An Arlington man who in 2020 killed his wife and then spent days in the house with her body before she was discovered has pleaded guilty and been sentenced to 10 years in prison, according to court records and his attorney.
Police have said that on April 11, 2020, Joseph Sudduth strangled his wife with a cord, put her body in a trash bag and kept it in their house until April 23, when police found the remains of 65-year-old Sue Sudduth.
Police made the discovery after a relative called to report that a body might be in the home. That same relative told police that Joseph Sudduth was in a hospital in Temple after he reportedly tried to overdose himself. The husband, now 65, was arrested in Temple in 2020 and later returned to Tarrant County.
Detectives said at the time of his arrest that they believed Joseph Sudduth might have strangled Sue Sudduth to death just hours after an April 11, 2020, visit to the home by police responding to a domestic disturbance call.
Both Sue Sudduth and Joseph Sudduth made calls to 911 on April 11, reporting that the other was abusing them. In a recording of Sue Sudduth’s 28-minute call to police, acquired by the Star-Telegram in 2020, she told the 911 operator she just wanted to find happiness in what remained of her life.
While staying on the phone with the 911 operator as she awaited the arrival of police, Sue Sudduth talked about how her husband had physically and emotionally abused her. She said he had held a broken plate up to her face, strangled her and twisted her arm behind her back.
At one point, she told the operator she had tried to divorce her husband. In 2019, she asked him to give her $10,000 out of a 401k so she could get her own apartment. He refused, she said.
Joseph Sudduth was sentenced Thursday as part of a plea agreement. In a news release from his defense counsel, criminal defense attorney Christy Jack wrote that she had obtained evidence showing the portrayal of her client following the arrest was inaccurate.
“During the investigation and the months that followed, Joey was portrayed as an abusive husband,” Jack said in the news release. “After conducting our own investigation, we provided evidence to the contrary.”
She cited interviews with and letters from people who knew the couple, “chronicling their true relationship.”
Sue Sudduth had “previously engaged in assaultive behavior in another state,” Jack wrote in the release. She also mentioned a Class C charge alleging Sue Sudduth had assaulted her husband.
According to the release, Joseph Sudduth’s attorneys argued that the killing was a crime of “sudden passion,” a legal standard that reduces the maximum sentence to 20 years, a reduction from a maximum of life in prison.
Sudden passion can apply when a murder is committed out of an emotional reaction in response to a provocation from the victim or someone acting with the victim at the time of the offense and “is not solely the result of former provocation.”
Jack said in the news release that the provocation occurred during an argument about the Class C assault ticket against Sue Sudduth.
“She made an unforgivable statement about his bedridden mother and Joey snapped,” Jack wrote in the release. “This is a perfect example of why we have sudden passion in the law.”
Sue Sudduth’s daughter Angela Walter told the defense was engaging in victim blaming and that she feels the prosecution bought into that defense.
“And then all of sudden they tell me they’re giving a plea deal and that my mom was ‘unlikable.’ I feel so betrayed and that they let my mom down,” Walter said.
When she got the call about the plea deal for her stepfather, Walter emotionally recalled, the prosecuting attorney told her they were going to take a guilty plea in exchange for 10 years in prison. She told them that wasn’t acceptable and that while she thought her stepfather should get the maximum sentence possible, she would be willing to support it as a family member if it were at least 30 years.
The Tarrant County Criminal District Attorney’s Office has not released any statements or comments to the Star-Telegram regarding the reason for the plea deal.
There was a long period where Walter didn’t talk to her mother, in part because of her marriage to Joseph Sudduth. She says now, especially after learning so much more about who her mother was while she sorted through Sue Sudduth’s belongings and talked to friends and family members, she wishes they’d managed to mend their relationship.
Walter learned that Sue Sudduth beat breast cancer just months before she was killed and that she loved history and was taking up painting again, something she hadn’t done since she was a teenager. She still remembers a painting her mother did of a forest that always hung in her grandparents’ house.
Sue Sudduth was an avid baseball fan who loved to cook, had a passion for Halloween and would make costumes with Walter every year and worked as a docent in a museum in Fort Worth. She loved books and had large floor-to-ceiling shelves in her living room and bedroom filled to capacity with texts on art, history, U.S. presidents, photography, Shih Tzus and the Pacific Northwest. Angela was shocked to learn how much she and her mother had in common, even after going years without talking.
“You can’t take the DNA out of people, no matter how far away you are or how long it is,” Walter said.
She also learned that her mother had been keeping tabs on her in recent years and wanted to try to reconnect. Now that she’s discovered so much about Sue Sudduth, Walter said the plea deal has left her feeling even more betrayed. She said it was suggested that she call in via Zoom to give her victim impact testimony after the sentencing, something that added insult to the emotional trauma of the entire process.
“I wanted a trial so everyone can know what a monster he is, and it didn’t happen,” Walter said. “They just give him 10 years and he can be out (on parole) in five. I waited three years for something to happen.”
The experience led Walter to go back to school and receive a master’s degree in criminal justice. She plans to become a victim’s advocate.
“People need to know it’s nothing like what you think. It’s not like TV where the bad guys get punished like they should,” Walter said. “I want to be there for those people to say, ‘Yeah, this is how it works but you’re going to be OK.’ “