Deadly Seduction (6 page)

Three

When Tom Whited’s first wife’s sister Paddy turned up at the Baptist Hospital in Oklahoma City to see little Tommy she was horrified. Eight-and-a-half months pregnant with her second child, Paddy could barely hold back the tears when she saw what had happened to her nephew.

Tom and Susan were at the hospital, but kept a low profile throughout Paddy’s visit. She did not even see them.

Detective J.M. Einhorn was very concerned about many aspects of this disturbing case, not least of all the reason why the Baptist Hospital did not call in the police following the original attack on little Tommy in January 1983.

When he interviewed Dr. Richard Crook, an old family friend of Tom’s and E.R. member at the Baptist Hospital, he began to realize why. The doctor told Einhorn he thought social workers had been called in. But he also conceded that he had never accepted that such an apparently responsible couple could commit a heinous act of violence on a child.

Einhorn also discovered that Susan seemed to have an apparent compulsion to make Tommy behave in an absolutely perfect manner. She had become completely obsessed over his behavior, and that had probably contributed to his injuries.

On May 11, 1983, Det. Einhorn attended a medical examination of little Tommy by Dr. John Stuemke, chief of Pediatrics at the Oklahoma Children’s Memorial Hospital. His conclusion was heartbreaking: “This youngster has to be miserable. He must have been in a great deal of discomfort. This is a battered child. There is no doubt or question in my mind whatsoever.”

Besides the injuries to his brain, the doctor went on to confirm bruises and other marks over much of the little boy’s body, plus those three cigarette burns to his legs.

A few days after complicated surgery had been performed to relieve the pressure on Tommy’s brain, nurses tried to get him to pass water because he had been wetting his bed two or three times a day. But Tommy seemed terrified to go to the toilet. It was obvious that he had been severely punished in the past for daring to go. Every time a nurse tried to persuade him, he would go into a spasm of fear.

Meanwhile, Susan’s previous husband Gary Campbell heard of what had happened and immediately applied for and got sole custody of little Jacob. Although Jacob was fairly spoiled and well looked after compared with his stepbrother Tommy, the mental scars that he suffered as a result of watching his mother inflict those dreadful punishments were horrendous.

But perhaps the most extraordinary aspect of the case was that Susan—already fast becoming the master manipulator—almost managed to convince Tom Whited that Tommy’s beatings had all been a dreadful accident. She even reconciled with Tom briefly
after
the child’s near-death beating. But finally, Tom Whited applied for divorce from Susan on May 18, 1983.

On May 27, 1983, Tom was forced to submit a legally binding letter to Oklahoma Assistant District Attorney Becky McNeese, promising that he would work with the Department of Human Services to help in the prosecution of his wife. Tom Whited rightly was wracked with guilt. He should have known what was happening to his son and he should have protected him from that abuse.

In the hospital little Tommy lay close to death. The mental—as well as the physical—scars were plainly obvious. It was clear the child would never recover.

However, Susan was living in a fantasy world in which she simply told herself that none of this was happening. It was all his fault; that little boy was doing it to himself by behaving so badly. Susan had become virtually an observer of her own crimes. She felt completely unconnected to the beatings suffered by her stepson and it had helped her to continue assaulting him without fearing the consequences.

Throughout Tommy’s hospitalization, Susan had become much calmer and more gentle back at the family home on Rushing Road. The little boy’s absence meant she could keep the home even more immaculately clean. She proudly boasted about the remodeling of the property to visitors to the house, about the new carpet and the spanking new kitchen. Tommy rarely got a mention. Susan had few material things as a child. Now, as an adult, they meant more to her than people. People were only good for one thing—betrayal; because that was all people had ever done to her.

But as soon as Tom Whited fully realized what his wife was suspected of doing to his son Tommy, he took away her checkbook, credit cards, and her car and threw her out of the house on Rushing Road. But none of that was going to make Tommy get better. He was beyond a cure. Ninety percent of his life had been beaten out of him forever.

Oklahoma City Assistant D.A. Don Deason was far from satisfied about Tom Whited’s role in the case. He wondered why Whited seemed so hesitant when he talked about the situation and he never once looked Deason in the eye throughout many hours of questioning. Deason found him to be evasive in the way he answered questions. It was also really hard to keep Whited on one track at times.

Don Deason was a young, handsome lawman who had worked at the Oklahoma City District Attorney’s office since graduating from the University of Oklahoma College of Law in May 1979. Deason’s hobbies were running and bicycling. Every lunch time, he would run five miles at the local YMCA. On his desk at the D.A.’s vast offices in downtown Oklahoma City was a small painted wooden vulture. It was the mascot of the Oklahoma City Police Department’s Homicide Division. They gave Deason the mascot as they believed he was “one of them,” a prosecutor with a cop’s heart.

Don Deason was particularly confused by Tom Whited’s academic background—it did not fit into the regular pattern of child battery. Here was a college-educated guy with a secure, well-paying job, a nice home and yet he had allowed all this misery to be inflicted in his own house. Tom Whited was just not the sort of low lifer one usually came across in such cases, thought Deason.

Deason then examined the case against Susan. Once he had scraped away the veneer of respectability that had so impressed Detective Einhorn initially, he uncovered someone whose background qualified her as the most likely suspect. She was the one with the trailer-trash mentality and the unhappy family. Hints that she herself had been abused as a child simply reaffirmed Deason’s worse fears.

In the middle of the police investigation, Tom and Susan met up to discuss the final closing down of their marriage. Out of the blue, Susan mentioned the possibility of suicide. Tom was stunned. The last thing he expected his wife to consider was taking her own life—it just was not in character with the rest of her persona.

But Susan persisted and kept bringing the conversation back to the subject of suicide. Then she asked Tom how much life insurance
he
had. At first, he did not take in the implications of what she was saying. Then it dawned on him that she was suggesting that perhaps he should take his own life. Tom never forgot the shiver that went up his spine at that very moment. He then realized that Susan was capable of doing anything to get what she wanted.

Assistant District Attorney Deason was growing increasingly disturbed by the continual contact between Susan and Tom. He could not understand why Whited kept being lured back by Susan despite the horrific injuries she had inflicted on little Tommy. It particularly bothered Deason because Tom Whited was going to be his main witness against Susan and if Tom started watering down his testimony then Deason might not ever succeed in prosecuting her. In Don Deason’s opinion, that was almost as much of a crime as the beatings received by that innocent child.

Tommy was released from hospital in July 1983. He had a tracheotomy and was moved to a relative’s house. He still needed oxygen and his trach had to be sectioned and cleaned regularly. He required very specialized nursing care.

Tom Whited occasionally visited his son and he continued working for his former father-in-law, Lester Suenram, even following Susan’s arrest. Lester felt bitter, angry, and extremely frustrated by all the circumstances which had combined so tragically to end his grandson’s normal life. These factors were:

1. How could Tom Whited have fallen in love and married such an evil woman?

2. How could Tom Whited have failed to notice what was happening in the house?

3. Why did the Baptist Hospital not report the first beating injuries to the police? If they had done so, Susan would not have been allowed near Tommy again and the second set of injuries would never have occurred.

Lester Suenram blamed himself in many ways. He felt he should have been stronger with Tom from the outset. But how on earth could any person have predicted the awful crimes that were committed against his grandson? From the day of little Tommy’s release, Lester devoted his entire life to making sure his beaten and battered grandson was given all the loving care and attention he should have had from the day he was born.

On November 14, 1983, Susan appeared in court in Oklahoma City.

She was dressed as if she was on her way to attend a civic function with a carefully coordinated gray suit and modest two-inch pumps, complete with a matching gray hat. The hat certainly made her stand out from the other defendants that day. It was a circular, grand hat turned at an angle on her head.

Susan was the ultimate head-turner in court that day. Even the attorneys could not keep their eyes off her as she clipped into the art deco courtroom with its ornate ceilings and overhead gallery. Her dress conveniently matched the grey walls of the courtroom with its severe wooden pews, two square tables, a blackboard, and an ornate wooden carving showing three Indians making a peace offering. The Oklahoma state flag hung above the judge, a field of sky blue, an Indian warrior’s rawhide shield bearing six painted red crosses, and dangling seven eagle feathers, and superimposed on it a peace pipe crossed with an olive branch. Below it, in white, the legend “Oklahoma.”

The assembled attorneys had already made a pre-agreed plea, specifically designed to get the hearing finished quickly. It also conveniently helped Susan avoid having to listen to many of the gory details of the injuries which she had inflicted so cruelly on her stepson. Perhaps, if she had been made to face up to her crimes then she might have changed her ways.

The judge then asked in open court whether this agreed plea would be fair to the people of Oklahoma County. Assistant D.A. Don Deason’s first thoughts were that it was not at all fair because he knew that her plea would probably mean she would not get a custodial sentence. He did not like what he was doing. He felt the case had been compromised and he has never stopped blaming himself ever since. However, Deason did not object in court that day.

But then he had no choice. There was no real additional evidence from Tom Whited and it seemed as if Susan still exerted control over him despite the fact that their divorce was under way. Deason actually believed that Susan was still sleeping with Whited up until the trial. He remained appalled by that situation because he could not understand how anyone could go back to someone who had done that to his child.

The judge then repeated his question to Deason about whether this was fair to the people of Oklahoma County.

“Yes, your honor,” replied Deason, but in his heart of hearts he knew that was not the case.

The judge gave Susan a five-year suspended sentence after she pleaded guilty to child beating, a felony.

After those court proceedings in 1983, Tommy was officially declared a deprived child and placed into the custody of his maternal grandparents. Susan and Tom Whited both had their rights to the child terminated.

*   *   *

Perhaps surprisingly, the case was not given any space in the
Oklahoma City Times.
But then that might just have been indicative of the vast number of similar child abuse cases that come before courts across the country every day of the year. In fact, the only reference to the Whited case was in a list of felonies which stated simply, “Sue Ann Whited, 24, address unlisted, child beating.”

After the trial, little Tommy’s grandfather Lester Suenram fought to get full parental rights over Tommy because it was clear that no one else genuinely cared as much for the little boy. The Suenrams were outraged that Susan had been given a suspended sentence. They had seen their beloved grandchild beaten and battered to the point of no return, yet she had walked free from the courtroom.

Family friend Vivian Susil, who had looked after Tommy so often, was so upset and angry about what happened to him that she took out an album of photos of Tom, Tommy, Susan, and Jacob and cut around each photo, removing Susan and Jacob from her life forever.

The case has continued to haunt Assistant D.A. Don Deason. He felt the situation was softened by Tom Whited, who had backed down from his original damning testimony by the time the case got to court. Whited seemed to have become yet another manipulated soul in the life of Susan and he left the court that day a very sad man.

Deason recognized in Susan someone who had developed her own glamorous persona. He believed she picked Oklahoma to live in partly because it was a place with no ties to her past. It is much easier to reinvent yourself in new territory. Deason had found Tom Whited “kinda squirrely” and refused not to lay some of the blame at his door. He was especially surprised to discover that Susan had got pregnant by Whited
after
Tommy’s hospitalization.

About ten days after the case finished, Deason got a call late one afternoon from Susan. Why on earth would she contact him, especially after the case had finished, he wondered.

Don Deason was very suspicious, but he took the call mainly out of curiosity. Susan got right to the point.

“There are some questions I need to ask you. Would you meet me for a drink after work?” she purred.

Deason was astounded. The woman who had almost battered her own stepson to death was now flirting with him on the phone and asking for a date!

He laughed.

“That wouldn’t be a very good idea, would it?”

Susan sighed, “Oh well…”

Deason put the phone down, convinced he had just avoided a very dangerous situation. He could visualize himself later that evening in some sleazy motel room when the door is kicked open and a camera pops as he tries to cover himself up. That woman is capable of anything, thought Deason to himself. Absolutely anything.