Deadly Seduction (4 page)

They say that if you believe adventure lies less at travel’s end than in the journey itself, then Route 66 is the ideal road. Rich with history and nostalgia, the famed “Main Street of America” offers a unique glimpse into the heyday of American automobile travel. For Susan Campbell—as she was then known—it offered an opportunity to continually escape from the harsh realities of life. She seemed to be endlessly following the route of that famous road for some sense of inner peace.

Oklahoma City itself is located on the North Canadian River and has a population of around five hundred thousand. It was founded by ten thousand homesteaders on April 22, 1889, on the first day of legal settlement after they dashed across the border from Kansas to stake claims on the free land of Oklahoma. The discovery of oil in 1926 brought real prosperity to the area.

However, in the early 1980s Susan Campbell found herself trapped in Oklahoma City with her husband and child. She was bored, restless, and on the lookout for an opportunity. That opportunity could only come to her in the shape of a man. It had worked for her so far in life. Why shouldn’t it continue to do so?

Gary Campbell was fairly resigned to the fact that Susan was promiscuous. So he was not exactly surprised when he heard that his pretty young wife had been having an affair with a man at the factory where she worked.

Susan was on the product line at Perry Filters Inc., one of Oklahoma City’s most successful manufacturing firms, and she had managed to catch the eye of recently widowed Tom Whited. His wife had died of leukemia just six months previously, leaving him with a two-year-old son to bring up alone. Tom’s deceased wife just happened to have been the daughter of the owner of Perry Filters’s parent company.

Rumors of an affair between Tom and Susan were fueled by the fact that a number of Gary Campbell’s relatives worked at the company and everyone, it seemed, knew about the relationship.

Gary refused to react to the stories at first because he still hoped to hold onto Susan, despite her propensity for illicit sexual liaisons. He presumed the relationship would fizzle out, but when the rumor mongers persisted, he decided to put Susan to the test about her movements. It didn’t take much effort to catch her out lying and Gary rapidly concluded that his wife’s affair with Whited had to be very serious. Gary even discovered that Susan was skipping her shift at work to meet Tom Whited. He must be rich, thought Gary, otherwise she wouldn’t be bothering.

Two

Susan was delighted with her latest conquest, Tom Whited. He was handsome, confident, and had a good job. He also had a nice house in one of the swishiest districts of Oklahoma City. Susan rapidly decided she had big ambitions for herself and Tom Whited, and began turning her steamy affair into a prospective marriage. Tom Whited was captivated by Susan, not least because she was so fantastic in bed. She was capable of the sort of eroticism he never even knew existed.

Tom Whited was a well-educated man. He was a graduate of Rice University and had been a captain in the U.S. Army before being discharged following an auto accident. Whited suffered a cerebral contusion in that crash and was unconscious for three weeks prior to his discharge. He resigned his commission in the army on January 10, 1981.

Before the death of Tom Whited’s first wife Cheryl Ann, her father Lester Suenram promised Cheryl he would make sure his grandson Tommy was taken care of because there were fears that his father, Tom, might not be able to cope on his own.

Tom had been given a job running the wire wracking company owned by his father-in-law on a sprawling industrial park on the outskirts of Oklahoma City. Tom earned more than $20,000 a year. His in-laws felt a responsibility to keep him working for the sake of their grandson.

But when Tom started dating Susan at the factory, it created an almighty furor amongst his in-laws. Tom was furious about their interference and told them to mind their own business.

Father-in-law Lester Suenram insisted his only concern was little Tommy. Cheryl had always been so good at running the house and Tom had hardly been involved in the bringing up of the child until her illness. They appreciated that Tom was having a difficult time following his wife’s death, but they found it difficult to deal with the blatantness of his affair with Susan.

Tom’s other problem was that he wanted to be his own man, even though he worked for his father-in-law. He resented Lester and would go out of his way not to ask advice from him. He wanted to make all his own decisions, even though they were frequently incorrect.

Lester found it extremely hard to keep calm about the situation. Susan did not seem to be the right kind of person to be marrying Tom. Lester and his family tried to convince Whited not to do it, because they had a bad feeling about Susan. There was something about her that no one trusted at the factory. They felt she was a manipulator.

But Tom would hear none of it. As far as he was concerned, he had met the girl of his dreams after all those heartbreaking months he experienced during and following Cheryl Ann’s death. This was going to be the start of his new life and he was determined not to let anything get in his way.

Tom and Susan married in October 1982, in Austin, Texas, just one year after the death of Tom’s first wife. But the couple’s two children, Jacob and Tommy, were not taken to the ceremony. Instead, they were left behind in Oklahoma City because Susan thought their presence would ruin the enjoyment of their big day. None of Cheryl Ann’s relatives were asked to the ceremony, either.

The Whited’s new home on Rushing Road, in northwest Oklahoma City, was the same house bought for Tom and Cheryl by his then father-in-law Lester Suenram as a wedding gift more than six years previously. Tom bought Susan a fur coat right after their marriage as a belated wedding gift. She used to like wearing it to the shops just to annoy her neighbors. Susan seemed to settle down quickly to the life of a middle class housewife with her son Jacob and stepson Tommy. Only three months separated the ages of the boys, so she got into the habit of dressing them virtually identically. She had decided to pretend they were twins because it was much easier than explaining to other people that she and her husband had been married before.

Susan’s proudest possession at that time was a photograph of the two boys both wearing identical dark blue suits with white shirts and bowties. She was forever pulling the snapshot out of her purse and proudly showing off her two boys to anyone who seemed vaguely interested.

The boys were like opposites in many ways. Tommy was the charming, bright sociable one who doted on his aunt and grandparents. He never stopped talking and had an interesting thing to say about most subjects. Many of his relatives predicted a fine future for the little boy because he seemed
so
bright.

Jacob, on the other hand, was far more withdrawn and unsociable. He appeared to be a little afraid to speak his mind. It was almost as if he had been told that old proverb,
Children should be seen and not heard.
Jacob was definitely a child who stayed firmly in the background.

But it was Tommy who clearly irritated Susan, mainly through his never-ending little boy’s curiosity about things. He was always asking questions, picking up ornaments, and demanding to know what they were. Susan found him to be a complete pain and was always telling him not to touch things. She was more used to Jacob who kept silent on most things and would certainly never dare to be so impertinent.

Susan’s obsession with her appearance had been gaining momentum ever since high school and by the time she married Tom Whited it had become a daily preoccupation. Each morning, she would go to the International Spa in Oklahoma City and work out. She also never missed watching Richard Simmons on television at noon and used to follow his routine to the exact step in front of the TV set in the bedroom, dressed just in a skimpy leotard. The boys were always made to join in the exercise routines. Not surprisingly, they would end up jumping and playing around, much to Susan’s annoyance. She could not understand why the boys were not able to behave and respond like adults. She would often smack little Tommy for not doing his exercises properly.

One day, Susan—who had been brought up with barely any possessions whatsoever—decided that all the boys’ old toys should be deposited in the garage at the house in Rushing Road to make way for all the new ones. That meant the boys had to each take a toy to the garage and Susan would only allow them to take one item at a time because she did not want toys dropped everywhere in the house.

Susan got really angry with Tommy when he sneaked back into the garage and got one of his old toys back and she found it in the hallway. She smacked Tommy on his backside. The beating went on for several minutes. The next thing she knew Tommy was screaming that he was in pain. He was lying on the floor squirming in agony. Susan looked down at the little boy contemptuously and started hitting him even harder on the head with a metal Tonka truck.

*   *   *

On January 27, 1983, less than four months after Susan’s marriage to Tom Whited, little Tommy was admitted to Baptist Medical Center suffering from a hematoma, a swelling filled with blood in the left temporal area of his brain. X-rays revealed a fracture in the right rear portion of his skull. But doctors declined categorically to state that the injury was a result of child abuse.

There was no reason for
not
reporting the case to the police. They should have been informed. Later, it was suggested that Susan and Tom Whited were friendly with one of the doctors and he decided there was no way such an affluent couple could batter their child.

But family friend Vivian Susil was not in the least bit surprised when she heard that Tommy was in the hospital. Vivian had been to school with Tom Whited and his first wife Cheryl Ann at the Putnam City High and had also felt obliged since her death to keep an eye on the child.

Vivian looked after Tommy regularly after Cheryl Ann was diagnosed as having leukemia. When Cheryl Ann eventually died Vivian became almost like a replacement mother to the child.

Vivian saw the first sign of Tommy’s fear of his stepmother, during Christmas 1982, when Vivian offered Tommy some candies. Tommy—terrified that his “mommy” might find out—told Vivian, “I don’t want Mommy to be mad, I don’t want Mommy to be upset.”

At the hospital where he was taken following his beating, one nurse who attended Tommy after surgery was performed to release pressure from his brain asked the little boy what had happened to cause his injuries and he said, “My mommy hit me.”

Vivian Susil visited Tommy a few days after his operation and she noticed Susan watching her through the glass window of the ward throughout her visit. It was as if she was keeping an eye on Tommy just to make sure he did not give any clues away as to his horrible life inside that house on Rushing Road. Vivian even put the little boy on her knee and asked him what had happened to him.

“She dropped me on my head because I wouldn’t do my exercises,” came the reply.

A few minutes later, Vivian tried to corner Tom about his son’s allegations against Susan.

“That’s crap,” screamed back an angry Tom Whited.

Some days later, Vivian offered to stay at the hospital and look after Tommy while Tom and Susan went out for a break. Susan had little Tommy sitting on her lap shivering with fear as she patted him on the knee. Vivian never forgot the blank expression of terror on his face.

One nurse was horrified when Tommy spilled a drink and the child became hysterical because he feared he would be hit by the nurse. Tommy instantly started screaming, “I’ll clear it up. I’ll clear it up.”

Later, when Susan was asked if she ever had trouble with Tommy spilling things at home, her only response was, “Yes, Tommy is a little careless.…”

After a week-long stay in hospital, little Tommy was released back into the custody of Tom and Susan without any attempt to call in the police.

A few weeks later, Susan and Tom Whited decided to take a vacation in Europe. There was absolutely no question of taking either Jacob or Tommy along, even though Tommy was still not fully recovered. Vivian Susil looked after the boys.

The European trip was really a belated honeymoon for Tom and Susan. Tom had a brother in Germany, whom they visited. It was Susan’s first ever trip outside the United States. She hated the long flight and could not deal with the jet-lag when the couple arrived in Europe. To make matters worse, Susan and Tom were carefully searched by customs agents on their return to the U.S. The agents’ attention was caught by another fur coat Tom Whited had bought for his wife. For Susan, those two fur coats represented the beginning of her new life. It was going to be a life without poverty, a life without struggle. She was reinventing, herself into a classy lady and nothing—and no one—was going to get in her way.

Even after Tommy’s “accident” in January, Susan still insisted that Tommy watch and participate in the Richard Simmons TV “keep fit” sessions. Susan was still angry at Tommy because she did not know what the little boy had told the doctors at the hospital while he was being treated for those horrific injuries. This fear of being found out made her take out even more of her anger and frustration on the child.

Susan began to imagine that Tommy was doing things to get his own back on her. She convinced herself that he was not prepared to accept her as his mother. She saw his behavior as further evidence of his rejection of her. In her mind, Susan could never accept that she might be at fault. It had to be someone else.

As Susan became increasingly twisted about Tommy, every incident—however small—that occurred started to take on a hidden agenda as far as she was concerned.

The worst example revolved around the brand new Buick Riviera that Tom Whited bought his pretty young wife shortly after their marriage. That car was Susan’s pride and joy. She had it cleaned every week, sometimes even twice a week, and she did not allow the children to spill a crumb on the rear seats. In fact, they were banned from ever eating or drinking anything in the vehicle.