He hid behind the bedroom door with a hammer, waiting for her to come home. He had no idea he'd picked a fight with someone who'd spent thirty years restraining violent patients for a living.
An Ordinary Evening, Almost
On September 6, 2006, 51-year-old Susan Kuhnhausen finished a shift as an emergency room nurse at Providence Portland Medical Center, stopped by her hairdresser to joke about needing a new color to get through a rough divorce, and headed home to Southeast Portland, Oregon. She and her husband of 18 years, Michael, had separated, though the split had seemed amicable enough — she found a note from him that evening saying he'd gone to the beach.
The house felt wrong the moment she stepped inside. Susan lived alone and knew exactly where everything belonged; small things were out of place. She moved through the house carefully, checking room by room, until she reached her bedroom.
A Hammer, and a Fight for Her Life
A man had been hiding behind the door. He came out swinging a claw hammer and struck her in the temple. Susan went down, and he got on top of her, continuing to hit her.
What he didn't know was that Susan had spent thirty years working as an ER nurse, including extensive training in physically restraining violent and combative patients. She fought back hard — wrestling the hammer away from him, biting him, and eventually getting him into a chokehold. By the time she released him, he had stopped breathing.
Susan ran to a neighbor's house and called 911 herself. "We have an intruder in the house next door," her neighbor told the dispatcher. "The woman who lives there thinks she may have strangled him."
A Stranger Who Wasn't a Stranger at All
Police arrived to find the intruder, identified as 59-year-old Edward Dalton Haffey, dead at the scene. At first, it looked like it might be a simple burglary gone wrong. Susan didn't buy that explanation — Haffey hadn't tried to steal anything or demanded money. He'd been waiting in the dark for her specifically.
She was right to be suspicious. In Haffey's backpack, investigators found a notebook with a note reading "Call Mike," along with documents tying him directly to Susan's estranged husband, Michael Kuhnhausen. Haffey had previously worked as a janitor under Michael's supervision at an adult video store where Michael worked as a janitorial supervisor. He also had a long criminal history, including nine years in prison for arranging the murder of a former girlfriend, and a serious crack cocaine addiction that left him desperate for money.
Michael had paid him $50,000 to kill Susan.
A Husband Who Tried to Disappear
Michael Kuhnhausen went into hiding after the attack, writing what appeared to be a suicide note and purchasing a gun, before eventually being located about ten miles from the hospital where Susan worked. He was arrested and charged with soliciting murder. In police interviews, he denied any involvement, at one point telling detectives, "You're not going to believe my side of the story. My side of the story is so f—king off the wall" — claiming he'd only hired Haffey to spy on Susan for the divorce proceedings.
The jury didn't believe him. In April 2007, he was found guilty; he later pleaded guilty to soliciting aggravated murder and was sentenced to 10 years in prison. At sentencing, Susan held up photographs of her own bloodied face and addressed him directly: "You were willing for me to share your small, miserable life until death we did part — the sooner the better, as it turned out. I am damaged by what you have done to me. I am damaged. But I am not destroyed."
A New Name, and a Long Recovery
Susan filed for divorce the day after Michael's arrest and changed her last name to Walters. She later sued him for $1 million in emotional distress damages — not primarily for the money, she said, but to make sure he had nothing left to pay anyone else to come after her once he was released.
She didn't need to worry for long. Michael Kuhnhausen died in prison of cancer in June 2014, just three months before his scheduled release date. Susan, speaking to The Oregonian that year, was candid about what surviving the attack had actually cost her: "I've got a life sentence... I was forced to kill another man. Even though he was not a good man, that was the hardest part." She has continued to deal with lasting anxiety and paranoia in the years since, even after her ex-husband's death removed the most immediate source of danger.
Where Things Stand Now
Police awarded Susan a commendation for "sheer determination" in surviving the attack, and prosecutors and investigators alike treated her killing of Haffey as clear self-defense — she was never charged in connection with his death.
Now going by Susan Walters, she has spent the years since becoming a public advocate for victims of violent crime in the Portland area, speaking openly about both the attack and its lasting psychological toll, including in a 2012 interview with Anderson Cooper. Her case remains a striking, rare example of an intended murder-for-hire victim not only surviving, but doing so almost entirely through her own physical strength and composure in the moment that mattered most.
Sources
A Hitman Came for Susan Kuhnhausen. He Didn't Survive. — Blurred By Lines
https://blurredbylines.com/articles/susan-kuhnhausen-walters-survivor-hitman-portland/
Susan Kuhnhausen's Husband Paid Someone $50K To Murder Her — Then She Killed The Hitman Instead — All That's Interesting
https://allthatsinteresting.com/susan-kuhnhausen
Susan Kuhnhausen Killed the Hitman Sent to Kill Her — Morbidology
https://morbidology.com/susan-kuhnhausen-killed-the-hitman-sent-to-kill-her/
How Suzan Kuhnhausen Survived the Unthinkable — Vocal Media
https://vocal.media/criminal/how-suzan-kuhnhausen-survived-the-unthinkable