Cold Case Files - Pride and The Fall

Episode Date: June 4, 2024

After his second wife’s tragic fall from a cliff in the Grand Canyon, investigators look closer into the grisly murders of Robert Spangler’s previous family. Few could have imagined his stoicism while recounting the details of his crimes. Apartments.com: To find whatever you’re searching for and more visit apartments.com the place to find a place. Aura: For a limited time visit Aura.com/Trust to sign up for a 14 day free trial and start protecting your loved ones! Progressive: Progressive.com  Rosetta Stone: Cold Case Files listeners can get Rosetta Stone’s lifetime membership for 50% off when you go to RosettaStone.com/coldcase 

From A&E, this is Cold Case Files, the podcast. On April 9th, 1993, Robert Spangler and his wife Donna set out on the Page Spring Trail for a backcountry trip. Two days later, Mr. Spangler hikes out alone. He makes his way to the park's backcountry office and tells National Park Rangers of a tragedy on the trail. This is Ranger Ken Phillips of the National Park Service. As they were hiking out of the canyon toward Horseshoe Mesa, they had stopped so that Bob could set up a camera and take a picture. This is Special Agent Bev Perry. And while he was making some adjustment with the camera and was not looking at her,

that he heard a slight noise and turned around and she was no longer there. According to Spangler, he peered over the red-walled cliffs and saw his wife's body 140 feet below. Spangler says he climbed down to Donna and found her dead. Park rangers are dispatched to the scene and retrieve Donna Spangler's body. The investigation is then turned over to the Coconino County Sheriff's Office. Deputy Brett Rye meets with the victim's husband. He was very upset. I mean, he would break down crying. Then he would talk a little bit,

and he would break down crying some more. And he spoke very tenderly towards Donna. I remember him stating that he took a cloth and wiped her face off and sat there with her for a while and then eventually hiked out to get the authorities. And at the time, I mean, he seemed sincere. Deputy Rye hikes down into the canyon's inner gorge, searching for clues that might support or discredit Bob Spangler's version of events.

We found where she went down the chute, where she wound up. We photograph everything, and all it leaves us with is the one witness, which is Robert Spangler. And as long as he's stuck with this story, that's pretty much all we had to go on. Rye finds no evidence to suggest foul play, and no reason to believe that Donna's fall was anything but an accident. I was pretty convinced at the time that I did not think it was a homicide. She could have slipped. She could have been dizzy. He stated she'd been complaining of dizziness.

So there's a lot of things that happen. People fall in the canyon all the time. Some are injured, some are fatal. Some are injured, some are fatal. Sometimes people fall, and sometimes they're pushed. In the case of Donna Spangler, the canyon cliffs offer no clues as to where the truth might lie. Coconino County rules Spangler, the Canyon Cliffs offer no clues as to where the truth might lie.

Coconino County rules Spangler's death accidental, and within a week, the case is closed. Bruce Cornish is a detective with the Coconino County Sheriff's Office. A year after Donna Spangler's death, he learns of a suspicious coincidence in Robert Spangler's past. A friend of Donna's family called our agency and was suspicious of the death. And he had told us that there had been a previous wife that had died under suspicious circumstances. Cornish begins a new investigation, one that will shed light on another dark day in the life of Robert Spangler, a day that still lingers in the memory of a small Colorado town. 7614 Franklin Way in Littleton, Colorado. In 1978 it is the home of Bob and Nancy Spangler and their two teenage children.

At 11 30 a.m on Decemberth, the house becomes a crime scene. Arapahoe County investigator Marvin Tucker responds to a 911 call and enters the Spangler residence. In one bedroom was the young teenage female. She was lying face up with a gunshot wound. Fifteen-year-old Susan Spangler is dead. Across the hall, detectives find her brother, 17-year-old David. And he was lying halfway on the bed and halfway on the floor with his face down into a pillow. And he appeared that he had been shot in the sternum. Detective Tucker begins to search the rest of the house. In the basement, finds the body of nancy spangler slumped in a chair she had a gunshot

wound to the forehead and she was sitting in the basement area in front of a typewriter and there was a note on the typewriter a suicide suicide note. A suicide note signed with the single letter N, apparently typed by a mother who has also killed her two children as they lay sleeping. Five hours later, Bob Spangler arrives home. He tells police that he and Nancy were having marital problems, and that very morning he told her he was moving out. He told us that he had had

an argument with his wife the night before, and that the next morning, the argument continued. And at that time, he felt it was better for him to leave the residence. Spangler contends that his decision to leave might have pushed his wife over the edge. The Arapahoe County coroner confirms that theory, finding that Nancy Spangler died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound after fatally shooting both of her children. Sixteen years later, that finding does not sit well with the man investigating the death of Donna Spangler. Upon reading that report, I became highly suspicious that Bob may have had a role in Donna's death. If Bob Spangler killed his first family in 1978,

he would certainly have the capability to kill his wife in 1993. It feels like I hear news about a major leak of personal information every week. And recently, it's even happened at major phone and healthcare companies, which means your private information can be easily found online. But why? It's because of data brokers who get your data legally and sell it to banks, health insurance companies, predatory lenders, and even scammers. That's why I'm thrilled to partner with Aura. Aura is an all-in-one online safety solution that helps protect what information about you and your

family is being sold by automatically submitting opt-out requests on your behalf. Data brokers are legally required to remove your personal information if you ask, but they make it difficult and time-consuming. This also helps reduce annoying robocalls, telemarketers, phishing text messages, and junk mail by sending these takedown requests on your behalf regularly. And that's not all. Aura also monitors identity theft, financial fraud, and other online threats before they happen. Aura scans the dark web to look for your email addresses, passwords, social security numbers, and other sensitive information. If anything is found, you'll receive an alert in real time. It's a comprehensive online safety solution that provides almost every tool you'll ever need

all in one place. For a limited time, Aura is offering our listeners a 14-day trial, plus a check of your data to see if your personal information has been leaked online. All for free when you visit Aura.com slash trust.. That's aura.com slash trust to sign up for a 14-day free trial and start protecting you and your loved ones. A-U-R-A dot com slash trust. Certain terms apply, so be sure to check the site for details. My daughter's Spanish continues to improve at school. It's incredible how quickly kids are able to pick up new languages. So it's a good thing I have Rosetta Stone to help me keep up.

Rosetta Stone is the most trusted language learning program available on desktop or as an app that truly immerses you in the language you wanna learn. It has been a trusted expert for 30 years with millions of users and 25 languages offered. The immersion helps you pick up the language quickly and the process is so intuitive. It helps you pick up a language naturally, first with words, then phrases, then sentences, and is designed for long-term retention. It's been great learning new words and phrases to share with my daughter. As you're learning

and practicing, the built-in true accent feature gives you feedback on your pronunciation. It's like having a personal trainer for your accent. On top of all that, the lifetime membership has all 25 languages for any and all trips and language needs you may have throughout your life. That's lifetime access to all 25 language courses Rosetta Stone offers for 50% off a steal. Don't put off learning that language. There's no better time than right now to get started. For a very better time than right now to get started. For a very limited time, Cold Case Files listeners can get Rosetta Stone's lifetime membership for 50% off. Visit www.rosettastone.com slash cold case. That's 50% off unlimited access to 25 language courses for the rest of your life. Redeem your 50% off at www.rosettastone.com

slash coldcasetoday. In April of 1993, Robert and Donna Spangler were hiking a remote trail in the Grand Canyon when Donna fell over 100 feet to her death. Coconino County Sheriff's deputies combed the scene of the fall, collecting every bit of evidence. A week later, Donna Spangler's death was ruled an accident. The bottom line on this

case is the difference between an accidental death and a homicide is a push of a hand. And that particular death sort of became a part of, for lack of a better phrase, Grand Canyon lore. It's one of those things where your gut tells you that there's a good chance that this individual has killed his wife. But you're searching for an answer, a clue, a piece of evidence, that'll lie to prove that case. And it just wasn't there. A year after the fall, Coconino detective Bruce Cornish learns of a second tragedy in Robert Spangler's past, one that goes back 16 years.

I learned that he had had a previous family, a wife and two teenage children, that were killed in Littleton, Colorado back in 1978. And that was very suspicious. Cornish shares his concerns with Arapahoe County investigator Paul Goodman, who decides to take a fresh look at the old file. The original conclusion was that it was a double murder-suicide with Nancy Spangler, the mother, having killed her two children. Goodman puts a call into the original investigator, Marvin Tucker,

who claims he never bought into the finding of suicide. And I told him that myself and the lieutenant I was working with felt that very strongly, and we wanted to get the case prosecuted at that time, but unable to do so. He said that he was never comfortable that the case was cleared as a double murder-suicide, that he thought at the very least it should have remained an open case. Goodman reviews the physical evidence. He begins with the suicide note and typewriter

upon which the note was written. The suicide note didn't have any fingerprints on it. The typewriter, when they processed that for fingerprints, it showed some minor finger impressions, but however, it did also show what appeared to be white marks, like somebody had wiped the surface of the typewriter down. To the trained eye, the crime scene speaks less of suicide and more of murder. Goodman decides to dig a bit further.

One of the things that I looked at was the fact that gunshot residue tests were done on Nancy Spangler and on Bob Spangler. And Nancy Spangler's test showed negative. However, tests on one of Bob's hands did reveal the presence of gunshot residue. Although not conclusive, the results of the gunshot residue test made the question, did someone else fire the gun that killed Nancy Spangler? In 1978, that possibility was ruled out. Now, 16 years later, Goodman believes the coroner's finding might have missed the mark. Goodman asks current Arapahoe County coroner,

Dr. Mike Dobberson, to take a new look at Nancy Spangler's autopsy photos. You see on the forehead in this particular case was an entrance wound, the entrance defect, and it was surrounded by the stippling, the little dot-like scratches. The stippling pattern is Dr. Dobberson's first indication that something is not quite right. Well, when a gun is fired, there's a lot more that comes out of the end than just the bullet. Some portions of unburned gunpowder come out,

and it's these portions of unburned gunpowder that impact the skin and form an actual injury. And it's these injuries that are characteristic of an intermediate range wound. An intermediate range wound means that the gun that killed Nancy Spangler was held at a distance of 3 to 10 inches from her head. A finding that is highly inconsistent with suicide. Well, this would be a very difficult way for a person who is committed to ending their life to hold the gun. And that is to hold it from such a distance that the possibility of missing would be much greater than if the gun was in contact with the skin. The most likely scenario in a situation like this is that another individual fired this gun in this particular arrangement with this particular trajectory. Dr. Dobberson's conclusion? Nancy Spangler was murdered. He changes her cause of death from suicide to homicide.

And Paul Goodman takes his case to the prosecutor. I tried to do a county and a state case on it, and everybody agreed that there was probably something there, but they didn't think we had enough to go forward with our case. Paul Goodman finds himself at a standstill. He places a call to Arizona, hoping that Donna Spangler's suspicious fall in the Grand Canyon might provide an opportunity to charge her husband with murder. Former park ranger and now special agent Bev Perry takes the call.

Upon hearing about that case and reading the material that they had, at that moment in time, I no longer had any doubts about Bob Spangler. I felt certain that he had murdered his first family and he had most likely murdered Donna as well. Perry and Goodman agree they are looking at four possible homicides, with Bob Spangler the prime suspect in them all. Because the Grand Canyon is federal property, cold case detectives can utilize one more resource in tracking Bob Spangler,

the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This is FBI Special Agent Leonard Johns. We had the ability to find jurisdiction to investigate all of the murders in a totality. The FBI brings a new focus to the investigation, reaching out to Spangler's family and friends, searching for an angle to use against their suspect.

In August of 2000, they get it. A family friend tells cold case detectives that Bob Spangler is dying. Bob had sent her a letter that he indicated he was dying of cancer. That kind of changed things for us. And long story short is we make a decision that this might be the best time to approach him when he's still reeling a little bit from this

diagnosis. And that's where we kind of decided that we just needed to pack up our case and go to Colorado and do the best we could at obtaining a confession. Apartments.com believes a dishwasher does more than just clean plates. It turns your whole place into a time machine by turning the time you would have spent washing dishes into extra time for you. That could mean more time to read, more time to knit, or more time to contemplate the vastness of time itself. With Apartments.com, finding somewhere to live with an elusive dishwashing

slash time-expanding device is easy. Apartments.com hosts the most rental listings with over 1 million available units. And with comprehensive search tools and instant alerts, you never have to worry about missing out on the perfect place. To find whatever you're searching for and more, visit apartments.com, the place to find a place.

This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Hey, Cold Case Files listeners, whether you love true crime or comedies, celebrity interviews, news, or even motivational speakers, you call the shots on what's in your podcast queue, right? And guess what? Now you can call the shots on your auto insurance, too. Enter the Name Your Price tool from Progressive. The Name Your Price tool puts you in charge of your auto insurance by working just the way it sounds. You tell Progressive how much you wanna pay for car insurance.

Then they'll show you a variety of coverages that fit within your budget, giving you options. Now that's something you'll wanna press play on. It's easy to start a quote and you'll be able to choose the best option for you fast. It's just one of the many ways you can save with Progressive Insurance. Quote today at progressive.com

to try the name your price tool for yourself and join the over 28 million drivers who with Progressive Insurance. Quote today at Progressive.com to try the Name Your Price tool for yourself and join the over 28 million drivers who trust Progressive. Progressive Casualty Insurance Company & Affiliates. Price and coverage match limited by state law. Inside the Mesa County Sheriff's Department, cold case detectives sit down to talk with a man named Robert Spangler, a man they believe to be a serial killer, responsible for the murder of his own family

in 1978 and his third wife, Donna, in 1993. Despite their suspicions, they lack the evidence to charge him in either case. But Spangler is dying of cancer, and cold case detectives hope to coax the truth from him before he takes it to the grave. The strategy for that is to make Bob feel important. And the approach we took is to create a circumstance that looked like there were tremendous forces organized against him, a lot of expertise and scientific interest. And I just want to make sure that you know who I am. My name is Lenny Johns, and I'm a special agent with the FBI.

You can call me Len if you like. Cold case detectives play on Spengler's ego. FBI special agent Lenny Johns tells the suspect that a team of FBI profilers would like to study Spengler. You know, I told him that I was very interested in talking to him and fascinated by his mind, and that was all the truth. And don't mistake that for liking him at all. But somebody who can get away with homicide for that many years is a very intelligent person,

and I can learn a lot of things from him. For nearly three hours, Robert Spangler sits and listens, soaking up the interest, but revealing very little. He kept telling us he had nothing he could tell us about. And then we reached kind of an impasse. You know, we left it with telling him we really wanted to talk to him the next day. And his comment to me when I told him that was, yeah, I know you do. And that was a tough point for all of us because we all want to arrest him right there. And but we just didn't have enough to be able to do that.

At 9 a.m. the next morning, FBI agent Lenny Johns gets a call. It's Bob Spangler, and he wants to make a deal. When he comes in the second day, he's interested in like a barter situation. He said that he could see that we didn't have enough to arrest him yet, or he wouldn't have walked out of there the night before. With no more than a year to live, Bob Spangler has little to lose should he choose not to talk. Yet his ego demands that he share the crime with someone. I think on some level there was a part of him that wanted to talk about it,

frankly wanted to brag about it. He finally said that, well, he might be willing to talk about Littleton, but he wanted to know what we could offer him. Investigators agreed to Spangler's request for time to see his friends and to visit the Grand Canyon one last time. In exchange, Robert Spangler takes detectives back to 1978, revealing for the first time the details of how he murdered his family. This was premeditated. revealing for the first time the details of how he murdered his family. The audio from the interview was difficult to make out.

Spangler says he convinced Nancy to come downstairs by saying he had a Christmas surprise for her. Once she had closed her eyes, Spangler shot her in the head. He then walked upstairs to his daughter's bedroom. She was asleep in bed. He tells investigators he shot her in the heart. Spangler then walked across the hall to his son David's room. The 17-year-old, however, was not asleep. Spangler fired at his the hall to his son David's room. The 17-year-old, however, was not asleep. Spangler fired at his son from the bedroom doorway. You know, that was absolutely not a fatal wound. And I wound up smothering him.

When he shot his son, Spangler says the wound was not fatal, and he wound up smothering him. He was cool, doesn't show much emotion. I'm amazed, you know, that this man is sitting here telling me about killing his teenage children and his wife, and he's talking about it like he's talking about going to a ballgame or a walk in the park. It's just very matter-of-fact.

With the same calm demeanor, Robert Spangler explains why he slaughtered his family, saying simply that he thought it would be easier than getting a divorce. And having made the decision that it would be, in a way, easier somehow than getting a the forest. The confession brings three murders and one cold case to a close. Spangler, however, refuses to talk about the second case,

the death of Donna Spangler from a fall in the Grand Canyon. And at one point, I just tell him that, you know, you're not a serial killer unless you've murdered more than once. And you've only told us about one set of murders. And Bob Spangler didn't like that. You know, he was like, I mean, he was, that was something he wanted at that point. At that moment in time, on that day, he wanted that recognition, that status as a serial killer and being desired by the profilers I'm interested in talking to your profile to find out why or how I am capable and capable of compartmentalizing something and doing something like that.

Most people I have at the conference aren't even capable of. I'm different. I am interesting. I'm not your normal, average, everyday person. And then he does some more talking and ends up telling us, okay, you've got your cereal, and then says proceed, meaning proceed with your line of questioning, and I'm going to tell you about that other one. Bob Spangler takes detectives back down the trails of the Grand Canyon

on the last hike Donna Spangler would ever take. As they started up and stopped at this particular corner, and it's a steep area of switchbacks, effort take. pushed her. He acknowledged, he said, it doesn't sound like a very good reason, but it was easier than a divorce. Robert Spangler's confession is given without remorse and without repentance, but not without pride. I think he was proud of the fact that he committed these crimes.

I think that he was very proud of the fact that he had gotten away with these crimes for all of those years. He thought he was smarter than me and Paul Goodman and Bev and all these law enforcement officers. He thought he was better than us. Three weeks after giving his confession, Spangler is taken into custody. He pleads guilty to four counts of first-degree murder and is sentenced to life in federal

prison. It felt really good to be able to tell Nancy's family that, hey, after all these years, 20 years later, 22 years later, I'm able to tell you that Nancy did not murder her kids. On August 5th, 2001, the sun stretches out over the Grand Canyon. The Colorado River follows its daily course, and Robert Spangler, the man who brought murder to the canyon, dies in prison at the age of 68. Action fans, this is your summer. With Pluto TV's Summer of Cinema,

stream hundreds of your favorite movies all for free. Should you choose to accept nonstop thrills, stream Mission Impossible, love classic action-adventure, watch Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark. Or if you prefer cars that are robots, there's Transformers and Transformers Dark of the Moon. Download the Pluto TV app to feed your need for action all summer long for free. Summer of Cinema on Pluto TV. Stream now, pay never.