Woman on trial for killing 2 men, letting her pigs eat their bodies

WARNING: The following article contains graphic details. Discretion is strongly advised.

TORONTO – A woman accused of murder in Oregon is helping represent herself at a trial where it’s alleged she shot two men in the head and fed their bodies to pigs on her ranch.

Rouge River native Susan Monica, 66, was originally arrested for identity theft after being suspected of using another person’s food stamps. However, Jackson County Sheriff’s investigators found the remains of two handymen during a search of her property and charges quickly changed to homicide. No other bodies were found.

Monica isn’t denying her involvement.

Defense lawyer Garren Pedemonte told a judge this week in Medford that Monica shot Stephen Delicino in self-defense during the summer of 2012 while Robert Haney’s death in the fall of 2013 was a mercy killing.

Haney’s death, according to a taped confession in January 2014, was quite graphic. Monica insists he was already being attacked by her pigs when she found him.

“His guts were all over the place. I have no idea how he got there,” Monica said in the video. “He [was] laying there and I was standing here, I went like that. I pulled the trigger.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "His guts were all over the place. I have no idea how he got there," <a href="http://kobi5.com/news/item/susan-monica-breaks-down-during-second-day-of-trial.html#.VTEGz_nF98E" target="_blank">Monica said in the video</a>. "He [was] laying there and I was standing here, I went like that. I pulled the trigger."

The 66-year-old has already changed one story from her original confession. In it she claimed that Delicino, her friend of ten years, had shot himself in the head five times before her pigs dragged his body away. Many questions remain with her legal team now claiming self-defense.

Monica has been permitted to represent herself without the presence of a jury. On Thursday, she made the strange request to remove Haney’s family from the courtroom.

“I do not want them to hear what he just said. What he’s going to say,” she said in reference to witness Detective Eric Henderson.

The Jackson County detective was the lead investigator in the case and, at one point, was convinced more victims would be found during an expanded search. Authorities dug more than 133 holes on Monica’s property, according to the Mail Tribune, but the search came up empty.

Monica’s trial is expected to continue next week.