The Deck - Alexander Winspeare (Jack of Clubs, Florida)

Episode Date: May 8, 2024

Our card this week is Alexander WInspeare, the Jack of Clubs from Florida.At 93, Alexander Winspeare had been through a lot in his long life. He was a veteran of World War I, proudly serving his country. If anyone had earned the right to die with dignity and grace, it was him. But instead, he was murdered in 1987. And 37 years later, police are still on the hunt for his killer.If you know anything about the murder of Alexander Winspeare in October of 1987, please call the Largo PD tip line at 727-587-6730. View source material and photos for this episode at: thedeckpodcast.com/alexander-winspeareLet us deal you in… follow The Deck on social media.Instagram: @thedeckpodcast | @audiochuckTwitter: @thedeckpodcast_ | @audiochuckFacebook: /TheDeckPodcast | /audiochuckllcTo apply for a Cold Case Playing Card grant through Season of Justice, please visit www.seasonofjustice.org. The Deck is hosted by Ashley Flowers. Instagram: @ashleyflowersTikTok: @ashleyflowerscrimejunkieTwitter: @Ash_FlowersFacebook: /AshleyFlowers.AF Text Ashley at 317-733-7485 to talk all things true crime, get behind the scenes updates, and more!

Our card this week is Alexander Winspear, the Jack of Clubs from Florida. At the age of 93, Alexander had been through a lot in his life. He was a veteran of World War I, proudly serving his country, and after the war, he worked as a machinist for Pontiac Motors. When he finally retired in 1962 to spend some time with his wife, it was short-lived after she passed away only four years later. If anyone had earned the right to die with dignity and grace, it was Alexander. But instead, he was murdered in 1987. And nearly 37 years later, police are still on the hunt for his killer.

And while they have a list of potential suspects, it may be up to the public to help them solve this crime. I'm Ashley Flowers, and this is The Deck. It was around 10 in the morning on October 27, 1987, when Walt Francisco pulled up to Alexander's home in Largo, Florida to pick him up for breakfast. This was a routine that the two had, seven days a week for almost 15 years. And if it wasn't Walt, it was his wife or son that would come and pick Alexander up. But on this day, things were a little different. Usually when Walt pulled into the driveway, Alexander was already in the doorway waiting for him, but today he wasn't there. So Walt honked the horn a few times and waited and

waited, honked again, waited a few more minutes, but Alexander still didn't emerge. So Walt finally got out of his car and went to the door, which he noticed was unlocked. He pushed it open and called out for Alexander, but he didn't hear anything back. And not just that there wasn't a voice. I mean, it was completely devoid of any of the home's normal noises. No fans whirring, no lights buzzing, the TV or radio wasn't on. So sensing something could be wrong, Walt went back to Alexander's bedroom to check on him.

That's where he found Mr. Winspear on the bed. He checked him for a pulse. He said he couldn't get a pulse. And he went to a neighbor's house. This was before cell phones and whatnot. It was a neighbor that was friendly with Mr. Winspear. They both ended up going back in and checking, like realizing that the police need to be called and that's when Largo Police Department was called. That's Detective Adam Compton with the Largo PD who's working on this case today. According to him, their department got the call at around 1050 a.m. and arrived on the scene shortly after.

And it didn't take long for them to realize that Alexander hadn't died of natural causes. It became apparent that it was a crime scene. It was taped off as a crime scene. The Pinellas County Sheriff's Office, their forensic unit, did the processing. To keep the integrity of the investigation, Detective Compton declined to describe the scene to our reporter or even acknowledge if a murder weapon was found at the location. But he would say that this was a violent death, which meant that the Largo PD had a dangerous killer on the loose.

But they were far from finding out who did it or why this happened. And as they looked around Alexander's home, nothing was jumping out at them, like they couldn't find any sign of forced entry. Alexander's home had two additional structures built around it, a little sunroom and then a small kitchen and bathroom area. And just so I can explain a little, Alexander's primary living space was what looked like an Airstream camper. And on either side of that were this sunroom and then this kitchen slash bathroom area.

So both of those additional structures had doors to the outside. But like I said, there's no forced entry. Both of those doors were locked. That only left the unlocked and open door that Walt came through, making that the most likely entry point for the killer. But there was also no apparent sign of burglary. Alexander didn't have anything much of value to take in the first place,

and the police found his wallet with cash still inside. Although, it's noted that the wallet was hidden, so it's possible that if this was a burglary or robbery or attempted robbery, the wallet was just maybe never discovered by the intruder. So with little in the way of motive, police turned to canvassing the neighborhood for leads. There were two neighbors that reported hearing a loud noise. Both of them said it at four in the morning. One of the neighbors wasn't able to describe what the sound was.

He described himself as a sound sleeper and he was deep asleep. And it said it was loud enough that it woke him. Another said the same thing, it was a couple, and they heard a loud noise, and they described it as a banging of aluminum. That's kinda how they described it, and it was noted that Mr. Winspear had an aluminum door. If that was Alexander's door neighbors heard, that could give police a potential timeline

of when the murder occurred. And that timeline was filled out more when they talked to Walt and his wife, Elma. They were essentially Alexander's caretakers and basically surrogate family. Like I said, Alexander was a widower and he and his wife hadn't had any children. And while Detective Compton is unaware

of how the relationship came to be, Walt and his family were clearly important people in Alexander's life. They did everything for him. They helped him pay his bills. They cleaned the house, do laundry, mow his lawn. Nobody knew Alexander's schedule better than Walt and Elma. They would pick him up around 10 o'clock every morning and take him to a restaurant that's in the city. It's south of the location, probably a couple miles away, and he would have breakfast there.

He would sit and read the newspaper, sleep in the chair there, go out, walk around, you know, walk around the plaza there. I think someone said that sometimes he'd feed the ducks out there, come back there. He would have lunch, and then he'd get picked up around 40, 30 that afternoon by Walt. And they would go to a bar that was down the street, and they would go there and have one to three beers.

And they would leave there typically around 5.30 and have him home between 5.30 and 5.45, and just rinse and repeat seven days a week. On the day of Alexander's murder, this schedule was no different. Walt and Elma told police that they last saw Alexander between 5 30 and 6 p.m. when they dropped him off at home. And everything that day seemed to be normal. But there was something out of the ordinary that happened a little over a month prior. Alexander was burglarized. So at first they thought it might have been the beginning of October, but then Walt's wife's like,

I think it was the end of September, but regardless, it was very soon, or very close to when the homicide happened, that sometime during the evening, he reported his wallet and a flashlight was stolen. Alexander was known to flash his money around a bit. He had this pension from working at Pontiac and Social Security coming in, and he was wary of banks. Didn't even have any credit cards.

So this meant cash was king. Alexander would carry a bunch of smaller bills wadded up making it look like he had this like fat stack. And Walt had to warn him about making it known that he had money. He worried someone would see him as an easy target. And they actually had. He told Walt that he thought approximately $250 cash was in his wallet

when it got stolen. Walt really was like, you need to report this. And he was kind of like, what were the police gonna do? And he couldn't do it. And actually Walt tried to go to, you need to report this. And he was kind of like, what were the police going to do? And he couldn't do it. And actually, Walt tried to go to, he went to the police department and tried to report it for him. But obviously the victim has to report it. So it didn't get reported.

Alexander was also fearful that if he did report it, the perpetrator might come back and hurt him. He only weighed about a hundred pounds in those last few weeks of his life. So he wasn't necessarily someone physically capable of stopping an and hurt him. He only weighed about 100 pounds in those last few weeks of his life, so he wasn't necessarily someone physically capable of stopping an intruder or even defending himself. He thought it was better to just let the whole thing go. But for police, that meant it's possible that whoever successfully burglarized him in the first place could have come back for another go, this time with tragic consequences. And so now it made sense to them why Alexander's wallet was found hidden away on their initial search of his home.

He'd been burglarized once, and he wasn't going to let them find his wallet again. The autopsy was done on the 28th, the day after Alexander's body was found. But much like the crime scene, the Largo PD has been very tight-lipped regarding what was found, including his cause of death. Although Detective Compton would say that there was some kind of blunt force trauma. And that aligns with reporting by Jane Minehart of the Tampa Bay Times, which stated that the autopsy found, quote, "...several bruises and a cut on his upper body and head."

End quote. But no matter how Alexander was killed, police still didn't have a suspect. So they continued to knock on doors and interview people in an old-school 1987 style. When they interviewed the owner of a restaurant that Alexander frequented, he gave them several taxicab companies that they would sometimes call for him if he needed a ride. Usually it was Walt or Elma driving Alexander, but occasionally it wasn't. Unfortunately for investigators though, the taxi cab information led them nowhere. They also interviewed bartenders and customers of the bar Alexander and Walt would go to,

hoping someone there might put them on the right track. And while everyone at the bar knew Alexander, none of them could recall him having an issue with anyone or even speaking of any kind of enemies. Police then decided to turn to what little data they did have access to back in the 80s, looking at the crime reports from Alexander's neighborhood. And what they discovered when looking there shocked them. to them. According to Detective Compton, the reports showed a clear pattern leading up to Alexander's

murder. They pulled all the reports that were taken in that neighborhood. I think they looked at just October. There was like five to eight burglars in the area where, you know, where jewelry was stolen and money was stolen that were reported. So the police turned back to the neighbors, and one of them mentioned a juvenile causing problems in the neighborhood. From there, police were able to find a larger group of juveniles who had been arrested for

residential burglaries. And even more shocking to them than the number of burglaries happening in such a short period of time were the ages of some of the people committing them. A couple of them are 10 years old and had been arrested before burglaries, as young as eight. And then some of the suspects at the time were as old as 17 years old. There's another person's adventurous, I would say, but another one that was in the area that kind of associated with these young kids that were committing burglaries to

I think he was 32 at the time. I Believe most of them admitted to doing home burglaries at the time But obviously everybody was denying anything, you know any involvement with him Even though they all denied involvement at least one of them in the group'll call Warren, did admit to knowing who Alexander was from the neighborhood. He also claimed that he liked him. But admitting you know someone doesn't make you a murderer, and that ultimately left police with nothing. Even the physical evidence wasn't helping them narrow in on a suspect. So they had taken, you know, bed sheets and clothing and things that, in the very beginning, the FBI crime lab processed this stuff. And there was nothing, nothing to break the case that came out of that.

You know, there was nothing that was there. That basically put the case at a standstill for seven years, until 1995, when one of the suspects from the original group, who we'll call Martin, agreed to take a polygraph test. When he took it, he showed no deception. Then, in October of 1997, police got Warren to agree to one. Now, keep in mind, he was interviewed when he was being charged with something else at the time.

He was in custody for that. They went to go interview, I believe that was Detective Shaw went to go interview him while he was in custody in reference to this homicide. And at first he said that he was cooperative, but then asked for the attorney. So the polygraph never happened. And while this turned out to be another disappointment for the police, Warren did at least give them a little something. He told police that he believed someone that we'll call Neil Barnes was involved in the homicide.

Now, this name wasn't new to police. He was part of that original group that the police had been looking at in 1987. He was one of two Barnes brothers. The other one we'll call Ryan. But again, this was just members of this group pointing fingers at one another, not offering up any proof that the police could actually use to make an arrest. And so the trail went cold again. But as technology improved over the years, Largo PD continued to submit things for testing.

And in October of 2002, they finally got a hit when a print found inside the sunroom of Alexander's home was run through APHIS. This was not the same bloody fingerprint or anything, just so you know. Just your regular old run-of-the-mill print. And this print was found on the sunroom door that was locked the morning that the body was discovered. And the owner of this print happened to be Walt's stepson.

Walt's stepson at the time of the murder in 1987 was 15 years old and had no criminal record. But in the years since, he had gotten into trouble, nothing violent but stuff with drugs and burglary, which is why his prints were probably in APHIS in 2002. So the police went and interviewed the stepson in December. He admitted to being at Alexander's home three or four times, and it was to help him cut his grass. He said he had never gone inside the residence, but had been to the doorstep to help Alexander

inside. So, that's maybe where his print came from on the door. And police also noted that the stepson didn't appear to be nervous at all. When police went and interviewed Walt, he confirmed his stepson's story, that he had helped mow the lawn. Walt also added that they had been inside to use the bathroom while they were too. There wasn't anything to dispute what Walt and his stepson were saying, and there was no other evidence that pointed toward the stepson being the murderer. And Walt and his family, like I said, were like family to Alexander, making any of them unlikely suspects.

Looking back on the case now, Detective Compton says there's nothing in the file that indicates Walt or his wife or the stepson were ever suspects. Throughout the mid-2000s, police continued to send things out for testing, with nothing coming of it. This included nail scrapings taken from Alexander that showed no foreign DNA. So while the forensic evidence continued to come up short, police tried any way they could to solve this case. They even turned to the school system since most all of their suspects were juveniles.

They were looking at school records, mainly like looking for absentees during a certain period. But unfortunately, the school system didn't keep that. And by the time that was looked at, didn't have those records of any absentees. With nowhere left to turn, they went back to the start. Between 2004 and 2005, the Largo PD started to re-interview many of the original suspects, most of whom were now in prison for other crimes. In October of 2004, Warren again denied involvement.

And like they'd heard before, he pointed to one of the Barnes brothers being capable of the murder. Then in November, police interviewed someone who was not part of the original group, but had information. This person heard through the neighborhood that it was a robbery gone

wrong and that Alexander was hit in the head with a baseball bat. Of course, by the time he's saying this information, he says he couldn't remember who told him that. But it wasn't long before police were able to get some confirmation on this information. And this time, it came directly from one of the suspects inside that original group. In December, an original suspect, who we haven't talked about yet, but we'll call him Jeff, Jeff was interviewed by police. He gave some information about the way he had heard the old man had been killed, gave information about the motive.

Specifically, Jeff heard Alexander was beaten with a lamp, a pipe, or a baseball bat. He said the motivation for the robbery was Alexander's wallet. Jeff was then interviewed again only a few months later, and when asked about the Barnes brothers and Martin, he indicated to police that they were on the right track. But when one of the brothers, Ryan Barnes, was interviewed, he told them that he thinks Jeff was involved. When they went and interviewed Ryan's brother Neil Barnes, he wouldn't even talk to them. He requested a lawyer. So while the police appeared to be getting a little more information than they had before, they still weren't getting what they needed. There was, you know, all the so-called rumors or speculation during the interviews, like, hey, these three guys might be involved, or these three, or these two.

And it always kind of revolved around this group of people. But what of this information, if any, was helpful? The police seemed to have difficulty figuring it out. That's the challenge, you know, is like, what is reliable, what's not reliable? You've kind of had a permutation of a lot of these people together, not together, this one pointed to this one.

According to Jonathan Abel in the Tampa Bay Times, over six years years police had interviewed over 60 people, many of them multiple times, and they had followed leads to over six different states as suspects and others with potential information moved around. Between 2009 and 2012, several things happened. Another round of re-interviews yielded nothing substantial, and then testing on Alexander's shirt revealed that the left armpit contained a mixture of his DNA and the DNA of two other individuals. Police were able to get buckle swabs, which just means you swab the inside of your mouth, and they got that from Martin, Warren, and Walt's stepson. We asked police if they were able to obtain samples from anyone else, specifically the people

that we've already mentioned in this story. More specifically, the Barnes brothers who keep coming up. He said that one of the Barnes brothers also had a buckle swap taken, and that for the other people, DNA profiles were already available because of prior arrests, so there was no need to go out and get those. But long story short, when all the results came back, they didn't leave police anywhere.

No determination could be made regarding the possible DNA mixture. And the DNA mixture was so limited that it wasn't eligible to be put into CODIS. So fast forward to 2017. They tried to go at the forensic evidence again. So Detective Frayer in 2017, she went through all the evidence again, seeing if there was anything else that could be done and there was really nothing that could be done. She actually sent off another item that hadn't been done for DNA. There were actually two items, a pillowcase and a flashlight, that were sent off to the forensic lab in June of 2017.

Those results came back in September, and regarding DNA on the flashlight, they ruled out all the suspects that we've talked about, including Walt's stepson, who was never a suspect. The pillowcase had insufficient DNA for inclusion or exclusion. According to Detective Compton, there hasn't been a large enough DNA profile on any of the items to enter into CODIS. There was one last shot taken in 2019 when a piece of hair that was found on Alexander was sent off to be tested, but it was eventually determined to be his hair.

Still, you have to give props to the Largo PD because more often than not, these cases fall by the wayside over the years. But every few years, they were re-looking, re-interviewing and re-testing evidence. But sometimes you don't get the desired results no matter what you do. And I guess as you're seeing when you guys are doing these podcasts, for the challenges for people taking over cold cases, you're asking questions that we all ask and you just so much time has gone by. And as it gets older, there's less people to talk to and less things to follow up on. At this point, police haven't had any success with the physical evidence.

Whether it was evidence sent to the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, or the Pinellas County Forensic Lab or even early on to the FBI. Nothing has pointed them to a suspect, leaving this case where it stands right now, unsolved. But Detective Compton is hopeful that it doesn't have to stay that way. He believes someone out there, maybe even someone listening to this episode right now, could hold the key to solving Alexander's case. Really what we're relying on right now is someone coming forward with some legitimate information or knowing something.

We're hoping like with the podcast that, you know, that would trigger someone's memory or just, you know, a conversation somebody had. We would love to talk to somebody that might have some knowledge of the case or someone made an admittance and go from there. We'll continue to look at technology changes with DNA, but I believe that's the way that's gonna solve the case. Somebody that knows, somebody obviously knows what happened. All Detective Compton can do now

is continue to work the case, praying that the day will come when he can finally close it for good. Because Alexander and those who knew him deserve that. And according to Detective Compton, Alexander deserves a lot more. Mr. Winspear deserves justice. I mean, a U.S. veteran, war veteran, it appears by all measures he lived a very good life. I mean, a hardworking man had his pension.

Everybody we talked to said he was a fine man, didn't have any enemies and stuff. He deserves his justice. Just because it's been 36 years doesn't mean that he's still not deserved justice. If you know anything about the murder of Alexander Winspear in October of 1987, please call the Largo PD tip line at 727-587-6730.

The Deck is an AudioChuck production with theme music by Ryan Lewis. To learn more about The Deck and our advocacy work visit the deck podcast.com. So what do you think Chuck do you approve?