Susan Wright is an American woman from Houston, Texas who made headlines in 2003 for stabbing her husband, Jeff Wright, 193 times and then burying his body in their backyard. She was convicted of first-degree murder in 2004, and is currently serving a 20-year sentence at Correctional Facility in Gatesville, Texas as of 2012.
Early Life of Susan Wright
Susan Wright was born Susan Lucille Wyche on April 24, 1976 in Houston, Texas. At the age of 18, she worked as a topless dancer at Gold Cup for two months. In 1997, while working as a restaurant waitress in Galveston, she met Jeff Wright and they married in 1998 while she was eight-and-a-half months pregnant with their first son, Bradley. A few years later, a son Cody was born. Wright claims that her husband began to abuse her during the first few years of their marriage.
The Murderous Crime of Susan Wright
According to evidence presented by the prosecution, on January 13, 2003, Susan Wright, 26, tied her husband, Jeff Wright, 34, to their bed and stabbed him 193 times with two different knives. She then buried his body in their Houston backyard. She attempted to cover up the crime scene by painting the bedroom. The next day, Wright filed a domestic abuse report in order to get a restraining order against her husband, intended to explain his absence.
According to the evidence adduced during the 2010 punishment trial, it was shown that the prosecution’s theory that Jeff was tied to the bed was not supported by the medical examiner who excavated the body. The medical examiner testified that Jeff had a significant amount of cocaine in his body the night he died – so much so that Jeff’s body had not metabolized all the cocaine. The cocaine evidence supported the defense’s assertion that Jeff was intoxicated the night of his death, when he came home from a boxing class and punched his son. Jeff also had several knife wounds on his hands, forearms, back, and the backs of his legs, indicating defensive wounds inconsistent with being tied to a bed.
Susan Wright Admitted To Killing Her Husband
Jeff Wright had started a home improvement project for the family’s patio. Instead, he unknowingly dug his own grave. His wife, Susan, used the hole to bury his body.
On January 18, Wright asked her attorney, Neal Davis, to come to her home and admitted to stabbing her husband. Davis contacted the Harris County district attorney’s office to inform them a body was buried under Susan Wright’s house and that she had confessed to the crime.
Wright turned herself in to authorities at the Harris County Courthouse on Friday, January 24 and was arraigned on murder charges the following Monday.
The Trial of Susan Wright
Only thirteen months after her arraignment, Susan Wright’s murder trial commenced on February 24, 2004. She had already plead not guilty to killing her husband by reason of self-defense.
Susan drug the bloody mattress into her family’s backyard and worked frantically to clean up the murder scene
Wright’s prosecutor and defense attorney had very different portrayals of her. Assistant district attorney Kelly Siegler depicted Wright as a scheming wife who seduced her husband into bed, tied him up, repeatedly stabbed him, and then buried his body in their backyard, all in hopes of collecting a $200,000 life insurance policy. Wright’s defense attorney Neal Davis claimed that his client had suffered years of physical and emotional abuse by her husband, and killed him to protect herself and her two young children.
At her trial, Susan Wright testified in her own defense. In her emotional testimony on the stand, Wright claimed: “I couldn’t stop stabbing him. I couldn’t stop. I knew as soon as I stopped, he was going to get the knife back and he was going to kill me. I didn’t want to die.” She testified that on the night of the murder, Jeff Wright was on a cocaine binge and was violent, having allegedly beaten her. Wright once again persisted that she stabbed her husband in self-defense. Susan Wright’s mother, among others, testified for the defense, claiming they witnessed Wright’s bruises.
Alligator Tears For The Jury
Ada Siegler was not impressed by Wright’s statements; Siegler believed that Wright’s tears were faked for the jury’s benefit. While presenting their case, the prosecution presented an unusual demonstration by bringing the Wrights’ actual bed into the courtroom. Using her co-counsel, Siegler depicted how she believed Susan Wright had tied her husband to their bed and stabbed him to death.
During closing arguments, Siegler brought up to the jury how Wright had been a topless dancer, and reiterated how she believed Wright’s emotions were insincere. She contended that Susan Wright was a “card-carrying, obvious, no-doubt-about-it, caught-red handed, confirmed, documented liar”, whose frequent shows of emotion during the trial were deliberate efforts to influence the jury. Wright’s defense never strayed from their claims, however, that Wright had stabbed her husband to death in order to protect herself and her young children.
The Verdict For Susan Wright
On March 3, 2004, after only five-and-a-half hours of deliberations, Wright’s jury convicted her of murder. In sharp contrast to her emotional testimony during the trial, Wright showed little reaction to the guilty verdict.
The following day came Wright’s sentencing. Prosecutors were hoping for at least a 45-year sentence, while Wright’s attorneys argued for probation for their client. In the end, the jury met in the middle, sentencing Wright to 25 years in prison.
The Appeal
In 2005, the Fourteenth Court of Appeals of Texas in Houston upheld Susan Wright’s conviction.
In 2008, Wright re-appealed. This time, a new witness, Misty McMichael, the wife of former NFL Super Bowl champion Steve McMichael and ex-fiancee of Jeff Wright, came forward to tell her story of how she endured abuse and violence during her four year relationship with Jeff Wright.
In 2009, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals granted Wright a new sentencing hearing, after determining that Wright’s “counsel rendered ineffective assistance during the punishment phase of trial” in 2004. On November 20, 2010, Wright was re-sentenced to 20 years in prison, five years less than her original sentence. Barring another appeal, Wright will be eligible for parole on February 28, 2024, when she will be 48 years old.
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