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than to her own stepson. So, it made her very angry when Tommy urinated in the car several times after his visit to the hospital following that “accident” in January 1983.
    Susan decided that Tommy was doing this deliberately. It was all part of his rejection of her as a mother, she believed. She did not once stop and consider what might be causing the boy to respond this way.
    On one occasion, she made little Tommy stand in the living room while she called Tom Whited at work to tell him what had happened to her lovely car, her pride and joy. Tom was then expected to tell the child off on the phone.
    Another incident happened a few weeks later when she took Tommy and Jacob out and put them in the car before setting off on a shopping trip. To her horror, Tommy had candy all over his face and hands. She took him out of the car and made him stand inside the house by the front door while she called Tom Whited at work yet again. This time she demanded that Tom leave work and return to the house to discipline his son.
    Susan even persuaded Tom Whited to allow her to get a pit bull terrier puppy. She insisted the animal would prove a fine guard dog and a playmate for the boys.
    But Tom Whited instantly took a dislike to the dog because it was always nipping at Tommy. Susan never disciplined the dog for doing that, although she always got angry with the animal when it did the same to Jacob. She insisted on keeping the dog because it got on so well with Jacob.
    Susan told her husband the dog was always attacking Tommy because the boy was so timid and would not stand up for himself against the animal.
    Meanwhile the Suenrams, Tom’s in-laws from his first, tragic marriage to Cheryl Ann, were virtually having to fight to gain any access to Tommy. It seemed as if Tom was deliberately preventing them from seeing their own grandson. Susan was actually quietly encouraging the situation because she knew the Suenrams would start questioning her about the never-ending flurry of bruises that constantly seemed to cover the child’s body.
    In February, family friend Vivian Susil became so concerned about the well-being of little Tommy that she called up Susan and asked if she could talk to the child.
    Susan’s reply astounded her. “Okay, but I’ll have to hold the phone for him because he’s got chocolate all over his hands and he’s got chocolate all over my Riviera and I’m making him keep it on him ’til Tom gets home.”
    When Tom did finally get home that evening, the little boy ran to his father for comfort, spreading chocolate all over his suit in the process. Tom was so furious with Tommy that he punished him further.
    Vivian often looked after both Tommy and Jacob for Susan. Vivian was astounded when she discovered that Tommy was starving because his stepmother had been keeping him on a strict diet.
    Vivian Susil had a really bad feeling about what was happening behind the closed doors of the Whiteds’ house on Rushing Road. She heard Susan talking about Tommy in such a nasty way that she later came to the conclusion that she even might have wanted to kill her stepson.
    After his first “accident,” little Tommy walked with a severe limp and had a horseshoe mark on his head where surgeons had made their life-saving incision. But he seemed to be all right mentally, although he became much more reserved and everyone noticed how he jumped to attention each time Susan walked in the room.
    On the Easter weekend of 1983, Susan, Tom, and the two boys actually agreed to attend Sunday lunch at the Suenrams following church. Susan was more concerned with discussing how much money her sister had spent on a baby shower than on anything vaguely related to the two children under her care.
    But at that lunch, Susan discovered that Lester Suenram, the father of her husband’s first wife, had taken out a hefty life insurance policy on Tommy. Lester Suenram had always bitterly regretted not doing that for his tragic daughter Cheryl Ann