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38 - ER Nurse Susan Kuhnhausen and Oregon State Psychiatric Hospital
59 Plays2 months ago
Sam and Jeff dedicate this episode to ER nurses, doctors, and techs. Jeff tells the harrowing survival story of ER nurse Susan Kuhnhausen. Sam shares the story of a poisoning at the Oregon State Psychiatric Hospital in the 1940s.
Visit us on Linktree for the collection of links, Instagram, or email us at downtherabbitholepod@gmail.com.
Jeff's Sources:
- Blurred Bylines - Susan Kuhnhausen
- Willamette Week - A Hit Man Came to Kill Susan Kuhnhausen. She Survived. He Didn’t.
- IMDB - I Survived: Susan Walters
- Medium - Susan Kuhnhausen's Husband Sent a Hitman to Kill Her. He Failed.
Sam's Sources:
Recommended
Transcript
00:00:00
Jeff Rogers
Hello, Sam. Hello, Jeffrey.
00:00:24
Jeff Rogers
Hello. Hi. How are you? I'm great. How are you? I'm good.
Podcast Introduction and Contact Info
00:00:29
Jeff Rogers
Welcome to Down the Rabbit Hole with Jeff and Sam. I'm Jeff. And I'm Sam. Hey, and you're you.
00:00:36
Jeff Rogers
um You know what? You should actually, like, if you should look for us on Spotify, Apple Podcast, iHeartRadio, and Amazon, because we're on every one of those platforms now. Thank you, kind of, Alan for doing that. For all the things. For all the things. Oh, my God. For all the things. And where can you find us? Speaking of all the things.
00:00:55
Jeff Rogers
Uh, first you can reach out to us at, uh, down the rabbit hole, the pod at gmail dot.com. Um, but most impressively, um, Instagram at down the rabbit hole, the pod and, you know, the Instagram page has been around for a bit and.
00:01:12
Jeff Rogers
one of us, namely me, was doing the best that we could with those posts. And then I slacked off for a little while and our magnificent Alan decided to take that weight off of my shoulders. And since he has taken it over,
00:01:31
Jeff Rogers
the page has completely transformed into an actual. I saw the post. I was like, whoa, this is professional. He's good. Yeah, mine was not. So after that master publisher, we're going to add content creator extraordinaire. We need to like add that in just for the one of many, many jobs that he does that he charges us very little for. Thank you, Alan.
00:01:57
Jeff Rogers
um How are you? I'm good, hold on. Yeah, 18 feet away. She's riding, she's riding, she's riding, and she- I'm back. Hey, hey, hey. What's new? ah Nothing, nothing.
Humorous London Anecdote and Sam's Triggers
00:02:12
Jeff Rogers
you know this We're in this weird place right now because by the time everyone listens to us, we will be a week post. So this show is going to come out on the 20th.
00:02:24
Jeff Rogers
which is after we get back from our trip, but today when we're recording is two days before we leave for our trip, so it's a weird time hop we're doing here. We're coming to you from the future? The future. We're coming to you from the future. Our trip to London was great. I have no doubt about that. It was so good. Everybody needs to ask Sam about her taking a pee in the alleyway. I'm just kidding.
00:02:50
Jeff Rogers
And you just spoke then to existence. As long as I don't get arrested again. She took a pee in the alleyway in London. You can't control her. You can't take her anywhere. I ran from the bobbies. She ran from the bobbies. She was put up the nick. Put in the nick. But it was a good time. I'm sure a good time was had by many. Oh my God. Okay. um Anything new? Oh, Ellen said, I got a text from Ellen that said,
00:03:19
Jeff Rogers
I've been brainstorming some ideas on how to help sound Sam with one of her triggers. And I don't know what he means. There's so many. I don't know what he means. Oh, that's such a dangerous place to be. I didn't ask what he meant. Oh, God. Yeah. ah So what triggers do you have, Sam? Because we're going to find out. We're not going to talk about him on the show. do something but You've already done it. OK. It's something you've already said. OK. I can't imagine.
00:03:48
Jeff Rogers
Okay.
Curious Statistics and Childhood Memories
00:03:50
Jeff Rogers
Well. ah And last night, Francois was, he was saying, I told him we talked about him, but we only call him Francois on the show. And he just had that hypothetical question like, in life, I wonder how many people, murderers you walk by and you don't know. Well, you're sitting right across from one. Don't scare me like that. Oh, I was talking about me. I was talking about them.
00:04:12
Jeff Rogers
Oh, sorry, them. Oh, okay, them. Hello. Okay, so I was like, I don't know, friends. Well, let's look that up. And I got this from Google. I'm not, I got anything to do with this, but Google said, some say the average person will unknowingly walk past around 36 murderers in their lifetime. However, others say it's impossible to know how many people have committed a murder that people will encounter.
00:04:40
Jeff Rogers
That's 200 people a day times 365 days a year times 60 years. when it comes That comes down to 780,000 people, which means using a rate of .0005 murderers per 10,000, one could encounter 39 murderers in a lifetime. That's insane. What are you doing?
00:05:08
Jeff Rogers
well There was once a question about how many active serial killers were active like in the United States at any
Podcast's True Crime Comedy Blend
00:05:20
Jeff Rogers
given time. Right. And it's something like in the United States alone, not all of those people that are killing over the seas and far away. Right. um There's something like 32 active serial killers in the United States at any one point, like. Oh, who are they killing? And maybe we've walked past them and like
00:05:40
Jeff Rogers
They're among us. They're among us. And then I was telling friends, well, I was like, well, in the eighth grade, mind you, this is in the 80s, OK, they often terrorized us, right? There was a war against crime. So in eighth grade, they thought it was cool to bring our middle school class three felons from prison thank god and they put them in front of us in the high school or in the middle school gymnasium and so my whole class was sitting looking at the three felons one was a female and she said and i remember this and it's insane i feel like i'm gonna this is gonna resonate really deep within me
00:06:17
Jeff Rogers
Well, she said that she was committing a crime. And in the crime, tired she she put duct tape over a man's mouth after I think after he was tied down, she put duct tape over his mouth. She walked away to do the crime. When she came back, she realized he wasn't able to breathe through his nose. So he died. oh He died. And so my eighth grade class were like,
00:06:42
Jeff Rogers
what what is happening why are they telling us there wasn't i don't think the word trauma was used back then no that was that was a trauma it really like it came out of nowhere to me last night when we were talking about this i was like oh oh shit that really happened and then like shortly after
Susan Kuhnhausen's Survival Story
00:07:00
Jeff Rogers
that the snake man came to our school did you guys have a snake man come to your school the person that came with all the reptiles and the snakes and are specifically are poisonous snakes no i didn't have that so yeah he would come every year and every year he would come with a he would set up his plastic crates in the gym and we would all go to the gym i was sitting up at the top and each crate had a snake in it and there was like a cobra in one of this in one of the crates so he would get the cobra out
00:07:30
Jeff Rogers
And he would let it like slide toward the kids that were on the floor. Yeah. I don't like that. I hated it. He would let it slide and then he would press the back of it and somehow get it to pop its head up and, you know. Threaten the children? Yeah. it was Yeah. 80s and 90s people, 80s and 90s. And he would do that. And then at the end, there was the big container.
00:07:54
Jeff Rogers
And at the end, he would bring out a what's the big one? but constriction Maybe it was a book. and Python, I think he would bring out a python and he would ask for ph like 10 to 15 volunteers from the gym bleachers to come down and hold so but that snake. I was like, wow how about we don't? Well, and then there's Britney Spears.
00:08:18
Jeff Rogers
Uh-huh. And how is she? So anyway, we were like, so many people volunteered. Everybody wanted to do it. Nope, not me. I was sitting up in the top. Never once. And he came from the time I was in middle school through my high school years. The same man with his snakes came because we all had, we had a lot of snakes down south, you know? Steve Irwin got really close with all sorts of dangerous creatures. How'd that turn out for him? You know what, though? I will tell you, I follow Robert on Instagram. I love Robert Irwin. Spitting image of his father. Yeah. Spitting image seems like such a good person. A little off his rocker, but so is daddy. Yeah. But for for good reason, I think, you know? Yeah. And I've been to their zoo. Don't they have a zoo? I've been to a zoo in Sydney.
00:09:17
Jeff Rogers
or Melbourne somewhere when I was in Australia that I think belonged to them or something or was like dedicated to him dedicated to him something they do a lot of work with animals that's good that's good for zoos also saw a big shark in a cage in Australia I wasn't in the cage. I was behind the glass and the huge shark kind of like a great white shark. I don't think it was. It took a bite of a big piece of meat. Like there was somebody in there swimming with the shark and she held the meat up and the shark went, I've got a video. I'll show you the video. I'm speaking of all of Australia. Can't wait to take you there one day. I know you're excited. Oh my God. So, okay. What's up with you? Talk to me.
00:10:08
Jeff Rogers
I got nothing. I got nothing right now. like My mind is a blank. i
00:10:18
Jeff Rogers
We're in vacation mode. Yeah. Is that me squeaking? No, it was me. I was rocking my legs. I was rocking my legs. and Then I was like, well, she hears that. Stop. If it was me. Okay. That's my rocky squeaky chair. I put this thing together. If it falls apart,
00:10:35
Jeff Rogers
if it If I fall to the ground while we're recording this, it's because I put this chair, all these chairs together, randomly apart, falls off of them. Look, I don't judge myself. I mean, don't judge me. That's what I meant to say. Please don't judge me or judge me. Whatever. I think they're judging you now. Uh-huh. Judge me and you'll fall through the chair. It'll collapse on you. I would never judge you. Thank you. Thank you.
00:11:01
Jeff Rogers
Is that believable? No, okay not at all. Good try, though. So this is us. This is how we do this show. this is Honestly, this is a true crime podcast. But the reason why we also put um comedy in it is because we're just us, we don't know how to podcast, we're amateur people who just turn this microphone on for fun and hope that this thing captures a recording and we deliver it to you and hopefully you enjoy it, right? That's our intention. And there's no there's no editing or anything so all of the nonsense is
00:11:35
Jeff Rogers
as real as you can get. That's why we sound kind of messy. Yeah, we are messy. And that's how we give the show to you. And when people tell me, oh, they started listening at the beginning, I'm like, cringe, cringe, cringne we have we're so much better at it now. We're not good, but we're better. So much better. Uh huh. And that's coming from
00:11:58
Jeff Rogers
We don't listen to our shows. Jeff and I don't listen to them once they're recorded. I think combined, he and I have listened to maybe 12 minutes of the show once it's produced and everything. But it's just the vibe that we feel. You know, when we were doing it at first, we were nervous. We were stuttering, stumbling, bumbling idiots. And now we're just.
00:12:21
Jeff Rogers
Stembling idiots. Sometimes we bumble. We do. Also, um, about a year and a half ago, a year ago, maybe. Okay. I'm an yeah ER nurse. I've been an yeah ER nurse for a very long time. I think occasionally we need to tell people how this started, right? I've been an yeah ER nurse for a long time. Sam's been an yeah ER nurse for a long time. About a year ago, year and a half ago, we started at the same, she started where I worked. So we became coworkers two years ago.
00:12:47
Jeff Rogers
and um i was like uh is she gay because you had all the rainbow stuff on you you know and i was like i think i kind of like her we're gonna be friends and then we became friends and one night at work i told her the story of alison batha which is one of my favorite survival stories right it's wild and so then um i made her finish it on her own i told her the story up to a point she finished it on her own and she freaking loved it. And so ever since then, we have been like, ooh, let's start a podcast. Ooh, trading stories, talking to each other, and we've become the closest of friends. And so that is who we are. That's who you hear. And eventually that's who you will see. And I'm also looking at Sam and she's looking at her phone like it's insane. Well, I'm trying to get the WhatsApp thing.
00:13:44
Jeff Rogers
I can handle it for you. I'm sorry. Yeah, we're good. um So anyway, that's our story. we it's it It's serendipitous. Uh-huh. Serendipity, totally. Absolutely. So that being said, I really want to dedicate today's show to emergency room nurses. I have a very special reason why. And obviously the texts that we work with, the doctors that we work with, but because we're ER nurses, we've been doing it for a long time, this one is going to be dedicated just to the amazing ER nurses that we've worked with out there. We've met some really great people. Uh-huh. I've got a reason for this. Just go along with me for the ride.
00:14:30
Jeff Rogers
Um, should we have a drink, sit back, relax, take a load off? I'm going to be drinking IBC's cream soda, which is throwing it back to the 1950s, which that is a decade. We may be visiting shortly.
00:14:46
Jeff Rogers
Um, so that's what I'm drinking. What are you drinking, Sam? I am drinking a little gift that Jeff bestowed upon me. Uh, the Jack Daniels Country Cocktails Boulder Southern Peach. Oh, okay. Southern Peach. Ooh, that sounds so Budwisery. I'm obsessed with it. Cheers, queers. And this is what color is this?
00:15:15
Jeff Rogers
Butterscotch? I was thinking Rhabdo. Oh. Yeah. and It's a little light, a little light for Rhabdo. We're on the good side of Rhabdo. How is it? Hot dog. I only got it for you it's because of the name.
00:15:39
Jeff Rogers
o Who got that voice a thing? Did you grow some chest hair? No, but I got all warm and tingly all over. I'm drinking a ah soda from the 1950s and suddenly my voice was deeper. You you know you're pretending very well. We're headed back to that decade soon. We are. Maybe. I need to remember to pack a very important thing that is going to change this trip for us.
00:16:01
Jeff Rogers
Oh, and she did a hair flip. Oh, she did a hair flip. I'm scared. Taking it back to the 1950s. I'm a lady. And I'm a man. I'm a real man. I'm a real man. The way that testosterone came from. Okay. And now we're going to flip a coin. We are. Since we've just rattled on. All right. Tell me when to stop. Stop.
00:16:27
Jeff Rogers
We did this one last time, I think. But it's where are my hands are. Okay, your hands stop there. Okay, so this is the... Tolar. Oh, Slovenia. Yeah. tola Is that what it is? Tolar. Tolar. Tolar. He's told me this 18,000 times. I keep messing it up. That's what I do. I mess it up.
00:16:47
Jeff Rogers
You do great. OK. You are the, and you know I keep saying sparrow, but it could be any other flying creature. I don't know that type of stuff. So I'm the two, and you're the winged thing. Pterodactyl.
00:17:10
Jeff Rogers
all right pterodactyl tis you i go first you do i go first you always go first joe i don't there was a streak there where you went first every time it was yeah that was wild okay are you ready always okay i mean we shook it out before we did this recording what did we shake it out to and the magnificent Lady Gaga and John a blank abracadabra i wanted to say audience but that was have you seen the video i can't oh if you haven't seen the video i'm gonna make you watch it today okay it's so good you can't make me do anything i don't want to do so creative i'm gonna beg you to watch it can you put it on focus it's on focus it's not focusing very well i don't know okay we'll just leave it like that okay
00:18:06
Jeff Rogers
She's looking at me like, I can't help it. Okay. 911 dispatcher. What's the emergency? Caller. We have an intruder in the house next door. The intruder was then in the bedroom with the hammer. The woman who lives there thinks she may have strangled him. He was down when she left. Dispatcher. Can you put her on the phone? Caller. She's bleeding.
00:18:32
Jeff Rogers
Dispatcher. Does she need an ambulance? Call her. No. She's a nurse. She says call an ambulance for the guy. He may be dead. Dispatcher. What did she use on him? Call her. She strangled him. Dispatcher. What else did she do? Call her. She put a choke hold on him. Dispatcher. I've got help on the way. Stay on the line. Call her. She has a hammer here. Dispatcher.
00:19:00
Jeff Rogers
Don't touch it. Don't touch it. Just leave it where it's at. Call her. She hit him in the head with it several times and that's the hammer he had with him. She struck him and
Revealing the Plot Behind the Attack
00:19:10
Jeff Rogers
she strangled him and she thinks he's dead. Dispatch. Was he by himself? Did he have anybody with him? Call her. No, he was alone.
00:19:20
Jeff Rogers
I love that. Oh, I knew you would. So today, I'm going to tell you the survival story of soon Susan Koonhausen. She was an old ER nurse, old school ER nurse from Portland, Oregon. Are you ready for this? Mm-hmm. I think you know this story. I think you do too. It's one of my favorite stories, and I've probably shared it with you.
00:19:49
Jeff Rogers
ah
00:19:53
Jeff Rogers
Daniel thinks he knows this story too because he read that first page last night. I was like don't read anymore. He said I think I know it. So in the 1980s Susan settled in Portland Oregon. She came from a military family so there was a lot of movement around when she was young but she settles in Portland. She's described as larger than life, um has one of those very loud laughs that make people smile,
00:20:17
Jeff Rogers
She earned her licensed practical nursing degree and then went on to earn a registered nursing degree, where she started as an emergency road nurse emergency room nurse in Providence Hospital in Portland, Oregon. Susan's mom thought Susan was missing one thing in her life.
00:20:37
Jeff Rogers
love so susan's mom along with the help of one of susan's friends decided to place an ad in the will lamit week's lonely heart section of the newspaper in january of 1988 and yes it is will lamit week or will lamit a lot of people see that word and they say will limit just for the people there i will say it correctly will lamit um so the ad read someone different, single white female, 33, overweight, but not over life, seeks a single man who wants more out of life than just a slender woman. Healthcare care professional enjoys exploring the Northwest, interested in conversation and a good time with somebody intelligent, must be financially secure. Can you do me a favor one time and write me a single Xan?
00:21:30
Jeff Rogers
absolutely i think that that would be hilarious i can do that and then that can be my obituary when i die No, I can do that for you, though. Yeah, yeah, that'll be cool. ah Susan receives a reply from Michael Koonhausen, who said he enjoyed many of the same things that she enjoyed. So Susan first be ah spen spoke to Mike on the 30th of January, 1988, soon after the ad. They had a great conversation. Mike seemed great. He was smart, so their conversation continued. Over 100 hours of phone time before they met.
00:22:06
Jeff Rogers
Then in February of 1988, they hit it off. Their first date was at the Crystal Springs Rhododendron Garden. They fed the ducks and they talked. They went for a walk. Things went well. And within a year, the couple got hitched in Reno. So not too bad, right?
00:22:23
Jeff Rogers
Now unfortunately, right after they got married, it sort of became a living nightmare for Susan. Like Mike wasn't who she thought he was. He changed, yeah. He just changed. do They do that sometimes. So while they dated, they did fun stuff. It seemed great. Suddenly, Mike, all he's doing is sitting around the house drinking soda and chain smoking cigarettes.
00:22:45
Jeff Rogers
um He's really disengaged now. He doesn't go out with her. He's sort of controlling and he's described. This is his life motto. Life is a shit sandwich and you take a bite of it every day until you die.
00:23:01
Jeff Rogers
Great, love you, you're great. This just isn't who Susan thought she was marrying. And on top of that, he was obsessed with Susan's money and her spending habits. He does work, he's a supervisor over the janitorial department of the Oregon Entertainment, and that's ah a parent company, a fantasy adult video. A job's a job, you gotta work. But Susan, she works as an yeah ER nurse, so she has her own money.
00:23:29
Jeff Rogers
Like she's independent, right? He doesn't like that. So now Susan found herself in essentially a loveless relationship and going through the day-to-day motions. I mean, she felt abandoned. She felt lonely. She's a good person. She has a good job. And like so many people, she deserves to be fucking happy. So in 2005, she decides, okay, enough is enough. She's done. She kicks Mike out of the house because it's her house, okay? Typical. She planned to file for divorce, but Mike isn't about it though. He tries to convince her to stay. He'll do better. He suggests that he could try. Maybe they could go together to counseling again. Don't you hate when you hear that?
00:24:08
Jeff Rogers
I just... But Susan's done. She's done. She's made it clear she's over this shit. um She makes my Mike move out so he moves in with his dad. But Susan never changed the locks on the door or the alarm code, which was 1210, the date of their anniversary. And I'll say this on every episode. and If someone wanted to get into your house or into your car,
00:24:37
Jeff Rogers
Desperately, there is no door. There's no lock. There's no alarm clock or alarm. That's going to prevent them from coming in and alarm clock might That'd be random, right? So now it's September the 6th 2006 Susan is now 51 years old She gets off work. She heads to the beauty salon to get her hair done Don't you love that the beauty salon was called the perfect look?
00:25:02
Jeff Rogers
Susan wanted a change, maybe a new hairstyle, maybe a new color. She leaves the perfect look and she heads home. She gets home around 6.30 p.m. No, it's a good evening, it's nice outside. She goes around back where she normally goes into the house and then she goes into the mud room and she finds a note from Mike. Basically the note said, quote, I've had problems sleeping. I've gone to the beach and I haven't been able to look look out for the cats for a while. Love me. That's how he signed his notes.
00:25:32
Jeff Rogers
And I mean, the beach is like two hours from Portland. People love to go to the coast there. It's a small trip. So, okay, maybe. So Susan goes into the kitchen. The alarm starts beeping. She disarms it. She goes back outside to get the mail from the mailbox. Susan goes back in the house. She goes up the stairs. Now when Susan gets to her bedroom, she notices the bedroom is really dark. And she knows that before she left for work,
00:25:58
Jeff Rogers
She opened up the curtains. She always opens the curtains. Susan is a creature of habit. So now Susan has this gut, she has this gut instinct that's telling her that something isn't right. She might say a pink flag. A pink flag.
00:26:16
Jeff Rogers
and we should take away the color pink and just call it a flag. Same as red, really, just a little lighter. She sort of ignores her gut instinct and goes into the bedroom anyway. That gut instinct, that gut instinct. Like- If something makes you go, whoa, how you you you trust it. And how old is this instinct with the within us? Like, how old is that? Throughout humanity, right? Like, we've got this instinct for a reason. Well, because it's the gut instinct is, is
00:26:45
Jeff Rogers
your brain not able to process the things that you've already observed, right? So something that you have seen, heard, or done has told you that this is a problem, but you can't process it. And then somebody says something that reminds you of those things you didn't process.
00:27:00
Jeff Rogers
And your gut is telling you, run. But I'm just saying that's also an instinct that is from our ancestors and their ancestors and their thousands of years that kept them. We weren't created in 2025, right? well So Susan goes into the bedroom and she sees a man hiding in the shadow. The man has his ball cap pulled down over his eyes and yellow rubber gloves on like the kind you would use in the sink to do the dishes. And he's holding a claw hammer.
00:27:29
Jeff Rogers
Susan knew at this point that he was there to kill her. So he immediately lunged at Susan, striking her in the temple with a claw hammer. Keep in mind that the man there, he's five foot nine, and Susan's only five foot four. So he carries out the attack. Susan manages to scream, who sent you? She's scared because she's unarmed, caught completely by surprise, and he looked evil. So she's terrified. But she screamed, who sent you?
00:27:58
Jeff Rogers
so many things come into play at the time of the attack like she's 5'4 but she's a voluptuous lady she weighs more than him to which i say use it honey uh and she's also an yeah ER nurse now over the years she's been dealing with some pretty violent patients this is nothing new to us She's gone through many self-defense trainings during her time in the ER. She's had to disarm men. She's had to restrain violent patients. Doesn't this sound familiar? Once she even helped a doctor crack open a chest to massage a heart. Susan's seen some shit.
00:28:32
Jeff Rogers
Um, she has skills. Uh, every bit of the training that she's ever had kicks in in this moment. He raises up the claw hammer to attack Susan again, and she crowds him. This is called crowding, like, I'm going to go into you, so when you swing, you don't have all the force as if we were far away. Yeah, and you don't hit the mark that you're going for. Yep, it's harder for him to hit her.
00:28:55
Jeff Rogers
She uses her weight to an advantage and she slams into him. She said, if he has the claw hammer, my body has to be my weapon. So he pushes right back. He pushes her right back up against the bedroom wall. And then he said the only words that he would say that day. And I think probably his last words ever. He said, you're strong.
00:29:18
Jeff Rogers
Then immediately, Susan got chills and the chills went down her spine. Because when he said this, in this moment, she knew that he was there to kill her. And she was in a fight for her life. So they tumble. She fights with them. She eventually grabbed the hammer from him and she screamed, who sent you? There was no answer. Then she remembered advice given to her by her father, which was, if you're going to use a hammer to hurt somebody, use the claw end of the hammer.
00:29:48
Jeff Rogers
Random fatherly advice, right?
00:29:53
Jeff Rogers
Maybe yeah yeah and whatever. She remembered it in that moment. So she hits him really hard in the head several times with the claw end of the hammer. so He grabs the hammer back from her. He is not given up. And Susan, she ain't given up either. She grabs him by the throat all while asking one question. Who sent you? Who sent you? No answer.
00:30:17
Jeff Rogers
But like she knows. I think she has it. it I think 100 percent she knows who it is. So she squeezes his throat a little bit harder. He turns red. Then he turns purple. And then he turns a little blue. So she stops. She doesn't want to kill the man. She just didn't want to die herself. So she lets go. She runs through the bedroom to escape and he chases her and now he's fucking pissed. o Here's a woman. He's probably thinking this. Here's a woman and she's overpowered me. In the hallway, he grabs her. She spins around. He punches her with full force in the face. She falls to the ground. She looks up and see sees him standing over her, but somewhat somehow Susan manages to pull him down to the ground. She starts biting him over and over again, all over his body. And at one point, she bites right through his pants, right through his zipper into his dick.
00:31:15
Jeff Rogers
well He had it coming and even though It's a struggle. She's aware enough at this time, all of the while she's doing this, like she's searching his pockets for his ID. She's gonna throw that shit under the bed somewhere in the room so that the police can find out who he is later on. Right? Finally, Susan manages to get one of her legs over his body. She slips, she flips him around on his stomach and she gets on top of him and she's screaming, who sent you? Her arms are around his throat and she says,
00:31:45
Jeff Rogers
Tell me who sent you here and I'll call you a fucking ambulance. Oh, he said nothing. She was trying to get free and Susan knew that she had no choice. She gripped his throat, even tighter until the man stopped moving. Susan gets up, she grabs the hammer and she runs to the neighbor's house to tell the neighbor to call 911. Her neighbor answers the door and Susan screaming, call the police, call the police.
00:32:11
Jeff Rogers
The neighbor said on the phone call Susan expressed concern that her soon to be ex-husband might be involved with this. ah Police arrive on the scene. The ambulance arrives. The paramedics take Susan to the fa to the hospital to treat her for her injuries. She had some facial injuries, but they were nothing too severe.
00:32:28
Jeff Rogers
That night Portland police found the body of Edward Haffey in the Kuhnhausen's home. They also discovered yellow rubber gloves, a bottle of Hershey's chocolate syrup, and diabetes pills in his possession. that Random shit, right?
00:32:44
Jeff Rogers
what yeah i mean i always bring her she's chocolate syrup when i am going to kill someone do you bring your dad beat his pills no typically i forget this yeah um his name was edward he was a 59 year old vietnam bet who about uh 15 years earlier had ah arranged for the murder of his ex-wife he had recently been released from prison for this edward he kept a daily planner and on september the 4th he wrote Call Mike with Michael Koonhausen's phone number listed. It didn't take long for the police to discover that Ed and Mike worked together in the same adult video store in
Susan's Advocacy and Justice Achieved
00:33:20
Jeff Rogers
the area.
00:33:21
Jeff Rogers
Michael Koonhausen went into hiding hiding after his wife's attempted murder, but the police found him a week later. He was spotted about 10 miles away from Portland, from Providence Portland Medical Center, the hospital where Susan worked. um the following The following day, Susan filed for divorce and changed her last name to Walters. Now, the reason why he wanted to kill Susan was because like she had a trust, right? But her brother's name was on the trust. So if Susan passed away,
00:33:51
Jeff Rogers
The brother was handling everything and he was allowed to have the money or to do with the money what he wanted. The house, if she died, the house went to him, Mike, and the house was was worth like $300,000 to $350,000, so he got that.
00:34:09
Jeff Rogers
What a petty fucking reason, but that's why he did it. So on August 30th, 2007, Michael pleaded guilty to soliciting murder for hire against his wife. And in an hour long statement she gave to the Multnomah County Circuit Court, Susan held up pictures of her own bloodied face to her husband and said, you told the police that you found out I was okay. Do I look okay? Michael Kuhnhausen was sentenced to just 10 years in prison and later had 20 percent of that time were taken off for good behavior. In the years after the attack, Susan said that she felt as though someone was always watching her. She decided to move into a new home in Portland. She spent a lot of her time practicing at the shooting range. She believed she had to be prepared if Michael ever came back. But Mike would never came back come back because Michael Koonhausen died from cancer in prison just three months before his scheduled release. That's karma.
00:35:06
Jeff Rogers
Susan Kuhnhausen learned the night of the hammer attack that she had killed Ed, and during an interview with I Survived, she recounted how she felt in those first moments after hearing that her would-be killer was dead. She said, quote, I immediately begin to think about his family. Everybody has somebody who loves them, children, a wife, a mother, a dad. The worst of this is not that somebody tried to kill me, but that I had to kill somebody else to survive.
00:35:34
Jeff Rogers
but I have no shame in what I did because I didn't choose death for him. I chose my life. I chose life. So today, Susan is deeply involved with victim advocacy work after her survival from the hit men. Former yeah ER nurses worked closely with justice organizations in the Portland area, including Women's Strength, Girls' Strength Programs, and Oregon Crime Victims Law Center.
00:36:00
Jeff Rogers
And that is the story of Susan Kuhnhausen, now Susan Walters. I love that. Didn't you love that story? I love that. Oh, I mean, not for Ed, but yeah, you know, and where he goes Susan, but you know, she didn't want to kill him. Like she's a nurse she didn't and she gave him an option, but if it was her life or his, I mean, yeah you got to go. Yeah.
00:36:24
Jeff Rogers
And at one point when it was, I think when the eye survived, she said when they were struggling and rolled around in the hallway, she said I was like a downed power line snapping against the earth. Oh, that's so badass. Wow. I was like a downed power line.
00:36:45
Jeff Rogers
okay so that was that was my lovely so that's why i wanted to dedicate this show to the to yeah that was not you know that's susan's story yeah but she represents a lot right well because like all the all the technically they're not considered self-defense courses but you know they're considered de-escalation courses you know because in the er we do experience patients who are on drugs or angry or violent or whatever it is and and even Even the patients that are 90 years old and have dementia that are wicked strong. I mean, you have to figure out a way to not get hurt. So that's awesome. So cheers to the ER nurses, the doctors, the techs. Everybody everybody that works with us. someone was a good like That's a good one to cheers to, for sure.
00:37:39
Jeff Rogers
It tastes like- That's so good. Your face just says, this is the best drink ever. I need you to drink all that. I thought it was going to get better as it went, but every sip I take, it's like, it tastes like medicine, but poison medicine. Just hold your nose, and then drink the drink. Take a big swig. Okay. Go, go, go, go, go. I throw up on you. It's my fault.
00:38:01
Jeff Rogers
Yeah, to the badass yeah ER nurses out there. and does some you know Pretty good doctors too. it i' Give them all the credit. I love that for you, that dream. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
00:38:15
Jeff Rogers
okay On that note, thank you for sharing Susan's story. You're welcome. I love that. It makes me kind of wonder like, if I were put in that same situation,
00:38:32
Jeff Rogers
i don't I don't think it would have been as successful. I don't quite have a lot of mass and would be to me. That would be a screaming Nellie and then of a die. Well, no, you could just like choke hold them with your legs. Your calves alone, all you have to do is flex. like I think we could harness something inside of us. For me, and that's the thing, is like she was put to the ultimate test. you know It was her life or she died, and so she did it. and She used her body as the weapon. He had the fucking weapon. She's like, I need to make my body the weapon. But that's what I'm saying is like, I would love to say that some primal instinct would kick in in me to survive. But also, I don't have a body to throw at an attacker. If I move the wrong way, my hip dislocates. So they wouldn't have to fight very much. They would just be like, oh, Barbie.
00:39:26
Jeff Rogers
No, that's how you do it. That's how you do it. Like you dislocate, dislocate a hip. You dislocate a shoulder. Then you dislocate your other shoulder and then you scare the shit out of him. He's like, what am I looking at? Just come at him and come at him. Look like you're the exorcist, you know? Yeah, that's what I'm going to do with his yellow gloves on. He'd like be running across the street away from the house. Perfect. That's what I'm going to do.
00:39:55
Jeff Rogers
Just going to terrify people with my hypermobile joints. and I'd be in the house across the street being like, yeah, she dislocated again. She's going to be dead. Perfect. yeah Perfect. As long as you were there narrating on the phone with the cops. Oh, don't worry. The man's fleeing down the street. She's got to call him right now. She's fine. He's probably dead. Can you go check on it?
00:40:16
Jeff Rogers
i'll have the I'll have the wine open over here when she gets here. and You know what? we Yeah, for sure. I'll have some Jack Daniel's please don't Southern Peach. Please don't. I'll let him kill me. I mean, I will finish this because the joy that you're getting from it. Oh, bored.
00:40:33
Jeff Rogers
ah here's with these fucking headphones on i constantly like if my ear itches you'll see me go like hitting my headphones trying to scratch my ear it is not working for me stop the madness jeff i can't get to my ear because the big headphones on it I do that when I have my AirPods or my little, but one of those buds they're called, the little ones that you stick in there. I'll be like, oh my God, why is my ear so itchy? And then I'll try to do it and then my ear bud goes yeah tumbling across the floor. You just look at me and I'm just over here hitting my ear, hitting it over and over again, trying to scratch it. You're doing great. This is a good show. You're doing so good.
00:41:09
Jeff Rogers
Oh, God. Okay. On that note, I'm going to tell a story of a different nature. um It's an interesting one, a courtesy of Mr. Balan, as we know, we love him. He's kind of handsome. He's, he's, he's great. He's, I just love his stories. But you know, you get the story and then you go diving deeper into it and you read all of the details that even he didn't share and oh let me tell you you know i love watching him he's such a good storyteller but also he's hot he wears the flannel like he's in nothing but flannel and the backwards baseball cap it's basically me yeah basically it's the man version of you i love that so i've never seen his youtube i've only ever listened to him on on spotify so i'll have to watch his youtube okay
00:41:58
Jeff Rogers
November 18th, 1942 in
1942 Oregon State Hospital Poisoning Mystery
00:42:00
Jeff Rogers
Oregon. What? Yes. Within the span of approximately 12 hours, 400 people became violently ill and dozens were dead. Have you heard this one?
00:42:14
Jeff Rogers
um
00:42:17
Jeff Rogers
Maybe. A few hours before all hell broke loose, kitchen staff Mickey McCollab and George Nosin were starting the dinner preparations to feed the nearly 500 psychiatric patients in residence at the Oregon State Hospital. For about a year leading up to the incident, the hospital had been horribly understaffed due to nurses leaving to participate in the war effort. The ratio during the days was about one nurse to 16 patients. You know, that sounds fucking horrible.
00:42:46
Jeff Rogers
Just wait, because on night shift, the ratio was one nurse for every 150 patients. Because that sounds so safe. oh Mickey and his boss were so desperate for assistance in the kitchen that they began asking trustworthy patients for their help. 27-year-old George Nosin stepped up to volunteer. George was initially admitted to the hospital because of epilepsy.
00:43:12
Jeff Rogers
However, the disease was wildly misunderstood at the time. His parents were unsure what to do for him, so they took took him to the state hospital because they just wanted his seizures to stop. During his intake assessment, the hospital psychologist diagnosed him with paranoid schizophrenia, completely unfounded, and involuntarily committed him for life. Shut up. Then he had epilepsy.
00:43:39
Jeff Rogers
George never showed any any signs or symptoms of schizophrenia. That's 1949 for you there. 42. 42, yeah. Mickey felt bad for George and was happy to have him help out in the kitchens. He was well behaved, mild mannered, and he never caused any problems. Dinner was to be scrambled egg yolks and toast. There were shortages of all kinds at the time, thanks to the war.
00:44:04
Jeff Rogers
The food for the hospital was primarily supplied from government surplus deliveries due to rationing. The evening of November 18th, George had set a few containers of egg yolks out to thaw as instructed by Mickey, and then Mickey started the stovetop to thaw them faster. The two then went to work cutting bread for toast. I mean, doesn't that just sound delicious? like Once the eggs were thawed, Mickey instructed George to grab the powdered milk because without it, they couldn't be scrambled.
00:44:33
Jeff Rogers
ah just George, also as instructed by Mickey, grabbed the postem powder. Do you know what postem powder is? It's a roasted grain beverage, caffeine-free substitute for coffee. And holy cow, it just, it looks horrible. Horrible. Really? And it doesn't have caffeine? I'm out.
00:44:57
Jeff Rogers
toast. um Mickey even allowed George to mix it himself. Typically Mickey never allowed patients to touch the food, so he took a quick sip to make sure that it was correct. Based on the chalky text, the chalky taste and texture, he knew it was done right.
00:45:13
Jeff Rogers
There you go. You know what though, I get that. Yeah, I like that. Chalky taste and tension. No, it's, you know, when you're doing, when you're making something or you have your coffee based on the color, the, you know, you know it's right. You know, you got it right. Or when you're making something on the stove, gravy. Or a brew. Yeah. Okay. Unfortunately, while he was taking a sip, the eggs burned a bit. He tried to correct it by adding a nice,
00:45:42
Jeff Rogers
Happy helping of salt. They looked all right. So Mickey said it was time to serve. That's my way to do it. If I burn some shit, add a little salt. Can't hurt. Together, the two loaded the food onto delivery carts. They headed out to drop the trays off at each of the five wards. They made their way through the wards. By the time they arrived in the fifth and final ward, the patients were clamoring to get started eating. OK, was it? OK.
00:46:12
Jeff Rogers
was Was it salt? I'm sorry. Maybe. Okay. Do you think it was salt? I'm thinking out loud. Sorry, I don't know. I have no idea. I don't know this story. Interesting. I just was having a thought and it came out of my mouth. and I'm having a thought. They were lined up and waiting for Mickey and George to start serving. The food was served and everybody tumbled onto the benches around the long tables to dig in. From across one of the dining hall tables, Mickey cringed as he heard a patient complain about how salty the eggs were.
00:46:43
Jeff Rogers
Moments later, another patient began choking. A nurse headed to the table to assist the patient, but as she patted him on the back, he keeled over and threw up all over her shoes. She screamed and when Mickey looked at the vomit, he saw bright red blood. The patient fell to the floor and then other patients began screaming as that patient began seizing. Was it salt?
00:47:11
Jeff Rogers
I'm gonna go with the salt. At this point, I have no idea what's happening. I mean, he cooked and then he burnt the eggs and then fixed that by adding salt. A heaping handful. Right, a heaping handful. At the same moment, many other patients throughout the hall began vomiting blood as well. Mickey tried to yell above the chaos to tell everybody to stop eating, but it was too late.
00:47:37
Jeff Rogers
The patients had all become so hungry while waiting for dinner that they had all nearly cleared their plates. People were in different states of mayhem. Some continued vomiting blood. Others collapsed to the floor in seizures or in what looked like excruciating pain. A man that Mickey tried to help began clawing at his face, screaming about how he couldn't feel it.
00:48:00
Jeff Rogers
His face became swollen, his lips blue, and then as Mickey tried to help him up, the man collapsed again, screaming that he couldn't feel or move his legs. yeah A nurse ran into the hallway to sound the alarm.
00:48:17
Jeff Rogers
Dr. William Lydbeck was a physician on call and living in a cottage that was on the hospital grounds. He received a panicked call from a nurse and all he could hear was screaming, sobbing, and the nurse begging him to come help. He threw his dinner aside and he rushed to the hospital building. As he neared, he could hear screaming from his position on the lawn. He entered the side entrance to find the hallway lined with patients in disarray.
00:48:46
Jeff Rogers
Most were coughing up blood. Some were strapped to gurneys and thrashing wildly. The scene in the cafeteria was even worse. There were dozens of patients on the floor flailing with swollen faces, discolored lips, and blood everywhere. As he traveled to his office to get his medical bag, one of the other wards was the same. But when he crossed into ward two, two the scene changed. There were no patients in the hallways.
00:49:13
Jeff Rogers
You could hear the screams coming from downstairs, but all of the patients were tucked into their beds. The head nurse from the second ward intercepted Dr. Lydbeck and explained that she had demanded her patients stop eating their eggs immediately after she took her first bite. She informed him that they had tasted spoiled and none of her patients were to eat them. She had experienced some vomiting, but her patients were saved thanks to her.
00:49:40
Jeff Rogers
He knew the eggs themselves couldn't be the problem. If the eggs had been that bad, they wouldn't have looked right and would have been thrown out. But if everybody had gotten sick right after eating the eggs, there must have been something else added to them to have this happen. um Salt. Just so we're here saying all salt. Salt, salt, salt. He thanked her for stopping her patients for eating any more from eating anymore and told her to find him if she started feeling any worse. He took off back down to the chaos of the other wards.
00:50:09
Jeff Rogers
As he rounded the corner, there was a gurney being pushed with a bloodied sheet draped over a body. He couldn't stop to grieve. He had hundreds, hundreds more patients to treat and hopefully help. 16 hours later, Governor Sprigg rushed to an emergency media meeting in the state capital. Fear and panic had increased. The initial the initial hypothesis was that there had been some sort of tampering or intentional poisoning by quote, enemies to the US. It's world war times, you know Oregon. So that's what their initial thought was. The FDA had already ordered that any institution that had received a shipment from the same batch of eggs was to immediately stop using or eating the products. Again, because of the war and rationing, the larger shipment had been divided among state and federal institutions, including schools.
00:51:06
Jeff Rogers
hospitals, and jails. By 10.30 in the morning, 47 people had already died and approximately 350 more were still violently ill. The small morgue was overrun, shrouded bodies lined the hallways and filled the chapel.
00:51:24
Jeff Rogers
The governor contacted the police chief of Salem, Oregon, where the hospital was located, and confirmed that there were enough resources available to investigate this possible attack. Again, still thinking that somebody somewhere had gotten into the supply. I've seen this hospital before. I've driven by this hospital. I used to live in Salem. Ooh. I love that place. I don't know if it was still open. They might have closed it. Such is the way. Such is the way.
00:51:54
Jeff Rogers
um At about the same time the governor was contacting the police, the coroner received permission to perform autopsies on six of the bodies. A few hours later, as the superintendent of the hospital began an experiment, he was thinking about the news he had received from the coroner's toxicology tests. They had confirmed poisoning, but they did not yet know what substance had been used.
00:52:18
Jeff Rogers
So Dr. Evans began his test on lab rats using a plate of eggs from the night before. One of the plates contained a sample of the eggs that had been served. And a separate plate with eggs came straight out of the freezer and had not been prepared. Within minutes of feeding, all of the rats in the first test group were dead and bloodied. While the other cage was full of perfectly healthy and fat looking rats.
00:52:48
Jeff Rogers
This meant that the eggs had not been poisoned or tampered with on a massive scale by some unknown enemy spy. The tampering had occurred within the prison, likely at or near the time of preparation. The doctor was horrified because he realized that he now had a mass murderer in his hospital. He called the police.
00:53:14
Jeff Rogers
On November 22nd, just a few days later, the police were working their way through interviewing all of the patients and staff. Tests revealed that the poison had been sodium fluoride, cockroach poison. Mickey had been questioned for many hours by the time he finally decided to come clean.
00:53:35
Jeff Rogers
He averted his eyes while he admitted that he knew more than he was sharing. He was exhausted and suffering from a migraine when he realized he wouldn't be able to leave until he shared. He told the officers that he knew exactly who had poisoned the eggs and hadn't done a thing to stop it.
00:53:54
Jeff Rogers
That's so interesting.
00:53:57
Jeff Rogers
An hour later, he and his boss were taken out of the hospital in handcuffs under charges of manslaughter and accessory to manslaughter. Mickey had recalled that the events of the evening the through the events of the evening, he remembered seeing George Nelson cowering on the floor in a hallway. Together, they had gone through mimicking every step of dinner. They went down to the kitchen to recreate the night to find the powdered milk that had been mixed with the eggs.
00:54:28
Jeff Rogers
At the bottom of the stairs to the storerooms, there were two doors. On the left was the door for dry goods. Mickey immediately started walking towards that door, but George walked to the right door that held fruits and vegetables. He unlocked it and he went inside. On the floor of that storeroom on the right was a large unmarked canister filled with white powder. There was a scooper in the powder, so it looked like it had just been used.
00:54:58
Jeff Rogers
Mickey's heart dropped, but he didn't say anything. He thanked George and sent him back up to his rooms. He immediately ran out of the kitchen to his boss. He took her back to the kitchen to show her what he had just discovered. Mary blanched and knew what had gone wrong. It was against the rules to give patients keys to the storerooms. However, with
Investigation and Consequences of the Poisoning
00:55:20
Jeff Rogers
the staffing shortages,
00:55:21
Jeff Rogers
George being so helpful, Mickey didn't think twice about giving him the keys that night to go to get the powdered milk. Initially, Mickey and his boss had agreed not to tell anyone because they were afraid of the fallout. Mary kept her secret, but Mickey quickly cracked. He told a true story to the detectives. George had accidentally gone into the wrong store room and obtained a heaping scoop of white powder, thinking it was the milk he had been looking for.
00:55:51
Jeff Rogers
In adults, a lethal dose of sodium fluoride is just 5 to 10 grams, about the size of a sugar packet. Unfortunately, George had unknowingly put approximately 5 pounds oh into the eggs. Nobody is sure why or how the poison was stored where it was.
00:56:14
Jeff Rogers
Mary and Mickey both lost their jobs, although the charges against them were dismissed, but the hospital was found liable. George suffered significant emotional and psychological trauma and endured reless relentless bullying after the incident. He went from being docile and quiet to fighting and brawling to protect himself. During one of these fights in 1983, he was severely injured and died as a result.
00:56:40
Jeff Rogers
Oh, damn, what a mistake. What a mistake. But you know what? That's the kind of shit that happens when you have 100 patients per nurse or whatever the shortage is, right? Talk about staffing shortages. That's the kind of mistake you have. When you have staffing shortage, that's what happens.
00:57:05
Jeff Rogers
yeah Poor George though, he never forgave himself. It was never his fault. I hate it. That's bad. That's horrible. yeah Poor George. and He wasn't supposed to be there. He was never supposed to be there. He just had epilepsy.
00:57:21
Jeff Rogers
like right Doesn't that just gut you? He just had epilepsy, not ah schizophrenia. People of the 40s, come on. yeah When I first started,
00:57:33
Jeff Rogers
researching it or listening to Mr. Ballon's episode, I initially thought, oh, like George, who doesn't have any actual mental or psychiatric disorder, he's tired of being there. He's in for life, so he's going to kill all of these people. So I thought it was him intentionally doing it. And then researching more about it, like. It was just every possible mistake that could have happened.
00:57:57
Jeff Rogers
Wow, that was, well, that was horrible. Yeah. But good story. Good job, George. Hey, you know what? We brought people two stories that were both from Oregon today. We did one of the chances. Yeah, that's pretty cool. I tell you, OK, I used to work at the Salem Health Emergency Department and yeah it is my hope that some of them listened to this.
00:58:25
Jeff Rogers
And that they know that i that was one of my favorite places that I've ever worked. In Oregon, out of the nine states that I've lived in, I say this all the time because I have people from all over the world, all over the country that are in our job. And they'll say, what's your favorite state? Hands down, without a doubt, Oregon was my favorite state. that i is my favorite state that I've ever lived in. It is so beautiful. The evergreen trees ah swimming in the rivers in the summertime. You can see to the bottom of the river. It's really important to you. People were happy. I mean, just it was a generally like a happy group of people that I worked with.
00:59:06
Jeff Rogers
And it was so busy. They called it The Shed, Salem Health ED. so that I worked in The Shed. So, here's the first time you've ever said that. To The Shed, yeah. Yeah, they were awesome. Awesome group of people, especially just one. And here's the Carrie, who I used to work with. Carrie was, she was the one sitting at the desk answering the phone, building the phone calls, you know, having two screens up in front of her face all the time.
00:59:34
Jeff Rogers
Hopefully, she's listening. And yeah, ah see she would say something like, hey, babes. Like, she'd be doing seven ah seven things right but when I walked up to her. Seven things. Tapping on the computer, answering the phone call. I'd come up to her and I'd be like, I need this one thing. Suddenly, still doing the seven things she was doing, she would hand me the one thing that I needed. And that was Carrie. All the while listening to Prince. She was a Prince girl. Oh. She listened to Prince all the time.
01:00:04
Jeff Rogers
Let me talk about Prince last night at work. At the Salem Health Emergency Department. oh um Well, so you know what? This show has been fun. Again, cheers to the ER people out there. And I want to thank Alan, our overqualified, underpaid master publisher, content creator extraordinaire. Woo! Yes. And Ashley, the ultimate and epically unmatched hype queen editor. Together, our first.
01:00:33
Jeff Rogers
and forever fans. And to everybody that listens and all your cosmic fabulosity, we thank you for that. Thank you for listening. Keep spreading the word. We're just two people having fun. And we're sharing that with you. And that is it for today, folks. Bye.