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Rev. John
A. SPENCER
Classification: Murderer
Characteristics:
Parricide
- Preacher
Number of victims: 1
Date of murder:
July 26,
1921
Date
of arrest:August
20, 1921
Date of birth: ???
Victim profile: His wife Emma Spencer
Method of murder:
Drowning
Location: Clear Lake, Lake County, California, USA
Status: Sentenced to life in prison in 1921
Rev. Spencer Trial
On
Prosecution Working on
Circumstantial Evidence
Spencer’s Character
Assailed – eyes of Entire Country on Trial – No Proof of Murder
Lake County Bee
Thursday, October 6,
1921
With the eyes of the
entire country turned on the trial of Rev. John A. Spencer, charged with
the murder of his wife on Clear Lake on the night of July 26th
and with the town teeming with visitors who have arrived for the trial,
and amid an atmosphere of interest and anxiety the jury which is to
decide the fate of the minister was sworn in at noon Tuesday.
The jury was selected after
sixty four were examined out of the hundred names drawn. Many jurors
disqualified themselves because of their prejudice toward circumstantial
evidence and others because prejudiced against capital punishment. The
jury selected is as follows: Bert Sayre, H. Deverman, N.C. Fowler, J.T.
Butler, John F. Garner, Herbert C. Mosher, H.W. Lathrop, T.J. Turner,
Peter S. Pluth, Ray W. Young, Eugene W. Rose, Henry Herman. Alternat
juror: H.C. Norman.
Working from three angles, that
of poisoning, choking, and drowning, the prosecution is basing its fight
on a plain case of circumstantial evidence. The autopsy revealed that
no poison was contained in Mrs. Spencer’s stomach, testimony proves that
there were no marks of violence on the body and that there could have
been no choking, and the last theory is that she may have been drowned.
Up to the time that we go to press, no damaging
evidence has been presented by the prosecution, which would serve to
show that Spencer murdered his wife. The testimony by the witnesses
for the prosecution has the attacked the character of Spencer
violently and laid his past life as an open book. However, the
defense has brought out that most of the testimony has been given by
persons who hold a personal animosity against Spencer. Robt.
Siddell, one of the star witnesses for the prosecution, admitted
that he had always disliked Spencer.
Mrs. Ella F. Palmer, who
offered strong testimony against Spencer’s character, also
acknowledged that she held a personal dislike for the minister.
The prosecution began
examination of witnesses on Tuesday after County Surveyor McIntire
was the first witness and produced maps showing the location of
Spencer’s cabin and the spot where the tragedy took place.
Mrs. Robt. Sidell, to whose
home the Spencers were bound on the night of Mrs. Spencer’s death,
related the events that took place the night of the tragedy.
Robt. Sidell testified that on the night of the death of Mrs. Spencer,
he was awakened by his wife at about 9:30 and heard a voice calling to
him from inside the door of his house. He and his wife ran out, meeting
Spencer who was calling for a rope and saying that his wife was in the
lake. While Mrs. Sidell ran for nearby help, her husband followed
Spencer to the wharf where thye found Mrs. Spencer’s body floating near
the boat, face-downward. The body was pulled out and attempts made to
resuscitate, but the body was already lifeless.
Spencer explained that his reason for going to the Sidells was that his
wife had a skirt which she desired to fix and not having the thread to
match suggested on going to the Sidells and having Mrs. Sidell obtain
the thread for her the following day on her trip to town, as Mrs. Sidell
had been making regular trips to the dentist.
Spencer further explained to Sidell that on
getting out of the boat to fasten it to the wharf, he heard a splash
and turning, saw that his wife was missing from the boat.
He then jumped into the lake
and dove down four times is an effort to rescue his wife, before
going for assistance.
Dr. Bonar, of Santa Rosa, testified that according to the testimony
given by Sidell, Mrs. Spencer met her death by drowning, although
characterizing it very unusual that the body did not sink. In answer to
the defense, the doctor stated that in the event that Mrs. Spencer died
from heart trouble her body would have floated. He also testified that
he had examined Mrs. Spencer on May 27th and at that time her
heart was normal. However, he did not make an examination of the urine
nor take the blood pressure, which tests are necessary for a thorough
heart examination.
On Wednesday morning Dr.
Chas. Craig who examined Mrs. Spencer’s body at the autopsy, said
that he had found a thickening of the valves of the heart and
although he did not consider it probable that this would cause her
death, stated that such a thing was possible.
Hudson Jack, an Indian from
the Indian Camp close to the scene of the tragedy took the stand and
testified that he had heard someone call on the night of Mrs.
Spencer’s death. The defense broke down this testimony, making him
admit that the voice which he heard may have been that of a man,
woman, or animal.
W.A. Miller, who has a lease on land owned by
Spencer in San Jose, stated that Spencer told him that his wife was
a burden to him, and that after Mrs. Spencer’s death Spencer never
seemed so happy. The defense brought out that Miller had some
dealings with Spencer in a controversy over water on the leased land
but Miller would not admit that the dealings were of an angry nature.
The most violent assailing of Spencer’s character was given by Mrs. Mary
Caldwell and Mrs. Ella F. Palmer, who were neighbors of the Spencers in
Santa Rosa. The testimony given by these witnesses was that Spencer had
carried on intimate relations with Mrs. E.D. Duncks (Barber) and was
often seen bgoing into her apartment.
Mrs. Ella Palmer stated that Spencer had abused his wife on several
occasions and that Mrs. Spencer had accused her husband of trying to
poison her.
On being interviewed Spencer said: “My wife was troubled with melancholy
brought on by a change in life. At times she was unduly excited and her
feeling got beyond her control. In this condition a person is liable to
suspicion their best friends and often suffer hallucination, being
possessed with a thought that someone wishes to harm them.”
A letter addressed to Mr. M. Charmley, Santa Rosa, dated July 27, 1921,
is as follows: “A sorry accident has entered my household while visiting
an old friend. Mrs. Spencer, in stepping from the boat to the wharf,
lost her footing and fell into the lake. I at once dived overboard.
The water was very deep and although I dove down four times, I could not
find her. Our kind host and wife together with other friends that
gathered on the wharf assisted in the rescue. It was not until some
moments later that we saw the body floating at the far side of the boat.
The very place where we had not thought to look.
Everything that kind and
willing hands could do was done to revive her but without avail. A
coroners jury was summoned at once (composed of men and women the
best in the county) and returned a verdict of accidental drowning.
Hard as this misfortune is to me for I had, in
common with herself, made many nice plans for the future. Yet I am
grateful to think that it took place in the presence of witnesses
and at a public wharf. The evil tongues that have done so much
mischief in the past can find nothing here. Hoping this finds you
well of your troubles, I remain, very sincerely yours, J.A. Spencer.
P.S. I am leaving Lake
County for the southland where I expect to remain for a time.”
This letter has been
introduced by the prosecution as evidence.
Another letter introduced by the prosecution, and which carries with it
a violent blow to Spencer’s character, and which was claimed to have
been sent by him to Mrs. E. D. Duncks (Barber), but which Spencer claims
was left in his desk at his home and never mailed, is as follows:
“My only Sweetheart: I am
writing a late letter to you tonight darling for I have just
returned from Mrs. P. and find Mrs. S. very poorly. Mrs. P. says it
will not be best for you to come see her for a few days for her poor
weak mind has been so poisoned by falsehoods that she does not know
her best friends. Of course I know that Mrs. P. has had her share
in this, in spite of her statements to the contrary and I accused
her of it tonight love.
But dearest in spite of this
or anything else there will be no change in our love, we will see
each other and confess our love to each other just the same darling.
My love do not come before 7:30 tomorrow night as I will have to
visit Mrs. S. until about that time dear. I will have the room warm
for you and we will have a lovely hour together sweet love. Do not
tell anyone dearest that Mrs. S. is this way toward you and they
will not know. She will change in time. Your loving letter did me
much good darling. And I shall count the minutes until tomorrow
evening. You can tell D. that you are going to Mrs. P. as you
intended. I am a little anxious about the letter you gave Mrs. C.
to mail for you. It would be --- if she ever read this. We won’t
ever give a letter or notes dear to any other again; they may mean
our great loss to each other. Good night my very own forever. J.”
The presence of District Attorney Hoyle of Sonoma
County has caused considerable comment as it is a rare thing for a
district attorney to assist in a case outside his own county. Spencer’s
version is that Hoyle holds a personal animosity against him because
Spencer took an active part in a recall for Hoyle in Santa Rosa a year
and a half ago.
Hoyle’s statement is that he is assisting on the case at the request of
the district attorney of this county and because of the fact that the
Spencer case originated in Sonoma County.
Beneath the
Surface
At half-past 9 on
July 26, 1921, Robert Siddell and his wife had just retired for the
evening in their cabin near Konocti Bay on Clear Lake in California when
they were awakened by shouts coming from their neighbor, the Rev. John
A. Spencer, who was standing in their living room.
“Siddell, Siddell, a rope!”
Spencer was shouting. “My wife is in the lake! This is Mr. Spencer
calling!”
Reverend Spencer was standing near
the front entrance, drenched from head to toe. When he saw the Siddells,
he raced from the house toward the Siddell’s wharf. Robert Siddell
followed him, while his wife headed next door to another neighbor’s home
to fetch more help.
Spencer was standing on the dock
when Siddell arrived next to him, and the minister pointed to something
floating near where his boat was tied to the Siddell wharf.
“There she is now,” Spencer said, referring to his wife, Emma, and
Siddell noticed that his voice and demeanor had changed a bit.
Looking out into Konocti Bay,
Siddell saw a woman’s body floating face down in the black water, with
“a considerable portion of her body exposed” above the surface. She was
dressed, but the evidence reports that she “wore no hat” and her hair
was “down or torn loose.”
Quite calm now, Spencer jumped
into his boat and moved toward the bow, reaching into the water to pull
his wife’s body out of the water. With Siddell’s help, they took her
limp form from the water and laid her on the wharf.
“While all of this was going on,”
the record shows, Spencer “exhibited no signs of emotion. Indeed, his
manner was rather that of complacency of mind than an indicium of
excitement or sorrow or grief.”
When they had her on the dock, he
turned to his neighbor and remarked, “She does not look as though she
suffered any.”
Although Spencer might have been
willing to write-off his wife, Siddell was not. He told Spencer to lift
Emma’s upper body as she lay face down on the dock. As he did so, a
large amount of water was expelled from Emma’s mouth. Siddell pushed on
her abdomen, and more water flowed out. They turned the woman on her
back and Siddell tried to get her to breath by working her arms
back-and-forth.
“But all efforts at resuscitation
were futile,” wrote a California appeals court. “It was obvious that
life was extinct, as undoubtedly was the fact before the body was
removed from the water.”
After the coroner removed Mrs.
Spencer’s body, the minister told how they had happened to end up on the
Siddells’ dock so late after calling hours. Emma, it seems, was sewing a
skirt and needed a particular type of thread and she knew that Mrs.
Siddell was planning to go into town the next morning. According to
Spencer, she persuaded her husband “against his wishes” to leave
their
dock, on the opposite of Konocti Bay from the Siddells, and ferry her
across to the Siddell cabin.
Spencer said he was in the act of
tying up the boat when his wife must have stood up, lost her balance and
fallen into the water. He tried three times without success to rescue
her, and then headed up to the Siddells to seek help.
The next morning, the coroner held
an inquest, during which a panel of six citizens heard testimony from
the witnesses, Siddell and Spencer.
At one point during the hearing,
when one one of the jurors posited whether it was possible that Emma had
suffered a heart attack or seizure of some sort, Spencer told the court
that his wife did have “serious heart trouble.” Friends noted that this
was the first time that they had heard this.
After the brief hearing, the
coroner’s jury ruled that Emma Spencer met her death through accidental
drowning.
It wasn’t long after Mrs. Spencer
was buried that ugly rumors began circulating that perhaps the death
wasn’t an accident. For one thing, those who had experience with
drownings said, normally a drowned body sinks beneath the surface and
will remain there until the gasses of decomposition reverse the negative
bouyancy and cause it to float. That usually takes four to six days.
The body of a person who is dead
before he or she hits the water will float, however.
The Rev. Spencer didn’t help his case, either. Shortly after the
funeral, he wrote a letter to another minister, discussing the
unfortunate events. His version of what happened, however, bordered on
fiction.
“I am grateful to think that it
took place in front of witnesses, and at the public wharf,” he wrote.
“The evil tongues that have done so much mischief in the past can find
nothing here. I have at least cause to be thankful that it took place
where it did at the home of a prominent and much respected family, with
they and other friends present.”
At another time, he told other friends that Emma had fallen overboard in
the middle of the afternoon during a party while she was waving to
neighbors on the shore and that several others had also dived into the
water to try to save her.
A quiet investigation began and
the police soon learned from a youth named Hudson Jack, that he was
camped near the wharf near the Spencer home and that at about 8 p.m. on
the night Emma died, he heard a scream coming from the waterfront near
that dock.
A little more than two weeks after
she had been buried, Emma’s corpse was exhumed and an autopsy was
performed. Although Mrs. Spencer’s mitral valve in her heart was a
trifle thick, that would not have caused her death or even prompted a
heart attack, the medical examiner ruled.
When friends of Mrs. Spencer told
investigators they thought it very unusual that Emma had left her home
without a scarf and hat that she “always” wore.
“It was known that the deceased always wore a hat and certain shawl when
visiting among her friends or sailing with her husband on the lake,” the
appellate court wrote. “As seen, when her body was first observed
floating in the bay… the deceased wore neither a hat nor the shawl
referred to.”
Working from the theory that
perhaps Mrs. Spencer did not drown where she was found, authorities
began poking around the dock near the Spencer cabin and when dragging
the area of the lake around the Spencer dock, managed to bring up a
red-and-white shawl that Emma’s friends subsequently identified as the
victim’s favorite.
In August 1921, Spencer appeared at the offices of a real estate firm
and demanded some documents that his wife had prepared shortly before
her death. The papers signed over rights to some property and a
promissory note held by Emma Spencer to her husband in the event of her
death.
Next, the police began looking at
the marital relationship between the minister and his wife.
“It was discovered that for a
number of months before the death of Mrs. Spencer the relations between
the defendant and his wife were of the most unhappy character,” the
investigation revealed. “Spencer had often been heard to abuse his wife
by addressing to her opprobrious epithets of the most indecent character
and expressing himself when quarrelling with her in the most offensive
profanity.”
At one point, a weeping Emma told
a friend, “that man in the next room is killing me.” Another neighbor
heard her telling Spencer that “she knew enough about him to send him to
prison.”
Most damning of the circumstantial
evidence that was accumulating against the Rev. Spencer was the fact
that he was carrying on an affair with a married woman referred only as
“Mrs. D.” He not only was her lover, he was paying for an apartment for
her in San Jose and at times was living with her as if they were
married.
Authorities unearthed a letter written by Spencer in December 1920 to
Mrs. D., where he referred to her as “My only sweetheart.
“We will see each other and
confess our love to each other, just the same, darling,” he wrote in it.
Other evidence showed that Emma
was well aware of the affair, although she certainly did not approve. In
fact, as Spencer became more and more infatuated with Mrs. D. — there is
no mention of Mrs. D.’s husband, and it seems likely that because she
was living in an apartment paid for by Spencer she was at least
separated — the Spencers’ relationship became more fractious.
In August 1921, the Lake County
Sheriff and district attorney concluded their investigation and arrested
Spencer. During a boat trip back to Lake County, Spencer asked District
Attorney Churchill how much he earned annually. When Churchill replied
that he received $1,500, Spencer replied, “That’s not enough!” He then
offered him a bribe.
“I know of a case where the
district attorney was given $200 for not prosecuting a case,” Spencer
said. “Do you think that would be a proper thing to do?”
Churchill knew what was going on and began to play along. He talked
about how poor he was and about his high mortgage. Spencer asked if he
wanted to live on Konocti Bay, which Churchill said sounded very nice.
Spencer then proposed giving him 50 feet of frontage along the bay as
well as enough lumber to build a home.
When Spencer discovered a
recording device in a room where he and Churchill were to discuss the
bribe further, he dropped the subject.
The matter
went to trial, and the Rev. Spencer was subsequently convicted of murder
and sentenced to life in prison. He appealed, arguing that the corpus
delicti was not proved, but was unsuccessful.
