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Cult Liter with Spencer Henry

141: Murder in Roanoke

Cult Liter with Spencer Henry

Spencer Henry | Morbid Network | Wondery

True Crime, Exhibit C, Society & Culture, Comedy

4.95.4K Ratings

🗓️ 13 July 2021

⏱️ 46 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The town of Roanoke Texas was shocked when 43 year old single mom Susan Bailey was found murdered in her nice house in a quiet neighborhood. The gruesome murder scene shocked authorities, but they were even more shocked when they discovered who was responsible.
Check out my new show OBITCHUARY wherever you’re listening!
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Sources:
‘Let’s Kill Mom’ Author: Donna Fielder
IDTV: ‘Let’s Kill Mom’
Facing Evil-Episode: Killer Teens
https://www.nbcdfw.com/news/local/affidavits_4_teens_planned_to_kill_n_texas_mom/1838185/
https://www.investigationdiscovery.com/crimefeed/crime-history/lets-kill-mom-behind-the-disturbing-susan-bailey-murder
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Transcript

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0:00.0

Hey, Prime members, you can listen to Cult Leader Early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today.

0:31.0

Hello and welcome back to Cult Leader. I'm your Cult Leader, Spencer Henry. What's up? Happy Monday, everyone.

0:42.0

Gear in up for another great week. Hey, you can catch Obituary on Thursday. You can catch a little leader on Friday. You can catch a regular Cult Leader right now. What do I have to talk about today? Oh, okay. So, fierce street. I posted about it a little bit this weekend on Instagram Stories. And I was not super into the first episode. And I feel like I got so much backlash when I posted that that I might need to give it a second watch. So I'm going to try and do that.

1:10.0

I did get a lot of messages and angry text messages from some of my friends that part two is way better. Supposedly, so I'm going to give that a shot as well. Hopefully I'll have more insight on that next week.

1:25.0

Speaking of things that I put on my Instagram Stories, I was answering some questions the other day on Instagram and somebody wrote in and they were like, you look so different than what I thought in a good way. So yet again, I'm thrown into this identity crisis of what do people think that I look like and sometimes people are like, no, you look like what I thought. And then sometimes people are like, wow, so different. But it's really the emphasis on in a good way. That gets me because do I have the voice of a trash can?

1:52.0

I don't know, but that's my money maker here. You are. So I guess it's fine. Also, I'll never understand because I'm such a visual person. If I listen to a new podcast or even the radio, I immediately Google whoever I'm listening to because I need a face to the name.

2:08.0

I'm so annoying when I'm reading a book, even I cannot concentrate on the book until I perfectly have in my head who is each character. And if there's not a movie for it, I make it up. I'm like, okay, this girl sounds like she would be this actress. This guy sounds like he would be this actor. I have to do that in order to pay attention.

2:28.0

I did that for the silent patient, which a lot of you guys are reading now or a lot of you guys have already read, which is super cool and exciting. The author, Alex, Michael, I just came out with another book called Something Made in or something. I want to read that next.

2:47.0

Speaking of reading, lots of really good segues this week. This week I decided to really shake things up. So normally what happens is my genius, my process is I'll choose my topic and then I'll go find all of my resources, court transcripts, interviews, movies, you get it.

3:04.0

I have a lot of episodes that I already started my notes or research for, but it's always topic first, research second. This week, however, I was like, I want to try something different. I want to spice up our relationship. Add a little romance. So I decided I would take myself on a date to the bookstore with no plans and pick out a true crime book on a case that I don't know anything about and then just dive into it and go from there.

3:30.0

And I don't want to say the title of the book that I got yet because it kind of gives some things away, but it's my main source for today's episode. So I'll be referring to it quite a bit.

3:39.0

It took me about a day and a half to get through it, but it was gripping tragic, horrifying. I probably would have read it the first day if I could, but there was not enough hours. And I closed the final page of the book with feelings of enragement.

3:54.0

It's not because nobody was held accountable in the end. It's not, oh, how did they get away with this? It's more so a feeling of disgust with greed, lack of empathy and selfishness and stupidity, honestly.

4:06.0

The book centers around Susan Bailey. She was a mother, she would and did everything she could to give her two children the best life possible.

4:15.0

She worked two jobs just to make ends meet picked up all of this lack from a husband who was constantly in and out of work and she sacrificed a life outside of work herself to keep things afloat for her family.

4:26.0

And in September of 2008, she was murdered.

4:29.0

Let's go back to the beginning and get to know Susan. Her maiden name as well as her parents names are redacted in most of the interviews and in the book that I read in order to respect that I'm going to go ahead and refrain from including them.

4:42.0

But Susan was born on February 20th of 1965 in St. Paul, Minnesota. She was the second of four children born to her parents and growing up, the family lived in a suburb of St. Paul.

4:54.0

And it seems like a pretty rural area that they were in, very small town field. Their street had a total of 10 houses, including their own and everybody knew everyone.

5:03.0

Which always sounds really quaint, but I feel like everyone would also always be in everyone's business. At school, Susan was a good girl, good student, very caring, always ready to help.

5:13.0

She played the violin as well as the clarinet and she studied both instruments pretty vigorously. Her parents later said that part of them thought that maybe she'd eventually grow up and be a musician. Like she was all about it.

5:25.0

As a preteen in a teenager, her summers were nice. They were spent at the lakeside resort that her grandparents owned and operated where she helped out doing chores in order to make some extra cash.

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