October 2, 2025 • 46 mins
Kirby Carpenter was a 36-year-old entrepreneur dealing in gold, silver, and coins. He was known to carry large sums of cash at all times, was found dead on December 2, 2022. Authorities believe he was murdered with a shotgun or a firearm that fires shotgun-style shells on November 30, shortly after returning home from a grocery trip. Joseph Scott Morgan and Dave Mack break down the case behind the murder and the trial that has just ended.
Transcribe Highlights
00:05.83 Introduction
03:23.12 Sounds like "movie of the week"
05:00.85 Spence steals horse "Goliath"
09:59.19 Murdered by gun that fires "shotgun like" shells
14:43.31 Different guns for different hunting
20:12.78 Multiple bullet holes using shotgun
25:09.84 Drag marks lead to shooting location
30:07.44 If a robbery, body wouldn't have been moved
35:02.15 $2,000 in cash in a pocket
40:04.25 Caitlin is the one who "found" Kirby
45:36.01 SHOCKING MISTRIAL!
Conclusion
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Body diamonds, but Joseph's gotten more Tipp County, Mississippi. I've
actually got ancestors that settled that part of Mississippi, if
you're not familiar with it. Actually, I've got a bunch
of them that settled all over Mississippi before they moved
(00:21):
on to Louisiana and parts unknown afterwards. But this area
is up in the northern part of Mississippi. It's not
really too far away from where one of the bloodiest
battles of the Civil War took place in courrinth mississippis
like a couple of counties over. If you didn't know
(00:43):
any better, you would think that you were in the
middle of the wilderness. I'll be it quite beautiful around there,
but there's not a lot going on. And like much
of Mississippi, if you have money, you're probably the exception
(01:04):
as opposed to the norm, and particularly if you've got,
as they say cash money in hand. Today we're going
to talk about a case of a particular violence or
level of violence, and we're also going to talk about
(01:24):
an individual that was self made and commonly had at
his disposal corp of a million dollars in cash, precious
metals and he's found dead out in his yard, and
(01:47):
even given all of that wealth, he himself could not
be shielded from being a homicide pect. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan,
and this is body Bags, David. I got to tell you, man, this,
this case that we're about to chat about right now,
(02:11):
we were, uh, you know, kind of prattling on like
we like, we're like a couple of old guys like
to do anyway, you know, we we ought to we
ought to go find us a park somewhere that has
a bench and just take microphones with us and just
have have unbridled conversations out there. Uh. Of course, you know,
I'm kind of like a I'm kind of like a bass.
(02:34):
I guess shiny objects would distract really carefully, really quickly,
and I would I would get off topic. But this
came to the MOVIEU oh yeah, yeah, it's my Yeah,
my kid's favorite favorite movie. Yeah, the Dog. That's me.
I'm the squirrel Dog. Uh. But yeah, this this case. Uh,
(02:55):
we were kind of uh going on about it earlier,
and you were working under the assumption that I had
appeared on some television show or something to cover this case.
And I got to tell you, I hadn't heard peep
about this, and if we were, if we were back
in the seventies or eighties, I'd say that this would
(03:18):
be a fantastic idea for a made for TV movie.
You remember on Sunday nights, Do you remember that back
in the day they would have the what was it,
the ABC Movie of the Week? You know, And yeah,
this is that kind of thing. Because it's so I
don't think it'd make it on the big screen, but
(03:39):
this would be a brilliant idea for a movie of
the week, because my lord, this thing is really complex
and just horribly brutal.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Dave, Well, here's the story. Caitlin Spence is at the
center of this, believe it or not. Caitlyn Spence thirty
eight years old or boyfriend Kirby Carpenter is thirty six.
As you mentioned, a guy that walks around with a
quarter million dollars cash. I mean, this is something that
I have not heard before, Joe, but apparently he did
(04:17):
have a lot of cash on him. And again I'm thinking,
do you take out a sign that says rob me? Now?
I mean I don't anyway, So Kirby, he's an entrepreneur,
self made guy. Caitlin comes from a family of Jeffrey
and Karen Spence, her mom and dad, and her dad
(04:38):
Jeffrey actually was in the news. I don't know how
many of you remember the story of the deer known
as Goliath. This is like in nineteen ninety nine, Goliath
was this massive deer and was worth a lot of
money in terms of putting him out the stud that
(04:58):
I didn't even know, and Goliath was worth millions in
that market. And it was Jeffrey Spence who actually kidnapped
or deer nap Goliath in nineteen ninety nine. He was
later convicted of that, but that's where his when if
you searched him before this case with Kirby Carpenter, that's
(05:19):
what you would find that he was known for this
nationwide scandal.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Dave. You know right now, I'm kind of sitting back
and I'm thinking thinking about what you're saying. I've been
around deer hunting and deer hunters my entire life, and
you know, I've got visions of people sitting up in
tree stands and freezing their tails off for you know,
an opportunity to shoot a trophy buck and the idea
(05:47):
that out there and again this has come to somebody.
I'm more of a duck hunter. I don't like the
idea of climbing up in a tree, but the idea
that someone is actually breeding deer, yeah, to go out
and I don't know. I mean, I guess you could
take them out to locations. You know, they have those huge,
(06:08):
huge hunting hunting ranges that are privately owned, you know,
and that there would be value in this. You're talking
about an animal that is back in the nineties as
a stud. He's worth a million dollars.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Right, twenty eight point twenty eight point white tailed deer buck.
That's the thing, Eliath and he was stolen. And I
love the name from wild Bunch, wild Bunch Ranch, deer farm.
It's just.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
You can't make it up, No, But you know, listen,
I don't. I've met people that deal kind of around
the edges in precious metals as well, but that's an
entire another group, you know, where you talk about that,
we're not fully aware of that people are that are
doing this, and they're not necessarily working in jewelry store, right,
(07:02):
you know, they're they're out there, you know, shucking and jobbing,
grinding it out, trying to make a living. You know
you got I would think.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
In twenty twenty five, Joe, in our day and age,
you don't walk around with that kind of cash. I mean,
I wouldn't look in Alabama. We've got a county here
in Alabama that is on the way to the beach
that they have they've used the law to when you
get pulled for a ticket and they just go, I
think you're a drug dealer, and they take your vehicle,
they lock it up, lock you up, and then they
(07:31):
keep your car and the contents. It's one of these
things that happens. If you look it up and all
I'm thinking of they've locked people up and taken five grand.
Guy's on his way, he says, I'm going to buy
a used car. I have the cash to do that.
They're like, nope, you got five grand cash, you're a
drug dealer. And I'm thinking this guy's got a quarter.
He is known known to have a quarter of a
(07:53):
million dollars cash on his person. Now, unless he's driving
an armored hum V you know, made of the Aniston
Army depot in Alabama, this guy ain't safe from anybody.
When you got that kind of cash.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
No, no, And it's you know, you talk about putting
blood in the water when you've got potential perpetrators that
are out there. So you know, from an investigative standpoint, Uh,
people are always looking for motive or motivation, you know,
for you know these things that we talk about that
are so incredibly brutal, because you're talking about the end
(08:27):
of somebody's life through violence. What what's what's the end game?
You know, what's the motivation behind eradicating somebody off the
face of the planet. And people can say, yeah, well,
it's it's it's uh, it's about family, it's about kids,
(08:48):
It's about unrequited love or anger or jealousy and all
that stuff. It's it's interesting the world and true crime
that that we that we occupy. You hear a lot
about those motivations. But Dave, one of the oldest motivations
in the world is to line your pockets.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Joe Kirby Carpenter was found murdered. But I remember when
you told me about this. This is kind of maybe
why I thought you had been on other shows talking
about this particular case, but I found out you a
haven't talked on other shows about it, and b it's
not got there's not a lot of pub on this
case outside of where it took place. But we've mentioned
(09:31):
Kirby Carpenter having a lot of cash on him and
he was found dead. Kirby Carpenter was found dead on
his own property and his body was found days after
he was shot to death. Yeah, and when I looked
(09:52):
at this, I made a note for myself to ask
you because here's what this actually said when I was
reading this in the police report. Okay. Kirby Carpenter, a
successful entrepreneur and precious metals dealer, was found dead on
December two, twenty twenty two. Police believe he was murdered
with a shotgun or a firearm that fires shotgun style
(10:17):
shells yep, on November thirtieth, shortly after he returned home
from a grocery store trip. Joseph Scott Morgan a gun
that fires shotgun like bells?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Yeah, what is that? Well, you've got a variety of
these platforms that are out there. You know, typically we
think about when you begin to consider the variety of
platforms that you can fire shotgun like shells from, there's
a myriad of these things that exist. And when traditionally
(10:54):
shotguns have always been classified as smooth bore weapons. What
that means is that unlike a rifled weapon that has
grooves that are turned literally turned, and when I say turned,
I mean it's actually put on a device and turned
(11:18):
in the factory, and it creates.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
The bullet comes straight out as it's spins, right.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah, And so there's any number of reasons why you know,
why rifles are so highly effective, because they retain the
energy by spinning, and you can put around on target
from a greater distance. And with the shotguns. Shotgun is
smooth bore, so it's a smooth almost well smooth pipe
(11:45):
and you're firing a projectile down this pipe. And now
most of the time these rounds will have a will
actually have a sleeve that is discharged from the shell itself.
And as it's going down the tube, when the round
(12:09):
exits that has been fired, this sleeve begins to open up,
almost like a flower pedal, and it's contained the shots.
The shot actually is contained in there. And as that
sleeve deploys, and if you urge any of you guys
to go and look at this in slow motion, it's fascinating.
You can see these on YouTube. The sleeve actually kind
(12:32):
of flutters off in super slow mo. It looks almost
like a helicopter turned on its side. Well, what happens
is as the scene deploys, as it comes out of
the barrel, the shot is now blasted out into the air,
and the shot it varies in size. You have all
kinds of things like bird shot for instance, that's used
(12:55):
for obviously birds, but also small varmints that you can
kill out in the yard. You know, if you've got
things that are you know, tearing up your yard, or
you know, you go out west and you've got people
that are out there having to deal with prairie dogs
and all that sort of stuff, you're going to put around.
There's a high probability and put rounds on target because
it has a spread to it. Now, the downside downside
(13:19):
with a shotgun is that it is very inefficient when
it comes to energy over a long distance. But if
you're a close range it's one of the most powerful,
powerful platforms in the world. As a matter of fact,
you can almost guarantee that whoever's on the receiving end
of it is going to meet their maker. When an
(13:57):
individual is thinking about committee amicide and they they're able
to put thought into it. What do you do next?
Where do you go? Well, in this particular case, someone
chose a highly lethal platform, a weapon that's utilized to
(14:18):
great effect here and literally led to this man's death.
Just hard to understand how many times he was shot,
but we know that he was shot with something that
appears to be a shotgun round.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Dave, all right, let me ask you this because when
people talk about shotguns, they'll talk about buckshot or bird shot,
and I know there's a difference. I do know that
when people go hunting, they tend to like for deer,
they tend to use a rifle going shoot hunting, for
(14:52):
ducks shotgun, I mean, what are the differences? Because for
the average Joe Schmo that doesn't use a gun. Yeah,
that doesn't help. I understand the difference. One's a knuckleball
and one's a fastball.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Hey, that's a good analogy. I like that, well done.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
But here we've got a murder and it's a shotgun.
So what kind of shotgun blasts did it take?
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Yeah? So okay, let me throw this out to you
just so folks understand again, this is just kind of
a real quick primer. You think about shotguns versus rifles,
isn't it interesting The higher the number, the higher the
number you go with caliber weapons, and caliber is is
(15:36):
the British standard measurement as opposed to a metric, So
like ten millimeter versus thirty caliber. All right, thirty caliber
is an indication of the measurement relative to inches. Okay,
so you know three you think about point three inches
(15:56):
in diameter, that's what you're talking about with like thirty
thirty caliber. We've heard a lot about that relative to
Charlie Kirk's assassination thirty odd to six. Whereas and the
higher that number goes Dave. So with rifled rounds, the
larger the diameter. Did you know that? It is just
(16:19):
the opposite with gauges. The smaller the number on a gauge, Okay,
the smaller the number on the gauge, the more robust
the bit of lead is that's coming out. So if
you're talking about if you hear someone say twelve gate shotgun,
which is kind of the standard, okay, that you come
(16:42):
across the most that's what cops generally carry, you know,
in their vehicles. It's what our troops first carried actually
as an issued weapon. In World War One, you had
these pump shotguns that were called trench guns, and the
Germans were terrified of them because when you came into
a trench, you're clearing out a trench that has embedded
(17:04):
troops in there. You can fire the shotgun and you
don't have to be altogether accurate. You can really do
some serious damage at close range, wounding people with this
thing going and so that's kind of come down through
the years. So going up in number, you can have
a twelve gauge, then you go to a smaller size
(17:27):
shot next leap is generally up to like a sixteen gauge.
Beyond that you have twenty gauge, and there's all kinds
of gauges that are in between. One of the really
robust ones is actually a ten gage shotgun, which if
you fire slug, which is a solid it's not like
(17:50):
multiple shot. It's a hunk of lead that's going down range.
People have actually hunted hunted elephants with ten gates shotguns.
So it's a really robust weapon and it's a robust
platform that The trick is you have to get close
enough to your subject in order to be able to
use it. If you're talking about a buck shot round
(18:12):
that you're firing out of out of either you can't
have a firearm. Right now, I'm thinking one of the
interesting platforms is out there is called a judge. It's
made by Tarus. It's been around for several years. Actually
a revolver, and the revolver actually fires, actually fires four
(18:34):
to ten four to ten shotgun rounds out of it,
so you can fire bird shot out of it. You
can fire you can fire buck shot out of it,
four to ten buckshot and this would be concealable. It's
still a robust weapon when you see it. It's actually
the framework is actually larger than like if people are
(18:57):
familiar with Dirty Harry the forty four magnum. It's the
framework of the scene is even a little bit larger
than that, and it has to be able to accommodate,
you know, accommodate this this this round that you're going
to be firing out of it. But it's highly effective.
You know, you're if you're within if you're within ten
feet of somebody and you have this Judge weapon, all
(19:19):
you have to do is essentially just kind of line
up the iron sight that's on the end of the
of the of the of the barrel itself. You don't
have to look through the rear sight. You can just
put that and point it, pull the trigger. And now
you don't have just a single bullet going down range
(19:40):
or a projectile. Now you've got multiple projectiles. That could
be like having a spray of multiple shots being fired
at one time from a rifled weapon. With this, you
fire at one time. With buckshot, you've got all these
(20:00):
pellets are rounds that are going down a range and
they strike an individual. Well, now you're not just dealing
with one bullet hole. You're dealing with multiple bullet holes.
That's the upside with the scene because for the spread
that you're talking about with a scene can actually rip
apart anatomically, it can go through multiple sites. I understand
(20:24):
that this poor man when he was shot, Dave. It
was interesting because they talked about how he has got
a wound that involves both now listen to this, both
his head and his neck.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Let's get into this real quick, Joe. From the standpoint
of where he was found, we have a story to
give you. Basically that November thirty twenty twenty two. That's
the day we're talking about here. The people involved. Kirby Carpenter,
he's the victim. He's the entrepreneur, carries a lot of cash,
he's a precious metals dealer. His girlfriend, Caitlin Spence, who
(21:04):
they've had, they have a child together. Matter of fact,
Caitlin's parents have come to help take care of the
baby during the the you know, the early part of
having a child can be difficult. And so Caitlyn's mom
and dad, Jeffrey and all her name's escaping me right now, Karen,
(21:26):
thank you. So Karen and Jeffrey come to help. And
when you look at the end result of mom, dad, daughter,
nuclear family with the grandchild, now Kirby's outnumbered. Kirby Carpenter's
body is found dead December second. And when his body
(21:48):
is found, Joseph Scott Morgan, you explained it to me
that it was found under a tarp with a tool
truck box on.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
It was actually yeah, they're they're describing it as a
shower curtain.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
And it was near his house. It wasn't like in
the driveway, but it was near his house.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah. And and then and at first when I first
heard the story of the saying, I'm thinking, okay, when
you say toolbox to me, well, I've got toolbox in
my shed, and it's something with a handle on it,
and you know, and I can do it. And it's
very disorganized, by the way, but you can walk around
with this thing and carry that. Ain't what they're talking about, dude.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
They're talking about the one in the back of the truck,
aren't they.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, yeah, they're talking about And I think if I'm
not mistaken, and you guys are, you know, free to
correct me with this, but I think there's actually a
brand that is actually called Toolbox, and they fit into
the bed of a pickup truck and it, you know,
it takes some work to move this thing around. Uh,
(22:51):
you know most of the Well, first off, they're awkward,
all right. So if you're putting one into the bed
of a truck, it's going to be a minimum of
two person job to lift the thing and to move
it because it sits directly behind the cap, all right.
And people have them for a variety of reasons, you know.
(23:12):
They you know, trucks you don't have a lot of
room to carry like items that you know, normally you
might put in your trunk. And then if you've got
people that use this their truck for labor, you know
they're going to keep literally their tools, you know, carpenter
might keep his tool belt in there and all kinds
(23:32):
of other stuff. But yeah, this thing was actually sitting
on top of the body and he was covered in
a plastic curtain, and that's kind of the way they've
described it. But he wasn't that far away from the house, Dave.
Which is interesting this this guy lived his house where
the proper house sat is on ten acres, all right,
(23:57):
then he's got an adjacent bit of proper party that
is multiple acres where you know his body could have
been placed. And let me in case you're wondering out there,
you don't have a shotgun wound and you drag yourself
out in the woods, you know, cover yourself with a
plastic curtain and then pull a tool box. Somebody did this.
(24:21):
You know this this is an action, and you know
you think about I do at least you think about
the the the work that would have to go into this,
And Daved, I got to tell you, it just doesn't
seem like the people that were involved in this really
put much effort into, uh, you know, keeping his body
(24:46):
out of view. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to walk
out there and find the body. You know. You know
that upon discovery of the remains, it wasn't even completely covered.
There was a hand hanging out and a boot boot
and a boot, yeah, and a boot.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
So I was trying to think of if you were
to walk up in my driveway. Yeah, and a couple
hundred yards away you see what appears to be a
body boot, handsticking out and covered with a curtain, a curtain,
a shower curtain, and a tool blocks out of the
back of a pickup truck. Not only is that not
(25:28):
well hidden, that is screaming. Hey followed the drag marks
to find the actual shot places where he was shot.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Yeah, and they're actually word drag marks, which is fascinating
to me, you know, the the idea that you can
because people, I think that a lot of folks think
that we go out onto scenes and we will find
blood trails in drag marks and footprints and everything. You
don't do you, no, you don't. You don't as frequently,
(25:58):
so when you find it, it's a I'm reflecting on
an old case that I worked in Atlanta where and
it was classic. It's like something that was out of
a out of one forensics textbook or crime scene textbook,
where we actually did have drag marks with an individual
(26:23):
is wearing boots and the heels drug in the dirt
and so you've got these furrows that literally led to
where the body was and not to mention, there were
adjacent footprints moving backwards. So I mean, you had this
classic thing. You know, it's like if they were going
to do an episode of Scooby Doo, you know, this
is what you would look. But that most of the time,
(26:44):
it's kind of the exception. I tell you, what we
find more often than drag marks is many times we'll
certainly find blood, you know, dropless of blood. And I
think that that's what most of us are keyed into.
But the fact that they found drag marks, and drag
marks are very particular when you look at them, and
they're very demonstrable in court. So if just imagine you're
(27:09):
sitting in court and crime scene technician is on the
stand and the council says, you know, officer Smith, you
know what are what are you demonstrating right here in
this image that we see before the court. Right now,
he says, do you see these two lines in the dirt?
Do you see these? And they've got little striations in them.
(27:31):
Yet that's that is consistent with what we believe are
drag marks. And all of a sudden the jury can
look at that and say, oh, okay, yeah I could yeah, okay,
I can see that. It's it's a very powerful bit.
And if you can get that documented, but you have
to consider everything else around they've on on his car
(27:52):
port of his home, there's actually a large pool of
blood you know, that was initially there. And I'm not
making light of this. It's just like, you know who's
doing this, the Marx Brothers, because it's so it's so ridiculous,
how very little you know gray matter was used in
(28:14):
trying to perpetrate this thing.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Now, if it was a robbery, though, let's just play
this for a minute. If it's a robbery and you're
killing him to take his money, because everybody knows he's
got cash, right, you wouldn't bother dragging the body. You
wouldn't worry about cleaning up the mess. You would just
do him, take off, get out of there as soon
as you can. However, yes, if you're not just stealing
(28:37):
his money there's something else going on, then you would
drag the body away and try to do some cover up.
I guess that's all I could think of is as
police are looking at this, Joe, do they talk out
loud like Okay, if it was a robbery, the body
would be right here. But it's more than that, because
the body has been drug over here, and the placement
of the toolbox on top of the shower curtain over
(29:00):
the body, I'm thinking, couldn't you get the person that
helped you load the toolbox out of the back of
the truck and put it on top. Couldn't you that
person have helped you, you know, toe the body so
you didn't have drag marks. I mean, I'm just thinking,
we've all watched TV. We know how crimes are solved.
This is like a really bad episode of a bad
(29:21):
TV show.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Well, why'd you think I said it's a movie of
the week. It's not gonna be a feature film. Okay, Yeah,
this is not this. This doesn't this doesn't go to
the heights of a hitchcocky and kind of thrill earlier.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
All right, this is true life it actually happened.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Yeah, it actually did happen. And I think there's so
many people out there believe that if they, you know,
if they make some kind of effort like this, half
hearted as it was, that it's going to put put
the police off or the investigators off, the forensics teams off.
And it's not because in killing him. And I love
the fact that you you mentioned having been moved if
(30:02):
it was a robbery, because most of the time was robberies.
Most of the time was robberies. It's hit it and
get it. Okay, you're going to try to get out
of there as quickly as you can. But just in
case you were wondering, here's another bit clue. When this
man was found beneath this plastic curtain and beneath this
(30:28):
toolbox it's placed on his body, there was one other
critical bit that they found with him. He still had
over two thousand dollars in cash in his pockets. Years ago,
(30:56):
I worked a case involving a biker gang that walked
into a bar in Atlanta and they shot three people
and killed them. And one of one of the people
that was killed was the owner. And he's supposed to
(31:20):
be a pretty nice fellow. Everybody knew him. He was
found curled up adjacent to a bar stool. I still
got this image in my mind and laying in kind
of a fetal position, a pool of blood. And when
I went to examine his body, I found nine hundred
(31:43):
dollars and rolled cash in his pocket. And you know,
you think, okay, bar cash, cash business. You know, it's
particularly back then. You didn't have some sorority girl coming
in with her dad's credit card and just tapping something.
All right, that's not happening. All right. Guy had a
(32:06):
lot of cash, you know, on him, and the important
phrase there is on him. So not only did he
still have money in his pocket, there was a pool
table that was there, Dave, and a pocketbook that was
open and it was filled with prepackaged hits of meth.
(32:33):
And as you walk around the bar, there's a patron
that was coming out of the bathroom. This happened just
after closing time, and he took around right in the eye.
He was dead. The guy that owned the bar was
shot twice in the back. And then you had to
(32:54):
go all the way outside into the rear of this
bar and out there in this dirty paved area. There
was a barmaid that was laying there, and I'll never
forget it. She had a daytona biker week tank top
on and she had taken two rounds in the chest
(33:15):
and one right in a face, and she had escaped
from the top level down through an interior stairwell and
shot out the back well. There were three assailants in
this case. They flushed her like you do a quail.
There was a guy actually standing outside in the rear
(33:35):
parking lot adjacent to the door that she fled out of,
and he popped her. As soon as she came out
of this thing, she stumbled and shot her in the
chest and then walked up and fired down into her,
even shooting her in the face. Well, the dope was
left there, the cash was there, the till had not
even been opened. So you think about these sorts of things,
(33:58):
and you think about motivations. What's the end game here? Well,
she had been It had nothing to do with the
bar owner. It had nothing to do with the patron.
It had to do with the bar maid who had
been dealing for this biker gang, and she had kept
them out of the loot relative to money, and they
(34:19):
were sending a message with her death. So it's amazing
what you can learn, not just what's left behind in
a case like this relative to trace evidence, but what's
left behind relative to the life these people lead and
the makeup of their world. And you know, it revolved
(34:41):
around drugs, and it revolved around money, but they didn't
need that nine hundred dollars or whatever it was it
was rolled up in this guy's pocket. You think about
our victim here in rural Mississippi, Well, Dave, he's got
over two thousand dollars in cash. I don't even I
was trying to do the calculus on this the other
(35:01):
day and when I was reading over this, and I
was thinking, could I put two thousand dollars in my pocket? Yea,
even if you've got it in one hundred dollars bills,
it's like you're you're still gonna you're gonna know that
you've got two thousand dollars in your pocket.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
You know, this is a guy that regularly carries a
lot of cash on him. So yeah, know he had ways.
But let me let me get into something really quick.
Friends just to go back to because they got to
solve this crime. We've documented that he was shot in
the carpoard. There's a pull of blood there. There's drag
marks to where his body was found underneath the shower
(35:39):
curtain with a truck toolbox on top of him when
you go back, because they got to solve this who
did it. He's the father of a baby with his
girlfriend Kaitlin. And when you look at the dates when
he was found on December second, backing up, they do
have a kind of game, a time line of what
(36:00):
was going on. They've got at six thirty on November thirtieth,
Kirby texts Caitlin that he is passing this tire store
on his way home about six thirty or so. You know,
Kirby is believed to a stop at Kroger grocery store.
I say thought to believe because they got a receipt
and they got groceries later found in the truck floorboard
(36:21):
or the passenger floorboard of his vehicle. All right, now,
think about that for just a minute. You're tracing this
guy's last activity before he is murdered. Stops at a
grocery store, picks up groceries, and the groceries are found
in the floorboard of his truck. On the passenger side,
so he was killed like in an ambush before he
(36:42):
could even get because what do you do when you
get from the grocery store. You grab the bags and
you head in the house. That's standard. You try to
get them all at one time. If not, you come back.
He did not get the groceries out of his car,
so the investigators believe that he was kind of ambushed.
At seven fifteen, Caitlin Spence is seen at a Walmart
(37:06):
with their baby, and it's important to note this because
they're trying to figure out who killed him. Well, Caitlin's
at a Walmart at the time they believe he's killed.
A surveillance footage shows her inside the store. They also
the surveillance camera show her in her car for close
to an hour. After that, she texts Kirby referencing running
(37:29):
into a crazy dog lady from tractor supply and asking
if he wants Chinese food now. He never replies, and
based on everything we know, obvious, you know that that
was she knows he's dead. She's leaving these crumbs for
cops to, you know, go that way. It wasn't me.
(37:49):
I'm trying to find out if he wants Chinese for dinner.
According to Kaitlin, she didn't see Kirby that day. Now,
think about this for a minute, Joe. She texts him
about dinner, you want Chinese for dinner. But then and
she's got the baby with her, but she gets on,
she doesn't see him again. Last communication was joined Chinese
for dinner, and then she never hears from him. That
(38:10):
doesn't Hey, if that was you and me, you know,
if we had plans and I said I'm bringing Chinese
over to your house, Joe, and uh, you don't hear
from me. Are you not going to try to figure
out what happened? Oh?
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Yeah, most definitely. And look, dude, I mean, as as
much as I love you to death, we don't live together,
all right. They these people share they share a home together,
and their mom and dad are with them, and most yeah,
they're living there as well. Mom and dad had come
down and they Dave. They were only supposed to have
(38:44):
been there. I think it was like maybe two weeks
or three weeks.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Dude.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
This turns into a multi month occupation of this man's property.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Right, and you're right, it's an occupation of his property.
Oh my gosh, what a good phrase.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Yeah, you know, and listen, I submit to you that
them coming down and staying there with him. I would
argue that this is a surveillance of him learning everything
that you know, because if she's the daughter, Caitlin, his girlfriend,
mother of his child, the victim, she's already told mom
(39:23):
and dad, oh man, this guy deals and you know,
and hundreds and thousands of dollars worth of cash. We've
got cash everywhere. There's safes here, there's you know, he's
got precious metals and coins and everything else. Well suddenly,
you know, kind of swooping on down from up north
and coming to Mississippi, you know, you're thinking, okay, all right,
(39:46):
well let me check this thing out and see who
she's living with. We're talking about a dad, by the way, Dave,
that is already previously convicted felon, that has done time
in the joint. All right, so it's not like he's
new to the game, you know what I'm saying. And yeah,
(40:07):
it ain't his first rodeo, and he's used to taking
things that do not belong to him. We have stepped
back just for a second. You know, Caitlin's the one
that actually found his body. You know, she goes out
to the scene and she claims that, you know, she
was checking a deer stand. She walks back on the
(40:27):
back part of his property. She claims that she didn't
see anything back there, which, okay, I'll give her the
benefit of the doubt. Here we're in early December, which
you're in the middle of deer season at this point
in time. You know, deer season generally starts and you know,
right around Thanksgiving. And she says that she went back
(40:50):
there and it's only on her way back to the
house that she finds. She's the one that discovers the body,
having not talked to him. And you know, in a
couple of days, and now in the in the face
of all this, where you've got a child with him,
his family is grieving, you pack up and you leave
(41:11):
town man and leaving the life that you've created down there,
you leave it in you know, in the rear view
mirror here, Dave, Yeah, it seems as though that that
there's a callousness that exists with this, and you have
to think about, you know what, what's the motivating factor
here relative to how could you just essentially walk away
(41:34):
from a life that you've created in this environment. And
in my estimation, Dave, the parents throughout this entire thing
are the key to this. Right, they're they're they're her protectors.
But what are they What does she have that they're
they're trying to protect? Or what does a da? What
does what does the dad perceive that she has? Now
I submit to you, it's it's knowledge. It's firsthand knowledge
(41:56):
of what actually happened. They have not They've not really
dove into this as much as I would have liked
liked to. And again, this case has not offered up
a lot of information relative to some of some of
the specific details. But we do know that there is
a spread, a spread of this round that involves both
(42:22):
the head and the neck. Now, this is this is
interesting because if we if we continue down this road
of the ambush theory, which in order to commit an
ambush on somebody, you have to either suspect that they're
going to be coming through a specific area or you
suspect that they will be arriving back at a specific area.
So you have to have prior knowledge in most of
(42:45):
these kind of cases like this of a person's comings
and goings. So what happened under that car port. Why
is it that you know the groceries are left in
the truck, that you've gone to Kroger to purchase these
groceries and you're not going to take them out, So
with somebody waiting there, Well, they were waiting there, and
I think that they're waiting at a lethal range. When
(43:10):
it comes to buckshot where you're going to have an
individual that steps out, you do have a spread on this.
You're talking about it going from the neck to the face.
So in order to get that kind of range, you
would have to be apart from them, I would say
at least probably about at five feet maybe in order
(43:34):
for this thing to begin to spread out. So it's
going to hit this target area like this, if you're
really close on somebody. Okay, do you remember how I
talked about those rounds are in a sleeve and that
thing kind of deploys. Well, the further away from the
muzzle of the barrel to your target, the bigger the
(43:54):
spread is going to be. So if you're you know,
if you're with a shotgun and you're I don't know,
you're twenty feet away, you're not going to get every
one of those rounds on target. It will spread out.
But the closer you are, now you've got and you
just think about buckshot itself. It's each one of those
little balls is thirty two caliber. So it's like having
multiple thirty two caliber gunshot wounds all at one time.
(44:17):
And so this thinge had sufficient distance to spread out
to strike him not only the head but also in
the neck. Whoever caught him caught him unawares, and they
knew that he was going to be at that location. Well,
who has access to that information, Well his girlfriend slash
mother of his child, his mother in law. Who's now,
I mean, let's face it, after months, you're domiciled there,
(44:41):
that's your residence now. And the father, the father who
is a convicted felon that is done time in jail.
They felt as though that this was the time to strike, apparently,
and boy, when they struck, it led to the end
of not just a that was self made, but it
(45:03):
brought an end to what could potentially have been a
father child relationship that is no more.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Joe, as you and I are doing this show today
and we've been watching the Jeffrey Spence trial, we just
found out, you know, Jeffrey Spence is on trial for
the murder of Kirby Carpenter, his daughter Kaitlin, and his wife,
all cutting deals to testify against Jeffrey. Well, there's a
mistrial now. The jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict
(45:35):
in the capital murder trial of Jeffrey Spence, accused of
murdering Kirby Carpenter. Joe, you're gonna have to just take
us home on that one, and we'll come back and
revisit this one later when he goes back to trial
next year.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybugs.
Body diamonds, but Joseph's gotten more Tipp County, Mississippi. I've
actually got ancestors that settled that part of Mississippi, if
you're not familiar with it. Actually, I've got a bunch
of them that settled all over Mississippi before they moved
(00:21):
on to Louisiana and parts unknown afterwards. But this area
is up in the northern part of Mississippi. It's not
really too far away from where one of the bloodiest
battles of the Civil War took place in courrinth mississippis
like a couple of counties over. If you didn't know
(00:43):
any better, you would think that you were in the
middle of the wilderness. I'll be it quite beautiful around there,
but there's not a lot going on. And like much
of Mississippi, if you have money, you're probably the exception
(01:04):
as opposed to the norm, and particularly if you've got,
as they say cash money in hand. Today we're going
to talk about a case of a particular violence or
level of violence, and we're also going to talk about
(01:24):
an individual that was self made and commonly had at
his disposal corp of a million dollars in cash, precious
metals and he's found dead out in his yard, and
(01:47):
even given all of that wealth, he himself could not
be shielded from being a homicide pect. I'm Joseph Scott Morgan,
and this is body Bags, David. I got to tell you, man, this,
this case that we're about to chat about right now,
(02:11):
we were, uh, you know, kind of prattling on like
we like, we're like a couple of old guys like
to do anyway, you know, we we ought to we
ought to go find us a park somewhere that has
a bench and just take microphones with us and just
have have unbridled conversations out there. Uh. Of course, you know,
I'm kind of like a I'm kind of like a bass.
(02:34):
I guess shiny objects would distract really carefully, really quickly,
and I would I would get off topic. But this
came to the MOVIEU oh yeah, yeah, it's my Yeah,
my kid's favorite favorite movie. Yeah, the Dog. That's me.
I'm the squirrel Dog. Uh. But yeah, this this case. Uh,
(02:55):
we were kind of uh going on about it earlier,
and you were working under the assumption that I had
appeared on some television show or something to cover this case.
And I got to tell you, I hadn't heard peep
about this, and if we were, if we were back
in the seventies or eighties, I'd say that this would
(03:18):
be a fantastic idea for a made for TV movie.
You remember on Sunday nights, Do you remember that back
in the day they would have the what was it,
the ABC Movie of the Week? You know, And yeah,
this is that kind of thing. Because it's so I
don't think it'd make it on the big screen, but
(03:39):
this would be a brilliant idea for a movie of
the week, because my lord, this thing is really complex
and just horribly brutal.
Speaker 2 (03:50):
Dave, Well, here's the story. Caitlin Spence is at the
center of this, believe it or not. Caitlyn Spence thirty
eight years old or boyfriend Kirby Carpenter is thirty six.
As you mentioned, a guy that walks around with a
quarter million dollars cash. I mean, this is something that
I have not heard before, Joe, but apparently he did
(04:17):
have a lot of cash on him. And again I'm thinking,
do you take out a sign that says rob me? Now?
I mean I don't anyway, So Kirby, he's an entrepreneur,
self made guy. Caitlin comes from a family of Jeffrey
and Karen Spence, her mom and dad, and her dad
(04:38):
Jeffrey actually was in the news. I don't know how
many of you remember the story of the deer known
as Goliath. This is like in nineteen ninety nine, Goliath
was this massive deer and was worth a lot of
money in terms of putting him out the stud that
(04:58):
I didn't even know, and Goliath was worth millions in
that market. And it was Jeffrey Spence who actually kidnapped
or deer nap Goliath in nineteen ninety nine. He was
later convicted of that, but that's where his when if
you searched him before this case with Kirby Carpenter, that's
(05:19):
what you would find that he was known for this
nationwide scandal.
Speaker 1 (05:23):
Dave. You know right now, I'm kind of sitting back
and I'm thinking thinking about what you're saying. I've been
around deer hunting and deer hunters my entire life, and
you know, I've got visions of people sitting up in
tree stands and freezing their tails off for you know,
an opportunity to shoot a trophy buck and the idea
(05:47):
that out there and again this has come to somebody.
I'm more of a duck hunter. I don't like the
idea of climbing up in a tree, but the idea
that someone is actually breeding deer, yeah, to go out
and I don't know. I mean, I guess you could
take them out to locations. You know, they have those huge,
(06:08):
huge hunting hunting ranges that are privately owned, you know,
and that there would be value in this. You're talking
about an animal that is back in the nineties as
a stud. He's worth a million dollars.
Speaker 2 (06:23):
Right, twenty eight point twenty eight point white tailed deer buck.
That's the thing, Eliath and he was stolen. And I
love the name from wild Bunch, wild Bunch Ranch, deer farm.
It's just.
Speaker 1 (06:40):
You can't make it up, No, But you know, listen,
I don't. I've met people that deal kind of around
the edges in precious metals as well, but that's an
entire another group, you know, where you talk about that,
we're not fully aware of that people are that are
doing this, and they're not necessarily working in jewelry store, right,
(07:02):
you know, they're they're out there, you know, shucking and jobbing,
grinding it out, trying to make a living. You know
you got I would think.
Speaker 2 (07:09):
In twenty twenty five, Joe, in our day and age,
you don't walk around with that kind of cash. I mean,
I wouldn't look in Alabama. We've got a county here
in Alabama that is on the way to the beach
that they have they've used the law to when you
get pulled for a ticket and they just go, I
think you're a drug dealer, and they take your vehicle,
they lock it up, lock you up, and then they
(07:31):
keep your car and the contents. It's one of these
things that happens. If you look it up and all
I'm thinking of they've locked people up and taken five grand.
Guy's on his way, he says, I'm going to buy
a used car. I have the cash to do that.
They're like, nope, you got five grand cash, you're a
drug dealer. And I'm thinking this guy's got a quarter.
He is known known to have a quarter of a
(07:53):
million dollars cash on his person. Now, unless he's driving
an armored hum V you know, made of the Aniston
Army depot in Alabama, this guy ain't safe from anybody.
When you got that kind of cash.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
No, no, And it's you know, you talk about putting
blood in the water when you've got potential perpetrators that
are out there. So you know, from an investigative standpoint, Uh,
people are always looking for motive or motivation, you know,
for you know these things that we talk about that
are so incredibly brutal, because you're talking about the end
(08:27):
of somebody's life through violence. What what's what's the end game?
You know, what's the motivation behind eradicating somebody off the
face of the planet. And people can say, yeah, well,
it's it's it's uh, it's about family, it's about kids,
(08:48):
It's about unrequited love or anger or jealousy and all
that stuff. It's it's interesting the world and true crime
that that we that we occupy. You hear a lot
about those motivations. But Dave, one of the oldest motivations
in the world is to line your pockets.
Speaker 2 (09:08):
Joe Kirby Carpenter was found murdered. But I remember when
you told me about this. This is kind of maybe
why I thought you had been on other shows talking
about this particular case, but I found out you a
haven't talked on other shows about it, and b it's
not got there's not a lot of pub on this
case outside of where it took place. But we've mentioned
(09:31):
Kirby Carpenter having a lot of cash on him and
he was found dead. Kirby Carpenter was found dead on
his own property and his body was found days after
he was shot to death. Yeah, and when I looked
(09:52):
at this, I made a note for myself to ask
you because here's what this actually said when I was
reading this in the police report. Okay. Kirby Carpenter, a
successful entrepreneur and precious metals dealer, was found dead on
December two, twenty twenty two. Police believe he was murdered
with a shotgun or a firearm that fires shotgun style
(10:17):
shells yep, on November thirtieth, shortly after he returned home
from a grocery store trip. Joseph Scott Morgan a gun
that fires shotgun like bells?
Speaker 1 (10:30):
Yeah, what is that? Well, you've got a variety of
these platforms that are out there. You know, typically we
think about when you begin to consider the variety of
platforms that you can fire shotgun like shells from, there's
a myriad of these things that exist. And when traditionally
(10:54):
shotguns have always been classified as smooth bore weapons. What
that means is that unlike a rifled weapon that has
grooves that are turned literally turned, and when I say turned,
I mean it's actually put on a device and turned
(11:18):
in the factory, and it creates.
Speaker 2 (11:19):
The bullet comes straight out as it's spins, right.
Speaker 1 (11:22):
Yeah, And so there's any number of reasons why you know,
why rifles are so highly effective, because they retain the
energy by spinning, and you can put around on target
from a greater distance. And with the shotguns. Shotgun is
smooth bore, so it's a smooth almost well smooth pipe
(11:45):
and you're firing a projectile down this pipe. And now
most of the time these rounds will have a will
actually have a sleeve that is discharged from the shell itself.
And as it's going down the tube, when the round
(12:09):
exits that has been fired, this sleeve begins to open up,
almost like a flower pedal, and it's contained the shots.
The shot actually is contained in there. And as that
sleeve deploys, and if you urge any of you guys
to go and look at this in slow motion, it's fascinating.
You can see these on YouTube. The sleeve actually kind
(12:32):
of flutters off in super slow mo. It looks almost
like a helicopter turned on its side. Well, what happens
is as the scene deploys, as it comes out of
the barrel, the shot is now blasted out into the air,
and the shot it varies in size. You have all
kinds of things like bird shot for instance, that's used
(12:55):
for obviously birds, but also small varmints that you can
kill out in the yard. You know, if you've got
things that are you know, tearing up your yard, or
you know, you go out west and you've got people
that are out there having to deal with prairie dogs
and all that sort of stuff, you're going to put around.
There's a high probability and put rounds on target because
it has a spread to it. Now, the downside downside
(13:19):
with a shotgun is that it is very inefficient when
it comes to energy over a long distance. But if
you're a close range it's one of the most powerful,
powerful platforms in the world. As a matter of fact,
you can almost guarantee that whoever's on the receiving end
of it is going to meet their maker. When an
(13:57):
individual is thinking about committee amicide and they they're able
to put thought into it. What do you do next?
Where do you go? Well, in this particular case, someone
chose a highly lethal platform, a weapon that's utilized to
(14:18):
great effect here and literally led to this man's death.
Just hard to understand how many times he was shot,
but we know that he was shot with something that
appears to be a shotgun round.
Speaker 2 (14:31):
Dave, all right, let me ask you this because when
people talk about shotguns, they'll talk about buckshot or bird shot,
and I know there's a difference. I do know that
when people go hunting, they tend to like for deer,
they tend to use a rifle going shoot hunting, for
(14:52):
ducks shotgun, I mean, what are the differences? Because for
the average Joe Schmo that doesn't use a gun. Yeah,
that doesn't help. I understand the difference. One's a knuckleball
and one's a fastball.
Speaker 1 (15:04):
Hey, that's a good analogy. I like that, well done.
Speaker 2 (15:07):
But here we've got a murder and it's a shotgun.
So what kind of shotgun blasts did it take?
Speaker 1 (15:15):
Yeah? So okay, let me throw this out to you
just so folks understand again, this is just kind of
a real quick primer. You think about shotguns versus rifles,
isn't it interesting The higher the number, the higher the
number you go with caliber weapons, and caliber is is
(15:36):
the British standard measurement as opposed to a metric, So
like ten millimeter versus thirty caliber. All right, thirty caliber
is an indication of the measurement relative to inches. Okay,
so you know three you think about point three inches
(15:56):
in diameter, that's what you're talking about with like thirty
thirty caliber. We've heard a lot about that relative to
Charlie Kirk's assassination thirty odd to six. Whereas and the
higher that number goes Dave. So with rifled rounds, the
larger the diameter. Did you know that? It is just
(16:19):
the opposite with gauges. The smaller the number on a gauge, Okay,
the smaller the number on the gauge, the more robust
the bit of lead is that's coming out. So if
you're talking about if you hear someone say twelve gate shotgun,
which is kind of the standard, okay, that you come
(16:42):
across the most that's what cops generally carry, you know,
in their vehicles. It's what our troops first carried actually
as an issued weapon. In World War One, you had
these pump shotguns that were called trench guns, and the
Germans were terrified of them because when you came into
a trench, you're clearing out a trench that has embedded
(17:04):
troops in there. You can fire the shotgun and you
don't have to be altogether accurate. You can really do
some serious damage at close range, wounding people with this
thing going and so that's kind of come down through
the years. So going up in number, you can have
a twelve gauge, then you go to a smaller size
(17:27):
shot next leap is generally up to like a sixteen gauge.
Beyond that you have twenty gauge, and there's all kinds
of gauges that are in between. One of the really
robust ones is actually a ten gage shotgun, which if
you fire slug, which is a solid it's not like
(17:50):
multiple shot. It's a hunk of lead that's going down range.
People have actually hunted hunted elephants with ten gates shotguns.
So it's a really robust weapon and it's a robust
platform that The trick is you have to get close
enough to your subject in order to be able to
use it. If you're talking about a buck shot round
(18:12):
that you're firing out of out of either you can't
have a firearm. Right now, I'm thinking one of the
interesting platforms is out there is called a judge. It's
made by Tarus. It's been around for several years. Actually
a revolver, and the revolver actually fires, actually fires four
(18:34):
to ten four to ten shotgun rounds out of it,
so you can fire bird shot out of it. You
can fire you can fire buck shot out of it,
four to ten buckshot and this would be concealable. It's
still a robust weapon when you see it. It's actually
the framework is actually larger than like if people are
(18:57):
familiar with Dirty Harry the forty four magnum. It's the
framework of the scene is even a little bit larger
than that, and it has to be able to accommodate,
you know, accommodate this this this round that you're going
to be firing out of it. But it's highly effective.
You know, you're if you're within if you're within ten
feet of somebody and you have this Judge weapon, all
(19:19):
you have to do is essentially just kind of line
up the iron sight that's on the end of the
of the of the of the barrel itself. You don't
have to look through the rear sight. You can just
put that and point it, pull the trigger. And now
you don't have just a single bullet going down range
(19:40):
or a projectile. Now you've got multiple projectiles. That could
be like having a spray of multiple shots being fired
at one time from a rifled weapon. With this, you
fire at one time. With buckshot, you've got all these
(20:00):
pellets are rounds that are going down a range and
they strike an individual. Well, now you're not just dealing
with one bullet hole. You're dealing with multiple bullet holes.
That's the upside with the scene because for the spread
that you're talking about with a scene can actually rip
apart anatomically, it can go through multiple sites. I understand
(20:24):
that this poor man when he was shot, Dave. It
was interesting because they talked about how he has got
a wound that involves both now listen to this, both
his head and his neck.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Let's get into this real quick, Joe. From the standpoint
of where he was found, we have a story to
give you. Basically that November thirty twenty twenty two. That's
the day we're talking about here. The people involved. Kirby Carpenter,
he's the victim. He's the entrepreneur, carries a lot of cash,
he's a precious metals dealer. His girlfriend, Caitlin Spence, who
(21:04):
they've had, they have a child together. Matter of fact,
Caitlin's parents have come to help take care of the
baby during the the you know, the early part of
having a child can be difficult. And so Caitlyn's mom
and dad, Jeffrey and all her name's escaping me right now, Karen,
(21:26):
thank you. So Karen and Jeffrey come to help. And
when you look at the end result of mom, dad, daughter,
nuclear family with the grandchild, now Kirby's outnumbered. Kirby Carpenter's
body is found dead December second. And when his body
(21:48):
is found, Joseph Scott Morgan, you explained it to me
that it was found under a tarp with a tool
truck box on.
Speaker 1 (21:59):
It was actually yeah, they're they're describing it as a
shower curtain.
Speaker 2 (22:03):
And it was near his house. It wasn't like in
the driveway, but it was near his house.
Speaker 1 (22:08):
Yeah. And and then and at first when I first
heard the story of the saying, I'm thinking, okay, when
you say toolbox to me, well, I've got toolbox in
my shed, and it's something with a handle on it,
and you know, and I can do it. And it's
very disorganized, by the way, but you can walk around
with this thing and carry that. Ain't what they're talking about, dude.
Speaker 2 (22:27):
They're talking about the one in the back of the truck,
aren't they.
Speaker 1 (22:30):
Yeah, yeah, they're talking about And I think if I'm
not mistaken, and you guys are, you know, free to
correct me with this, but I think there's actually a
brand that is actually called Toolbox, and they fit into
the bed of a pickup truck and it, you know,
it takes some work to move this thing around. Uh,
(22:51):
you know most of the Well, first off, they're awkward,
all right. So if you're putting one into the bed
of a truck, it's going to be a minimum of
two person job to lift the thing and to move
it because it sits directly behind the cap, all right.
And people have them for a variety of reasons, you know.
(23:12):
They you know, trucks you don't have a lot of
room to carry like items that you know, normally you
might put in your trunk. And then if you've got
people that use this their truck for labor, you know
they're going to keep literally their tools, you know, carpenter
might keep his tool belt in there and all kinds
(23:32):
of other stuff. But yeah, this thing was actually sitting
on top of the body and he was covered in
a plastic curtain, and that's kind of the way they've
described it. But he wasn't that far away from the house, Dave.
Which is interesting this this guy lived his house where
the proper house sat is on ten acres, all right,
(23:57):
then he's got an adjacent bit of proper party that
is multiple acres where you know his body could have
been placed. And let me in case you're wondering out there,
you don't have a shotgun wound and you drag yourself
out in the woods, you know, cover yourself with a
plastic curtain and then pull a tool box. Somebody did this.
(24:21):
You know this this is an action, and you know
you think about I do at least you think about
the the the work that would have to go into this,
And Daved, I got to tell you, it just doesn't
seem like the people that were involved in this really
put much effort into, uh, you know, keeping his body
(24:46):
out of view. It doesn't take Sherlock Holmes to walk
out there and find the body. You know. You know
that upon discovery of the remains, it wasn't even completely covered.
There was a hand hanging out and a boot boot
and a boot, yeah, and a boot.
Speaker 2 (25:07):
So I was trying to think of if you were
to walk up in my driveway. Yeah, and a couple
hundred yards away you see what appears to be a
body boot, handsticking out and covered with a curtain, a curtain,
a shower curtain, and a tool blocks out of the
back of a pickup truck. Not only is that not
(25:28):
well hidden, that is screaming. Hey followed the drag marks
to find the actual shot places where he was shot.
Speaker 1 (25:36):
Yeah, and they're actually word drag marks, which is fascinating
to me, you know, the the idea that you can
because people, I think that a lot of folks think
that we go out onto scenes and we will find
blood trails in drag marks and footprints and everything. You
don't do you, no, you don't. You don't as frequently,
(25:58):
so when you find it, it's a I'm reflecting on
an old case that I worked in Atlanta where and
it was classic. It's like something that was out of
a out of one forensics textbook or crime scene textbook,
where we actually did have drag marks with an individual
(26:23):
is wearing boots and the heels drug in the dirt
and so you've got these furrows that literally led to
where the body was and not to mention, there were
adjacent footprints moving backwards. So I mean, you had this
classic thing. You know, it's like if they were going
to do an episode of Scooby Doo, you know, this
is what you would look. But that most of the time,
(26:44):
it's kind of the exception. I tell you, what we
find more often than drag marks is many times we'll
certainly find blood, you know, dropless of blood. And I
think that that's what most of us are keyed into.
But the fact that they found drag marks, and drag
marks are very particular when you look at them, and
they're very demonstrable in court. So if just imagine you're
(27:09):
sitting in court and crime scene technician is on the
stand and the council says, you know, officer Smith, you
know what are what are you demonstrating right here in
this image that we see before the court. Right now,
he says, do you see these two lines in the dirt?
Do you see these? And they've got little striations in them.
(27:31):
Yet that's that is consistent with what we believe are
drag marks. And all of a sudden the jury can
look at that and say, oh, okay, yeah I could yeah, okay,
I can see that. It's it's a very powerful bit.
And if you can get that documented, but you have
to consider everything else around they've on on his car
(27:52):
port of his home, there's actually a large pool of
blood you know, that was initially there. And I'm not
making light of this. It's just like, you know who's
doing this, the Marx Brothers, because it's so it's so ridiculous,
how very little you know gray matter was used in
(28:14):
trying to perpetrate this thing.
Speaker 2 (28:16):
Now, if it was a robbery, though, let's just play
this for a minute. If it's a robbery and you're
killing him to take his money, because everybody knows he's
got cash, right, you wouldn't bother dragging the body. You
wouldn't worry about cleaning up the mess. You would just
do him, take off, get out of there as soon
as you can. However, yes, if you're not just stealing
(28:37):
his money there's something else going on, then you would
drag the body away and try to do some cover up.
I guess that's all I could think of is as
police are looking at this, Joe, do they talk out
loud like Okay, if it was a robbery, the body
would be right here. But it's more than that, because
the body has been drug over here, and the placement
of the toolbox on top of the shower curtain over
(29:00):
the body, I'm thinking, couldn't you get the person that
helped you load the toolbox out of the back of
the truck and put it on top. Couldn't you that
person have helped you, you know, toe the body so
you didn't have drag marks. I mean, I'm just thinking,
we've all watched TV. We know how crimes are solved.
This is like a really bad episode of a bad
(29:21):
TV show.
Speaker 1 (29:22):
Well, why'd you think I said it's a movie of
the week. It's not gonna be a feature film. Okay, Yeah,
this is not this. This doesn't this doesn't go to
the heights of a hitchcocky and kind of thrill earlier.
Speaker 2 (29:36):
All right, this is true life it actually happened.
Speaker 1 (29:39):
Yeah, it actually did happen. And I think there's so
many people out there believe that if they, you know,
if they make some kind of effort like this, half
hearted as it was, that it's going to put put
the police off or the investigators off, the forensics teams off.
And it's not because in killing him. And I love
the fact that you you mentioned having been moved if
(30:02):
it was a robbery, because most of the time was robberies.
Most of the time was robberies. It's hit it and
get it. Okay, you're going to try to get out
of there as quickly as you can. But just in
case you were wondering, here's another bit clue. When this
man was found beneath this plastic curtain and beneath this
(30:28):
toolbox it's placed on his body, there was one other
critical bit that they found with him. He still had
over two thousand dollars in cash in his pockets. Years ago,
(30:56):
I worked a case involving a biker gang that walked
into a bar in Atlanta and they shot three people
and killed them. And one of one of the people
that was killed was the owner. And he's supposed to
(31:20):
be a pretty nice fellow. Everybody knew him. He was
found curled up adjacent to a bar stool. I still
got this image in my mind and laying in kind
of a fetal position, a pool of blood. And when
I went to examine his body, I found nine hundred
(31:43):
dollars and rolled cash in his pocket. And you know,
you think, okay, bar cash, cash business. You know, it's
particularly back then. You didn't have some sorority girl coming
in with her dad's credit card and just tapping something.
All right, that's not happening. All right. Guy had a
(32:06):
lot of cash, you know, on him, and the important
phrase there is on him. So not only did he
still have money in his pocket, there was a pool
table that was there, Dave, and a pocketbook that was
open and it was filled with prepackaged hits of meth.
(32:33):
And as you walk around the bar, there's a patron
that was coming out of the bathroom. This happened just
after closing time, and he took around right in the eye.
He was dead. The guy that owned the bar was
shot twice in the back. And then you had to
(32:54):
go all the way outside into the rear of this
bar and out there in this dirty paved area. There
was a barmaid that was laying there, and I'll never
forget it. She had a daytona biker week tank top
on and she had taken two rounds in the chest
(33:15):
and one right in a face, and she had escaped
from the top level down through an interior stairwell and
shot out the back well. There were three assailants in
this case. They flushed her like you do a quail.
There was a guy actually standing outside in the rear
(33:35):
parking lot adjacent to the door that she fled out of,
and he popped her. As soon as she came out
of this thing, she stumbled and shot her in the
chest and then walked up and fired down into her,
even shooting her in the face. Well, the dope was
left there, the cash was there, the till had not
even been opened. So you think about these sorts of things,
(33:58):
and you think about motivations. What's the end game here? Well,
she had been It had nothing to do with the
bar owner. It had nothing to do with the patron.
It had to do with the bar maid who had
been dealing for this biker gang, and she had kept
them out of the loot relative to money, and they
(34:19):
were sending a message with her death. So it's amazing
what you can learn, not just what's left behind in
a case like this relative to trace evidence, but what's
left behind relative to the life these people lead and
the makeup of their world. And you know, it revolved
(34:41):
around drugs, and it revolved around money, but they didn't
need that nine hundred dollars or whatever it was it
was rolled up in this guy's pocket. You think about
our victim here in rural Mississippi, Well, Dave, he's got
over two thousand dollars in cash. I don't even I
was trying to do the calculus on this the other
(35:01):
day and when I was reading over this, and I
was thinking, could I put two thousand dollars in my pocket? Yea,
even if you've got it in one hundred dollars bills,
it's like you're you're still gonna you're gonna know that
you've got two thousand dollars in your pocket.
Speaker 2 (35:17):
You know, this is a guy that regularly carries a
lot of cash on him. So yeah, know he had ways.
But let me let me get into something really quick.
Friends just to go back to because they got to
solve this crime. We've documented that he was shot in
the carpoard. There's a pull of blood there. There's drag
marks to where his body was found underneath the shower
(35:39):
curtain with a truck toolbox on top of him when
you go back, because they got to solve this who
did it. He's the father of a baby with his
girlfriend Kaitlin. And when you look at the dates when
he was found on December second, backing up, they do
have a kind of game, a time line of what
(36:00):
was going on. They've got at six thirty on November thirtieth,
Kirby texts Caitlin that he is passing this tire store
on his way home about six thirty or so. You know,
Kirby is believed to a stop at Kroger grocery store.
I say thought to believe because they got a receipt
and they got groceries later found in the truck floorboard
(36:21):
or the passenger floorboard of his vehicle. All right, now,
think about that for just a minute. You're tracing this
guy's last activity before he is murdered. Stops at a
grocery store, picks up groceries, and the groceries are found
in the floorboard of his truck. On the passenger side,
so he was killed like in an ambush before he
(36:42):
could even get because what do you do when you
get from the grocery store. You grab the bags and
you head in the house. That's standard. You try to
get them all at one time. If not, you come back.
He did not get the groceries out of his car,
so the investigators believe that he was kind of ambushed.
At seven fifteen, Caitlin Spence is seen at a Walmart
(37:06):
with their baby, and it's important to note this because
they're trying to figure out who killed him. Well, Caitlin's
at a Walmart at the time they believe he's killed.
A surveillance footage shows her inside the store. They also
the surveillance camera show her in her car for close
to an hour. After that, she texts Kirby referencing running
(37:29):
into a crazy dog lady from tractor supply and asking
if he wants Chinese food now. He never replies, and
based on everything we know, obvious, you know that that
was she knows he's dead. She's leaving these crumbs for
cops to, you know, go that way. It wasn't me.
(37:49):
I'm trying to find out if he wants Chinese for dinner.
According to Kaitlin, she didn't see Kirby that day. Now,
think about this for a minute, Joe. She texts him
about dinner, you want Chinese for dinner. But then and
she's got the baby with her, but she gets on,
she doesn't see him again. Last communication was joined Chinese
for dinner, and then she never hears from him. That
(38:10):
doesn't Hey, if that was you and me, you know,
if we had plans and I said I'm bringing Chinese
over to your house, Joe, and uh, you don't hear
from me. Are you not going to try to figure
out what happened? Oh?
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Yeah, most definitely. And look, dude, I mean, as as
much as I love you to death, we don't live together,
all right. They these people share they share a home together,
and their mom and dad are with them, and most yeah,
they're living there as well. Mom and dad had come
down and they Dave. They were only supposed to have
(38:44):
been there. I think it was like maybe two weeks
or three weeks.
Speaker 2 (38:48):
Dude.
Speaker 1 (38:48):
This turns into a multi month occupation of this man's property.
Speaker 2 (38:53):
Right, and you're right, it's an occupation of his property.
Oh my gosh, what a good phrase.
Speaker 1 (38:58):
Yeah, you know, and listen, I submit to you that
them coming down and staying there with him. I would
argue that this is a surveillance of him learning everything
that you know, because if she's the daughter, Caitlin, his girlfriend,
mother of his child, the victim, she's already told mom
(39:23):
and dad, oh man, this guy deals and you know,
and hundreds and thousands of dollars worth of cash. We've
got cash everywhere. There's safes here, there's you know, he's
got precious metals and coins and everything else. Well suddenly,
you know, kind of swooping on down from up north
and coming to Mississippi, you know, you're thinking, okay, all right,
(39:46):
well let me check this thing out and see who
she's living with. We're talking about a dad, by the way, Dave,
that is already previously convicted felon, that has done time
in the joint. All right, so it's not like he's
new to the game, you know what I'm saying. And yeah,
(40:07):
it ain't his first rodeo, and he's used to taking
things that do not belong to him. We have stepped
back just for a second. You know, Caitlin's the one
that actually found his body. You know, she goes out
to the scene and she claims that, you know, she
was checking a deer stand. She walks back on the
(40:27):
back part of his property. She claims that she didn't
see anything back there, which, okay, I'll give her the
benefit of the doubt. Here we're in early December, which
you're in the middle of deer season at this point
in time. You know, deer season generally starts and you know,
right around Thanksgiving. And she says that she went back
(40:50):
there and it's only on her way back to the
house that she finds. She's the one that discovers the body,
having not talked to him. And you know, in a
couple of days, and now in the in the face
of all this, where you've got a child with him,
his family is grieving, you pack up and you leave
(41:11):
town man and leaving the life that you've created down there,
you leave it in you know, in the rear view
mirror here, Dave, Yeah, it seems as though that that
there's a callousness that exists with this, and you have
to think about, you know what, what's the motivating factor
here relative to how could you just essentially walk away
(41:34):
from a life that you've created in this environment. And
in my estimation, Dave, the parents throughout this entire thing
are the key to this. Right, they're they're they're her protectors.
But what are they What does she have that they're
they're trying to protect? Or what does a da? What
does what does the dad perceive that she has? Now
I submit to you, it's it's knowledge. It's firsthand knowledge
(41:56):
of what actually happened. They have not They've not really
dove into this as much as I would have liked
liked to. And again, this case has not offered up
a lot of information relative to some of some of
the specific details. But we do know that there is
a spread, a spread of this round that involves both
(42:22):
the head and the neck. Now, this is this is
interesting because if we if we continue down this road
of the ambush theory, which in order to commit an
ambush on somebody, you have to either suspect that they're
going to be coming through a specific area or you
suspect that they will be arriving back at a specific area.
So you have to have prior knowledge in most of
(42:45):
these kind of cases like this of a person's comings
and goings. So what happened under that car port. Why
is it that you know the groceries are left in
the truck, that you've gone to Kroger to purchase these
groceries and you're not going to take them out, So
with somebody waiting there, Well, they were waiting there, and
I think that they're waiting at a lethal range. When
(43:10):
it comes to buckshot where you're going to have an
individual that steps out, you do have a spread on this.
You're talking about it going from the neck to the face.
So in order to get that kind of range, you
would have to be apart from them, I would say
at least probably about at five feet maybe in order
(43:34):
for this thing to begin to spread out. So it's
going to hit this target area like this, if you're
really close on somebody. Okay, do you remember how I
talked about those rounds are in a sleeve and that
thing kind of deploys. Well, the further away from the
muzzle of the barrel to your target, the bigger the
(43:54):
spread is going to be. So if you're you know,
if you're with a shotgun and you're I don't know,
you're twenty feet away, you're not going to get every
one of those rounds on target. It will spread out.
But the closer you are, now you've got and you
just think about buckshot itself. It's each one of those
little balls is thirty two caliber. So it's like having
multiple thirty two caliber gunshot wounds all at one time.
(44:17):
And so this thinge had sufficient distance to spread out
to strike him not only the head but also in
the neck. Whoever caught him caught him unawares, and they
knew that he was going to be at that location. Well,
who has access to that information, Well his girlfriend slash
mother of his child, his mother in law. Who's now,
I mean, let's face it, after months, you're domiciled there,
(44:41):
that's your residence now. And the father, the father who
is a convicted felon that is done time in jail.
They felt as though that this was the time to strike, apparently,
and boy, when they struck, it led to the end
of not just a that was self made, but it
(45:03):
brought an end to what could potentially have been a
father child relationship that is no more.
Speaker 2 (45:11):
Joe, as you and I are doing this show today
and we've been watching the Jeffrey Spence trial, we just
found out, you know, Jeffrey Spence is on trial for
the murder of Kirby Carpenter, his daughter Kaitlin, and his wife,
all cutting deals to testify against Jeffrey. Well, there's a
mistrial now. The jurors could not reach a unanimous verdict
(45:35):
in the capital murder trial of Jeffrey Spence, accused of
murdering Kirby Carpenter. Joe, you're gonna have to just take
us home on that one, and we'll come back and
revisit this one later when he goes back to trial
next year.
Speaker 1 (45:50):
I'm Joseph Scott Morgan and this is Bodybugs.
Host
Joseph Scott Morgan
Popular Podcasts
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.