Bio

Conan Wayne Hale was born on December 28, 1975. By late 1995, Hale was 19 years old and living in the Eugene and Springfield area of Oregon. Before the murders, Hale was associated with Jonathan Wayne Susbauer. The two were involved in burglaries and robberies in the Eugene area. Court records state that in December 1995, Hale and Susbauer broke into homes, stole property, and damaged items inside the residences. One of the stolen items was a .38 caliber Taurus revolver, which later became the murder weapon.

Several days before the killings, Hale and Susbauer were also linked to an attack on two teenagers, Kara Krause and Jesse Jarvis, who were parked in a remote wooded area near Eugene. The attacker threatened them with a machete, ordered them to undress, and sexually assaulted Krause. Jarvis later identified Susbauer as one of the men and said Hale possibly resembled the masked attacker. This incident became part of the wider criminal case against Hale.

Murder Story

Late on December 20, 1995, Conan Wayne Hale and Jonathan Wayne Susbauer were riding in a stolen silver Chevrolet Suburban in Lane County, Oregon. They encountered four teenagers: Kristal Bendele, Brandon Williams, Patrick Finley, and Michael Black. Bendele was Hale’s former girlfriend, and Williams was her current boyfriend. Hale offered the group a ride. Bendele, Williams, and Finley accepted, while Black declined and walked away.

The next day, December 21, 1995, two men discovered the bodies of Kristal Bendele and Brandon Williams near a logging landing at McGowan Creek. Both had been shot. Patrick Finley was found nearby, still alive but critically wounded. He had been shot in the head and shoulder and was wearing clothing connected to the earlier burglary, including a rabbit-fur jacket. Finley never regained consciousness and died four days later.

Investigators recovered physical evidence linking Hale and Susbauer to the crimes. Police seized the .38 caliber Taurus revolver from Susbauer’s residence. Ballistics testing showed that the bullets recovered from the scene and the victims had been fired from that gun. Police also searched Hale’s bedroom and recovered a black trench coat and a machete. DNA evidence connected both Hale and Susbauer to the sexual assault evidence recovered in the case.

Hale and Susbauer blamed each other. Susbauer cooperated with prosecutors and pleaded guilty to aggravated murder and other charges. He received a life sentence. Hale went to trial and argued that Susbauer was responsible for the killings and that he was not the main perpetrator. The prosecution argued that Hale acted out of anger and jealousy connected to Bendele’s relationship with Brandon Williams.

Hale was convicted of multiple crimes, including 13 counts of aggravated murder, kidnapping, rape, sodomy, unlawful sexual penetration, sexual abuse, burglary, theft, and criminal mischief. On May 29, 1998, he was sentenced to death.

His case also became nationally known because Lane County jail officials secretly recorded a conversation between Hale and Roman Catholic priest Father Timothy Mockaitis. The priest had visited Hale at the jail after Hale requested confession. Catholic officials challenged the recording, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that the secret taping violated religious protections and civil rights law. The confession tape was not admitted at trial.

In 2003, the Oregon Supreme Court reviewed Hale’s convictions and death sentences. The court reversed six of the 13 aggravated murder convictions but affirmed seven aggravated murder convictions and the death sentences connected to the three victims. The case was remanded for corrected judgments so that the convictions would reflect one aggravated murder conviction for each victim, based on alternative aggravating factors.

Although Hale was originally sentenced to death, Oregon later commuted all remaining death sentences in the state to life without parole. Because of that statewide commutation, Hale is no longer awaiting execution and remains imprisoned under a life-without-parole sentence.