This story talks about domestic abuse. If you or someone you love is experiencing domestic violence or an abusive relationship, call the National Domestic Abuse Hotline at 1-800-799-SAFE (1-800-799-7233) or visit www.thehotline.org. Callers can remain anonymous.
Less than a month before Dusty Ray Spencer brutally stabbed and beat his wife to death in front of her horrified teenage son, he called her from a Florida jail and made a promise: “When I get out, I’m going to finish what I started,” court records say.
It was two weeks before Christmas 1991, and Spencer was being held behind bars in Orange County. He was jailed because he had covered Karen’s nose and mouth with one hand and choked her with the other in a fit of rage, according to court records and archived news reports.
Within a few days of Spencer’s arrest, a judge set his bail at just $5,000, and he was released.
On Jan. 18, 1992, Spencer kept his promise to Karen. He returned to her home and brutally stabbed and beat her in front of her son. Now 34 years later, Florida is set to execute Spencer by lethal injection on Thursday, June 25.
The Florida Attorney General’s Office says in court records that the execution is “long-deserved.” Meanwhile Spencer’s attorneys have been fighting the execution method and other supporters say that at 74, he should be spared because he’s now a “sick old man.”
Here’s what you need to know about the case and how it forever changed the way Orange County addresses domestic violence.
Florida is set to execute Dusty Ray Spencer by lethal injection at 6 p.m. ET on Thursday, June 25, at the state prison in Raiford.
On Jan. 18, 1992, 40-year-old Karen Spencer’s son was sleeping when he heard her screams, court records say.
The 17-year-old boy followed the sound of his frantic mother until he found her in the backyard with his stepfather, Dusty Ray Spencer. The boy saw Spencer hit his mother in the head with a brick, court records say.
The boy ran and got a shotgun to shoot Spencer but it jammed. He then hit Spencer over the head with the gun, breaking the stock, but Spencer continued his attack, slamming Karen’s head into the concrete side of the house, according to an archived news report in the Orlando Sentinel.
“All I could see was blood, she was covered in blood,” the teen testified at Spencer’s trial, according to the newspaper. “He kept saying that my mother had (expletive) up his life.”
The boy tried to pick his mother up to carry her to safety, but Spencer came at both of them with a knife. The boy ran to get help. By the time police arrived, Spencer had fled and Karen had bled to death. The damage was devastating: head injuries, two stab wounds to the chest, and deep gash wounds in her face and arms, court records say.
Spencer’s attorneys argued at trial that the killing was an unplanned crime of passion, while prosecutors argued that Spencer intentionally killed Karen in a painful way.
“He didn’t just go there to kill her,” prosecutor Dorothy Sedgwick told jurors, according to the Sentinel. “He went there to make her feel it.”
A jury found Spencer guilty of first-degree murder, attempt to commit murder, and both aggravated assault and aggravated battery for injuries to Karen’s son. The jury recommended a death sentence in a 7-5 vote.
On direct appeal, the Florida Supreme Court vacated the death sentence and remanded the case for reconsideration over the trial court’s handling of aggravating and mitigating factors in the case. Spencer was resentenced to death in 1996.
Like most victims of domestic violence, Karen Spencer’s murder wasn’t the first time that her husband had attacked her.
Dusty Ray Spencer’s first known attack on his wife came on Dec. 10, 1991, when he began suffocating her and threatened to kill her. “When I get out, I’m going to finish what I started,” he told Karen Spencer in a call from jail, according to court records.
Spencer was briefly jailed for that attack but was released on a $5,000 bail despite his repeated threats to kill his wife.
On Jan. 4, 1992, Spencer attacked Karen again, smashing in her in the face with an iron until her 17-year-old son found them and intervened. That time, deputies didn’t arrest Spencer because they couldn’t find him, though Karen gave them tips on where he’d be, according to court records and archived news reports.
The fatal attack came 16 days later.
Karen Spencer’s murder showed how the criminal justice system can fail victims of domestic violence and drew attention to the crisis in Orange County. Following her death, arrests and prosecution of domestic violence cases went up by 80 percent, according to reporting in 1992 by The Orlando Sentinel.
Over the next few years, the Florida Legislature strengthened laws and penalties against domestic violence, including making threats of violence a first-degree misdemeanor, requiring law enforcement to detail why an arrest was not made, and mandating a first appearance in court for anyone charged with domestic violence before they can be released on bail, according to reporting by Florida Today, part of the USA TODAY Network
The next scheduled execution in the U.S. is that of Dennis Sochor in Florida on July 14. Sochor was convicted of the rape and strangling of 18-year-old Patricia Gifford after meeting her at a New Year’s celebration in 1981.
Contributing: C. A. Bridges, USA TODAY NETWORK – Florida
Amanda Lee Myers is a senior crime reporter who covers the death penalty, cold cases and breaking news for USA TODAY. Follow her on X at @amandaleeusat.
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