A Fight for Freedom

Speaker 1 Hey Ryan Reynolds here wishing you a very happy half off holiday because right now Mint Mobile is offering you the gift of 50% off unlimited. To be clear that's half price not half the service.

Speaker 1 Mint is still premium unlimited wireless for a great price.

Speaker 2 So that means a half day.

Speaker 1 Yeah? Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash switch.

Speaker 2 Upfront payment of $45 for a three-month plan equivalent to $15 per month required. New customer offer for first three months only.
Speed slow under 55 gigabytes of network's busy.

Speaker 2 Taxes and fees extra. See Mintmobile.com.

Speaker 4 Ah, DSW, birthplace of the humble brag. Here, the shoes are so good, no one would ever know how little you paid if you didn't go telling everyone that is.

Speaker 4 And with never-ending options for every style, mood, and occasion, all at really great prices, we'll definitely give you something to brag about.

Speaker 4 So go ahead, stock up on fresh sneakers from your favorite brands, or try those boots you always secretly knew you could pull off.

Speaker 4 Find the shoes that get you at prices that get your budget at DSWstores or at dsw.com. Let us surprise you.
you.

Speaker 6 It's a horrible story and I wish that it wasn't true.

Speaker 6 I wish that none of that happened and I wished everything was so much different.

Speaker 6 It's just the way that my life was.

Speaker 7 State of Texas versus Susan Lucille Wright.

Speaker 6 My name is Susan Wright. I was charged with murder.
I killed my husband. I was convicted of murdering my husband.

Speaker 6 I just, I couldn't go on how things were. Our whole marriage had been just a really big cover-up.

Speaker 6 Anytime that he would be upset, he would come home and take it out on us.

Speaker 6 He would throw me against the walls.

Speaker 6 He would hit me in the face, the stomach,

Speaker 6 the back. He would kick.
until he wasn't angry anymore.

Speaker 6 This was just another fight that got really bad. I told him that I thought that he needed help.
That wasn't my place to tell him that he needed any sort of help.

Speaker 6 It's just not the way that our marriage was.

Speaker 6 And we began to fight.

Speaker 6 I didn't want him to die, but I didn't have a choice.

Speaker 6 I don't want to tell it. I don't want to tell it anymore.

Speaker 10 The crime itself is horrible beyond words. How do you make it make sense? How in the world does she get to the point to where she can murder him that kind of way to that degree? 193 stab wounds.

Speaker 10 Susan Wright has admitted to stabbing Jeff Wright 193 times.

Speaker 8 She is the wife accused of stabbing her husband nearly 200 times and then burying his body.

Speaker 10 She's always maintained that she was innocent, that she was a battered wife.

Speaker 6 He put his hands around my neck and he choked me. He began to punch me in the chest over and over again.
He shook me over and over

Speaker 6 and over again until he wasn't angry anymore. Until he wasn't angry anymore.
Until he wasn't angry anymore.

Speaker 10 Susan Wright is a beautiful blonde with a black heart.

Speaker 7 One.

Speaker 10 She is a cold-blooded

Speaker 10 scheming

Speaker 10 diabolical

Speaker 7 murderer.

Speaker 10 Like you're mad, like you're afraid, like you can't, can't stop.

Speaker 6 I was defending myself against my husband.

Speaker 10 She started lying the night she killed Jeffrey and she continues to lie until this day.

Speaker 8 There was so much left out of the first trial.

Speaker 10 If she wants a second trial and she wants to take that risk, bring it on.

Speaker 6 There's a lot of new information, people coming forward and wanting to testify.

Speaker 12 He was on his way over to me again, and I didn't want to be beat anymore that night.

Speaker 14 He took the glass and he threw it and it shattered on my face. Abuse is a secret.

Speaker 15 You get kicked, you get hit, you don't tell.

Speaker 6 I know I'm gonna go home.

Speaker 7 Betting her life.

Speaker 6 My heart hurts for everything that happened.

Speaker 8 We had two beautiful children.

Speaker 6 He had a full life ahead of him, and so did I.

Speaker 7 Susan Wright has had years in a Texas penitentiary to reflect on the bloody end to her troubled marriage while longing for the children she's now legally prohibited from seeing.

Speaker 6 Holidays are very hard. Birthdays are hard.

Speaker 6 Sometimes, just waking up and missing everyone, it's very hard.

Speaker 7 State of Texas versus Susan Lasille Wright. It was March 2004.

Speaker 7 The Houston jury convicted Susan of murder. Guilty of murder as charged in the indictment.
And sentenced her to 25 years for stabbing her husband, Jeff, almost 200 times.

Speaker 6 I'd honestly expected them to come back and say not guilty.

Speaker 7 Why did you expect them to find you not guilty?

Speaker 6 Well, because I had gotten up on the stand and I had told them what happened and that's just the way that life was. I expected them to believe it.

Speaker 7 I remand you now to the custody of the Sheriff of Harris County, Texas.

Speaker 17 I lost my sister

Speaker 6 that day.

Speaker 7 Cindy Stewart saw her sister taken away after her conviction and has never stopped fighting to prove that Susan's story is true.

Speaker 17 She was a stay-at-home mom. She's not a tough girl.
She baked cookies every day.

Speaker 17 She was going to be thrown into prison.

Speaker 17 I didn't know if she would survive.

Speaker 7 While Susan Wright remained locked up waiting for someone to hear her appeal, the key piece of evidence remained locked up in storage.

Speaker 7 Jeff Wright was killed on this bed and it caused quite a stir to say the least. when the prosecutor brought it into the courtroom.

Speaker 10 All right, so if the defendant were to get up on top of Jeffrey Wright, something like this, and straddle him, and she's right-handed, and how do you think she held the knife?

Speaker 7 That's prosecutor Kelly Siegler playing the part of Susan Wright and leaving nothing to the imagination.

Speaker 10 Did you see anything consistent with a stab to the penis?

Speaker 7 It was nicked. It was a superficial cut.
Super of a slicing.

Speaker 10 Superficial slicings like this.

Speaker 6 I was just horrified that anyone thought that that was what that happened.

Speaker 17 I felt sick.

Speaker 16 I had no idea that

Speaker 17 law was more of a theatrical presentation than it was about justice.

Speaker 7 And he hovered over her in the bed with a knife. Susan believes her young attorneys were no match for the toughest little prosecutor in Texas.

Speaker 10 Objection, this is argument.

Speaker 7 Judge, she went into the second. They never put on proof of her claim that she was a battered wife.

Speaker 6 The original trial just didn't explain everything.

Speaker 7 Anyone who wants to understand what happened the night she killed Jeff, Susan says, first needs to know what happened in the years leading up to it.

Speaker 6 I just thought that we were going to have that fairytale marriage with the kids in the house, you know, the same thing that every other girl dreams about.

Speaker 7 When they married, Susan was 22 and Jeff was 30. He was a successful carpet carpet salesman.
Susan says Jeff changed shortly after the birth of their first child, Bradley.

Speaker 7 She testified at her trial that Jeff started doing drugs and became abusive.

Speaker 6 He told me what a fat ass that I was.

Speaker 6 He told me that I was stupid and that I was worthless.

Speaker 7 And then, she says, the abuse became physical.

Speaker 6 He threw me up against the wall and he shook me by my arms as hard as he could until he wasn't angry and he began to punch me in the chest over and over again.

Speaker 17 Susan began to complain about his marijuana use, which escalated into complaints about cocaine use.

Speaker 7 Cindy says she was worried for her sister's safety and at one point helped her leave Jeff.

Speaker 17 He had thrown Susan through a wall and we witnessed this hole in the sheep rock that was the size of her back.

Speaker 7 But the very next day, Jeff showed up where Susan and Bradley were staying with a moving van and took them back home.

Speaker 7 There's not a doubt in my mind that she made up the whole story.

Speaker 7 Ron Wright is Jeff's father. She actually tortured him to death.

Speaker 7 He bled to death.

Speaker 7 She stabbed him in his eye while he was still alive.

Speaker 7 Jeff's father says in the four years Susan and his son were married, he never saw any sign of abuse. And in fact, Susan never filed a single police report

Speaker 7 before exploding in violence on the night of January 13th, 2003.

Speaker 6 He had just gotten done with a boxing lesson and he wanted to box with Bradley.

Speaker 7 Susan testified that Jeff had come home high and agitated.

Speaker 6 Jeff got his hands up in a boxing motion and started making jabs at Bradley's head.

Speaker 7 But Bradley didn't want to play. He was just four years old.

Speaker 6 That just kept frustrating Jeff the more that he didn't want to do it. He kept calling Bradley assisting a little girl.

Speaker 7 Did Jeff end up hitting Bradley in the cheek?

Speaker 8 Yes, he did.

Speaker 7 Susan said she put Bradley and his younger sister Kaylee to bed and then confronted her husband, told him she would leave if he didn't get help.

Speaker 6 He came at me and he swung me around and threw me against the wall and he told me not to give him any f ⁇ ing ultimate bitch that I didn't have the right.

Speaker 7 Susan told the court later that night, Jeff raped her.

Speaker 11 My eyes were closed and I heard his voice

Speaker 11 and it was scary.

Speaker 11 It was calm and he said die bitch and I opened up my eyes.

Speaker 7 She said Jeff was holding a knife. According to her, she kicked Jeff in the groin, grabbed the knife, and started stabbing.
Where'd you stab him?

Speaker 11 In his head, and in his chest, and in his neck, and in his stomach,

Speaker 11 and in his leg for when he kicked me. I stabbed him in his penis for all the times.
Then he made me have sex, and I didn't want to.

Speaker 11 I couldn't stop because he was going to kill me, and I couldn't stop.

Speaker 7 Prosecutor Kelly Siegler doesn't believe a word of it.

Speaker 10 See, what you're left with is the word of hard-carrying, obvious, no doubt about it, caught red-handed, confirmed, documented, liar.

Speaker 3 Don't let the holidays derail your fitness. Stay on track with hydro.
20 minutes rowing on a hydro targets 86% of your muscles as Olympians guide you from incredible locations worldwide.

Speaker 3 Running can't compete. That's why 90% stick with hydro a year later.
GQ named the hydro arc the best rower of 2025. And every hydro comes with free shipping, a 30-day trial, and warranty.

Speaker 3 Go to hydro.com code fit and save up to 600 bucks on your next hydro. Hydro.com code fit.
Don't let the holidays derail your fitness. Stay on track with hydro.

Speaker 3 20 minutes rowing on a hydro targets 86% of your muscles as Olympians guide you from incredible locations worldwide. Running can't compete.
That's why 90% stick with hydro a year later.

Speaker 3 GQ named the hydro arc the best rower of 2025. And every hydro comes with free shipping, a 30-day trial, and warranty.
Go to hydro.com code fit and save up to 600 bucks on your next hydro.

Speaker 3 Hydro.com code fit.

Speaker 10 All that battered wife abuse bull was just that. It was bull.

Speaker 7 Prosecutor Kelly Siegler did not mince words.

Speaker 10 This case is not about self-defense. It's about a slaughter.

Speaker 7 She ridiculed Susan Wright's claim that she killed her husband Jeff in self-defense.

Speaker 10 For her to claim self-defense and say she took a knife away from a man who outweighed her by 100 pounds is ridiculous.

Speaker 7 And Siegler still believes that.

Speaker 10 She wasn't a battered wife.

Speaker 7 How do you know?

Speaker 10 We never found any evidence of it.

Speaker 7 The evidence Siegler says tells a very different story. That's because Jeff's naked body was found with ties around his wrists and ankle.

Speaker 7 It was, according to Siegler, all part of an elaborate seduction scene.

Speaker 10 She had to play it.

Speaker 10 She had to play the game from the minute he got home from work that day, if not sooner, to get him in the right mood, to set the scene, to get him tied up and defenseless, to pull out her knife.

Speaker 7 And that's why Siegler brought the bed into the courtroom.

Speaker 10 Okay, do you have both of his wrists tied tightly?

Speaker 7 Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 10 Paul, try to lift your hands up.

Speaker 10 Okay. Now, same thing for his ankles.

Speaker 7 Medical examiner Dwayne Wolf backed up the prosecution's theory that Jeff Wright could not fight back. Out of his 193 stab wounds, almost all of them were on the front of the body.

Speaker 7 And if a person is not restrained in some way,

Speaker 7 they'd be moving. I would be moving.
I would have stab wounds predominantly on my back as I'm heading toward the door. Regardless of what Dr.

Speaker 7 Wolf says, Susan insists Jeff was not tied up, at least when she started stabbing him. But something made her stop.
What did you hear that made you stop?

Speaker 11 Bradley was at the door.

Speaker 7 While Susan was slashing at her husband, Bradley, their four-year-old son, woke up and knocked at the bedroom door.

Speaker 7 Susan had to stop stabbing his father to put Bradley Bradley back to bed. And that's when she says she tied up her husband.

Speaker 11 And then I tied up his right arm to the bed so that he couldn't get up because I was afraid he was going to get up and come after me when I was putting Bradley back to sleep.

Speaker 7 After calming Bradley, Susan says she got a fresh knife from the kitchen, came back into the bedroom, and started stabbing Jeff again.

Speaker 7 When she finally finished stabbing him, she dragged his body off the bed and tied him to a dolly. But she didn't take him very far.
This is the patio.

Speaker 7 This is where Jeff Wright ended up, in a shallow hole he dug himself as part of a home improvement project.

Speaker 7 Why didn't you call the police?

Speaker 17 Because Jeff was still alive.

Speaker 7 What do you mean he's still alive? This is not rational. You understand that now.

Speaker 11 Now I understand that. Rennie was still alive.
He wasn't dead.

Speaker 7 Susan claimed she was in a fog the next few days. She took my son's name off of the answering machine.

Speaker 7 Which, you know, in a fog,

Speaker 7 that raises a little question, doesn't it?

Speaker 10 Susan Lucille Wright.

Speaker 7 Kelly Siegler eagerly pointed out that Susan cleaned up the bloody bedroom and emptied out the joint bank account.

Speaker 7 And for the first time, she filed an abuse complaint against Jeff after he was already dead.

Speaker 10 She had the presence of mind to do all that. So how foggy was she, really?

Speaker 7 Kelly Siegler had a lot of questions about what Susan did. Siegler spent months preparing for this moment, her cross-examination of Susan Wright.

Speaker 10 The week after you killed Jeff, Mrs. Wright, during this fog that you experienced in and out that week, you always managed to take care of your children, though, did you not?

Speaker 8 Yes, like I had said before.

Speaker 10 That was a yes or no answer, did you not?

Speaker 6 Yes, ma'am, I'd always say no.

Speaker 7 Siegler wanted to convince the jury that the real Susan is a scheming seductress.

Speaker 10 Oh, come on.

Speaker 10 You're a former dancer.

Speaker 7 That is something she wants the jury to remember. For two months, when she was 18, Susan Wright was a topless dancer.

Speaker 10 You're going to sit up there and tell tell this jury that y'all never practice bondage.

Speaker 8 Oh no.

Speaker 10 Oh no, that was good. Are you like appalled at the idea? Is that where we get that oh no from?

Speaker 7 How would you describe Ms. Siegler's cross-examination of your sister?

Speaker 17 I think that she's brutal.

Speaker 10 When you stabbed him the 56th time or the 89th time or the 158th time, was your arm getting tired?

Speaker 6 She wanted it to seem like I did something horrible on purpose and that night I was just fighting for my life.

Speaker 10 Did you hear the medical examiner testify that you didn't stab his penis? What you did was nick at it and take little slashes at him.

Speaker 21 No, I did not slash at him.

Speaker 10 No. You didn't stab his penis.
That's not a stab like this. Like you're mad, like you're praying, like you can't, can't stop.
Objection, Your Honor.

Speaker 7 I'm going to ask the prosecutor to get back down in her seat, please, and refrain from doing this two feet from the witness.

Speaker 7 When you take this knife, Siegler left the jurors with one last powerful image.

Speaker 10 Count it. One,

Speaker 7 two,

Speaker 10 three,

Speaker 7 four.

Speaker 7 And it worked.

Speaker 10 Can you imagine 193 times.

Speaker 7 The jurors convicted Susan Wright of murdering her own husband.

Speaker 7 That you, Susan Lucille Wright, having been found guilty by this jury, a juror of your peers of the offense of murder, be assessed 25 years confinement in the institute.

Speaker 7 They could have sentenced her to life. Instead, she got a break.

Speaker 7 25 years.

Speaker 7 What did you think of the sentence? I thought it was in bad taste. I thought that she should have gotten a lot more.
But at least one courtroom observer thought Susan got a raw deal.

Speaker 7 You look at it and you think what happened wasn't right, wasn't fair, and wasn't just.

Speaker 7 Brian Weiss, a prominent appellate attorney, believes Susan Wright deserves another chance. He thinks he can get her sentence reduced or even set her free.

Speaker 7 And this is the woman who could help make it happen.

Speaker 22 I was extremely scared of Jeff.

Speaker 6 Extremely.

Speaker 7 Attorney Brian Weiss is working tirelessly and for free. It's

Speaker 7 to try to get Susan Wright's 25-year prison term reduced. Four and a half years ago in this courtroom, the system broke down.

Speaker 7 It is October 2008, and he's in court asking Judge Jim Wallace to grant Susan a new sentencing hearing before a new jury. The old saying goes, be careful what you wish for.

Speaker 7 And that's certainly true when you're talking about a person's life and liberty. Judge Wallace, who presided over the original trial, says Susan and her new attorney are taking a big gamble.

Speaker 7 A new jury could give her more time. Well, what's at stake here for Susan Wright? She's walking a razor's edge

Speaker 7 and she might get life.

Speaker 6 It could go either way, but I'm not worried.

Speaker 6 I just don't think that God would have brought me this far.

Speaker 7 The evidence is going to show that two well-meaning,

Speaker 7 inexperienced, and ultimately overmatched lawyers dropped the ball.

Speaker 7 Weiss argues that Susan's lawyers at her original trial should have called more witnesses, especially experts on how battered women behave.

Speaker 7 You can't try a case involving a defendant who's battered unless you have a battered women's expert. It is like doing Hamlet without Hamlet.
Why?

Speaker 7 Because so many lay jurors fall back on the myths and misconceptions about battered women. Why don't they leave? Why don't they call the cops? Why don't they tell anybody?

Speaker 7 Without any expert testimony, Weiss says prosecutor Kelly Siegler was able to easily rip apart Susan's claim that she was a battered wife.

Speaker 10 Hello, where's the doctor, the MD, the PhD? This is the only case you're ever going to hear of where the defendant can diagnose herself as a battered wife. Where's their expert?

Speaker 7 Here's the expert Weiss thinks the original jury should have heard from, psychologist Jerome Brown. He evaluated Susan after her lawyers put her in a psychiatric center the week after Jeff's murder.

Speaker 7 I think that she was emotionally and physically battered by her deceased husband. Over a period of time? Over years, yes.

Speaker 7 Susan, he says, had grown so terrified of Jeff, she couldn't take it anymore.

Speaker 7 She snapped.

Speaker 7 She killed him in a frenzy.

Speaker 7 Go for a ride. And Weiss says there's another person who could convince a jury of Susan's fear of her husband.
Misty McMichael was once engaged to Jeff Wright.

Speaker 20 He was very charming, considerate, thoughtful, complimentary.

Speaker 19 Everything that you want in a man, you think.

Speaker 7 But like Susan, Misty says Jeff Wright had another side.

Speaker 19 He would like to get me on the ground because once you're on the ground, you can get kicked and

Speaker 9 kits. Oh, yeah.

Speaker 7 Unlike Susan, after one attack, Misty filed a police report.

Speaker 19 We were at a bar in Austin.

Speaker 19 I must have looked at someone and he had a fit and threw a glass at me and it shattered and a piece of it went into my chin and it's still in there.

Speaker 7 Jeff agreed to a plea deal on the assault charge and avoided jail. Misty left one night when Jeff wasn't home, although Jeff's father says she never lost interest in his son.

Speaker 7 I know that she chased my son up until a week before he died.

Speaker 7 Does that sound like a woman that's

Speaker 7 getting beat on? Misty denies that and says she was already happily married to Steve McMichael, known as Mongo, a former defensive tackle for the Chicago Bears.

Speaker 7 If you had taken the stand you would have been cross-examined by Christianity.

Speaker 19 Right, and that's fine. Bring it on.

Speaker 7 But it could have been difficult.

Speaker 7 Because like Susan, Misty was once a topless dancer.

Speaker 13 It's true. I was a topless dancer for 10 years.
Woo! Big wow. What does that mean? Does that mean I'm a crackhead whore? No, it does not.

Speaker 12 Does that mean Susan's a liar?

Speaker 13 No, it does not. That just means that was our choice of profession.
I enjoyed it. I had a great time.

Speaker 12 And

Speaker 7 is it just a coincidence that they're both telling similar stories? No. For some reason, Misty is trying to save Susan's skin.

Speaker 7 Sisterhood of the Strippers, I guess.

Speaker 7 Judges, the court please, the applicant rests. Thank you.

Speaker 7 After Brian Weiss argues his case, it takes Judge Wallace four months to make up his mind. All right.

Speaker 7 Thank you. Please be seated.

Speaker 7 But I'm ready to announce my rulings on. It was a million-to-one shot, and it worked.

Speaker 7 The judge said Susan should have a new sentencing hearing before a new jury. All right, thank you very much.
Thank you, Sue.

Speaker 7 You're welcome. I'm just trying to give you back your sister.

Speaker 7 Brian? Hey, Sue, how are you? Weiss calls his client in prison to tell her the good news. Oh, Brian, you're serious.
I am. Oh, my God.

Speaker 6 I am so excited. Thank you so much.
You have just given me so much hope.

Speaker 7 Okay, here.

Speaker 7 It was not the news Jeff Wright's father wanted to hear. When you got the word that she had been granted a new sentencing hearing, what did you make of that? I felt like throwing up.

Speaker 7 So what would you like to see happen now? Life would be nice.

Speaker 7 Life, life in prison. Yeah.

Speaker 7 Don't you think that animals should be locked up and kept behind bars?

Speaker 7 And Susan could well get more time.

Speaker 7 It is the great irony of this case that the one move Susan Wright, who's now 34, hopes will set her free, could just as easily keep her in prison for the rest of her life.

Speaker 7 We're going to proceed directly into the punishment phase of the trial. And that's exactly what the new prosecution team is hoping for.
Raise your right hand please.

Speaker 7 They have their own new witnesses lined up and no shortage of theatrics.

Speaker 23 This is the story of the one. As a custodial supervisor at a high school, he knows that during cold and flu season, germs spread fast.

Speaker 23 It's why he partners with Granger to stay fully stocked on the products and supplies he needs, from tissues to disinfectants to floor scrubbers.

Speaker 23 All so that he can help students, staff, and teachers stay healthy and focused. Call 1-800-GRA, clickgranger.com, or just stop by.
Granger for the ones who get it done.

Speaker 21 Hey there, we're Corinne Bien and Sabrina Deanna Roga here to introduce our newest podcast, Crimes of, a Crimehouse Original.

Speaker 18 Crimes of is a weekly series that explores a new theme each season, from Crimes of the Paranormal, Unsolved Murders, and more.

Speaker 18 Our first season is Crimes of Infamy: the true crime stories behind Hollywood's most iconic horror villains.

Speaker 21 Listen to and follow Crimes of, available now wherever you get your podcasts.

Speaker 7 Susan Wright is praying a new jury will shave time off her 25-year sentence, but she knows she could just as easily end up with more time, maybe even life.

Speaker 7 So why take the risk for a chance to see her children again?

Speaker 6 I would do anything in the world to be able to have them back, just to be able to watch them grow up, to know who they are.

Speaker 7 Will that happen?

Speaker 6 I pray it does.

Speaker 7 It is now the fall of 2010, almost seven years since her conviction for stabbing her husband to death.

Speaker 7 A more mature Susan Wright shows up in court. Brian Weiss has handed the case over to a new defense team.
Well, just what the heck was going on? Led by John Munier.

Speaker 7 And we're going to prove that she was, in fact, abused.

Speaker 7 The new prosecution team of Connie Spence and John Jordan intend to prove Susan killed Jeff out of anger, not fear.

Speaker 24 This was a divorce by homicide.

Speaker 7 Because he cheated on her and abused drugs.

Speaker 8 Five years is a long time to be unhappy and pissed off at your husband day after day. The wounds to his head, to his face, to his neck, to his chest, to his abdomen, to his sexual organ.

Speaker 7 And the curtain goes up on the latest act of this legal drama.

Speaker 25 The cuts that Susan Wright had on her hands is extremely consistent with

Speaker 25 when someone is repeatedly stabbing somebody else and the blood is making her hands slick.

Speaker 10 Is that right?

Speaker 7 The bed is back minus the old blood-soaked mattress.

Speaker 8 Sergeant Reynolds is tying another knot around the headboard bedpost.

Speaker 7 This time, a prosecutor lies down on the floor

Speaker 7 to demonstrate how Susan was able to stab Jeff on the top of his head while he was tied up. His head still is completely mobile.
He can still turn it side to side, raise his neck.

Speaker 7 Your next witness, please. The defense is ready with a parade of experts on battered women.

Speaker 10 They're ashamed by what's happening to them.

Speaker 7 The state has made a great deal of stabbing him 193 times. How do you explain that?

Speaker 10 Sheer, abject terror.

Speaker 7 Their star expert is psychologist Jerome Brown. He testifies that when he first met Susan about a week after she killed Jeff, Susan was still scared of her husband and believed Jeff was still alive.

Speaker 7 Plus, he kept looking at the door and looking at

Speaker 7 the vent

Speaker 7 into the room, the air conditioning vent, and saying things like, is that him out there? Or I have a a feeling he may be out there. Are the doors locked? Prosecutors are ready for Dr.
Brown.

Speaker 8 Now, you aware that she told her mom that his body is in the backyard?

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 8 That's a pretty firm affirmation that she knows her husband is not coming back. Would you agree with that?

Speaker 7 Yes.

Speaker 8 I definitely think she played Dr. Brown, and that's just kind of part of Susan.
She's very good at playing people, particularly men, I think.

Speaker 7 But Cindy Stewart says says her sister couldn't manipulate anyone.

Speaker 17 I saw over the course of years her become just a shell of a person.

Speaker 7 In fact, she says Susan could barely manage her own life.

Speaker 17 She was so broken at the end, and it was because of him.

Speaker 7 For the first time since this case began, Cindy is taking the oath and taking the stand.

Speaker 17 I saw my sister who had bruises on her forearms, on her upper arms, and on her neck.

Speaker 7 But nothing frightened her more than what she says she saw a few days after Jeff was killed.

Speaker 17 Handprints, fingers on the inside of her thighs. I stood shocked and

Speaker 17 I asked her if she had been raped and she said yes.

Speaker 7 Thank you. Please raise your right hand.
Susan's mother, who's now 77, testifies she also knew her daughter was being abused.

Speaker 17 She would be in pain.

Speaker 17 She would come over and while I played with Bradley, she would just sit and cry. And when I would ask her about it, she would say, I can't tell you.

Speaker 14 You'll kill me.

Speaker 4 I can't tell you what's happening.

Speaker 7 But prosecutors believe Susan made up the stories of being beaten. They say she learned all about domestic violence growing up, watching her own parents.

Speaker 24 When she said Jeff did certain things, Jeff didn't do those things. We believe Susan witnessed her own father doing that to her mother.

Speaker 7 Ask your next question, please. But at the original trial, Susan's mother denied she was ever a victim, while her husband looked on.

Speaker 8 Is it true or not?

Speaker 8 I don't look at my husband as an abusive person.

Speaker 7 This time around, she's a widow, and prosecutors pushed harder to get her to admit that she lied at the first trial, that Susan did witness abuse at home.

Speaker 24 And you were asked at that time, under oath, were you ever abused or assaulted by your husband, right?

Speaker 10 Yes.

Speaker 8 Is it true or not?

Speaker 24 And you said no.

Speaker 7 They cannot have expected her reaction.

Speaker 14 She knew if I told her yes, I'd go home and get get the hell beaten out of me. I might not be back the next day.

Speaker 9 And I might not ever get up off the floor again the next day.

Speaker 9 You think I'm going to sit here and say yes?

Speaker 15 That guy kicks the shit out of me. I'm not going to do that.

Speaker 14 I'm sorry, but abuse is a secret.

Speaker 9 And it's a secret abused women die to keep.

Speaker 14 They don't tell.

Speaker 15 You get kicked, you get hit, you don't tell.

Speaker 9 And I can't help it.

Speaker 5 If it's the prosecutor, you don't tell, because you've got to go home with that guy.

Speaker 16 I was really proud of her for being honest.

Speaker 17 I knew how hard that was for her to say about my father. It had only been a few months after his death.

Speaker 7 It's an emotional moment that stuns the courtroom.

Speaker 7 But the fireworks aren't over. Misty McMichael is about to take the stand.

Speaker 13 I still don't understand what your point is.

Speaker 22 He put a piece of glass in my face.

Speaker 7 I object to the characterization by the

Speaker 7 and nobody can predict how that will go. Yes.
You are turning your testimony into a circus.

Speaker 7 Misty McMichael says she doesn't condone the murder of Jeff Wright, but as a mother, she understands why Susan did it.

Speaker 22 Any mother is going to protect her children.

Speaker 19 I knew it was going to happen to him sooner or later.

Speaker 7 And now she's ready to take the stand at Susan Wright's new sentencing hearing. Yes, ma'am.
She'll testify that Jeff Wright abused her.

Speaker 7 What kind of names would he call you, ma'am?

Speaker 24 Whore,

Speaker 24 cheater,

Speaker 22 you know, bitch.

Speaker 7 Misty testifies that Jeff Wright didn't just curse at her, that he often beat her and pushed her down a staircase. What would provoke him throwing you down the stairs? Who knows?

Speaker 7 I mean, did you ever do anything intentional to him?

Speaker 22 I didn't do anything. I did not cheat on him.
I didn't do anything.

Speaker 7 It is memorable testimony, especially when Misty describes the night she had Jeff Wright arrested.

Speaker 22 There was a bunch of glasses on the table,

Speaker 13 and I don't know what I said, but he took the glass and he threw it and it

Speaker 27 shattered on my face and it cut me and it bled everywhere. Still, I have the piece of glass in my chin.

Speaker 7 Okay. Now, Misty is eager to help Susan.
Yes. Listen to my question.
We've got to let him

Speaker 5 ask the question. Sorry, I'm sorry.

Speaker 8 Ms. McMichael.

Speaker 7 But she is hard to control.

Speaker 7 We've just...

Speaker 10 Yes, sir.

Speaker 13 She has asked me the same question repeatedly.

Speaker 7 Ma'am. Yes.
Last ma'am. No more ma'ams.
Okay. Let her finish.
All right.

Speaker 7 She's not just difficult, she's defiant.

Speaker 6 What does that have to do with anything?

Speaker 22 Okay. Thank you so much.
He didn't want to know the truth, kind of like you.

Speaker 8 You had a piece of glass, still do.

Speaker 4 It's still here.

Speaker 12 Can you see it?

Speaker 8 Absolutely.

Speaker 12 And you still don't believe that he was an abuser?

Speaker 7 The judge has to repeatedly remind her of proper courtroom etiquette. There are certain things you can do and you can't do as a witness

Speaker 7 before long.

Speaker 8 And that's why you refused treatment on the table.

Speaker 12 Because I heard he was on his way over to me again and I didn't want to be beat anymore that night.

Speaker 7 Judge Wallace has had enough.

Speaker 12 Yes, in the hospital emergency warning.

Speaker 10 Let's take the jury out.

Speaker 21 You're not going to have a little talk.

Speaker 7 He sends the jury out of the courtroom.

Speaker 7 You are turning your testimony into a circus. If it continues, I'll strike everything you've had to say, and nothing you've come down here for will mean anything.
Can I have five minutes?

Speaker 7 Susan's attorney wants a timeout and escorts Misty out of the courtroom.

Speaker 7 When she returns, she's a little calmer.

Speaker 20 Are you okay, Miss McMichael?

Speaker 5 Yes, ma'am.

Speaker 8 Now, Ms. McMichael,

Speaker 8 she was a colorful witness, but in terms of believability...

Speaker 7 Or excuse me, did Jeff get fired?

Speaker 6 It's difficult to get up on a stand and tell a story, but no matter how we come across, the story is still the same. What happened did happen.

Speaker 7 You are excuse. Thank you so much.
We appreciate your testimony.

Speaker 5 Next witness.

Speaker 7 There apparently is no shortage of Jeff Wright's ex-girlfriend. Raise your right hand, please.

Speaker 7 Prosecutors have found one for their side.

Speaker 8 What kind of a girlfriend were you?

Speaker 28 Um, crazy, irrational.

Speaker 7 Marcy Holloway says Jeff Wright was a great boyfriend.

Speaker 28 He was just never mean about anything ever at all.

Speaker 7 She says she still carried a torch for Jeff after they broke up. She called him at home, and Susan answered the phone.

Speaker 8 Tell us exactly what the response was.

Speaker 8 Same tone, what the response was.

Speaker 28 I don't know if I have it in me.

Speaker 7 Don't fly anymore!

Speaker 4 Like that, it scared the crap out of me.

Speaker 28 Then she said that he was married, he had a child,

Speaker 28 that if I called there again, she would find me and rip my head off.

Speaker 7 The testimony is over, but the drama is not.

Speaker 7 It is time for closing arguments. She had black eyes.
She had bruises. She had the usual things that come about with the darkest secret of our lives, which is domestic abuse.

Speaker 24 As he lay sleeping, she started stabbing.

Speaker 8 She did it.

Speaker 7 10,

Speaker 7 20. John Jordan appears to be reenacting four,

Speaker 7 five.

Speaker 7 Former prosecutor Kelly Siegler's reenactment. Nine, ten,

Speaker 7 one ninety-one,

Speaker 10 one-ninety-two,

Speaker 7 one-ninety

Speaker 7 three.

Speaker 7 As the hours go by, the jury sends out three notes asking about probation with community supervision.

Speaker 7 Cindy and her mother began preparing to bring Susan home.

Speaker 17 There's nobody like her.

Speaker 17 I wanted my sister back.

Speaker 7 State of Texas versus Susan LaSille Wright for the defendant police stand. After two days.
We, the jury, having made a negative finding,

Speaker 7 the new sentence surprises everyone.

Speaker 7 Assess her punishment at confinement in the institutional division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice for 20 years.

Speaker 7 20 years in prison with credit for time served. It's only five years off her current sentence and a long way from probation, which Susan Wright had hoped for.

Speaker 26 The jury has spoken.

Speaker 7 And then, one last surprise, in a voice barely above a whisper, she apologizes to Jeff Wright's family.

Speaker 7 I just want you to know that I'm sorry.

Speaker 6 I'm sorry that you don't have your son and your brother. And I'm sorry that the kids don't have their father.

Speaker 8 It's a little bit too little, too late.

Speaker 7 They are not tears for remorse,

Speaker 7 nor are they tears for what you've done to your two beautiful children. You left them.
Ron Wright, Jr., Jeff's brother, speaks for his family.

Speaker 7 The Wright family has been given a life sentence, and I think you got off too easy. All right, Ms.
Wright, once again, the jury has spoken, assessed 20 years.

Speaker 8 She had hope for a period of time,

Speaker 25 and that's been taken away.

Speaker 17 She's devastated.

Speaker 7 Susan's too devastated to talk to us anymore, but her lawyer has a plea for everyone involved in this case. Both families have been suffering for years.
Let the healing begin.

Speaker 7 It is a tall order for two families who lost a son and a daughter, and two children who lost both parents in one bloody night.

Speaker 26 In 2020, Susan Wright was released from prison after serving 16 years.

Speaker 26 Do you know why Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice is so delicious? It has just one ingredient, oranges. Picked at peak ripeness and squeezed within 24 hours.

Speaker 26 No extras, no fuss, just pure, joyful sunshine. Perfect for slow mornings, running errands, or watching sports.
Really, anytime you're craving a fresh squeeze flavor.

Speaker 26 Tropicana Pure Premium Orange Juice.