Everyone in Stephenville Thought They Knew Who Killed Susan Woods

They found her naked body 36 years ago now, her head sunk into a bathtub full of black water, hands tied behind her with a tank top.

他们发现她的尸体已经是36年前的事了，她的头沉入装满黑水的浴缸里，双手用背心绑在身后。

It was 1987, and in a God-fearing town like Stephenville, seventy miles southwest of Fort Worth, what had been done to Susan Woods was unimaginable, something you might expect in a fetid corner of Los Angeles or New York City.

那是 1987 年，在沃思堡西南七十英里处的斯蒂芬维尔这样一个敬畏上帝的小镇里，苏珊·伍兹所遭遇的事情是难以想象的，这在洛杉矶或纽约市的一个恶臭角落里可能会发生。

She had been a quiet, shy woman, five foot seven, with lustrous brown hair cascading past her shoulders and an easy smile that friends didn’t see as much as they once had.

她是一个安静、害羞的女人，身高五英尺七英寸，有光泽的棕色头发从肩膀上垂落下来，脸上挂着轻松的微笑，朋友们不再像以前那样看到她了。

Susan was thirty years old and living alone that summer, left by a biker-ish husband who had fled the state, waiting for her divorce to go through.

那年夏天，苏珊三十岁了，独自生活，被一个逃离该州的骑自行车的丈夫留下，等待她的离婚手续办理。

She was a local girl, a little lonely, a little sad, trying hard to put her life back in order.

她是一个当地的女孩，有点孤独，有点悲伤，努力让自己的生活恢复正常。

When she missed her shift at the sandpaper factory two days running, a supervisor called her father, Joe Atkins.

当她在砂纸厂连续两天缺勤时，一位主管给她的父亲乔·阿特金斯打电话。

Atkins knew immediately that something was wrong.

阿特金斯立即意识到出了问题。

Susan would never miss work without telling someone.

苏珊绝不会在不告诉别人的情况下旷工。

He drove to the tiny white bungalow she rented near downtown, around the corner from Central Elementary.

他开车去了她在市中心附近租的白色小平房，就在中央小学的拐角处。

The house was dark, the night air quiet but for the rhythmic shrieking of cicadas.

屋子里漆黑一片，夜色静谧，只有蝉声有节奏地鸣叫。

On the porch, in the gloom, Atkins found that the door was unlocked.

在昏暗的门廊上，阿特金斯发现门没有锁。

He was the one who found her, in the bath off the rear bedroom.

他是在后卧室的浴室里找到她的人。

It was something no parent should ever have to see.

这是任何父母都不应该看到的事情。

He called the police on the living room phone and waited in the yard until they drove up.

他用客厅的电话报了警，然后在院子里等着警察开车过来。

When a sergeant named Donnie Hensley arrived around nine, he hadn’t been told the victim’s identity.

当一位名叫唐尼·汉斯利（Donnie Hensley）的警官九点左右到达时，他并没有被告知受害者的身份。

He was surprised to see Atkins, whom he knew as a volunteer at the municipal golf course.

他很惊讶地看到阿特金斯，他认识阿特金斯，当时他是市政高尔夫球场的一名志愿者。

Hensley didn’t press.

亨斯利没有追问。

He could tell Atkins was suffering from something like shock.

他看得出来阿特金斯正遭受着类似休克之类的痛苦。

The two men huddled and said a prayer before Hensley urged Atkins to go on home.

两人挤在一起祈祷，然后汉斯利催促阿特金斯回家。

His family needed to be told.

需要告诉他的家人。

At one point, Susan’s best friend, Cindy Hallmark, happened to drive up with her boyfriend.

有一次，苏珊最好的朋友辛迪·霍尔马克（Cindy Hallmark）碰巧和她的男朋友一起开车过来。

Neighbors could hear her screams two blocks away.

两个街区外的邻居都能听到她的尖叫声。

Inside, other officers were already pacing the house, taking photographs and studying the scene.

在里面，其他警察已经在房子里来回踱步，拍照并研究现场。

Susan, the medical examiner would later confirm, had been raped and sodomized.

法医后来证实，苏珊遭到强奸和鸡奸。

An angry red line across her throat suggested that her killer had tried to strangle her.

她喉咙上有一条愤怒的红线，表明凶手试图勒死她。

Hensley examined the bedroom, where there appeared to have been a struggle.

汉斯利检查了卧室，那里似乎发生过争斗。

Bedding was strewn everywhere.

床上用品散落各处。

The mattress had been shoved off-center.

床垫被推离了中心。

A white electrical cord, perhaps used in the strangulation attempt, lay across the bed, plug end on the floor.

床上横放着一根白色电线，插头一端放在地板上，可能是用来勒死的。

Murders were rare in Stephenville, and this was as bad as most of the officers at the house that night had ever seen.

斯蒂芬维尔很少发生谋杀案，而这也是当晚在这所房子里的大多数警官所见过的最糟糕的情况。

What stayed in everyone’s minds afterward wasn’t so much what had been done to Susan Woods.

此后留在每个人脑海中的并不是苏珊·伍兹身上发生的事情。

Instead, it was a pillowcase, stained with mascara.

相反，它是一个枕套，沾有睫毛膏。

As Hensley studied it, he realized he could see the outlines of a face.

当亨斯利研究它时，他意识到他可以看到一张脸的轮廓。

It had obviously been pressed over her nose and mouth and was, in effect, Susan’s death mask.

它显然被压在了她的鼻子和嘴巴上，实际上是苏珊的死亡面具。

“I could see where her eyes had been,” Hensley says.

“我可以看到她的眼睛在哪里，”汉斯利说。

“For years, I mean, all I could see was that eerie mascara.”

“多年来，我的意思是，我所能看到的只是那种怪异的睫毛膏。”

In the bathroom they found two good sets of fingerprints and palm prints, which, in 1987, were of limited use.

他们在浴室里发现了两套完好的指纹和掌纹，但在 1987 年，这些指纹和掌纹的用途有限。

DNA analysis was still years away, and fingerprint databases were not yet available in Texas.

DNA 分析还需要数年时间，德克萨斯州还没有指纹数据库。

So while detectives had plenty of physical evidence, there was little they could do with the prints until they were compared with that of a specific suspect.

因此，虽然侦探们拥有大量物证，但在将指纹与特定嫌疑人的指纹进行比较之前，他们对指纹几乎无能为力。

Officers knocked on doors up and down the street.

警察在街上挨家挨户地敲门。

No one had seen anything strange.

没有人看到任何奇怪的事情。

At the police department the next day, a lieutenant named Ken Maltby announced that no other detectives would be working the case.

第二天，在警察局，一位名叫肯·马尔特比的中尉宣布，不会有其他侦探来处理此案。

He would take it on alone.

他将独自承担这一切。

Hensley exchanged glances with another officer.

汉斯利与另一名军官交换了眼神。

Today, thirty years after his departure from the force, Hensley is a leathery seventy-year-old retiree living in nearby Granbury.

如今，在离开警队三十年后，亨斯利已经是一位皮肤坚韧的七十岁退休人员，住在附近的格兰伯里。

He still has misgivings about the case, beginning with Maltby’s impromptu takeover.

从莫尔特比的临时接管开始，他仍然对该案心存疑虑。

“He wanted to be a hero,” he says.

“他想成为英雄，”他说。

Maltby, who died in 2016, investigated for two months with little progress.

2016 年去世的 Maltby 进行了两个月的调查，但进展甚微。

Then, that October, when Maltby stepped aside to assume control of a narcotics unit, Hensley decided to take on the investigation in his spare time—with little guidance, he says, and, surprisingly, no written reports.

然后，那年 10 月，当马尔特比退任并接管一个缉毒部门时，亨斯利决定利用业余时间进行调查——他说，几乎没有任何指导，而且令人惊讶的是，没有书面报告。

The case was cold, Hensley remembers.

汉斯利回忆道，这个案子很冷。

“I looked, but I couldn’t find no damn notes.

“我看了看，但没有找到该死的笔记。

I didn’t know what people had said to him.”

我不知道人们对他说了些什么。”

Hensley started from scratch, attempting to revive the case.

汉斯利从头开始，试图重振此案。

Because Susan’s remains were badly decomposed—her upper body appeared to have spent two days in the bathwater—it was unclear whether she had been smothered, strangled, or drowned.

由于苏珊的遗体严重腐烂——她的上半身似乎在洗澡水中泡了两天——目前还不清楚她是被窒息、勒死还是淹死的。

But Hensley saw that there were basically two possible scenarios: Susan had been killed either by a stranger—a crime all but unknown in Stephenville—or by someone she knew.

但亨斯利认为，基本上有两种可能的情况：苏珊要么被陌生人杀死——这在斯蒂芬维尔几乎不为人所知——要么被她认识的人杀死。

There was no sign of forced entry, which suggested the latter.

没有强行进入的迹象，这表明是后者。

The more Hensley studied the crime scene photos, the more he suspected that Susan had known her killer.

亨斯利越研究犯罪现场照片，就越怀疑苏珊认识凶手。

What most struck him was the living room table.

最让他印象深刻的是客厅的桌子。

There was an open can of Coke and an ashtray containing six cigarette butts.

有一罐打开的可乐和一个烟灰缸，里面有六个烟蒂。

It didn’t fit.

它不合适。

Susan wasn’t a habitual smoker, and she avoided caffeine.

苏珊没有吸烟习惯，也避免摄入咖啡因。

One friend said she drank nothing but water.

一位朋友说她只喝水。

The table suggested that she had hosted someone who stayed long enough to open that soda and smoke six cigarettes.

桌子上显示，她接待了一个人，他待了足够长的时间，打开了苏打水，抽了六支烟。

Once Hensley began interviewing Susan’s friends and family, he realized there weren’t many people she would’ve invited into her home.

当汉斯利开始采访苏珊的朋友和家人时，他意识到她不会邀请很多人到她家去。

Her social circle had shrunk over the years, a process that accelerated after her husband left.

多年来，她的社交圈不断缩小，而在她丈夫离开后，这一过程加速了。

He had taken their car, an old yellow Mustang, and for months she had worked six days a week to save enough money to buy a replacement.

他开走了他们的车，一辆旧的黄色野马，几个月来，她每周工作六天，以攒够钱买一辆替换车。

She spent Sundays, her day off, mostly doing laundry and buying groceries.

她周日休息，主要是洗衣服和买杂货。

She had only a handful of girlfriends and little time for dating.

她只有几个女朋友，约会的时间也很少。

But there was one thing.

但有一件事。

According to notes still in the case files, a friend from work named Debra Hardy told of a troubling call from Susan a few weeks before her death.

根据案件档案中仍然存在的记录，一位名叫黛布拉·哈迪的工作朋友讲述了苏珊去世前几周打来的令人不安的电话。

“She was real upset and she said, ‘Debbie, I have got to talk to somebody,’ and I went down there, and she was crying,” Hardy said to investigators.

哈迪对调查人员说：“她真的很沮丧，她说，‘黛比，我得找个人谈谈’，然后我就去了那里，她哭了。”

“She had some dark marks on her neck, hickie-looking marks, and she said she didn’t know how or why she let it happen .

“她脖子上有一些黑色的痕迹，看起来像乡巴佬的痕迹，她说她不知道如何或为什么会发生这种事……”

.

。

.

。

She was afraid what everybody else would think.” Susan wouldn’t say much more, even about who had done it.

她担心其他人会怎么想。”苏珊没有透露太多，甚至没有提及是谁干的。

Her best friend, Cindy, filled in the blanks.

她最好的朋友辛迪填补了这个空白。

The hickeys were the work of a bartender in Granbury, J. C.

这些吻痕是 J.C. 格兰伯里一位调酒师的杰作。

Baughman, whom she’d seen a few times.

鲍曼，她见过几次面。

“I said, ‘What happened?’ ” Cindy told the police, “and she said that J.C.

“我说，‘发生了什么事？’”辛迪告诉警方，“她说 J.C.

had got a little fresh, a little carried away.”

有点新鲜，有点忘乎所以。”

Hensley drove to Granbury to see J.C., who admitted to the affair.

亨斯利开车去格兰伯里见 J.C.，J.C. 承认了这件事。

After meeting Susan when she and some work friends came to his bar, J.C.

当苏珊和一些工作朋友来到他的酒吧时，J.C. 遇见了她。

had cuddled with her on her couch for a few nights before they had sex, just the once.

在他们做爱之前，在她的沙发上依偎了她几个晚上，只有一次。

Susan ended it after the hickeys.

吻痕过后，苏珊结束了这一切。

J.C.

J.C.

seemed like a sweet guy, in Hensley’s estimation, and he passed a polygraph test.

在亨斯利看来，他是一个很可爱的人，而且他通过了测谎仪测试。

His prints didn’t match any found at the house.

他的指纹与房子里发现的任何指纹都不相符。

Hensley’s next suspect, Cindy’s boyfriend (and later husband), Roy Hayes, was just a hunch.

汉斯利的下一个嫌疑人是辛迪的男朋友（后来的丈夫）罗伊·海耶斯，这只是一种预感。

Roy was a big, gentle young man who often helped Susan around the house, at one point nailing the windows shut when she worried about her safety; his fingerprints, unsurprisingly, were all over the home.

罗伊是个高大、温柔的年轻人，经常帮助苏珊做家务，有一次，当苏珊担心自己的安全时，他就把窗户钉死了。毫不奇怪，他的指纹遍布整个房子。

But he also played Dungeons & Dragons, which in those days, at least in a place like Stephenville, carried a whiff of satanism.

但他也玩过《龙与地下城》，在当时，至少在斯蒂芬维尔这样的地方，它带有一丝撒旦主义的味道。

Hensley interviewed him and found nothing suspicious but asked him to take a polygraph test just to make sure.

亨斯利采访了他，没有发现任何可疑之处，但要求他进行测谎仪测试以确保确定。

They administered it at a Texas Rangers office in Waco.

他们在韦科的德克萨斯游骑兵队办公室进行管理。

“Donnie meets me right at the door as I come out, and he says, ‘Roy, you failed—you might as well confess,’ ” Roy recalls.

“当我出来时，唐尼在门口遇见了我，他说，‘罗伊，你失败了——你最好承认，’”罗伊回忆道。

“And I’m like, ‘There’s no way.

“我想，‘没办法。

I didn’t have nothing to do with this.’ Hensley says, ‘There is no way this is wrong.

我与这件事没有任何关系。”汉斯利说，“这不可能是错误的。

You did it.’ ” Then the polygraph technician emerged and announced that, actually, he’d passed.

你做到了。’”然后测谎仪技术人员出现并宣布，事实上，他已经通过了。

He was cleared.

他被清除了。

By Christmas, five months after the murder, Hensley could see he was getting nowhere, which more than a few people in town told him was just plain stupid.

到了圣诞节，即谋杀案发生五个月后，汉斯利发现自己毫无进展，镇上不少人告诉他这简直是愚蠢的。

Because everyone in Stephenville knew who did it.

因为斯蒂芬维尔的每个人都知道是谁干的。

Follow along as award-winning author Bryan Burrough hosts a podcast version of this story, Stephenville , available at TexasMonthly.com/Stephenville and on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and elsewhere.

跟随获奖作家 Bryan Burrough 主持这个故事的播客版本《Stephenville》，可在 TexasMonthly.com/Stephenville 以及 Apple Podcasts、Spotify 和其他地方观看。

In those days Stephenville was a sleepy town of 13,000 or so, conservative and insular.

那时，斯蒂芬维尔是一座约有 13,000 人的沉睡小镇，既保守又与世隔绝。

Dairies sprawled across the surrounding countryside.

乳制品厂遍布周围的乡村。

The smell of manure hung in the air some evenings; a fiberglass statue of a dairy cow, dubbed Moo-la, dominated the town square beside the courthouse.

有些晚上，空气中弥漫着粪肥的味道。一座被称为 Moo-la 的玻璃纤维奶牛雕像矗立在法院旁边的城镇广场上。

The county was dry.

县城干旱。

You couldn’t even buy beer.

你甚至买不到啤酒。

Children’s activities were defined by 4-H, rodeo, and, on Friday evenings in the fall, high school football.

孩子们的活动包括四人制竞技、牛仔竞技以及秋季周五晚上的高中橄榄球。

Saturday nights teenagers cruised Washington Street between the Dairy Queens on each side of town; friends who did it together were known as “drag buddies.” On Sundays just about everything closed.

周六晚上，青少年们会在城镇两侧奶制品皇后区之间的华盛顿街巡游。一起做这件事的朋友被称为“变装伙伴”。周日几乎一切都关门。

Everyone was in church.

每个人都在教堂里。

If you were a man and drove anything other than a pickup, well, someone might glance at you funny.

如果你是一个男人，开的是皮卡车以外的任何东西，那么，有人可能会奇怪地看着你。

Outsiders got noticed.

引起了局外人的注意。

And everyone noticed Michael Woods.

每个人都注意到了迈克尔·伍兹。

In a town where FFA jackets, cowboy hats, and close-cropped hair were common, Susan’s then husband wore a leather jacket and engineer boots and had a brown beard, shoulder-length hair, and a bad attitude.

在一个普遍穿着FFA夹克、牛仔帽、短发的小镇里，苏珊当时的丈夫穿着皮夹克和工程师靴，留着棕色胡须，头发齐肩，态度恶劣。

He drove a motorcycle, got into fistfights, and never seemed to have a steady job; Susan had been the breadwinner.

他开摩托车，经常打架，而且似乎从来没有稳定的工作。苏珊是养家糊口的人。

Michael called himself a musician.

迈克尔称自己为音乐家。

Cindy called him a bum.

辛迪称他为流浪汉。

It was whispered around town that he dealt weed, something Michael denies ever doing.

镇上有传言说他贩卖大麻，但迈克尔否认曾经做过这种事。

Many days, Michael could be seen lying shirtless in their yard, sometimes lifting barbells, a Harley beside him in the driveway.

很多天，人们都可以看到迈克尔赤裸上身躺在他们的院子里，有时举起杠铃，车道上停着一辆哈雷摩托车。

He wasn’t from Stephenville.

他不是斯蒂芬维尔人。

No one had to ask to know that.

没有人需要询问才能知道这一点。

No one ever saw him at the rodeo, or a football game, or church.

没有人在牛仔竞技表演、足球比赛或教堂见过他。

Michael was born in Indianapolis and in second grade moved to El Paso.

迈克尔出生于印第安纳波利斯，二年级时搬到埃尔帕索。

His mother was fleeing one of what he terms a series of volatile marriages and relationships.

他的母亲正在逃离他所说的一系列不稳定的婚姻和关系。

Michael later described his upbringing as erratic and abusive.

迈克尔后来形容他的成长经历不稳定且充满虐待。

Money was scarce, they moved often, and one of his mother’s carousel of boyfriends was usually in the mix.

钱很稀缺，他们经常搬家，而他母亲的男朋友轮换之一通常也在其中。

“She was a little hellion,” is how he puts it.

“她是个小坏蛋，”他是这么说的。

“She liked to party and have kids.” He ended up with seven siblings.

“她喜欢聚会和生孩子。”他最终有七个兄弟姐妹。

When he was fifteen, his mother remarried, and the family moved to Virginia.

当他十五岁时，他的母亲再婚，全家搬到了弗吉尼亚。

It was then that Michael began leaving home for long periods.

就在那时，迈克尔开始长时间离开家。

He had learned the guitar and loved it, playing Southern rock, Marshall Tucker, Skynyrd.

他学过吉他并且很喜欢它，演奏南方摇滚、Marshall Tucker、Skynyrd。

Away from home, he played on street corners and at the odd club—mostly along the East Coast, wherever the mood took him—sleeping on couches where he found them, one step from homelessness.

远离家乡，他在街角和一些奇怪的俱乐部打球——主要是在东海岸，无论他心情如何，他都睡在沙发上，离无家可归只有一步之遥。

“It wasn’t as rough as being at home,” he remembers.

“这并不像在家那么艰难，”他回忆道。

When he was twenty or so, a friend in El Paso was moving to Stephenville and asked him to drive a truck there.

当他二十岁左右时，埃尔帕索的一位朋友要搬到斯蒂芬维尔，并请他在那里开一辆卡车。

He arrived in small-town Texas in the late seventies and, when the friend needed more help, stayed on.

七十年代末，他到达德克萨斯州的一个小镇，当朋友需要更多帮助时，他留下来了。

Just a few years out of high school at the time, Susan told friends she spotted him on the drag, though Michael recalls they met when he was playing pinball in a convenience store and she walked in.

当时高中刚毕业几年，苏珊告诉朋友们，她在拖拉机上看到了他，不过迈克尔回忆说，他们是在他在一家便利店玩弹球时认识的，当时她走进来了。

If Michael presented as a bad boy, Susan was very much the good girl: sweet, timid, close to her mother, naive.

如果说迈克尔是一个坏男孩，那么苏珊就是一个好女孩：可爱、胆怯、亲近母亲、天真。

According to Cindy, who befriended her in the Stephenville High clarinet section, Susan hadn’t dated in school; she didn’t even go to her prom.

辛迪在斯蒂芬维尔高中单簧管部与她成为朋友，据她说，苏珊在学校里没有约会过；她在学校里没有约会过。她甚至没有去参加舞会。

But she thought Michael was adorable, especially his shoulder-length brown hair.

但她觉得迈克尔很可爱，尤其是他齐肩的棕色头发。

She said he looked like rock star Bob Seger.

她说他看起来像摇滚明星鲍勃·西格。

Her friends didn’t get it.

她的朋友们不明白。

“I thought he was very immature,” Cindy says.

“我认为他非常不成熟，”辛迪说。

Susan was already working long hours at a nursing home, and “he always wanted to have fun, have a good time,” she recalls.

苏珊已经在疗养院工作了很长时间，“他总是想玩得开心，玩得开心，”她回忆道。

The only serious fight she and Susan ever had, Cindy says, was over Susan’s decision to date him.

辛迪说，她和苏珊唯一一次严重的争吵是因为苏珊决定和他约会。

When it came time for Michael to meet Susan’s parents, he didn’t exactly arrive in a blue blazer with a vase of daylilies.

当迈克尔去见苏珊的父母时，他并没有穿着一件蓝色西装外套，上面插着一瓶黄花菜。

“I showed up on her doorstep; it was about ninety degrees outside,” he recalls.

“我出现在她家门口；外面温度大约是九十度，”他回忆道。

“I was wearing a pair of cutoffs and sandals and not much else.

“我只穿了一双短裤和凉鞋，其他什么也没穿。

And her mother opened the door and about fell on the floor.

她妈妈打开门，差点摔倒在地板上。

How disgusting: a man walking around with no shirt and short shorts.

多么恶心：一个男人没穿衬衫和短裤走来走去。

So right from the beginning, her family didn’t care for me one bit.”

所以从一开始，她的家人就一点也不关心我。”

Joe Atkins, who died in 2015, didn’t waste many words on him.

2015 年去世的乔·阿特金斯 (Joe Atkins) 并没有在他身上浪费太多言语。

“He had a, I think it was a .357, but he showed me the pistol he had in his closet,” Michael says.

“他有一把，我想是一把 .357，但他给我看了他衣柜里的手枪，”迈克尔说。

“He said, ‘If you ever hurt my daughter, I’m going to shoot you.’ ”

“他说，‘如果你伤害了我女儿，我就会开枪射杀你。’”

Michael never found steady work in Stephenville.

迈克尔从未在斯蒂芬维尔找到稳定的工作。

He insists that few businesses wanted to hire, or retain, anyone with long hair.

他坚称，很少有企业愿意雇用或留住长发的人。

He also admits that as a musician and a night owl, he chafed at nine-to-five jobs.

他还承认，作为一名音乐家和夜猫子，他对朝九晚五的工作感到恼火。

Over the years, he says, he worked in a hayfield, at a Sonic, at an auto-parts factory, and for a place that made cattle feeders.

他说，多年来，他在干草场、索尼克、汽车零部件工厂以及一家生产牛喂食器的地方工作过。

“I just did whatever I could until they got tired of me, or I got tired of them,” he says.

“我只是尽我所能，直到他们厌倦了我，或者我厌倦了他们，”他说。

“I had a bit of an attitude problem back then because when people would try and say stuff like ‘Hey, fur face, get over here,’ I would not react well to that.

“当时我的态度有点问题，因为当人们试图说‘嘿，毛皮脸，到这里来’之类的话时，我的反应不太好。

And in Stephenville during that time period, big guys liked to push their weight around, and that didn’t work with me.

在那段时期，在斯蒂芬维尔，大个子喜欢四处施展自己的力量，但这对我不起作用。

I figured, if you’re going to push me around, I’d just pop you in the mouth.

我想，如果你要欺负我，我就把你塞到嘴里。

I didn’t get along real well.”

我相处得不太好。”

In 1980 Michael persuaded Susan to return with him to El Paso, where an uncle had promised him a job.

1980 年，迈克尔说服苏珊和他一起返回埃尔帕索，那里的一位叔叔答应给他一份工作。

Soon after arriving, they got married.

抵达后不久，他们就结婚了。

“What she had said to me is ‘My parents are going to disown me if, you know, I’m living with a man out of wedlock.

“她对我说的是‘如果我和一个未婚男人住在一起，我的父母就会与我断绝关系。

So can we get married?’ ” Michael recalls.

那么我们可以结婚吗？’”迈克尔回忆道。

“And I said, ‘Well, okay, I can take the day off tomorrow.’ ” They walked into a justice of the peace alone and came out married minutes later.

“我说，‘好吧，我明天可以休息一天。’”他们独自走进太平绅士，几分钟后就结婚了。

Back in Stephenville, Susan’s parents were aghast.

回到斯蒂芬维尔，苏珊的父母惊呆了。

The job, meanwhile, didn’t pan out, and before long Michael and Susan had to begin pawning their things.

与此同时，这项工作并没有成功，不久迈克尔和苏珊就不得不开始典当他们的东西。

In a letter to Cindy, Susan complained that she was subsisting on bacon-bit sandwiches.

苏珊在给辛迪的信中抱怨说她靠培根三明治维生。

Soon enough they were back in Stephenville, but a pattern had been established.

很快他们就回到了斯蒂芬维尔，但模式已经确立。

Michael detested the town and everything about it.

迈克尔厌恶这个小镇和它的一切。

Susan wanted to make him happy but found it hard to be content elsewhere.

苏珊想让他快乐，但发现在其他地方很难满足。

At least once they moved to Indianapolis to be near Michael’s brother.

至少有一次他们搬到了印第安纳波利斯，离迈克尔的哥哥很近。

“Two or three times they’d get settled in, get a place, get it fixed up, buy their appliances,” recalls Susan’s friend Gloria Martin.

“有两三次他们会安顿下来，找个地方，修好它，购买电器，”苏珊的朋友格洛丽亚·马丁回忆道。

“Mike would get itchy feet: ‘We’re going, we’re going.’ She’d quit her job, move away, sell all their stuff, stay a month, starve to death, come back, and they’d start all over again.”

“迈克会脚痒：‘我们要走了，我们要走了。’她会辞掉工作，搬走，卖掉所有东西，呆一个月，饿死，回来，然后他们又重新开始。”

Until 1985 or so, they shared rental houses with others.

直到1985年左右，他们才和别人合租出租屋。

Then Susan found the bungalow on McNeill Street, near Stephenville’s downtown.

然后苏珊在斯蒂芬维尔市中心附近的麦克尼尔街找到了那间平房。

That’s where Michael mostly hung around the house or sunned in the yard.

迈克尔经常在房子周围闲逛或在院子里晒太阳。

He began acting out.

他开始表现出来。

After a disagreement, a neighbor accused him of pouring sugar in her gas tank.

发生争执后，一位邻居指责他向她的油箱里倒了糖。

He caught the eye of Stephenville police, who he claims would sometimes stop him for no reason.

他引起了斯蒂芬维尔警方的注意，他声称警察有时会无缘无故地阻止他。

Friends rolled their eyes, wondering when his and Susan’s relationship would end.

朋友们翻白眼，想知道他和苏珊的关系什么时候会结束。

Susan tried.

苏珊尝试过。

Every day she would come home after her shift and make him dinner, often Cornish game hens.

每天下班后她都会回家给他做晚饭，通常是康沃尔野鸡。

But it wasn’t working.

但它不起作用。

The last straw, at least from Michael’s perspective, was when he told her about his desire to begin flipping houses.

至少从迈克尔的角度来看，最后一根稻草是当他告诉她他想开始炒房的时候。

Susan, who had earned almost all their money, wasn’t keen to invest.

苏珊几乎赚了所有的钱，她并不热衷于投资。

Michael accused her of emasculating him.

迈克尔指责她阉割了他。

Finally, in the summer of 1986, a year before her death, he could take it no longer.

最后，在 1986 年夏天，也就是她去世的前一年，他再也无法忍受了。

“He more or less gave her an ultimatum: ‘Texas or me,’ ” Barbara Williams, a coworker of Susan’s, told detectives.

“他或多或少给她下了最后通牒：‘要么德克萨斯，要么我，’”苏珊的同事芭芭拉·威廉姆斯告诉侦探们。

“She chose Texas.”

“她选择了德克萨斯州。”

Michael went to Indianapolis but, after a series of talks and letters, agreed to return that winter, for what both understood as their final shot at reconciliation.

迈克尔去了印第安纳波利斯，但经过一系列会谈和信件后，同意于当年冬天返回，双方都认为这是他们和解的最后机会。

It didn’t take.

没用。

In February 1987, Michael departed for good, taking their car.

1987 年 2 月，迈克尔开着他们的车永远离开了。

He left behind a cassette-tape recording in which he excoriated Susan for destroying their marriage.

他留下了一盘录音带，其中严厉谴责苏珊破坏了他们的婚姻。

Years later, Roy and Cindy still marvel at the ferocity of Michael’s feelings.

多年后，罗伊和辛迪仍然对迈克尔的强烈感情感到惊讶。

“It was just thirty minutes of what a bitch she was,” Roy says, “how it was all her fault.”

罗伊说：“仅仅三十分钟，她就明白了，这都是她的错。”

“Her parents were horrible,” Cindy remembers him saying.

“她的父母太糟糕了，”辛迪记得他说。

“They never gave him a chance.”

“他们从来没有给过他机会。”

Almost as bad, Michael had hidden handwritten notes with similar sentiments throughout the house, in cabinets and coat pockets.

几乎同样糟糕的是，迈克尔在整个房子的橱柜和外套口袋里都藏了带有类似情绪的手写便条。

Susan was still finding them weeks later.

几周后，苏珊仍然找到了他们。

It left her deeply shaken.

这让她深受震撼。

Cindy’s mother begged her to move into their spare bedroom.

辛迪的母亲恳求她搬进他们的空卧室。

When she declined, Cindy slept on Susan’s couch for a time.

当她拒绝后，辛迪在苏珊的沙发上睡了一段时间。

Roy nailed the windows shut and lent her a pistol.

罗伊把窗户钉死，借给她一把手枪。

Susan filed for divorce.

苏珊提出离婚。

Once the shock of the tape and the notes passed, friends noticed that her attitude began to lighten.

当录音带和笔记带来的震撼过去后，朋友们注意到她的态度开始变得轻松起来。

She bought a car and discreetly trysted with J. C.

她买了一辆车，并谨慎地与 J. C. 幽会。

Baughman.

鲍曼。

“She was kind of like what you’d read in a book,” Roy says, “a person who has turned a chapter.” As Gloria Martin puts it, “She was the happiest I’ve seen her in a very long time.”

“她有点像你在书中读到的那样，”罗伊说，“一个翻开了新篇章的人。”正如格洛丽亚·马丁所说：“她是我很长一段时间以来见过的最幸福的人。”

One Friday in late July, Roy and Cindy took Susan to a carnival in nearby Hico.

七月下旬的一个星期五，罗伊和辛迪带苏珊去附近希科参加一场嘉年华。

Afterward, they went to a Dairy Queen and ordered hot fudge sundaes.

随后，他们去了一家冰雪皇后店，点了热软糖圣代。

When they were done, Susan ordered a second one, something Cindy had never once seen her do.

吃完后，苏珊又点了一份，辛迪从来没有见过她这么做。

“She was happy-go-lucky,” Cindy says.

“她很幸运，”辛迪说。

The Dairy Queen Susan visited four nights before she was found dead.

乳制品女王苏珊在她被发现死亡之前的四个晚上都曾到访过她。

Photograph by Nick Simonite Roy and Cindy Hayes in their Stephenville home in May 2023.

摄影：Nick Simonite Roy 和 Cindy Hayes 于 2023 年 5 月在斯蒂芬维尔的家中拍摄。

Photograph by Nick Simonite Susan’s father, Joe Atkins, disappeared into Ken Maltby’s office almost every day in those first weeks, arguing that Michael was behind his daughter’s murder.

摄影：尼克·西蒙尼特 苏珊的父亲乔·阿特金斯在最初几周几乎每天都消失在肯·马尔特比的办公室，声称迈克尔是谋杀他女儿的幕后黑手。

It was hard to find anyone who disagreed.

很难找到不同意的人。

Transcriptions of several of Hensley’s interviews still sit in the district attorney’s files, and in every one, Hensley asks who could have done this.

亨斯利的几次采访记录仍然保存在地方检察官的档案中，在每一次采访中，亨斯利都会询问是谁干了这件事。

And in almost every case, there is a version of the same reply: Michael Woods.

几乎在每种情况下，都有一个相同的回复版本：迈克尔·伍兹。

Duh.

呃。

“Everything goes back to Michael Woods,” Hensley recalls.

“一切都可以追溯到迈克尔·伍兹，”汉斯利回忆道。

“And every time I talked to Joe, it was just, ‘No, Michael did it.’ ”

“每次我和乔谈话时，我都会说，‘不，是迈克尔干的。’”

After leaving Texas for Indiana, Michael lived quietly, sleeping in a tent he pitched inside a dilapidated house his brother had bought for a song.

离开得克萨斯州前往印第安纳州后，迈克尔过着平静的生活，睡在他哥哥为一首歌买下的一栋破旧房子里搭建的帐篷里。

They spent every available hour remodeling it, eventually carving out four apartments, one of which Michael took.

他们花了每一个小时来改造它，最终开辟了四套公寓，迈克尔拿走了其中一套。

One day, he was standing outside when a pair of Indianapolis police officers drove up.

有一天，当两名印第安纳波利斯警察开车过来时，他正站在外面。

He and his brother had been arguing with neighbors about a parking situation, and Michael agreed to go to the station house, believing that it was necessary to deal with another complaint.

他和他的兄弟一直在与邻居争论停车问题，迈克尔同意去车站大楼，认为有必要处理另一起投诉。

Once there, though, detectives began asking about his life in Texas, about Susan, about whether he had gone back.

然而，一到那里，侦探们就开始询问他在德克萨斯州的生活、苏珊的情况以及他是否回去了。

“Just off-the-wall questions that didn’t make any sense to me,” he remembers.

“这些问题对我来说毫无意义，”他回忆道。

“And then they stopped and said, ‘Well, you’re lying.

“然后他们停下来说，‘好吧，你在撒谎。

We know you killed her.

我们知道你杀了她。

She’s dead.

她死了。

You killed her.’ ”

你杀了她。’”

This was how Michael learned of Susan’s murder, he says.

迈克尔说，这就是迈克尔得知苏珊被谋杀的原因。

He rushed to the bathroom and vomited.

他冲进卫生间吐了。

Afterward, the grilling continued.

随后，烧烤继续进行。

“They just said, ‘Well, you did it.

“他们只是说，‘好吧，你做到了。

We know you did it.

我们知道你做到了。

We’ll get you a mental hospital if you just admit to it,’ ” he recalls.

如果你承认这一点，我们就会把你送进精神病院，”他回忆道。

“And I’m like, ‘Dudes, I have nothing to do with this.’ ” When they asked him to sign a statement, Michael refused, demanded a lawyer, and left.

“我说，‘伙计们，我与这件事无关。’”当他们要求他签署一份声明时，迈克尔拒绝了，要求请律师，然后就离开了。

He hadn’t even begun to process his feelings when, within days, “the harassment started,” he says.

他说，几天之内，“骚扰就开始了”，他甚至还没有开始处理自己的感受。

“Cops started acting in Indianapolis the way they’d been acting in Stephenville: just pull over and talk to me for no reason.

“印第安纳波利斯的警察开始以他们在斯蒂芬维尔的方式行事：把车停在路边，无缘无故地跟我说话。

I got arrested a couple times for being drunk in public when I hadn’t been drinking.

我有几次因为在公共场合喝醉酒而被捕，而当时我并没有喝酒。

They’d just let me go in the morning and say, ‘Oh no, you’re fine.’ There’s no court, there’s nothing.

他们早上就让我走了，然后说：“哦，不，你很好。”没有法庭，什么也没有。

They just arrest me and throw me in the cell with a bunch of rough dudes, let me out the next morning.”

他们只是逮捕了我，然后把我和一群粗暴的家伙关进牢房，第二天早上就把我放了出来。”

He vividly remembers the two officers who came from Texas: the initial investigator Ken Maltby and a Texas Ranger.

他清楚地记得来自德克萨斯州的两名警官：最初的调查员肯·马尔特比和一名德克萨斯州游骑兵。

Michael was standing in his yard.

迈克尔站在他的院子里。

“So they pulled up and told me, ‘Get in the car—we’re going to the airport,’ ” he recalls.

“所以他们停下来告诉我，‘上车——我们要去机场，’”他回忆道。

Michael had begun carrying a gun, fearing just this kind of thing.

迈克尔就因为担心这种事情而开始携带枪。

When he declined to get in the car, they insisted, and he claims he drew back his shirt to reveal the .357 Magnum jammed into his belt.

当他拒绝上车时，他们坚持要求，他声称他拉开了衬衫，露出了卡在腰带上的 0.357 Magnum。

“I said, ‘Nope.

“我说，‘不。

We can have a gun battle right here.

我们可以在这里进行一场枪战。

Go for it.

去吧。

See if you clear leather.’ That’s an old Texas term.” (A Stephenville cop with direct knowledge of the case tells me he doubts that this happened, but Michael maintains that it did.)

看看你是否清理了皮革。’这是德克萨斯州的一个古老术语。” （一位直接了解此案的斯蒂芬维尔警察告诉我，他怀疑这件事是否发生过，但迈克尔坚称确实如此。）

After the harassment in Stephenville, Michael was wary of Texas police, but he says this incident cemented a growing hostility.

在斯蒂芬维尔发生骚扰事件后，迈克尔对德克萨斯州警方保持警惕，但他表示，这一事件加剧了日益增长的敌意。

His lawyer advised against any cooperation, he says, to the point that Michael withheld potentially exculpatory information.

他说，他的律师建议不要进行任何合作，以至于迈克尔隐瞒了可能无罪的信息。

Michael would eventually elicit a dozen statements from people who swore they had seen him in Indianapolis at around the time Susan was killed.

迈克尔最终从人们那里得到了十几份证词，这些人发誓在苏珊被杀前后在印第安纳波利斯见过他。

The lawyer advised him to also keep these from police for the moment; if they were shared, he warned, the Texas cops would no doubt try to undermine the accounts.

律师建议他暂时不要向警方透露这些信息；他警告说，如果这些信息被分享，德克萨斯州警察无疑会试图破坏这些账户。

What frustrated the Stephenville police most was their inability to secure Michael’s fingerprints.

最让斯蒂芬维尔警方沮丧的是他们无法获取迈克尔的指纹。

Had the visiting Texans tried a gentler approach, they might have left with them.

如果来访的德克萨斯人尝试采取更温和的方式，他们可能会和他们一起离开。

Court records confirm that Michael would have had no problem handing them over—as long as it occurred in Indiana.

法庭记录证实，只要事情发生在印第安纳州，迈克尔就可以毫无问题地移交它们。

“I volunteered to give them blood samples, hair samples, fingerprints,” he recalls.

“我自愿给他们提供血液样本、头发样本、指纹，”他回忆道。

“They insisted it be done in Texas, where the cops have full rein.

“他们坚持要在德克萨斯州进行，那里的警察拥有完全的控制权。

I felt like if I went to Texas, I’d for sure get shot and police would claim it was an escape attempt.”

我觉得如果我去德克萨斯州，我肯定会被枪杀，警察会声称这是一次逃跑企图。”

Hensley badly needed those prints.

汉斯利非常需要这些印刷品。

By this point, he had no other suspects.

至此，他已经没有其他嫌疑人了。

He was certain that Michael’s prints would match those found beside Susan’s body—if only he could get them.

他确信迈克尔的脚印会与苏珊尸体旁边发现的脚印相匹配——只要他能找到它们就好了。

In April 1988, nine months after Susan’s murder, Hensley found himself squatting inside an unmarked police surveillance van in Indianapolis, peering at Michael’s house via a periscope that jutted out the top of the vehicle.

1988 年 4 月，苏珊被谋杀九个月后，汉斯利发现自己蹲在印第安纳波利斯一辆没有标记的警用监视车内，通过车顶伸出的潜望镜观察迈克尔的房子。

One day he watched as Michael, his brother, and his sister-in-law began laying out items for what appeared to be a yard sale.

有一天，他看到迈克尔、他的兄弟和他的嫂子开始为一场看似旧货出售的活动摆设物品。

Back in Stephenville, Susan’s family was making a big deal of the fact that Michael had taken not only the couple’s yellow Mustang but also a fur coat and a series of crystal figurines that they felt belonged to Susan.

回到斯蒂芬维尔，苏珊的家人对迈克尔不仅拿走了这对夫妇的黄色野马车，还拿走了一件毛皮大衣和一系列他们认为属于苏珊的水晶雕像的事实大为震惊。

Scrunched inside the van, Hensley spied some of the figurines, which gave him an idea.

亨斯利挤在货车里，看到了一些雕像，这给了他一个想法。

If they could arrest Michael for theft of the figurines, they could get his fingerprints.

如果他们能以盗窃雕像的罪名逮捕迈克尔，他们就能得到他的指纹。

Hensley had a search warrant drawn up.

亨斯利已经制定了搜查令。

He then accompanied a crew of Indianapolis officers who descended on the house.

随后，他陪同一群印第安纳波利斯警官来到这所房子。

“They tore it apart and took everything I owned,” Michael says, “with the exception of my guitars, the clothes on my back.

“他们把它拆了，拿走了我拥有的一切，”迈克尔说，“除了我的吉他和我背上的衣服。

They took my cassette tapes, they took my underwear, they took my clothing, they took everything that was mine.

他们拿走了我的盒式磁带，他们拿走了我的内衣，他们拿走了我的衣服，他们拿走了我的一切。

Then they found, after their exhaustive search, a marijuana roach in my sister-in-law’s purse.

经过彻底搜查后，他们在我嫂子的钱包里发现了一只大麻蟑螂。

So they arrested me and my brother for that roach, put us in jail, let us out the next day.

所以他们因为那只蟑螂逮捕了我和我兄弟，把我们关进监狱，第二天又把我们放了出来。

Never went to court on it.”

从来没有为此上过法庭。”

No charges were pursued.

没有受到任何指控。

But the arrest got Hensley what he wanted: the prints.

但这次逮捕让汉斯利得到了他想要的东西：指纹。

On the flight back to Texas, he sensed the noose closing around Michael’s neck.

在返回德克萨斯州的航班上，他感觉到绞索勒住了迈克尔的脖子。

He began drawing up an extradition request.

他开始起草引渡请求。

He wasn’t at all prepared for the news he got once he returned to Stephenville and compared the prints.

当他回到斯蒂芬维尔并比较印刷品后，他对得到的消息一点也没有准备。

“They didn’t match,” he says.

“他们不匹配，”他说。

“F—ing.

“操。”

Didn’t.

没有。

Match.”

比赛。”

There had to be an explanation, but Hensley couldn’t think of one.

必须有一个解释，但汉斯利想不出一个解释。

In his bones, he knew that Michael had done this.

他骨子里知道这件事是迈克尔干的。

Everyone in Stephenville did.

斯蒂芬维尔的每个人都这么做了。

But there seemed no way to tie him to the crime.

但似乎没有办法将他与犯罪联系起来。

In desperation Hensley attended an FBI profiler’s class in Lampasas.

无奈之下，汉斯利参加了位于兰帕萨斯的联邦调查局侧写师课程。

Another attendee asked if he had considered the idea of autoeroticism; maybe Susan had died during some kind of elaborate sex game.

另一位与会者问他是否考虑过自慰的想法；他回答道。也许苏珊是在某种精心设计的性游戏中死去的。

Hensley looked into it but eventually dismissed the notion as far-fetched.

亨斯利对此进行了调查，但最终驳回了这个想法，认为其牵强附会。

When he mentioned this to a superior, he says, the officer suggested using the theory as an excuse to close the case.

他说，当他向上级提到这一点时，该官员建议用这个理论作为结案的借口。

Hensley, who felt intense loyalty to Susan’s family, says he exploded in anger: “If another officer hadn’t stopped me in the hallway, I’d have killed the guy.”

汉斯利对苏珊的家人非常忠诚，他说他勃然大怒：“如果不是另一名警官在走廊里拦住我，我就会杀了那个人。”

Soon after, he was reassigned to patrol duty.

不久之后，他又被调去执行巡逻任务。

A few years had passed since Susan’s death, and the investigation was no longer being actively pursued.

苏珊死后几年过去了，调查已不再积极进行。

“This thing haunted me for years,” says Hensley, who, after resigning from the Stephenville force in 1993, went on to work for an arm of the United Nations, at one point helping investigate atrocities after the war in Kosovo.

“这件事困扰了我很多年，”亨斯利说。1993 年从斯蒂芬维尔部队辞职后，他继续为联合国的一个部门工作，一度帮助调查科索沃战后的暴行。

“Kosovo didn’t haunt me.

“科索沃并没有困扰我。

Susan did.

苏珊做到了。

I mean, I’m sorry, but every time I talked to Joe Atkins, my heart broke.

我的意思是，我很抱歉，但每次我和乔·阿特金斯交谈时，我的心都碎了。

And I’m a tough old cop.

我是一个强硬的老警察。

I mean, I thought I was.”

我的意思是，我以为我是。”

No one ever told Michael, much less announced publicly, that he had been all but eliminated as a suspect.

没有人告诉迈克尔，更不用说公开宣布，他几乎已经被排除在嫌疑人名单之外。

For him, and for the people of Stephenville, nothing changed.

对于他和斯蒂芬维尔的人民来说，一切都没有改变。

Joe Atkins kept on as he had before, telling anyone who would listen that Michael was getting away with murder.

乔·阿特金斯继续像以前一样，告诉任何愿意听的人，迈克尔谋杀罪逍遥法外。

Cindy and Roy felt the same way.

辛迪和罗伊也有同样的感觉。

“It was just an article of faith.

“这只是一个信念。

For years.

多年来。

Michael Woods was a murderer, and the police department had somehow let him go.”

迈克尔·伍兹是一名杀人犯，但警察局以某种方式释放了他。”

Eventually the Atkinses took things into their own hands.

最终阿特金斯夫妇将事情掌握在自己手中。

Susan had a life insurance policy, and Michael was due a death benefit of $11,000 or so.

苏珊有一份人寿保险，迈克尔应获得 11,000 美元左右的死亡抚恤金。

In 1989, two years after Susan’s death, the family sued, claiming that Michael was responsible.

1989 年，苏珊去世两年后，家人提起诉讼，声称迈克尔应对此负责。

He refused to return for the trial.

他拒绝返回接受审判。

The judge not only awarded the family the $11,000, but he hit Michael with an additional judgment of a mind-boggling $700,000.

法官不仅判给迈克尔一家 11,000 美元，还额外判决了迈克尔 70 万美元，令人难以置信。

Michael was told that as long as he stayed out of Texas, it could never be collected.

迈克尔被告知，只要他不在德克萨斯州，就永远无法收集。

In Indianapolis, Michael sank into a funk.

在印第安纳波利斯，迈克尔陷入了恐慌。

It wasn’t just his paranoia almost every morning that this would be the day Texas police finally came for him.

几乎每天早上，德克萨斯州警察终于来抓捕他的那一天，不仅仅是他的偏执。

The fact is, he had never taken the prospect of divorce seriously.

事实上，他从来没有认真对待过离婚的事。

He still loved Susan.

他仍然爱着苏珊。

He felt certain she had still loved him.

他确信她仍然爱着他。

“She’ll probably date a couple of cowboys and remember why she loves me,” he recalls thinking.

“她可能会和几个牛仔约会，并记住她为什么爱我，”他回忆道。

“So I thought we were going to get back together.”

“所以我以为我们会复合。”

At first he tried to move on.

起初他试图继续前进。

He installed home burglar alarms and took a few courses at a technical college, but his heart wasn’t in it.

他安装了家庭防盗警报器，并在一所技术学院学习了一些课程，但他的心并不在于此。

Slowly he realized that nothing would ever be the same.

慢慢地，他意识到一切都不再一样了。

What he wanted most was to be a musician, but his lawyer warned that if he traveled outside Indiana, his risk of arrest multiplied.

他最想要的是成为一名音乐家，但他的律师警告说，如果他前往印第安纳州以外的地方，他被捕的风险就会成倍增加。

Instead, he and his brother limited themselves to local gigs, mostly small clubs and private parties.

相反，他和他的兄弟只参加当地的演出，主要是小型俱乐部和私人聚会。

Billed as the Hamilton Brothers, named for their birth father, they’d split the $35 they made for each gig.

他们被宣传为“汉密尔顿兄弟”，以他们的生父的名字命名，他们会平分每场演出的 35 美元收入。

The money never went far.

钱从来没有走多远。

It only got worse when the Indianapolis paper ran an article about the case.

当印第安纳波利斯报纸发表有关此案的文章时，情况变得更糟。

After that, Michael says, “I had people come to the stage and say, ‘Aren’t you the guy that killed his wife?’ Kind of puts a damper on the rest of your evening when they do that.”

之后，迈克尔说，“我让人们上台问，‘你不是那个杀了他妻子的人吗？’当他们这么做的时候，你接下来的整个晚上都会感到沮丧。”

Over time, his funk deepened into depression.

随着时间的推移，他的恐惧加深为抑郁。

“I was going to a therapist.

“我要去见治疗师。

I was on antidepressants,” he says.

我正在服用抗抑郁药，”他说。

He turned to recreational drugs, which didn’t help.

他转向消遣性毒品，但这并没有帮助。

“I was taking anything anybody offered me as a gig, and I mean anything.

“我接受任何人提供给我的任何东西作为演出，我的意思是任何东西。

Get me out of this world.

让我离开这个世界。

I drank like a fish.

我喝得像鱼一样。

Nothing seemed to cheer me up, or if it did, it wasn’t for long.

似乎没有什么能让我高兴起来，或者即使有，也不会持续太久。

I was too far gone for therapy to be much good for me.

我已经走得太远了，治疗对我来说没有多大好处。

They said that I had an identity crisis and needed to learn how to be me without my wife, which, at the time—I wasn’t me without her.

他们说我遇到了身份危机，需要学习如何在没有妻子的情况下做我自己，而在当时，没有她我就不是我了。

Because I always figured we’ll get back together.”

因为我一直认为我们会复合。”

He prepared relentlessly for the life in prison he expected.

他坚持不懈地为他所期望的监狱生活做准备。

“I’m a small guy,” he says, “so I started working out like a madman.” Years went by.

“我是个小个子，”他说，“所以我开始像疯子一样锻炼。”几年过去了。

It never got much better.

情况从未变得更好。

Susan’s birthday was in April, and every spring Michael’s mood would darken, growing worse as summer dawned, then peaking around the anniversary of her death in July.

苏珊的生日在四月，每年春天迈克尔的心情都会变得阴郁，随着夏天的到来而变得更加糟糕，然后在七月她的忌日前后达到顶峰。

He worked construction and trained himself to be a carpenter.

他从事建筑工作，并自学成为一名木匠。

He dated some but never found anyone he adored as he had Susan.

他约会过一些人，但从未找到像苏珊那样他喜欢的人。

By 2000 or so, he felt everything slipping.

到了2000年左右，他感觉一切都在下滑。

Music was the thing he’d always loved most.

音乐是他一直最爱的事情。

He stopped practicing as much.

他不再那么练习了。

He stopped writing songs.

他停止写歌了。

At his lowest point, Michael says, he attempted suicide.

迈克尔说，在他人生最低谷时，他曾试图自杀。

“I took a whole bottle of tranquilizers and figured, ‘I’ll just go to sleep and not wake up.’ But what I did was, I slept for three days, and I woke up and I was still depressed.”

“我吃了一整瓶镇静剂，心想，‘我就去睡觉，不再醒来。’但我所做的是，我睡了三天，醒来后我仍然很沮丧。”

Finally, in the summer of 2005, came a turning point.

终于，2005年夏天，转折点到来了。

He was performing alongside his brother at a birthday party.

他在生日聚会上与他的兄弟一起表演。

The eighteenth anniversary of Susan’s death was imminent.

苏珊逝世十八周年纪念日即将到来。

“I got finished playing,” he recalls, “and I left the stage and I went around behind the house and I broke down and I was crying.”

“我演奏完了，”他回忆道，“我离开了舞台，绕到房子后面，我崩溃了，哭了。”

The host, an acquaintance of his named Barbara Gary, followed and asked why.

主人是他的熟人芭芭拉·加里（Barbara Gary），他尾随而至，询问原因。

He told her about the murder, explained that it remained unsolved, and said everyone in Stephenville blamed him for it.

他告诉她这起谋杀案，解释说案件仍未侦破，并说斯蒂芬维尔的每个人都将此归咎于他。

Gary thought this was terrible.

加里认为这太可怕了。

She decided to try and help.

她决定尝试提供帮助。

Soon after, she sent an email to the Stephenville Police Department.

不久之后，她向斯蒂芬维尔警察局发送了一封电子邮件。

By the early aughts, Stephenville had a backlog of three unsolved murders, including Susan’s, and Donnie Hensley’s pal Don Miller was asked to look into them.

早期，斯蒂芬维尔积压了三起未侦破的谋杀案，其中包括苏珊的谋杀案，唐尼·汉斯利的朋友唐·米勒被要求调查这些案件。

Bald and garrulous, Miller thought Susan’s case was the most promising of the three, but he initially saw little he could do with it.

米勒秃顶且多嘴，他认为苏珊的案子是这三个案子中最有希望的，但他最初发现自己对此无能为力。

DNA testing was now available, so he had sent the six cigarette butts found in Susan’s living room in for testing, but the results had come back “unidentified male,” which was little help without a suspect’s DNA to compare it with.

现在可以进行DNA检测，所以他把在苏珊客厅里发现的六个烟头送去检测，但结果却是“身份不明的男性”，如果没有嫌疑人的DNA进行比较，这没什么帮助。

He was working one of the other cases in July 2005 when he heard about Barbara Gary’s email.

2005 年 7 月，他正在处理其他案件之一，当时他听说了芭芭拉·加里 (Barbara Gary) 的电子邮件。

When he phoned her, Gary said the situation “was killing Michael and his family, and she wanted to know where the case stood,” Miller recalls.

米勒回忆道，当他打电话给她时，加里说这种情况“正在杀死迈克尔和他的家人，她想知道案件进展如何”。

If Michael truly wanted closure, he replied, he should talk to him.

他回答说，如果迈克尔真的想要结束，他应该和他谈谈。

When Miller heard nothing for five months, he called back and this time managed to get Michael on the phone.

当米勒五个月没有任何消息后，他回了电话，这一次成功地接通了迈克尔的电话。

Miller asked to come to Indianapolis to get his DNA.

米勒要求来印第安纳波利斯获取他的 DNA。

Michael was hesitant.

迈克尔犹豫不决。

He agreed at first and then waffled, at one point canceling after Miller and his partner had already bought plane tickets.

他一开始同意了，后来又含糊其辞，有一次在米勒和他的搭档已经买了机票后取消了。

They decided to go anyway.

他们决定无论如何都要走。

It was winter in Indiana.

那是印第安纳州的冬天。

Shivering in summer-weight sports jackets, they drove to Michael’s address and knocked on the door.

他们穿着夏季运动夹克，瑟瑟发抖，驱车前往迈克尔的地址，敲了敲门。

“He cracked the door open, and I told him who I was, and he said, ‘Miller, I told you I wasn’t going to cooperate,’ ” Miller says.

“他把门打开，我告诉他我是谁，他说，‘米勒，我告诉过你我不会合作，’”米勒说。

“And I just started talking.”

“我刚刚开始说话。”

He explained how the cigarette butts were the only way to establish Michael’s innocence.

他解释说烟头是证明迈克尔清白的唯一方法。

“And if you don’t give me your DNA, if you don’t cooperate with me, then I’m going to turn around and I’m going to leave, and this case is going to go nowhere.

“如果你不给我你的DNA，如果你不配合我，那么我就会转身离开，这个案子就不会有结果。

You’ve got to help me.” Eventually Michael relented.

你必须帮助我。”最终迈克尔态度软化。

There was just one problem: neither Miller nor his partner had ever used a DNA kit.

只有一个问题：米勒和他的搭档都没有使用过 DNA 试剂盒。

They read the instructions there, on the front porch, and managed to get it done.

他们在前廊阅读了说明，并设法完成了任务。

Unlike Hensley and everyone else he talked to in Stephenville, Miller wasn’t wedded to the idea that Michael was the murderer.

与亨斯利和他在斯蒂芬维尔交谈过的其他人不同，米勒并不坚信迈克尔是凶手。

In fact, given that his fingerprints hadn’t been at the scene, he was confident he could clear him.

事实上，鉴于现场没有他的指纹，他有信心能够清除他的罪名。

“I know that DNA is not going to match the cigarette butts; I know that for a fact,” he says.

“我知道 DNA 不会与烟头匹配；我确实知道这一点，”他说。

But he needed to clear him anyway because, if and when he found another suspect, whoever it was might claim that Susan’s death had been an accident during risky sex.

但无论如何他都需要清除他的罪名，因为如果他发现另一个嫌疑人，无论是谁，都可能声称苏珊的死亡是一次危险性行为中的意外。

He needed someone who could testify that she had no history of such behavior, and Michael was the only one.

他需要有人能证明她没有此类行为的历史，而迈克尔是唯一的一个。

Miller returned to Texas, sent in the samples, and as expected, they didn’t match.

米勒回到德克萨斯州，寄去了样本，正如预期的那样，它们不匹配。

“So I called and said, ‘Michael, you are one hundred percent cleared from the case.

“所以我打电话说，‘迈克尔，你的案子已经百分百清白了。

Your fingerprints don’t match; the DNA doesn’t match.

您的指纹不匹配； DNA 不匹配。

You are no longer a suspect.”

你不再是嫌疑人了。”

Clearing Michael was great for Michael, not so great for Miller: he was now out of suspects.

清除迈克尔对迈克尔来说是件好事，但对米勒来说就不太好了：他现在已经摆脱了嫌疑。

His only hope was the prints lifted from Susan’s bathroom mirror and tub.

他唯一的希望就是从苏珊的浴室镜子和浴缸上取下指纹。

In 1999 the FBI had unveiled an electronic national fingerprint database; a department could submit unidentified original prints and have them compared against thousands of others.

1999 年，联邦调查局推出了国家电子指纹数据库；一个部门可以提交身份不明的原始印刷品，并将其与数千份其他印刷品进行比较。

But Miller’s request to take the prints to Washington was denied, and he felt he couldn’t risk mailing them.

但米勒将这些照片带到华盛顿的请求遭到拒绝，他觉得自己不能冒险邮寄它们。

Then he heard that the Texas Department of Public Safety had gained access to the FBI database.

然后他听说德克萨斯州公共安全部已经获得了联邦调查局数据库的访问权。

In May 2006, not really expecting that this newfangled technology would produce any kind of breakthrough, Miller drove to Austin and handed the prints to a DPS officer.

2006 年 5 月，米勒并没有真正指望这种新奇技术会产生任何突破，他开车前往奥斯汀，将这些指纹交给了一名 DPS 官员。

A few days later, the officer called back.

几天后，该官员回电。

“Hey, we got a match on those prints,” he said.

“嘿，我们在这些指纹上找到了匹配的地方，”他说。

The officer had no details, only that Hatley had been arrested in 1988 for a robbery in Nevada.

该警官没有透露任何细节，只是说海特利于 1988 年因在内华达州抢劫而被捕。

He called the Erath County prosecutor, John Terrell.

他打电话给伊拉斯县检察官约翰·特雷尔。

“Do we know a Joseph Scott Hatley?” he asked.

“我们认识约瑟夫·斯科特·海特利吗？”他问道。

Yeah, Terrell said.

是的，特雷尔说。

Local kid.

当地的孩子。

“Raped a girl, grand jury declined to indict,” he went on.

“强奸了一名女孩，大陪审团拒绝起诉，”他继续说道。

“I’ll get the file for you.”

“我去给你拿一下文件。”

When Miller read the file, he was floored.

当米勒读到这份文件时，他大吃一惊。

The rape of a sixteen-year-old girl in 1988, a year after Susan’s murder, sounded especially brutal.

1988 年，即苏珊被谋杀一年后，一名 16 岁女孩被强奸的事件听起来尤其残酷。

Hatley, he saw, came from a well-known Stephenville family.

他发现海特利来自一个著名的斯蒂芬维尔家族。

His late father, Levi, had operated a Texaco station in town, then a wholesale ice business and, later, a diesel-repair shop.

他已故的父亲利维曾在镇上经营一家德士古加油站，后来又经营冰块批发业务，后来又经营一家柴油修理店。

His mother, a woman named Celia, was a homemaker.

他的母亲名叫西莉亚，是一位家庭主妇。

Hatley was the youngest of three children.

海特利是三个孩子中最小的一个。

On the face of it, the family lived a standard small-town Texas life.

从表面上看，一家人过着标准的德克萨斯州小镇生活。

The Hatleys were hardworking, had doting grandparents, and attended church every Sunday.

哈特利一家工作勤奋，有溺爱的祖父母，每个星期天都去教堂。

Hatley’s mother and sister still lived in Stephenville.

海特利的母亲和妹妹仍然住在斯蒂芬维尔。

At a glance, there was nothing tying him to Susan Woods.

乍一看，他和苏珊·伍兹没有任何联系。

But Miller kept scanning the gruesome details of the yellowing report on the rape.

但米勒一直在浏览那份泛黄的强奸案报告中的可怕细节。

The attack had happened in a roadside park south of town.

袭击发生在镇南的一个路边公园。

At one point, after the girl had already been raped, she got up and ran.

有一次，女孩被强奸后，她站起来就跑。

Hatley, she said, chased and caught her.

她说，海特利追赶并抓住了她。

“He laid on top of me and told me if I didn’t mind him, he would kill me,” the girl recalled.

“他趴在我身上，告诉我如果我不介意他，他就会杀了我，”女孩回忆道。

The next words stopped Don Miller cold.

接下来的话让唐·米勒浑身冰冷。

Hatley, she said, told her “he had done it before.”

她说，海特利告诉她“他以前就这么做过。”

Fifteen years later, on December 9, 2021, Hatley was found dead in an RV where he had been living alone outside Abilene.

十五年后，即 2021 年 12 月 9 日，海特利被发现死在一辆房车内，当时他独自住在阿比林郊外。

He was 56 and had been diagnosed with cancer.

他今年 56 岁，被诊断出患有癌症。

Not long after, Miller, who had just retired, took an odd call from a Stephenville police officer.

不久之后，刚刚退休的米勒接到了斯蒂芬维尔警官打来的奇怪电话。

A man who had purchased the RV had found a cache of papers inside.

一名购买房车的男子在车内发现了一堆文件。

The man, the officer said, was freaking out and wanted to be rid of it all.

这名警官说，这名男子吓坏了，想摆脱这一切。

Once he retrieved the cache, Miller saw that much of it was a kind of autobiography, nearly two hundred pages handwritten in neat block letters.

当米勒取回缓存后，他发现其中大部分内容都是一种自传，将近两百页，用整齐的大写字母手写。

It appeared to be Hatley’s earnest attempt to solve the mystery of his life, to understand why it had veered so wildly off course.

这似乎是海特利真诚地试图解开他的生活之谜，了解为什么他的生活如此偏离正轨。

He paints a portrait of a small-town Texas boy who built a secret life inside the bosom of family and church and tells how everything came apart once he ventured beyond Stephenville.

他描绘了一个德克萨斯州小镇男孩的肖像，他在家庭和教堂的怀抱中建立了秘密生活，并讲述了当他冒险走出斯蒂芬维尔后，一切是如何分崩离析的。

It also answered a vexing question: How had Hatley gotten away with not just one vicious crime but two?

它还回答了一个令人烦恼的问题：海特利是如何不仅犯下一件恶性罪行，而且犯下两起罪行却逍遥法外的？

Scott Hatley—Scotty to close friends and family—was born in 1965.

斯科特·哈特利（Scott Hatley）——亲密朋友和家人眼中的“斯科特”——出生于 1965 年。

He makes clear that from an early age he was consumed by a burning anger he couldn’t fully explain.

他明确表示，从很小的时候起，他就被一种无法完全解释的强烈愤怒所吞噬。

He claims that his mother was abusive and regularly slapped him, accusations that she would deny.

他声称他的母亲经常虐待他，并经常扇他耳光，但她否认了这些指控。

In Hatley’s telling, the abuse “enraged” him, though he kept it inside.

在海特利的讲述中，这种虐待“激怒了”他，尽管他把这种感觉藏在心里。

Bullying may have played a role.

欺凌可能起了一定作用。

Like his beloved sister Regina, who was three years older, Hatley was a heavy child, and both kids were teased about their weight.

和比他大三岁的深爱的妹妹雷吉娜一样，海特利也是一个很胖的孩子，两个孩子都因为体重而被嘲笑。

The first serious anger he recalls came upon hearing his sister crying in bed one night after a teasing episode.

他记得第一次严重的愤怒是在一天晚上听到妹妹在一次戏弄之后在床上哭泣时发生的。

By the age of eight, he had started to fantasize about getting revenge against those who had hurt him or his sister.

八岁时，他开始幻想向那些伤害过他或他妹妹的人报仇。

An inquisitive child, prone to daydreaming, Hatley found much of life perplexing.

海特利是一个好奇心强、容易做白日梦的孩子，她发现生活中的很多事情都令人困惑。

Questions about sex, which his parents refused to discuss, confounded him, even as news stories of sexual violence stirred in him feelings he couldn’t explain.

他的父母拒绝讨论有关性的问题，这让他感到困惑，尽管性暴力的新闻报道激起了他无法解释的感觉。

The family was religious, sometimes debating Scripture at the dinner table; to Hatley, God and Satan were tangible beings who could influence lives.

这个家庭信奉宗教，有时在餐桌上辩论圣经。对海特利来说，上帝和撒旦是可以影响生活的有形存在。

He recalls sitting in the front pew in church, straining for understanding that never came.

他回忆起坐在教堂前排的情景，竭力寻求理解，但始终没有实现。

At around twelve, when his favorite choir leader was fired, he quit the church in disgust.

十二点左右，当他最喜欢的唱诗班队长被解雇时，他厌恶地离开了教堂。

What may have seemed like a healthy and happy upbringing from the outside, he writes, was in fact plagued by confusion and violent musings.

他写道，从外表上看，他的成长过程似乎是健康快乐的，但实际上却被混乱和暴力的沉思所困扰。

At one point, his anger crystallized into what he says became his favorite daydream: an intricate plot, years before mass shootings became a national scourge, to barge into his school and kill everyone in sight.

有一次，他的愤怒结晶成了他所说的他最喜欢的白日梦：在大规模枪击事件成为全国性祸害的几年前，策划一个错综复杂的阴谋，闯入他的学校并杀死视线范围内的所有人。

Little of this was apparent to those around him.

他周围的人对此知之甚少。

Growing up in the seventies as a blond preteen with a bowl haircut, Hatley played baseball, basketball, and football, worshipped the Dallas Cowboys’ Roger Staubach, and was a Cub Scout.

海特利成长于七十年代，当时还是一个留着碗形发型的金发碧眼的青春期孩子，她打棒球、篮球和橄榄球，崇拜达拉斯牛仔队的罗杰·斯托巴赫，还是一名童子军。

His sister’s friend Gloria Martin recalls him as a Beaver Cleaver type: “Just a nerdy little guy, kind of chubby, and didn’t look like he was particularly popular in school.”

他姐姐的朋友格洛丽亚·马丁（Gloria Martin）回忆说，他是一个海狸切夫型的人：“只是一个书呆子小家伙，有点胖，看起来在学校里并不特别受欢迎。”

In fact, as a teenager, Hatley developed multiple sides to his identity.

事实上，在青少年时期，海特利就发展出了自己身份的多面性。

At Stephenville High, he was quiet, uninvolved with girls or sports, arranging his classes so he could leave early to help his father at work.

在斯蒂芬维尔高中，他很安静，不参与女孩或体育活动，安排自己的课程，这样他就可以早点离开，帮助父亲工作。

Among family, he could be outspoken, even pushy, says Cindy Hayes, who was his first cousin (their mothers were sisters, and the two families spent Thanksgivings and Christmases together).

他的堂兄辛迪·海耶斯（Cindy Hayes）说，在家人中，他可能很直言不讳，甚至有些咄咄逼人（他们的母亲是姐妹，两个家庭一起度过了感恩节和圣诞节）。

“Cindy always felt Scott was a bully in the family,” Roy Hayes, who knew Hatley since kindergarten, told me.

“辛迪一直觉得斯科特是家里的恶霸，”从幼儿园起就认识海特利的罗伊·海耶斯告诉我。

“He often talked down to other family members like they were slow.

“他经常居高临下地对其他家庭成员说话，好像他们很迟钝一样。

Kidded them about being dumb and voting Democrat.

嘲笑他们愚蠢并投票给民主党。

He often would pick on siblings and cousins as he got bigger, knowing his mom would not let the family stand up to the baby.” He adds, “He thought he was smarter than everybody.”

当他长大后，他经常会欺负兄弟姐妹和表兄弟姐妹，因为他知道妈妈不会让家人与孩子对抗。”他补充道，“他认为自己比所有人都聪明。”

Roy was one of the few who seemed to sense Hatley’s dark side.

罗伊是少数几个似乎能感觉到海特利阴暗面的人之一。

When Cindy urged him to bond with her cousin over a shared love of books, Roy was put off by Hatley’s preoccupation with true crime, especially stories of serial killers such as the Son of Sam.

当辛迪敦促他与她的表弟因共同热爱书籍而建立联系时，罗伊因海特利对真实犯罪的专注而推迟，尤其是山姆之子等连环杀手的故事。

“Even back then, he was drawn to darker stuff,” Roy says.

“即使在那时，他也被黑暗的东西所吸引，”罗伊说。

At thirteen Hatley began tagging along when his sister and her friends cruised the drag, and when one of them handed him a beer, he found his first true love: “Booze!” he writes.

十三岁时，海特利开始跟随他的妹妹和她的朋友们巡游，当他们中的一个递给他一瓶啤酒时，他找到了他的第一个真爱：“酒！”他写道。

“My mind that always worked too fast slowed down and I could focus for the first time in my life.

“我总是运转得太快的思维放慢了速度，我有生以来第一次能够集中注意力。

From the first buzz I knew that alcohol is what I craved, what I needed, what I had to have.”

从第一声嗡嗡声起，我就知道酒精是我渴望的、我需要的、我必须拥有的。”

His other fixation was pornography, which in those days he found in magazines.

他的另一个痴迷是色情作品，当时他在杂志上发现了色情作品。

He hid them, and a stash of vodka, from his parents for years.

多年来，他一直向父母隐瞒了这些东西和一批伏特加。

As a self-described “fat anti-social kid,” Hatley lamented that he never had a girlfriend.

海特利自称是一个“肥胖的反社会孩子”，他感叹自己从未有过女朋友。

“I have often wondered how my life might have turned out if I had learned about relationships at an early age, how to love, care and share with a woman.”

“我常常想，如果我从小就学会了人际关系，学会如何爱、关心和与女人分享，我的生活会怎样。”

During his senior year, in 1984, Hatley joined the Air Force Reserve and was training at Carswell Air Force Base, in Fort Worth, to become a munitions specialist.

1984 年，海特利在读大四时加入了空军预备役部队，并在沃斯堡的卡斯韦尔空军基地接受训练，目标是成为一名弹药专家。

After graduation he endured reservist training in San Antonio before transferring to Colorado for technical school at Lowry Air Force Base, outside Denver.

毕业后，他在圣安东尼奥接受了预备役训练，然后转到科罗拉多州丹佛郊外的洛瑞空军基地的技术学校。

At the dormitory, he met a young, serious, dark-haired woman from Ohio.

在宿舍里，他遇到了一位来自俄亥俄州的年轻严肃的黑发女子。

Hatley had never even kissed a girl.

海特利甚至从未亲吻过女孩。

He calls it love at first sight.

他称之为一见钟情。

Late one night, they slow-danced to Prince’s “Purple Rain.” On weekends they made love in a cheap hotel.

一天深夜，他们随着普林斯的《紫雨》慢舞。周末他们在一家廉价旅馆里做爱。

It was the happiest time of his life, Hatley writes.

海特利写道，这是他一生中最快乐的时光。

On impulse, they married.

一时冲动，他们结婚了。

Neither their commanding officers nor his parents were thrilled.

他们的指挥官和他的父母都没有感到兴奋。

Once training ended, Hatley opted not to enlist in the Air Force, but his wife did.

训练结束后，海特利选择不加入空军，但他的妻子却加入了。

She was assigned to a base on the Pacific island of Guam, and after a few months of separation, he joined her there, walking off the flight into a land of azure ocean, white beaches, and deep-green jungle.

她被分配到太平洋岛屿关岛的一个基地，分离几个月后，他在那里与她会合，走下飞机，走进一片蔚蓝的海洋、白色的海滩和深绿色的丛林。

From the moment they reunited, though, he knew that something was awry.

然而，从他们重逢的那一刻起，他就知道有些事情不对劲了。

“It seemed that the fire that had burned so hot in us had cooled just a bit,” he writes.

“似乎我们内心燃烧的火焰稍微冷却了一点，”他写道。

“There was a story in her eyes I could not read.”

“她眼里有一个我读不懂的故事。”

She had rented them a small apartment in an outlying village, and at first, things went well enough.

她在一个偏远村庄给他们租了一套小公寓，一开始一切进展顺利。

They were both heavy drinkers, which helped initially.

他们都是酗酒者，这在一开始有所帮助。

When she went skydiving with her new friends, he would wait on the ground with a machete, slashing through the foliage when one of them inevitably landed in the jungle.

当她和新朋友一起跳伞时，他会拿着一把砍刀在地上等着，当其中一个不可避免地落在丛林中时，他会砍断树叶。

He got a job at an insurance agency, selling policies to service members.

他在一家保险机构找到了一份工作，向军人推销保单。

The magic of their courtship, however, was gone.

然而，他们求爱的魔力已经消失了。

As the weeks wore on, she became distant, and they fought almost daily.

几周过去了，她变得疏远了，他们几乎每天都会吵架。

Their love life flagged.

他们的爱情生活陷入了低谷。

For the first time in years, he began to pray.

多年来他第一次开始祈祷。

When things didn’t improve, he decided to pledge his life to Satan.

当事情没有改善时，他决定将自己的生命献给撒旦。

There was just one problem.

只有一个问题。

In a tragicomic moment, he realized he didn’t actually know how to contact the devil.

在一个悲喜剧的时刻，他意识到自己实际上不知道如何联系魔鬼。

“I had seen movies and it always seemed to start with candles,” he writes.

“我看过电影，电影似乎总是以蜡烛开始，”他写道。

“My wife had a house full of candles so I gathered some up and lit them.

“我妻子的房子里装满了蜡烛，所以我收集了一些并点燃了它们。

I got on my knees and asked Satan to help me out of my situation .

我跪下来请求撒旦帮助我摆脱困境。

.

。

.

。

I prayed that I would give him my soul for my freedom.

我祈祷我能为他奉献我的灵魂以换取我的自由。

If I could have only known what consequences my actions would bring to my life .

如果我能知道我的行为会给我的生活带来什么后果就好了。

.

。

.

。

May God have mercy on my soul.”

愿上帝怜悯我的灵魂。”

It seems to have been a onetime thing, but the memory plagued him for years.

这似乎是曾经的事情，但记忆却困扰了他很多年。

In his manuscript Hatley returns to the incident again and again, wondering if his impromptu plea to Satan explained the things he would later do.

海特利在他的手稿中一次又一次地回顾这一事件，想知道他对撒旦的即兴恳求是否解释了他后来要做的事情。

He drank more in a vain effort to forget his troubles.

他徒劳地喝了更多的酒，试图忘记自己的烦恼。

This soon took a toll at work.

这很快就对工作造成了影响。

His sales commissions shrank.

他的销售佣金减少了。

Whether in need of money or to keep up appearances, he began using an office copy machine to crudely forge company checks.

无论是需要钱还是为了维持形象，他开始使用办公室复印机粗暴地伪造公司支票。

His wife, meanwhile, began going out alone.

与此同时，他的妻子开始独自外出。

Hatley came to believe she was having an affair.

海特莉开始相信她有外遇。

Years later, he pinpointed this as the moment his life changed forever, giving him the “fuel that I would use to destroy my life .

多年后，他指出这是他的生活永远改变的时刻，给了他“我用来摧毁我生活的燃料……”。

.

。

.

。

I just did not have the maturity or experience to overcome this kind of thing.”

我只是没有成熟度或经验来克服这种事情。”

He called his mother, and she told him to come home.

他打电话给他的母亲，她让他回家。

He stumbled off the plane “so drunk I could barely walk.” Stephenville was exactly the same as he’d left it.

他跌跌撞撞地走下飞机，“醉得几乎无法行走。”斯蒂芬维尔和他离开时一模一样。

But he realized he wasn’t.

但他意识到自己不是。

“I was broken,” he writes.

“我心碎了，”他写道。

Now 21, Hatley went back to work for his father and eventually rented a small apartment.

现年 21 岁的海特利回去为父亲工作，并最终租了一套小公寓。

Making a stab at reinvention, he asked people to call him by his first name, Joseph.

为了进行重塑，他要求人们直呼他的名字约瑟夫。

But he couldn’t put Guam out of his mind.

但他无法忘记关岛。

It wasn’t just the end of his marriage.

这不仅仅是他婚姻的结束。

When his embezzlement was discovered, his old boss threatened to bring criminal charges unless he repaid what he had stolen.

当他的贪污行为被发现后，他的前老板威胁说，如果他不偿还偷窃的东西，就会提起刑事诉讼。

He indicates that he took out a bank loan to do so.

他表示，他为此申请了银行贷款。

When he wasn’t at work, he drank, usually vodka, sometimes starting after breakfast.

当他不工作时，他会喝酒，通常是伏特加，有时是在早餐后开始。

He knew he’d lost control but didn’t care; when he suffered blackouts, he was relieved to depart reality.

他知道自己已经失去了控制，但并不在意。当他遭受昏迷时，他因脱离现实而松了口气。

After he got a cold and took cough syrup, he liked it so much he began mixing it with the vodka: V-syrup, he called it.

当他感冒并服用止咳糖浆后，他非常喜欢它，并开始将其与伏特加混合：他称之为 V 糖浆。

It became his daily tonic.

这成了他每天的补品。

In time he added a can of Pepsi, mixing it in a 44-ounce foam cup from Sonic, which he would sip during long drives in the brown pickup his parents bought him after graduation.

他及时添加了一罐百事可乐，将其与 Sonic 的 44 盎司泡沫杯混合，在毕业后父母给他买的棕色皮卡车长途驾驶时，他会喝着它。

They knew he was drinking, and when he disappeared they would search for him.

他们知道他在喝酒，当他失踪时，他们就会寻找他。

He cruised the roads around Stephenville for hours, brooding, cranking up Mötley Crüe.

他在斯蒂芬维尔周围的道路上行驶了几个小时，一边沉思，一边开着 Mötley Crüe 的车。

What social life he had revolved around his sister Regina and her friends, all in their twenties.

他的社交生活围绕着他的妹妹雷吉娜和她二十几岁的朋友们展开。

Many nights he joined Roy and Cindy Hayes and four or five others to drink and play cards around Regina’s circular kitchen table; they began calling themselves “members of the Round Table.” He took to sleeping with one of them, a married woman, a fleeting affair he dismisses as “two lonely people trying to feel loved.”

很多个晚上，他都会和罗伊·海耶斯、辛迪·海耶斯以及其他四五个人一起，围着雷吉娜的圆形厨房桌子喝酒、打牌。他们开始称自己为“圆桌会议成员”。他开始和其中一个已婚女人上床，这段短暂的恋情被他斥为“两个孤独的人试图感受到被爱”。

At the kitchen table, Hatley talked openly about his impending divorce.

在厨房的餐桌上，海特利公开谈论他即将离婚。

The others worried about him, but not much.

其他人都很担心他，但也不是很担心。

“I could tell the drinking was getting more and more,” Cindy says.

“我看得出来，喝酒的次数越来越多，”辛迪说。

“He was heavier, getting heavier every time we saw him.”

“他更重了，每次我们看到他都会变得更重。”

Then, on a fateful night in July 1987, a new face appeared at the Round Table: Cindy’s best friend, Susan Woods.

然后，在 1987 年 7 月的一个决定性的夜晚，圆桌会议上出现了一张新面孔：辛迪最好的朋友苏珊·伍兹。

Though she was eight years older than him, Hatley had known Susan, and Michael, for years.

尽管海特利比他大八岁，但她已经认识苏珊和迈克尔很多年了。

The first marijuana he ever bought, he said, he bought from Michael, a claim Michael denies.

他说，他买的第一支大麻是从迈克尔那里买的，但迈克尔否认了这一说法。

That night in his sister’s kitchen, Hatley writes, he was drunk and thought Susan was flirting with him.

海特利写道，那天晚上在他姐姐的厨房里，他喝醉了，以为苏珊在和他调情。

He remembers flirting back.

他记得自己也调情过。

And that—a single evening, a single interaction, a single moment—was all it took.

而这——一个晚上、一次互动、一个时刻——就足够了。

The following Sunday night, after another drunken drive, he decided to swing by Susan’s house unannounced.

接下来的周日晚上，在又一次酒后驾车后，他决定不请自来地去苏珊家。

“You must understand that I did not set out that night to hurt anyone,” Hatley writes.

“你必须明白，那天晚上我无意伤害任何人，”海特利写道。

She welcomed him in.

她欢迎他进来。

In his telling, they listened to records and had a few joints—in fact, they were cigarettes.

在他的讲述中，他们听唱片，吸了一些大麻——事实上，它们是香烟。

At some point, he writes, “I overstepped my bounds and Susan slapped me.” What happened next, Hatley says, was a blur.

他写道，在某个时候，“我超越了自己的界限，苏珊打了我一巴掌。”哈特利说，接下来发生的事情很模糊。

“By the time I came out of the fog I had brutalized her,” he writes.

“当我走出迷雾时，我已经残忍地虐待了她，”他写道。

“At first she said she was going to tell what I had done to her.

“一开始她说她要告诉我我对她做了什么。

She then said she would not tell anyone if I just let her go.

然后她说如果我让她走她不会告诉任何人。

I found it interesting that she thought any of that mattered.

我发现有趣的是她认为这些都很重要。

I asked her if she believed in God.

我问她是否相信上帝。

She said she did.

她说她做到了。

I told her then you need to pray.

我告诉她那你需要祈祷。

“All of these years later I still do not know why I said that.

“这么多年过去了，我仍然不知道我为什么这么说。

I honestly do not know if I was mocking God or if I still had a little humanity left in me .

老实说，我不知道我是否在嘲笑上帝，或者我是否还剩下一点人性。

.

。

.

。

All I know with certainty is the last moments of Susan’s life were spent in prayer.

我唯一确定的是，苏珊生命的最后时刻是在祈祷中度过的。

That night I took the life of a kind, sweet, loving woman who never did anything to me but show me kindness.

那天晚上，我夺走了一位善良、可爱、充满爱心的女人的生命，她除了对我表现出善意之外，从未对我做过任何事。

My God I had become a monster.”

天哪，我变成了一个怪物。”

Afterward he drove home.

随后他开车回家。

The police station was on his way.

警察局正在赶来的路上。

He paused at the adjacent stop sign and considered pulling into the station.

他在邻近的停车标志处停下来，考虑把车开进车站。

Instead, he drove on.

相反，他继续开车。

Four days later, news of the murder appeared in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram .

四天后，谋杀案的消息出现在沃斯堡星电报上。

“I wish with all my heart that I could tell you that I mourned for what I had done but that would be a lie,” he writes.

“我全心全意地希望我可以告诉你，我为自己所做的事情感到哀悼，但这将是一个谎言，”他写道。

“Reading about it in the paper was a high like I had never had before.”

“在报纸上读到这件事让我感到前所未有的兴奋。”

He went to the funeral, signed the guest book, noticed the loitering police officers, and felt nothing.

他去参加了葬礼，在留言簿上签了名，注意到了徘徊的警察，但没有任何感觉。

When his group gathered in his sister’s kitchen for the first of a long series of boozy nights debating who might have killed Susan, Hatley was an enthusiastic participant.

当他的团队聚集在他姐姐的厨房里，度过了一系列漫长的酗酒之夜中的第一场辩论谁可能杀死了苏珊时，海特利是一个热情的参与者。

“He was drinking heavily and making jokes,” Roy says.

“他酗酒并开玩笑，”罗伊说。

“He’d call the cops the Keystone Cops.

“他会把警察称为基斯通警察。

If you wanted to find a cop, you need to go to the doughnut shop.

如果你想找警察，你需要去甜甜圈店。

Maybe the murderer would wander in there.”

也许凶手会在那里徘徊。”

It’s a sentiment that permeates Hatley’s manifesto.

这种情绪渗透到了哈特利的宣言中。

“A basic investigation would have identified me in only a few days,” he writes, terming the police hicks and rubes.

“只要进行基本调查，几天之内就能确定我的身份，”他写道，并称警察为乡巴佬和乡巴佬。

“I could not believe that they never once interviewed me.

“我不敢相信他们从来没有采访过我。

A week before [Susan] was partying with us at the Round Table.

一周前，[苏珊]与我们一起参加圆桌会议。

My God how could they have missed that?

天哪，他们怎么会错过这一点？

[Instead] the detectives decided it had to be the ex-husband.

[相反]侦探们认为一定是前夫。

They homed in on him and never let up.

他们盯住了他，从未松懈。

Yet another one of my victims.”

我的又一个受害者。”

Many evenings and every weekend Hatley hung out at Regina’s, drinking vodka and smoking in the backyard deep into the night.

许多个晚上和每个周末，海特莉都会去里贾纳家，喝伏特加，在后院抽烟直到深夜。

He soon noticed a fifteen-year-old girl who lived next door, Shannon Myers, a rebellious newcomer whose family had recently moved to Stephenville from Arkansas.

他很快注意到隔壁有一个十五岁的女孩香农·迈尔斯（Shannon Myers），她是一个叛逆的新来者，她的家人最近从阿肯色州搬到了斯蒂芬维尔。

Shannon spent much of her time partying at Tarleton State University’s fraternity houses.

香农大部分时间都在塔尔顿州立大学的兄弟会聚会上度过。

Her mother had all but given up trying to rein her in.

她的母亲几乎放弃了控制她的努力。

She came and went as she pleased.

她随心所欲地来来去去。

That summer of 1987, bored and with little to do, Shannon befriended Hatley’s cousin Melissa, who babysat Regina’s two kids.

1987 年的那个夏天，无聊又无事可做的香农与海特利的表弟梅丽莎成了朋友，梅丽莎负责照顾雷吉娜的两个孩子。

Shannon began hanging out at the house.

香农开始在家里闲逛。

She vividly remembers her first meeting with Hatley, who was seven years older than she was.

她清楚地记得第一次见到比她大七岁的海特利。

“He walked in and we kind of made eye contact and he just started paying attention to me,” she recalls.

“他走进来，我们进行了眼神交流，他就开始关注我，”她回忆道。

“No one ever took the time to sit down and really talk to me.

“没有人花时间坐下来和我真正交谈。

And I was like, ‘This is nice.’ ” They struck up a friendship.

我当时想，‘这很好。’”他们建立了友谊。

“Just good old porch conversation.

“只是很好的旧门廊谈话。

I saw more of the sweeter, caring side of Scott than most did.”

与大多数人相比，我看到了斯科特更可爱、更体贴的一面。”

Then, one night on Regina’s couch, he kissed her.

然后，有一天晚上，他在雷吉娜的沙发上吻了她。

“And we just started having the relationship there.” The next day they had sex at Regina’s house.

“我们刚刚开始在那里建立关系。”第二天，他们在雷吉娜的家里发生了性关系。

They soon fell into a routine.

他们很快就陷入了例行公事。

Shannon would go out partying most nights, and then, after parking her blue Mercury Cougar back home, she would smell the cigarette smoke and hear the clink of ice in a glass, signs that Hatley was in the backyard waiting for her.

香农大多数晚上都会出去参加派对，然后，在把她的蓝色水星美洲狮停回家后，她会闻到香烟的味道，听到玻璃杯中冰块的叮当声，这表明海特利正在后院等她。

She would wander over and they would end up having sex, often in one of Regina’s bathrooms.

她会走过去，他们最终会发生性关系，通常是在雷吉娜的一间浴室里。

“Looking back on it now, he was very controlling,” she says.

“现在回想起来，他的控制欲很强，”她说。

“When I’d leave, he’d ask, ‘Hey, where are you going?’ And I would tell him, and it was ‘What time are you going to be home?’ ”

“当我离开时，他会问，‘嘿，你要去哪里？’我会告诉他，‘你什么时候回家？’”

Shannon was being sexually abused by someone close to her family.

香农遭到与家人关系密切的人的性虐待。

She thinks that it made her easy prey for Hatley.

她认为这让她很容易成为海特利的猎物。

“I needed to be loved,” she recalls, “and Scott played on that.” After sex, she says, “he kept telling me that I’m special, I’m the special one.

“我需要被爱，”她回忆道，“斯科特充分利用了这一点。”性爱后，她说，“他一直告诉我，我很特别，我是最特别的。

And that still, today, sends shivers through my spine.”

直到今天，这仍然让我脊背发凉。”

After several weeks, Shannon says, her mother discovered what was happening.

香农说，几周后，她的母亲发现了发生的事情。

“She didn’t like the age difference,” she says.

“她不喜欢年龄差异，”她说。

Distraught, Shannon’s mother confronted Hatley in a Kmart parking lot.

香农的母亲心烦意乱，在凯马特停车场与海特利对质。

He promised to end the relationship, as did Shannon, but they didn’t.

他答应结束这段关系，香农也是如此，但他们没有。

When Hatley started renting an apartment, he and Shannon began meeting there.

当海特利开始租一套公寓时，他和香农开始在那里见面。

One night in September, Shannon took her white poodle, Deedee, to the apartment.

九月的一天晚上，香农带着她的白色贵宾犬迪迪来到公寓。

Lately she had sensed that Hatley was under some kind of stress—today she speculates that it had to do with Susan’s murder—but what happened came out of nowhere.

最近，她感觉到海特利承受着某种压力——今天她推测这与苏珊的谋杀有关——但发生的事情却莫名其妙。

When they began to have sex, he seemed more forceful, more aggressive.

当他们开始做爱时，他显得更加强势、更具攻击性。

“And I kind of backed away and was like, ‘Hey, stop, you’re hurting me,’ ” Shannon remembers.

“我有点后退，然后说，‘嘿，停下来，你弄疼我了，’”香农回忆道。

“And, well, as soon as I said ‘stop,’ all hell broke loose.

“而且，好吧，当我说‘停止’时，一切都乱了套。

In his eyes was a coldness.

他的眼中，带着一抹冰冷。

And I was like, ‘Okay, what the heck’s happening?’ He took a knife out and held it to my throat.”

我当时就想，‘好吧，到底发生了什么事？’他拿出一把刀抵在我的喉咙上。”

She didn’t object, she says, out of concern that Hatley might hurt Deedee, who had begun to growl.

她说，她没有反对，因为担心海特利可能会伤害已经开始咆哮的迪迪。

“Me, fifteen-year-old me, I was worried about my dog,” she says.

“我，十五岁的我，我很担心我的狗，”她说。

“And then I finally pushed him off me, and I grabbed my dog, and I ran out.”

“然后我终于把他从我身上推开了，我抓住了我的狗，然后跑了出去。”

She was fast-walking home when Hatley pulled up alongside her in his pickup.

当海特利开着他的皮卡停在她身边时，她正快步走回家。

He asked to give her a ride, and at first she refused, so he apologized.

他要求载她一程，起初她拒绝了，所以他道歉了。

“And I looked at him, and I didn’t see that anger in his face anymore.” She got in the vehicle.

“我看着他，我在他脸上再也看不到那种愤怒了。”她上了车。

In her driveway, “he looked at me and put his hand on my face and said, ‘I’m sorry.

在她的车道上，“他看着我，把手放在我的脸上说，‘对不起。

I love you.’ And I said ‘Love you’ back.”

我爱你。’我也说了‘爱你’。”

When Shannon told her mother about the assault, she insisted on going to the police.

当香农告诉她母亲这起袭击事件时，她坚持要报警。

While being interviewed at the station, Shannon sensed the officers’ skepticism once she said she and Hatley had an ongoing sexual relationship.

在警察局接受采访时，一旦香农说她和海特利有持续的性关系，她就感觉到了警察的怀疑。

She says her reputation as a “wild child” probably influenced her treatment.

她说她“野孩子”的名声可能影响了她的治疗。

“It was ‘he said, she said,’ ” Shannon remembers.

“就是‘他说，她说’，”香农回忆道。

“They just viewed it as I was the crazy one.”

“他们只是认为我是个疯子。”

But according to Hatley’s journals, the police gave so little credence to Shannon’s story that he didn’t even have to contest the accusation.

但根据哈特利的日记，警方对香农的说法几乎不予信任，以至于他甚至不必对这一指控提出异议。

When an officer paid him a visit, he thought he’d soon be linked to the murder.

当一名警官拜访他时，他认为自己很快就会与这起谋杀案联系起来。

“That did not happen.

“那并没有发生。

What happened was the [officer] told me that this was a screwed up little girl so I should stay away from her.

发生的事情是[警官]告诉我这是一个搞砸的小女孩所以我应该远离她。

Incredible!”

极好的！”

Deeply frightened, and confused by the police department’s refusal to prosecute, Shannon cut off contact with Hatley, though she continued visiting his cousin Melissa next door in daylight hours, when he was gone.

香农对警察局拒绝起诉感到深深的恐惧和困惑，切断了与海特利的联系，尽管海特利白天离开后，她继续去拜访隔壁的表弟梅丽莎。

Once, when she hadn’t realized that Hatley was in the house, she overheard him arguing with his sister.

有一次，当她没有意识到海特利在家里时，她无意中听到他和他的妹妹争吵。

“They were having a conversation about ‘Well, you shouldn’t have messed with her,’ ” she recalls.

“他们正在谈论‘好吧，你不应该惹她，’”她回忆道。

“And he goes, ‘Yes, but I love her.’ And she goes, ‘But she’s fifteen!’ ”

“他说，‘是的，但我爱她。’她说，‘但她十五岁了！’”

The police visit, meanwhile, left Hatley deeply paranoid, convinced he would soon be arrested.

与此同时，警方的到访让海特利陷入了极度偏执，他确信自己很快就会被捕。

He lived near the station and, each day, watched cruisers drive past his apartment.

他住在车站附近，每天都会看着巡洋舰驶过他的公寓。

He dreamed of taking Shannon on a cross-country crime spree à la Bonnie and Clyde and writes that she was initially receptive.

他梦想着带着香农像邦妮和克莱德那样跨国犯罪，并写道她最初很乐意接受。

She strongly denies this.

她强烈否认这一点。

According to Shannon, their only communication was a barrage of plaintive phone calls and letters.

据香农说，他们唯一的交流就是一连串哀伤的电话和信件。

“He basically stalked me.” She ignored him.

“他基本上是在跟踪我。”她不理他。

Nine months passed.

九个月过去了。

She tried dating boys her age, but after a difficult breakup, she finally agreed to see Hatley again.

她尝试与同龄的男孩约会，但在经历了一次艰难的分手后，她终于同意再次见到海特利。

It was July 1988, a year after Susan’s death.

那是 1988 年 7 月，苏珊去世一年后。

“I was over at Regina’s house, and he was already there,” she recalls.

“我在雷吉娜家，他已经在那里了，”她回忆道。

“And he goes, ‘Hey, can I talk to you?

“他说，‘嘿，我可以和你谈谈吗？

I miss you.’ And I’m like, ‘Oh, I miss you too.’ ” Shannon was still uneasy.

我想你。’然后我就说，‘哦，我也想你。’”香农仍然感到不安。

“I didn’t really trust him.

“我并不是真的信任他。

I feared him a little bit.”

我有点怕他。”

Sometime later, Hatley called her at home one evening.

过了一段时间，一天晚上，海特利给她打电话到家里。

“He kept saying, ‘Shannon, I really want to see you tonight.

“他一直说，‘香农，我今晚真的很想见到你。

I need to explain why I did what I did to you.’ And the sixteen-year-old me wanted answers.

我需要解释为什么我对你做了这些事。”十六岁的我想要答案。

You know, ‘If you loved me so much, why did you hurt me?’ ”

你知道，‘如果你这么爱我，为什么要伤害我？’”

They met in a laundromat parking lot.

他们在一家自助洗衣店停车场见面。

The moment she climbed into his truck, “I immediately knew I made a mistake,” she says.

当她爬上他的卡车的那一刻，“我立即知道我犯了一个错误，”她说。

“We drove off, and he locked the door and he goes, ‘Come over and sit beside me.’ Just the way he was talking to me was totally different.

“我们开车走了，他锁上了门，然后说道，‘过来坐在我旁边。’只是他对我说话的方式完全不同。

He had aggression in his voice.

他的声音里充满了攻击性。

And I was doing exactly what he told me because I was afraid.”

我完全按照他告诉我的去做，因为我很害怕。”

As they drove, though, he kept telling her they were destined to be together, and she briefly warmed to him.

然而，在他们开车的过程中，他不断地告诉她，他们注定要在一起，她短暂地对他产生了好感。

“I’m just wanting to be loved and accepted,” she says.

“我只是想被爱和被接受，”她说。

They pulled up to a roadside park south of town, where Hatley parked out of sight of the road.

他们把车停在镇南的一个路边公园，海特莉把车停在那里，看不到路。

“As soon as we got there, everything changed,” Shannon goes on.

“我们一到那里，一切都变了，”香农继续说道。

“He turned back to that night when he raped me with a knife, the look in his eyes and everything, and I knew I was in trouble.”

“他回想起那天晚上他用刀强奸我，他的眼神和一切，我知道我有麻烦了。”

He pressed her to have sex, and when she refused, he slapped her.

他强迫她发生性关系，当她拒绝时，他打了她一巴掌。

They got out of the truck and sat on a picnic table.

他们下了卡车，坐在野餐桌上。

“He immediately started taking off my clothes, and we ended up having intercourse, and it was brutal.” He started hitting her so hard it knocked her unconscious.

“他立即开始脱掉我的衣服，我们最终发生了性关系，这很残酷。”他开始猛烈地打她，以至于她失去知觉。

After she came to, she felt blood coming out of her ear.

苏醒后，她感觉耳朵里有血流出来。

He raped her repeatedly, taking breaks to smoke a cigarette and have a drink.

他多次强奸她，并在休息时抽烟喝酒。

Thinking he would kill her and hide her body, Shannon began tossing her things—a hairpin, her bra, the beret she was wearing—hoping the police might find them later.

香农以为他会杀了她并隐藏她的尸体，于是开始扔她的东西——发夹、胸罩、贝雷帽——希望警察稍后能找到它们。

“I fought for my life there,” she says.

“我在那里为自己的生命而战，”她说。

“I remember going in and out of consciousness and thinking I’m not going to get out of here alive.

“我记得我时不时会失去知觉，心想我不可能活着离开这里了。

And there was a little bitty spring, because it rained a few days before, so it was a little muddy.

而且春天有点小，因为前几天下过雨，所以有点泥泞。

He took me by that water.

他带我经过那条水。

Scott had a fascination with water and having sex in the bathroom.

斯科特对水和在​​浴室里做爱很着迷。

That’s where he wanted to have sex every time at Regina’s.” He pushed her face into the little spring as he raped her again.

这就是他每次在雷吉纳家都想做爱的地方。”当他再次强奸她时，他把她的脸推进小泉水里。

Police later surmised that it was the same fantasy he had acted out with Susan.

警方后来推测，这与他对苏珊实施的幻想相同。

It went on like this for six hours.

就这样持续了六个小时。

“I knew I had to turn the tables on him in order to survive,” she says.

“我知道为了生存，我必须扭转局面，”她说。

“I knew I had to convince him that I loved him.” Eventually, they got back into the cab of the truck, and Shannon sat as far away from him as she could.

“我知道我必须让他相信我爱他。”最终，他们回到了卡车驾驶室，香农坐得离他尽可能远。

“And he goes, ‘No, I want you over here by me.’ And that was probably one of the scariest minutes of my life.

“他说，‘不，我希望你在我身边。’那可能是我一生中最可怕的时刻之一。

Do I breathe?

我呼吸吗？

Do I don’t breathe?

我没有呼吸吗？

I was scared to make a sound and scared to show my face, because if I showed my face he’s going to see that he did damage to me.” If he saw the blood and bruises and realized the severity of what he’d done, she feared, he would know that this time the rape could not be swept under a rug.

我害怕发出声音，害怕露出我的脸，因为如果我露出我的脸，他就会看到他对我造成了伤害。”她担心，如果他看到血迹和瘀伤并意识到自己所做的事情的严重性，他就会知道这一次强奸案不能被掩盖。

“So I looked down real fast and he couldn’t see the bruises; he couldn’t see the swelling.

“所以我很快地低下头，他看不到瘀伤；他看不到肿胀。

And he was caressing the side of my face and he goes, ‘Are you okay?’ And I’m like, ‘I’m okay.’ And I said, ‘I just want to start my life with you.’ And he goes, ‘I’m sorry for what I did.’ And I said, ‘It’s okay.

他抚摸着我的脸，说：“你还好吗？”我说：“我很好。”我说，“我只想和你一起开始我的生活。”他说，“我为我所做的事感到抱歉。”我说，“没关系。”

I love you.

我爱你。

I just need to listen to you.’ And I remember saying that to him and he goes, ‘Don’t you turn me in.’ I said, ‘I’m not going to say anything,’ and he believed me.”

我只需要听你的。’我记得对他说过这句话，然后他说，‘你不要告发我。’我说，‘我不会说什么，’他相信了我。”

He reached under the dashboard and turned on the ignition.

他把手伸到仪表板下面，打开了点火装置。

He drove her to the laundromat parking lot and left her just before the sun rose.

他开车送她到自助洗衣店停车场，并在太阳升起前离开了她。

“I’ve never ran so fast in my life,” Shannon says.

“我这辈子从来没有跑得这么快过，”香农说。

When she got home, she fell into her stepfather’s arms, and he yelled for her mom.

当她回到家时，她倒在继父的怀里，继父大喊着要妈妈。

They rushed her to the hospital.

他们赶紧将她送往医院。

This time her account was taken seriously.

这一次她的账户受到了认真对待。

Nurses administered a rape kit, if awkwardly; it wasn’t clear if any of them had done it before.

护士们使用强奸工具包，虽然有些笨拙；目前尚不清楚他们中是否有人曾经这样做过。

Because the attack had occurred outside city limits, the investigation fell to the Erath County Sheriff’s Office, whose deputies soon arrived at the hospital to interview her.

由于袭击发生在城市范围之外，调查工作由埃拉斯县治安官办公室负责，该办公室的代表很快就到达医院与她面谈。

Badly bruised and bloody, but still alive, Shannon Myers told them everything.

香农·迈尔斯受了重伤，血迹斑斑，但还活着，他告诉了他们一切。

The next morning, Hatley was awakened by a knock at his door.

第二天早上，海特利是被敲门声吵醒的。

Glancing through the curtains, he saw that it was a deputy sheriff.

透过窗帘一看，是一位副警长。

He took a swig of vodka and fetched his pistol.

他喝了一大口伏特加，然后拿起手枪。

He prepared to shoot the deputy as soon as he entered the apartment.

他一进公寓就准备向副警开枪。

But the officer left when no one came to the door.

但当没有人上门时，这名警官就离开了。

Hatley assumed that the authorities would soon return in force.

哈特利认为当局很快就会大规模卷土重来。

He packed a bag, threw in his pistol, and drove to the bank, where he drained his account.

他收拾了一个袋子，扔进了手枪，然后开车去了银行，在那里他耗尽了账户里的钱。

Then he headed west, no clue where he was going.

然后他就向西走，不知道要去哪里。

That night he drank beer in an El Paso motel, staring out at Mexico.

那天晚上，他在埃尔帕索的一家汽车旅馆里喝着啤酒，凝视着墨西哥。

The next day he went farther west, thinking he might see the ocean in California, but when he spied billboards for Las Vegas, he steered there instead.

第二天，他继续向西行驶，以为自己可能会看到加利福尼亚州的大海，但当他看到拉斯维加斯的广告牌时，他转而前往那里。

He had no plan.

他没有计划。

Days, he drank and wandered.

日子里，他一边喝酒一边闲逛。

Nights, at a motel on Fremont Street, he drank more and pondered suicide.

晚上，他在弗里蒙特街的一家汽车旅馆里喝得更多，并考虑自杀。

More than once he put the gun into his mouth.

他不止一次把枪放进嘴里。

Running low on money, he walked into a strip-mall shoe store, tried on a pair of shoes, then pointed his gun at the saleswoman.

由于钱不够了，他走进一家购物中心的鞋店，试穿了一双鞋子，然后用枪指着女售货员。

He trotted out with $120, the shoes, and a powerful adrenaline rush.

他带着 120 美元、鞋子和强大的肾上腺素小跑了出去。

After that, he tried to rob a hotel clerk, but the man barely understood English and started shoveling him handfuls of coins.

之后，他试图抢劫一名酒店服务员，但该男子几乎不懂英语，并开始向他铲起一把硬币。

Hatley became enraged and was about to shoot him but took off when someone approached the outside door.

海特利勃然大怒，正要开枪射击他，但当有人走近外门时，他逃跑了。

The next day, while scouting new targets, he noticed a motorcycle policeman behind him.

第二天，在寻找新目标时，他注意到身后有一名摩托车警察。

A moment later, three patrol cars appeared.

不一会儿，三辆巡逻车出现了。

He drew his gun into his lap.

他把枪拉到腿上。

A helicopter hovered into view.

一架直升机盘旋在视野中。

When the patrol cars hit their lights, he heard a voice on a loudspeaker telling him to pull over.

当巡逻车打开灯时，他听到扩音器里有声音告诉他靠边停车。

He eased into a Denny’s parking lot.

他缓缓驶入丹尼停车场。

For a moment, he considered starting a gunfight.

有那么一刻，他考虑开始一场枪战。

Instead, he crawled out and lay on the pavement and was arrested.

相反，他爬出来躺在人行道上并被捕。

Thrown into a holding tank, Hatley waited for the Stephenville police to arrive and haul him back to Texas to answer for the rape and no doubt the murder.

哈特利被扔进一个储水箱，等待斯蒂芬维尔警察到达并将他拖回德克萨斯州，为强奸案和谋杀案负责。

In a Las Vegas courtroom, Hatley was convicted of two counts of armed robbery and faced a thirty-year sentence for each.

在拉斯维加斯法庭上，海特利被判犯有两项武装抢劫罪，每项罪名被判处三十年徒刑。

Instead, a judge, noting his age, sentenced Hatley to 120 days in a youth offender program.

相反，一名法官考虑到海特利的年龄，判处其 120 天监禁，参加青少年犯罪计划。

After he served that brief stint, his parents drove him home.

在他短暂服刑后，他的父母开车送他回家。

By the time he arrived back in Stephenville, it was becoming clear that his escape west had been a misjudgment.

当他回到斯蒂芬维尔时，很明显他向西逃亡是一个误判。

It turned out there was no reason to have fled.

事实证明，没有理由逃跑。

A grand jury had already declined to indict him for the rape.

大陪审团已经拒绝起诉他强奸罪。

His parents had fought it in his absence.

在他不在的时候，他的父母曾与之抗争。

“His mother went to the church and got all the members of the congregation to sign up about what a great boy he was,” Roy recalls.

“他的母亲去了教堂，让所有会众都签名，称赞他是一个多么伟大的男孩，”罗伊回忆道。

According to Don Miller, the Hatleys hired a private investigator who “did a hatchet job on Shannon.” Miller said that at the time, if you could prove the victim was promiscuous, the charge would likely be dismissed.

据唐·米勒称，哈特利夫妇聘请了一名私家侦探，“对香农进行了严厉的攻击”。米勒表示，当时，如果能证明受害者滥交，指控很可能会被驳回。

“Hatley was clean-cut,” Miller says.

“海特利性格干净利落，”米勒说。

“He was a Stephenville kid.

“他是斯蒂芬维尔的孩子。

One of us, you know?

我们中的一员，你知道吗？

Shannon, well, she did not enjoy that reputation.”

香农，好吧，她并不享有这样的名声。”

Shannon thought Hatley would be jailed for years in Nevada, so she was stunned when she spotted him back in town.

香农以为海特利会在内华达州被判入狱多年，所以当她在城里看到他时，她大吃一惊。

She told police, who hadn’t known either.

她告诉警察，警察也不知道。

She assured herself that the sheriff’s rape investigation would put him away.

她向自己保证，治安官的强奸案调查会让他离开。

Then came the official letter in the mail.

然后，正式信件寄来了。

“I was reading it,” she says, “and I’m like, ‘What does this mean, not indicting him?’ What does this mean, ‘lack of evidence’?” She went over to her neighbor’s, who helped her make sense of it.

“我正在读它，”她说，“我想，‘这意味着什么，不起诉他？’这意味着什么，‘缺乏证据’？”她去了邻居家，邻居帮助她理解了这一点。

“And she’s trying to find the words, and she goes, ‘They should have indicted him.’ I was confused.

“她试图找到合适的词，然后她说，‘他们应该起诉他。’我很困惑。

I was hurt.

我受伤了。

I felt like I was raped all over again.”

我感觉自己又被强奸了。”

Several of those involved in the Stephenville law enforcement community now acknowledge the egregious injustice.

斯蒂芬维尔执法界的一些参与者现在承认这种严重的不公正现象。

There were multiple failings.

有很多失败。

It’s easy to criticize the Stephenville police for focusing so much of their energies on investigating Michael Woods, and for so casually ignoring Shannon’s first rape allegation.

人们很容易批评斯蒂芬维尔警方将如此多的精力集中在调查迈克尔·伍兹上，却如此漫不经心地忽视香农的第一次强奸指控。

Another serious criticism could be directed against the Erath County Sheriff’s Office, which failed to pass on to police what Shannon told them of Hatley’s admission to a previous murder.

另一个严重的批评可能是针对埃拉斯县治安官办公室，该办公室未能将香农告诉他们的海特利承认之前谋杀案的情况转达给警方。

“Hindsight, heck yeah, we should have known about Hatley,” Miller says.

“事后看来，哎呀，我们应该知道海特利的事，”米勒说。

“But in all of the statements and reports we did, none of Susan Woods’s friends ever mentioned he was in her circle.

“但在我们所做的所有声明和报告中，苏珊·伍兹的朋友都没有提到他在她的圈子里。

The only red flag would have been if somebody in the sheriff’s office would have listened to what Shannon was saying, and really listened to her, and correlated it over to Susan Woods.

唯一的危险信号是，如果治安官办公室里有人听了香农所说的话，并且真正倾听了她的声音，并将其与苏珊·伍兹联系起来。

But to my knowledge no one ever knew they had even met.

但据我所知，没有人知道他们见过面。

I had no idea.

我不知道。

And Donnie didn’t either.”

唐尼也没有。”

As for Shannon, she never understood what happened inside the grand jury, whose deliberations were secret.

至于香农，她永远不明白大陪审团内部发生了什么，陪审团的审议是秘密的。

But afterward, she noticed that Hatley seemed to turn up in places she was visiting: at Regina’s, a fraternity party, and the skating rink.

但后来，她注意到海特利似乎出现在她去的地方：里贾纳家、兄弟会聚会和溜冰场。

“He was following me,” she says.

“他在跟踪我，”她说。

It was almost as if the grand jury decision had emboldened him.

就好像大陪审团的决定给了他更大的勇气。

After seeing him at the rink, she took a friend with her and drove home.

在溜冰场见到他后，她带着一个朋友开车回家。

Hatley’s truck was already in the driveway next door.

哈特利的卡车已经停在隔壁的车道上。

“I called him out,” Shannon says.

“我叫他出去，”香农说。

“I’m like, ‘Scott, you need to come out now.’ ” He refused.

“我说，‘斯科特，你现在需要出来。’”他拒绝了。

“I’m like, ‘Quit being a chickenshit and come out and face me like a man.’ I stood up to him that night.

“我当时想，‘别再胡说八道了，出来像个男人一样面对我。’那天晚上我站起来反对他。

We had words out in the front yard, and I told him to stop.

我们在前院吵架，我叫他停下来。

I’m like, ‘You know what you did to me.’ ”

我说，‘你知道你对我做了什么。’”

He quit harassing her after that.

此后他就不再骚扰她了。

Even so, Shannon’s life was beginning to crumble.

即便如此，香农的生活还是开始崩溃。

Her mother and stepfather moved away, and she stayed with an uncle.

她的母亲和继父搬走了，她和叔叔住在一起。

Barely a year after the rape, in a bid for security of some sort, she suddenly got married to a local boy.

强奸发生后不到一年，为了某种安全，她突然嫁给了当地的一个男孩。

It lasted ninety days.

持续了九十天。

Afterward, she leaned heavily on a friend for support, but then he was killed in a motorcycle accident.

后来，她严重依赖一位朋友的支持，但后来他却在一场摩托车事故中丧生。

“My world crashed,” Shannon says.

“我的世界崩溃了，”香农说。

At her lowest, she considered killing herself.

在她最低谷的时候，她曾考虑过自杀。

Instead she fled, moving to Pasadena, southeast of Houston, with her mother when she was nineteen.

相反，她十九岁时与母亲一起逃离，搬到休斯顿东南部的帕萨迪纳。

She would seek professional counseling for years after that.

此后多年，她一直在寻求专业咨询。

Things never came easy.

事情从来都不是一帆风顺的。

But, she told herself, she was still alive.

但是，她告诉自己，她还活着。

She was a survivor.

她是幸存者。

And she had escaped Stephenville.

她逃离了斯蒂芬维尔。

Back living with his parents, having gotten away with murder and rape, Hatley knew for sure he couldn’t stay in Stephenville.

与父母住在一起，逃脱了谋杀和强奸罪后，海特利确信自己不能留在斯蒂芬维尔。

The specter of imminent arrest was ever present.

即将被捕的幽灵始终存在。

He moved to Nashville and in 1993 got married, and he and his wife had two children.

他搬到纳什维尔并于 1993 年结婚，并与妻子育有两个孩子。

Like his older brother, Hatley became a truck driver.

和他的哥哥一样，海特利成为了一名卡车司机。

By his telling, he was a good one, valued by his company for the long hours he drove.

据他说，他是一个好人，因为他长时间开车而受到公司的重视。

He worked so hard, he says, his dispatcher once asked what he was running from.

他说，他工作非常努力，以至于他的调度员曾经问他在逃避什么。

“Myself,” he said.

“我自己，”他说。

Alone out on the road, Hatley writes, “I honed my skill at picking up broken women,” mostly in roadside bars.

哈特利写道，独自一人在路上，“我磨练了搭讪失恋女人的技巧”，主要是在路边酒吧。

If he violated the law doing so, there is no known record of it.

如果他这样做违反了法律，则没有已知的记录。

He took pills to stay awake on the road and ended up rear-ending another truck in Dallas, which led to his dismissal.

他在路上服用药物保持清醒，最终在达拉斯追尾了另一辆卡车，导致他被解雇。

He then took a job in a Nashville grocery warehouse.

然后他在纳什维尔的一家杂货仓库找到了一份工作。

It paid well, but his past remained a torment; he was never able to get the murder out of his mind.

虽然报酬丰厚，但他的过去仍然是一种折磨。他始终无法将谋杀案从脑海中抹去。

He drank every night and at all hours on weekends.

他每天晚上和周末的所有时间都喝酒。

His daughter was injured in a car accident and required extended bouts of physical therapy.

他的女儿在一场车祸中受伤，需要长时间的物理治疗。

His wife was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis.

他的妻子被诊断出患有多发性硬化症。

When a tornado damaged their apartment complex, they moved into a duplex, only to see it destroyed when a drunk driver plowed through it.

当龙卷风摧毁了他们的公寓大楼时，他们搬进了一套复式公寓，却发现它被一名醉酒司机冲破了。

He began to believe that it was all God’s punishment for what he’d done.

他开始相信这都是上帝对他所做的事情的惩罚。

Years passed, five, then ten.

几年过去了，五年，然后是十年。

His life calmed.

他的生活平静了。

In the late nineties, Hatley’s company proposed promoting him to help run a warehouse in Round Rock.

九十年代末，海特利的公司提议提拔他帮助经营朗德罗克的一个仓库。

Returning to Texas felt like a serious risk.

返回德克萨斯州感觉像是一个严重的风险。

“Deep down I knew it was a mistake but in the end my ego and greed won my emotional battle,” he writes.

“我内心深处知道这是一个错误，但最终我的自我和贪婪赢得了我的情感斗争，”他写道。

They found a nice poolside apartment, but Hatley’s drinking was destroying the marriage.

他们找到了一套漂亮的池畔公寓，但海特莉的酗酒破坏了婚姻。

He and his wife fought, sometimes violently.

他和妻子吵架，有时甚至很暴力。

She later alleged that he beat her.

她后来声称他殴打了她。

His schedule didn’t help.

他的日程安排没有帮助。

He worked nights and slept most days, which is what he was doing one morning in 2006 when, after nineteen long years, they finally came for him.

他晚上工作，大部分时间都在睡觉，这正是他在 2006 年的一个早晨所做的事情，当时，经过 19 年的漫长岁月，他们终于来抓他了。

It was June 6.

那是 6 月 6 日。

As they drove from Stephenville to Round Rock that day, Don Miller turned to his partner and said, “Make no mistake, the day is six-six of ’06, and we are about to meet the devil himself.”

那天，当他们从斯蒂芬维尔驱车前往朗德罗克时，唐·米勒转向他的搭档说：“别搞错了，今天是 06 年六月六日，我们即将见到魔鬼本人。”

A few months earlier, after reading the file on Shannon’s rape, Miller had tracked down Hatley in Round Rock.

几个月前，在阅读了香农被强奸的档案后，米勒在朗德罗克找到了海特利。

He asked police there to bring him in for questioning.

他请求当地警察带他来接受审问。

The man who appeared voluntarily in a police interrogation room the next day was a forty-year-old warehouse supervisor, nearly three hundred pounds, with close-cropped dark hair and a matching mustache.

第二天，自愿出现在警方审讯室的男子是一位四十岁的仓库管理员，体重近三百磅，留着短发，留着相配的小胡子。

When Miller told Hatley why they’d come, he seemed blasé, almost bored.

当米勒告诉海特利他们来的原因时，他似乎感到厌倦，几乎感到无聊。

“He comes in and tries to act calm, cool, and collected, nonchalant, which to me is a big red flag,” Miller says.

“他进来时试图表现得冷静、冷静、镇定、若无其事，这对我来说是一个很大的危险信号，”米勒说。

Innocent people tend to heatedly deny false allegations.

无辜者往往会强烈否认虚假指控。

“That’s not what he did.

“那不是他做的。

He just said, ‘I didn’t have anything to do with it.

他只是说：‘我与这件事没有任何关系。

Maybe I might have had sex with her.

也许我可能和她发生过性关系。

I don’t remember.

我不记得了。

I don’t think so.’ ”

我不这么认为。’”

Miller wasn’t seeking a confession and didn’t need one.

米勒并不是在寻求认罪，也不需要认罪。

The physical evidence was enough for an arrest, and Hatley agreed to provide his DNA.

物证足以逮捕，海特利同意提供他的 DNA。

When it matched the material found at the scene, as Miller was confident it would, a conviction would likely follow.

当米勒确信它与现场发现的材料相符时，很可能就会被定罪。

So he didn’t push.

所以他没有催促。

When he asked why Hatley’s fingerprints had been found at Susan’s, the man shrugged, insisting that “members of the Round Table” spent many evenings there.

当他问为什么在苏珊那里发现海特利的指纹时，该男子耸耸肩，坚称“圆桌会议成员”在那里度过了许多个晚上。

At one point, a Round Rock officer took Miller aside and told him to keep talking.

有一次，一名圆石警官将米勒拉到一边，让他继续说话。

Hatley’s wife was considering charges of her own.

海特利的妻子正在考虑对她自己提出指控。

The next day, Round Rock police reinterviewed him.

第二天，朗德罗克警方重新审问了他。

Just as Miller had anticipated, Hatley now claimed he’d had a “kinky” affair with Susan, an assertion that Miller knew was a lie.

正如米勒所预料的那样，海特利现在声称他与苏珊有一段“古怪”的恋情，米勒知道这一说法是谎言。

Meanwhile, Hatley’s wife went ahead with the charges.

与此同时，海特利的妻子继续提出指控。

That night, when Hatley took his family to dinner at IHOP, Round Rock police descended on the restaurant and arrested him on domestic abuse charges.

那天晚上，当海特利带着家人去 IHOP 吃晚饭时，朗德罗克警方突然袭击了餐厅，并以家庭虐待罪逮捕了他。

A few days later, Miller filed the arrest warrant for the murder.

几天后，米勒就谋杀案提交了逮捕令。

When the results came back on the DNA, Hatley’s genetic material matched that on the cigarette butts.

当 DNA 检测结果出来时，哈特利的遗传物质与烟头上的遗传物质相匹配。

The news landed like a meteorite in Stephenville.

这个消息像一颗陨石一样落在了斯蒂芬维尔。

Before the arrest was announced, Miller found Susan’s father at the golf course.

在宣布逮捕之前，米勒在高尔夫球场找到了苏珊的父亲。

Miller told him they had the man who murdered his daughter.

米勒告诉他，他们抓到了谋杀他女儿的凶手。

Joe Atkins refused to believe that it could’ve been anyone but Michael Woods.

乔·阿特金斯拒绝相信除了迈克尔·伍兹之外还有其他人。

It was the same everywhere.

到处都是一样的。

“Nobody believed me,” Miller remembers.

“没有人相信我，”米勒回忆道。

Roy and Cindy Hayes were among the doubters.

罗伊·海耶斯和辛迪·海耶斯是怀疑者之一。

Almost twenty years after Susan’s death, Roy was still irked at his treatment by police.

苏珊去世近二十年后，罗伊仍然对警察对待他的方式感到不满。

Rumors of his involvement had cost him the career in law enforcement he’d planned and at least one other job, he says.

他说，有关他参与其中的谣言让他失去了原本计划的执法生涯以及至少一份其他工作。

He thought Cindy’s cousin Scott was now being wronged in the same way.

他认为辛迪的表弟斯科特现在也受到同样的委屈。

Not until Miller personally explained the evidence did Roy and Cindy come around.

直到米勒亲自解释了证据，罗伊和辛迪才回心转意。

This caused a rift with the Hatley family.

这导致了与海特利家族的不和。

Roy remembers Hatley’s mother telling them, “We need to circle the wagons.

罗伊记得海特利的母亲告诉他们：“我们需要绕着马车转圈。

It is our family against the cops.” According to Cindy, “It tore our family completely apart.”

我们一家人都在对抗警察。”辛迪说：“这让我们的家庭彻底破裂了。”

Michael was in a college class when Miller phoned.

米勒打电话时，迈克尔正在上大学课。

Although he’d already been cleared, he had never felt truly safe with the case still unsolved.

虽然他已经被洗清了，但案件尚未侦破，他从未感到真正安全。

He took the call outside.

他在外面接了电话。

“I hadn’t had a cigarette in a year,” he says.

“我已经一年没抽烟了，”他说。

“My professor, who came out with me, gave me one.

“和我一起出来的教授给了我一张。

I needed it.

我需要它。

I cried a little bit.

我哭了一点。

It was surreal: they finally got him.

这是超现实的：他们终于抓住了他。

I was beginning to think they never would.”

我开始认为他们永远不会。”

It took forever for Miller to track down Shannon Myers.

米勒花了很长时间才找到香农·迈尔斯。

She had been so traumatized by the two rapes that she had “basically gone into hiding,” she says.

她说，两次强奸给她造成了如此严重的创伤，以至于她“基本上躲了起来”。

For years she was stricken with panic attacks and migraines.

多年来，她一直饱受惊恐发作和偏头痛的困扰。

News of Hatley’s arrest offered her the validation Stephenville had never given her.

海特莉被捕的消息给了她斯蒂芬维尔从未给过她的认可。

Today, after years of therapy, Shannon is happily married and working in the Houston area.

如今，经过多年的治疗，香农已幸福地结婚并在休斯顿地区工作。

“When Miller called me, oh Lordy.

“当米勒打电话给我时，天哪。

I was mad.

我很生气。

I was relieved.

我松了口气。

‘Now you’re finally listening?’ ” Shannon says.

“现在你终于开始听了吗？”香农说道。

“He kept telling me, ‘I believe you.

“他一直告诉我，‘我相信你。

I believe you.’ And that’s what I needed to hear.” She’s grateful the full story is finally being told, she says, “because I truly believe there are other victims out there.

我相信你。’这就是我需要听到的。”她很感激完整的故事终于被讲述，她说，“因为我真的相信还有其他受害者。

He was a trucker, remember.

请记住，他是一名卡车司机。

I can’t be the only one.”

我不能是唯一的一个。”

There was no showy trial, no dramatic perp walk, no teary confessions.

没有华丽的审判，没有戏剧性的犯人行走，没有泪流满面的认罪。

Confronted by the physical evidence, Hatley quietly cut a deal to serve thirty years.

面对物证，海特利悄悄达成了服刑三十年的协议。

It wasn’t what some had hoped for, but Susan’s parents wanted to avoid the attention of a trial, and Hatley agreed to testify against one of his new cellmates in the Stephenville jail.

这并不是一些人所希望的，但苏珊的父母希望避免受到审判的关注，海特利同意在斯蒂芬维尔监狱出庭作证指控他的一位新狱友。

He was sent to Huntsville, where in time he claimed to have rediscovered religion, wrote his manifesto, and, in 2017, was diagnosed with bladder cancer that soon went into remission.

他被送往亨茨维尔，在那里他声称重新发现了宗教，写下了自己的宣言，并于 2017 年被诊断出患有膀胱癌，但很快就得到缓解。

Released the following year on good behavior, having served just eleven years , he entered a halfway house in Midland, 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.

次年，他因表现良好而被释放，只服刑十一年，他进入米德兰的一所中途之家，找到了一份修理油田卡车的工作，并在冠状病毒大流行开始时被解雇后，搬进了阿比林郊外的一个房车公园，靠近他的一个女儿阿曼达。

He was sober, and things went well for a time.

他很清醒，事情一度进展得很顺利。

It didn’t last.

但它并没有持续多久。

“I don’t know what happened, but I’m pretty sure he started drinking again,” Amanda says.

“我不知道发生了什么，但我很确定他又开始喝酒了，”阿曼达说。

“He distanced himself from us.

“他与我们保持了距离。

He didn’t come around for months at a time, then he’d just pop up at the door.

他一连好几个月都没有出现，然后突然出现在门口。

I told him he needed to call, and we’d have a big fight.”

我告诉他他需要打电话，我们会大吵一架。”

On Halloween 2021, Hatley told her his cancer had returned and spread to his spine.

2021 年万圣节，海特利告诉她，他的癌症复发并扩散到脊柱。

Six weeks later his landlord found him dead on the floor of his trailer.

六周后，他的房东发现他死在拖车的地板上。

He was 56.

他56岁了。

Hatley had never admitted to Amanda what he had done in Stephenville.

海特利从未向阿曼达承认他在斯蒂芬维尔所做的事情。

She learned the details only after she read his manuscript.

她是在读了他的手稿后才知道详情的。

“All those things he did, the rape and the violence, he did those same things to my mom,” Amanda says.

“他所做的所有这些事情，强奸和暴力，他对我妈妈也做了同样的事情，”阿曼达说。

“So it didn’t surprise me.” She pauses to regain her composure.

“所以这并不让我感到惊讶。”她停下来恢复镇静。

“I don’t know what to tell you.

“我不知道该告诉你什么。

My dad was just a really bad guy.”

我的父亲只是一个非常坏的人。”

This article originally appeared in the July 2023 issue of Texas Monthly with the headline “A Killer Among Us.” Subscribe today .

本文最初发表于 2023 年 7 月号《德克萨斯月刊》，标题为“我们中间的杀手”。立即订阅。