- ♪
- female narrator: For one veteran,
the woods of oregon seemed like the perfect setting
for a new beginning.
- She spoke of coming to southern oregon
to start a nice, quiet, simple life away from the city.
- She was just a rough old woman that was living off the grid.
- ♪
- narrator: But when a traveling handyman
goes missing, it sends a chill rippling across this peaceful,
rural community.
- Julie: It certainly raises red flags
when somebody is reported missing and they don't have
their most important belongings with them.
- It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
We basically all, uh,
feared something bad had happened.
- Narrator: As the investigation begins,
dark secrets are exposed.
- He was having a little hard time with alcohol,
I don't know how he was doing dealing with reality.
- He was distraught, he was very angry.
- ♪
- narrator: And when the pieces fall into place,
detectives will discover a disturbing crime,
more twisted than anyone could imagine.
- I've had nightmares about this case for years.
- Eric: I'm thinking to myself as we're pulling up
like, "are we in the twilight zone here?"
like, what is this place? It's--it was crazy.
- Mark: It looked like the setting of
a low budget horror film.
How many more bodies are they going to find? Four, five, six?
- Allan: That is what caused us concern--
that indeed we were dealing with a serial killer.
- ♪
♪♪
- ♪
- narrator: January 1, 2014.
It's the middle of a wet, frigid winter
as the children of 56-year-old robert haney
gather in medford, oregon, to discuss their father.
- We haven't seen or heard from my dad for two months now,
we just all started to kind of panic and worry.
- ♪
- narrator: The haney siblings drive together
to the home of susan monica,
their father's employer and landlord.
When they arrive, susan says she hasn't seen their father
since he quit without notice in September--
nearly four months ago.
- Jesse: Susan monica said that my dad just basically left.
She wanted us to come get her-- uh, retrieve our dad's stuff.
- ♪
- narrator: When robert's kids arrive
at their father's trailer,
they immediately know something is wrong.
- Jesse: His motorcycle and truck was there,
his leather jacket was there,
his dog was still running around,
and all his tools were there.
- Robert haney always took excellent care of his tools,
they were his livelihood,
and he would never leave them just strew about the location
as they found them.
- Jesse: It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.
We basically all feared something bad had happened.
- ♪
- narrator: Born on June 26, 1957,
robert haney had struggled most of his life.
- Robert wasn't very popular, he didn't have a lot of dates,
or friends. He was just quiet.
Robert did not finish high school, he took off.
- Him and his brother, don, basically ran away
when the were younger and started out on their own.
My dad, robert, would do plumbing, construction,
he would basically build a house from the bottom up.
- ♪
- narrator: As he was establishing himself
in the construction business,
robert met a woman named thalia larson at a party.
The couple married in the early '80s and raised 5 children,
but it wasn't an easy life.
- My dad was mainly working a lot,
he'd be working there six days a week.
He just wanted to provide for his kids,
then there was issues between my dad and my mom.
They were just arguing too much
and just couldn't--no longer be together, as far as I know.
He basically just kept working to drown out the feelings.
- Narrator: In 2003, robert and his wife divorced,
and he and his children moved north to medford, oregon,
for a change of pace.
- When I was ten, we moved up to medford.
It was definitely a fresh start for my dad.
He was able to get quite a few jobs,
he really just wanted for provide for his kids.
- ♪
- narrator: In 2012, after the last of his kids moved out,
robert decided it was time to downsize
and bought a dog and a camper.
- My dad replied to an ad on craigslist
about a job for handyman work
in exchange to live on the property,
that's when my dad met susan monica.
- Narrator: Susan monica was born in california
on July 8, 1948,
but, her early days are somewhat of a mystery.
- Susan didn't open up quite often about her past.
- Narrator: Although not much is known
about susan's early life,
according to veteran records, she was born a male
and served in the navy during the vietnam era.
- From the department of veteran affairs,
I learned that susan was actually born steven buchanan.
- ♪
- narrator: After being honorably discharged,
susan began living her life as a female.
- She got into an engineering career and was very successful.
- She worked on submarines in san francisco.
- Narrator: Susan's demanding job
soon had her dreaming of a quieter life,
away from the california rat race.
So, in 1991, she bought a 20-acre farm in wimer, oregon.
- Susan spoke of coming to southern oregon
to start a new life, to have a farm, some animals,
and just a nice, quiet, simple life away from the city.
- She lived on her place with no electricity,
it was a little shack.
She was just a rough old woman that was living off the grid.
- Susan was a person that isolated herself,
except when she needed to go into town to get something.
She didn't want to be around people.
- ♪
- narrator: Susan raised a small crop of pigs
and started a welding company.
- She made wrought-iron fences, and they were beautiful.
She could put anything on them-- from decorative animals to trees
- ♪
- narrator: In her spare time,
susan focused on making improvements to her farm.
- ♪
- it was raw land when susan first got there,
she put that huge barn up,
and then susan had decided she was going to build a house.
- Julie: She was looking for a handyman to help out.
She had put up ads in stores,
and she had used the internet as well,
and that's how she met robert haney.
- ♪
- narrator: In 2013,
robert and his dog moved out to susan's property in his camper.
- My dad and susan monica had a deal.
My dad would get part cash and be able to stay on the property.
My dad agreed to build the house from the bottom up.
- He was her handyman, a laborer, a carpenter,
whatever she asked of him, he did.
- Narrator: By the summer of 2013,
robert seemed happier than ever.
- Jesse: He didn't mind living in the trailer,
working out there.
He really just liked being out in the woods,
basically by himself and to have nice peace and quiet.
- ♪
- narrator: So, when robert suddenly disappears
in September 2013,
his children are stunned that their father would abandon
such an ideal position, leaving all of his possessions behind.
- It was really unlike my dad
to just leave all of his stuff like that.
So, we went ahead and put a missing person's report.
- This person's already been gone for three months or so,
you know? You're behind the curve already,
and you don't know what's happened to this person
or if anything bad has happened to them.
- ♪
- narrator: Coming up,
the discovery of a horrific event
in the weeks before robert's disappearance
raises new concerns for the haney family.
- He was distraught, he was very angry,
he wanted to seek revenge.
- What if he got into something that he was not able to handle
and he was hurt, or someone killed him?
- We called everywhere that we could think of.
We were just all hoping my dad would still be alive.
- ♪
- narrator: On January 1, 2014,
robert haney's family arrives
at the jackson county, oregon, sheriff's office
to file a missing person's report.
- They told the sheriff's office
that the last place that they were aware
that robert haney was,
was working on susan monica's property.
- At that point, we had an idea that robert haney
had been missing for a few months.
We know that he had been seen in early September.
It certainly raises red flags
when somebody is reported missing
and they don't have their most important belongings with them.
They don't have their dog, especially.
- ♪
- narrator: Robert's children admit
that, since they moved out,
their single father has enjoyed a more nomadic lifestyle.
- Eric: It was kind of spotty,
like, you know, they would often go a month or two
without talking to their dad, but, it was still consistent.
They always did continue to talk to their father.
- It can be more difficult to track down somebody
if they live a lifestyle where they don't have a regular home.
- Narrator: Making matters more difficult,
the haney children
say their father worked in a cash-only business.
- They asked me and my siblings if my dad had any debit cards,
credit cards, and we told him that he did have an ebt card.
- The haney children also told me
that he didn't have any other, you know, bank accounts,
or anything like that that they knew of.
- Narrator: When detectives ask
how robert was behaving in the weeks leading up
to his disappearance,
his children reveal that robert was deeply affected
by a recent traumatic event.
- Jesse: Someone was assaulted in my family,
and so my dad was going through a rough time with that.
- ♪
- sean: I know he did love his family,
and he cared about what happened.
He was distraught, he was very angry,
he wanted to seek revenge.
- Narrator: The haney children say
that the stress of the situation drove their father to drink.
- He was likable enough, you know, when he wasn't drunk.
But when robert was drunk,
he was a little hard to--like most of us--
are hard to deal with.
- Just seeing him go through that much pain
and be in that much depression, it was pretty hard.
- ♪
- narrator: After speaking with robert's children,
jackson county detectives
head to the last place that he was seen--
the home of his employer, susan monica.
- When we were coming down this gravel road
coming up to her property,
I'm thinking to myself as we're pulling up
like, "are in the twilight zone here?"
like, what is this place?
- ♪
- julie: The property is wooded,
it's cluttered quite a bit with vehicles
and outbuildings, and makeshift structures.
It was really in a state of disrepair.
- Eric: When I started talking to susan,
she came across as very cordial,
she was kind of a cheerful person,
seemed to be helpful about, you know,
wanting to help the investigation
and help us find him.
Robert haney had lived on her property
for about six months or so,
and the initial agreement that susan told me they had
was he would do some handy work around the property.
Then, he received a concerning phone call from a family member
that she'd been a victim of assault,
and he was really upset about that.
Susan really described robert haney during that interview
as, you know, being a depressed man.
- ♪
- narrator: After the alleged assault,
susan says her formerly reliable handyman
started drinking heavily.
- ♪
- he was having a little hard time with alcohol.
I don't know how much he remembered.
I don't know how robert was doing dealing with reality.
I have no idea.
- Sean: Through the night, he would--down by his trailer,
by himself, he would yell.
You could hear him screaming, just, you know, "why?"
and, "god, why?" and all that kind of stuff.
- Narrator: Susan says that on September 9, 2013,
she decided to confront robert about his drinking,
but before she could, he approached her.
- He had come up from his trailer
and handed her some money.
He told her, you know, "will you take care of my dog?
I've got some things to take care of."
- she just assumed that he was going to return, took the money,
was going to agree to take care of his dog while he was gone.
He had gotten in this white sedan
driven by another male,
she not seen him since that time.
- Robert did mention something about the attack
and wanting to look for the individuals.
- Eric: That's something we had to consider as investigators:
What if he got into something that he was not able to handle
and he was hurt or someone killed him?
- ♪
- narrator: After speaking to susan,
detectives return to the station
and attempt to track down robert,
or the white car susan says she saw him leave in
nearly four months ago.
- Eric: Not having a make or model, license plate,
we wouldn't put out bolo if we didn't have enough information
to be descriptive about the vehicle.
- Jesse: There was no clues.
We did like call all of the homeless shelters,
we called all of the hospitals,
we called everywhere that we could think of.
We were just all hoping that my dad would still be alive.
- ♪
- narrator: For detectives,
the only possible lead is robert's ebt card.
On January 9, they contact the state agency
to see when and where the card was last used.
- There had been activity on robert haney's card,
and that the last activity was actually December of 2013.
- It has been used at a date
after susan monica said that he had disappeared.
- ♪
- we were able to track down the last couple of purchases
that were at a walmart in grant's pass, oregon.
Grant's pass, oregon, is about
maybe a 20-minute, 30-minute drive
from susan monica's house.
- Narrator: With this new information,
detectives can't help but wonder:
Is robert's disappearance just a misunderstanding?
- Maybe he was on the run, maybe he was going somewhere.
- I met with investigator avery at the walmart in grant's pass
and was able to actually look at the video
of the person using robert haney's card.
And you know, I'm expecting, well, hopefully it's robert.
But what I saw was susan monica.
That's when I was like, "okay,
we got something else going on here," and I was really
concerned that there was some foul play involved
in robert haney's disappearance.
- Narrator: Coming up,
this missing person's case takes a disturbing turn.
- I would describe that property as eerie.
There was a very strong odor there, a lot of decay.
- He kind of stops, and he says, "I think that might be a leg."
- ♪
- narrator: In early January 2014,
jackson county detectives discover
that months after robert haney was last seen,
his employer, susan monica,
used his ebt card at a local walmart.
- ♪
- julie: We worked on a search warrant
to search her property for the crime of identity theft.
At that point, several detectives were more involved,
and we were mobilizing
to serve a search warrant at her property.
- Narrator: On January 10, 2014,
law enforcement arrives at susan's farm.
- Eric: I'm like, "susan, you know,
"you're on video using robert haney's oregon trail card,
tell me about that."
susan was, to me, visibly nervous
and what I would describe as worried.
- Susan said that she had permission from robert
to use the card
when she was tasked with having to feed his dog.
- Eric: Susan explained to me
that she stopped using robert haney's card
because it had actually expired, there was no money left on it.
- Narrator: A few hundred yards away,
officers begin to scour susan's property
for signs of robert's possessions.
- We went on with the search warrant procedure
which involves a video of the property.
I would describe that property as eerie.
There was a very strong odor there, a lot of decay.
- It's like she never threw anything out,
just piles and piles of garbage,
and discarded food, just junk, pieces of metal.
There's no running water, no septic system.
It looked like the setting of a low-budget horror film.
- Allan: Sergeant nathan sickler was the one
who was doing that videotaping,
and as he's walking around the property,
and describing the property,
and videotaping the property,
he comes to like a catchment pond type of area.
He's filming that, and in his camera,
you can see come into video, something unusual.
- He kind of stops and he says, "I think that might be a leg."
- ♪
- julie: It was clear that it was not an animal bone.
It appeared to me to be a human leg
that had been severed mid-femur down to the toes.
- Eric: Meanwhile, I'm interviewing susan,
and I don't know anything about this, what they've discovered.
And detective steve bone came over to me,
and I remember he just whispered into my ear,
"we just found a leg."
- ♪
- eric: It was hard not to have a shocked look on my face,
and so I, at that point, we--
I told susan, I said, "hey, let's go back
to the police department for an interview in the office,"
and so she agreed to do that.
- ♪
- narrator: At the station,
detectives confront susan with their gruesome finding.
- Narrator: Confronted with this information,
susan changes her story,
and explains what supposedly happened in September of 2013.
- [gunshot blasts]
- after robert was shot,
susan left him out in the pigpen for a couple of days.
She said she took his clothes off
so that it would be easier for the pigs to have access to him.
- Narrator: Susan says after the pigs had eaten
their fill, she gathered up what was left of robert haney.
- Allan: It appears that some animal, perhaps a coyote
or something like that, had smelled him,
had gotten into and torn open one of these black trash bags
and had pulled that leg out towards the pond area
in order to consume it.
We asked susan monica why she did not call 911,
why she didn't get the off of him,
why she didn't shoot the pigs.
- The only remorse she expressed during this entire time,
and the only emotion she really showed to us
was she did not want her pigs harmed.
- Robert haney, she didn't think he was worth a lot as a person
and her pigs were so valuable to her,
the way she was talking,
was probably the most cold and uncaring
I'd ever encountered before in any person who's killed anyone.
- Julie: The detectives told susan
that they were going to search every inch
of her 20-acre property, and they asked her,
"what else are we going to find on your property?"
- eric: And that's when she visibly started to break down,
and I could see the look on her face
and her kind of stumbling with words
to say what she was going to tell me next.
- ♪
- allan: She asked for a piece of paper,
and she drew a rough outline of
the pigpens and the barn.
She made an x that was just outside the fence line
of the pigpens, and she told the detective
that there was something worse in that location.
- ♪
- narrator: Coming up,
what secrets are hiding on susan's homestead?
- She had a whole back room
full of personal belongings from people.
- Narrator: And detectives fear
they are sitting across
from one of the deadliest killers in america.
- She told me that if she told me about the 17 others
that she would spend the rest of her life in jail.
- ♪
- narrator: After confessing to her role in the brutal death
of 56-year-old handyman robert haney,
susan monica tells detectives
that there is something even more disturbing
buried on her remote oregon homestead.
- She kind of drew the layout of her barn area
and kind of out in the pigpen,
she put an x right in the middle,
and she said, "right there,
that's where you're going to find steve."
- ♪
- narrator: Susan says that robert haney
wasn't the first handyman to work on the property,
or the first to die there.
- Julie: We learned that stephen delicino
was somebody who lived on a neighboring property,
and he would do odd jobs for susan on her property,
which was one year prior to robert's death.
- My dad was a handyman.
I always remember him carrying a box of tools.
He was a hard worker.
- He was this kind of transient person, loner, you know?
Susan liked stephen.
She described stephen as more of a gentleman,
that he would open the door for people,
and, you know, he was kind.
- Narrator: Until, in the summer of 2012,
susan claims she noticed that two of her guns were missing.
- Julie: She riled through his property
and she found two guns--one was a handgun, one was a rifle.
- Susan says she confronted stephen
about these guns that she believed he had stolen,
and that's when things kind of went south.
She said that she had her .22 revolver
and that they got into kind of a wrestling match
over this .22 revolver.
- She was trying to take it away from him
and the gun went off,
and he was shot in the back of his head.
- ♪
- narrator: Susan says she was terrified
that she had killed her friend,
but, instead, he stood up, still bleeding from the head.
- Allan: She said she ran out into the area in front
of the barn, that he chased her,
that he grabbed her.
She had also managed to grab a rifle, at that point,
she says that stephen delicino grabbed the rifle
and that there was a struggle, that he was grabbing her legs.
- ♪
- at one point during the struggle,
stephen was down on his knees, she was above him,
and she picked up the rifle,
and she shot him in the head with the rifle.
- [gunshot]
- she told me that he ended up
dying in the barn area.
Stephen was somebody that was closer to her,
and, you know, she didn't-- wasn't happy
that this had happened to him.
- She said after that occurred, she was pretty distraught,
she went into the other room to lay down,
to kind of think about things.
- Narrator: She says that while she was laying down,
she realized she made a terrible mistake.
- A little while later, she went back out,
and she found that the pigs had actually gotten in stephen
and actually started to lick some of the wounds
that he had on his head
and were beginning to eat him at that point.
- Allan: She claimed the pigs then dragged his body back
into the pigsty area where she again,
left his body out there for a number of days
for them to consume, and when she returned,
the only parts of his body that were left
were basically the skull, some of the bones, and his spine.
- Narrator: Susan says two weeks later,
she buried what was left of stephen's body behind her barn.
But if her self-defense story was true,
detectives wonder why she hadn't called police.
- Her excuse really at that point for not telling anyone
is because she was worried that the authorities would come
and euthanize all the pigs.
- Julie: Susan specifically told us
that she valued the lives of animals over people.
- Eric: I asked her, you know,
"are we going to find more people?
Have you done anything like this to anyone else?"
you know, all that.
And she told me that if she told me about the 17 others
that she would spend the rest of her life in jail.
- ♪
- that is what cause us concern, that indeed,
we were dealing with a serial killer.
- Narrator: Detectives arrest susan monica
for two counts of murder
and two counts of abuse of a corpse.
The next day, January 11, 2014,
dozens of csi agents and officers
descend on susan's remote farm
where they quickly find the rest of robert haney's remains
in the barn.
- You could not smell them because the overall smell was,
like I said, not pleasant at all.
We would have never located these
because we would not likely have been searching that area.
- These are black garbage bags, contained his head,
and other bags contained other body parts, just decayed.
We began the large-scale search of her property,
and that involved having an excavator to dig holes
where we thought we may find the body of stephen delicino.
- Human bones were seen actually in the bucket of the backhoe,
that was stopped immediately.
Those were the remains of stephen delicino.
- Narrator: Detectives reach out to both families
to break the tragic news.
- Jesse: I was really sad about the whole situation.
I would never expect something like, uh,
for what happened to my dad and what all went on,
it was just unbelievable.
- He was a wanderer, he would disappear and come back,
and that's just the person he was.
Nobody thought that anything happened to him,
and there was no real way to get a hold of my dad,
we didn't think, "oh, years of not hearing from him,
he must be dead."
we just thought maybe he moved on to something else.
But I did feel like a connection was going to happen
with me and my dad.
I'm very angry that I was robbed of this.
Why would somebody do that to him, in that way?
- Narrator: Both sets of remains
are sent to the lab for analysis.
- Eric: The forensics for both men matched her final stories
about how they died,
both robert haney and stephen delicino
died from gunshot wounds to the head.
- Forensic examination was able to show us places on the bones
that indicated consumption by animals.
- Narrator: Detectives continue their search efforts
to determine if there are more bodies on susan's property.
- We had a big excavator working just around the clock, you know,
every day, the whole time, digging holes.
We dug approximately a 136 holes,
one of the holes was the size of an olympic swimming pool.
- Narrator: As police dig, they find chilling traces
of other potential victims on the compound.
- She had a whole back room
full of personal belongings from people, um,
furniture and televisions,
all stacked in a area near the pigs, in the barn.
- There was a large pile of shoes on the property.
I think at that point, in our minds,
we were thinking, "how many other people are out here?"
- ♪
- narrator: Coming up,
a new witness comes forward with a terrifying testimony.
- Jordan: She's not what she says she is,
she's not just defending herself.
She killed people on purpose.
- That definitely kind of shook the courtroom up a little bit.
- ♪
- narrator: In January of 2014,
susan monica stands accused of murdering her two handymen,
robert haney and stephen delicino.
And there could be more victims.
- I think there were approximately 400 bones
that we found on the surface
that were later determined to be animal and not human.
- Mark: Much to everybody's surprise,
no other bodies were found on susan monica's property,
and there was no sign of human remains.
- We did have to look into susan's past,
identify any people who had stayed on her property
over the years, and there were quite a few.
But we were able to track them all down
and confirm that they were still alive.
- ♪
- narrator: On April 15, 2015,
susan monica's trial gets underway.
- Every time I went into the court of the trials,
I just seen susan monica, it was pretty hard.
- ♪
- narrator: In their opening statements,
prosecutors assert susan monica killed her employees
during two heated arguments
and then fed their bodies to her beloved pigs.
- Sean: Susan did have a short temper, for certain,
for some of her workers.
I don't think killing somebody
was any different than shooting a pig for her.
- Eric: Susan monica is an...
Intelligent, calculated,
woman who knew exactly what she was doing.
- That made me sick--just sick to find out that she shot him
and fed him to the pigs.
He didn't deserve that, not robert.
No one deserves that.
- ♪
- narrator: After laying out their evidence,
prosecutors present a surprise witness: Jordan farris,
susan's former cellmate that she met in custody
while awaiting trial.
- Susan told me that robert and her got into an argument
because he was drunk, and he was trying to come on to her.
She shot him and then pushed him into the pigpen.
She told me that when she pushed him in,
he was still struggling, and the pigs started to devour him.
She was whining and crying, and screaming.
After she told me, she just chuckled really creepily,
like--almost like the chills made you know it was real.
- Narrator: To prove that susan killed without remorse,
jordan shows the court a birthday card
that susan gave her when they were cellmates in 2015.
- She signed it, "from the sweetest murderer
in jackson county, susan b. Monica."
- that definitely kind of, shook the courtroom up a little bit.
- She's not what she says she is,
she's not just defending herself.
She killed people on purpose.
- ♪
- narrator: However,
the defense claims that the birthday card
was just a poorly timed joke.
- It's consistent with susan's personality
and what she would describe as her strange sense of humor.
Susan monica will make comments and some are very inappropriate.
- During her interviews, she had often joked in the past
about allowing her pigs to consume humans.
- Narrator: The defense argues that susan killed only in
self-defense, or in the case of robert haney, for mercy.
Susan is so sure of her innocence
that she insists on not only testifying,
but representing herself.
- Allan: In addition to her defense attorneys,
susan monica wanted to also question witnesses
and conduct cross examination
and make statements to the jury on her own.
- Susan is fairly narcissistic,
and the delusional part is just believing
that she knows more than everyone
and that she can do it better than anyone.
- Allan: Susan monica would also have outbursts
where she would suddenly stand up
and start making statements or answering questions.
The trial basically was a bit of a circus.
- Narrator: Susan's theatrics
don't impress the jury.
On April 21, after just an hour of deliberation,
they return with a verdict: Guilty on all counts.
- Murder in oregon carries a life in prison penalty.
She's sentenced to a total of 50 years
before she can even be considered for parole.
- It was a little more of a relief, when we got the verdict,
knowing she's going to rot in jail for the rest of her life.
- ♪
- narrator: Though the trial comes to a close,
law enforcement is still left to wonder:
Have all of susan's victims really been accounted for?
- My take on what she told me
about the possibility of 17 other people being there was
that it was true.
I believe 100% that there are more people out there.
- This is the strangest murder I've ever heard about.
I've had nightmares about this case for years.
I think this probably impacted the detectives
even more than it did me
because they were involved in the actual hands on
searches and discoveries.
- Narrator: For the families of robert haney
and stephen delicino, the nightmares will never end.
- My dad was a good, humble person
that shouldn't have been murdered.
At least he's able to finally rest in peace.
- She's changed so many peoples lives
and taken away two people that were loved.
I hope she's remorseful for what she did
and that, maybe one day,
she can find it in herself to forgive herself,
and I hope one day I can find it to forgive her.
- ♪