Susan Monica
 |
This article's content is marked as Mature The page Susan Monica contains mature content that may include coarse language, sexual references, and/or graphic violent images which may be disturbing to some. Mature pages are recommended for those who are 18 years of age and older. If you are 18 years or older or are comfortable with graphic material, you are free to view this page. Otherwise, you should close this page and view another page. |
|
| “ | I do not value human life very much. The only thing wrong with this planet is there's people on it. If it weren't for us, all the other animals, dodo birds and whatever else, would still be here. | „ |
| ~ Monica during her police interview. |
Susan Monica (born Steven Buchanan on July 8, 1948) is an American woman convicted of murdering two of her handymen and feeding their remains to pigs on her farm.
Biography edit
Monica was born Steven Buchanan in California in 1948. She served in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War, before transitioning to female after returning home and changing her name to Susan Monica. She began an engineering career, and in 1991 bought a 20-acre farm in Wimer, Oregon, where she kept pigs. She ran the farm for 20 years, regularly hiring temporary workers who would help her with manual labour for a short time before moving on.
In January 2014, Monica's farm was visited by the children of Robert Haney, one of her hired hands who had gone missing in September 2013 after working on the farm. Monica claimed that Haney had left the farm in September with an unknown person after leaving his dog and most of his possessions in her care. She also claimed that he had previously been talking about tracking down the man who had recently sexually assaulted his daughter to get revenge on him.
Haney's children then reported their father missing and convinced police to track his EBT card. It was found that Haney's EBT card recorded a charge at a local Walmart just a month earlier. CCTV footage from the Walmart established that the person using the EBT card was not Haney, but Susan Monica. Monica was interviewed by police, claiming that Haney had given her his EBT card when he left, and her farm was searched. The search of the farm resulted in the discovery of a human leg on the property, at which point Monica was arrested on suspicion of murder. The leg was positively identified as that of Robert Haney, and more of his dismembered remains were found in plastic bags in the barn.
Monica was interviewed again, and admitted that her story had not been entirely true. While she insisted that she had been telling the truth about Haney leaving the farm and leaving her his EBT card, she now claimed that Haney had returned some time later and entered the pig pen, at which point the pigs knocked him down and began disembowelling him, forcing her to kill Haney with a shotgun as an act of mercy. She had not reported it because she did not want her pigs to be euthanized. She agreed to take a lie detector test to prove she was telling the truth, but used various physical techniques to prevent it from getting accurate results. When confronted and threatened with another search of her farm, Monica was forced to admit she had still not been entirely truthful. Monica admitted that the remains of another farmhand, Steven Delecino, were buried on the property. She claimed that Delecino, who had been missing since 2012, had tried to steal some guns from her property, resulting in a struggle during which Delecino was accidentally shot in the head and fell into the pig pen, where he was eaten. Delecino's remains were recovered from the spot where Monica told police they were buried.
Despite Monica's claims, she was charged with murder, abuse of a corpse and identity theft. An Oregon State Police medical examiner testified that, while they had been gnawed on by animals, Haney's remains had first been dismembered with an axe, contradicting Monica's claims that he had been eaten alive by the pigs. He also testified that Delecino had been shot three or four times, not once. A fellow prisoner testified that Monica had introduced herself as "the sweetest murderer in Jackson County" and had remarked that there were more bodies on her property that had not been found, although a further search did not find any. A jury found Monica guilty on all counts on April 21, 2015, after only one hour of deliberation and she was sentenced to 50 years in prison. She is currently serving her sentence at the Coffee Creek Correctional Facility in Wilsonville.