Joseph Scott Hatley Died a Free Man but Confessed to His Crimes in Secret Letters
By Jennifer TisdaleJan. 19 2024, Published 7:02 p.m. ET
In 1990, just about 14,000 folks had been living in the city of Stephenville, Texas. It's now not moderately sufficiently big to be described as bustling, but it surely unquestionably wasn't a small the town by any stretch of the imagination. Everyone didn't know everyone, however other folks stayed shut to the folks they had been accustomed to. Still, if tragedy struck, other folks knew about it they usually were not going to stay quiet. That's why a horrific homicide of one in all their very own was not possible to understand.
According to Texas Monthly, when the frame of 30-year-old Susan Woods was found out in her bath by way of her father Joe Atkins in 1987, surprise poured thru each and every cell of his frame. "They killed her," is all he may just mutter to Sergeant Donnie Hensley when he arrived at the scene. No one knew who "they" was once, and they would not know for just about two decades. Eventually a man by way of the title of Joseph Scott Hatley was caught the use of forensic technology not to be had in 1987. Where is he now? Somewhere he cannot harm any person else.
Photographs of Susan Woods
Where is Joseph Scott Hatley now? He died in November 2021.
Two units of fingerprints and palm prints were discovered on the crime scene, but there wasn't much any person may do about them in 1987. In May 2006, the Texas Department of Public Safety was given get right of entry to to the FBI's digital nationwide fingerprint database. Officer Don Miller, who reopened the case in the early 2000s, delivered the fingerprints to Austin and passed them over to a DPS officer. It didn't take long for Miller to receive a choice. They had a match for the prints and the title used to be Joseph Scott Hatley.
"Make no mistake, the day is six-six of ’06, and we are about to meet the devil himself," stated Miller to his partner on June 6, 2006, when they drove to arrest Hatley where he was residing in a trailer in Round Rock, Texas. They had greater than enough bodily evidence to arrest him, so he reduce a deal and were given 30 years. While in prison he "rediscovered religion, wrote his manifesto, and, in 2017, was diagnosed with bladder cancer that soon went into remission," consistent with Texas Monthly.
In 2018, Hatley used to be released on just right conduct after serving most effective 11 years behind bars. He went from a halfway space in Midland to a decent process, then in spite of everything "found a job repairing oil-field trucks, and, after being laid off at the outset of the coronavirus pandemic, moved into an RV park outside Abilene to be near one of his daughters, Amanda." His daughter believed he began drinking again, which resulted in large arguments.
Joseph Scott Hatley
On Halloween in 2021 Hatley instructed Amanda his cancer returned, and six weeks later his landlord found out his frame in the RV. He was 56-years-old and most likely thought he took his crimes to his grave, till any individual else purchased his RV. Soon after Hatley died, Miller received a extraordinary phone name from a Stephnville police officer who advised him the new owners stumbled upon some traumatic missives left by way of Hatley.
Joseph Scott Hatley confessed to his crimes in secret letters.
There were just about two hundred pages of writing, through which Hatley confessed to all that he did. Miller believes he was once making an attempt to work out how he got here to be who he used to be. What went fallacious in his lifestyles, that will lead him down this kind of wicked path? Along with stories of his early life, he talked in regards to the first time he drank alcohol and how it was a thrilling enjoy. He described himself as a "fat anti-social kid," and ceaselessly complained about never having a girlfriend growing up.
At some level Hatley were given married however as his courting crumbled, he became to prayer. When that didn't paintings, Hatley chose Satan instead. One evening when his spouse wasn't house, Hatley lit a bunch of her candles and told Satan he would follow him forever if he may simply assist him. Many times in his writings, Hatley referenced this moment, as though he in point of fact believes it used to be chargeable for what he would later do.
He met Woods whilst he used to be still married, regardless that divorce used to be unquestionably on the horizon. Hatley concept she was flirting with him and took this as a sign that one thing extra used to be conceivable. When he confirmed up at her house a few days after their first meeting, he "overstepped his bounds," so Woods slapped him.
Susan Woods's estranged husband Michael Woods (pictured above with Susan) was once initially a suspect
That triggered something in him. "By the time I came out of the fog I had brutalized her," he wrote. He stated that the ultimate moments of her life have been spent in prayer. "That night I took the life of a kind, sweet, loving woman who never did anything to me but show me kindness. My God I had become a monster," he wrote. Hatley's personal daughter discovered who her father really was after reading his confession. She wasn't stunned. "My dad was just a really bad guy," she stated.
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