Susan Monica: Trans farmer who killed two handymen before chopping and feeding them to pet pigs is serving 50-year sentence in women's prison

Warning: This article contains a recollection of crime and can be triggering to some, readers’ discretion advised.

WIMER, OREGON: Susan Monica, formerly known as Steven Buchanan, a transgender woman, reportedly killed two handymen in 2012 and 2013 and fed them to pigs at her farm in Oregon. 

In 2015, she was handed a 50-year sentence and is currently housed in a women's prison despite being biologically male, as per Daily Mail. 

Who is Susan Monica? 

Monica, who enlisted in the US Navy during the Vietnam War, purchased her 20-acre farm in Wimer, Oregon in 1991. She also ran her own company, White Queen Construction, on the property and had plans to construct a barn for her livestock. 

In 2013, she selected 56-year-old Robert Haney to work as a handyman on her farm. When he lost contact with his family, Jesse, Haney’s son, visited Monica’s farm on January 1, 2014, to inquire about his father's whereabouts and retrieve his belongings.

The son noted, "His leather jacket was there. His dog was still running around and all his tools were there…It made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up." 

Worried about their father, Haney's children filed a missing persons report with the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office after not hearing from him for over two months. 

Susan Monica claimed she stumbled upon her pigs in a 'feeding frenzy' as they were devouring Robert Haney

When questioned about Haney’s disappearance, Monica claimed he had quit and left the farm after working for roughly six months. She claimed that he went away but told her to take care of his dog after receiving a call from a family member.

However, concerns arose when evidence showed that Haney had used his Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) card at a Walmart near Monica's property the day after she claimed he had departed.

This led officers to search the farm, revealing a property in appalling condition with piles of garbage, rotting food, and industrial waste. During the search, they supposedly discovered a human leg.

Subsequently, Monica was brought in for questioning, where she recounted a disturbing tale about putting Haney out of his misery. She claimed about stumbling upon her pigs in a "feeding frenzy," devouring Haney's intestines with his guts "all over the place."

She told investigators, "He was being eaten, what I believed to be, alive, I put him out of his misery. I do that for my animals and this was the first time I did it for a human being and I knew it was wrong but if it were one of my pigs suffering out there, I would have done the same thing." 

On further questioning, Monica claimed that Haney wasn't her first victim and told authorities about a place where they would find the remains of a person named Steve aka Stephen Delicino, who is the first known victim of the farmer. 

He was hired in the summer of 2012. As per Monica, a confrontation occurred between them after he was found to be in possession of her gun, and during the altercation, the gun misfired and fatally struck Delicino in the back of the head. 

Detective Eric Henderson stated, "She told me that if she told me about the 17 others that she would spend the rest of her life in jail," as per ATI. 

Odd behavior of Susan Monica

In court, Monica was known for her often eccentric behavior. Moreover, her claims regarding the supposed deaths of Haney and Delicino didn't sit well with the prosecutors, especially as she chopped their bodies after they died. 

While she previously claimed to have shot Delicino in self-defense, at a later date the farmer claimed that he shot himself, something that wasn't proved by the forensic evidence collected from the scene. 

Monica, who appeared in court in various wigs, even went as far as to cross-examine Detective Henderson despite having a defense team. She also loudly announced that she would "like to demonstrate how I shot [Delicino] for 10 seconds," before proceeding to act it out. 

Judge Tim Barnack dubbed Monica a "cold-blooded killer" who valued her pigs more than she valued human beings and sentenced her to life with the possibility of parole after serving a minimum of 50 years behind bars.