Alright, Jessie, here we are on New Year's Day, kicking off 2025 right with a fresh episode of Love Murder. What story are you going to start the year with? A late-in-life marriage seems like a dream come true, until cancer strikes, and then the FBI comes knocking. I'm Andy Kissett, and I'm Jessie Prey, and this is Love Murder. Hi, Andy. Hi, Jessie. Welcome back, everyone, to Love Murder, a podcast about many wives, many lives, and love gone fatally wrong. You can find Love Murder on TikTok and Instagram at Love Murder Pod and on Facebook by searching Love Murder Podcast. If you are enjoying this show, please love/murder a five-star rating on your podcast app, subscribe, and review to help new people discover the show. Also, if you're interested in supporting the show more directly, you can go right on over to patreon.com/lovemurderpod, where you can learn all about the different tiers of support and the benefits that you get. Yeah, we are so thrilled to round out some of our December patreons today for New Year's Day. So a big thank you too. Kandy C. and Beth the C. Cameron B. and Thomas B. Joanne B. and Carrie K. Claire Marie and Jessica D. And last but not least, Jen M. Thank you, everyone, for making our 2024 so excellent. That was a really, really nice year for patreon. It was, it was a great year. It was a great year to get to know a lot of you better, which was nice. We just had our last Love Murder, patreon happy hour of the year, and it was very cozy. It was cozy. It was really nice. It was. So thank you guys for coming. Okay, so it is New Year's Day. We have had such a weird run of it with Christmas Day falling on a Wednesday and New Year's Day falling on a Wednesday. Yeah, it's very interesting, but I do feel like it's going to be interesting to see how many people tune in, but I do think it's nice to have that normalcy every Wednesday, no matter what day of the week it is or day of the year. Exactly. If you can't count on anything, you can count on Love Murder showing up in your feed every Wednesday, holiday or no holiday. Okay, so let's get right into it then. The New Year is a great time for resolutions, for new versions of you, for new experiences, and especially for new love. So we're going to start today's episode with a love story. It's a love story between two people who are a little bit older and who had already loved and lost in their lives. So they knew a good thing when it happened. Bob Spangler was a 66 year old retiree and hiking enthusiast who spotted the 14 years younger Judy Hilty at a breakfast for singles in Grand Junction, Colorado. This was a breakfast called connections. Bob happened to glance down the table and make intense eye contact with Judy. And at a breakfast called connections, an instant connection was indeed made. Oh gosh, I mean, that's the goal, right? That was the goal. He didn't have high hopes for it, but he later wrote to a friend, quote, instant interest from her signaled a pool party at her home later that same day. Voila, we have what appears to be the start of a significant attachment. Quite unexpected, but very pleasant. He said this? He wrote that to his friend after meeting Judy. Quite the poet. He really does wax quite poetic. This unexpected delight blossomed very quickly into a surprisingly strong love connection. Very instantaneously. It's the type of easy relationship where it sounds like, at least, it was described as two people who are like immediately on the same wavelength. They spent days at her pool, nights in his hot tub, days hiking and exploring nature, evenings checking out Grand Junction's jazz scene. Within months of meeting, they took a backpacking trip through the Grand Canyon, and Bob then wrote to a friend, quote, "We thoroughly enjoy each other's company. Doesn't feel at all like raging hormones of some new or lustful attachment. Just wonderfully, naturally, unheardly, inevitably, and most pleasantly right." Yeah, this guy's got a way with words, huh? What, like, friend is he writing? You know, these are just from some personal letters, but I know we don't exactly write to each other about these things. Could you imagine our texts about, like, our husbands? Yeah. Although what I met with Daniel, I might have sounded like this. I guess maybe. Maybe. Yeah. Pretty soon, as Smitten Bob bought his new lady a fixer upper house for them to work on together as a shared labor of love. Bob would eventually deed the house over to Judy as a wedding gift. So he, like, bought it as, like, a project house for both of them, but then he's, like, surprised it's actually just yours. Here you go, babe. Just yours. Yeah. He'd deed it over to her. Judy was equally in love with her new bow and appreciated his passion for life and for her, obviously. Other than hiking and fixing up old houses, Bob also had a talent for acting and was scratching the itch by performing in local theater productions. There it is. There it is all the world's stage, Andrea. We are just players, but just players. So it was during such a production in the late summer of 2000 that Bob, all of a sudden, found himself forgetting his lines and even experiencing memory blackouts. Oh, no. Well-being entirely sober. Judy also noticed that Bob had increased forgetfulness and was struggling with balance issues. His eyesight also appeared to be drastically worsening, like more than just general old age. It seemed to be going very quickly. Yeah, not like I need my iPhone for the menu at this restaurant now, but, like, worse. Way worse, yes. Yeah. So she pushed Bob to see a doctor and, unfortunately, the news was devastating. In August of 2000, Bob was told that he had late stage lung cancer and had already spread to his brain. No, that's what was happening. Yeah. Oh, Judy was only in her fifties. I think she was like early to mid fifties at this point, and she still had so much life left in front of her, but she was in love with Bob. She stood by her man and the two decided to get married as fast as possible despite Bob's terminal cancer diagnosis. On September 1, 2000, the lovers wed. A neighbor remembered, quote, he was the nicest man he'd just remarried and his wife was so in love with him. Everywhere they went, they went hand in hand. And Judy really was completely, completely devoted to Bob in every way. She was fully prepared to make the rest of Bob's days as happy and comfortable as possible. What she couldn't have prepared for, however, was the day exactly two weeks after her wedding. When the FBI showed up on her doorstep and they had some questions for her new husband. Oh, my goodness. You see, unlike many of the lying liars we have covered on this show before, Bob's finger really did have terminal cancer. This was not a lie. And it was now or never for the FBI to find out about not one, not two, but five mysterious death slash homicides of people who are very close to Bob. Bob. An FBI agent later said about that September day, quote, we just knocked on his door. He didn't even seem surprised. It's strange. He didn't seem surprised, but he also didn't seem like he was expecting us. There was no reaction. Just Oh, hello. That's what led to the eventual confession and arrest. So today's episode is about the many wives and the many lives taken by the Odias Robert Spangler. Odias. Odias. I'm busting out the vocab words for 2025. Our main source today is the book Married to Murder by Robert Scott. And it's like very pulpy. The cover says as seen on 2020. There's like a weird collage of pictures and like a superimposed gun. Is that Bob? Yeah, that's Bob. Oh my goodness. Whoa. I know. Doesn't he just like an English teacher or like a theater teacher or something? Literally. He's full gray with like little spectacles. Yep. And a gray beard. Oh my goodness. And mustache. Mustache. He kind of looks like my high school English teacher, Mr. Pagano. Did Mr. Pagano also take a stage? I think he did. I think he was involved in some Santa. Yeah. Yes. I sadly that 2020 is now over 20 years old. So I could not find it to watch. So let's jump way back to beginning with baby Bob's birth and then meet the unfortunate lovely human beings who entered his life. Are you ready for the Bob Spangler story? But I'm assuming left quickly after. Yes. Unfortunately for them indeed. So Robert Merlin Spangler. That's right. Merlin. Wow. Wow. Okay. Known throughout his life as Bob was born on January 10th, 1933 in Des Moines, Iowa. According to his biographer, he was adopted at a young age by his father was named Merlin. Merlin and Ioni in Ames, Iowa. Ioni is a sick name. If we had had another girl, Ioni was at the top of my list. Alden and Ioni. A really cool name. So he grew up alongside his older brother named Wayne. So he's adopted. I'm not sure about Wayne. Okay. Second child. The Spanglers were a prominent family in Ames. Merlin was a retired Navy officer and a prominent professor and researcher at Iowa State University. He even had a scientific theory named after him. So real smart parents. Whoa. Yeah. Perhaps rebelling against his prominent and very successful father. Bob was a troublemaker from the start. One farmer classmate remembered watching Bob get into a fight and beat another boy to a pulp saying, quote, he had to be pulled off because he was going to keep beating him. He thoroughly enjoyed hurting people. He had an angry streak from a young age. Ooh. Wasn't like an accidental like Christmas story beating of like the redheaded kid he wanted to hurt people all the time. Yeah. And I think most people stop when it's clear they've won. And it was clear that Bob wasn't stopping. Yeah. Yeah. This kid was definitely born a psychopath. It kind of makes my skin crawl a little to think about what his parents knew or they didn't know or when they suspected and questioned about where he came from and why he was like this. When Bob was 11, a fellow student of his drowned at a sewer treatment plant in Ames, the boys had a longstanding rivalry and Bob famously hated him. The drowning was so mysterious that an 11 year old Bob Spangler was actually taken in and questioned in connection with it. It was never formally linked back to Bob, but there was always questions. So scary. Yeah. So in addition to this violent streak, though, he was a bright student. He was an accomplished athlete. He was an incredibly confident young man. He was active in band, journalism, the film club. He was a varsity athlete. He played on the tennis team, the basketball team, the football team. He ran track. I think that when he was younger, it was harder for him to mask some of this psychopathy. And then as he got older and he was relatively good looking, he was athletic. He's obviously very smart. He could start to mask that behavior behind some of these positive attributes. Totally. It was at this high school that Bob met his future wife, Nancy Stalman. Nancy was born on September 11th, 1933, also in Ames, Iowa. Her parents divorced when she was young and her father remarried a woman named Joe Fitch, bringing her steps and links David and Kathy into the family. They loved her. They said that Nancy was literally the best. She was one of those kind, good-hearted people that got along with literally every person she had ever met in her life. Though Nancy was quiet and shy, she was also very active in school clubs. She was in the Girls Athletic Association, the photo club, film club with Bob, your book, newspaper, prep club, glee club, cubs club. I don't even know what that is. Yeah, she was busy. She also served as the secretary of her homeroom. And obviously, some of these interests overlapped, which is where Nancy met Bob. Nancy's cousin, Martha, remembered way back in high school, Bob's head started growing. Bob Spangler was in love with one person himself, but Nancy was also in love with Bob. She thought he was just the greatest thing ever. Yeah. That, like, just because someone's egotistical doesn't make you stop loving them. I wish it worked that way, but it doesn't. Well, another reason I think a lot of psychopaths become like CEOs and stuff is one, obviously, they don't have regard for other people. They can just focus on themselves and their own success, but also they have a lot of confidence. And this would be something that would be very attractive to anyone, let alone a young teenage girl who's ambitious as well. He was ambitious. He was doing great in school. He was very athletic. And he was very sure of himself. That's attractive. And he came from a good family. I mean, people knew them. They were well respected. His father was a very well respected scientist and professor. After graduating high school in 1951, Bob attended Iowa State University where his father taught graduating in 1955 with a degree in technical journalism. Shortly after his graduation, the couple was married in a Presbyterian church. By September of that year, Bob was in training for the army and he was stationed at in New Jersey. From the beginning, he was skilled with a gun. So we'll let that be a little foreshadowing. They said he was a good marksman. Yeah. Eventually, Bob was discharged honorably from the army and Nancy and he moved first to New York City and then to Minnesota where they welcomed two children. Son David was born on November 27, 1961 and daughter Susan was born on August 14, 1963. So just about two years apart. Nancy was a beautiful soul and a natural mother. She also took Bob's controlling nature and general assholery completely in stride. Nancy was certainly bright enough to have had a successful career herself, but she was definitely sidelined by Bob's desires and whims and his own career aspirations. Does not shock me at all, especially for the time, but also for him. Yes. It was clear that he was the star. He's like the metaphorical son of the family, like S.U.N. son and Nancy and the kids were all supposed to like revolve around him, including moving the entire family back to New York when the kids were still little, so he could do more entertainment type stuff, including working on Sesame Street in Sesame Street's early days. So Martha, Nancy's cousin, said the following, Nancy eagerly put career aspirations on hold, replacing them with a passion for gourmet cooking, motherhood, and her husband. Even back then, as a kid, I thought Bob was somewhat controlling of her. He wanted her at his beck and call. She literally worshipped the ground the man walked on. She seemed like a mom who just wanted to have the perfect family. She was always just sparkling. You'd never know there were problems. She's a strong person, too, though, so she can like handle and hide a lot. She's like channeling all of any strife or problems in her own life into putting on this perfect family life for her kid, totally, and trying to present a united front. So Bob next took a job in Denver, Colorado and fell in love with the mountains. He loved hiking and biking, and this was the perfect place to foster his hobby. So again, it's all about Bob. What Bob wants, what he likes, he wants to live in Colorado now, he wants to go hiking all the time, and that's what the family does. They're just kind of like moving around based on his whims. But what Bob liked even more than the mountains, however, was his assistant at his new job at American Water Works. Gross. Mm hmm. Sharon Cooper was nine years younger than Bob and was described as a free spirit. She had grown up in St. Louis and then moved to New York City and had recently landed in Denver. She loved yoga, hiking, and was known to embrace new age spirituality. Because this is the 70s. So yeah, that time, the age of Aquarius. Bob at this point was very checked out emotionally at home. He was reportedly bored with Nancy, the wife who had derailed her entire life to give everything to him and was getting increasingly frustrated with his now teenage children who were in general just being teenagers. I think that they were getting more independent and they were no longer falling in line with Bob's version of who they should be. Obviously with narcissistic personality types, especially with children, it's almost like the children and the partner are supposed to be little representations of them, offshoots of themselves, and whatever they do reflects upon Bob. And so he is having issues with his own children at this point because they're talking back, they're experimenting with marijuana. They're, I mean, he brought them to Colorado. Exactly. In the 70s, that's kind of on you, Bob. Yeah, they're just being teenagers, of course, of course. But he is like now very discontent with a wife that he finds boring. Because again, he never allowed her to grow in any independent way on her own. Yeah. Kids that are probably holding him back from doing things he wants to do. Yeah. And that's what he's thinking about her. And he's also growing increasingly frustrated and disconnected from his children who are not behaving in the way that he feels like they should. As a result, he really poured himself into wooing his young assistant, which Bob felt like at that point that he and Sharon had much more of a connection than he did with his high school sweetheart wife. Sharon liked hiking and riding on the back of his motorcycle. Well, Nancy was more of a homebody because she was taking care of the children. Yeah. And the home that he had insisted that she do such. Yeah. Let's be clear on that. It didn't take long for a full blown affair to happen by January of 1978. And Bob actually ended up moving out of the family home and in with Sharon. But the grass isn't always greener. And Bob soon found Sharon quote intolerable to live with. Oh my God. Yeah. Well, Sharon did have some mental health issues that contributed to their problems. I think more than anything, it was that Sharon actually fought back. And she would resist becoming just like a little Bob slave. And she didn't let Bob call all the shots. So they were fighting like cats and dogs all the time. One coworker remembered that Sharon would even throw things at him when she was angry. Sharon was known to have a nasty temper. And he did as well. So all of that passion that had been very exciting during the affair when they're actually trying to live together is maybe not as pleasant. And they're still working together at this time. Yeah, they're living and working together. That's insane. Yeah. Bob later openly admitted that during the month he lived away from his children and Nancy, he barely saw them. So the kids have this dad that cheated on their mom moved out and basically ghosted them. And when he did see them, he complained about their behavior. He said quote Nancy had lost control of the kids then they were taking advantage of her. I know through some neighbor kids, they were demanding and foul melt with Nancy. I guess both she and I kept our emotions to ourselves and never discussed our feelings about the kids. I know that both kids smoked marijuana. I used to let them do it at home because I was afraid of them doing it on the street. So he's like not around. And when he is around Bravo critiquing Nancy's child rearing skills and his own children. Ultimately, Sharon and Bob's similarities would become their Achilles heel. These two passionate hiking enthusiasts who love fighting. And by that autumn, Bob was back at home with his family. So he left Sharon. He goes moves back in killer. That's not he didn't kill her yet. So okay. Okay. Okay. Let's not give him a gold star. Just yeah, for not killing. It was like two of the little arms of the star were up on the board when yeah, when you said that. And then I slowly you got to like take a take a back down. So Bob was back at home with his family, hoping to work things out with Nancy. And she was really trying to. She had never really wanted Bob to leave. This was the life she had built. So she was trying to do things that she didn't really enjoy in order to foster a greater connection with her estranged and now back together husband. So they were planning on taking a long motorcycle trip together, which was not Nancy's cup of tea, but she was willing to do it to strengthen her marriage. But still Bob wasn't happy. It seems like a Bob problem. This is a very much a Bob problem. He's not satisfied with where he's at in life. I don't think he feels successful enough. I feel like he's definitely having an early midlife crisis here. And it is everyone else's problem and totally except for his own. And he's just getting angry at about everything. So he was pissed off because his eldest kid David played in a rock band and had grown his hair long, which was the style of the times. He was pissed off that 14 year old Susan had a boyfriend and all she wanted to do was hang out with this boyfriend and be over at his house and talk to him on the phone. And she didn't want anything to do with her dad at this point, which a is very typical teenage behavior. They're supposed to pull away from you. It's a healthy normal transition period, but also be your total dick bag who cheated on their mom and disappeared for months at a time. You don't get to like come back into the family fold and have them want to like play happy families with you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the family spent Christmas together as usual and Nancy did seem to be positive. She told relatives and friends that she was happy with the direction that her marriage was heading in. But the children, not so much, just like I just said, they were pretty disillusioned by Bob. They did not think he was like going to come back and be a good dad. They were over the fact that he had left the family for almost a year and decided to come back and was being a jerk when he came back by his own account. Even as Nancy was thinking that this was going well and that the marriage was totally going to pull through, Bob wanted it to be over. But he really wasn't considering divorce at this point because he thought that a divorce would be contentious and expensive. So he wants out of the marriage, but he doesn't want a divorce. He doesn't want to pay for it. He doesn't want to pay for the divorce. And there was something else, Sharon, who Bob was still dating at the time, even though they had broken it off, they were still seeing each other again. Banging, you mean? Yes. She did not like or want children. So Bob here's thinking, what do I do when I don't want my wife to be around, but I want to keep all my money. And my new boo doesn't like children, even a little bit. And my children would be a problem. When Bob realized what he needed to do, he explained later that it felt like a curtain dropped. That's how he said it. He started laying the groundwork for his plan to be rid of his family a few days before it was carried out. Shortly after 8 p.m., on December 28th, 1978, Susan had her boyfriend and a couple of her friends over planning a New Year's Eve party that they were going to have at the Spangler home. Bob picked a fight with Nancy and David, that's their son, in the kitchen, which was so loud that it was uncomfortable for all of the teenagers who are at the house. Susan was completely mortified and embarrassed, and she rushed her friends and her boyfriend out the door. She's like, let's get out of here, guys. When Susan's boyfriend Timothy came over the next day on December 29th, he remembered hearing Bob apologize to David, but not to Nancy. So this is the next morning after the fight. It's Saturday, December 29th, 1978, which is almost exactly 46 years ago today. And before the kids even woke up that morning, Bob told Nancy that he had one more special Christmas present for her. Nancy loved Christmas, and she truly believed that she and Bob were rekindling this romance and that this was part of his effort to be a better husband. So she excitedly followed him down to the basement, which is where he said he had another Christmas surprise for her. Bob instructed Nancy to sit in a chair and to cover her eyes while he got her surprise. And when Nancy obliged, Bob shot his wife of 23 years directly in the head. Oh, my God, the kids are in the house. They are upstairs asleep already positioned next to where he had insisted that Nancy sit and posed her before he murdered her was a typewriter and a typed up suicide note. Now, we all know that it's very sus when somebody leaves a typed up suicide note, not a handwritten suicide note, but this would not have been entirely out of the ordinary for Nancy, who suffered from bad arthritis in her hands. So she would frequently use a typewriter instead of handwriting notes because it was easier on her arthritis. Crazy. The bottom of the note was signed with a letter N, which Bob had procured by asking Nancy to sign a blank piece of paper, telling her it was a Christmas letter for family a couple days earlier. Oh, my God, sake. Yep. So this is her signature. But this letter wasn't only a suicide note, Andy. It was also an admission of homicide against who you're about to find out. The letter read quote, what do I say now that I decided to do this? I found the gun by accident some time ago and couldn't help thinking about this. I don't know why I didn't say anything to you. I feel shattered. We have always argued about who has the kids. I will. I know you'll get along. You always have. After leaving his wife slumped in her chair and bleeding, Bob headed upstairs. He shot one single bullet into his daughter Susan's room. What the suicide note was also saying that she had killed the children. This shot was shot so expertly that it pierced Susan's heart without even waking her up. And she didn't even bleed on her nightgown, remaining exactly where she had been sleeping face down in bed. So she appeared like she had just died in her sleep. That's what a good marksman he was. He then moved to David. But by this time, he screwed up and he ended up shooting David in the sternum by mistake, not hitting directly the heart like he had done with his daughter. I don't know if David had moved or something. David woke up when he was shot, obviously, and Bob panicked, grabbing a pillow and wrestling his teenage son to the ground, strangling him. Full family annihilator. Full family annihilator. Pillows blankets and blood were everywhere in David's room. Bob then just fucking left the house insane. Yeah. And he confesses to this later. This is why we know. And he was just straight up like, well, divorce wasn't really an option. And Sharon didn't want kids. So absolutely no regard to anyone else and their life. It's just a problem to be eliminated. It's not your children. It's not your wife of 23 years, your high school sweetheart. They become like these just incidental issues in their life that need to be eradicated. I can't imagine that cops weren't like where the fuck is this guy. Let's get into that. So that morning at 10 30 in the morning, Susan's boyfriend Timothy called the house, but nobody was answering, obviously. So he assumed at that point that Susan was still sleeping and he went by the house. So he's going by the Spangler's house and nobody's answering the door. He started tossing rocks at Susan's window to try to wake her up and even tried throwing their newspaper at her window. Today's episode is brought to you by Little Spoon. As parents, we never want to sacrifice quality for convenience, yet so many babies and kids food options today just do not meet the mark. That's why we love Little Spoon. They deliver healthy, ready to eat meals and snacks that your baby, toddler or big kid will love and that you can actually feel good about. All of their products are junk free, organic where it counts and thoughtfully sourced. Little Spoon is a one stop shop for healthy, easy meal time and snack times for your baby, toddlers and big kids delivered right to your door. Their goal is to make keeping your kid healthy, feel like the easiest part of your day. You can cut through all of the drama of meal time, time saving plus convenient without compromise. Little Spoon was such a big part of our kid's diet when they were little. We lived on the baby blends and puffs. Yes, it just takes all of the guesswork out of that very fraught period where you're trying to figure out what your baby can actually eat, what's a choking hazard. Baby blends are certified organic baby food from single ingredients to textured purees to take the stress out of starting solids. And the puffs are tiny tools for tiny hands. Your kids can spend hours playing with those and organizing them and putting them in their little mouths and it's made of two different flavors and shapes with six organic ingredients. They're gentle on little gums while still encouraging fine motor skills. Echo still loves puffs. I know. My kids do too. And now that our kids are a little older, however, we've been loving plates, toddler and big kid meals that are free of junk and taste amazing. Even my picky eater Gus loves them. Think hidden veggie mac and cheese, chicken nuggets, and adventurous eats like pop stickers, gnocchi and more. Yep, and their lunches are amazing as well. A fresh take on an old school classic. These build it yourself lunches like easy cheesy pizza and chicken dunkers are protein packed and made with hidden veggies. And best of all, it comes right to your door. So flexible, so easy and everything stores right in the fridge and freezer. I pick the menu and change up what I order every time. The price is right. The quality is unmatched. I love it. My kids love it. The grandparents love it. A huge win, win, win for my family. And it can be for yours as well. Simplify your kiddos meal time with 30% off your first order. Go to little spoon.com slash love murder and enter our code love murder at checkout to get 30% off your first little spoon order. Eventually, he was getting concerned enough that he let himself in through a basement window. Good for him. Also terrifying. Yeah, but he passed by Nancy said body without even knowing it. I don't know where he was walking if he just didn't go by the chair. But this is so eerie and so creepy that he's just like, this is weird that my girlfriend isn't waking up. They were very involved. I mean, this poor kid, I can only imagine know how traumatic this was for the rest of his life. So he like literally went through the basement when by Nancy's body didn't realize it. And he walked upstairs to Susan's room. And remember, she looks like she's just sleeping. You know, so he's trying to wake her up and he's joking. He said he tossed his hat and gloves at her like jokingly like, Hey, sleepyhead, get up. But when she didn't move, he checked her pulse and was completely shocked to find that his healthy teenage girlfriend was dead, seemingly. He then checked David's room and saw the horrifying sight that there was an obviously a massive struggle and there was blood everywhere. And at that point, he called 911 from Nancy in Bob's room. All three victims were pronounced dead at the scene. And finally, at 4 45 p.m., Bob Spangler waltz back into his family home. And the police were already there. So what did he tell officers? This is what he said quote, my wife and I had an argument on December 28th and I told her I was planning on leaving her. We went to bed that night in our bedroom. In the morning, she and I awakened and went downstairs. The argument continued. At about 8 30 in the morning, she told me to leave the house. I put on my jacket and left the house to the back, sliding glass doors across the backyard and over a fence to the back of the king's superstore. I walked down South University to South Glen Mall and walked around for a while. I was gone for about an hour and a half. I returned to the house, crossed the fence to the backyard and went immediately into the garage. I didn't go inside the house. I got in my car and drove around. So he's saying he didn't go back in the house. Bob explained that he then listened to a football game on the radio and then stopped by a local movie theater to see the animated version of Lord of the Rings before he came home. And that was when he realized something was wrong. Bob agreed to take a gunshot residue test at the police station. He's saying, obviously, my wife was disturbed. I had no idea about this. I'm happy to help in whatever way I can. And this was weird. The technician who did the gunshot residue test was a former coworker of Bob's who offered to let him spend the night with him because Bob's house was a crime scene. So he's got like a friend on the inside here too. But the friend wasn't a friend on the inside for very long because the technician later commented that Bob seemed off like it was basically like when they're going in under the assumption, especially him knowing Bob, that this was just a horrible double homicide suicide because Nancy was getting left and she was feeling unhinged about it. When he actually came home with this guy, the guy later said that it was very weird because Bob didn't seem upset at all that his entire family had been killed. And like it was more upsetting to the technician than it seemed to be to Bob. Yeah, it's actually like him doing an act of kindness actually gave him some insight into what may have really happened. Yeah, it gave him pause about what actually happened with his family. How Bob actually got away with killing his whole family is a gosh darn mystery because he was not looking innocent at all. Like I'm going to tell you he originally gets away with this and it is shocking because he was a hot mess. Like this was not like a great criminal masterminds pulling it off. The following day, Bob went back to the police station to take a polygraph test but was hyperventilating and was unable to complete it. So that looks weird. Yeah, that looks like you're trying to get out of it. Yes. So by this point, just over 24 hours after the murders, he had retained an attorney. So he got an attorney and then the gunshot residue test came back positive. So this is just looking guilty, guilty, guilty. And Bob had to change his story at this point because why on earth would he have gunpowder residue on his hands? Yeah. On February 1st, 1979, with his lawyer in tow, he returned to the police station to offer up a huge part of the story that he said. Oops. He had previously lied about. Oopsie. Oopsies. This time he claimed to have come home earlier in the morning and actually discovered Nancy slumped over to the side in the basement chair. This is even more sus. Yeah. He said that he saw the gun, which was partially covered by a sock. You would think ostensibly to be used as a silencer on the floor. And he said he just instinctively picked it up. Like he picked it up. That's how he got the gunpowder residue on his hands. And then when he realized what had happened, he dropped it. And he said that he was just in complete shock at finding his family deceased and allegedly at his own wife's hands that he spent the rest of the day in a total shock fog. And he had done all those things he said he had listened to the football game. He had gone to the movies, but like he really wasn't understanding what had happened that he was in this like shock, like denial. So that was his excuse. What really happened. Now the police wanted to see if this new version of the truth was any closer to being actually true. So he was given a polygraph two more times and both times he again hyperventilated to the extent that the tests were considered completely useless. Oh my God. Because of the inconclusive polygraph test results and largely because of the handwritten N at the bottom of the letter, which people said really was Nancy's signature. Police announced that Robert was not a suspect in the deaths of his wife and children. That's all they went on. Yeah. And the fact that people said she did type right letters usually because of her arthritis. Doesn't that seem crazy though? It seems crazy. From the beginning of the investigation, Nancy's family, of course, found all of this to be extraordinarily suspicious. Yes. Her father and stepmother recalled that Bob showed very little emotion about the massacre. Nancy stepbrother David also took issue with the investigation saying, quote, if she had all of her clothes on and you soaked her with water, she probably weighed 105 pounds. How could she have overpowered her 17 year old son? Yeah, it doesn't make any goddamn sense. Less than two weeks after the deaths of Nancy David and Susan, Bob's mother, Ioni died of a stroke back in Iowa and some say because of her broken heart. And I wonder if she knew a mother always knows. I know. Sometimes they're in denial, but I think deep down, especially given that he had been questioned in a murder as early as 11 years old. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I would fucking die of a broken heart too. Yeah. You're like trying to like suppress all of that knowledge and potential horrifying information to protect yourself and your son and you just, yeah, you stroke. That makes sense to me. Seriously. So less than a month after the murders, Sharon Cooper, his mistress and one time assistant moved into the Spangler home with Bob. Less than a month after this man killed his entire family, he moved his mistress into the murder house. Mistress slash assistant, but Sharon did not remain his mistress very long. On July 14th, 1979, only a matter of months after the murders, Bob and Sharon were married and she became the second Mrs. Spangler. Wow. They took a long motorcycle trip for their honeymoon, stopping by their favorite place, the Grand Canyon. You'll come to see that Bob is rather obsessed with the Grand Canyon. So it's also their favorite place, even though it was his and Nancy's favorite place too. Yes. Well, it was actually more of Bob's than Nancy's. Okay. But now he is like all in on Sharon, even though their relationship has never been super smooth. But he seemed, at least for a little while, very happy with her. Sharon would later say that he didn't really talk about his family. He didn't seem to have any issues now. From her perspective, she's thinking, wouldn't you feel a little guilty if you said you were leaving your wife and then she killed herself and the whole family? Yeah. Would you have like, you'd have to go to therapy and work through those feelings or something? Because remember, she's a little new agey, but she said that Bob never really brought it up. And in fact, he seemed to have a very clear conscience because he slept like a baby. No problems. Oh, my God. So sick. Mm hmm. Sharon hadn't wanted children, and he is burdens are out of the way. So maybe this made their relationship a little smoother. Bob always loved the fact that Sharon was very active. She was very athletic. She taught yoga, the pair went hiking together frequently. They ended up adopting three dogs together, Molly, sunshine and shadow. But eventually, the newness of this situation once again wore off. And Bob felt that Sharon was not the fun low maintenance partner that he felt like he deserved. They both had tempers and she had a somewhat erratic nature. I'm not really sure of exactly what the extent of her mental health issues were, but it was enough that that was something that contributed to some of their issues as well. By May of 1986, Bob felt like things weren't going great for him. So he's now in a marriage that he's not super psyched about again. He visited his father back home in Iowa. And it's interesting because Merlin was 91, but when he visited his dad, Merlin had been doing very well at 91. Bono. Well, Bob was visiting Merlin. All of a sudden, Merlin suffered a really bad fall out of the blue and he had to be hospitalized. And then lo and behold, two weeks later, after this visit from his son and extended stay, Merlin was dead. Oh my God. And yeah, he's like 91. Mm hmm. So it's not at all suspicious. He's a 91 year old man, 91 year old men fall from Merlin's estate. Bob received so much money that he was able to retire. Now again, Merlin, 91 years old. So there's always a chance that this was truly an accident and shout it did just pass away. But I find it very suspicious when I loved one of a killer, just happens to pass away under their care. And then the killer financially benefits from it. Yeah. I think all signs are pointing to Bob killing him. Absolutely. Despite the financial windfall, tensions were not East between Bob and Sharon. So I think we should all be very concerned for Sharon at this moment. If he was able to annihilate three members of his family, his own blood, two of them, he's gonna have no problem offing Sharon, as well as his dad, his own father, his own elderly frail father, and potentially a child when he was also a child. On December 4th, 1987, Sharon and Bob got into an altercation that nobody knows really what happened. It remains unexplained to this day. Her therapist, Dr. Bell, received a call from Sharon that evening in which Sharon was, quote, frantic and incoherent. Regardless of what her mental illness is, she's working with someone. Yes. That also would be probably why she so clearly was like, Bob needs to talk to someone about this situation with his family. Yeah. So she was very involved with therapy. She was under the care of a psychiatrist. And I mean, I can only imagine any progress that she made had to be completely undermined by living with a psychopath. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Dr. Bell was so alarmed that he called the police telling them that Sharon might need to be hospitalized. So he didn't know whether Sharon was actually in any imminent danger or if this perceived danger in paranoia. The police found Sharon in the parking lot of a nearby King Super's grocery store hysterical and hiding from Bob claiming that he had threatened her. She told them he had taken her car keys and would not let her leave. She was so terrified that she asked for a bag to be put over her head so that Bob wouldn't see her. She also became combative at this point. And the officers actually had to handcuff her and place her in the back of a police car. But like, I'd feel safe there. Yeah. But this is also something that he can completely turn around the situation on its head and be like, well, you know, she's been unstable for a really long time. And the threats were very likely extremely real. But I think even her own therapist was doubting the veracity of these claims. There is some speculation she told her therapist what happened exactly about the threats. But police were never able to find any definitive details or anything that seemed really truly grounded in truth from her therapist about this altercation. But we do know that Sharon seemed scared of Bob at this point. Yeah. That month Bob told a friend looks like Sharon and I will be taking the divorce trail in 1988. It promises so far to be as amicable and non acrimonious as these things can be because we both agreed that we're really not all that well fitted for each other. And we both prefer to not turn over all of our funds to lawyers in an extended court battle. Plus, with no kids or other conflicting factors, it should move relatively easily. Sharon pushed back against this, however, and demanded more money from Bob than he wanted to give. On June 24, 1988, they met with their lawyers and agreed that Bob would pay Sharon $500 a month until February of 1990. From then until July of 1997, he would pay her $400 a month. He was also forced to designate Sharon as the beneficiary of his will. She received their newest car and also received $150,000 from his stocks and bonds. If she remarried, she would have to pay $20,000 back to Bob. He also paid all of her attorney fees, but they did get divorced. She lived. Okay. She lived. Yeah. So Bob finally sold the home in which his wife and children had died where he had killed them. And he moved to a smaller house in Denver. So thankfully, Sharon got out, but following the divorce, Sharon struggled to find her footing and would end up in intermittent touch with Bob, unfortunately. So she's safe-ish for now, but she still has Bob in her life. And as long as he's in her life, I don't think she's truly safe. One friend of Sharon's named Janice said, "Sharon had a lifelong battle with depression. It was always looming in her background, and she would maintain it for a while, and then it would slip out of control." Meanwhile, Bob was ready to start dating again and took out a singles ad in Westward, which caught the eye of Donna Sunderland, a divorcee in Evergreen. Donna had married young and had five children, Brent, Brad, Bruce, Bernie, and Brenda. What? Those are some names. But now she had been divorced for 18 years, so it had been a long time. Her kids were all grown at this point. She worked as an accountant and was beloved by her children, her co-workers, and her community. She was described by her son as self-sacrificing, caring, gentle, and protective. She was full of life and energy. Mom loved the Evergreen area and all of her friends there. She had a large network of friends. So the pair connected through the singles ad, and they met at a bar called Proof of the Pudding, and their relationship progressed quickly. Bob was excited to share his love of hiking, especially at the Grand Canyon with her. Oh my God. But although Donna was very athletic, she was also afraid of heights and prone to dizzy spells. She was medicated for vertigo, stomach ulcers, and anxiety. So she put up a good front for Bob, but she was not going to be the hiking buddy that he wanted out of a partner. So this is like, Donna is somewhere between like a Sharon and a Nancy, so he's like, "This is perfect." But I think she was definitely trying to overcome a lot of even her medical conditions in order to be this partner that he wanted, which I feel like is exhausting, and women we should never do. We should never try to turn ourselves into something that a man wants. Or vice versa, man, man, woman, woman, whatever, doesn't matter who you are, don't change for a potential partner. At this point to another point of strife in this relationship was that Sharon was still around. So she's still kind of in the picture. So Donna's getting to know this guy, and she really likes him, but at the same time, his ex-wife seems to be around. Is she around because he's paying her his alimony or is she around because they're sleeping together? They were also doing some sort of joint custody over the dogs, so like they're in and out of each other's lives. He would go to her house and fix things for her. Now, we don't know definitively if there was any physical aspect of their relationship still at this point, but it's entirely possible. Despite that, on August 18th, 1990, Donna and Bob were married at her home in Evergreen. One of Donna's friends remembered, quote, "This man, she was just thrilled with him. She just loved him. They were going to keep her house and sell his and travel around the country in a Winnebago." But this is not what ends up happening. I feel like Donna was a kind and giving person, and unlike Sharon, ended up giving more into Bob's whims, a more in line with a Nancy. And so even though Donna loved her house and she'd been told that she wouldn't have to sell it, they sold Donna's house in Evergreen and moved into a home in Durango because, of course, that's where Bob wanted to be because he had gotten a job as a radio DJ for a local country station. So now he's like the early morning DJ, like the personality DJ in the morning, and he became a fixture in the Durango community and was loving the attention of being local celebrity. Oh my God. He was popular at the station and his former manager even remembered that the only complaint she ever got about him was that he was too cheerful in the mornings. Don't trust those cheerful people. Oh my God, this guy. I know he even had somewhat of a cult following, especially among older women in the Durango area. Oh my God. Yeah, he was described as presenting as a chivalrous, teddy bear of a man. He's a murderer. He is a murderer and circling back to that. What did Bob tell people about what happened to his family? Well, he told Donna the official lie that Nancy had killed their children and then herself because he was leaving her. But he also told various acquaintances in Durango, all sorts of flies, just seeing what he can do. Yeah. And he's like, I don't know. I think he was getting off on it, just telling different people different things, seeing what flies. He said to somebody that all three had died in a car accident. He told somebody else that each child had separately died in car accidents and it was so or an overdose that had been too much for his late wife and that she had taken her own life because she was grieving. So we're getting shades of also this need for attention, almost that like munchausen by proxy, like sharing a secret tragic backstory to get empathy and attention from people. And if his wife, wife number three, Donna ever caught him lying that he was giving a different story or somebody was under the impression that his previous family had died in a car accident or overdose or, you know, a singular suicide. He would just say like, oh, well, you know, the truth is just so horrible. I don't, I don't want to just tell any person that that my wife killed my children, obviously. So I have to tell them a different story. It's a little bit more palatable. And she'd be like, okay, yeah, sure. Obviously that makes so much sense. But Donna had bigger issues than her husband's little lies at this point. She was concerned that Bob was still seeing Sharon in a romantic and sexual capacity behind her back. And Bob was growing and creasing the angry and irritable with Donna. It was going to the place where she couldn't do anything properly. Like she would just bother him by just being there or breathing privately. He had already started telling friends that he believed he made a mistake in marrying Donna. Around Christmas that year, friends and family recall that well, Donna and Bob seemed relatively happy and content. There was some resentment lurking beneath the surface. Donna's children spent the holiday with them. And they did notice that Bob seemed irked the entire time. He also noted later that Donna made a comment about how she needed to buy a snow blower because she was worried about Bob getting a little bit older and she was afraid with the amount of snow that they got that he was going to injure himself, shoveling snow. And apparently Bob got really pissed about this because he was very vain about his athletic prowess and how he worked out all the time and he was in such great shape. So for some reason, her being like, I think we should get a snow blower because I'm just worried about you injuring yourself turned into like World War Three. Like how dare she think that he can't shovel snow like he's so infirm. So her kids noted this because it seemed like a very weird thing to blow up over. Yeah, it is. So despite all of this, what sounds like relationship issues, they plan to get away to the grand canyon in the spring. Though Donna told multiple people that she was having anxiety about her unsteadiness on the hiking trail and her very real fears of falling off of a cliff. She was so nervous in fact that before they left on this spring trip, she called each of her children individually to chat with them and say goodbye before she left. A few of her children recalled that it felt like she knew she was bidding them a final farewell. Wow. Could you imagine being one of her kids? I'd be like, Mom, are you fucking crazy? Do not go. I know. Yeah. Do not go with this man and do something that clearly terrifies you and makes you feel unwell. Yeah, and unsafe. Unsafe. That is a big thing. I think that if you guys can take anything away from this podcast and about relationships, is it the person you end up with should be the person that makes you feel the most safe in the entire world? Yes. That's all you should feel from them. On April 11th, 1993, Easter Sunday, the Spanglers rose early, had breakfast. Now they're in Grand Canyon, packed up their campsite and set back out on the trail. Just a half hour after leaving camp, Donna would be dead. Bob picked a high cliff that would be a nice lookout for a picture so as not to tip Donna off, no one was in their periphery who could help or attest to what had happened. Yeah, I was going to say he had to have made sure no one was around. I mean, that's Bob later admitted thinking, quote, it's now or never because no one was around them. As she looked back at him from the edge of the cliff where he told her he was going to take a picture of her, he then raced toward her and shoved her as hard as he could, catching her completely off guard before her instincts even had a chance to kick in so she could like reach for him or try to grab him. She plunged from the cliff about 25 feet before she hit a set of rocks. Her hat flew off at that point and then she fell more than 100 feet further down before finding her final resting place beneath the shade of a single tree. It was so sloped and rocky that Bob's shove almost took him with it like the way the force in which he pushed her and how close they were to the edge of the cliff. He almost went over as well. God, I wish he had once he calmed himself down from the adrenaline of killing his third wife and potentially what victim are we on now? Six maybe? Yeah. He walked all the way down to where she lay and double check that Donna was dead, which she was. He then rinsed her face off with water, covered it with a red bandana and placed a blue tarp over her body. Did he didn't call anyone? Nope. Oh, listen to this. He casually walked back up to the trail and headed toward the ranger station. A group of four hikers who had previously encountered the couple and had briefly spoken to them basically walked by him and they said that he went right by them without saying anything about his wife being dead. And at 1124 in the morning, Bob entered the ranger station and he didn't say like, help, help. My wife has fallen. He patiently waited in line behind other hikers who were there asking questions and for directions and for help. And just sat there in line. And when it was his turn to speak with the Rangers, he said calmly, oh, yes, please. Can you help me? My wife has fallen off the red wall on horseshoe Mesa. She fell to her death. Straight delivery. No hysteria. No intention. No. Could you imagine being the person he told that to? No, the Rangers thought he, well, this guy must clearly be in shock because he is delivering this information with zero emotion. Yeah, Bob told investigators that he was turned around prepping his camera and that when he turned back to her, she had just vanished. Apparently she had just gone over the cliff on her own. When he ran to the edge where Donna had been standing, he saw her crumpled body about 200 feet below. Oh my God. So eerily Donna's body had to remain there overnight. I guess it was so windy that the search and rescue helicopter couldn't land. Two park rangers camped overnight near Donna's remains to protect the integrity of the scene at 7 a.m. the next morning, a helicopter landed to collect her body. Now, there was an investigator who thought this was highly sus and they even double checked her fingernails to make sure that they didn't have Bob's skin beneath them, indicating that there might have been a fight or she had tried to grab on to him. But there wasn't any time she was completely caught off guard. She was completely caught off guard, so there was no evidence that there had been any sort of struggle whatsoever. But do they know about everything else that had happened with his family? They will soon. Right away they didn't. They didn't know anything at this moment. In true douchebag fashion, Bob had Donna cremated before her mother or children could even arrive in Arizona. Oh my God. He's covering his bases. I mean, he has old hat and murder at this point. Yeah. Now, this is a punch in the gut. Ironically, Bob became somewhat of a poster child for hiking safety in the Grand Canyon after his quote unquote loss. In the past three seasons, six other people had suffered the same fate as Donna. And Bob actually conducted interviews with news publications talking about his knowledge of hiking safety and what tragedy had been fallen him and his lovely wife. Now, when investigators looked at all of these accidents, all of them had occurred at one of the outer rims except for Donna's. So this is an outlier. Back in Colorado, Bob delivered a charming eulogy for his fallen wife, but did not shed a single tear. It was one of those things where he sang all the words, but his face is not saying the same thing. After the memorial, her children threw her a champagne brunch, which is something that she had expressly requested in her will. She did not want a traditional funeral. She wanted a celebration of her life, which I think is beautiful. But Bob refused to attend. So all the children are sus at this point. Yeah, they are so suspicious of him. Like, this is so weird. She didn't want to go. She had premonitions of her death. It all seemed way too tidy for them. And he's acting really bizarre. He doesn't seem sad. He's not respecting her final wishes. He had her cremated before they could even see their mother. And it's all about him. So one of Donna's friends told her kids that she knew he was being fucking weird because when she tried to talk to him like about his loss, he said that actually he had received so many sympathy calls to the radio station and that it actually had been very heartwarming to know that so many people were appreciative of his work. Yeah, she's like, oh, how are you holding up? And he's like, honestly, really great. I'm getting so many people telling me how great I am at being a DJ. The curtain has to start coming up for people. I think Donna's kids were pretty instrumental in being like, hey, let's take a closer look at this motherfucker. Toward the end of that year, Bob reconnected with Sharon. He wrote her a letter on the 15th anniversary of the death of his wife and children. And the two struck up a warm friendship once again. He even offered her some extra money sending her $10,000 into installments. However, it's not clear exactly where they stood because at the end of this letter where he offered to give her some more money, he did also say, I'm willing to be friends still if you are, but not terribly close friends. Okay, I'm sorry, but the negatives of your life have an unfortunate tendency to spill over on anyone nearby, which always brings me down to. And I'm just not willing to risk my own life by getting too involved with yours again. Perhaps one day you'll find somebody who doesn't come equipped with such a selfish attitude. Good luck. This man is just such a fucking disaster psycho. Eventually, however, he relented to having a closer relationship with Sharon because she ended up moving back in with him. Sharon said that her depression was getting the better of her at this point and that Bob had offered to house her. She claimed that her condition improved after she moved back and with Bob saying their relationship was strained, but not unmanageable and that she was paying him rent to keep things fair. So she's trying not to slip back into old patterns with Bob. She even updated her will to request that she be cremated and spread alongside the ashes of her beloved dog shadow in Bob's yard. In her will, she wrote, quote, Bob will likely be the one to perform this task, including with my cremains, a photo or two of me with shadow and with all three of the spangler girls, Molly shadow and sunshine referring to couples dogs. Yep. On October 1st, 1994, while Bob was acting as the referee at a local soccer game, 52 year old Sharon allegedly penned a goodbye letter. Now it was in her handwriting. Okay. In it, she wrote to Bob, quote, you've said you wanted one of your former wives lives to turn out okay. Your nurturing love gave me so much. And this release is for me a turning out okay. Please, my dear friend, acknowledge that this is the only way I could finally be okay and be well to join God and shadow and dad love Sharon. She added a footnote that read my dear Bob, thanks for all you've tried to do for me. She allegedly taped a note to her bedroom door that read, I've done it this time. So Bob said he returned home from the game that he had been refereeing at 3 30 p.m. but didn't notice the note until almost an hour afterward. He later recalled that he found Sharon conscious but dazed in a need of serious medical attention. It appeared that she had overdosed. He carried her to his car and raised her to the nearest hospital where she died 12 hours later, but not before she was left alone in her hospital room with Bob. Bob maintained to anyone who would listen that the doctor's realized shortly after she arrived that they were too late to do anything. But his story changed occasionally as is the norm for Bob. And in some versions of the story, she was not conscious when he found her and brought her to the hospital. In the aftermath of Sharon's death, he not only received a $20,000 payout from her estate. He was also now free from paying her alimony. So for those of you keeping track at home, we now have four people that Bob definitely killed because he later admits to killing his entire first family and Donna. And in the maybe category, we have the child from his past second wife, Sharon and Bob's own dad, Marlon. Yeah, which I think he 100% killed Sharon. I don't know how he got her to write that letter, but all of it, even making sure that he was refereeing a game and is changing stories and being alone in the hospital room, he made sure she was gone. I could see him asking her to write a letter saying, what would you say in a letter if you were to unalive yourself? What would you say to me, or what would that letter look like? He's so manipulative. And the fact that she suffered from depression and I'm sure it wasn't the first time mental health thought about. So, I mean, it's entirely possible he encouraged her and made sure she had all of the parts available to her to be able to do this herself too. There is a whole lot of coincidence and unbeknownst to Bob, an investigation for the last 25 years of his misdeeds was finally underway. Thank God. Yes, the police and subsequently the FBI, because the Grand Canyon is federal territory had been tipped off by a friend of Donna's named Bill Burnett, who had been very suspicious of Bob since Donna's death and was even more suspicious of him after Sharon's death. So one of her friends had been closely watching the situation and was like, okay, low and behold, so his whole first family died. His third wife dies mysteriously in a Grand Canyon accident. And then his second wife moves back in with him and then within a matter of months, she's also dead. Yeah. On August 8, 1995, Detective Cornish showed up at Bob's door in Durango to ask him some more questions about Donna's death. He asked what medications Donna had been taking and Bob claimed that he didn't think she was taking any medications at all. When Detective Cornish told him that this was, in fact, false and that she was medicated for vertigo, which made hiking steep trails difficult for her, Bob pretended not to know that his wife had vertigo at all. Detective Cornish also encouraged him to take a polygraph test regarding Donna's death. He said, look, just do this for Donna's kids. They are just worried about how their mom died and it would make a big difference to know that you took a lie detector test and that you were telling the truth about how she died. But Bob said, absolutely not. Not doing it. Don't care. Two weeks later, Bob's daughter Bernie received a letter telling her never to contact him again. He said he would never assist her in laying her fears about her mother's death and that none of her siblings were also ever permitted to contact him or ask for any help with anything for the rest of their lives. He said, back off, I didn't kill your mom and I'm never going to help you with anything or any closure you want. Wow. Okay. So the case against Bob was built very slowly. The tissue samples from the deaths of Nancy, Susan, and David were never found because it had been quickly ruled a suicide, essentially. And the case had been closed for nearly two decades by the time they're really deeply looking into it. But one detail had been overlooked by the detectives at the time. I mean, I think a couple details had been overlooked. Yeah, I think more than a couple. Yeah. Nancy's hands contained tar du spots, which are small pricks of blood pooled under the skin posthumously. And this was originally thought to be a bruise based on how she shot the gun. But because of the way her hand had been positioned, the spots would have been unlikely to form if she had shot herself in the manner the detectives thought she had, and then let the gun fall to the floor of her feet. Detectives recommended a forensic examiner take a look at the file. And when he did, he concluded that it was extremely unlikely that she had shot herself in the manner that they originally suspected based on the path of the bullet as it hit her in the head. So they're finally forensically looking into this and realizing it was not possible. The Arapahoe County Corner, Dr. Michael Doberson concluded, I believe these findings warrant further official investigation. Investigators circled back with Bob's old coworker. That was the technician who had done the gunshot residue test on Bob back in 1978. And Jack told the investigators that he had suspicions from the beginning based not just on Bob's behavior, but he told the investigators that he had also wondered how the gun had dropped so far on the carpet from Nancy's body and why there was a sock covering it if she had shot herself. You don't need to use a silencer on yourself. He had also hoped that they would look closer at the suicide letter because Nancy had likely been a very light tiper due to arthritis. And you can tell with a typewriter how aggressively somebody has pushed down on the keys. And he believed that it looked like the letter had been typed with a heavier hand. So in 1997, the FBI got involved. So by the time Bob met Judy Hilty, has soon to be fourth wife and the so-called love story that I started this episode with, the FBI had been on to him for two years. So to reiterate, Bob was living his best life. He's doing community theater. He's fixing up old houses with his new 14 years younger girlfriend, who he's crazy about, who's crazy about him. He's hiking and biking and really just generally enjoying himself. When, BAM, in August of 2000, he gets diagnosed with terminal cancer. Really couldn't happen to a greater guy. It's just such a karma fairy. I, my next note was karma fairy at work, baby. Karma fairy. Just, oh, you're finally happy? Here you go. Yeah. So the FBI was tipped off that Bob was going to die. So I think it was some acquaintance or friend of Donna's found out that he had terminal cancer and went to the FBI and was like, it's now or never gents. Let's go. Let's get the truth out of this guy. And the profilers knew that Bob was the type of egotistical dirtbag who might want to make a splash, get himself a little more attention for his crimes before he shuffled off the mortal coil. So they moved in on him on September 14th, 2000. And guess what? They were entirely right. He talked. Really? Yeah. He agreed to speak with the FBI profilers and confessed to four murders. Those of in his home or at the, I think that they talked to him at first at his house. And then he went down to wherever they were interrogating him, some sort of police station or FBI center, the next the very next day. He admitted to the murders of Nancy and their children as well as pushing Donna off the cliff of the Grand Canyon. That makes me so happy for Donna's kids to have some semblance of closure, closure and answers. So this is exactly what he said for Beatum during this confession about his first family. The FBI interrogator said, so you got up early that morning. Were you up before Nancy? Yeah, it was a simple matter to persuade her to come down to the basement. At that point, did you already have the gun in your possession? After I bought it, I shot off four or five rounds to make sure it would work. This was premeditated. I think I had taken the gun down into the basement the night before. So how did you talk Nancy into coming down into the basement? It was after Christmas. I told her, come here, sit quietly, close your eyes. And she did that. She sat quietly. Yes. What were your next actions? I got the gun, put it to her head and shot her. It was easier than divorce. Many times afterward, I thought, how could I do that? It was my nature, I guess, something in me that allows me to take myself apart from whatever it is happening, like standing on the outside and watching. I made a decision, and I carried through on it. I really don't understand how on earth I could have done it. He then laughed. It was just so utterly incorrect. Oh, my God. Isn't that just chilling? The note that was found. When did you type that? I don't know, day before, something like that. That was her initial on it? Yes. How did you get her initial on it? Christmas was here. I just got her to sign her initial. It was already typed out. I put a piece of paper over it and had her sign it. So you've got her in the basement. You retrieved the gun and shoot her. What did you do next? He paused for a long time and then said, I left the gun on the floor. Wait, no, that can't be, because the next step was to shoot David and Susan. And this was simply a matter of me being enamored with Sharon. I thought at the time it'd be easier than divorce. And she was not a children person. The only thing I can come up with is that it seemed like a good idea at the time. Talking about murdering his two only children. Well, the annihilation of his first family was represented as something highly premeditated. The way Bob described killing his third wife Donna seemed almost casual and spur of the moment. He said during his confession about Donna's murder, did she Donna want to go on the hike? I don't know, I guess. I think this was another case of her going on a hike because she knew how much the canyon meant to me. Were you having an argument at the time? No, it was just not a good marriage. I learned after we were married that she seemed to have a lifelong jealousy, lack of trust. Probably because he was still stripping Sharon, I'm pretty sure. Yeah. This became more abundantly apparent as the time went by. I was also in a physical condition and I don't know what brought it on age or what is now very popular, rectile dysfunction. So I wasn't interested in what? Yeah. So he said he wasn't interested in a sex life with her, but no arguments, no fights. How was the hike in long, especially in terms of time, because Donna was not a strong hiker. We stayed at the mind to get a jumpstart on the next day. I must have been thinking about it at that point, snaps fingers, he snapped his fingers as if he was having a revelation. Oh, I must have been thinking for it, for it to suddenly pop out like that. Clearly, the decision to killer was reached the next morning. Before you left your camp? No, we did start up that trail that goes up on either side and I had to be thinking, well, it's either now or never. There's not any place farther up for a fatal accident to occur on the rest of the trail. Oh, it could, but you wouldn't be certain of the results. And thanks to my nature, I was capable of doing it. The place where she stopped was fairly vertical and she was not a big woman. So she was no match for me. I know Andy's jaw is just dropped madness, just so cold, no emotion. However, Bob never copped having anything to do with Sharon's death or his father's for that matter. I also think with Sharon, there was obviously something about their relationship. It was relatively lifelong. And every once in a while, these serial killers will have one victim that they don't admit to or they can't talk about for whatever reason. Yeah, I could definitely see it. Yeah, Sharon for him. Yeah. I'm bet with his psychopathy, he doesn't even consider if he did push his father down the stairs or smother him in the hospital or something. I bet he wouldn't even consider that murder because he would consider it like an act of euthanasia or something because he was 91. Yeah, it was like nothing. Yeah. So he said nothing about those two. This one will really get your go, Andy. This one was so wild to me out of all of the things that he said, he was trying to tell the FBI profilers and agents that he really was a good guy. He's telling them about these horrific murders. But like, he's a good guy. He said, quote, I'd say I'm about 99.9% qualified as an eminently admirable human being, a good friend, an able mentor, a solid role model, and pretty much all around good guy. But in two days, only two days out of a nearly 68 year life, I was a killer. I don't know if that's how that works. I don't think that's how it works, Bob. I think if you kill anyone, you're 100% a bad person. It's so wild that this man has murdered so much. And he's like, but yeah, you know, I was a perfect human being. Except for like those two days where I just like murdered a bunch of people that I was supposed to love. Yeah, those two days, I was just off days. So insane. On October 3rd, 2000, Bob Spangler was finally arrested for the murders of Nancy, Susan, David, and Donna. He pleaded with the FBI to keep his name out of the newspapers and off of television. A request that was denied. He also asked for time to get his affairs in order and so he could take one last trip to the Grand Canyon with his wife, Judy. No, they're like, yeah, no, we're not taking you to the Grand Canyon so you can murder your last wife and really just finish the trifecta over here or quadfecta. Why would she even want to go? Judy was still in love with him. No, I know. Despite having admitted to the murders of two of his wives and both of his children, Bob entered a plea of not guilty once he had obtained legal counsel. Legal counsel, could you imagine trying to be his attorney? He's like, yeah, I told the FBI all the stuff. Here's the transcript. Anyway, want to represent me? And I want to be not guilty and acquitted of all crimes. Yes. However, on December 27th, 2000, just seven weeks after his plea of not guilty, he sat down with investigators and began to work out a plea bargain. Ultimately, because of his impending death from his terminal cancer, Bob accepted a plea deal in lieu of enduring a lengthy trial in which the death penalty may even be on the table. He was forced to admit to what he had done, but he was then only on the hook for one murder, Donna's. He also told investigators he had nothing to do with Sharon's overdose and that he had no part in her death. According to judge Camille Bibles, after he was given life in prison for Donna's murder, he snapped at the judge saying, quote, I'm sorry, I can't give you another death penalty. And she snapped back. So am I. As a dick to the end, the press was always astonished at his upbeat attitude, like he's courting the press. In one hearing, he could be seen winking at his wife, Judy. Judy Hilty declined most interviews with the press, but said as she left the courthouse after Bob's final court date that she had never been scared of her husband. She did agree to one live interview on the radio, however, in order to assuage the press and hopefully get them off her back. She said, I'll do one. This is all I'm going to say on the matter. She reiterated of her husband, quote, I've never been afraid of Bob. He never showed this side to me. I'm still in love with him. Bob had encountered tragedy in previous marriages. I never knew or suspected that he had a hand in it. Still, after you admitted it, she also maintains that her husband was a changed man, saying he's not like that now. I had no indication that he was capable of this sort of thing. He's always seemed like a very gentle person. Always been with me. He's great with me. Yeah, babe, have you, you've never met a psychopath before? This is literally why women strike up relationships with known murderers in prison. Like, is it so bad out there for us that we have to do this? Is it really so bad out there? I mean, yeah. Yeah, it is. It is. Survey says, yes. Bob Spangler died, thankfully, on August 5th, 2001, well in custody in Missouri, the graves of Nancy, Susan, and David do not bear his last name. So that is the story about the many wives and the many lives taken by the odious Robert Spangler. So that's really kicking the new year off, huh? Oh yeah, I mean, that's a lot to live up to. In conclusion, you have to be wary of those too cheerful in the morning, morning DJs and hiking enthusiasts. Yeah, seriously. And also, just because they're nice does not mean that they're not a psychopath. Which is exactly why we always say, trust your gut when it comes to love. So no one ends up murdered. Happy New Year! Happy New Year! [Music] (chimes)
A late in life marriage seems like a dream come true, until cancer strikes and the FBI comes knocking.
Sources:
1. Married to Murder: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/24167831-married-to-murder
2. Find A Grave: https://www.findagrave.com/memorial/77703866/susan-elizabeth-spangler
3. Denver Post: https://extras.denverpost.com/news/news1008b.htm
4. The Daily Sentinel: https://www.newspapers.com/image/540072129/?match=1&terms=robert%20spangler
5. The Daily Sentinel: https://www.newspapers.com/image/537585525/?match=1&terms=robert%20spangler
6. The Daily Sentinel: https://www.newspapers.com/image/539296293/?match=1&terms=robert%20spangler
This Week's Episode Brought to You By:
Little Spoon - Simplify your kiddo’s mealtime with 30% off your first order. Go to LITTLESPOON.COM/LOVEMURDER and enter our code LOVEMURDER at checkout to get 30% off your first Little Spoon order.
Find LOVE MURDER online:
Website: lovemurder.love
Instagram: @lovemurderpod
Twitter: @lovemurderpod
Facebook: LoveMrdrPod
TikTok: @LoveMurderPod
Patreon: /LoveMurderPod
Credits: Love Murder is hosted by Jessie Pray and Andie Cassette, researched and written by Jessie Pray, produced by Nathaniel Whittemore and edited by Kyle Barbour-Hoffman
Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
