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Body Bags with Joseph Scott Morgon: Stabbed, Beaten, Slashed, Bashed: Death of Karen Spenc · Crime Stories with Nancy Grace

0:01
Speaker 1: Quoddy bats with Joseph Scott More. One of the most
0:10
Speaker 1: disappointing things in my life is to start something and
0:17
Speaker 1: not follow through. It makes me feel horrible, you know,
0:21
Speaker 1: particularly if I have some goal that's out there, you know,
0:25
Speaker 1: in the ether that I can kind of visualize. And
0:28
Speaker 1: you know, when you're in media, you think about things
0:31
Speaker 1: all the time. You think about, you know, what what
0:33
Speaker 1: could I do creatively? You know that draws people in
0:36
Speaker 1: that they want to hear what I have to say
0:38
Speaker 1: and all of that, and when it doesn't come to fruition,
0:42
Speaker 1: I always look to myself and blame myself and say
0:45
Speaker 1: I was lazy, okay, And you know, I think that
0:50
Speaker 1: it's a burden that many of us bear. Today, we're
0:55
Speaker 1: going to talk about a fellow who actually used that
1:03
Speaker 1: term about finishing what he is starting, and he used
1:09
Speaker 1: it to great effect because in the end, his goal
1:14
Speaker 1: is long term goal apparently, as stated by him, was
1:21
Speaker 1: to murder his wife, and he succeeded. And since he
1:29
Speaker 1: murdered his wife, he has had a place on death
1:34
Speaker 1: row in the state of Florida, and his case is
1:39
Speaker 1: in the news as we speak because he's facing down
1:44
Speaker 1: something that he finished many years ago relative to the
1:48
Speaker 1: person that he said he loved, she died at his hands.
1:52
Speaker 1: Now there's a strong possibility that he is going to
1:57
Speaker 1: die at the hands of the state of Florida. I'm
2:03
Speaker 1: Joseph Scott Morgan, and this is body backs, David. I
2:12
Speaker 1: think to say that you and I are driven is
2:14
Speaker 1: an understatement where I view myself as an overachiever. I
2:21
Speaker 1: wasn't given a lot of really good sense along the way,
2:26
Speaker 1: a lot of great advice. I kind of learned through
2:31
Speaker 1: failure a lot, but I just I kept on going.
2:34
Speaker 1: I was not gonna sit in a mudhole in south
2:37
Speaker 1: Road and you know kind of you know, just woe
2:41
Speaker 1: is me. I was gonna get up and I was
2:43
Speaker 1: gonna sult her on and I see you, know you
2:45
Speaker 1: and I. Maybe it's unfair, but I see you and
2:48
Speaker 1: I is on, you know, parallel paths in life. And
2:51
Speaker 1: we are finishers, aren't we.
2:54
Speaker 2: The fact that you're getting all this tied into finish
2:57
Speaker 2: what you started in one of the most despicable crimes
3:00
Speaker 2: I've ever heard of in my life. Joe, It's pretty amazing.
3:04
Speaker 2: It shows you the brilliance of Joseph Scott Morgan. Friends
3:07
Speaker 2: right off the bat because Dusty ray Spencer, that's the
3:10
Speaker 2: guy's name, Dusty Ray Spencer, thirty nine years old at
3:15
Speaker 2: the time, killed his wife Karen, but he warned her. Okay,
3:21
Speaker 2: this is a domestic violence show, and if that triggers
3:26
Speaker 2: you in any way, you need to go ahead and
3:28
Speaker 2: consider that's what we're going to be talking about. We're
3:30
Speaker 2: going to be talking about a married couple who the
3:35
Speaker 2: husband kills the wife and didn't happen the first time
3:40
Speaker 2: that he bought that he beat her. Did happen the
3:42
Speaker 2: second time he beat her. It took time, but the
3:46
Speaker 2: whole idea that he was going to finish what he
3:48
Speaker 2: started was recorded by a jailhouse phone. That's the part
3:53
Speaker 2: about this Joe that shocks me as much as anything else,
3:58
Speaker 2: because criminals know they're being recorded. I mean they're told
4:03
Speaker 2: before they get on the phone to talk to somebody.
4:05
Speaker 2: You're sitting in the county jail, you know, you're told
4:09
Speaker 2: it's being recorded. People are going to listen, right, Yeah,
4:12
Speaker 2: and they still say things, Yeah they do.
4:15
Speaker 1: You know, what is it? What's the old saying mouth
4:19
Speaker 1: in motion before brain and gear or mind and gear.
4:24
Speaker 1: I think some some are some are driven by some
4:27
Speaker 1: are driven by boredom to do that. I think some
4:31
Speaker 1: are driven by the fact that they're low IQ right,
4:36
Speaker 1: and they don't have the ability to understand that there
4:39
Speaker 1: are certain little, you know, parameters you have to exist
4:43
Speaker 1: in they're compelled to do that. But I would like
4:47
Speaker 1: to say that this episode today is is not about
4:54
Speaker 1: Dusty Ray Spencer, though he will be mentioned along the way.
4:59
Speaker 1: This is about care and Spencer because this is bodybags
5:03
Speaker 1: and we we like to talk and remember the dead
5:09
Speaker 1: and understand how their lives ended. And it's a real commentary,
5:15
Speaker 1: isn't it. Right now, across the country there are people
5:20
Speaker 1: that are protesting, making their voices heard about, you know,
5:30
Speaker 1: the execution of Dusty Ray Spencer. Where were those people?
5:36
Speaker 1: And you know, in nineteen ninety two, you know, when
5:42
Speaker 1: Karen's life was brutally ended, were they out there saying
5:46
Speaker 1: we're not going to stand for this anymore, that domestic
5:50
Speaker 1: abuse is wrong. Where were they at that point in time?
5:56
Speaker 1: Because I'll say, you know, Kieren's life, did it in
6:00
Speaker 1: fact matter and it still matters to this day because
6:05
Speaker 1: she exited this life at the hands of a bully
6:10
Speaker 1: and a brute Joe.
6:12
Speaker 2: You know, a lot of the reason people are talking
6:14
Speaker 2: about the execution of Dusty Ray Spencer is because he's
6:19
Speaker 2: seventy four years old, and he will be the oldest
6:21
Speaker 2: person executed in Florida. To give you a heads up,
6:25
Speaker 2: we are recording this before his execution. By the time
6:30
Speaker 2: you watch this, unless something happens, he'll be he'll be dead.
6:35
Speaker 2: So the positively the idea, Joe, that people are all
6:40
Speaker 2: about Dusty ray Spencer because of his age. Think about
6:45
Speaker 2: this for just a minute. When Dusty Ray Spencer murdered
6:49
Speaker 2: his wife, he was thirty nine years old. She was forty.
6:54
Speaker 2: He was thirty nine. He was forty years old when
6:58
Speaker 2: he was sentenced to death. Joe, he wasn't seventy four.
7:02
Speaker 2: He's not an old guy who in a panic defending himself,
7:06
Speaker 2: attacked somebody and they died. He was sentenced to death
7:10
Speaker 2: in nineteen ninety two, and they're just now getting around
7:17
Speaker 2: to carrying out that sentence. Now. I don't want to
7:23
Speaker 2: hear about it. He's too old to put to death.
7:26
Speaker 2: I think that waiting this long to carry out a
7:29
Speaker 2: sentence is tenemount to terrorism. You know. I think you
7:33
Speaker 2: could probably argue that you're sitting on death row come on, Yeah.
7:37
Speaker 1: I think one of the interesting things about this case is,
7:42
Speaker 1: and we're going to get into this, is the fact
7:44
Speaker 1: that the Karen's teenage son witness these events. As a
7:51
Speaker 1: matter of fact, Dave, he's the unfortunate. He did not
7:55
Speaker 1: die at the hands of this person because of what
8:02
Speaker 1: he present. He's just a kid. You know what has happened,
8:06
Speaker 1: you know, you know, if you want to, if you
8:10
Speaker 1: want to put on this show about chronology here relative
8:15
Speaker 1: to you know, this fellow's age as he's you know,
8:19
Speaker 1: he's he's staring down the death chamber. You know, I
8:23
Speaker 1: go to you know, the promise that Karen's life held
8:27
Speaker 1: at that moment in time, the promise that her son's
8:30
Speaker 1: life held at that point in time all these years ago.
8:35
Speaker 1: You know, when he's trying to the son is literally
8:38
Speaker 1: trying to interdict the situation. I couldn't. I don't know
8:42
Speaker 1: that I would have been that brave, you know, to
8:44
Speaker 1: do what this kid did. And now he lives with this,
8:48
Speaker 1: you know, in his mind, or has had to live
8:50
Speaker 1: with it throughout his life relative to what he saw
8:54
Speaker 1: his mama go through. And then you know, all of
8:57
Speaker 1: the promise that you know, I think and again, I'm
9:01
Speaker 1: going to wax sentimental here, but you know, I think
9:03
Speaker 1: about Karen Kieren probably had thoughts when she was forty
9:07
Speaker 1: years old. She's got a teenage son. She's thinking, Wow,
9:09
Speaker 1: wouldn't be great to have grand baby someday, to get
9:13
Speaker 1: to hold them, to get to have them sit on
9:15
Speaker 1: my knee, for me to take them the store and
9:18
Speaker 1: bomb stuff and make their favorite foods. What's that going
9:21
Speaker 1: to be like? She never got to realize that day.
9:25
Speaker 2: No. And the thing is, Joe, when we look at
9:29
Speaker 2: these the cases of domestic violence, they impact an entire family,
9:33
Speaker 2: not just the person who is the victim of the
9:36
Speaker 2: domestic violence. And you mentioned Karen's son. Now, Karen Son
9:41
Speaker 2: was not somebody who witnessed things from afar. No, there
9:48
Speaker 2: were three separate incidentss that we have to get into
9:52
Speaker 2: when it comes to Dusty Ray Spencer and Karen and
9:55
Speaker 2: his wife Karen. But you know what, friends, Just to
9:59
Speaker 2: give you an idea, they together owned a painting business
10:04
Speaker 2: and their marriage had been escalating. In the fall of
10:10
Speaker 2: nineteen ninety one. It had gone from arguments to I'm
10:17
Speaker 2: going to assume here, because I think it's a fair assumption, Joe,
10:21
Speaker 2: that the arguments got more and more volatile, to the
10:26
Speaker 2: point where physical actions were being taken well before Dusty
10:34
Speaker 2: ray Spencer was ever put in jail after the first
10:38
Speaker 2: physical attack, when he was arrested for assaulting Karen. I
10:43
Speaker 2: believe that because I've never seen I've never seen a
10:47
Speaker 2: relationship go from zero to one hundred overnight. There's usually
10:51
Speaker 2: a progression, you know, And I believe that's what took
10:54
Speaker 2: place here. And you mentioned the teenage son. He actually
10:57
Speaker 2: was physically involved in trying to what was taking place.
11:01
Speaker 2: But just so you know, Karen and Dusty ray Spencer
11:06
Speaker 2: were married, they were living in the same house, and
11:11
Speaker 2: they were partners in a painting business. So there was
11:15
Speaker 2: a lot going on in this family.
11:17
Speaker 1: Yeah, And it is a incredible dynamic when you think
11:20
Speaker 1: about it, and you know, who knows why. People at
11:25
Speaker 1: the end of the day will take the life of
11:27
Speaker 1: someone that they have pledged themselves to and said at
11:30
Speaker 1: one point in time that I love you and I'm
11:34
Speaker 1: going to be with you for the rest of your life,
11:36
Speaker 1: and sickness and in health, I'm going to take care
11:39
Speaker 1: of you, and you're going to take care of me.
11:41
Speaker 1: It's really hard to look back and understand how the
11:44
Speaker 1: wheels fell off. But I think that we have a
11:46
Speaker 1: few clues along the way, and some of it leads
11:49
Speaker 1: back to money, some of it leads back to frustration
11:52
Speaker 1: over that said money and maybe a life that they
11:55
Speaker 1: were living that was just completely incompatible with joy and love.
12:06
Speaker 1: H M, Brother Dave. We've we know that this tragedy
12:17
Speaker 1: that unfolded down in Florida all those years ago has
12:22
Speaker 1: has sent ripples, you know, through time relative to Karen's family,
12:28
Speaker 1: Uh and uh you know, and and certainly the people
12:32
Speaker 1: down in that region that were aware probably of how
12:36
Speaker 1: dastardly uh this these crimes were committed against her and
12:42
Speaker 1: and against her son, and there is no payoff in
12:48
Speaker 1: the end, you know. And and you know now now
12:52
Speaker 1: we've come to that, to that point in time where
12:56
Speaker 1: maybe he is going to have to answer. But I
12:59
Speaker 1: think it's important for us to reflect a little bit
13:01
Speaker 1: and talk about because this was not a one off event,
13:04
Speaker 1: as you pointed out. Rather, this is something that escalated
13:08
Speaker 1: relative to these attacks on Kiaren.
13:12
Speaker 2: Well, start with December tenth, nineteen ninety one, Okay, because
13:16
Speaker 2: that's the event that started everything that transpired over the
13:21
Speaker 2: next six weeks Okay, December tenth, nineteen ninety one, Orange County, Florida,
13:26
Speaker 2: and this is where Dusty Ray Spencer attacks his wife Karen.
13:34
Speaker 2: The argument that began the fight allegedly began over Dusty
13:40
Speaker 2: Spencer being mad that Karen withdrew money from their business,
13:45
Speaker 2: their painting business. I think he was just looking for
13:49
Speaker 2: a reason. Again, based on what we know now, there
13:54
Speaker 2: were a lot of arguments taking place and they were escalating,
13:57
Speaker 2: and this one escalated to a physical comfrontation where Dusty
14:02
Speaker 2: Ray Spencer attacked his wife Karen her teenage son home
14:07
Speaker 2: at the time. I want you to be aware of
14:09
Speaker 2: what took place in Joe. You're going to have to explain,
14:12
Speaker 2: you know, to us, so that I understand when they
14:17
Speaker 2: were when the argument escalated a physical violence. Spencer was
14:24
Speaker 2: choking Karen, and he had one hand over Karen's nose
14:29
Speaker 2: and mouth and choked her with the other in a
14:35
Speaker 2: fit of rage. So he's covering the nose and mouth
14:39
Speaker 2: and choking. That's a pretty dastardly way to try to
14:46
Speaker 2: take somebody out. I mean, it seems to me that
14:48
Speaker 2: if you're doing that, that you're trying to suffocate the
14:54
Speaker 2: life out of the person you're fighting with. Is that
14:57
Speaker 2: an incorrect assumption or is this a tickle fighte?
15:00
Speaker 1: No, No, you're you're right on target. And here's the thing
15:04
Speaker 1: about it is, Dave, and I want everybody to look here.
15:09
Speaker 1: He was looking her in the eyes while he was
15:11
Speaker 1: doing it, okay. And if you've ever seen somebody struggle
15:15
Speaker 1: for breath, and maybe you've helped people that were struggling
15:19
Speaker 1: for breath during the course of your life, it's it
15:23
Speaker 1: is one of those things where it's just you're compelled
15:27
Speaker 1: to show mercy, you're compelled to provide assistance to somebody.
15:32
Speaker 1: But when the person that you are married to is
15:38
Speaker 1: looking in your eyes with rage hate, maybe that that
15:45
Speaker 1: just kind of blackness in their eyes and they have
15:48
Speaker 1: you see clamped, because that's what happened. He would have
15:51
Speaker 1: had to have see clamped her with one hand, and
15:55
Speaker 1: that means grabbing hold of her throat, okay, and you
15:59
Speaker 1: know this area right in here and compressing it with
16:02
Speaker 1: his hand, squeezing and oh, by the bye, let's take
16:06
Speaker 1: the other hand and place it over the nose in
16:09
Speaker 1: the mouth in order to prevent her from the uptack
16:13
Speaker 1: up oxygen.
16:14
Speaker 2: This seems like a really planned attack Joe from actually
16:18
Speaker 2: putting her in that position. It seems to me that
16:20
Speaker 2: Spencer knew what he was doing by choking her with
16:24
Speaker 2: one hand and covering her nose and mouth with the other.
16:27
Speaker 1: Yeah, And you really wonder at this moment, Tom, had
16:30
Speaker 1: it escalated to the level of what would be referred
16:34
Speaker 1: to as a homicidal rage. Because with these domestic violence
16:39
Speaker 1: events like this, there is this kind of creeping, sinister
16:44
Speaker 1: thing that occurs. I gotta say this. I don't think
16:49
Speaker 1: you know what's the old you know Charlie Ridge song
16:52
Speaker 1: about we don't know what goes on behind closing. Yeah,
16:55
Speaker 1: well that's got two set. Coin has two sides to it,
16:57
Speaker 1: all right. I don't think Charlie was singing about domestic
17:02
Speaker 1: violence when he was talking about that. But I will
17:05
Speaker 1: tell you this, this thing doesn't happen in a vacuum.
17:09
Speaker 1: He felt comfortable enough at that moment in time because
17:12
Speaker 1: I think that he had probably been bullying her around,
17:14
Speaker 1: knocking her about, threatening her, and like many domestic abuse victims,
17:23
Speaker 1: many of them are are seeking seeking to please that individual.
17:28
Speaker 1: It's a horrible cycle to be in because they think
17:31
Speaker 1: if I will just say this, or if I'll do this,
17:33
Speaker 1: it's going to smooth things over and eventually, you know,
17:37
Speaker 1: they'll see the light. I don't know that that ever
17:41
Speaker 1: actually happens. Okay, I'm a cynic. I don't believe that
17:46
Speaker 1: because I think that when you're a monster, you're a monster.
17:49
Speaker 1: And if you if you can do that to the
17:53
Speaker 1: person that you allegedly love the most in this world,
17:58
Speaker 1: it's a it's a it's a tough thing I think
18:02
Speaker 1: for an individual to pull himself back from from the edge,
18:07
Speaker 1: you know.
18:08
Speaker 3: And and and and be be loving and tender moving forward,
18:14
Speaker 3: because this is and this is a progression that takes place.
18:17
Speaker 1: We see this kind of played out in this in
18:21
Speaker 1: this with Kiaren with Kieren Spencer day.
18:24
Speaker 2: Well, all right, this this is where Joe started the
18:29
Speaker 2: show about finishing what you start. Okay, December tenth, Spencer
18:35
Speaker 2: attacks his wife and he gets arrested. Okay, the police
18:39
Speaker 2: arrests Dusty Ray Spencer, lock him down and based on
18:44
Speaker 2: what happened, I mean, he got arrested for domestic bonnce.
18:47
Speaker 2: But remember he's trying to kill her. Now he's in
18:49
Speaker 2: jail the very next day, Joe, the very next day,
18:53
Speaker 2: December eleventh, nineteen ninety one, Dusty Ray Spencer calls his
18:58
Speaker 2: wife Karen. He's in jail. She's at home, still trying
19:02
Speaker 2: to recover from nearly dying at his hands, and he
19:05
Speaker 2: tells her, when I get out, I'm gonna finish where
19:10
Speaker 2: I started. Now, Joe, everything's recorded. Everything is recorded, so
19:18
Speaker 2: officials new. But you know what the judge said. Dusty
19:23
Speaker 2: ray Spence has said his bail five thousand dollars five
19:29
Speaker 2: thousand dollars was about ten percent five hundred bucks. Okay,
19:32
Speaker 2: that's what he had to come up with to get
19:34
Speaker 2: bailed out of jail. Now, I have been through a
19:37
Speaker 2: lot of paperwork trying to find out, Hey, what day
19:40
Speaker 2: did Dusty ray Spencer get bailed out and who did it?
19:44
Speaker 2: Still haven't found it, but it's out there.
19:46
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm going to be I'm gonna be a smart
19:50
Speaker 1: ass for a second and just go ahead and just say, gee,
19:54
Speaker 1: I wonder if he went into his business account for that.
19:58
Speaker 1: That's what I'm thinking about here. Body that wants to
20:00
Speaker 1: put angel wings on this guy, you know, Yeah, I
20:04
Speaker 1: wonder where he got that money from again, you know,
20:08
Speaker 1: and I still think, you know, with with Karen as
20:11
Speaker 1: his spouse, that's your next of Ken. That's the way
20:14
Speaker 1: we look at it in death investigation, right, that's your
20:17
Speaker 1: immediate next kin. Doesn't matter if you're legally separated, that's
20:21
Speaker 1: still your your next kin. But they were domiciled together,
20:25
Speaker 1: they were living together. Who bailed him out? He called
20:27
Speaker 1: a buddy up, you know, I'll catch you back up.
20:30
Speaker 1: I'll take some money out of my business account. Here,
20:32
Speaker 1: I'll give you back the five hundred dollars. Or did
20:36
Speaker 1: he call Karen up after he threatened her? And again
20:39
Speaker 1: going into the cycle of you know, maybe maybe if
20:43
Speaker 1: I bail him out, you know, he'll be kind to me,
20:48
Speaker 1: you know, because she's still she's still thinking, you know
20:51
Speaker 1: that she's with somebody that's capable of being kind, even
20:56
Speaker 1: though he put his hands on her throat and put
20:59
Speaker 1: his hands over her nose and her mouth and was
21:04
Speaker 1: trying to deprive her of her life, you know. And
21:06
Speaker 1: again I think that that's a salient point. I'd like
21:09
Speaker 1: to know what the origin of those monies were. Who
21:12
Speaker 1: went to the bondsman and said, we're going to put
21:14
Speaker 1: this money up. We're going to get him out, and
21:16
Speaker 1: he's going to be walking walking the streets.
21:20
Speaker 2: And you know what, Joe regardless of who or what
21:23
Speaker 2: his bill was. At five thousand dollars, again, you got
21:26
Speaker 2: to come up with ten percent. That's just not very
21:27
Speaker 2: much money for somebody who attempted to kill his own wife.
21:30
Speaker 2: But you know, as we have looked at domestic violence situations,
21:36
Speaker 2: oftentimes the attacker, the aggressor, has means of gaslighting the
21:40
Speaker 2: victim and make him feel like it's their fault. You know, Karen,
21:44
Speaker 2: it's your fault. I'm sorry. I lost it. You know
21:47
Speaker 2: that's not me. I don't know what came over me.
21:49
Speaker 2: I just really lost it. And now that I've had
21:51
Speaker 2: time to think about it, I'm just mortified by my
21:55
Speaker 2: own actions. I am so sorry. You know that's not me.
21:58
Speaker 2: You know, that is not who I am. And I
22:00
Speaker 2: think the stress of the business really and you know,
22:03
Speaker 2: come on, Karen, you know you did take a little
22:05
Speaker 2: bit of money out and look, we can get through this.
22:08
Speaker 2: And Karen, it's Christmas, Okay, it's Christmas time, she said
22:13
Speaker 2: out loud. I want my husband home for Christmas. So
22:16
Speaker 2: he got bailed out a five thousand dollars bailed. The
22:18
Speaker 2: judge was aware of the threats, He was aware of
22:22
Speaker 2: what put Dusty Ray Spencer in jail and set that
22:25
Speaker 2: bond low enough that he could get out for the holidays.
22:28
Speaker 2: Andy did. But Joe, here's the catch, here's the kick,
22:31
Speaker 2: here's the page two. During the Christmas holidays, Karen had
22:38
Speaker 2: her fill of Dusty ray Spencer. She had her fill
22:41
Speaker 2: of her husband. Apparently things weren't any better, and she
22:46
Speaker 2: told him, you got to get out, you gotta leave.
22:50
Speaker 2: On January fourth, nineteen ninety two, Okay, we're talking twenty
22:56
Speaker 2: five days after the first attack, a second attack occurs,
23:01
Speaker 2: this time the January fourth, nineteen ninety two attack her
23:05
Speaker 2: teenage Her teenage son wakes up to the sound of
23:11
Speaker 2: his mother being beaten by Dusty ray Spencer, twenty five
23:18
Speaker 2: days after he tried to suffocate her. This time he
23:24
Speaker 2: the son finds Dusty on top of his mother. Okay,
23:29
Speaker 2: this teenage boy finds Dusty ray Spencer on top of Karen,
23:35
Speaker 2: and Dusty is using an iron. You know, an iron,
23:39
Speaker 2: the heavy iron with a handle on it, the used
23:41
Speaker 2: to get your shirts. He's beating Karen with the iron. Joe,
23:45
Speaker 2: he is beating his wife with the iron. That's when
23:51
Speaker 2: the sun intervened. He tries to get Dusty Ray Spencer
23:56
Speaker 2: off of Karen to stop the beating is brisk. What
23:59
Speaker 2: is Spence as you do? He attacks the teenage boy
24:02
Speaker 2: with the same iron. The beating that was going on
24:06
Speaker 2: extended now to the teenage son and Joe between Karen
24:11
Speaker 2: and her son. Thankfully the police were called Dusty Rays. Spencer,
24:18
Speaker 2: being the coward that he is, took off running. He
24:22
Speaker 2: lays his wife bloodied on the floor, her teenage son bloodied,
24:26
Speaker 2: and Spencer takes off running.
24:28
Speaker 1: Yeah, I don't guess at that moment, Tom, he was
24:30
Speaker 1: very delusional of paranoid, right or seeing pink elephants. He
24:35
Speaker 1: had enough, He had enough understanding in his mind that
24:39
Speaker 1: he needed to put separation between his precious wife and
24:45
Speaker 1: his step son and and the police to get away.
24:49
Speaker 1: He had that instinct to survive at that moment, Tom.
24:53
Speaker 1: It's not like he's delusional to the point where he
24:57
Speaker 1: thinks that, you know, I don't know, little green men
24:59
Speaker 1: from Mars are you know, are coming after him, or
25:03
Speaker 1: that snakes are emerging from his wife's face and they're
25:06
Speaker 1: out there to get him. He's oriented the time and
25:10
Speaker 1: space at that moment in time and off he goes off.
25:15
Speaker 1: He goes and Dave, you know when he beat her
25:18
Speaker 1: using this, and this is a blunt force attack. We've talked.
25:22
Speaker 1: I had another case a few years ago where I
25:24
Speaker 1: had a guy that had beaten another fellow to death
25:29
Speaker 1: in the middle of the street with actually an antique iron,
25:32
Speaker 1: a kind that you had to set on like a
25:34
Speaker 1: pot belly stove to heat up. And the weird thing
25:37
Speaker 1: about it, the interesting thing about it is not weird.
25:39
Speaker 1: It's just kind of interesting from the forensic dynamics of
25:44
Speaker 1: an iron is and most of us have one at home.
25:47
Speaker 1: Maybe you have enough money to take your clothes to
25:49
Speaker 1: the cleaners and say, here, press them. I'm not going
25:51
Speaker 1: to put up with an ironing boarder or iron in
25:53
Speaker 1: my house. I've got one right over here as a
25:55
Speaker 1: matter of fact. But it's got these interesting little edges
25:58
Speaker 1: on it, and you know, comes to point as the top,
26:02
Speaker 1: and so you get these you get these interesting little
26:06
Speaker 1: blunt forced lacerations relative to this iron. And it's got
26:10
Speaker 1: this this handle on it. Okay, just think about that
26:14
Speaker 1: just for a second. The way you can lift and
26:16
Speaker 1: you can hold and you can wield this thing. This
26:20
Speaker 1: thing is almost if it didn't have a cord attached
26:23
Speaker 1: to it. You could use this thing as like a
26:25
Speaker 1: weapon of war. Right. You think about the shapes of
26:29
Speaker 1: all of the weapons from medieval times, and you know
26:33
Speaker 1: on the end of a large stick, if you had
26:35
Speaker 1: one that was shaped like an iron, would be highly effective, right,
26:38
Speaker 1: because of all these interesting little edges. Well, day she
26:41
Speaker 1: wound up as a result of being attacked by this guy.
26:44
Speaker 1: She had to have eleven stitches in her face because again,
26:49
Speaker 1: you know he's going after the head. He's going you
26:52
Speaker 1: know that that area here, this is what her identity is. Right,
26:58
Speaker 1: we all identify with our face visually. I know that's
27:01
Speaker 1: a rather obvious statement. But to try to destroy and disfigure,
27:05
Speaker 1: disfigure someone is the ultimate in I think, in disrespect
27:11
Speaker 1: because you're going to try to take away their personages
27:16
Speaker 1: as as their personage as a result of disfigurement. And
27:21
Speaker 1: that's kind of a theme that runs through through this case.
27:23
Speaker 1: Date brother Dave, he spencer actually bolts from the second event,
27:42
Speaker 1: and he's on the radar of the police at this
27:46
Speaker 1: point in time. You would think that somebody would want
27:53
Speaker 1: to try to put a continue to put as much
27:56
Speaker 1: distance between themselves and in this event, But when you're
28:02
Speaker 1: fueled when you're a bully and you're fueled by hatred
28:07
Speaker 1: and anger and discord and all those sorts of things,
28:10
Speaker 1: it's like flawed, honey, isn't it.
28:12
Speaker 2: You know this is one of those things, Joe, that
28:15
Speaker 2: going back to where you started the show about finish
28:19
Speaker 2: what you started. Yeah, I think that was really what
28:23
Speaker 2: was driving Dusty race Springfield. Because you go to the
28:27
Speaker 2: December tenth attack that is stopped and ends with Dusty
28:31
Speaker 2: ray Spencer in jail. His first comment to his wife
28:36
Speaker 2: on the phone the next day is when I get out,
28:38
Speaker 2: I'm going to finish what I started. So everything he
28:41
Speaker 2: does after that is to finish what he started, whether
28:45
Speaker 2: it means sweet talking her to get him to get
28:47
Speaker 2: bailed out of jail or whatever. But after the second attack, Joe,
28:52
Speaker 2: I think it was well known in the community what
28:55
Speaker 2: had happened. By this time. People know that this man
28:58
Speaker 2: was given a five thousand dollar bail to get out
29:01
Speaker 2: of jail and he tried to kill his wife second time.
29:04
Speaker 2: But Joe, when two weeks later, fourteen days okay, go by,
29:09
Speaker 2: it's January eighteenth, nineteen ninety two. The part that bothers
29:16
Speaker 2: me about all of this is that we didn't understand
29:22
Speaker 2: domestic violence back in the early nineties like we do now.
29:25
Speaker 2: Maybe we didn't talk about it as much as we
29:27
Speaker 2: do now.
29:28
Speaker 1: We certainly didn't talk about it as much.
29:30
Speaker 2: And so I think that this case so much was wrong.
29:37
Speaker 2: But January eighteenth, when Karen's son, Karen's teenage son, arrives
29:43
Speaker 2: home and he hears his mom being beaten in the backyard.
29:50
Speaker 2: This teenage son, who already has witnessed the attacks, he's
29:55
Speaker 2: seen the aftermath, the disfiguring of his own mother. And
29:59
Speaker 2: here we we are, January eighteenth, nineteen ninety two.
30:03
Speaker 3: And.
30:05
Speaker 2: Dusty ray Spencer is at it again. This time he
30:09
Speaker 2: has Karen in the backyard, and I want to make
30:12
Speaker 2: sure I get this straight, Joe. This time Dusty has
30:16
Speaker 2: a knife. He is striking Karen in the face with
30:23
Speaker 2: a brick. He is mashing her head on the cement,
30:26
Speaker 2: on the concrete. He is stabbing her with the knife
30:31
Speaker 2: in her chest, and he is slashing her face with
30:35
Speaker 2: the knife. Karen's teenage son sees what's going on and
30:40
Speaker 2: grabs a gun. He grabs a gun and tries to
30:44
Speaker 2: shoot Dusty ray Spencer, but the gun misfires. Yep, Spencer
30:49
Speaker 2: takes it and beats him with the gun. The gun
30:53
Speaker 2: stock broke Joe during this during this fight. So at
30:58
Speaker 2: this point, Karen is on the ground, mortally wounded, and
31:03
Speaker 2: she's begging Dusty Ray Spencer to not hurt her son.
31:08
Speaker 2: Stop leave Malone. Stop. That's her dying breath, Joe. It
31:16
Speaker 2: boggles my mind that based on the three attempts on
31:20
Speaker 2: her life, the three attacks on Karen and her teenage son,
31:26
Speaker 2: that today we have people that want to not carry
31:32
Speaker 2: out the sentence on Dusty ray Spencer because he's old.
31:37
Speaker 2: He should have been taken out right after the verdict.
31:39
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I guarantee you I think that probably they
31:42
Speaker 1: are enough inmates in prison to have witnessed their mamas
31:46
Speaker 1: be subjected to this kind of behavior. The only reason
31:50
Speaker 1: he's still with us is because he is a quested
31:52
Speaker 1: on death row. I think that he had been in
31:54
Speaker 1: Jen Popp in a different story.
31:57
Speaker 2: Okay, can you go over the autopsy fresh show, Beau.
32:00
Speaker 2: When I went through the list of the injuries, you know, yeah,
32:03
Speaker 2: they're vague, they're very you know, multiple stabbings, multiple slashings,
32:08
Speaker 2: blunt for strama. Can you break that down and explain
32:12
Speaker 2: what Dusty Ray Spencer inflicted on his wife Karen.
32:15
Speaker 1: Yeah. I think that's very important. And one more thing,
32:18
Speaker 1: and this is one if we don't have enough already,
32:25
Speaker 1: one of the really gruesome things about this and so
32:29
Speaker 1: if it couldn't get any more disrespectful as she is
32:33
Speaker 1: laying on the ground, and I think this information comes
32:37
Speaker 1: from the sun. This perpetrator raised this poor woman's dressed
32:45
Speaker 1: dress up like this and was pointing at her and
32:52
Speaker 1: making lewd remarks, obscene remarks about her and laughing at her.
32:58
Speaker 1: Just factor that into your thinking just for a second.
33:02
Speaker 1: It's not enough, it's not enough to do what you've
33:06
Speaker 1: just done. Now here comes the verbal assault. That's why
33:11
Speaker 1: you know. I think that this is evidence in and
33:13
Speaker 1: of itself that this that this had gone on for
33:15
Speaker 1: some time. Brother, this is not something new under the sun. Okay,
33:21
Speaker 1: But when you couple that with fact, and remember how
33:24
Speaker 1: I said that there's a theme that's running here. Remember
33:28
Speaker 1: how he attacked her with the iron early on. And
33:30
Speaker 1: where you know, where's the placement of this attack, Well,
33:35
Speaker 1: it's here where people identify us, right, And I guarantee you,
33:40
Speaker 1: at some point in time in their past, he looked
33:44
Speaker 1: at her and beheld her as a beautiful creature.
33:49
Speaker 2: Okay, she was a beautiful woman, Joe.
33:51
Speaker 1: Yeah, just I've looked at my wife that way. You know,
33:55
Speaker 1: I still do. I look at her and I say,
33:58
Speaker 1: how how did I want up with her? You know,
34:01
Speaker 1: some mug like this, and I you know, at some
34:05
Speaker 1: point time he saw her as a beautiful one. But
34:10
Speaker 1: yet now at this point he's seeking to destroy her. Dave,
34:13
Speaker 1: there's one bit to this. You talked about grinding into
34:17
Speaker 1: the concrete or pounding her face like this. One report
34:21
Speaker 1: has him literally grabbing her by the back of her
34:25
Speaker 1: head and driving her face into the brick wall of
34:30
Speaker 1: the house. So that means she's upright at one point
34:32
Speaker 1: in time, and he's smashing her face in there. So
34:36
Speaker 1: she's you know, noses probably broken, eyes are probably swollen.
34:41
Speaker 1: Then he's wielding a knife, and yeah, he did in
34:45
Speaker 1: fact stab her multiple times. I think it was five times,
34:49
Speaker 1: and she's got I think there were two perforating stab
34:52
Speaker 1: ones into her heart. Bro But he takes this knife
34:56
Speaker 1: and he gouges her face with it, and not just that,
34:59
Speaker 1: he it takes time to slash her face, which is
35:03
Speaker 1: you know, again, this is an attempt to destroy her beauty,
35:09
Speaker 1: to destroy her identity of who she is as a
35:13
Speaker 1: person for years and years. She's forty years old when
35:15
Speaker 1: she dies, Dave. For years and years from the first
35:19
Speaker 1: time she was a little old thing and she found
35:20
Speaker 1: out what a mirror was. She walked up that mirror
35:22
Speaker 1: and looked at herself, and that's how she always identified herself, right,
35:26
Speaker 1: And now you know this as he's seeing her, he's
35:30
Speaker 1: going to completely disrupt that. Nobody in the world is
35:33
Speaker 1: going to want you. As a matter of fact, even
35:35
Speaker 1: in death, they're not going to be able to have
35:37
Speaker 1: an open casket for you. And you know, she's already
35:41
Speaker 1: got this other insult on her face where she's been
35:43
Speaker 1: popped in the face with this iron and disfigured her
35:48
Speaker 1: in that manner, and other injuries associated with that initial attack.
35:55
Speaker 1: And you know autopsy, David, this is the fascinating thing
36:00
Speaker 1: here forensically where you're trying to and listen, this THINGE
36:05
Speaker 1: goes to trial, right, so when the pathologist is on
36:08
Speaker 1: the stand, there's been so much trauma here now going
36:13
Speaker 1: back and we think about the pathologist is going to
36:18
Speaker 1: have to say, okay, if you look at you know,
36:22
Speaker 1: at injuries enumerated as four, five and six. Okay, uh,
36:27
Speaker 1: these are more distant in the in the healing process,
36:33
Speaker 1: or they're they're further down the line. So we see
36:35
Speaker 1: resolved that we talked about the idea of this, these insults,
36:39
Speaker 1: these these blunt force impact sites, the cut on her
36:44
Speaker 1: face that require the stitches, which is a laceration. If
36:48
Speaker 1: she's got any kind of contusion, it's probably has resolved,
36:52
Speaker 1: but deep tissue dissection is going to reveal that there's
36:56
Speaker 1: still something there, and then you have to marry that
37:00
Speaker 1: up with what's current and what happened, you know, in
37:04
Speaker 1: that anti mortem, perry mortem and post mortem state with
37:07
Speaker 1: her body, because we lord only knows what he actually
37:11
Speaker 1: did to her body after she was actually deceased, so
37:15
Speaker 1: there might be post mortem injuries to her because there
37:18
Speaker 1: was not a shut off valve with him. You know
37:21
Speaker 1: what you think about this?
37:22
Speaker 2: Can I ask you something about the judge made a
37:25
Speaker 2: comment during the sentencing that Karen through all of this
37:34
Speaker 2: rage induced violence that happened to her. The judge said
37:38
Speaker 2: that she was conscious, she was awake an alert during
37:44
Speaker 2: all of it, to the point where, you know, as
37:46
Speaker 2: I mentioned, she was telling Dusty Ray spencer to leave
37:50
Speaker 2: her teenage son alone, you know, stop beating him. But
37:54
Speaker 2: the judge said that she probably was alert for another
37:58
Speaker 2: ten or fifteen minutes before she.
38:00
Speaker 1: Out from lingering.
38:02
Speaker 2: Yeah, from the stab wounds to her heart and lung.
38:06
Speaker 2: Is that an accurate assessment by the judge.
38:09
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that it probably is. I mean, the
38:11
Speaker 1: judge just had to pull that out of the air.
38:14
Speaker 1: That testimony would be directly or that from an evidentiary standpoint,
38:20
Speaker 1: those statements about her existence there that the root of
38:27
Speaker 1: that that comes from the forensic pathologists because they're interpreting
38:30
Speaker 1: these injuries that you're seeing, you know, demonstrate here and
38:34
Speaker 1: listen to this now, the judge, judge, it's amazing what
38:38
Speaker 1: judges have to do, okay, because they see things like
38:43
Speaker 1: back in chambers and pre trial that we don't ever see, right, okay,
38:47
Speaker 1: like all of the images. Okay, there's certain things that
38:50
Speaker 1: will be excluded because they're too prejudicial, okay, and the
38:53
Speaker 1: judge has to rule on that. Right, we're not going
38:56
Speaker 1: to allow this in. But the judge would have seen this,
38:59
Speaker 1: and if there was in a preliminary hearing, there's a
39:02
Speaker 1: possibility the medical examiner would have testified at prelim hearing
39:06
Speaker 1: as well. Judge, the jury would not have heard that.
39:10
Speaker 1: Suffice say, though that prosecutor in Orange County would have
39:15
Speaker 1: in fact laid this out. They would have had a
39:19
Speaker 1: very definitive timeline about what he had done. Because listen,
39:24
Speaker 1: when they're doing this stay, you have to understand relative
39:28
Speaker 1: to a death penalty case, and this would have had
39:32
Speaker 1: to have been qualified prior to as a death penalty case.
39:35
Speaker 1: There are all these boxes that have to be ticked
39:37
Speaker 1: along the way, and it's much more detailed, I think
39:41
Speaker 1: to a great degree. They're going to really take their
39:44
Speaker 1: time and they're going to lay out this narrative because
39:46
Speaker 1: what does prosecution have to do to the judge. They
39:49
Speaker 1: have to justify to the jury and the judge that
39:55
Speaker 1: this event, this homicide, meets the cri materia to put
40:02
Speaker 1: this individual on death row and to execute them. And
40:05
Speaker 1: guess what, they convinced the court that that was case,
40:09
Speaker 1: and the judge had seen this. I'm glad you brought
40:11
Speaker 1: this up because even the judge is aware of it.
40:13
Speaker 1: The judge is probably sitting there shaking his head saying,
40:16
Speaker 1: Lord in Heaven, what have you? What have you done?
40:20
Speaker 1: You know, yeah, you deserve to be on death row
40:23
Speaker 1: because you know, when anytime there's a death penalty case,
40:27
Speaker 1: automatically it's appealed, goes up to appeal, it jumps right
40:32
Speaker 1: to that position is when you have a conviction, that
40:34
Speaker 1: sentencing it's going to go to it's going to go
40:36
Speaker 1: up on appeal. That's mandated, all right, and therein you know, look,
40:43
Speaker 1: I you know, kudos to his attorneys. You know they've
40:46
Speaker 1: kept him alive this long, but therein is the rub,
40:50
Speaker 1: right because now they've got people that are writing articles
40:55
Speaker 1: about how long he's been languishing in prison. Well, he's
41:00
Speaker 1: been languishing in prison because his attorneys did such a
41:04
Speaker 1: a stellar job at keeping him alive. Matter of fact,
41:07
Speaker 1: they've gotten him to a point where he's he's you know, uh,
41:12
Speaker 1: he's over seventy years of age.
41:14
Speaker 2: Now, old Joe.
41:16
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're gonna put the needle to him. Well, I mean,
41:19
Speaker 1: you know it's not Karen Spencer's fault. You know, he
41:23
Speaker 1: did this when he was thirty nine years old. You know, Uh,
41:28
Speaker 1: there's a lot of things in life that we don't
41:30
Speaker 1: want to be held accountable for, right, you know, on
41:33
Speaker 1: and on and on and so the state of Florida.
41:37
Speaker 1: Florida is you know, uh, they're going to move forward
41:41
Speaker 1: with this, and I think you would you had stated
41:43
Speaker 1: they've they've had a number of executions.
41:49
Speaker 2: This will be one, Yeah, twenty twenty six. And you
41:53
Speaker 2: know the thing is people are protesting, you know, saying
41:55
Speaker 2: he's too old, and like, well, you know what if
42:00
Speaker 2: they had executed him in a timely manner, he wouldn't
42:03
Speaker 2: be seventy four years old, you.
42:04
Speaker 1: Know, right, yeah, you know it's you know, don't curse
42:10
Speaker 1: the rain for falling. It's gonna fall, you know, I mean,
42:13
Speaker 1: that's that's that's the nature of it. And so when
42:17
Speaker 1: he goes into the death house, Dave, there were I
42:21
Speaker 1: was kind of I was struck by the fact that
42:25
Speaker 1: now Florida has multiple options and if within I think
42:30
Speaker 1: it's within thirty days, an inmate or an individual that
42:37
Speaker 1: has been sentenced death, they can request that they still
42:40
Speaker 1: be placed in the electric chair down in Florida. But
42:45
Speaker 1: and of course that hasn't been utilized. They had a
42:47
Speaker 1: couple of bad experiences with electrocutions in Florida years ago
42:53
Speaker 1: and where and these stories just go on and on
42:56
Speaker 1: and on. Relative to the electric chair but now from
43:00
Speaker 1: what I understand, and remember you and I actually did
43:03
Speaker 1: this for our UH for one of our episodes here
43:08
Speaker 1: in our home state of Alabama where we had the
43:12
Speaker 1: first use of the nitrogen mask. Well, Florida, that's an
43:18
Speaker 1: option now too. The nitrogen mask is an option, and
43:22
Speaker 1: I have heard that firing squad is an option now.
43:25
Speaker 1: So I don't know precisely how the order is going
43:29
Speaker 1: to work. I can tell you that relative to what
43:35
Speaker 1: will transpire with Spencer in the death house at at Florida,
43:44
Speaker 1: is he's going to be administered a drug that will
43:50
Speaker 1: essentially it's going to be he'll have an ivy in
43:53
Speaker 1: and it's a sedative in at them a day. I
44:00
Speaker 1: think his hou is pronounced and it's going to knock
44:03
Speaker 1: him unconscious in the first few seconds. Then they're going
44:07
Speaker 1: to recording him bromide they're going to give him and
44:11
Speaker 1: it's going to be a neuro muscular blocking agent. It
44:14
Speaker 1: kind of paralyzes the muscles at that point in time.
44:18
Speaker 1: And then they'll give him potassium acetate and that's going
44:22
Speaker 1: to cause cause cardiac arrest. So there's essentially three pushes
44:26
Speaker 1: that take place, you know, and somebody is going to
44:29
Speaker 1: have to you know, press the button to start that,
44:31
Speaker 1: to start those injections, and you know kind of you know,
44:35
Speaker 1: move him through that. Uh. I can tell you what
44:38
Speaker 1: is not going to happen relative to Spenser is h
44:43
Speaker 1: He's not going to have his face carved up with
44:45
Speaker 1: a knife. He's not going to be beaten with a brick.
44:48
Speaker 1: He's not going to have his face driven into the
44:50
Speaker 1: side of a building. He's not going to have somebody
44:53
Speaker 1: pull down his pants and make light of his genitalia.
44:58
Speaker 1: You know that that's that's not going to happen to him.
45:01
Speaker 1: That's not going to happen to him. And he's had
45:06
Speaker 1: multiple Christmases, maybe spend them alone. I have no idea.
45:11
Speaker 1: He's had multiple meals, He's had the ability to think
45:14
Speaker 1: about life and think about what could have been. You know,
45:19
Speaker 1: that has happened, but it didn't happen for Karen. Karen
45:24
Speaker 1: had forty Christmases at Best Okay, and she got to
45:30
Speaker 1: see her teenage son bore witness to him being beaten
45:38
Speaker 1: to the point where this individual broke a rifle butt
45:43
Speaker 1: over his head. She got to see that. Those were
45:48
Speaker 1: her final memories. I wonder what Dusty's final memories will
45:54
Speaker 1: be I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is bodybags.