AI Summary
5 min readIn the small town of Stephenville, Texas—the self-proclaimed "Cowboy Capital of the World"—a 30-year-old woman named Susan Jeanette Atkins was found dead in her bathtub in July 1987. She had been suffocated with a pillow, strangled with an electrical cord, and drowned. Her hands were tied behind her back. The killer had stayed long enough to smoke six cigarettes and drink a Coke. The town of 12,000 was certain they knew who did it: Susan’s estranged husband, Michael Woods, a long-haired rocker who had never fit in. But the fingerprints on the bathtub didn’t match his. For nearly two decades, the case went cold while Michael lived under a cloud of suspicion. Then, in 2006, a DNA match from those cigarette butts led police to a man no one had ever suspected—Susan’s friend’s cousin, Joseph Scott Hatley. The man who had seemed utterly harmless had been a monster all along.
The Outsider and the Suspect
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What you'll learn
- 1 (01:13) **Episode Introduction and Setup** - Deborah Roberts introduces the 2020 True Crime Vault episode about the 1987 murder of Susan Woods in Stephenville, Texas, and the decades-long mystery surrounding it.
- 2 (03:04) **The Town of Stephenville and Susan Woods** - The episode establishes the setting of Stephenville, a small, conservative Texas town, and introduces the victim, Susan Atkins Woods.
- 3 (07:11) **Susan's Relationship with Michael Woods** - The story of how Susan met and married the town outsider, Michael Woods, is detailed, highlighting their initial romance and eventual marital strife.
- 4 (09:50) **The Night Before the Murder** - The episode recounts Susan's final happy moments with friends and the discovery of her body.
- 5 (11:05) **The Crime Scene** - A detailed description of the brutal crime scene is provided, including the evidence of a struggle and the method of killing.
- 6 (17:52) **The Prime Suspect: Michael Woods** - The episode explains why the entire town, including Susan's friends, immediately believed Michael Woods was the killer.
- 7 (18:59) **Other Suspects: JC Bowman and Roy Hayes** - The investigation turns to two other men in Susan's life: a new boyfriend and a protective friend.
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Show Notes
When a woman is found murdered, a written confession gives insight into the mind of her killer. (OAD 1/19/24)
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