 From the outside, Susan and Jeff Wright had it all. They were the perfect image of a beautiful young family, but as we all know, every family has their secrets, and the Wrights were no exception. One fateful night, the world around them would collapse and their lives would be changed forever. Detectives say that on January 13, 2003, someone took the life of Jeff Wright. The suspect attempted to clean up the scene of the crime, but investigators were hot on their trail. By the end of a rather lengthy investigation, after an extremely unexpected confession, prosecutors had finally caught the criminal. But it wasn't someone that any of the investigative team would have expected. The entire city of Houston, Texas was left frozen in fear when the culprit was finally revealed, and the family was left torn in two. Susan Wright was born in 1976 in Houston, Texas, to her parents Sue and Jimmy. Susan had a fairly interesting life from the very beginning. Her early childhood isn't spoken about much, but her teenage years reveal that she must have been battling some pretty serious demons. By the time Susan had turned 17, she'd begun making some interesting career decisions, as she began working as an exotic dancer. Now, I'm not an attorney, but I'm not even sure that something like this would have been legal for someone her age, but either way, Susan made a go of it and continued working as a dancer for a period of just eight weeks before quitting and trying to find something better to do with her time. Now, there's no mention of how much money Susan made during her two months as a dancer, but she must have been a pretty good one because after she quit, she began to put herself through college using the money that she had made. Susan initially began a nursing program at one of her local community colleges, but she quickly found out that nursing wasn't for her and neither was college. Considering she was a young woman with her entire future in front of her, Susan felt that college was taking up far too much of her time and eating away at the little bit of freedom that she had. So after only taking a few courses and seemingly getting no degrees or certifications out of it, she decided to quit and began working as a waitress, giving her far more time for herself and helping her to continue to have an income, unlike what was happening at college. This proved to be a good move for Susan. After leaving school, it seems like she had a pretty great time working as a waitress. She met all sorts of interesting people and generally seemed to have been quite happy with her sudden change of plans. Her job forced her to commute to Galveston, with all this taking place in 1997 when Susan was just 21 years old. I couldn't find any mention of what specific restaurant Susan worked at, but we know that it was located on a beach which brought in all kinds of tourists and other interesting people. One of these people was Jeff Wright, a highly successful carpet salesman who took a serious interest in Susan from their very first encounter. One of Susan's co-workers reported that after the two met, Jeff would call the restaurant two or three times a day and ask to speak with Susan. Thankfully, Susan shared this same interest and the two began dating within weeks of meeting up. Everyone recalled Jeff as being an incredibly sweet man. From the moment that he walked into the restaurant, several of Susan's co-workers noticed just how calm and loving he was. Susan even remembers how Jeff would bring her flowers and gifts while she was at work, and he always took time out of his day to make sure that she felt special and cared for. Barely a year later, Susan was already eight months pregnant with their first child, a boy named Bradley. The two would get married shortly before the arrival of their son, with Susan recalling that Jeff was her typical American man who wanted nothing more than to settle down with a wife and kids and a dog in a traditional Houston, Texas home. But Jeff wasn't always this way. According to several people who knew Jeff, he spent much of his teens and twenties partying pretty heavily. Mind you, when he and Susan met, Jeff was eight years older than her. He'd been a pretty reckless person throughout his younger years, often going out to bars and parties with friends and partaking in various illegal activities. Jeff was a difficult man to tame, but once he met Susan, all of this changed for the better. Or so it would seem. See, everything wasn't perfect in paradise. While the couple kept up outward appearances of being happy and deeply in love, the picture they painted for others simply wasn't accurate to what was actually taking place in the right family home. Immediately after the birth of their son, Susan and Jeff moved into a picture-esque home in the White Oaks suburb of Houston. It didn't take too long before Susan was pregnant again, this time with a girl named Kaylee. Susan always did her best to keep their home neat and tidy. After all, Jeff was bringing in so much money that Susan didn't even have to work. So she decided to stay home with the kids and seemed to be incredibly happy with her newfound passion for parenting and tending to the family's home. But just four years in, well, that's when the facade that they'd upheld in front of their neighbors, friends, and family began to show some cracks. While Jeff had initially believed that he was ready to settle down and start a family, nothing could be farther from the truth. In all honesty, Jeff may have honestly been ready to leave his old life behind him. But we all know that old habits die hard. After years of partying day in and day out, Jeff just couldn't shake off his lust for alcohol and illegal drugs. In fact, Jeff had developed a pretty serious addiction. Susan had done her best to let Jeff deal with his addiction in his own way. But as time passed by, Susan began to realize that his usage wasn't letting up. It may have actually been getting worse. She spoke with Jeff about this on multiple occasions. But Jeff was insistent that he was completely fine and that everything was under control. It wasn't. Susan says that as years passed by, Jeff's usage began to seriously affect their whole life. After he would use, he would grow incredibly aggressive with both her and their children. Susan recalls being kicked, punched, slapped, and who knows what else during Jeff's uncontrollable fits of rage, all of which stemmed from his years of substance abuse. Jeff also had a mentality that he provided everything for the family, so he should be able to do as he pleased regardless of who had heard. As years passed by and the abuse only worsened, Susan's patience had begun to run out. She did her best to be a good person and a good wife. She didn't believe that divorce was ever the right answer, but she knew that something had to change. She feared for her own safety and for the safety of her children. And she knew that this nightmare needed to end, and she was going to see to it that whatever the cost, she would end it. It was January 13th, 2003. Jeff once again was high. He'd been playing with the couple's son Bradley that afternoon, but things didn't really go as planned. While the two were having a great time at first, Jeff once again got a bit too aggressive with Bradley, accidentally hitting his son a bit too hard during their antics, causing him to cry. Jeff was thankful that Susan didn't seem to notice that this had happened, so he brushed it off and moved on with his afternoon. But unbeknownst to him, Susan did, in fact, notice. After a few hours had passed by, the two tucked their children into bed for the night. As Jeff was laying on the couch watching TV, he noticed Susan appear in the doorway, wearing nothing but a bathrobe. Without another second's thought, he turned off the TV and headed into the bedroom. As he entered the doorway, he found that Susan had placed candles all around the room and even had music play. Jeff couldn't have been more excited. He hopped onto the bed and without another word, Susan began to tie him to the bed posts. Jeff felt that the evening couldn't have gotten any better. After tying him to the bed posts, though, Susan's expression began to change. As she stared down at Jeff, completely helpless, the years of abuse that she and her children had been subjected to spun around in her mind. She knew that she would never have a better opportunity to end her suffering and the suffering of her children. So she grabbed a knife that had been stored away nearby and began to execute her plan. Jeff quickly realized that the evening was not going to end the way that he had imagined, but he was helpless to defend himself. Try as he might, he couldn't break free of his restraints. All the while, Susan allowed her pent-up rage to flow freely, injuring Jeff a total of 193 times. Let that sink in for just a moment. 193 individual injuries, dozens of which should have been fatal, but weren't. But by the time the crime was over, Susan dropped the weapon and slid off the bed, collapsing to the floor after realizing what she had done. Jeff's life had finally come to an end. When Susan gathered the courage to turn the light on and look at what she had done, she was struck with an intense feeling of panic. As she stared at the crime she'd committed, she was overwhelmed. She knew she couldn't go to prison, it would destroy what was left of her family. She knew that she had to clean this up and do the best that she could to destroy the evidence of the crime, but she couldn't even determine where to begin. After a while, she decided simply to take a shower, then returned to the bedroom to begin cleaning things up. After she was satisfied with her cleaning, Susan called Jeff's parents, who lived about 150 miles away in Austin. She began the call by sobbing, claiming that Jeff had just come home from his boxing lessons angrier than he had ever been before. She says that he began to unleash on both her and their son. Jeff's parents couldn't believe what they were hearing, but they had no choice but to trust that Susan was telling them the truth. Naturally, they asked to speak with Jeff, but Susan explained that he'd run out of the house and she had no idea where he had gone. She felt confident that Jeff had finally left her once and for all. Jeff's parents, completely blindsided by these accusations, asked Susan what had set him off into such a fit of rage. Susan explained that his addiction had grown increasingly out of control and he had finally snapped. As far as Jeff's parents knew, he'd stopped using four years ago when Jeff and Susan had gotten married. They truly had no idea just how bad his addiction had gotten. Susan cried on the phone with Jeff's parents for more than an hour before eventually hanging up. All the while, their son lay lifeless on the bed that he had once shared with his beloved wife. After Susan finally ended the call, she knew that her hard work had only just begun. In the weeks leading up to the crime, Jeff had been busy preparing their backyard for a new deck and a fountain that he had planned to install. At this point, it became glaringly obvious that this project was never going to be completed. So instead, Susan came up with a plan. She pulled Jeff to the backyard and dropped him into the hole that he had been digging for the fountain, meaning Jeff had literally dug his own grave just days prior to losing his life. As Susan tried to shove him into the hole, she quickly realized that this wasn't going to work, but she'd come too far to give up now. The son was beginning to rise and she needed to think quickly. Unable to fit him completely inside, she just began throwing dirt over the top of him, doing a truly terrible job of concealing the crime. She knew that this wouldn't work long-term, but with the amount of time she had before her children would wake up, she had to call it good enough and get back inside to begin cleaning up the mess that she'd left behind. Susan rushed back inside and began cleaning the floor, the walls, the ceiling, the bed, everything. In the end, she tossed the sheets in a trash bag in the backyard and even hauled the couple's mattress out back as well, assuming the children wouldn't find either of them. She then bleached the couple's bedroom from floor to ceiling all in the nick of time. By the time her children got out of bed, she loaded them up and they all headed into town to run some errands, as if nothing had ever even happened. After Susan had spoken with Jeff's parents that evening, they anxiously awaited a knock at their door, assuming that Jeff would come to their home to cool off for a bit. But Jeff never showed up. They never even received a call from him. As hours passed by, his parents called Susan back and asked if Jeff ever returned home. Susan explained that he had, but that they ended up in yet another argument. So he grabbed some clothes and left again, destination unknown. She added that Jeff was so mad that he grabbed a bottle of bleach and shook it all over the bedroom, creating an alibi for why the hole was filled with the odor of bleach and explaining why the carpet in their bedroom had been so damaged during Susan's secret cleanup. Before long, Jeff's boss called as well and Susan shared the same story. When a neighbor inquired about Jeff later that day, she once again shared the same story with the neighbor suggesting that Susan filed a police report. Two days later, Susan agreed to this plan. She headed to the police station in Harris County and filed a report based on the version of events she had told all of her friends, family and neighbors. Police took photos of the cuts and bruises on her hands, the ones she'd given herself while ending Jeff's life, and the police seemingly believed every word of her story. Fearful of what might happen if Jeff returned home to find that she'd reported him to the police, investigators even offered her a restraining order so that she would feel safer at home with her kids. By the following Saturday, Susan realized that she couldn't keep up the charade forever. The questions people had begun to ask were getting harder and harder to answer, but that was by no means the worst part. During all this time, Susan had not managed to find Jeff a more suitable grave. To make matters worse, the family dog had discovered Jeff's location and had begun to dig him up. Now, I can't go into too much detail about what Susan saw after this, but as she looked out the rear window of her home, she noticed that the dog had also, well, started chewing on what it had found in the hole in the backyard, and now there was evidence all over the place. Later that day, Susan had enough. She couldn't lie anymore. Her alibi had run its course and she knew that there was nowhere else to run. She loaded up her children into the car and drove to her mother's house a few miles away. When she arrived, she told her mother the same story she had told everyone else, but her mother felt that there was something else going on here. As certain aspects of this story just didn't hold up under scrutiny. Finally, Susan's mother asked, Susan, did you kill Jeff? With a slight nod of her head, Susan confessed. Susan's mother helped her find a great criminal defense attorney. The couple's children were then sent to stay with Susan's sister, Cindy, while Susan went to the police and confessed what had taken place. Well, sort of. Susan obviously knew that she'd be caught eventually, but rather than share the true version of events with police, she concocted a story that painted her as a blameless victim. She claimed that Jeff had come after her with a knife and that she had managed to wrestle it away from him and use it to defend herself, but that didn't explain why she had entered him nearly 200 times. She claimed that once she started, she couldn't stop, but the jury wasn't buying this. Susan did explain that after years of abuse, her rage had just overflowed, but she still refused to share the full truth about what had happened. It didn't take long before everyone in the courtroom realized that Susan had been lying profusely and that the tears she shed in court were fake. Susan wasn't an innocent victim. She was a cold-blooded killer. After just five and a half hours of deliberation, the jury decided that Susan was guilty and she was sentenced to 25 years behind bars, but that isn't the end of the story. See, one woman believed Susan. That was Misty McMichael, Jeff's former fiance. She came forward in 2005 and announced that she'd been subjected to Jeff's abuse as well during their four-year engagement. She believed that the story that Susan had been sharing may have been true after all. Police took these accusations seriously and in the end, five years were taken off of Susan's sentence. This allowed her to be eligible for release in 2014, but her parole was denied. She was eligible again in 2017, but her parole was denied once again. Finally, in 2020, Susan applied for parole once more and her request was granted. She was released from prison on December 30th, 2020. As of 2022, Susan has essentially fallen off the map. She's now living a very low-profile life somewhere in Texas and appears to be meeting all the terms of her parole. Her children were adopted by Jeff's brother during the trial and were allowed to live as normal of a life as possible, thankfully. At the end of it all, Susan's anger towards Jeff may have been justified. After all, you can only abuse someone and push them so far before they snap, but does that defend what Susan did? Absolutely not. Was Jeff a bad husband? Most likely. Substance abuse can destroy even the best of us, but there's no way to excuse what Susan did to her husband. She could have reported into the police and had him sent to prison. She could have done a million other things than claim his life, but Susan was so blinded by her own rage that none of these possibilities felt like reasonable options to her. I'll never be one to paint an abuser as some sort of martyr or innocent victim, but Jeff certainly didn't deserve what Susan put him through and that's just the honest truth. Susan has since become known in the media as the Blue-eyed Butcher, a pretty fitting name considering what she's done. Susan's life has since moved on, but for Jeff's family, life will never be the same. Thank you guys for tuning in to another episode of True Crime Stories. 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