Robert Spangler was a Colorado man who, in 2000, told investigators that he had killed four members of his family. He was convicted of one of those deaths: that of his third wife, Donna, who died at Grand Canyon National Park in April 1993. He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in a federal court in Arizona and received a sentence of life imprisonment without parole. The other three deaths, those of his first wife and of their teenage son and daughter in Littleton, Colorado, in December 1978, were never tried. He admitted them, and Colorado authorities were reported in March 2001 as saying they would not prosecute because he had terminal cancer.
The case is taught in law enforcement circles because it was solved long after the fact. Two deaths fifteen years apart, in two states, had each been closed by officials who had no reason to connect them. A team that came together in 1999 did connect them, and a confession to interviewers settled what the surviving evidence could not.
Spangler grew up in Ames, Iowa. Radio Iowa reported in October 2000 that he was a former Ames man who had graduated from Ames High School and attended Iowa State University. His late father had been a professor at Iowa State and a member of the Ames City Council. His date of birth and the details of his childhood are not on record.
By the time of the 1978 deaths he lived in Colorado. The FBI's account of the case describes him as an educated, intelligent and successful man who worked in human relations and public speaking and who had been a radio talk show personality. He was married three times by the time of his confession. A radio report from October 2000 spoke of four wives.
Nancy Spangler was 45 in 1978. She and her husband had two children: David, who was 17, and Susan, who was 15. The family lived in Littleton, in Arapahoe County, south of Denver. Their schools, interests and friends are not on record.
On December 30, 1978, deputies of the Arapahoe County Sheriff's Office responded to a report of deaths in Littleton. Nancy, David and Susan had died. Deputies opened an inquiry, and Spangler was interviewed as a suspect. On January 3, 1979, the Arapahoe County coroner closed the case. The FBI's account states that the sheriff's office could not overcome the coroner's findings, had exhausted its leads, and closed its investigation as well. Most of the evidence was returned to Spangler or destroyed. For more than twenty years no one was charged.
Spangler remarried about seven months after the deaths. His second wife shared his enthusiasm for hiking in the Grand Canyon. The couple divorced in 1988. The FBI's account says that after the death of his third wife he reconnected with his second wife, and that she died in 1994. Law enforcement did not investigate her death. In his 2000 interview Spangler denied any involvement in it. He was never charged in connection with it, and no official finding attributes it to him.
Donna Spangler was 58 in April 1993, when she and her husband went backpacking in the Grand Canyon. She died at Grand Canyon National Park. Rangers conducted an inquiry, and the death was ruled an accident. Spangler was not implicated at the time.
Her life before the marriage is not on record. Her death is the only one for which Spangler was ever convicted.
In January 1999 investigators from three agencies met and found that each held a cold case involving the same man: the National Park Service of the US Department of the Interior, Coconino County in Arizona, and Arapahoe County in Colorado. They went to the FBI's resident agency in Flagstaff, Arizona, and asked for help. An assistant US attorney from the District of Arizona, who had capital murder experience and knew the Grand Canyon, joined the team. That prosecutor framed the cases as an insurance fraud and murder matter, which placed them under federal jurisdiction. An FBI agent in Flagstaff then contacted the Bureau's National Center for the Analysis of Violent Crime, known as NCAVC, which prepared a history of the subject and recommended approaches for interviewing him.
Arapahoe County Sheriff's Investigator Paul Goodman served as a co-case agent for the Colorado side of the inquiry.
The team faced obstacles. Evidence from 1978 was missing. Spangler was also suffering from terminal cancer, which raised questions about whether he was competent to be interviewed and whether any statement he made would be voluntary. A lead then produced a woman who had received a letter from Spangler telling her that he had terminal cancer. Because so little other evidence remained, investigators regarded a full confession as essential. The NCAVC arranged for a medical review of his records to address competency and voluntariness before the interviews went ahead.
Investigators interviewed Spangler in Colorado on September 14 and 15, 2000. He confessed to FBI agents and other investigators that he had killed his first wife and his two children in 1978, and that he had killed his third wife at the Grand Canyon in 1993. According to the FBI's account, he first declined to discuss the Grand Canyon death because he feared a civil suit by his third wife's children, and later described his part in it. He denied involvement in the death of his second wife. The FBI's account of the case records his remark to the interviewers, "You've got your serial."
Radio Iowa carried the news in Iowa on October 10, 2000, reporting that Spangler, then held by Colorado authorities, was dying of cancer and was expected to live about three more weeks. He lived considerably longer than that. The sentencing took place the following March.
Spangler pleaded guilty in federal district court in Arizona to the first-degree murder of his third wife. As part of the agreement he also admitted killing his first wife and the couple's two children. A Sapa-AP dispatch datelined Phoenix and published on March 13, 2001, said he was 69 and living in Grand Junction, Colorado, and that sentencing had taken place on the Monday before. The sentence was life imprisonment. The FBI's account gives the term as life without parole.
The same dispatch reported that Colorado authorities would not prosecute the 1978 deaths because Spangler had terminal cancer. No statement from Arapahoe County officials on the 1978 matter after the confession is on record. The deaths of Nancy, David and Susan therefore stand as admitted but never adjudicated.
The date of the plea hearing is not on record.
Spangler died of cancer in a federal prison. The FBI's 2005 account says so; the date and the facility are not on record.
One conviction exists, and it rests on a guilty plea to first-degree murder. The other deaths stand on different footing:
The 1978 deaths of his first wife and two children were admitted by Spangler to investigators in 2000 and again within the plea agreement. They were never charged in Colorado and never tried.
The 1994 death of his second wife was never investigated at the time. He denied involvement, was never charged, and no official finding links it to him.
Radio Iowa's October 2000 report said he had admitted killing two of his four wives. The FBI's account, written by people who worked on the case, describes three marriages: the first ending with the 1978 deaths, the second in divorce in 1988, and the third with Donna's death in 1993.
Radio Iowa gave his age as 67 in October 2000, while the Sapa-AP dispatch of March 2001 gave 69.
The wire report gives the day of the sentencing only as a Monday, and the date of his death is not on record.
The FBI's Law Enforcement Bulletin featured the case in 2005 as an example of cold case homicide work. Its authors wrote that investigating such cases is among the most frustrating tasks of a law enforcement officer, that NCAVC behavioral analysis and an interview strategy were applied directly and accurately predicted several of Spangler's behaviors, that rapport was the key to the confession, and that a complete confession was critical because little other evidence existed. The article also notes that NCAVC help is free and is requested through the coordinators in the FBI's field offices.
December 30, 1978: Spangler's first wife, Nancy, and their son and daughter, David and Susan, die in Littleton, Colorado.
January 3, 1979: The Arapahoe County coroner closes the case, and the sheriff's office closes its inquiry.
About seven months later: Spangler remarries.
1988: Divorce from his second wife.
April 1993: His third wife, Donna, dies at Grand Canyon National Park; the death is ruled an accident.
1994: His second wife dies; the death is not investigated.
January 1999: Investigators from the National Park Service, Coconino County and Arapahoe County link the cases and ask the FBI for help.
September 14 and 15, 2000: Spangler confesses to investigators in Colorado.
October 10, 2000: Radio Iowa reports the confession.
March 2001: Sentenced in federal court in Arizona to life imprisonment for the first-degree murder of his third wife; Colorado authorities are reported as not prosecuting the 1978 deaths.
August 31, 2005: The FBI publishes its account of the case.