saying.

• 51:29Speaker 00

  Did we wipe out the dodo birds? Or did a big comet wipe out the dodo birds? I don't realize, I don't know.

• 51:37Speaker 01

  I think we wiped out the dodo birds.

• 51:39Speaker 00

  Okay, is the dodo birds a newer species than like dinosaurs and stuff? I don't know when dodo birds were around. I really don't.

• 51:47Speaker 01

  Most dinosaurs are birds, even like trinosaurs, rex.

• 51:52Speaker 01

  Has feathers.

• 51:54Speaker 00

  Okay, none of this has anything to do with my question.

• 51:59Speaker 00

  I actually don't know what a dodo bird is. I'm just throwing that out there.

• 52:04Speaker 01

  You remember Step Brothers? When they were walking around like they were dinosaurs?

• 52:09Speaker 00

  I love Step Brothers.

• 52:10Speaker 01

  I was just picturing you walking around like a tri, whatever, Tanosaurus Rex.

• 52:16Speaker 00

  Tana? Tanosaurus Rex?

• 52:20Speaker 01

  It's the pills, I'm telling you.

• 52:22Speaker 00

  Oh, my goodness.

• 52:23Speaker 01

  It's the medication.

• 52:25Speaker 00

  State Police forensic anthropologist Veronica Vance testified that Robert's legs were chopped off with an axe. And the thigh bone showed signs of being gnawed by an animal. She couldn't determine if the axe blows came before or after he died. Steven Delcino suffered three to four gunshot wounds to the head.

• 52:47Speaker 01

  Well, this is, it tells you, right? The leg was cut up by her, not the animals, and the animal, the one animal dragged it over to the pond. She did that. She cut the leg with the axe.

• 53:02Speaker 00

  Yeah.

• 53:02Speaker 01

  And then she probably tossed it into the pond.

• 53:04Speaker 00

  Oh, yeah. I don't think there's any doubt about that. Also, now we've got three to four gunshot wounds to this man's head. When before it sounded like in her story, there was one accidental shot to the back of the head, which I still think is strange. And then she shoots him in the back of the head. Once, I thought is what she said, from kind of a high position.

• 53:27Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:28Speaker 00

  And now it's three to four. Susan pushed the judge to allow her to cross-examine witnesses, arguing it was her Sixth Amendment right to be an active participant in the trial. The judge repeatedly had to stop her for asking inappropriate questions or not following the rules of the court. On day three, she questioned Detective Eric Henderson, who she jokingly threatened to kill and feed to her pigs. Maybe this is what she's talking about with her stupid sense of humor.

• 53:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 53:58Speaker 00

  As she called it. When you're on trial for killing two men and feeding them to your pigs, maybe you shouldn't joke to the detective on the stand that you're going to kill him.

• 54:12Speaker 01

  And feed him to the pigs.

• 54:13Speaker 00

  And feed him to the pigs.

• 54:14Speaker 01

  Yeah, probably a big, don't do that, ever.

• 54:18Speaker 00

  The prosecution called on Susan's former cellmate, Jordan Ferris, as an 11th hour witness. According to Oregon Live, Ferris testified that Susan told her what really happened to Robert Haney. According to Ferris, Susan said she and Robert got into an argument because he was drunk and trying to come on to her. She shot him and pushed him into the pig pit. Ferris also testified that a few days after Susan confessed, she gave her a birthday card signed, "The sweetest murderer in Jackson County."

• 54:50Speaker 01

  Oh.

• 54:51Speaker 00

  I'm starting to wonder how smart this lady really was. Or if she wasn't suffering from some type of mental health issues, because she's doing a lot of things, Gibbs, that do not seem to make sense.

• 55:04Speaker 01

  They're out there.

• 55:05Speaker 00

  The defense argued that the birthday card was just a joke, noting that Susan had a strange sense of humor and made inappropriate comments at times.

• 55:15Speaker 01

  I'm kind of getting a feeling for that.

• 55:16Speaker 00

  Yeah. Inappropriate might be, uh, not strong enough of a word. Michael Bales, who lived with Susan for about three years, testified, "She'd always been nice, and then I noticed a change in her. She started acting differently when Robert disappeared and became real irritated." All right. What's this guy thinking after he finds all this stuff out? That maybe he dodged a big, big time bullet?

• 55:43Speaker 01

  Huge.

• 55:44Speaker 00

  Sean Lemannis, a former worker of Susan's, testified that she and Robert didn't get along. He said, "When she got angry, she would yell at him. Not really a yell, more of a scold." Longtime neighbor Karen Denman admitted she had a strained relationship with Susan. She didn't know who was arguing, but she often heard yelling coming from the property. In closing arguments, the prosecution noted that Susan's statements didn't match the forensic evidence. She claimed that Steven shot himself in the head, and then that she shot him in self-defense. She said Robert disappeared in the summer of 2013, and she found him being eaten by her pigs a month later.

• 56:29Speaker 00

  She later questioned if he was alive when she shot him. Again, just stuff that just doesn't make sense, right?

• 56:35Speaker 01

  It really doesn't.

• 56:37Speaker 00

  As the judge addressed the jury before deliberations, Susan stood up, raised her hand and asked to give jurors another demonstration on how she shot Stephen DeLacino. She said, I'd like to demonstrate how I shot him for 10 seconds. The judge ignored her. Then she put her hands in the air and said, I held the gun like this.

• 57:04Speaker 00

  I mean, they're like literally right before deliberations. You know where the judge is giving all the instructions?

• 57:10Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 57:10Speaker 00

  And she's standing up saying, hey, can I just show you again? How I shot this guy?

• 57:16Speaker 01

  It's like she rethought her story like, wait a minute. Now, if I, if I say I held it like this, it might be better because I think they feel like I did it this way. So I gotta make sure I tell them.

• 57:27Speaker 00

  But it's funny to think of the judge just ignoring her and going on with their instructions to the jury. Susan was ordered back to jail on April 21st, 2015. Susan was found guilty on all counts. She was immediately sentenced to a minimum of 50 years in prison. When handing down the sentence, the judge said, as quoted by KSL, "You shot two people and fed them to your pigs." I don't know how else you, I can put it. "You valued pigs more than you value people. It may sound harsh, but you are a cold-blooded killer." I guess it doesn't even sound that harsh to me. To be honest with you, I think it's just factual.

• 58:08Speaker 01

  I think.

• 58:09Speaker 00

  It's more of a statement of fact, in my opinion.

• 58:12Speaker 01

  I think 50 years is pretty light.

• 58:14Speaker 00

  Well, I, I'm not mad about a minimum of 50 years, right? Could be more than that. I mean, we talk about cases in other countries where people kill more people. And they're walking around the streets in two or three years.

• 58:30Speaker 01

  That's true.

• 58:31Speaker 00

  So I'm good with that. I don't think this is a woman who needs to be out cohabitating with other people.

• 58:40Speaker 01

  No, not at all.

• 58:42Speaker 00

  And those people in prison are probably lucky that she doesn't have pigs.

• 58:48Speaker 01

  You know, you know, if you're good after you're in there for a little bit, you get to maybe help train dogs or you can, you know, get a cat sent to yourself to play with or whatever. I'm sure her request will be, can you get me a pig, please?

• 59:05Speaker 00

  I just need one pig.

• 59:06Speaker 01

  Just one.

• 59:07Speaker 00

  But, you know, probably now, maybe not today, could be today, but I'm sure throughout time, some prisons have had pigs. They probably raised pigs to help feed the prison population.

• 59:20Speaker 01

  It's possible.

• 59:22Speaker 00

  But they sure as hell aren't going to let her around any of these pigs.

• 59:26Speaker 01

  Because she should not be.

• 59:28Speaker 00

  As we wrap this one up, Gibbs, you know, to this day, investigators still aren't sure if Susan killed any other victims on the ranch. Detective Eric Henderson told the producers of Snapped, my take on what she told me about the possibility of 17 other people being there was that it was true. I believe 100% that there are more people out there. And I would have to agree with that. Why would she say that?

• 59:54Speaker 01

  Yeah, it's a bizarre thing to say if it's to make up.

• 59:58Speaker 00

  Well, because she crafted these stories, right? That, you know, one was an accident kind of, and then the guy was chasing her. So then it was self-defense. But then she's going to come out and say, but if I tell you about the 17 other ones, then I'm really going to be in trouble.

• 1:00:15Speaker 01

  Exactly. It's like.

• 1:00:17Speaker 00

  That is either just a wild claim meant to throw people off, but I don't, that doesn't make any sense. So to me, there's got to be some validity to it.

• 1:00:28Speaker 01

  That or you lend it to her really bad joke telling skills.

• 1:00:32Speaker 00

  Or what she called her stupid sense of humor.

• 1:00:35Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:00:35Speaker 00

  But it is also strange that they did so much digging and didn't find a single human bone. So I don't know. But this is a wild case. I mean, I think anytime you have pigs on a repeated basis, eating humans.

• 1:00:53Speaker 00

  That that is just naturally going to make for a strange case.

• 1:00:57Speaker 01

  It is.

• 1:00:58Speaker 00

  And then, you know, like most people, she has to concoct stories to kind of explain, you know, what happened to these people, but her stories just don't make any sense. I mean, Robert Haney goes missing and then he comes back a month later and he just happens to be found being eaten by pigs. That that makes no sense. How in a struggle does Steven Della Sino get shot in the back of the head and then make his way to the barn?

• 1:01:28Speaker 01

  Yeah, doesn't add up.

• 1:01:30Speaker 00

  Where she then is, you know, basically in a sniper position and picks him off. And what do you think? Do you think that these people, when they're telling these stories, really think that they are going to get them out from under the trouble they're in? Cause we're sitting here, we analyze it and everybody listening is probably saying the same thing, none of this makes sense, but in their mind, it must, right? Why would you craft this and tell it if you didn't think it was going to make sense to the people you were talking to? Unless you're just not that bright. And that's a real possibility as well.

• 1:02:07Speaker 01

  That is a possibility.

• 1:02:08Speaker 00

  But don't forget, she was an engineer who worked on submarines.

• 1:02:12Speaker 01

  Yes, but we all know people that did really well in school, right? With their educational degree, whatever degree, or I mean.

• 1:02:21Speaker 00

  But had little common sense, is that where you're going with?

• 1:02:23Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:02:24Speaker 00

  I know, I know a lot of people like that, actually. But I don't know what is true of Susan Monica, other than she killed two people.

• 1:02:35Speaker 01

  Exactly.

• 1:02:35Speaker 00

  And she fed them to her pigs.

• 1:02:38Speaker 01

  Yep.

• 1:02:39Speaker 00

  And there's a good chance she fed a lot of other people, maybe animals, other things to her pigs as well. It's a strange and pretty disgusting story, to be honest with you.

• 1:02:51Speaker 01

  So if you're eating a BLT right now, apologize.

• 1:02:54Speaker 00

  No, I would, I'd love to have one right now and it wouldn't bother me at all.

• 1:03:01Speaker 01

  You're like, extra bacon?

• 1:03:02Speaker 00

  Bacon for me, please. I'm like, Ron Swanson, did you ever watch Parks and Rec?

• 1:03:09Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 1:03:09Speaker 00

  Ron Swanson's my favorite character on there and he, he goes into this place and he says, give me all the eggs and bacon you have. He, he says, I don't mean bags, I mean, all the eggs and bacon you have. All right, buddy. That's it for our episode on Susan Monica. We got a couple of voicemails. You want to check those out?

• 1:03:29Speaker 01

  Yeah, let's hear them.

• 1:03:30Speaker 03

  Good morning. I'm Jessica from Parkville, Indiana. I just wanted to call and say that you are the best podcaster. I love it. I recently just found it. And yes, I listen to you guys all day long. It's amazing. I think I'm on number 117. Anyway, keep your own time ticking.

• 1:03:51Speaker 00

  Well, thank you so much for the wonderful voicemail. She's got a lot to go, Gibbs.

• 1:03:56Speaker 01

  She does, but it's awesome that she thinks of us that way.

• 1:04:00Speaker 00

  Yeah. Why'd you say it like you were almost sad about it?

• 1:04:04Speaker 01

  Because she's got a long way to go.

• 1:04:07Speaker 00

  Well, you think her opinion's gonna change as she goes on? It might. We don't know.

• 1:04:11Speaker 01

  Never know.

• 1:04:13Speaker 04

  Hello, my name is Jamie. I sent an email to you guys way back in 2022 regarding whether or not you guys were covering the case of David Grunwald in Alaska. Just waiting to see when that one's coming up. I hope you guys are doing well. Love the show. Talk to you soon.

• 1:04:31Speaker 01

  That's interesting. I actually have this email right here. It says, Dear Mike and Gibby, Gibby, we, meaning her and her friends, love you.

• 1:04:41Speaker 00

  Hate Mike. Please do David Grunwald.

• 1:04:43Speaker 01

  Yes. How'd you, you actually, it's like you got, you probably got the same email.

• 1:04:47Speaker 00

  Yeah, I probably do. Yeah. Yeah, I don't know. I have to look on the list and bump it up.

• 1:04:53Speaker 01

  I'm sure it's on there. If you told us about it, we'd put it on.

• 1:04:55Speaker 00

  Yeah, we usually put all of them on there. It's just, there's so many things to choose from. Yeah, you know, so, but I'll try to make it a priority.

• 1:05:03Speaker 01

  Yes, he will.

• 1:05:04Speaker 00

  All right, buddy. That is it for another episode of True Crime All the Time. So for Mike.

• 1:05:09Speaker 01

  And Gibby.

• 1:05:09Speaker 00

  Stay safe and keep your own time ticking.