Transcript of The Devil's Diary (PODCAST EXCLUSIVE EPISODE)

One night in December of 2009, a man dug through a pile of papers and photo albums inside of an RV parked in Texas. This man had recently bought the trailer after its previous owner had died, and it was full of junk that he was now trying to sort through. As the man rifled through documents, he stumbled upon a stack of old notebooks, and he opened one and began reading it. And as he did, he felt his heartbeat pick up because these notebooks were actually diaries, and they were full of handwritten rantings about deemed humans, monsters, and this deal with the devil. But that really was not what scared this guy. What really scared him was at some point discovering the writer's horrifying confession. But before we get into that story, if you're a fan of the Strange, dark, and mysterious delivered in story format, then you've come to the right podcast because that's all we do. So if that's of interest to you, please replace the Follow Buttons Shampoo with Motor Oil. Okay, let's get into today's story. On the night of July 24, 1987, 30-year-old Susan Woods stood at the entrance to a local fair in a little city called Hicco, located in central Texas, along with her best friend and her best friend's boyfriend.

And the three of them were standing there trying to decide if they wanted to continue to stay here or leave. Now, As they're standing there, they can hear people having fun on all the rides. There's kids laughing and they're screaming. I mean, it's a Friday night. They had chosen to come here. This was the activity. But so far, the night had really not been that great. So Susan's best friend, whose name was Cindy Hallmark, and her boyfriend, whose name was Roy Hayes, had convinced Susan to come out with them and come to this fair because Susan's life of late had been really quite bad. She was in the middle of this very ugly divorce, and the new guy that she was dating, it wound up being very pushy when it came to physical intimacy. And so she had recently dumped him, too. Susan's life, certainly her relationships anyways, were in rough shape. And so Cindy and Roy had convinced Susan to come out with them and just at least for one night, come enjoy this fair. Just forget about everything else and just come have some fun. And so Susan had agreed to go. However, ironically, once they actually got to the fair and the three of them were walking around and playing games and going into the haunted house and doing all the things you do at the fair, it had been Cindy, not Susan, who had ultimately said that they weren't really having a good time, that they were feeling bad.

Cindy said that she just had this really intense feeling that something bad was about to happen. It was like this constant anxiety, and she couldn't shake it, and it was making it really hard to enjoy the night. And so that was why the trio is standing at the gate wondering if it's even worth staying here any longer. And ultimately, Roy finally just said, You know what? Why don't we just leave and head back to Steavenville? That's where they all lived. It's where they grew up, too. And he said, Why don't we go back to Steavenville and we'll just drive around for a bit, and eventually we'll go to the Dairy Queen restaurant, and we'll get some ice cream. And when Roy suggested this, both Susan and Cindy thought that was a great idea. And so they left, they hopped in Roy's truck, and they began to drive back to Steavenville. About an hour and a half later, Susan, Cindy, and Roy walked into the Steaven in Filbury Queen, they ordered ice cream Sundays, and then sat down at a booth. By this point, Cindy's feeling of dread that something bad was going to happen had mostly gone away, and so the mood was much lighter.

Susan, especially, was actually having a a great night, the first in a long time it felt like. The last six months or so had been some of the worst in Susan's entire life. Her ex-husband, Michael Woods, who she had been with since she was in her early 20s, had effectively abandoned her back in February, taking her car and also some expensive crystals that she had collected, and he had left behind a viciously mean tape recording of all the things he hated about her, along with dozens of cruel notes with insults on them hidden all over the place. And so Susan had filed for divorce. And then, instead of trying to get her car back from her husband, who was long gone, she just began doing a ton of overtime at the sandpaper factory in order to afford another car. And so in these few months, a Immediately following the breakup with her ex and all this extra work she was doing, Susan had really fallen into a deep depression. But it had been Cindy and Roy who had helped pull herself back together. Susan was naturally very shy, and she did not have a big social circle.

But Cindy, on the other hand, was very extroverted, had a ton of friends, and a lot of close cousins. And so she had persuaded Susan to begin coming to their regular meetups with all her friends and cousins. The core group that typically attended these meetups was Cindy, Roy, Cindy's cousins, Regina and Scott Hatley, and then maybe one or two others. And collectively, they referred to themselves as the members of the roundtable because often these meetups consisted of just spending the whole night sitting around Cindy's round kitchen table, talking and drinking. The first time Susan had gone, it had seemed like such a tight knit group that she really just felt like a third wheel and did not belong. But everyone had really treated her like she did belong. And these days, she did not miss a meetup because this was like her new community. It really made her happy. And so slowly but surely, Susan had begun to feel better, largely because of these meetups. And so now, as she looked across the table at Cindy jokingly trying to force feed Roy all this ice cream, Susan just smile. Roy was this big guy, but he was losing the fight.

Then he had chocolate sauce all over his chin. They were just goofing around. She just thought to herself, You know what? Tonight was a great night. My life, it's turning around. And suddenly she had an idea. Susan stood up from the table and without saying anything, she walked up to the counter and she promptly ordered a second Hot Fudge Sunday. And when she carried it back over to the table with a big grin on her face, Cindy and Roy looked at her surprised and were impressed even, which was exactly the reaction that Susan was hoping for. Normally, Susan was very conscious of her wait and wouldn't even finish one Sunday. But tonight, she just felt like, You know what? I have been set free. I'm just going to have fun. But unfortunately for Susan, the ice cream Sundays were really the last fun thing she got to enjoy that entire weekend because she spent all day Saturday on the line at the sandpaper factory where she worked. And then all day Sunday, she was grocery shopping, doing laundry, and straightening up the house. By about 08: 00 PM Sunday night, she had put away all of her laundry, she had made the bed, and picked up the last few items off the bedroom floor.

Her house was small, but It was finally starting to feel like hers again. When her ex-husband, Michael, had first left, even though he had gone a thousand miles away to Indiana, she had felt afraid in her house like he might suddenly come back. And so she'd actually had Cindy sleep over her house for a to help her feel safe. And also she asked Roy to literally nail all her windows shut. But despite fortifying her living space, what Susan couldn't escape from were all these awful little notes that Michael had left behind and hidden all over the house. All these awful messages, just basically telling Susan all these terrible things about her and how much he hated her. She kept finding them all the time. But as of right now, the house was neat and tidy, and Susan, by this point, believed she had found almost every note or certainly close to every note. So to celebrate, Susan headed over to the couch and sat down and turned on the TV. Her plan was just to watch a couple of shows and just enjoy the peace and quiet and then go to bed because tomorrow she would have to get up early for work.

As she was sitting there, flipping through the channels, trying to figure out what she wanted to watch, she heard a knock on the front door. Two days later, at 6: 00 PM on the afternoon of July 28th, Susan's father, Joe Atkins, was at home when his phone rang. And when he picked it up, it was Susan's manager at the sandpaper factory, which was weird. The manager told him that he was calling because Susan had not shown up to work for the past two days and nobody could get a hold of her. And so he was wondering if Joe knew where she was. Joe frowned and said, No, he didn't know, but he would go find out. He hung up and he immediately dialed Susan's number. And when she didn't answer, he didn't think twice. He just put the phone down, grabbed his keys, hurried out to his truck, and started driving towards Susan's place. A half an hour later, Joe pulled up outside of Susan's house, and he went up to her front door. And when he knocked, nobody answered. But he could hear the TV on inside. And when he tried the door knob, he found the door was unlocked.

He opened the door up a little bit and he poked his head inside and he called his daughter's name, but he didn't get a response. So he stepped all the way inside. The house was basically clean, except there were snacks out on the coffee table and the TV was still on and it was on pretty loud. But also there were some cigarettes that had been burned out in an ashtray on the coffee table, and Joe knew his daughter didn't smoke. And so at this point, everything told him something is wrong. So Joe walked through the living room and into his daughter's bedroom. And his daughter was not in there, but the bed was a mess. The sheets and the bedding had all been ripped off and were sitting in a heap on the floor, and the mattress itself was hanging off the box spring. Joe was about to leave and search the rest of the house when he noticed the bathroom door in the bedroom was open. Joe forced himself to step toward the door, and as he did, his heart began to hammer in his chest. And then when he leaned around the door and looked inside Inside the bathroom, he just froze.

For what felt like a very long time, but was very likely only a few seconds, Joe didn't move or breathe. Then it's like he broke out of his fog, he stumbled backwards, he ran to the living room, grabbed the phone, and he called 911. Sergeant Donny Hensley of the Steavenville Police Department had just gotten home after a pretty long shift when he got a call from dispatch to head back out again. A homicide had just been called in, and every available officer had to head to the scene right away. The dispatcher did not have many details, but they did know that the victim was a young woman and that she had been found by her father inside of her home. When Hensley got to the address, He found there was an ambulance there and a couple of fire trucks and police cars and a whole bunch of police officers that were already out and about stringing up crime scene tape. But he also saw someone that he was not expecting to see. It was a friend of his, a guy he knew who volunteered volunteered at the town's golf course. His name was Joe Atkins.

So he walked over and he asked Joe like, Hey, what are you doing here? But the instant he asked that question, and when Joe turned around to look at him, Hensley understood why he was here. He suddenly remembered that Joe had a daughter, and based on the look on Joe's face, clearly, his daughter was the murder victim. Joe had found her. Hensley was a hardened detective who had been to plenty of crime scenes by this point, and he had seen some terrible things. But the pure grief on his friend's face was too much for him to bear. He knew there was nothing he could do to take Joe's pain away. So instead, without saying anything, Hensley took Joe's hands and the two men just stood there and prayed. And then after a few minutes, he let go of Joe's hands, and then he turned and walked up Susan's front steps to begin the search for her killer. The crime scene unit was already inside of Susan's home, at work by the time Detective Hensley walked through the front door. A supervisor walked over and brought Hensley up to speed. They told him that Susan's body was in the bathroom, and from the looks of it, she'd been dead for a while.

The front door had been unlocked, and there was no sign of first entry, which suggested that Susan may have let her killer inside. Detectives were now dividing up the house into quadrants to examine each part of the crime scene, and Hensley would be working primarily in the bedroom. But the supervisor warned Hensley that the crime itself was incredibly brutal, likely bordering on torture, and he should just mentally prepare himself. Hensley nodded, and for a moment, he just stood there and collected himself and took stock of the scene. He looked over at the coffee table in the living room, and he saw it was covered with snacks, including a bag of potato chips, a pack of Twinkies, and an open Coke can. And there was an ashtray with six cigarette butts inside of it. It looked like more food and more cigarettes than one person would reasonably consume. Home, and so maybe Susan had had company. But otherwise, the house was clean and pretty unremarkable. Except for one thing that took Hensley a minute to notice. And what it was is all the windows were nailed shut from the inside. Susan clearly must have been scared of somebody breaking in.

And so naturally, Hensley wondered if maybe the person she was scared of breaking in was the same person who wound up killing her. But if that was the case, why had she apparently opened the door for this person? At this point, Hensley moved into the bedroom, and as soon as he did, he could tell there had to have been a struggle in here because the mattress was hanging off the box spring, the sheets had been pulled off, and they were heaped up on the floor, and there were all these scuff marks on the floor that suggested the bed very likely had been moved, dragged around inside of the room. There was also a white extension cord lying on the mattress, and also there was this pillow that had all these strange black smudges on it. Hensley Hensley walked over and looked at this pillowcase, trying to figure out what the smudges could be, and then he realized it was mascara. The pillow must have been held over Susan's face to suffocate her. But when Hensley walked into the bathroom and saw what was in there, Despite the warning he was given about how brutal it was, he still was taken aback and found himself gasping.

Susan's body was draped over the side of the tub with her head still in the water. Her hands had been tied behind her back using the sleeves of her own shirt. But other than that shirt, she was naked. At first glance, it was obvious Susan was dead because her head and shoulders that were underwater were severely decomposed from being in the water. And the water was dark from all the blood. There also were all these streaks of blood on the floor that made it look like Susan had been dragged to the top. There was also a raw red line across Susan's throat, like she had been strangled by something, perhaps that electrical cord that had been out on the bed. And so at this point, Hensley realized that whoever murdered Susan had likely sexually assaulted her, strangled her, smothered her, and then held her body underwater. I mean, this had been a savage attack committed by a monster. However, Hensley also realized that this monster, whoever had done this, had made at least one mistake because one of the crime scene text that was in the bathroom was pointing at the tub with excitement. And when Hensley looked at what they were pointing at, you could see perfectly clearly there was a set of palm prints, almost certainly left behind by the killer.

The following morning at around 10: 00 AM, Sergeant Hensley walked into the Steavenville police station and promptly filled up a paper cup from the bullpen water-cooler and drank it down. It was over 90 degrees outside, and he had just spent all morning and a lot of the previous night, canvassing neighborhood where Susan had been murdered. But despite all their efforts, they really hadn't gotten much. Susan had been found on Tuesday, but nobody had reported seeing her on Tuesday or the Monday before or the Sunday before, which left a window of three days for this murder to have taken place. One of Susan's neighbors did remember seeing a, quote, large, framed man park his truck near Susan's house on Sunday night, but that described a lot of the men in Steavenville, so that didn't really narrow anything down. Now, the police chief had not yet assigned a lead investigator to Susan's case, but because Sergeant Hensley knew Susan's father personally, he was hoping to stay involved. So after drinking a second cup full of water, Hensley headed down the hall to the chief's office where he asked to see Susan's autopsy report. The chief's secretary handed it over, and Hensley quickly began to thumb through the pages, but he quickly realized there really was almost nothing here that he didn't already know.

The report confirmed that Susan had been sexually assaulted, but her body was so decomposed, it was impossible to determine exactly how or when she had died. Although the coroner estimated she'd been in the tub for roughly two days. But right at that moment, another investigator named Lieutenant and Maltby, walked up and grabbed the report right out of Hensley's hands. And before Hensley could protest, Maltby walked back to the bullpen and wrapped his knuckles on a door frame to get everybody's attention. Then, Maltby announced that he would be taking over Susan's case, so everybody else, Hensley included, should back off. And Hensley did not like this, not only because he had this closeness with Susan's father, but also because he had a feeling that Maltby was only interested in this case because he thought it would help his career. However, Maltby outranked Hensley, and Hensley already had a full caseload of work, so there really was very little he could do here. So with a resigned sigh, he headed back to his desk. Two days later, around 2: 00 PM on July 31st, Sergeant Hensley stood in the back of a small crowd, sweating through his suit as Susan's casket was lowered into the ground.

Hensley was at this funeral, really to support Susan's father, Joe, because he was not really a part of the investigation. However, he couldn't help scanning the mourners through a detective's lens to see if anybody seemed suspicious. There was a group of people in their 20s and 30s that were standing towards the front, and Hensley assumed they must be Susan's friends. He remembered what one of Susan's neighbors had said about a large, framed man, and he looked at all the men taking note of their size. At the center of the group, there was a blonde woman who was sobbing, and Hensley recognized her as Susan's best friend, Cindy Hallmark, who was leaning on her boyfriend, Roy Hayes. The two of them had actually come to the crime scene by coincidence on the day Susan's body was found, and they had totally broken down when they realized what had happened. But now, Hensley was suddenly noticing just how physically enormous Roy was. And so in that moment, Hensley thought to himself, if he was in charge of this case, he knew Roy would be somebody he'd take a close look at. But that was not his decision.

But then Hensley noticed that there was actually one person who was conspicuously absent from this funeral, and that was Susan's ex-husband, Michael Woods. From what Hensley had heard around the station, nearly all of Susan's friends and family were convinced that it was Michael who was the killer. But there was a problem with this theory. Michael lived a thousand miles away in Indianapolis, and word around the police station was that during that window of time where Susan was murdered over those three days, Michael was in Indianapolis, and he was around loads of people who would vouch for him being in Indianapolis, which meant that as far as Hensley knew, there really was no way for Michael to be the killer. And so Hensley just hoped that Lieutenant Maltby had another better suspect in mind. For the next few weeks, Sergeant Hensley focused on his own cases while still keeping tabs on Susan's. Every couple of days, her dad would call him up and ask why Michael hadn't been arrested yet, and Hensley would always tell him that the case was in good hands and they're working on it. But as the weeks passed by with no arrests, Hensley started to wonder, what was going on here?

Something needs to happen. Why is nothing happening? Then one day in early October, so roughly two months after Susan's murder, Hensley walked into the bullpen to find Maltby celebrating, not because of any progress in the case, though, but to celebrate his big promotion. Maltby was going to be the lead of a new narcotics unit, and his open cases that he had been working on were just going to be given to other investigators or filed away altogether. And so as Maltby accepted congratulations from other officers and just made a whole scene, all Sergeant Hensley could think was, Well, what's going to happen to Susan's case? It could easily fall through the cracks here. Without even talking to Maltby, Hensley walked straight to the chief's office and asked to take the case over. The chief shrugged and just said, Sure, you're welcome to try, so long as this case does not get in the way of his other work. Hensley agreed and then went to get Susan's file. And then after he had it in hand, he hurried back to his desk and began rifling through the pages. And he was stunned to find that there was almost nothing in there besides the original autopsy report.

And that's when Hensley that Lieutenant Maltby claimed to have this photographic memory, and so he almost never took notes. And so Hensley was basically going to have to start all over from square one. At 9: 00 AM the next morning, Sergeant Hensley sat down in the kitchen of Susan's best friend, Cindy Hallmark, as Cindy poured them both a cup of coffee, and then Cindy started talking, and she had a lot to say. She was absolutely convinced that Susan's ex-husband, Michael Woods, was the killer, and she just could not understand why it was taking detectives so long to arrest him. Cindy said for most of Susan and Michael's relationship, Michael was just a loser. He couldn't keep a job, and he just lift weights and play guitar shirtless in the front yard. However, when they had broken up, Michael had recorded this totally unhinged audio recording about how awful Susan was and left it for Susan, along with all these notes he had hid all around the house and the property, which also just said terrible things about Susan. And this behavior by Michael had scared Susan so much that she had asked Cindy and Cindy's boyfriend, Roy, to help nail all her windows shut, specifically to prevent Michael from coming into the house.

Hensley listened and wrote everything as Cindy said down, but he really wasn't as sold on the Michael Woods theory as everybody else in Steavenville seemed to be. And that was primarily because the police in Indianapolis had spoken to Michael, and apparently, he had given them a rock solid alibi. And so, realistically, it didn't make sense for him to be the killer. That said, Hensley was pretty confident that the killer had to be somebody Susan knew. The lack of forced entry, coupled with all the snacks and the Coke can and cigarettes on her coffee table, suggested that Susan might have entertained her murderer before they killed her. And so at this point, Hensley was much more interested in learning if there were other romantic interests in Susan's life besides Michael. And when he asked Cindy that question, she said, Yeah, there was one other guy. She said, Right before Susan was killed, she was seeing this bartender named J. C. Bowman. However, they'd only gone on a few dates. Cindy said that J. C. Had put a lot of pressure on Susan to sleep with him, and so she had just broken up with him. And when Hensley heard this, he felt like this was really promising.

And so when Cindy finished telling her JC story, he asked her if she knew where he could find JC. And she said, Yeah. And she gave him the address of the bar where he worked. 45 minutes later, Sergeant Hensley pulled up in front of the bar. It was still too early for business, but there was a delivery truck out front, and there were a few men who were unloading kegs and bringing them inside. And so Hensley walked up to these guys and he asked if any of them knew a J. C. Bowman. And this tall, bearded man raised his hand and said, Actually, that was him. A few minutes later, Hensley and J. C. Were sitting at the empty bar. Hensley watched J. C. 'S face very closely as he explained to him that he was here to talk about Susan. J. C. Nodded and ran his fingers through his hair like he was nervous. And then he said his throat was dry and asked Sergeant Hensley if he wanted something to drink. Sergeant Hensley said he was okay, but J. C. He got up, went behind the bar, and then came back with a can of Coke.

And after sitting down and opening the drink up and taking a sip, J. C. Also lit up a cigarette. And so immediately, Hensley thought of the Coke can that was on Susan's coffee table, as well as the ashtray full of cigarettes, despite the fact that Susan was not a smoker. And so the interview had barely even started, and Hensley was already very suspicious of J. C. So he decided to push pretty early and see how J. C. Reacted under some serious pressure. And so right out the gate, he asked J. C. Where he was on Sunday, July 26th, which was the day investigators at this point believe Susan was murdered based primarily on the autopsy report. And when J. C. Was asked that, he swallowed and said he couldn't remember, which was possible. I mean, the murder happened two months earlier, but it didn't make J. C. Look that good. So Hensley asked J. C. If It was true that he and Susan broke up ultimately because he, J. C. Had pressured her for sex. J. C. Turned beet red and said he had never pressured Susan. He said they had been intimate, but just once in Susan's bathtub.

And when Hensley heard this, he nearly dropped his pen. It seemed extremely suspicious that JC was claiming to have been intimate with Susan in the same bathtub where she was found dead. And so Hensley wondered if he was maybe trying to get ahead of the fact that his fingerprints would be found on or in that bathtub. Now, legally, Hensley knew he could not compel JC to offer up his fingerprints without charging him first. But he took a chance and just asked anyway. And to his surprise, J. C. Said, Yes, you can have my fingerprints. And he almost seemed relieved. He said, Whatever you need to help solve Susan's murder, I'll do it. Two hours later, Sergeant Hensley was back at his desk in the Steavenville police station, looking a card that had J. C. 'S finger and palm prints on it. And as he looked at it, he began thinking about those palm prints on Susan's bathtub. In 1987, fingerprints and palm prints were just much slower to process than they are today. And the closest lab that analyzed these prints was an hour and a half away in Fortworth. And Hensley knew they were always working with a backlog, so his results could easily take months.

But Hensley was not going to just sit around and wait. Because because he had one more suspect he wanted to talk to. The following afternoon, Sergeant Hensley walked into an interrogation room at the police station and sat down across from Roy Hayes, who was Susan's best friend, Cindy's boyfriend. Hensley wanted to speak to Roy for two reasons. One, he matched the physical description of the large man seen near Susan's house around the time of her murder. And two, there just weren't that many people who were close to Susan. And Roy saw her when she was both with Cindy and also when she would attend those members of the roundtable get-togethers. Now, that was not that incriminating, but Hensley knew that catching the killer was as much about ruling suspects out as it was about ruling them in. So that was really all he was trying to do here with Roy, is just maybe find a way to say, No, not him. But before Hensley could even begin asking Roy questions, Roy just started talking. He told Hensley that he had been thinking about Susan's case nonstop. He said that his mind had been running wild with all the possible ways the killer could have gotten inside.

And so now, Roy was eager to share his theories. After all, he said he was the one who nailed those windows shut, so he knew where the weaknesses in her house were. And so Hensley said, Okay, let's hear your theories. And Roy began listing all the ways a person might be able to get inside of Susan's house, including what Roy said was the most promising, which was a six-inch crack in the window above the kitchen sink. And as Roy did this, all of a sudden, he was at the top of Hensley's suspect list. And when Roy was done rattling off all the ways he would break into Susan's house, Hensley asked him, Where were you? On the evening of Sunday, July 26th. And Hensley watched as Roy's expression changed from very intense to surprised, as he realized he was now being asked for his own alibi. Roy started stumbling over another very long, rambling answer, and what he had to say ultimately just made him look even more guilty, because Roy told Hensley that on the night Susan was killed, he had been over at a friend's house playing a game called Dungeons & Dragons.

So today, people know Dungeons & Dragons as a harmless fantasy role-playing game. But at this time in 1987, it was viewed very differently. In the late 1980s in America, there was this huge fear that certain games, books, and heavy metal songs were all linked to devil worship. The TV news ran regular stories across the country about how Dungeons & Dragons, specifically, encouraged players to cast spells and practice witchcraft. And the local paper in Stephenville had carried a full-page ad calling the game Satanic. So when Roy told Hensley he had been playing Dungeons & Dragons on the night Susan was killed, Hensley immediately thought back to the horrible brutality of the crime scene. And he wondered if maybe Susan's murder could have been tied to some dark ritual. And so Hensley looks at Roy and says, Okay, well, are you prepared to give us your fingerprints? And Roy said, Yeah. A half an hour later, a very disappointed Sergeant Hensley watched Roy walk away from the station. Just like with JC, Roy had seemed incredibly suspicious at the start of the interview, but then he'd easily offered up his fingerprints like he wasn't concerned at all about whether they'd match the killers.

So Hensley was not sure what to expect in terms of results here. But he still sent Roy's prints off to the outside lab to be added to the queue behind J. C. Hensley was contemplating his next move when the station receptionist walked over and said that Someone from the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department was on the line for him. They were following up on the inquiry he had made a few days earlier to double-check the alibi of Susan's ex-husband, Michael Woods. Hensley eagerly ran to the phone, and when he heard what the officer officer had to say, he practically jumped out of his chair. Because according to the Indianapolis police officer, it was true that Michael said he had an alibi with lots of witnesses, but he had promised to provide the names and contact information for all those witnesses, and he had never done it. Which meant Michael's alibi, the same one Stephenville police used to rule him out as a suspect, or more specifically, they used the idea of his alibi, the belief that his alibi existed. That's what they used to rule him out, well, clearly, it was totally unverified. Lieutenant Ken Maltby, who was in charge of the case when this decision was made, had just completely dropped the ball.

Somebody had to check Michael's alibi. On a bright morning in April of 1988, Sergeant Hensley walked out of the Indianapolis International Airport with a single duffle bag of luggage slung over his shoulder. He was here to try to collect the fingerprints of Susan's ex-husband, Michael Woods, who was now Hensley's primary suspect. Hensley had been trying to coordinate the investigation into Michael from Steavenville, Texas, but it had proven to be cumbersome, and so he decided to just take matters into his own hands and actually go to Indianapolis. He knew Michael did not have to submit to printing unless he was charged with a crime, so Hensley had come up with a plan. He was going to put Michael under surveillance and wait for him to do something illegal. Maybe he gets into a fight or an altercation or he buys some marijuana or even jaywalked, anything. Hensley would use it as an excuse to arrest him and get his prints. For days, Hensley sat in an unmarked van outside the house where Michael lived, watching the front door through a telephoto camera lens. But Michael and his roommates seem pretty boring. They barely even left the house.

Hensley was beginning to think that his big plan to catch Michael doing something illegal was a huge waste of time. It just was not going to happen. But then one morning, he noticed some unusual activity in Michael's front yard. Michael and his roommates were laying out furniture and clothing on their front lawn, clearly getting ready for a yard sale. Sergeant Hensley was snapping photos of everything they were bringing out, and at one point, he saw something that gave him a rush of excitement because through his lens, he spotted these crystal figurines that appeared to be the exact same type of crystal figurines that Michael had allegedly stolen from Susan's house in Steavenville when their marriage had ended and he had left to go to Indianapolis. Hensley practically laughed out loud. I mean, this was too easy. This was his chance. So he called the local police, and they stormed the yard sale, and they arrested Michael for theft. Two weeks A year later, now back in Steavenville, Sergeant Hensley walked into the police station to start a shift, and he found a Manila envelope waiting for him. It had a return address that said it was from the Texas DPS crime lab in Fortworth, Texas, where he had sent all of the suspects fingerprints.

Hensley ripped open the envelope and dumped the contents onto the table, and as he began looking through them, he realized the lab had already analyzed all three sets of prints that he had sent in. They were Susan's ex-boyfriend, J. C. Bowman, her best friend's boyfriend, Roy Hayes, and her ex-husband, Michael Woods. Now, at this point, if Hensley had had to guess who the killer was, he would have guessed Michael, because Michael is this estranged ex-husband who had left behind these terrible recordings and notes, and he had spuked Susan so badly at the end of their relationship, she had nailed her windows shut to keep him out. And then also, his alibi was up in the air. They didn't really know if he had one or not. They hadn't been able to actually verify it or not yet. Jc also had basically no alibi. He drank Coke and he smoked cigarettes, just like the killer had left in Susan's living room or is believed to have been the killer who left those behind. And Roy, in virtue of playing Dungeons and Dragons, could potentially be involved in Satanism. And also he seemed way too eager to talk about how he might break into Susan's house.

However, for Hensley, he felt like one of these three men is the killer. He's about to get his answer. But as he read through each of these reports, he went from exhilaration to confusion. And finally, just total disbelief, because none of these prints that he'd submitted matched the ones from Susan's top. Hensley wanted so badly to solve this case, to give Susan's father, Joe, his friend, some closure. But now, he felt like he was totally out of ideas. Susan's case ultimately went went completely cold. Sergeant Hensley retired, and 19 years passed by. And then one day, in early 2006, Lieutenant Dawn Miller of the Stephenville Police Department took a box labeled Susan Woods down from a shelf in evidence storage message, carried it back to his office, sat down at his desk, and began to look through its contents. Miller had recently been tasked with reviewing the department's unsolved cases, including Susan's. He read all of Sergeant Hensley's notes, he studied the crime scene photos, and he reviewed all the witness statements. None of it looked very promising. In fact, it looked like all the suspects had basically been ruled out. But then he saw those palm prints that had been lifted from Susan's bathtub, which had never been matched to anyone, and he had an idea.

Back in 1987, there had been no centralized database of fingerprints. This meant that unless you had a specific suspect to compare an unknown print against, the unknown print was effectively useless. And that's really what had happened in Susan's case. None of the suspects had matched this unknown print, so the case was put on a shelf. But in 2006, the FBI now had a national database of all the fingerprints of everybody in America who had ever been arrested and fingerprinted. And this meant that if Susan's killer had ever been arrested for any crime, anywhere, their fingerprints would likely be in that database. Now, Lieutenant Miller did not have the budget or the time for a full-blown the investigation here. But he certainly had the time and money to just submit those prints into this FBI database to just see if there was a hit. So he submitted them and then put her case file back in storage. And sure enough, a few days later, Miller was at his desk when his phone rang, and it was the FBI, and they told him they had found a match. But when the FBI agent told Miller the name of the person whose prints these matched, it meant nothing to Miller.

He didn't think he'd actually even heard the name before. And the person had been arrested for robbery in Nevada, not Texas. Miller thanked the agent, and he quickly began digging through this person's history, and he also went and got the Susan Wood's case file. And slowly but surely, It all began to come together. And as Miller read through in her file all the names of the people that Susan spent her time with, he noticed something, and finally it all just clicked. Lieutenant Miller had found the killer. Based on evidence collected at the crime scene and the killer's written confession, the following is a reconstruction of what police believe happened to Susan Woods on the evening of Sunday, July 26, 1987. Stephenville's Main Street was busy as the killer drove drove through town in their brown pickup, sipping a mixture of soda, vodka, and cough syrup. They stared out their window at all the happy people in the restaurants and the storefronts, and as they stared at these people, a darkness stirred inside the killer. This darkness had been there for years, telling the killer they were no good and they would never be close to anyone.

Alcohol was the only thing that seemed to make this darkness go away. So the killer stayed half drunk most of the time. But sometimes even the alcohol wasn't enough. A few years back, when the TV news had been running nonstop with talk about devil worshiping, the killer had been inspired, and they thought they might try that. And so they had lit a bunch of candles and set them around their room in the shape of a pentagram. And then the killer stripped off their clothes, they stretched out on the floor, and they offered up their soul to the devil in exchange for freedom from this darkness. But unfortunately, the darkness remained. And so now the killer feeling very riled up, took another drink, and thought of Susan and the way she'd smiled at them the last time they had seen each other. The killer had not had the courage to make a move back then, but now, with this buzz that they had from their drink, they really couldn't see a good reason not to make a pass at Susan. So they turned off the main road and they drove the short distance to Susan's house.

In a matter of minutes, the killer was at her door, knocking. Susan opened the door and surprise flashed across her face, but then it softened into a smile, and she told them to come on in. Susan told them to get comfortable, and as they sat down on the couch, she went to the kitchen to get the killer her Coke and some snacks. Then she brought them back, and she sat down on the couch next to the killer to talk and catch up. And that was when the killer made their move. They leaned in to kiss her, but Susan immediately pulled back, suddenly angry. The killer grabbed her, and Susan slapped them across the face, and right then, the killer exploded, and they lunged for Susan, and they dragged her, kicking and screaming to her bedroom, where they would spend hours assaulting her. Finally, when Dawn approached and Susan was still barely alive, the killer decided it was time to end this. And so as Susan lay there helpless, they grabbed that white electrical cord and they wrapped it around Susan's neck and they pulled it tight. And for a while, Susan fought, but then she went still.

But the killer wasn't satisfied that she was definitely dead. Dead. So then while keeping the cord around her neck, they also grabbed a pillow and they pushed it over her head and they smothered her. And then when she really was still, the killer still didn't know if she was actually dead or not. So eventually, they dragged Susan's lifeless body into the bathroom, they filled up the tub, and they dumped her upper half into the water, and the killer held her there until they were certain she was dead. And at that point, the killer let go of Susan and then placed both their hands on the rim of the bathtub, and they used that to push themselves back up, and they walked out of the house. It would take almost 20 years, but that single action of the killer placing their hands on the bathtub did eventually give Lieutenant Miller the killer's identity. He was the younger cousin of Susan's best friend, Cindy Hallmark, and he was one of the members of that roundtable group who supported Susan through her divorce. He had also been at Susan's funeral and helped her friends through the aftermath of her death.

The killer's name was Scott Hatley. And just a week before he killed her, he had been hanging out with the members of the Roundtable, and Susan was there. And Susan, who was this very shy, gentle person, had opened up around this group. She was feeling happier and happier, largely because this group of friends, including Scott, had been so supportive. She really felt like she belonged here and was safe here. And during that meeting amongst the members of the Roundtable, just inexplicably, Susan looked over at Scott and simply smiled at him. And for that reason, pretty much alone, Scott, a week later, had shown up on her doorstep and murdered her. By the time Lieutenant Miller put all of this together, Hatley was 41 years old and was still a free man. And so on June 7, 2006, Miller had him arrested and charged him with Susan's murder. He would ultimately take a plea deal and was sentenced to 30 years in prison, but would only serve 11 years before he was released for good behavior. However, three years after Hatley got out of prison, he was found dead inside of his RV from cancer complications.

And among his things, investigators would find this handwritten diary where he confessed to Susan's murder. The pages were also filled with references to Satan and demons, and Hatley specifically wrote that some outside presence had been responsible for pushing him to ultimately assault and kill Susan. A quick note about our stories. They are all based on true events, but we sometimes use pseudonyms to protect the people involved, and some details are fictionalized for dramatic purposes. The Mr. Ballen podcast, Strange, Dark, and Mysterious Stories, is hosted and executive-produced by me, Mr. Ballen. Our head of writing is Evan Allen. Our head of production is Zack Levet, produced by Jeremy Bone. This episode was written by Andrew Kelleher. Research and fact-checking by Sheli Hsu, Samantha Van Hoos, Evan Beemer, Abigail Shumway, and Camille Callahan. Research and fact-checking supervision by Stephen E. R. Audio editing and post-produced by Whit Lacassio and Cole Lacassio. Additional audio editing by Jordan Stidham. Mixed and mastered by Brenda Cain. Production coordination by Samantha Collins. Production Support by Antonio Monada and Delaina Corley. Artwork by Jessica Clauxton-Kyner. Theme song called Something Wicked by Ross Bugdon. Thank you for listening to the Mr. Ballen podcast.

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