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Laundry, a book club, computer solitaire.
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You are now listening to True Murder the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them. Gasey Bundy, Dahmer, The Nightstalker, Dck. Every week another fascinating author talking about the most shocking and infamous killers in true crime history. True Murder with your host, journalist and author Dan Zupansky. Good evening, This is your host Dan Zupanski for the program True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that
have written about them. On January eleventh, nineteen ninety five, the deputies outside Austin, Texas found the mutilated body laid across a cold campfire, head destroyed, hands, cut off, skin singed by fire. In less than three days, they had the kill zone a small apartment. Shy Christopher Hatton was shot at point blank range in his bed. Stephanie Lynn Martin, despite her devout Southern Baptist upbringing, was reborn as a sultry stripper and calendar girl.
William M. Busenberg was a good looking wannabe living his own lies. They came together in an explosion of violence and sex. Then they decided there was only one thing
missing from their romance murder. But within days they were under arrest and savvy prosecutors learned the ugly truth behind the senseless slaughter of Bussenberg's friend, How twisted fantasies of murder fueled the couple's lust and led to the unspeakable crime, and how the truth tried to cover up, how they and the and how they both tried to cover up their heinous deed until they finally ran out of lies.
Wages of Sin is the book, were featured this evening, and Murder was their turn on with my special guest, Susie Spencer. Thank you for a greening to this interview and welcome to the program. Susie Spencer, thank you very much. Thank you. Now describe for our audience. First, off set the setting for this story, the Travis County near Austin, Texas. Tell us what this community was really like. Describe it for.
Us please, Well, Austin's always been considered so called liberal, the only liberal city in Texas. We're known for our hippies and our politicians and the University of Texas, and that's mainly and well in our course, our rock and roll music. Right we're considered the live music capital of the world, or at least that's the way we promote ourselves. I don't know what reality is.
That, right, Oh, you do certainly have that reputation. Now. The question I always ask, because I'm always curious, and I think the audience might be too, is why did you decide to write about this particular trial, and this the case, of course the subject of your book, Wages of Sin. Why'd you decide to write this book?
I think the headlines just got me curious. And I always have this thing where if something happens in my life to me, that's sort of like the signal that I should do this book. And so it was already in the back of my head. And then I had been considering it. And then I was at the Texas Book Festival one day and I looked over at the booth that was next to me, because I was standing
in the Writer's League of Texas booth. Looked over and I started talking to the people in the next booth, and it ended up that the girl had been a waitress at the Yellow Rose Strip club where Stephanie Martin, the killer in Wages of Sin, worked, and she said, there's this story you should really do, and it was Wages of Sin, and I went, oh, my gosh, I've been thinking about it, so that was sort of my signal to myself that I should do it. And that's why.
Right well, before we get into Stephanie Lynn Martin, let's go to the other subject of your book, or one of them is Chris Hatton, and tell us about Chris Hatton his early life. What were his parents like, what was his upbringing like, where did he grow up? Tell us and our audience about Chris Hatton.
Oh, he's just this drop dead cute Alabama boy that charmed everyone in Texas with his southern drawl. Because in Texas you might be able to tell with me, we have kind of a hard accent. So the southern Alabama thing really charmed people here. And the reason he moved to Texas was because he, like I say, he grew up in Alabama and his father died. They don't really know why he died, because he was running a fever
and it spiked. He became delusional from that, and then the police were called into the hospital where the father had been taken because of his fever, and the police supposedly beat him trying to, you know, get this delusional man under control. And a few days later he died, so they aren't sure whether he died from the beating
or from the fever. His mother, who then was left taking care of Will and his younger brother Brian, was allegedly, you know, an alcoholic with all kinds of issues, and so Will I mean, excuse me, will I mean Chris kind of went you know, a little bit wild, and so he was shipped to his uncle here in Texas, who was a police officer actually in the Sheriff's department.
And so that's how he ended up in Texas, actually at round Rock High School where he was a bit older than the other students and he was in the junior rotc And he had this dream of always being a Navy seal, either that or a fashion model, because he was again so dad gom cute. I love to look at the pictures of him because he was just so cute.
So what did he do about his dream about being a Navy seal other than talking about it quite a bit with his friends, and throughout his life he's still, or least in his young years, he talked about being a Navy seal quite a bit of dominated conversations. So what did he do towards his dream? Other than the rotc about being a Navy seal.
Well, when he got out of high school, he went and joined the navy, but it ended up that it wasn't you know, his fantasy. He was more like busy swabbing decks the brother and I think painting the ships out in San Diego, rather than training to be a Navy seal. And part of the problem was that he was madly in love with a young woman named Lisa Pace who he had met through Junior ROTC and round Rock. And so he went a wall one night to go home,
to fly back to Texas to see Lisa. Allegedly, and I don't really know if I buy this story, but allegedly he you know, packed up his clothes I think in some plastic, jumped off the side of the ship and his givies and you know, went to the swim to shore, put on his dry clothes, went straight to the airport and flew home. And so then he eventually got out kicked out of the navy because of that.
What did Lisa say? When was there any talk of what Lisa said to him when she knew that he had done he had gone a wall because she had an interest in the military or the Navy as well. So was there any did did they talk about what they had said to each other about this?
Well, you're going to have to probably refresh my memory a little bit here, but if I recall correctly, uh, there there was a part of her that was, you know, like, oh, man, you know my guy, you know, skipped the Navy for me. But at the same time, because she was also military or you know, met they had met in junior ORTC and she was very responsible in the military, that was sort of like, oh my gosh, what have you done? So I think she had a bit of mixed emotion there about it.
So now he what happens as a result of him going a wall. He gets discharged from the army, Yeah, from the Navy, yes, a.
Pardon and and came back home and was feeling pretty much like a screw up, you know, because there was a part of him because he also had other problems in the Navy that he if I recall correctly, he got trouble for driving drunk and stuff like that. Because even though he had an image as a sweet little kid, you know with his family that they thought, oh he never drank or anything, he also had a heavy duty
party side. So when he came back to Texas feeling like a failure that he had blown on his dream, you know, the you know, fantasy of modeling isn't one
you can really pursue. In Austin, he was feeling pretty dejected and he and Lisa moved in together, were engaged, which they got engaged while they were in the Navy, or when he was in the Navy, and but he pretty much spent his time at the nightclubs partying and then would come home and at the meantime, she's going down to San Antonio for her ROTC training, and so she's working like a dog, and she's getting a little irritated that he's just going out and partying and spending money,
and I probably, well, let's just go on for there, we'll come back.
Well, the thing is is that they eventually do split up, and but it's it's more from the it's from his initiative that they do split He moves out of the apartment or moves her stuff. What why was there did you find the reason why they did finally break up? And and who initiated the breakup itself?
Well that was sort of what I was going from the way Lisa talked to me, and she and I spent numerous hours sitting at my dining table talking. She's kind of bossy, you know, or at least she was back then. I don't know what she's like now. I don't want to, you know, condemn the person who she's out there listening somewhere. But she kind of ruled him. She controlled everything, you know, she wanted to control the money, the shopping, and so I think it was just he
was kind of fed up. He wanted to go out and enjoy life, be a young man, and so instead of being tied down, and you know, he had his best buds to go out and party with him.
Now, what was his character, because there is some contradiction in terms of guy that wants to party, But then you do talk about his character, at least a lot of people talk about his character of him being shy and not much of a dream. Yeah.
And it was really interesting because when I was writing the book, I felt like I never really got to know Chris, and finally I realized why, because he had such different images. He had one image with his family is the good, clean cut, sort of studious, good boy, And then he had this other side of him that was going a wall and was going out and drinking all the night, you know, every night, and partying in
country western dancing and getting into fights. So I think that's why I felt like I didn't really know him, because I wasn't sure he knew who he was. You know, which, am I this clean cut kid who's gonna help my aunt Holly, who I'm living with, and do every good deed for her and make her happy. Am I the
one who's worried about my younger brother? Or am I the one who's ticked off at my girlfriend who's you know, monopolizing my life and doesn't let me go out and drink and party in country western dance?
Well, there is at some point I don't know how important it is. That you don't really explain how important this is. But Lisa finds a Yellow Rose the bar the strip yard that Stephanie Martin dances at. She finds a Yellow Rose T shirt from the t shirt and and ask him some questions. So as much as she might be boss or dominating, I know, being a guy that something like that will kind of put a damper
on everything, including trust and you'll probably never hear. I haven't, but I can just imagine how much trouble you to try to explain this away or downplay this T shirt. So now, now, eventually, eventually, if.
I recall correctly, he's sort of he worked for a beer company delivery company. And if I recall correctly, he planed it off as, oh, I was just doing my job, you know, and that's how I got the.
T shirt right, and then he could probably try to explain why he kept it again. Still it might be an okay explanation, but I think it could add to his problems dramatically. Now, the thing is when we talk about the Yellow Rose strip bar here that it's a topless bar, isn't it?
It's just a strip club. In fact, ironically, I was in touch to today with a person who used to work there.
Okay, now tell us about tell us about the bar itself, the Yellow Rose, what type of you know, what type of establishment is?
Is it?
A diver? Is a little a little class here? And tell us about Stephanie Lynn Martin. You can go back to her early upbringing as well, because it is, as you, as we've talked about before, she comes from a Christian background and then ends up being in a in a strip bar in Texas. So tell us about Stephanie Martin from what you've learned in your research about her background and her parents, and then tell us where she got to at the and and the prominence she had at this Yellow Rose strip club.
Well, let's start off with the strip club, the Yellow Rose. Back in those days, it was considered like one of the two high end strip clubs in town. It was one of the places to go, one of those type where you drive up and they have the valet service where they put the expensive cars out front, whereas you know some dive where you're going to go and just park in the back and jump in right. So, yeah, she was considered, you know, supposedly a really high end stripper.
But like you say, we'll get to that in a moment. Stephanie kind of like like Chris, is a bit of a dichotomy. Dichotomy and that she did have this Southern Baptist devout you know background, where she was in church, She went to church camp. Her parents were very very involved in the church. I was just noticing a while ago that I opened the section of the book about her where she's lost her cat.
Okay, round two. Name something that's not boring.
Laundry, book club, computer solitaire.
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And the cat comes home, and then her mother's going cleaning up her room, and this discovers this note that Stephanie had written saying, Dear God, please bring kitty home safely.
Right.
And so she had this reputation of being so loving to animals, but it seemed like from the beginning of time she had this exhibitionist, you know in her. That makes me sort of question what all went on in her background, because when she was in the sixth grade, and you have to remember, this is you know, back
a few years ago. I think she was born in nineteen seventy two, This wasn't a time that it was as liberal as it is now, and so like in sixth grade, she was pulling little girls into the bathroom and kissing them and feeling up with you know, being sexual with them, right, And then she would go off to church camp. And then she would show up at school and say, oh, look, old, I accidentally forgot to put on.
My underwear, right.
And so it was. And she's charming, she's personal, she's out going. She loved to dance. She took dance lessons from you know, her childhood on up and was a competitive dancer. And so her parents will sort of present this image as she was this good daughter. I believe
she was the youngest of the three kids. But then she was also getting in trouble all the time, Like she won a dance competition in that same year, she was pregnant and smoked her first joint, and she would like go and you know, go to school at the community college. But then I remember that she was telling me something about toying with the occult that, you know, with Luigi boards and with the cats and stuff. You know here she supposedly loves animals, but I remember they
would talk. I think it was more like a fantasy land or something that about the torture of cats, and and she she seemed to me that she loved to create drama that you know, supposedly, well, when we talk about her boyfriend will Boozenberg, who presented himself as a CIA hip man, which we'll get to in a minute, Stephanie bought into this, but I really think she wanted
to buy into it. There's no way I believe that she believed he was really a CIA hip man, except it fed into her desire to have this flashy, big, bold life, you know, like supposedly when they went to try out at the strip club at the Yellow Rose to dance, I think she tries to present it where oh, they were pulling her there, when in reality, she was the one saying, oh, let's go, let's go, let's try this.
Out, right, So she was the good girl trying to be a bad girl or vice versa.
Right.
What was interesting too, is that to lend to say maybe the parents being in denial or being naive, or a domination of both. Apparently, according to your book, the father didn't know she worked at this Yellow Rose.
If I remember correctly. One of his coworkers mentioned that he thought he saw Stephanie there and then she just said, Oh, I'm a cocktail waitress or something but you know, the father had some issues, if I'm again recalling correctly, I think he sometimes had a little bit of a gambling problem, and I think he had some mental health issues and
battled with depression a lot. And so my I had always been curious whether he had more mental health issues than he allowed us to know, and that maybe that was going on with Stephanie, that she also had some mental health issues that would encourage her into these fantasies that you know she kind of created.
Right now, Well, how did Stephanie and Chris meet and what was their relationship exactly?
Well, she'll always say that they didn't get along. They met through his room mate, Will Buzenberg, who eventually became Stephanie's boyfriend. And I believe they met at the Yellow Rose, because you know, the Yellow Rose in Austin, back in those days, was where all young men went. It's I always equate that the place has the A girls and the B girls. The B girls are the ones that
dance in the daytime. The A ones are the ones at night, and the lack the A plus ones don't even bother to come in until ten o'clock at night. Because I remember when I was doing my research, and I would go to the club and you know, hey, you know, I'm a writer, I'm not a partier, and so I'd be there, you know, seven eight o'clock and the place is dead, and then by ten o'clock, I'm exhausted and want to get out of there, and that's when it's just starting to go. So a lot of
the girls, like Stephanie would only come in then. And at that point, the young men who come in at that at that time are very serious on getting drunk and seeing the girls dance.
Right now, Will Bussenberg, we won't get into. We will get into what he did say to Stephanie, what he did tell Stephanie about his life and who he was and his father. And so tell us about what Will Bussenberg told Stephanie Martin we taught, we already alluded to it, that he told her he worked for the CIA. Tell us the whole incredible story that she had to swallow and accept.
Well, he's sitting in the club, and she says that she was mesmerized by him because he was one of the few that when he would talk to her, he would look in her eyes instead of her check and that when she would offer to give him a lap dance. He'd say, no, no, no, I just want to talk to you, and then would tipper like crazy just to talk. And so she totally loved that. And she says that he was really hard to get to know, that she had to really pull out information from him.
Then.
The information that she allegedly pulled out from him was that, you know, he was this wealthy guy I think grew up on a ranch or something and was had this cover working for an orthopedic company here in town. And but that was just his cover because he was really a CIA hit man. And so he was this good guy killing for his country.
And there was another part too that he even though he was young, he I think he'd lied about his age, or at least he lied about his education, that he had a pre med to and he also had thirty years of age. Just to top everything off, he was going to inherit millions of dollars.
So, yes, from this man who taught him how to shoot and you know, taught taught him basically how to be a hit man. And so he was, yeah, poor Will, he's one of these that well Will and Chris to me never really had a chance where Stephanie grew up in a comfortable, middle class family where her dad worked
for an oil company at Oklahoma. You know, Will had an uh, well, let me go back, Chris had you know, this father who died, a supposedly abusive alcoholic mother, and then he shipped away, and Will's family was just, according to Will, really screwed up. The family split up supposedly because the father was a drug addict and abused the kids physically and emotionally. And by split up, I mean that they were living in one state and part of them moved to Texas and part of them stayed behind
because the family was so abusive. And Will was just spent his life looking for someone to love him and accepting.
And then he got involved in the church, and his family was very against that, you know, but he loved the church because he felt like he had a family, and so he was sort of torn between the family he wanted, which was, you know, he wanted to be loved by his real family but couldn't get that at least the way he needed, and the church family, which loved him the way he wanted but wasn't his real family. So I don't know, I always felt sorry for Will, but I also felt like he had after this happened
and he realized what he had done. I always felt like he got his act together simply because he refused to talk to me, and I thought that was really smart of him.
Right now, obviously Chris and Will are living together. He's in some contact with Lisa Pace, but for all intensive purposes, a relationship is over, and I know they were still communicating with each other at that time. But at the same time, Will is having a relationship with Stephanie Lynn Martin and they are roommates, Chris and Will. And according to Will, there's information that he has about Chris that
he doesn't like about Chris, certain information, negative information. What does Will tell Stephanie about Chris, Well, he.
Basically tells him that he stole a bunch of money from him. If that's what you're thinking about, That's what I remember. And so he is, you know, just basically referring to him as, oh, this loser. I remember that Stephanie would walk into the house or to the apartment and Chris would be glued to the TV and he would be watching a video and she'd say, what is it? And it was his video of when he was graduating, you know, and navy I'm forgotten what you don't call
it navy boot camp, but whatever that is. And so he was just really depressed. And they would sit there and they'd have a dart board and they'd throw things at it, you know, the darts at it. I remember that there were holes in the walls from it. And Will just constantly told Stephanie what a depressed loser basically,
you know, Chris was. And then he came home and because Chris was I mean, Will was always telling Stephanie he had all this money, like you say, coming in and that he made millions of dollars for these hits for the CIA, and you know, bragged about how much money he would make from these hits. But yet he was always broke, and so when he didn't have the money, he started blaming, oh, Chris stole my money. And that supposedly made Stephanie mad, right.
Yeah, he talked about Chris. Basically, Will said that he supported Chris and had given him money to pay utility. So he said that the utilities weren't being paid, that he was spending his money and just defying him constantly. And then it was something very important where he had certified checks and apparently the only person could steal that check would have been Chris, and so he told her that they needed to knock him out and search the room to find this check, and so tell us a little
bit about that. They did go to this and find a strong box apparently or Will had said he'd found the strong box and there was credit cards, So go from there, please.
Well, I mean Will was just always basically lying. Well, I say lying, I don't know the actual facts because who knows. One thing you learn in true crime that there is the killer story, the victim's story, there's the judge's story, there's the prosecution story, there's a defense story, and the reality is a combination of all of that. So as a true crime writer you just try to piece it together the best you can to figure out
what the facts are. So it's you know, I think everybody was basically lying and it was just whatever would feed Stephanie to make her feel good is what they
would tell. So they eventually decided because we're missing one of the big facts I think in this, and tell me if I'm getting ahead of this, is that one day when Will was telling Stephanie one of his you know, glorious stories about killing someone, where he would talk about, Oh, I climbed up in this tree and I had to wait there for hours and hours, and Stephanie would be on edge, going really, really tell me more, tell me more, and that she said, you should say, what does it
feel like to kill someone? I want to know what it feels like to kill someone. So when this happened, that they're angry at Chris for allegedly stealing this money that you know, obviously Will didn't really have because what his real job was was polishing orthopedic parts that an orthopedic manufacturer in town, right, so he wasn't making the
big bucks. But he would try to present to Stephanie he was tipping her big, taking her on trips, that they decided to kill Chris so that Stephanie could know what it felt like to kill someone. Am I getting too ahead of the story for you? No?
No, I think it's important. I just wanted you do talk about how you know, it's hard to say what actually happened, and you spend quite a bit of the book trying to get to that because you interview everybody you possibly can and you asked, and you ask all these questions. I just didn't really know if that was part of what was really generally accepted as fact that she had actually said that. I know that she admitted that she probably could have said.
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It's something that she was curious. I just don't it seems very convenient for Will to say that. Of course, and we'll find out more as the story goes on. Anyway, I just I didn't want I didn't know that that's what exactly what we're gonna we're gonna speak about, because but anyway, it's I'm glad you brought it up. Now, the thing is is that they're talking about wanting to do this for the experience, or let's let's put it this way. They both Will has a reason to do
this and she has a reason to do this. Maybe it's her experience. Uh, they both think Chris is as a dirt ball or weirdo, deserves to die put him out of his misery. They even used, Uh, they've even spoke about that. So tell us about their plan, their initial because there's a conspiracy and then there's a actual murder, So tell us about their original plans and to deal with Chris Hattens.
Oh, well, at one point they were just I think going to you know, load him up with sleeping pills, and she she was very specific on when I say she, obviously Stephanie was very specific about the kind of sleeping pills that they tried, and you know, went to the store and read the labels carefully and picked him out.
And the sleeping pills supposedly didn't work. So I believe at one point they were going to put rat poison in his burrito, and so I think Will came by with the burrito and Chris wasn't there, so he left it for him. But I don't know why. I don't know if I made this up in my head, but I have this thing in my head where Will brings the burrito there and it's and Chris is it there,
so he eats it himself, so it's it's good. Like maybe they've bought the rat poison, but I don't think it ever actually made it in there, even though Will may have told the Stephanie that or what. But no, they tried several several times to allegedly to kill him before finally giving f on it.
And now from everything that you know, and so that's where we'll just skip a little bit ahead. Tell us about the actual murder itself, and tell us what you think really actually happened, Who did what and why? But tell us about the actual murder.
God, I hate to tell what I actually thought. Some ois scared I'm gonna get sued, but.
It's hard to do ken we don't have that much of a budget.
But yeah, it's well. Bottom line is, if I recall correctly, Chris was lying in bed and they came in and took a shotgun and blasted him. Now Stephanie will say she wasn't there and that Will killed her then, but when they were arrested, she said, no, that I shot him because he Chris tried to rape me. Because in Stephanie's eyes, everyone was always wanting her, and supposedly she constantly and it seemed to something that her mother had to these fears of rape, which again makes me wonder
what happened in her background. But so she I mean, she was constantly throwing out this rape scenario with me, like, oh, I went with this guy after work, but I was scared he was going to rape me. She brought this line up a lot, so when the police arrested them, eventually, again I'm sorry, I'm jumping ahead a little bit, she said, oh, Chris tried to rape me, so I shot him in self defense. And then later on she said, no, that
Will shot him. And one of the things I will never forget is how the police were describing to me the blood in the room when they did the luminol, because Stephanie and Will tried to some degree to clean up the crime scene. They shot him in the bedroom at the apartment, and they then they came and came after the murder, came back and tried to do a little bit of a paint job to cover it up.
And the police said when they they spread the luminol, you know, spread the luminol and turned off the lights, that it was just glowing everywhere with blood dripping everywhere, that they had never seen anything like it. And if I call because of the blood being between two layers of paint, it would kind of flash like lightning in the room.
Well, yeah, the thing is he was his head was blown off from the shotgun blast. And then they took this body eventually out of that apartment. They drained the blood. Yeah, they drained the blood in the bathtub the rest of the blood, so you can imagine that there still was more. And then, regardless of whatever Stephanie Martin said of not being there, she does say admitted that regardless she did go and help transport this body, clean up the body.
She was there to witness soon after the murder. Regardless of whether she was there or not, whether anybody believes that. So they did try to dispose his body, What did they do? Where did they put the body and in what condition did the police find the body? Finally, well, they.
Wrapped it up and carried the body out like it was a rug or something. Put it in the back of Wells pickup truck and drove around Austin in the middle of the night trying to find the perfect place to dump the body. And they would like, go, no, this place isn't right. That place isn't right. This place isn't right. And they finally drove I'm guessing it's probably twenty thirty miles outside of town to Lake Travis, to a place called Pacebin Park, which is a nice, peaceful,
happy place. I'm back at one point. I think it was the Texas version of the Hell's Angels used to allegedly, you know, have killings out there, but nowadays it's, you know, a nice happy camping ground where people go for picnics on the holidays and stuff. And it was a warm January night and in the middle of the night they drove to Pacebin Park by Lake Travis, meandered down toward the shore and at one of the barbecue pits, lit
it up and put Chris on top of it. Actually I think they put the firewood, put Chris on top, and then Stephanie took a hack saw which they had brought with them, and started sawing off the hands and allegedly This was because Will said, we've got to get rid of the hands because of the fingerprints, which does not make any sense at all, because hey, we've got you know, teeth, all this kind of stuff that could identify him, but they didn't. They didn't want him to
be identified by the hands. So Stephanie took the hack saw and started sawing off the hands. And I remember her specifically when I was interviewing her, telling me about how difficult it was to sew off the hands, that she couldn't get a good groove going, so she kept
having to start doing this again. And it's really weird because a few weeks ago I was in my backyard pruning trees and I was using a hack saw, and every time I would do a limb, I would think about Stephanie Wow, because the limbs I was cutting off were about the size of a bone, and the hands or the arms, the wrist, and I just kept thinking how hard this mutive must have been because I was
working so hard to cut off that tree limb. And you know, a tree limb that's only you know, a few inches in diameter is not going to be as strong as a bone, right, Yeah, And what and what makes it. It would have been understandable if you could, if you had gone, Oh, these people were on drugs,
but they weren't. There were stones sober. And so then once she I think they got like one a hand off or something, and then just got tired and gave up because they was you know, I think the sun was getting close to rising or something, and so they wanted out of there, and so they set the body on fire and left the hands there that they had to cut off so they couldn't be identified. Well, they just left the hands there, tucked it under the body.
They did panic, though, because they did hear some dogs barking, so they abandoned their plans and left the body there. Now, who discovered the body or how was the body discovered? Not specifically who's discovered, but how was it discovered? And then what did the how did the police proceed from there?
Oh, this was just so sad. There was a young man with his son, I think, if I recall correctly, the son was like three years old, maybe five, I think three to five, and they were looking for a great camping spot because they were planning on a fun father son evening. And they look up and they see something. The dad's like, uh oh, So he goes in looks for, you know, a law enforcement guy in the park and gets out of the car and saying, look, I don't want my son to hear this, but I think there's
a dead body down there. And the law enforcement guy's going yeah, yeah, yeah, I've heard this story all the time. It's just a dead deer or something. And the guy's going no, no, no, you know, come look you know, or you know, let me tell you where it is. And the law enforcement guy, because it's sunset the next day, getting close to sunset, the guy, the law enforcement guy saying, man, if you don't show me where this is, we're never going to find this before dark. You have to take me.
And the guy who's found it's like no, no, no, I don't want my son to see this. I'm going to get out of here, and he's going, no, you have to take me. So they drive up and the law enforcement guy is like seeing this and going, oh, this isn't a dead deer. Maybe this is a mannequin because he's just seen this white white skin because like
I say, it's in January. And he pulls up and he's going, oh no, this does what human And the kid is in the truck going and they're they're they're saying, oh, just yell that this was a mannequin or something, and so that my son will hear this. And the sun's in the truck going or I think it was a van was going. No, but Dad, I saw hair on the legs. It wasn't that. Just oh that poor kid.
So that's what started going where Then the law enforcement guy got on the radio and called in his superiors to you know, identify that this was this young man. And the way they actually identified him as you know, I had said that they wrapped his body in uh, you know, basically a sleeping bag, and it was identified by Chris Hatton's military you know markings on there with his name and I think part of the social security number.
And then you know, all of this was so law enforcement oriented because here Chris Hatton was the you know, nephew of a sheriff's officer. I think it was the guy who found the body. I think he was involved in law enforcement. And then the cop it's like, if you're gonna shoot somebody, don't kill the nephew of a cop is also the aunt this aunt Holly that was married to you know.
His uncle.
She was cop too, so of course with this, you know the cops are going to be all over it.
Now. The thing is that how did police? I know police put this together pretty quickly, but how did what was the key to them putting this together? Obviously they're going to want to go talk to Chris Hatton's roommate, but how did police get turned on to these two people so quickly?
Well, they went to after the body was identified, they went to the apartment and so then they were doing the luminol and see, you know that this is definitely a crime scene, and they noticed that, oh, this crime scene isn't completely cleaned up. They're going to be back. So they basically just waited for them to show up, which they did, wow. And then they took them in for questioning. And you know, Stephanie said, oh, I did it. You know, he tried to rape me and so I shot him.
You did when you did interview her later on in the end of the book, you talk about how she said that they had a few precious minutes where against police procedure, the two accused were left alone in the car together and that's where she hatched that plan. She admitted about the rape and murder. M Yes, that was interesting.
Yeah, It's what I find interesting is every case that I have worked on where the Travis County Sheriff's Department has been involved and as opposed to the Austin Police Department, there have always been what seemed like really screw ups in the investigation. And that's not coming simply from me. That's coming from the attorneys that I have interviewed about
the case who have been involved in it. And so what I discovered because I used to live in an area that was patrolled by the Sheriff's department and as opposed to the Austin Police, and what I saw was that they're really good people who try really hard and want to do their jobs well. But at that point, and it may have changed I mentally, they just weren't trained well.
Right now, in your book, quite a bit as dedicated to the you know, the incredible trial and the investigation of what actually went on, because you have so many pathological liars here, at least a couple of them anyway, where it's hard to sort out what actually happened, and so you spend quite a bit of your book, trying to find out exactly what did happen, and the police are aided, I guess, and but overly complicated by so many people coming forward and so many people willing to
talk against Stephanie and against Will Bussenberg. So tell us basically, without going into all the names. But they did speak to Lisa Paced, they did speak to a follow stripper at the strip club. They did speak to Will Busenberg's inmate, Buddy mac o'para. So what did basically a litany of people say, a group of people say about Stephanie and about Will and this murder.
Well, if I remember correctly, they were just basically that these are two crazy, screwed up people. And one thing I have failed to mention about Stephanie is while all this was going on, the Yellow Rose every year at least back then would do a calendar and she was the cover girl of the calendar. So while she's being arrested, they're like distributing, you know, calendars of her with this gorgeous,
you know, sultry look. So to see her in prison compared to the gorgeous Southern Baptist stripper, you know, it was kind of a change. But you know, there are a lot of people who don't believe she did it. For example, her parents, they are one hundred percent, you know, innocent. But basically Will didn't have a lot of friends because he burned a lot of bridges. For example, when he was in high school and his family life was so bad, he was taken in by the Round Rock Baptist Children's Home,
which is a fabulous, wonderful, loving place. I've known about this place since I was like five years old, and then getting to go in and get a tour of the home and see how they lived. They really do great work. And Will's goal, even though he initially wanted to get there, go there, was get out, get out, get out, And so anyone who had tried to help him had sort of turned against him, I mean, he
had turned them against him. So neither one of them had a lot of friends, with the exception of Stephanie's best friend Roxy and her parents, and Will basically had no one.
Right And when it came time to get an attorney for himself to defend him, he also was destitute too and had to go through just the public defender, whereas Stephanie's parents did arrange for a lawyer and did have a gentleman named Ira Davis.
Yeah, they immediately went as soon as they got the phone call that she was arrested. Her dad was saying, don't talk to anybody. Don't talk to anybody. And she had already given a statement and he called up, you know, members from their church and said who do you recommend? And they recommended Ira Davis and go ahead.
Now, despite Ira Davis's attempt to minimize the damage, like you say, from the statement that she already made to police as well as Will's Bussenberg's attorneys as well or attorney, these people still continue to correspond while they're in prison, isn't that correct?
Yeah. I remember that Stephanie would talk to me about the love letters that he would send her, and it seems like I even had copies of the love letters. I remember going through his psychological medical records, you know, from his time at the children's home when he was going through therapy, and reading all of that, as well as reading the love letters that he would send her. You know, I think, in my opinion, because you were
asking my opinion, I think he truly loved her. Obviously if he was willing to kill for her and that she was just totally using him the entire time to learn to see what it felt like to kill someone.
Right, There was a lot of friends that came forward that said that she had mentioned to them that she had stated that she wanted to experience the thrill of killing someone, that she could kill someone. There was a lot of people that came forward to say that. And in Will's case, there were people that came forward to make statements against him as well, like this former inmate
and other people as well. So, now, how does this play out in court in terms of just how are they trying to how are each one of the lawyers trying to frame this as he said, she said, they try to blame each other. How it was the court dynamic exactly.
And what happened is Stephanie was getting ready to make a plea bargain when Will beat her to the punch. So you know, he as what happens when most cases when there's a male and a female involved, that the female usually gets the harsher sentner. Well, this happened in this case in part because Will beat her to the punch and got the better deal because he was going to testify against her.
But it also was as a result of the prosecution not believing her story of her innocence and not being there. They did really believe that she did want to kill so that's why they did. They were anxious to make a deal with Will because they did want to prosecute her fully for those crimes as well.
Oh yeah, I mean, and I understand why they felt that. In fact, today I was talking to a man who recently read the book, and he one of the first things he said to me is, I think she really did pull the trigger. And I'm like, ah, so, I you know, I kind of think that too, and I don't want to think that, but it just the story doesn't make sense otherwise.
Right now, The thing is is that the plea bargain that we're talking about is not so good for Will, but it certainly is. It's obviously not the death penalty. But the thing is, what type of plea bargain did he actually get in exchange for his testimony and providing evidence against her.
Well, if I remember correctly, he got twenty years and she got thirty, and if I remember correctly, neither one of them could appeal the sentence, right, And what was interesting is after this all went to trial, Stephanie's in prison. I went to interview her several times, as you know, as a reporter, and then after the book was turned in, she put me on her visitor list and I went to see her a few more times. And it is, I'm sure you've talked to other true crime writers where
it gets. It is just so emotionally draining to go to prison then and visit with these people. And so I finally kind of quit going. And then a long time afterwards, out of the blue, I got a letter from her wanting me to help her with her appeal, and I'm like, well, that was one of the conditions of your yeah, And so I never answered her letter and never heard from her again.
Right now, the thing is is did she was she in approval over the tone of your book? Did she ever get to read the book? Or what do you what do you know about her personality and concerning this book? What what did she what would she think and did she have any comments about the book or its content or anything.
I'm guessing she absolutely loved it, because if you go to Amazon and look at some of the reviews, or maybe it's Barnes Andoble dot com, one of the two. Someone wrote on there, I'm reading this book because it
was recommended to me by Stephanie Martin. And Stephanie was on one of those websites where you you know, date a girl in prison or something like that, and so she had I think maybe one of her Yellow Rose cover girl, you know photos on there, because I remember that the picture on the website looked nothing like what she was in prison, because when I interviewed her, she kept her hand over her mouth, and that's because she had gotten in a fight in prison and had her
tooth knocked out right. And her mother was just irate that the prison people that this wasn't like you know, going to your private dental person then you call up the doctor and get an emergency appointment. She was like furious that, hey, she's in prison and she can't get dental care immediately. You know, it's this h.
What you did talk about visiting her numerous times in prison. What is her demeanor in prison when you do have these visits.
She's pleasant, sociable, she wants to come across, is very good. She doesn't seem to realize that how incriminating so much of what she says is how it makes her look bad. She thinks it makes her look good, and I think I'm put it in the book. One of the things I remember is that when I was interviewing the cops one time, and they were had just gone to Quantico for some FBI training, and they talked about how when a person goes uh a lot, that they're making up
their stories how they go along exactly. And so when I was interviewing with Stephanie, I noticed that she was constantly going mmmm. And I put that in the interview a lot, and it drove a lot of people crazy. But the reason I did that was to show how she was making things up as she went along. If you go by what the FBI.
Says, sure you know, and it's the way people talk too. It's certainly if you because I've seen transcripted conversation, you start a sentence, there's a certain certain way that people normally talk, and when they're trying to be deceptive, I
know what you're speaking of. It seems to be more plotting, and they're establishing things as they go along, and it almost sounds you can almost hear the wheels turning as they're coming up with this, as they're sort of establishing it with you and giving themselves enough time to immage or create the rest of it. So it does very Yeah.
And with criminals, or at least with murderers off, I've found that they have their storyline and they have to stick with that story. So what I always do is I let them talk that storyline long enough that they feel I'm totally buying into it, and then I will stop them and back them up or shoot them toward the end of the story or back to the front, so that I get them out of order. And when you do that, they almost always say something that they don't intend to.
Interesting. Yes, And so your conclusion too, is that this woman was just pathological our pardon me, psychopathic in her desire to experience this, and that is evidenced by, like you say, she loves all the attention, she's recommending the book to her friends. That certainly doesn't seem the person that's ashamed or humiliated by what they did and very very remorseful and wants to put it in the past.
And a contrast to Will, who just tried to disappear, you know, he tried to disappear in prison, so that like, let me do my time, and you know what I did was wrong, let me pay for it, whereas she's still saying no, no, no, I didn't do this, and you know, would send me recipes of how they make cheesecake or whatever in prison. You know, it's just sort
of a party to her. And I hate saying that because I want to be respectful to her parents, who I know that if they heard this conversation tonight, they would be so absolutely devastated by what I'm saying. And I think it's important that when people realize that when there is a murder, there aren't just the victims of the murder, victim of their friends and the families that the killers, their families are victims too.
Oh, certainly, I've done so many cases where you have the Bernardo Hamolco case in Canada where the daughter was killed, and yet still the family, in light of all the information that came out of trial, was still in support of their other daughter, who in effect helped murder their younger daughters.
Well. In fact, lots of people have referred to Stephanie and will in the same vein as that case.
Wow. Yeah, it's incredible when you do. I think it's the scariest thing is obviously the person that has the capacity to kill and kill without any remorse. What's even more shocking and more terrifying is when people can find a soulmate of sorts to live out their fantasies together. It's even more frightening, I think. So.
Yeah, there's a photograph in the book that Stephanie had made for me when I went and visited her on her visitor list, and to me, it just sort of sums her up. She's in prison. She's in her prison wide standing before a sign that says Happy Easter, and you know they're smiling for me. That she went and had a photo made in prison for me so that I could run it in the book.
Yeah, incredible, Well, it is an incredible book. Wages of Sin Murder was there, turn On. I want to thank you very much for this interview of Susie. It was a it's a great read, and thank you for a great interview.
Oh, thank you, thank you very much.
You've been listening to the program True Murder, the most shocking killers in true crime history and the authors that have written about them with my special guest Susie Spencer, author of Wages of Sin Murder was their turn on. Thank you very much, Susie, and have yourself a good evening, you too. Okay, good night, good night,