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Texas Monthly.

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The

0:40

year was 2006. Nearly 20

0:43

years had passed since Scott Hatley murdered

0:45

Susan Woods. Much of Stephenville

0:47

had moved on. Few in town

0:49

even remember the killing.

0:51

But not everyone had forgotten, of course. Susan's

0:54

family never gave up waiting for Michael Woods

0:56

to be brought to justice. Michael

0:58

spent his life looking over his shoulder, waiting

1:01

for the real killer to be arrested. And

1:04

as the years ticked by, not much

1:06

happened. Now,

1:08

all of a sudden, things began to move quickly.

1:11

After Don Miller learned the fingerprints in

1:13

Susan's bathroom belonged to Hatley, Don

1:16

made a quick search for Hatley's whereabouts

1:18

and located him in Texas. He was

1:20

living in Round Rock, north of Austin.

1:24

Don called the local police and

1:26

asked them to bring Hatley in for questioning.

1:28

He drove down with his partner, Russell

1:31

Ford.

1:32

Yeah, so, you know, we're

1:34

going down to Round Rock, Texas

1:36

to talk to Hatley, not

1:39

to arrest him, but to talk to him. But

1:42

before I interview him, I get an evidence

1:44

research warrant for his DNA and

1:47

for his fingerprints and his

1:49

palm prints. Now, I know

1:51

for a fact that I'm gonna get

1:54

a match on the DNA and I know that his

1:56

fingerprints are gonna match. And

1:58

I know that his palm.

1:59

the prints are going to match.

2:02

It wasn't just that the federal fingerprint

2:05

database tied Hatley to the prints

2:07

found in Susan Woods' bathroom. What

2:10

made Don certain was what Shannon

2:12

Myers had told the sheriff's deputies back

2:14

in 1988, that while

2:16

Hatley was assaulting her, he'd threatened

2:18

to kill her and said he had killed

2:20

before. I know it's going to be him. I

2:23

know for a fact it's going to be him. All right,

2:25

before you go down there, do

2:27

you have much of a sense

2:29

who Joseph Scott Hatley was in 1987?

2:33

No. No, I didn't know. I

2:36

knew that his parents were respectable

2:39

people, nice people, but

2:42

that's all I knew. Very few people

2:44

knew. I was even working this case because

2:47

Stephen was a small town. I kept

2:49

everything under wraps, so I didn't

2:51

go try to find out who he was. I

2:54

got his fingerprints, you know. I've

2:57

got this statement from this little 16-year-old

2:59

girl. I know who he is. I don't

3:01

know what he is.

3:04

Don knew

3:05

there were lots of people in Stephenville

3:07

who would still look at Scott Hatley and see

3:09

the young man they thought they knew. Not

3:12

a murderer and a rapist, but a quiet,

3:14

clean-cut local kid, one of

3:16

their own. But Don had

3:18

seen enough to know just who he was dealing

3:20

with. The date was June 6,

3:23

6-6 of 06. As

3:26

the two officers headed south, Don

3:28

turned to his partner

3:30

and told him it was an appropriate day to

3:32

meet the devil himself.

3:35

From Texas Monthly, this is Stephenville.

3:38

I'm your host, Brian Burrough.

3:42

This is the final episode, Episode 6.

3:46

Hatley.

3:53

Much later, Don would come to know Hatley

3:55

well from the writings he left behind. Those

3:58

pages didn't just tell the story.

3:59

of Hatley's life as a free man after

4:02

Susan's murder, they also helped to

4:04

answer a vexing question. How

4:06

had Hatley gotten away with not just one

4:09

vicious crime, but two? And how

4:11

had he gotten away with it for so long?

4:14

As Hatley tells it, he could hardly

4:16

believe it himself.

4:18

Three

4:18

days after Susan Woods's body

4:20

was discovered, her family and friends

4:23

gathered in a chapel at the Stephenville

4:25

Funeral Home to say goodbye. As

4:28

they looked around the room, they wondered

4:30

if her husband Michael would show his face.

4:33

He didn't. But Scott Hatley

4:35

did. In his handwritten manifesto,

4:38

he says hundreds of people were there. He

4:41

saw police among them, quote, trying

4:43

to get a glimpse of their elusive suspect.

4:45

And

4:47

as the days went on, Hatley

4:49

clearly relished the fact that no one seemed

4:51

to suspect him. He didn't claim

4:54

to have committed the perfect murder. In

4:56

fact, the carelessness of his crime made

4:58

it seem all the more incredible that he was still

5:00

free. He said, quote, I

5:03

figure even Barney Fife could have figured this

5:05

one out.

5:07

In his sister Regina's kitchen,

5:09

he and other members of the round table

5:11

endlessly debated who might have killed Susan.

5:15

Only he knew that the killer was in their

5:17

midst. While there, Hatley

5:19

even fielded regular updates on the police

5:21

investigation from his cousin, Cindy

5:23

Hallmark and her boyfriend, Roy Hayes.

5:27

Donny Hensley and Joe Atkins were

5:29

really good friends. They're from the golf

5:31

course and stuff. He

5:33

would learn stuff from Donny. Joe

5:36

would come home and share it with Irma.

5:38

That's Roy talking about Susan's parents,

5:41

Joe and Irma Atkins. And in

5:43

the months after Susan's murder, Cindy

5:46

would sit with Irma often and they

5:48

would grieve together. Cindy would

5:50

console her and ask if there was any news.

5:53

So Irma was sharing stuff to Cindy. Cindy,

5:56

of course, would come to the round table that Scott

5:58

describes. You know, Scott would ask... questions,

6:00

Regina would ask questions, and we'd

6:02

talk about the way the case was proceeding and why

6:05

it hasn't been solved, what's going on,

6:07

and you know why hadn't they made an arrest, why didn't they

6:09

have Mike

6:11

booked and brought back down to Texas and why he

6:13

wasn't in prison or jail.

6:15

One aspect of the case seemed to especially

6:18

fascinate Scott.

6:19

He was drinking heavily and making

6:22

jokes like he'd call the cops the Keystone

6:24

Cops and you know if you wanted to find

6:26

a cop you need to go to the donut store that they were all down

6:28

at the donut shop and if the murderer wandered in there they

6:30

might be able to find the murderer or Jake and

6:33

Dorothy's.

6:34

In his journal, Hatley says he couldn't believe

6:36

it. The police never even interviewed

6:38

him, though he'd been at the roundtable with

6:41

Susan a week or so before she was

6:43

murdered.

6:44

He wrote, my god, how

6:46

could the cops have missed that?

6:48

He mocked the police for fixating on

6:50

Michael Woods. He called Michael,

6:52

yet another one of my victims.

6:55

Gloria Martin remembers seeing him around

6:57

this time. Well my birthday

7:00

was in March in 88 and

7:03

it was nine months after Susan had been

7:05

killed or eight months and Roy

7:08

and Cindy brought him with to

7:10

my birthday party at a bar. He wanted to come

7:12

with us. He wanted to come with us. And

7:14

somewhere I've got pictures of him and

7:16

everybody at the party just grinning and you

7:18

know he's just not a carer in the world. Susan

7:21

was the main subject we talked about. Just

7:23

smiling away. Just smiling away. Just as

7:25

innocent as a day as long and all the while

7:28

he knew he's the one that killed her.

7:31

Hatley didn't change his lifestyle. He

7:33

sat in Regina's backyard most nights

7:35

and every weekend smoking

7:38

cigarettes and drinking vodka.

7:40

When a teenage girl moved in next to Regina's

7:42

house, Hatley decided he liked her

7:45

and pursued her. This

7:47

is how he introduces Shannon Myers in

7:49

his life story. He knew it was

7:51

reckless and he could tell she had trouble

7:53

at home but he enjoyed carrying on

7:56

this secret relationship with an underage

7:58

girl. He says of

7:59

Shannon, she was wild. She

8:02

was crazy. I liked her. And

8:05

after the night in his apartment, the first

8:07

time Shannon says he raped her when

8:09

she went to the police and never heard anything,

8:12

she'd always figured the police saw it as a he

8:14

said, she said kind of thing and couldn't

8:17

make the case against it.

8:19

But Hatley's journal tells more of the story.

8:21

He says a Stephenville police officer did

8:24

come speak with him. When Hatley

8:26

saw the officer, he figured this was

8:28

the day he'd been waiting for that they

8:30

look into Shannon's accusation,

8:32

connect him to Susan's murder, and

8:35

now he'd have to answer for his crimes. Instead,

8:38

he says, the lieutenant only warned

8:40

him to stay away from Shannon, who the

8:42

officer said was quote, a screwed up

8:44

little girl. He couldn't believe

8:47

it. He'd alluded the police yet

8:49

again. But now he also began

8:51

to feel that he was being watched. He

8:53

lived near the police station and each

8:56

day he'd watched the cruisers drive by

8:58

hiding behind his window.

9:00

He began fantasizing about leaving

9:03

town on a cross country crime

9:05

spree. He says he thought about taking

9:07

Shannon. They'd be like Bonnie and Clyde,

9:10

but that she didn't go for it.

9:12

He claims they argued about his plan

9:14

on that long brutal night at the roadside

9:17

park. Shannon

9:19

told me she never entertained this crime

9:21

spree fantasy for a moment. It

9:23

doesn't remember fighting about it that night

9:25

or ever. She says the only reason

9:28

she went back to him that night was because she wanted

9:30

answers to understand why he'd

9:32

hurt her before.

9:34

But Hatley wasn't interested in explaining

9:36

anything. In his writings, he

9:38

admits he raped her that night. Don

9:41

told me as far as he knows, this is actually

9:43

the first time Hatley admitted to the crime.

9:46

Meanwhile, the morning after he raped Shannon

9:48

in that park, he awoke to a knock

9:51

on his door. Glancing out through

9:53

the curtains, he saw a sheriff's deputy

9:56

and this time he was not about to answer the

9:58

door.

9:59

Hatley says he found a man.

11:59

He pulled over into a Denny's parking lot

12:02

and as the officers instructed, lay

12:04

flat on the asphalt.

12:07

He was arrested, fingerprinted, and

12:09

booked into a jail. Hatley sensed

12:12

it was a matter of time before the Stephenville

12:14

police arrived to haul him back to Texas

12:17

to answer for the rape and no doubt

12:19

the murder.

12:21

But to his surprise, they never came.

12:24

He couldn't believe it. Instead,

12:26

he received 120-day prison sentence

12:28

in a youth offender program. Then

12:31

he was free,

12:32

heading back to Stephenville in his parents' car.

12:36

He returned to face the rape allegations

12:38

Shannon had leveled against him. He

12:41

says his parents hired a retired attorney,

12:44

this is the private investigator Shannon remembers,

12:46

and that this attorney pretty much destroyed

12:49

Shannon's reputation in front of the grand jury.

12:52

Roy Hayes remembers how Shannon's allegations

12:55

were being spun around town. But

12:58

what we had heard is that Scott had

13:00

broke up with her, she did not

13:02

take the rejection well,

13:03

and that she started accusing

13:05

him of rape because he had broke it up with

13:07

her, and that's what we had heard. And then the

13:10

next thing we know, his mother had went to the

13:12

church and got all the members on a congregation

13:14

to sign up about what a great boy he

13:16

was, how he would have never done

13:18

anything like this, and that

13:21

was taken to it, and then

13:22

it was no-build by the grand jury, and we thought, well,

13:25

if the grand jury sits here and says it didn't happen,

13:27

and there was no case, then she must have

13:29

made it up.

13:30

Even after hearing that he'd run off to Vegas

13:33

and committed armed robbery, it was hard

13:35

to believe he was a cold, hard criminal.

13:38

And putting it together with

13:40

everything else I knew from high school and everything with

13:42

him, and as nice a guy as he supposedly

13:44

was in school, we

13:47

thought this was just beyond him, that was just a liquor.

13:50

For all his talk about inner monsters

13:52

and demons, at this point, as

13:54

far as anyone else in town was concerned,

13:57

Scott Hatley had nothing left to answer

13:59

for. Around

14:01

this point in his autobiography, Hadley

14:04

pauses to try and explain himself. He

14:06

insists that the crimes he committed, the

14:09

women he hurt, the woman he killed, none

14:11

of it was voluntary. He says,

14:14

quote, fire is seductive. It

14:16

draws you in and puts you in a trance.

14:19

You are burned before you even notice

14:21

it. In other words, evil,

14:24

maybe unleashed in his session of satanic

14:26

worship, had somehow seduced

14:28

him. Now he saw he'd

14:30

been given a chance to start over. So

14:33

Scott went back to working for his dad and

14:35

even did some volunteering. He led a

14:37

troop of Cub Scouts, but he soon

14:40

realized he couldn't stay in Stephenville. He

14:42

was just too much. He saw police

14:44

everywhere he went. He sensed it was

14:46

only a matter of time before they realized

14:49

what he'd done.

14:51

This time he went east to

14:53

Nashville. His brother had become

14:55

a long distance truck driver and

14:57

Scott thought he'd try it too. The

14:59

way he tells it, he was good at it. He

15:01

says he worked so hard his dispatcher once

15:04

asked him what he was running from. He

15:06

says he answered,

15:07

myself. Alone

15:10

out on the road, Hadley says, he also,

15:12

quote, honed his skill at picking

15:15

up broken women, mostly in roadside

15:17

bars. He said his goal was

15:19

to pick up one woman in every state.

15:22

He even told his sister about it.

15:24

She said that was horrible. Did

15:26

Hadley commit more crimes out on the

15:28

road? He doesn't write about

15:30

it if he did, and he was never accused

15:33

of anything we know of.

15:34

But when I spoke with Don Miller in the park

15:37

outside Stephenville, he told

15:39

me he remains convinced there's more.

15:41

I know for a fact that

15:45

the victims I know about are a smidgen

15:48

of what he did. You think? Not

15:50

proven. I can't prove it. I've tried.

15:53

I can't. But he's

15:55

an over the road truck driver. There's

15:59

dead bodies.

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In time, Hatley began to build

20:49

a new life in Nashville. He married.

20:51

He and his wife had two children. But

20:53

out on the road, he took pills to stay awake.

20:56

And one day in Dallas, he rear-ended

20:59

another truck. He ended up getting fired.

21:02

He got another job in Nashville at

21:04

a grocery warehouse. And the years

21:07

slowly passed. Five, then

21:09

ten. Then in the late 90s,

21:12

Hatley's company offered him a promotion and

21:14

a transfer back to Texas to

21:17

help run a warehouse in Round Rock. It

21:19

felt like a serious risk going

21:22

back to Texas, but he couldn't pass up

21:24

the money. He and his family found

21:26

a nice apartment right next to a swimming

21:28

pool. But Hatley's drinking had slowly

21:31

gotten out of control.

21:32

It was destroying the marriage. He

21:34

and his wife fought, sometimes violently.

21:37

He worked nights and slept most days.

21:40

And that's where he was, sleeping, on

21:43

the morning in June 2006, when

21:45

they finally came for him.

21:47

The way Hatley tells it, a pair of

21:50

Round Rock officers showed up at his door

21:52

spinning a tale about a co-worker of his

21:55

stealing from the warehouse. They said

21:57

they needed him to come to the station and give

21:59

a statement.

22:00

Hatley claims he knew it was a lie,

22:03

but he went anyway.

22:05

The man who appeared before Don Miller

22:07

in June 2006, a

22:09

monster and a devil by Don's

22:12

estimation and by his own admission, was

22:15

now a 40-year-old warehouse supervisor,

22:18

nearly 300 pounds, with close-cropped

22:20

dark hair and a matching mustache.

22:24

Don wasted little time getting to the

22:26

real reason he was there. The

22:28

first time I talked to Hatley, you

22:30

have to understand, I already know what

22:33

he is. I already know what he did. But

22:36

he comes in and he acts, tries to act

22:39

calm, cool, collective,

22:43

nonchalant, which to

22:45

me is a big red flag anyway.

22:48

If I were to call you into my

22:50

office and say, I think you killed somebody,

22:53

you would immediately, immediately

22:56

start denying it and hard denying

22:58

it. That's not what he did.

23:00

Don says Hatley played it like his

23:02

memory was fuzzy. Maybe he'd

23:05

had sex with Susan, maybe not. Such

23:07

a long time ago, it was hard to remember.

23:10

Well, all those are the wrong things to tell me,

23:13

but I wouldn't have cared what he said. I

23:15

already knew he did it. I already knew it. You

23:18

know, I'm just going through the motions

23:20

because I've got some... I

23:23

know eventually, unless he lawyers

23:25

up, he's going to lay his story down. And

23:28

so, like I said,

23:30

I hit him with the question, is

23:33

there any reason why your DNA would be anywhere

23:35

in or around Susan

23:37

Woods? And he said

23:40

no. Don didn't need a confession. The

23:43

physical evidence alone was enough for

23:45

an arrest, so he didn't push. And

23:48

it's okay. Thank you very much.

23:51

I get ready to release him, but then Round Rock

23:53

says you got to hold him. I said why?

23:55

And he said because we're talking to his wife,

23:58

to Hatley's current wife.

25:59

Don prepared a murder warrant.

26:03

That's when they brought Scott Hadley back to Stephenville.

26:06

And that's when people in Stephenville came

26:09

face to face with the difficult truth.

26:11

For going on 20 years, they'd

26:13

been blaming the wrong man for murder.

26:19

Every writer has his reasons for the stories

26:21

he decides to tell. I realized

26:23

early on that this one drew me in because

26:25

I've encountered a version of it before in

26:28

my own hometown of Temple. I'm

26:31

not the kind of writer who's usually driven

26:33

by moral outrage, but I confess

26:35

that what happened in Temple, much like

26:37

what happened in Stephenville, did leave me angry.

26:41

The Temple story centers on a kid named

26:43

Danny Corwin. In the late 70s,

26:46

he was two years ahead of me at Temple High. I

26:49

didn't know Danny, but I knew both the girls

26:51

he raped, one of whom he nearly killed,

26:53

as a teenager. He kidnapped

26:55

her from the high school parking lot,

26:57

took her to a quarry, and drove a

26:59

knife into her chest. Somehow

27:01

she survived and identified

27:03

him. He faced a life

27:06

sentence, but the Corwins were active

27:08

at First Presbyterian Church, and

27:10

the family and church leaders pressed the

27:12

district attorney for a much lighter sentence,

27:15

and they succeeded.

27:17

Danny was a good kid, everyone said. Some

27:19

folks around town whispered that the girls must

27:21

have lured him on.

27:23

He ended up serving nearly ten

27:25

years at the state prison in Huntsville.

27:28

Afterward, in the mid 80s, he enrolled

27:30

at Texas A&M.

27:32

While he was there, he raped and murdered

27:34

three women. They executed

27:37

Danny Corwin in 1998. I've

27:40

always felt like someone in Temple should have

27:42

apologized to the families of those women

27:44

he killed. I'm not sure that ever

27:46

happened.

27:49

Have you been by the jail? You're

27:52

at the county jail? Wait, there's a... On

27:55

our drive around Stephenville, I

27:57

talk with Sarah Vandenberg, the

27:59

local...

27:59

reporter we first met in episode one,

28:02

but what it was like here when Hatley was arrested.

28:05

Um, and I interviewed him here in this jail as

28:07

well. The old part. Do

28:09

you just want to stop in the jail parking lot? Is that okay? Yeah,

28:12

sure. Do you remember when you first heard

28:14

about the case?

28:14

Yeah, I got a call from my editor

28:17

at the time and he called me into his office and said hey they just

28:19

broke a cold case and they want a reporter

28:21

down here and they sent me down.

28:22

So you had lived here for 15 years

28:27

and had never heard of it? Never heard of it. But

28:30

when it did break and all of

28:32

the rest ensued, it became really

28:35

important. And it always was,

28:37

I'm sure. Well for

28:40

people who didn't know about it, like me, it was fascinating.

28:42

I mean, oh my god, people always said there's a 20 year

28:45

old cold case, nobody knew, you know? And

28:47

who was this woman? They wanted to know all about

28:49

it.

28:49

Walk me through what happened. What I

28:51

remember is that he was really anxious to talk to me. And

28:54

he, you know, I don't know. They

28:56

brought him in and they put him in jail

28:58

and I sent an open records request and asked if I could get

29:01

a jailhouse interview and immediately he agreed

29:03

to it. Didn't ask his attorney. I mean, this guy was up

29:05

for murder and he wanted to get his story

29:07

out there. And I think what that tells me is he thought

29:10

if he could get somebody on his side and get it out in the media,

29:13

he could convince everybody that he was innocent. He had been doing

29:15

it for so long that I think he

29:17

thought why not stop, why stop now?

29:19

At this point, Hantley wasn't as forthcoming

29:21

as he was later in his writings. He

29:24

denied murdering Susan Woods. He

29:26

didn't talk at all about Shannon Myers.

29:29

Denying a murder, but, you know, very soft

29:31

spoken, kind

29:34

of articulate, you know, he could be.

29:36

And he, but the one thing he kept trying

29:39

to tell me is when the real story comes out,

29:42

you'll see that this wasn't just me killing

29:44

a girl. He gave me the impression that

29:46

it was going to be more of a, she

29:49

died in a rough sex sort of thing.

29:51

And he was going with that from the very beginning. And I think

29:53

he thought he was smarter than everybody. And

29:55

wait, you said you thought he thought he

29:57

was smarter than everybody. I think so. I've

29:59

talked to people who knew. as a teenager who say that. Oh,

30:02

yeah. But he got he'd gotten away with it for so long.

30:05

And just like Temple after the news about

30:08

Danny Corwin, Stephenville also

30:10

had a hard time coming to grips with news that

30:13

one of its good boys had been charged with murder. He was

30:16

a conversation Don found himself having

30:18

regularly. Many people just didn't

30:20

want to believe it, starting with

30:22

Susan Woods's father, Joe Atkins.

30:25

He's at the golf course. And I get Mr. Atkins,

30:28

I said, Mr. Atkins, come

30:30

out here to the car. I need to talk

30:32

to you. So I get him in the car. I

30:35

said, look, Joe,

30:37

I've got the arrest warrant

30:39

for, I mean, I know who killed your daughter. And

30:42

he said, yeah, Michael Woods, you're going to put him

30:44

in jail. I said, no, sir.

30:47

It wasn't Michael. It's Joseph Scott Hadley.

30:51

And he looked at me and he said, what'd

30:53

you say your name was? And I said, my name's Lieutenant

30:55

Miller. He said,

30:59

no, no, you're wrong. You're wrong. It's

31:02

Michael Woods. It's not Joseph

31:04

Scott Hadley. I said, no, I'm

31:06

telling you, it is. And

31:09

I said, I know I can prove it to you.

31:13

And I called Roy Hayes.

31:15

I don't know him. I said, hey, Roy, it's Lieutenant

31:17

Miller, Stephenville police. I need

31:19

to talk to you. And he said, what about? And I

31:21

said, I need to talk to you about

31:24

Susan Woods. And Roy

31:26

said, do I have to? He said, I really want to talk

31:28

to you. I said, well, no, you don't have

31:30

to. But I think you want to

31:32

hear what I've got to say.

31:34

Remember, Roy Hayes had been through that long

31:37

polygraph test and he still felt

31:39

the sting of having been suspected. And

31:42

I'm sitting there thinking, oh my

31:44

God, we're going through this again. They're going

31:46

to wrongly charge someone else, just

31:48

like they did me with

31:51

this crime. You hear the name, Scott

31:53

Hadley is about to be arrested. Was there

31:56

anything that went off? It was just totally

31:58

out of the blue. Yeah.

31:59

Anything that you thought, well, maybe

32:02

that time you said... I could

32:04

have been hit by lightning. It was that random.

32:08

On a clear day with no clouds, it's

32:10

just that big a deal for me.

32:13

Like I said, I

32:16

never known Scott to ever lift a finger towards anybody

32:18

in violence. And I'd played

32:20

games with him, I'd played football with him, I'd

32:23

went to school with him. I was

32:25

in the backyard football where, you

32:27

know, pretty much turns into a wrestling

32:30

match because who scored

32:32

what? I

32:35

would have never thought it. But you know, once that happened

32:38

and he told us, me and Cindy instantly

32:40

got on the phone and we called the Atkins.

32:43

Because I knew the perception on this. And we

32:45

told Miss Atkins and we told Joe,

32:48

we are on Susan's side. We don't care

32:50

if this is Cindy's cousin or not. Right's

32:53

right. If this wrongs wrong, we are here to support

32:56

your family and we will do whatever it

32:58

takes to clear this.

33:00

But that support for Susan's family felt

33:02

like a betrayal to some members of Cindy's

33:04

family, who after all were Scott's

33:07

family too.

33:08

It tore our family completely up. Yeah,

33:10

it tore our family. Like I was saying, she is the matriarch.

33:13

His mother was furious at

33:15

us for working with the cops and supporting

33:18

the Atkins family because she told us point

33:20

in blank, we need to circle

33:22

the wagons. It is our family

33:24

against the cops. It's

33:26

the cops against Scott and y'all two need

33:28

to stay out of it. Y'all need to let the cops do

33:31

their job. And we were pretty much

33:33

told towards the end that,

33:36

you know, we need to make our own

33:38

family traditions up and we need to go our

33:40

own way because we

33:42

just really weren't wanted anymore.

33:46

For Hatley's victims though, the

33:48

one still alive, the news was

33:50

not simply long overdue. He

33:53

was cathartic. Around that time,

33:55

Michael Woods had gone back to school.

34:00

and I always kept my phone on because

34:02

I needed to be available

34:05

and I got a call and he says Michael

34:08

we've we've arrested him and

34:13

I took a break from class

34:16

went outside hadn't had a cigarette

34:18

in a year went outside and

34:20

my professor who came out with me gave

34:23

me a cigarette I

34:25

needed a cigarette I had

34:27

a cigarette kind of cried a

34:29

little bit

34:29

and it

34:33

was just it

34:35

was surreal did you ever

34:38

had you given up on that

34:40

I mean did you I mean it's easy to say I always

34:42

knew they'd get him but 20 years is a fucking

34:44

long time I

34:46

was beginning to

34:48

think maybe they would never find him yeah

34:53

but there was one person above all whose

34:55

life was going to change with this news

34:57

Shannon

34:59

it was own Father's Day weekend is

35:02

when he called me and he goes

35:04

hey we arrested Scott and

35:06

it was just like

35:08

I just I you know rejoiced

35:11

and and I was like yes I can

35:13

probably live and I called

35:15

you know my kids of course you know they

35:19

were still you know teenagers

35:21

and my son was 10 at

35:24

the time and my daughter was 13 and

35:27

I just I held on to them and I was like we

35:30

we could you know we're gonna be

35:32

okay and they're like okay

35:34

mom you know you're getting weird and

35:37

it was

35:38

I could I could live again you know

35:42

but it wasn't simply relief that Shannon

35:44

felt at that point not after Don

35:46

asked to come interviewer well

35:48

he should have just talked to me over

35:50

the phone because I could talk to my

35:52

room phone now he's willing to come down I the

35:55

happiness turned

35:58

to anger because I was

35:59

like, oh, so now you're wanting to listen

36:02

to me. Now you want me to talk

36:04

about this story? How dare you?

36:08

Eventually though, she did agree to meet. And

36:11

as they spoke, Shannon realized that

36:13

Don did believe her. She remembers

36:15

he said it repeatedly, and she realized

36:18

that's what she really needed to hear.

36:20

For the first time, she felt

36:22

something like validation.

36:26

Today, Shannon goes by Shannon

36:28

Meyers-Barrientos. She works

36:30

for a school district in the Houston area.

36:32

She's been back to Stephenville a time or two,

36:34

but she mostly stays away.

36:37

There are some memories from her teenage years

36:39

that Shannon says are just gone, and

36:41

she'd like to keep it that way,

36:43

like the first time Scott assaulted her in

36:45

his apartment. There are moments she

36:47

says she's just blocked out.

36:51

But the second one, I always

36:53

held onto it. Now, you know, through the years,

36:55

I often wondered why.

36:58

Why am I holding onto this? Why can't I

37:00

let it go like the other abuse?

37:03

And when Miller called me and told me that

37:05

he needed to talk to me

37:07

about Susan Woods, I

37:11

sighed to myself, and I'm like, this

37:13

is why, Shannon. This is why.

37:17

In the end, there was no showy

37:19

trial, no dramatic perp walk,

37:22

no teary confessions. When he was

37:24

confronted by the physical evidence, Hatley

37:27

quietly cut a deal to serve 30 years. As

37:29

part of the deal, he agreed to give prosecutors

37:32

information about one of his cell mates

37:34

in the Stephenville jail.

37:36

It wasn't what some had hoped, but

37:38

Susan's parents wanted to avoid the tension

37:41

that a trial would bring.

37:43

They sent him to Huntsville, where in time

37:45

he claimed to have rediscovered the Lord. He

37:47

wrote his manifesto, and then

37:49

in 2017, he was diagnosed

37:52

with bladder cancer.

37:53

The cancer went into remission, and

37:56

Hatley was released the following year,

37:58

having served just over 10 years.

37:59

years.

38:01

He entered a halfway house in Midland,

38:03

Texas. He found a job there

38:05

repairing oil field trucks. But

38:07

at the start of the pandemic, he was laid off.

38:10

He moved into an RV park outside Abilene

38:13

to be near his daughter, Amanda. He

38:15

was sober and things went well for a time.

38:18

It didn't last.

38:19

I spoke to Amanda, who told me

38:22

she didn't know for sure, but she thinks

38:24

her father probably started drinking again.

38:27

For months, she wouldn't see him. Then

38:29

he'd reappear at her doorstep. She

38:31

said they fell into having stupid arguments.

38:34

On Halloween, 2021, Hatley

38:37

told her his cancer had returned and

38:39

spread to his spine. Six

38:41

weeks later, his landlord found him dead

38:44

on the floor of his trailer. He was 56.

38:48

Near the end of my conversation with Sarah,

38:51

we talked about what this story says about

38:53

Stephenville.

38:55

You know, I think Hatley was, he

38:58

fooled a lot of people for a long time. But

39:00

I think when I look back on it, what really bothers

39:02

me, and it goes back to what you talked about earlier about the grand

39:04

jury no-billing him for his assault

39:06

on Shannon, she told them,

39:09

he told me that he killed somebody. He told me

39:11

that he killed somebody. And she told that to the

39:13

police, and nothing

39:15

was ever done.

39:18

In hindsight, Don told

39:20

me his department should have pinpointed Hatley

39:23

early on. After all, he'd been

39:25

at a party with Susan Woods just a week

39:27

before she died. But he says nobody

39:29

they interviewed ever mentioned Hatley either. The

39:32

only thing he can see that would have made a difference

39:35

is if the sheriff's department had seriously

39:37

looked at Shannon's statement that Hatley

39:40

said he'd killed before and shared

39:42

it with the police department.

39:44

But even if the police had seen it, it's

39:46

not at all clear they would have taken it seriously.

39:49

On the other hand, you and

39:51

I have both been around enough of these

39:53

that you can imagine some

39:56

deputy or sheriff or investigator saying,

39:58

sure, sure, sure.

39:59

It was just big talk. Yeah, I think that's right. And

40:02

I think that she was, I think she was obviously

40:04

up against that. But gosh, you know, if they had just

40:06

listened to her, how different

40:08

things

40:08

would have been.

40:13

There are probably people listening to this right

40:15

now who think the worst of Stephenville, its

40:18

police department, and maybe its people. But

40:21

the fact is, this could have happened anywhere.

40:24

People make mistakes. And so do overworked

40:26

police and sheriff's departments.

40:28

It happens. For

40:31

me, what's more difficult to forgive

40:33

is the way much of Stephenville scapegoated

40:35

Michael Woods and pretty much ignored

40:38

Shannon Myers.

40:39

They were both outsiders, people

40:41

who came from far away. You

40:44

can't really blame the town today. The

40:47

town that sheltered Scott Hatley blamed

40:49

Michael Woods and turned up its

40:52

nose at Shannon Myers is long

40:54

gone.

40:56

Would something like this happen in today's Stephenville?

41:00

Me,

41:01

I'd like to believe it couldn't.

41:07

Early

41:11

in the summer, in June, before the worst

41:14

of the summer heat settles in, folks

41:16

in Stephenville come out to the city park for the annual

41:18

Moolah Fest.

41:21

There's music and dancing, a

41:23

mechanical bull and carnival games. You

41:28

can watch videos about the local dairy

41:31

industry, if you like, and

41:33

sample the official milk of

41:35

the Dallas Cowboys.

41:40

The biggest crowds come from the mutton busting

41:43

to watch little cowboys and cowgirls

41:45

cling to the back of running sheep.

41:48

Hey, it's way down there. There you

41:50

go. There you go. Hang on.

41:53

Hang on.

41:59

But how

42:02

do you find some more to take

42:04

you to, okay? You

42:07

liked it? And

42:11

then, right around sunset weather

42:14

permitting, comes the main event.

42:18

In

42:24

a clearing away from the popcorn stands

42:27

and the cornhole games, pilots

42:29

climb into the baskets of hot air balloons

42:31

and fire up the burners. The

42:34

balloons rise slowly, and

42:36

the evening sky is filled with the glow of their colors.

42:43

Above the tree line, they cruise

42:45

along quietly. From

42:48

way up there, you can see how the town

42:50

has grown. It's not the

42:52

same place that Susan Woods knew, but

42:55

you can still see signs of the town that

42:57

kept calling her back home. The

43:01

old courthouse and Jake and Dorothy's

43:03

cafe. The sandpaper

43:06

factory where Susan worked, it's

43:08

still there. The house where

43:10

Susan lived and where she died.

43:13

The house where Hatley

43:15

grew up. The hospital

43:18

where Shannon was treated. And

43:20

out beyond the edge of town, of course, the

43:23

little roadside park.

43:27

And then, further out, running

43:29

through the trees and fields. In

43:32

nearly every direction are

43:35

the same old roads that lead

43:37

you out of town.