Delaware : Susan Ledyard
Photo: NBC News
Wilmington is the largest city in the state of Delaware, located in the northeastern part of the state along the Christina River. Wilmington has a rich history dating back to the early Dutch and Swedish settlers in the 17th century. The city played a significant role in the American Revolution and the Civil War. It is known for being a major financial center, with many banks and credit card companies headquartered there. The city has a diverse economy that includes finance, insurance, healthcare, and manufacturing.
The crime stats are alarming, and I swear neighborhood scout .com rates every town we cover in the single digits as far as safety is compared to other cities. Wilmington is rated a 1, which is more dangerous than 99% of all other cities. To put this in perspective, the national average for violent crime rate is a 4, the state of Delaware is a 4.2 then we have Wilmington, which is a whopping 15. Not a safe place, to say the least. Today, we are discussing the murder of a beloved high school teacher, and that is why we are navigating advocacy in Delaware today.
Susan Ledyard formally Susan Morrissey was just 50 years old when she was found dead in a river just one mile from her house. Susan was born on June 7th, 1969 in West Chester, Pennsylvania. She had two sisters meg and missy and one brother named John. Susan attended private school most of her life aand then when it was time for college she set her sights on Georgetown Univeristy for her undergraduate degee and then San Fransisco Univeristy for her masters in education. She would then spend a year teaching in overseas schools then back to California for a short stint befor making her way to the Wilmington Delaware area where she took a position as a highschool language arts teacher at Academy Park High School in Sharon Hill, Pennsylvania.
Susan was described as a book worm who would be seen on every school break with a book in her hand. She was a deep thinker and an advocate for human rights. Susan married a man named Ben Ledyard just three years before her murder. Ben had two daughtrers that became Susan’s step daughters. The couple seemed to have a loving relationship. Ben was a managing director of US Trust and was on the board of trustees for the Delaware Museum of Natural History, according to his Linked profile.
Susan was full of life and was one of those teachers that students referred to years later. She wasnt all about grammar rules like most english teachers she was all about literature and helping her students learn to love reading just as she did.
Susan was a night owl, to say the least, and would often be texting her friend late into the early morning hours, and this was no different than on July 23rd, 2019. It was about 2:45 am when Susan ended her texting conversations with her friends. Nothing was out of the ordinary in these text messages, just normal chatter but it was what happened next that left authorities baffled. You see, at 3:02 am, Susan’s car pulls out of her driveway, and, roughly two minutes later, is 'parked' on Walkers Mill Road. Based on the amount of time that passed, detectives believe her black Honda Civic was driven directly from the house to this location. Once the vehicle is parked in this area, the headlights turn off and then we are not able to tell if anyone got out or if anyone got in this vehicle. From this point on authorities do not know what Susan was up to they do know she was active because of a Fitbit watch until about 7 am that morning.
I have plenty of questions when it comes to Susan being active. This information comes from the Fitbit website “To be able to count the number of steps there is a finely tuned algorithm that detects unique motion patterns. The motion patterns must be large enough to meet the specific threshold of the algorithm, meaning that some steps could go uncounted if walking on very soft carpet or steps may be added if driving on a bumpy road, and the algorithm's threshold is met.” I'm just thinking could a person be carried and the Fitbit registers as walking? Or would it need the swinging motion of the arm to track as active? Police are certain she was activ, and they have been trying to find anyone who may have seen her between the hours of 3 am and 7 am that morning.
That very day at 7:39 am, the body of Susan Ledyard was recovered from the Brandywine River in the area of Northeast Boulevard right there in Wilmington, Delaware. She had visible injuries to her face & body. The fact that someone found her that quickly was amazing, honestly, before anyone knew she was even missing. Finding someone who quickly aids in the fight for justice significantly, but it has been four years, and this case is still unsolved.
Just a few hours later, Susan’s vehicle was found at 8:54 am with her purse and cell phone inside. The vehicle was found parked adjacent to the Rising Sun Lane Bridge, which went over the Brandywine River, and this was approximately three miles upriver from the location where Susan was recovered. However, police do not believe Susan entered the river here. Did they come to this conclusion because of the fitness tracker or something else? Another thing to note is that this tracker only recorded one miler of steps in that four-hour unaccounted period of time and from where the car was located to where she was found was three miles.
Photo: NBC News
I want to go over Ben's (Susan’s husband's) statement of what happened that night. Ben told detectives he had gone to see a movie with a friend around 8:00 pm. When he got home, he said Susan was on the back porch drinking wine and texting on her phone. He stayed up with her a while then as he was going up to bed, he told her that they had a busy day the next day and she shouldn't stay up too late. The couple had plans to see the Rolling Stones. Susan stated she wouldn't be up too much longer and Ben went off to bed. Ben woke up to police at his door informing him that his wife was no longer alive. He was never even aware that his wife was missing. He told authorities he thought Susan may have taken an Ambien to help her sleep and then possibly sleptwalked. It would take four months before the results of the autopsy would come back. It revealed Susan died of blunt force trauma and drowning and her death was ruled a homicide. This left her family reeling because they honestly thought this was some type of horrific accident and to be told that someone purposely did this to their loved one left them struggling to accept.
Even with finding Susan so quickly and knowing where she was before her murder, it has still left authorities with more questions than answers. In September of 2021 just over two years after the murder of his second wife Susan. He married a woman by the name of Stephanie and they weren't together long before Ben was charged and convicted of assault on his wife on New Year's Day 2023. He struck his wife over the head with a marble block during this fight, he then grabbed her hair and smashed her head repeatedly into the hardwood floor. On a different occasion, Ben allegedly bit off the tip of her pinky finger and stated to her he may have swallowed it. She did go to the hospital for this injury but told doctors that she hurt it on a door then later recanted and said that Ben did it. Later this year he had another incident where police were called when he was renting an Air BNB, and the neighbors heard yelling and banging next door. Ben was with an unidentified female and caused over 1700 dollars in destruction to the property. Holes were punched in the walls, blood was on the carpets, and throughout the house, the kitchen door was broken. It does seem as if Ben has an anger problem and the fact that he is six foot six inches tall, he can definitely do some damage. Police did contact Stephanie, the third wife, to make sure she wasn't the one at the Airbnb, and she told authorities she was not there, so this was most likely another woman he decided to get violent with.
Susan never mentioned that Ben was violent with her to anyone. Could he have mental health issues after the murder of his wife and started this new violent tendencies? Or could he have had something to do with the murder of his wife? No one knows why Susan went out that late at night, no one knows if she was supposed to be meeting someone or if she actually met them. There are just so many questions with little to no answers. There hasn't been any new information or any person of interest released, and Susan’s family is doing everything they possibly can to keep her name in the media. They have a Facebook page that killed Susan and a foundation called the Susan Morrissey Foundation. It gives a student at the high school she taught a cash scholarship who excels in the subject of English and who demonstrates a love for reading and writing.
Photo: Delaware Online
Anyone with information about Ledyard’s death or who may have seen something the morning she was killed is asked to contact Grassi at 302-365-8441 or daniel.grassi@delaware.gov. There is a 50,000 dollar reward.
