Monsters Among Us

[0] Hey, Prime members, you can binge eight new episodes of the Mr. Ballin podcast one month early and all episodes ad -free on Amazon Music.

[1] Download the Amazon Music app today.

[2] Today's podcast features three stories that will make you wonder how many monsters you've encountered in your life without knowing it.

[3] The audio from all three of these stories has been pulled from our main YouTube channel and has been remastered for today's episode.

[4] The links to the original YouTube videos are in the description.

[5] The first story you'll hear is called Soft.

[6] and it's about how a couple's weird encounter in the woods would take a chilling turn years later.

[7] The second story you'll hear is called Parents Know Best, and it's about how a father's instincts turned out to be correct.

[8] And the third and final story you'll hear is called That'll Do Pig, and it's about a shocking discovery on a farm in Oregon.

[9] But before we get into today's stories, 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 and we upload twice a week once on Monday and once on Thursday.

[10] So if that's of interest to you, please offer to make the Amazon Music Follow button a cup of coffee, but be sure it's full of coffee grounds.

[11] Okay, let's get into our first story called Soft.

[12] I'm Dan Tiberski.

[13] In 2011, something strange began to happen at a high school in upstate New York, a mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[14] What's the answer?

[15] And what do you do if they tell you, it's all in your head.

[16] Hysterical, a new podcast from Wondry and Pineapple Street Studios.

[17] Binge all episodes of hysterical early and ad -free on Wondry Plus.

[18] In the 1970s, a young woman and young man were on their very first date together, and it wasn't going very well.

[19] It wasn't going badly.

[20] It was just really, really awkward.

[21] They just were not meshing at all.

[22] And so as they're getting ready to leave and retire for the night, the guy is thinking to himself, I have nothing to lose here.

[23] We're probably not going to go on a second date.

[24] And he says to the woman, hey, do you want to knock on a second date?

[25] go home right now and actually come on a hike with me?

[26] And he goes, I know this sounds like a terrible idea, but hear me out.

[27] I go mountain climbing in this area called Provo Canyon.

[28] It's not that far from here.

[29] There are these beautiful trails that lead up the side of the canyon to these amazing scenic overlooks.

[30] And tonight, it's a new moon, so there's great visibility.

[31] And I just think that you might enjoy it.

[32] And so at first, the woman is obviously a little bit hesitant.

[33] But when he says, look, I go hiking there at night all the time.

[34] I love it out there.

[35] And I promise if there's any weirdness.

[36] If you don't like being there, we'll just turn around and leave.

[37] It's totally safe.

[38] And so after a little bit of coaxing, she finally says, okay, you know what?

[39] That sounds fun.

[40] Let's go do it.

[41] And so their date that had been really awkward suddenly became really exciting.

[42] And the two of them were kind of like thrilled.

[43] Like, wow, look at us, making our way up for a nighttime hike through Provo Canyon.

[44] And so they arrive at the mouth of this canyon.

[45] And they're both obviously excited.

[46] And they hop out and they start walking up this trail that brings them into a heavily forested section of the canyon.

[47] Now, to this point, the guy felt like this was a really great idea.

[48] He really had gone hiking here a bunch, and he really did know the area well.

[49] But as the trail brought them into the forested area, the guy remembers feeling this overwhelming sense of dread.

[50] He didn't know why.

[51] It was just like an overwhelming sense of anxiety that something bad was going to happen to them.

[52] But he had worked so hard to convince his date to come with him and had convinced her it was safe that he's not about to let on to her, that there was anything wrong with what they were doing.

[53] And so he put on, you know, his strong face and just kind of suppressed it and just kept on walking and, you know, holding her hand tight and they just continued their walk.

[54] But his sense of dread would just build and build to the point where he was really on edge.

[55] And what he didn't know, but would find out later, is that his date, the woman, she also had this horrible sense of dread as soon as they went into the forest.

[56] But she didn't want to tell him because she didn't want to see a little party pooper because he seemed really excited about it.

[57] At some point as they're walking down this path, the man steps on something that felt soft.

[58] He didn't know what it was, but it caused him to freeze immediately.

[59] And he's holding her hand.

[60] It kind of jerks her to get her to stop.

[61] And before he can even look down and see what he's standing on, he hears rustling coming from the bushes just off the trail.

[62] She hears it to, and both of them without saying a word to each other, because again, you got to remember, they're both really stressed.

[63] to the other how stressed they are but they're both basically ready to leave and so the two of them turn around and they hightail it out of there he has no idea what he stepped on they don't know what they heard in the bushes but they don't care the anxiety was so high they just wanted to leave years later that man and woman who had this very strange date would actually be married and they'd be sitting down watching tv together and they're flipping through the channels and they land on an interview with a death row inmate and the interviewer is asking the Was there ever a time that you were almost caught red -handed?

[64] And the guy being interviewed says, yes, one time.

[65] I was in the forest up in Provo Canyon one night, and a young couple came walking up the trail.

[66] I didn't see him, so I only had a chance to jump into the bushes right next to the trail, and the guy actually stepped on the body of a girl I had just killed.

[67] But for some reason, he didn't look down and see what he was standing on, and the two of them didn't notice me just a few feet away from them.

[68] They just turned around and walked away.

[69] Turns out that young couple had run into one of the worst serial killers of all time, Ted Bundy.

[70] Before Bundy was executed, he confessed over 30 murders.

[71] But many people believe the true number of victims is much, much, much higher.

[72] Our next story is called Parents Know Best.

[73] After spending 21 years in the U .S. Army, a man retires and moves to Central Florida with his wife and young son.

[74] Although his family had plenty of money because he had a pension coming in and his wife still worked full time, He just got bored really quickly after moving to Central Florida and decided he would just take a job doing something just to stay occupied.

[75] And so he ended up taking a job at a highway gas station.

[76] One of the primary reasons he chose this particular job is because the owners of the gas station didn't care if his son came along to help him stock shelves and hang out behind the cash register.

[77] And so for years, that's just how it went.

[78] The man would work at the gas station and his son would tag along.

[79] Even after his son became a teenager and you'd think might be wanting to do other things, well, the town.

[80] was so small there was almost nothing to do so his son still came along well into his teenage years one night in 1990 his son who was 15 years old at the time was at the station and he was actually taking a break sitting outside on a picnic table he was reading a magazine drinking a mountain do and you know it's dark out and he notices out of the corner of his eye that there is a woman walking off of the highway towards the gas station it was a very quiet night at the time so there's no cars getting gas, there's nobody there.

[81] And there's not really anybody even driving on the highway.

[82] And so that's why she really stood out to him.

[83] And he turns and he notices her and he thinks to himself, you know, no one ever walks to our gas station.

[84] We're on a highway.

[85] Everybody drives here.

[86] So she must have broken down and she must be coming here to try to use our phone to call a tow truck or something like that.

[87] So the woman is walking across the lot, coming closer and closer to the gas station.

[88] And the boy at this point has turned his attention back to his magazine.

[89] But he would say later that he kept looking up and keeping an eye on her, because there was something off about her.

[90] The woman ultimately walks right behind him and goes in the door into the gas station.

[91] Doesn't acknowledge the boy, doesn't say hi to him, just walks straight inside, and she starts walking up and down the aisles of the gas station.

[92] Now, from where the boy was sitting, it's all glass so he could clearly look in and see his father behind the counter, and he could see the head of this woman as she walked in and around all these aisles.

[93] And as soon as the woman was in the store, kind of pacing around the aisles, the boy put his magazine down and was just watching.

[94] And he noticed that she was not really shopping.

[95] She was just looking down for a few seconds, wouldn't pick anything up.

[96] So she wasn't buying anything.

[97] And she would look up at the counter where his father was.

[98] And she would just stare at him.

[99] And then she'd look back down at what she was doing and she would go through all the aisles.

[100] And at some point, the woman just kind of abandons this phony, I'm pretending to shop routine and just walks up to the counter.

[101] Now, nobody else is in the store.

[102] There's nobody else coming in.

[103] And so the boy could actually fairly clearly hear what she was saying to his father.

[104] And she told his father that she had broken down and she needed a ride and could he drive her to Ocala, which was the next big town north of this gas station.

[105] And the boy would say that his father acted very strangely because his father is normally incredibly pleasant with all the customers.

[106] He's very chatty even.

[107] Like he talks to everybody who comes in the store.

[108] But as soon as this woman had gone in, his dad had seemed kind of dismissive and almost rude to this woman.

[109] And when she was talking to him asking for a ride, He just said, no, I won't give you a ride.

[110] The woman is annoyed by how quickly she's been shot down.

[111] But instead of just taking no for an answer, she turns and looks at the boy, the boy who's sitting out on the bench, who's looking right at her, and she points at the boy, and she says, what about him?

[112] Is he your son?

[113] Can he give me a ride?

[114] The boy notices that his father, who's not within her eyesight, is looking at his son going, no. Like, whatever she wants from you, you're going to say no to it.

[115] And the boy's a little bit confused by this because he's still trying to understand why his dad was so against helping this woman because she clearly needs our help or someone's help, but he just took his dad at face value and when the woman's pointing at him, he knew the boy that if she came over and asked him, he would say no. But it wouldn't come to that because the boy's father would say to the woman, no, my son's not going to give you a ride.

[116] You need to leave here immediately.

[117] Do not come back.

[118] Leave.

[119] We're not going to help you.

[120] She's furious.

[121] She's cussing him out.

[122] She storms out and slams the door.

[123] She starts cussing at the boy and she walks off.

[124] the whole time she's turning around and flipping them off and screaming profanities at them, but she ultimately walks off.

[125] And the dad kind of followed her out and is standing next to his son as she walks off.

[126] And the boy asked his dad, like, what was her deal?

[127] Why did that happen?

[128] Why did you not want to help her?

[129] And the dad just said, I don't know, there was just something.

[130] There was something off about her.

[131] And I don't know how to place it, but I did not want her around you.

[132] I knew I didn't want to give her a ride.

[133] I just, I knew she had to go.

[134] A year later, the boy is in his room when he hears his dad in the other room yelling for him to come in here and look at the TV.

[135] So he runs into the TV room and on the TV is the same woman from the gas station.

[136] Better known as Eileen Warnos, she was a serial killer who used to pick up her male victims at gas stations in Florida.

[137] It's unclear whether the boy or the boy's father were her next victims.

[138] But by the time she had shown up at that gas station, she had already killed four people.

[139] And following that interaction with them at the gas station, she had gone on to kill three more people, including someone in Okala, Florida, which was the town she had asked them to give her a ride to.

[140] Eileen had been caught.

[141] That's why she was on TV, and she was later sentenced to death.

[142] I'm Dan Tversky.

[143] In 2011, something strange began to happen at the high school in Leroy, New York.

[144] I was like at my locker, and she came up to me, and she was like stuttering super bad.

[145] I'm like, stop fucking around.

[146] She's like, I can't.

[147] A mystery illness, bizarre symptoms, and spreading fast.

[148] It's like doubling and tripling, and it's all these girls.

[149] With a diagnosis, the state tried to keep on the download.

[150] Everybody thought I was holding something back.

[151] Well, you were holding something back.

[152] Intentionally.

[153] Yeah, well, yeah.

[154] No, it's hysteria.

[155] It's all in your head.

[156] It's not physical.

[157] Oh, my gosh, you're exaggerating.

[158] Is this the largest mass hysteria since the Witches of Salem?

[159] Or is it something else entirely?

[160] Something's wrong here.

[161] Something's not right.

[162] Leroy was the new date line and everyone was trying to solve the murder.

[163] A new limited series from Wondery, and Pineapple Street Studios, Hysterical.

[164] Follow Hysterical on the Wondery app or wherever you get your podcasts.

[165] You can binge all episodes of Hysterical early and ad -free right now by joining Wondry Plus.

[166] If you're listening to this podcast, then chances are good.

[167] You are a fan of the Strange Dark and Mysterious.

[168] And if that's the case, then I've got some good news.

[169] We just launched a brand -new, Strange Dark and Mysterious podcast called Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries.

[170] And as the name suggests, It's a show about medical mysteries, a genre that many fans have been asking us to dive into for years, and we finally decided to take the plunge, and the show is awesome.

[171] In this free, weekly show, we explore bizarre, unheard of diseases, strange medical mishaps, unexplainable deaths, and everything in between.

[172] Each story is totally true and totally terrifying.

[173] Go follow Mr. Ballin's Medical Mysteries wherever you get your podcasts, and if you're a prime member, you can listen early and ad -free on Amazon Music.

[174] next and final story of today's episode is called That'll Do Pig.

[175] By most people's standards, Susan Monica's life had been pretty good.

[176] She had a small but very close group of friends, she had a great job working as an engineer, and she lived in one of the most exciting cities in the world, San Francisco, California.

[177] But Susan was not happy.

[178] Moving to the big city was not so much a choice as it was a product of life and circumstance.

[179] Deep down, Susan had always been someone who preferred peace and quiet and being alone, things that were in rare supply in a big city like San Francisco.

[180] Many nights after work, Susan would come home to her apartment and she would sit there and dream about moving away from the city and living off the grid somewhere on a farm, you know, raise her own food and be totally self -sufficient, away from everybody else in the world.

[181] And then one day in 1991, when Susan was 43 years old, she made that dream a reality.

[182] That year, she wound up purchasing a 20 -acre farm located in a forest in a little town in Oregon called Weimer.

[183] However, this farm was really not a farm.

[184] There was nothing on it.

[185] There was no house for Susan to live in.

[186] There was no barn for her animals or tools.

[187] There was no running water, no electricity, no septic system.

[188] It was just pure Oregonian wilderness.

[189] But to Susan, it was perfect.

[190] The property kept her far away from other people, and she liked the idea of having to literally build her own farm.

[191] After all, she was an engineer by trade, so she actually knew how to build buildings efficiently and safely, and she was a big, strong, sturdy woman who was not afraid of manual labor.

[192] So when Susan finally arrived in Weimer and made her way up the winding dirt road through the forest and arrived in front of her property and looked out at the vast, rugged landscape for the first time, she was filled with a rush of excitement.

[193] Even though there was nothing on her 20 acres, it already felt like home.

[194] Over the next several months, Susan would transform these 20 acres into a neat little farm, complete with a big barn and a shack for her to live in, and a few animal pens for livestock.

[195] However, after the farm was built, Susan realized that building the farm was actually not the hard part.

[196] The hard part was maintaining the farm, going out there every day and doing all of her chores, feeding all the animals, and doing all the different projects she had in mind, it was exhausting.

[197] And so not long after the farm was complete, Susan realized that as much as she wanted to be totally alone out there, she had to set that aside and hire some help.

[198] And so Susan printed out all of these help -wanted flyers and put them all over town in Wymer, and before long, people began making their way up to her property to inquire about the role.

[199] Most of these applicants were people who struggled to find work elsewhere, either because they lived a sort of transient lifestyle bouncing around from place to place so no one was ready to hire them long term, or because they had a criminal record and just straight up could not get a job.

[200] But Susan didn't care about either of those things.

[201] All she cared about was the people she hired would work hard and they would respect the peaceful, calm atmosphere she was fostering on her farm.

[202] Basically, do the work and leave me alone.

[203] And over the next 20 years, Susan would find dozens of people who were able to do just that.

[204] Most of them would work for Susan only for a short period of time.

[205] Others would stick around for a little bit longer, but eventually all of Susan's workers kind of rotated pretty quickly and moved on to other things.

[206] And when that happened, Susan would simply put up more help -wanted flyers in town and hire more people.

[207] And in all the 20 years that Susan had been hiring these temporary workers at her farm, after they did move on and went somewhere else, Susan never heard about them again.

[208] However, that was about to change.

[209] On January 1st, 2014, Susan, who was 66 years old by this point, was outside of her shack out on her driveway when she happened to look up and see a car coming up her road.

[210] Now remember, she lives in the middle of nowhere.

[211] No one comes out to see her, so this is a very rare event.

[212] And so Susan is totally keyed in on this car.

[213] And this car, they pull into her driveway and then out of the car pop three young people.

[214] It was two young men and one young woman.

[215] And before Susan could even ask them who they were or why they were here, they were telling her.

[216] They said they were looking for their father, Robert Haney, who at one point had told them he was working on Susan's farm in exchange for a little cash, and also Susan was letting him park his camper on her property, and he was living in that camper.

[217] The kids said their father always checked in with them at least once every couple of months, but they had just gone this really long stretch without hearing from him, and since he didn't have a cell phone and no permanent address, they had no real way of getting in touch with him, and so they were out there looking for him to make sure he was okay.

[218] And so they asked Susan, do you remember our dad, Robert?

[219] And if so, do you know where he is?

[220] Even though this whole situation was totally surprising for Susan, because she almost never got visitors, so that alone was kind of jarring for her.

[221] But when she heard the kids say their dad's name, Robert Haney, she immediately knew who that was.

[222] Susan told them that she had hired their father the previous spring to help build a structure on her farm.

[223] And initially, Robert was really nice to have around the farm.

[224] He worked really hard, he kept to himself, he was quiet, and he had a dog that was really friendly and loving.

[225] But in August of the previous year, so five months into Robert's employment on Susan's farm, Susan would tell them that their dad totally changed.

[226] He started drinking really heavily and not really working very much and spending a lot of the day just kind of ranting and raving outside of his camper about how he wanted to exact his revenge on someone.

[227] Susan would eventually find out that what Robert was talking about is apparently one of his kids had been assaulted and he felt very guilty that he had not been there to protect his child.

[228] And so the way Robert was handling this guilt was by drinking and thinking about getting his revenge on the attacker.

[229] Now, while Susan did understand why Robert felt the way he did and why he was kind of acting the way he was, it didn't change the fact that Robert's behavior had become very disruptive on her farm, and the one thing Susan really wanted was peace and quiet.

[230] And so she decided she would have to go confront Robert about his behavior and potentially fire him if he couldn't find a way to calm down.

[231] But before Susan ever had to do that, Robert one day just walked right up to her shack, he handed her an envelope filled with cash, and he asked Susan if she wouldn't mind looking after his dog for a while.

[232] And Susan was so taken back by his complete change in behavior and this request that she just took the envelope and said, okay, I'll look after your dog.

[233] And then Robert nodded as thank you.

[234] He turned around and he walked away from her.

[235] And then a few moments later, Susan's standing there with the envelope in hand watching as Robert is climbing into some white car that had just pulled up in front of the property.

[236] She didn't know who was in the car with him.

[237] And then the car turned around and drove out of sight.

[238] Susan told the kids that that had happened back in September, so about four months ago.

[239] And since he left, she had not heard from him, despite the fact she still had his dog, and she told the kids that a lot of Robert's stuff was still in his camper.

[240] Susan brought the kids over to the side of her property where Robert's camper was, and when they went inside, sure enough, all their father's things were all over the place, but the one item that immediately stood out to them was their father's tool belt.

[241] They knew their father was a traveling handyman that was how he made his living, and so it begged the question, why would he leave his tool belt here if he knew he was going to be gone for several months potentially?

[242] It didn't make any sense.

[243] After leaving Roberts Camper, the kids thanked Susan and asked her to please be in touch if she learned anything else about their dad, and she said she would, and then the kids got back in their car, and they began driving south towards the Jackson County Sheriff's Office.

[244] When they got there, they asked to file a missing person report for their dad.

[245] However, they learned very quickly, that it was going to be very challenging to locate their dad, because their dad lived this transient lifestyle with no cell phone, he had no permanent address, he had nothing that could really be traced.

[246] But the investigators agreed with Robert's children that their dad's absence was a big concern given the fact that his last interactions with Susan had consisted of him drinking very heavily and talking about going and getting his revenge on his child's attacker.

[247] And so the sheriff and the deputies were very concerned that that was exactly what Robert had done.

[248] gone out and potentially murdered someone and now was in hiding.

[249] So they asked Robert's kids if they could think of absolutely anything that could possibly allow investigators to track down Robert.

[250] And at some point, one of the kids said, oh, what about my dad's EBT card?

[251] EBT cards or electronic benefit transfer cards are like debit cards for state welfare services.

[252] You can use the cards to buy things like groceries, and the cards are definitely traceable.

[253] A few days later, when Robert's EBT card trace came back, investigators saw the card had been used just one month earlier in a Walmart located about 30 minutes southwest of Susan's farm.

[254] Now, this trace obviously didn't tell investigators where Robert was right now or what kind of condition Robert was in, but they had no other leads to operate on, so they decided they would go to the Walmart and see what they could find.

[255] When they got there, the investigators were led to the back room of the building where they were able to review the security footage from the previous month when Robert was supposedly there with his EBT card.

[256] But after reviewing hours and hours and hours of footage, the investigators never saw Robert on camera.

[257] However, they did see Susan on camera, and unbelievably, she was the one using Robert's EBT card.

[258] And so obviously, this was very suspicious, and right away the investigators left the Walmart, went back to their office, and began the process of getting a search warrant to search Susan's farm.

[259] A few days later, on January 10th, the sheriff and his deputies arrived at Susan's property, and when they pulled on to her driveway, Susan came outside to greet them.

[260] When she asked them, you know, what's going on?

[261] They told her, hey, we're here to search your property in connection with Robert Haney's disappearance.

[262] And before Susan could ask any more questions, the sheriff said to her, hold on, just turn around, let's go back inside, I need to talk to you privately.

[263] And so Susan, who was very shocked by this, just said, okay, and she turned around, and led the sheriff into her house while the other deputies fanned out across the property to begin this big search.

[264] Once inside of Susan's house, they sat down in her kitchen, and right away the sheriff says to Susan, okay, I have you on camera using Robert's EBT card.

[265] I know you stole it, so you need to tell me where Robert is right now, or it's going to get a whole lot worse for you.

[266] And as soon as he said this, Susan's look of shock on her face quickly turned into a look of kind of relief.

[267] It was like suddenly she understood what was going on here.

[268] And she says to the sheriff, no, I didn't steal his EBT card.

[269] He gave it to me, along with an envelope full of cash when he left four months ago, and he told me to use it to buy dog food for his dog that I'm looking after.

[270] And since Robert had been gone for all these months, she had run out of cash to pay for the dog food and now was using the EBT card.

[271] Susan also added that if she had just stolen the card from Robert, she wouldn't be able to use it because it requires a pin number.

[272] And Robert gave her the pin number.

[273] That's how she was able to use it.

[274] The sheriff was not totally sold on Susan's story, and so he continued to ask more questions, trying to trip Susan up about how she came to acquire this card, but Susan was very firm that Robert had given her the card, and that was it.

[275] And so after several minutes, the sheriff realized that Susan was likely telling the truth, which meant the EBT card angle was likely a dead end, and they would have to call off.

[276] this search.

[277] But as the sheriff was standing up to leave the kitchen and leave the property altogether, a deputy from outside came running into the kitchen and without saying a word, just bent down and whispered something into the sheriff's ear.

[278] And as the sheriff is listening to this deputy, his face is contorting and disgust.

[279] He can't believe what he's being told.

[280] And after the deputy stands up and leaves the kitchen, the sheriff takes a deep breath and then looks at Susan and says, ma 'am, you're going to have to come with us.

[281] back at the station a now very flustered susan was led into a small interrogation room where she sat down looking totally anxious she's looking around wondering what's going on and then the sheriff walked into the room immediately hit record on the camera and then looked at susan and says has anyone died on your property the story that susan would tell the sheriff that day in the interrogation room was so completely unexpected and horrific it would make headlines all across the country.

[282] Before Susan began this story, she told the sheriff that everything she had said about Robert Haney's disappearance had been the truth, however, she had left one little detail out.

[283] After Robert had handed Susan that envelope full of cash and the EBT card, and then climbed into that stranger's car and driven away, after that, Robert had actually come back to her farm and recently.

[284] Susan said she discovered his return when one morning she got up and she went outside to go feed her animals when she looked over at the pig pen and saw all the pigs who would normally be laying down and lounging around at that time of the day.

[285] They were all up and they had converged in one portion of the pig pen and they had kind of formed a circle around something on the ground as if they were all trying to look at something on the ground.

[286] Now Susan said this was totally uncharacteristic so obviously something weird was going on and so Susan dropped her food and rushed over to the fence she climbed into the pig pen, and as she got closer and closer to all these pigs, she realized they weren't just looking at something on the ground.

[287] They were eating something on the ground.

[288] And so Susan goes right up to this ring of pigs, and she begins pulling them aside, and then right in the middle on the ground is Robert.

[289] He was laying on his back and his insides had all been torn out.

[290] It was like the pigs were disemboweling him, and the most shocking thing is Robert was still alive.

[291] He was moving his arm and groaning.

[292] Susan tried to pull the pigs off of Robert, but she said they kept coming back and really aggressively continued to eat Robert.

[293] It was like they were in this feeding frenzy.

[294] And so Susan said, you know, I thought about lifting him up and moving him, but Robert was practically split in two, and she felt like if she tried to move him, that would kill him anyways.

[295] And so Susan said she did the thing that she thought was right at the time.

[296] She left the pig pen, went into the barn, got a shotgun, ran back to the pig pen, raised the weapon, and fired it into Robert.

[297] Susan told the sheriff that this was purely an act of mercy.

[298] She was ending his suffering.

[299] After Robert was dead, Susan said she just left the pig pen, and then three days later, she went back into the pig pen with bags and collected the little bits of Robert that had not been eaten by her pigs.

[300] And then she took those bags of remains and chucked them into her barn on top of the trash pile.

[301] But clearly, Robert's remains had not remained, in the barn because the thing that deputy had whispered into the sheriff's ear when the sheriff was talking to Susan in the kitchen was, sir, we found a leg outside.

[302] It was Robert's leg and it was found not inside of the barn in the trash pile, but out in the middle of her property, just out in the open.

[303] Susan, when confronted with that information, suggested that, you know, maybe a wild animal had gone into the barn, got a hold of it, and dragged it off.

[304] The sheriff didn't even know what follow -up questions to ask, and so he just said, well, why didn't you call 911 when you first saw Robert?

[305] I mean, maybe we could have saved him.

[306] Or at least after he was dead, why didn't you tell someone?

[307] Susan would say that the reason she didn't tell anyone is she was afraid that if word got out about what her pigs had done, then her pigs would be euthanized and she would lose a major revenue stream because she sold her pigs meat in town.

[308] And she said, even if her pigs were not euthanized, she was worried people in town would not want to buy her pigs meat, after they learned her pigs were attacking and eating humans.

[309] Susan would tell the sheriff exactly where they could find the bags that contained Robert's remains, and she even said she would take a polygraph test to show she was now telling the whole truth.

[310] But when she actually sat down to take the polygraph test, she kept fidgeting and coughing and doing these really dramatic sighs, and it was causing the test operator to get really inaccurate readings.

[311] And so when this first polygraph test was over, the results were inconclusive.

[312] And so the investigators made Susan take another test, but again, she continued to fidget and yawn.

[313] And so finally, the investigators in the room watching this happen just called off the test.

[314] And when they did, they said to Susan, you know, hey, we're going to search your farm.

[315] And if there is anything on your farm that you have not told us about, you're going to be in serious trouble because we're going to find it.

[316] At this point, Susan kind of stopped fidgeting.

[317] and she looked up at the investigators, and after a long pause, she reached out across the table and grabbed a piece of paper and a pen, she pulled it back, and she began drawing something.

[318] And after a few seconds, it became pretty clear she was drawing a map of her farm.

[319] And after the map was all drawn out, she drew a big X in the middle of it, and then slid the map back across the table to the investigators, and she said, if you go to that X, you'll find Stephen.

[320] And the investigators are like, who's Stephen?

[321] We're talking about Robert.

[322] What are you talking about?

[323] Well, it would turn out, Robert was not the only farmhand to die on Susan's property.

[324] In 2012, about a year before Susan hired Robert, she hired another man named Stephen Delacino.

[325] And according to Susan, Stephen was a lot like Robert.

[326] He was really easy to get along with, he was quiet, he worked hard, but at some point, Susan said they had a big falling out.

[327] Susan said she started to suspect that Stephen was stealing her guns in her barn, and so she went to confront him.

[328] And during this confrontation, they got into this big fight, and Susan said she didn't really remember all the details of what happened next, but at some point during this fight, a gun went off, and then Stephen fell to the ground in the middle of the pig pen with his head bleeding, and all of Susan's pigs suddenly swarmed him and began eating him.

[329] The stunned investigators again asked Susan, okay, if that really happened the way you said it did, why didn't you call 911 if this was like an accident?

[330] And Susan would say, again, that her big fear was her pigs would either be euthanized, or word would get out that her pigs were eating people, and the people in town would not want to buy her pigs' meat because of that.

[331] In the end, as far -fetched as Susan's stories were about what happened to Robert Haney and Stephen Delacino, there was never any evidence that actually contradicted her claims.

[332] And so as a result, when Susan went on trial for murdering Robert and Stephen, it came down to whether or not the jury believed Susan.

[333] And they didn't, not at all.

[334] They believed that Susan was completely lying and that in reality, Susan, who was known to have a very quick temper, shot Stephen and shot Robert very much on purpose, and then threw them into her pig pen.

[335] We can only hope they were dead before her pigs began eating them.

[336] On April 21st, 2015, more than a year after Robert's children had reported him missing, Susan was convicted of two counts of murder for Robert and for Stephen, and two counts of abusing a corpse.

[337] She was sentenced to a minimum of 50 years in prison.

[338] While in custody, Susan would be overheard saying there were 17 other bodies buried on her property.

[339] However, when the police went out there and searched again very extensive, they never found any other remains.

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[357] She struck him with her motor vehicle.

[358] She had been under the influence and that she left him there.

[359] In January 2022, local woman Karen Reid was implicated in the mysterious death of her boyfriend, Boston police officer John O 'Keefe.

[360] It was alleged that after an innocent night out for drinks with friends, Karen and John got into a lover's quarrel en route to the next location.

[361] What happens next next?

[362] on who you ask.

[363] Was it a crime of passion?

[364] If you believe the prosecution, it's because the evidence was so compelling.

[365] This was clearly an intentional act.

[366] And his cause of death was blunt force trauma with hypothermia.

[367] Or a corrupt police cover -up.

[368] If you believe the defense theory, however, this was all a cover -up to prevent one of their own from going down.

[369] Everyone had an opinion.

[370] And after the 10 -week trial, the jury could not come to a unanimous decision.

[371] To end in a mistrial, it's just a confirmation of just how complicated this case is.

[372] Law and crime presents the most in -depth analysis to date of the sensational case in Karen.

[373] You can listen to Karen exclusively with Wondery Plus.

[374] Join Wondery Plus in the Wondry app, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.