| Notes |
- Crawfordsville High School
Crawfordsville, Indiana (IN)
Roger Drollinger Jr, Class of 1995
The Associated Press
CARLISLE, Ind.
Roger Clay Drollinger, sentenced to four life sentences for a 1977 western Indiana home invasion that left three teenage brothers and their step-brother dead, died in his cell Wednesday, a prison spokesman said. He was 61.
Drollinger was found unresponsive in his cell, said Rich Larsen, spokesman for the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility.
"Custody staff found Drollinger unresponsive as breakfast was being delivered around 6:45 a.m.," the maximum security prison located about 70 miles north of Evansville said in a news release.
An autopsy was pending, Larsen said. Foul play was not suspected.
Drollinger was serving four life sentences for the Feb. 14, 1977, shotgun slayings of Gregory Brooks, 22, and his stepbrothers, Raymond Spencer, 17, Reeve Spencer, 16, and Ralph Spencer, 14.
Their mother and the lone survivor, Betty Jane Spencer, identified Drollinger as the leader among four men who broke into her rural home near Hollandsburg, about 50 miles west of Indianapolis, and ordered the five occupants to lie on the floor. After taunting and threatening them for nearly an hour, the intruders began firing shotguns in what authorities later described as thrill killings.
When the force of one blast blew Spencer's wig askew, the killers presumed her skull had shattered and left her for dead. After the intruders left, she fled the house and found help.
At Drollinger's trial, Spencer recalled the scene.
"I heard this horrible noise, and I realized it was blood rushing from our boys," she said. "I don't know how to describe it. Almost like a waterfall."
Spencer died in 2004.
Drollinger's accomplices continue to serve life sentences at the Pendleton Correction Facility northeast of Indianapolis, Larsen said.
October 29, 2004
Betty Jane Spencer, the lone survivor of the 1977 Hollandsburg murders, died on Oct. 26 of chronic lung disease. She was 71.
On Feb. 14, 1977, four men carrying shotguns entered her home in Hollandsburg, Ind., about 50 miles west of Indianapolis. The robbers pocketed a few items and $40 in cash, then ordered her and her four children to lie face-down on the living room floor. That's when the shooting started.
Spencer's son Gregory Brooks, 22, and her stepsons Raymond Spencer, 17, Reeve Spencer, 16, and Ralph Spencer, 14, were executed. Betty was also shot in the back, but she survived the wound and pretended to play dead. Determined to leave no witnesses behind, one of the robbers kicked her and shot her a second time. That bullet grazed her shoulder and skull, and blew her wig off. Assuming she was dead, the gunmen left.
The telephone lines were cut so Spencer trudged through the snow and called the police from a friend's house. Authorities eventually apprehended Roger Drollinger, 24, Daniel Stonebraker, 20, David W. Smith, 17, and Michael Wayne Wright, 21, and charged them with the slayings. Spencer's testimony helped convict all four men of murder; they were later sentenced to life in prison. The notorious crime was chronicled in the 2004 book "Choking in Fear" by Mike McCarty.
The experience of surviving an armed robbery and losing her boys left an indelible mark on Spencer, one that inspired her to become a champion of victim's rights. Over the next three decades, she helped change 56 Indiana laws and founded the Parke County Victims Advocate Foundation, an organization that provides crisis counseling to crime victims and keeps them notified of court dates. Spencer also joined the National Organization for Victim Assistance, the Protect the Innocent Foundation and Mothers Against Drunk Driving . In 1983, President Ronald Reagan honored her efforts at a White House ceremony .
Spencer's resolve to keep her sons' murderers in jail never wavered. Each time the men applied for clemency , she would appear at the hearing and testify against them. Last week, Spencer videotaped her plea to the parole board for use in future hearings. "It is her dying wish that none of the four men ever get out of jail," said her friend Kenneth Coleman . He plans to take up Spencer's fight and argue against parole for the Hollandsburg killers for as long as he lives.
THE VALENTINE'S DAY MASSACRE: 30 Years Later
by Nile Stanton
April 4, 2007
On Valentine's Day of 1977, four young men (Gregory Brooks, Ralph Spencer, Raymond Spencer, and Reeve Spencer) were brutally murdered in a house-trailer near Raccoon Lake in Park County, Indiana. The murders were not perpetrated to eliminate witnesses to a robbery or some other crime. They were not revenge for some perceived injustice. As far as I know, the Raccoon Lake slayings constituted the first mass murder committed in America in recent times "just to see what it's like" to kill people.
At the time the murders took place, I had been representing Roger Clay Drollinger for about two years -- in several cities and on a wide variety of criminal charges. Roger and his father, Nathan, had come into the office one day to talk to my law partner, Ronald E. Elberger, about the possibility of representing Roger in a civil rights suit involving alleged police harassment. Ron had clerked for Abe Fortas on the United States Supreme Court, was the president and one-man-army of the Indiana Civil Liberties Union, as well as a black belt in karate -- not someone to take lightly, even if he was 5' 2" and might weigh 117 lbs. soaking wet. As it turned out, I got the brunt of representing Roger Drollinger, since he had innumerable more criminal charges against him than valid personal civil rights claims. In fact, Roger Drollinger managed to get into so much trouble that my law partners used to kid me that he was like an annuity, a lifetime income.
I was in the middle of representing Roger in a drug trial in Crawfordsville, Indiana, when the Valentine's Day murders took place. The drug trial had been going on for a week. That Sunday I drove from Indianapolis to meet with Roger in my room at the General Lew Wallace Motel in Crawfordsville, Indiana ?- a motel named after the city's most famous citizen, the author of Ben Hur. Since Roger was to take the witness stand the next morning in the drug trial, Roger and I reviewed his testimony. Also in my room were Michael Wright, Danny Stonebraker, and a highly impressionable teenager named David Smith who obviously revered Drollinger as a role model. I'd met them all before since they were Roger's best friends.
On the Monday morning after Valentine's day, Roger testified in his own behalf at the drug trial; and that evening Judy Kirtland, my co-counsel in the case, and I watched the evening news together and learned of the brutal shotgun-slayings of four young men that had taken place the night before less than twenty miles away. (I had invited Judy to help me represent Drollinger in the drug case because of the technical nature of the defense -- entrapment. Judy was one of the smartest people I'd ever met and a straight "A" student from kindergarten through law school, in addition to being former Editor-in-Chief of the Indiana Law Review.) Normally calm, analytical, and pragmatic, Judy went berserk and screamed, "The whole world is going crazy!" Her outburst seemed appropriate: Only a week earlier, Tony Kiritsis, whom I would also later represent, had commandeered the nation's attention by kidnapping a mortgage company executive in broad daylight and, on live TV, had marched him down the streets of Indianapolis with a sawed-off shotgun wired around his neck. And now this?!
Roger Drollinger's drug trial jury didn't buy the entrapment defense. Being reasonable people, it was probably hard for them to believe that someone could have been tricked by police into exchanging drugs for money three times in a row. So, Roger was found guilty but shortly thereafter failed to appear for sentencing. A nation-wide manhunt for him began, not because he failed to appear in court for sentencing but because Danny Stonebraker had confessed to his role in the St. Valentine's Day slaughter at Raccoon Lake and had fingered Drollinger as the leader of the gang of killers.
Although I had met with Drollinger countless times and felt that I knew him well, Stonebraker's accusations came as a total shock to me. I was incredulous. Yes, in the course of representing Roger, I had talked to most of his friends and several of his enemies and had at considerable expense, borne by his wealthy father, caused two private detectives to study Roger's life and activities in considerable detail. That he wanted to become as well known as John Dillinger, I was aware of. That Roger and his gang had thrown a cement block out of a car at a passing motorcyclist, I knew. That they had hidden in bushes along country roads and jumped out in front of cars brandishing shotguns to stop and rob them, I also learned. And that Drollinger had once put a loaded .44 magnum up to a friend's head and threatened to blow his brains out if he didn't follow orders. Still, knowing all this and being aware that Roger was undoubtedly a dangerous sociopath, I was initally unprepared to accept that he was capable of organizing and participating in mass murder. But over time the facts became clear that he was.
Two weeks before the killings, Drollinger and the three other gang members had cut themselves and made a blood oath: Each of them promised to kill someone, and if one of them did not the other gang members would kill that member of the gang. The reason for killing? Just to see what it was like to kill someone. They all obtained shotguns, and Michael Wright rented an Opel Cadet for the occasion. Then, upon leaving my room at the General Lew Wallace Motel in Crawfordsville, Indiana, on St. Valentine's Day of 1977, Roger Drollinger, Michael Wright, Danny Stonebraker, and David Smith roamed around the western Indiana countryside hunting for victims -- any victims -- to feel whatever it feels like to deliberately snuff out human lives.
On an isolated road near Raccoon Lake, the Drollinger gang spotted a house-trailer with two relatively new cars parked outside. They parked the Opel Cadet down the road and crept back to the trailer. Drollinger cut the electrical wires, and a few moments later the three other gang members burst through the door. They shined flashlights on Betty Spencer and three of her boys and ordered them to lie on the floor and not look around. After he felt assured that it was safe for him to enter, that he would not be seen by any witnesses, ringleader Drollinger entered the trailer. A moment later, they heard a car pull up outside, and he commanded silence. Another of Betty Spencer's sons entered and was promptly ordered to join the others on the floor.
One of the killers asked the victims if they had any money or guns. Yes, to both questions. One gang member pocketed the money, about $30, while another located a rifle and bent the barrel in the toilet. Then Roger Clay Drollinger walked behind each of the teen-aged boys who were on the trailer floor, tapped each one on the foot, and asked, "How old are you, son?" "How old are you, boy?" After that, he ordered his cohorts to turn off their flashlights and put them aside. Four shotguns boomed repeatedly, blasting the brains and blood and life out of the four boys on the floor. But Betty Spencer's wig saved her life. A few pellets grazed her scalp, and her wig flew off. The killers thought her life had gone with it. But as one of her sons died, she heard his blood gurgle out as he slowly and faintly whispered, "Oh God, I'm flying . . . Oh God, I'm flying."
Leaving the grisly, blood-splattered, scene the Drollinger gang decided to take one of the new cars parked outside. With two gang members in that car and two in the rented Opel, they drove for several miles and then left the stolen car at the side of the road with the keys in the ignition. The killers laughed as they abandoned the car, planning and hoping someone else would take it, get caught by police, and end up facing murder charges.
The next morning Roger Drollinger appeared in court in Crawfordsville to testify in his drug trial, acting as though nothing at all had happened the night before.
A little over a month later (after he had failed to appear for sentencing for the drug conviction), on the Friday before Easter of 1977 at about five in the evening, Roger Drollinger telephoned me at my law office. He was on the lam and had somehow managed to avoid being captured in the intensive nation-wide manhunt for him. In his first call, Roger told me that he was thinking about surrendering, which I encouraged him to do. He said he would call me again later in the evening. While waiting for a call I doubted would ever come, I discussed some options for Drollinger's surrender with the only other person who hadn't yet left the office that Friday: Martin Wayne Bradbury.
Ah, Martin Wayne. This was a guy I really loved in many ways: an absolutely loyal friend, a bright and daring young man, a true rebel, a joker and a smoker, a borderline hill-billy and, well, . . . a criminal. So, I must avail myself the opportunity to digress briefly.
Driving a car down a country road with the lights off and the trunk full to the brim with marihuana one night, a police car came up behind him with its red lights flashing. Martin Wayne stopped, jumped out, ran back to the police car, flipped his wallet open for a split-second, and heatedly shouted, "Federal surveillance! DEA! We're following some drug dealers! You f*** this up, you're in a world of trouble!" And then dashed back to the car and took off again with the cops electing not to follow after that. He was one ballsy dude.
When I first met him, Martin Wayne Bradbury was a prisoner at the Indiana State Reformatory. He worked in the "writ room," where prisoners do legal research; and, when he was released, I hired him to help me on several cases and for several reasons. He knew how to talk to criminals, had a fair understanding of criminal law and could do excellent research. But, when I hired him, my law partners were somewhat skeptical -- thought he might steal from the petty cash drawer or take a typewriter or something. I assured them that Martin Wayne would never stoop to that level, although he might try to steal the office building we were in.
The reason Martin Wayne Bradbury went to prison was for the attempted theft of a huge earthmover. Who knows what he was going to try to do with it? Take it to a pawnshop? Move earth? Anyway, as Martin Wayne was driving it away from a construction site in broad daylight, an Indiana State Policeman pulled up in his car. Martin disarmed the policeman and told him to take him someplace, which the cop did. Thus, when he was apprehended later, Martin Wayne was charged with two crimes: kidnapping a state policeman and attempted theft of an earthmover.
At the time, kidnapping was a crime that carried a life sentence. The two essential elements of the crime which the State had to prove beyond a reasonable doubt to secure conviction were that a person be (1) moved from one place to another (2) against his/her will -- that is, with force or the threat of force. Well, at Martin Wayne Bradbury's trial, the he-man macho state cop just couldn't bring himself to admit that he had been "forced" to do anything, or even that he was "in fear" of the use of force. The policeman made it sound like he was driving Martin Wayne somewhere sort of as a favor. Understandably, the jury found Martin not guilty of kidnapping but guilty of attempted theft. The verdict, however, did not set well with law enforcement types. And thereafter Martin was assuredly not liked by cops. But . . . I liked him, hired him, and greatly appreciated his counsel and assistance.
Now, to get back to the main story . . .
Roger Clay Drollinger did call me back on that Friday before Easter of 1977, saying that he had decided to surrender and that he wanted me to pick him up by myself. He promised me that he would turn himself in on the Monday after Easter if I would arrange for him to spend the week-end with his wife first. So, while I traveled to southern Indiana in my TR-7 sportscar, Martin Wayne Bradbury went to talk to Roger's wife. Martin Wayne was to wait with her at her home until I telephoned and told them where to meet Roger and me in Indianapolis. Martin and I had agreed that I would call him between 9:00 and 9:10 p.m., and that if I did not call he was to immediately telephone the state police and FBI and give them a description of my car, the license number, etc., and tell them where it was that I was supposed to meet Roger Drollinger.
When I arrived at the little church just off I-65 near Jeffersonville, I parked in front and got out of the car -- leaving the passenger door open, as Roger had told me to on the phone. I went in and looked around, but no one seemed to be in the church even though the lights were on. I returned to my car, waited a few minutes, and then went back in. This time a minister was there and I asked for "Bobby" as instructed. When the minister told me that no "Bobby" was there, I thought that I might be in the wrong place. I stalled around for a while, then went back to my car. Drollinger was there sitting in the passenger seat. The first thing I noticed was he needed a shave and stunk like a family of sick rats.
As we drove north to Indianapolis, I told Roger that Martin Wayne and I had determined that rooms were available at various points on the outskirts of the city and one in the center and that he could choose to stay in any one he wanted to, hinting that staying in the center might be best -- since it was probably the last place anyone would expect him to be. Roger selected that hotel. (What I had not told him was that I knew the particular hotel quite well and was aware that both exits could be clearly observed from one strategic location.) A few minutes before 9:00 p.m., we stopped at a filling station, and I called Martin Wayne to tell him to take Roger's wife, Kathy, to the downtown hotel. It was then that I realized how careless, how stupid, I had been: If the station had been closed, or the telephone out of order, Martin Wayne would have called in the Mounties and both Roger Drollinger and I, and perhaps a few policemen, would almost certainly have died that night.
That Easter week-end, Martin Wayne and I met with Roger several times at the hotel on North Meridian Street, northwest of White River. At all times, I had one or more private detectives situated outside watching the exits. Had Drollinger set foot outside, every local, state, and federal law enforcement agency around would have been notified immediately. But, Drollinger didn't attempt to leave. Just as I had kept my promise to him to arrange for him to spend Easter week-end with his wife, Roger Drollinger kept his promise to me and surrendered to the FBI in my office on Monday morning.
The way the surrender took place was interesting. Since Drollinger had been getting tons of terrible publicity over the previous several weeks (yes, merely being accused of being the leader of a gang that has committed mass murder does tend to generate some bad press and hostile feelings), what Roger wanted to do was have a press conference before being taken into custody. He wanted to proclaim his innocence to the public on live TV. Thus, at his insistence, I phoned a local Indianapolis TV station and arranged for a prominent newsperson, Linda Lupear of Channel Six, to come to my office. Drollinger sat at my desk, his wife beside him holding their baby, with me standing to the side. It was quite a scoop for the station: a live interview with one of the most wanted men in America. Tears in his eyes, Roger Drollinger talked about his wife and baby and professed his innocence. Then, with the TV camera focusing on my telephone, Drollinger called the FBI and said he wanted to surrender. All in all, a dramatic performance -- one I would later be accused of having choreographed, though all the credit actually belonged to Drollinger.
Before the FBI arrived at my office, I had Drollinger stand up and prove to Linda Lupear that he was not armed. Per my instructions, Martin Wayne Bradbury met the FBI agents in the reception room and then led them back to my office. The three FBI agents were quite professional in every respect and, although they did not have to, permitted me to accompany Drollinger as they took him out of my office, down the elevator, and over to the FBI lock-up in the Federal Building.
A few days later, Drollinger was taken to Park County to be arraigned on the murder charges, the court proceeding wherein an accused is read the charges against him and asked to plead guilty or not guilty. Hundreds of people were milling around the courthouse, and a cordon of Indiana State Police troopers surrounded Drollinger and me to escort us through the crowd into the court. As we pushed through the crowd on the courtyard?s sidewalk, a frail, white-haired woman approached, caught my eye, and whispered, "You son-of-a-bitch."
After Roger Drollinger's appearance in the Park County court, where the prosecutor opposed a change of venue and claimed that Drollinger could get a fair trial (yeah, right), my client was promptly taken to Crawfordsville, Indiana, to be sentenced in the drug case I'd been representing him in when the Raccoon Lake slayings took place. The courthouse in Crawfordsville was roped off to keep the crowd at bay, and as Roger and I went up the courthouse steps they chanted, "Kill him! Kill him! Jail's too good for him! Kill him! Kill him! Jails too good for him!" It made me think of what it must have been like to represent a black man accused of a violent crime in the South in the 1930's.
I continued to represent Drollinger through several pre-trial proceedings, but when judges set his trial date and that for Tony Kiritsis to begin at the same time, I withdrew as Roger's lawyer. He was subsequently tried before a jury in Hartford City, Indiana, convicted and sentenced to four consecutive life terms in prison and is presently incarcerated in Westville. I am absolutely opposed to the death penalty. However, I must admit that I agree with what Judge Bruce Bade said when he sentenced Drollinger: If anyone ever deserved the death penalty, Roger Clay Drollinger did. [end]
Survivor of Hollandsburg massacre dies in Clinton at 71
Woman became advocate for victims of violence
By Patricia Pastore/Tribune-Star
October 28, 2004
Betty Jane Spencer, sole survivor of the Feb. 14, 1977, Hollandsburg massacre who later became a crime victim's advocate, died Tuesday in Clinton. She was 71.
The "massacre," as it came to be called, began when four intruders from Montgomery County entered the Spencer home in Parke County with a thrill killing in mind. The intruders, Roger C. Drollinger, David W. Smith, Daniel R. Stonebraker and Michael W. Wright, wielded shotguns and told Spencer, her son, Gregg Brooks, and her three stepsons, Raymond, Ralph and Reeve Spencer, to get on the floor. They shot the mall.
The four brothers were killed. Betty Spencer, wounded in the shoulder and the head, trudged through the snow to a neighbor's house. Police were summoned and Spencer was taken to the hospital where she remained for a couple of days.
Her testimony in the trials for Drollinger and Smith was a key element in their convictions, said then-prosecutor Clelland Hanner of Hanner, Hanner and Hanner law firm in Rockville.
"She was a gutsy lady," Hanner said Wednesday, recalling Spencer's feisty demeanor. "After all she'd gone through, she had a lot of spunk."
At Smith's trial when she looked toward the defendant's table, she said, "That's him. Make him look at me."
She described how they were slain and the manner in which she was injured.
"We were lined up shoulder to shoulder in front of the coffee table," she said. "All of a sudden there was a shot fired from behind us. It hit Greg and part of his head fell down beside my face. I felt Greg die against my body and then shots started coming from everywhere. I felt Raymond die on my other side and realized I was still alive. ...Then someone kicked my foot and said 'shoot the woman again.'"
The next blast ripped through her arm and tore off part of her wig, Spencer said.
"They thought it was my skull and they left me for dead," she said.
All four killers remain in prison.
Spencer founded the victims' advocacy Protect the Innocent Foundation in 1985 and became its director. She was the rock for the traumatized to lean on and many times she was the sole support for victims preparing to testify against their assailants.
"Betty was strong," Hanner said. "In the courtroom she faced two of the four men who killed her four kids and tried to kill her. Her testimony never wavered. She was a solid witness."
Spencer turned the Protect the Innocent Foundation over to her confidant and trusted friend Kenneth Coleman in 1987 when she left to head Mothers Against Drunk Driving for the state of Florida. About five years later, she moved to Georgia to work for MADD.
She moved back to Indiana five years ago, Coleman said. She testified at every hearing against the killers when they applied for clemency, he said.
"It is her dying wish that none of the four men ever get out of jail," he said. "About a week or so ago, I took a video camera to the nursing home so the parole board can hear her plea that no one ever let the four killers out of jail. Her friends at the Parke County Courthouse and old friends and neighbors have called me to ask that I notify them when clemency hearings come up for any of the four men. They all want to go and testify against them.
Coleman vowed he will attend every hearing and fight against clemency for the four men as long as he lives.
In September 1994, Spencer celebrated her only son's 40th birthday by testifying at a parole board hearing against giving Smith clemency.
"Just how remorseful is David Smith?" Spencer said before formulating an answer in her own mind. After a lengthy pause, she said Smith may contend he is a born-again Christian or he may claim prison has rehabilitated him.
She is repulsed that he would ask for clemency if he is truly sorry for his crimes, she said.
"I'm furious that the offenders should ever even think they should be allowed out. Even though Jesus forgave the thief on the cross next to him, He didn't say 'you can get down.'
"I feel the punishment was just and they should never be free again."
Drollinger is in the Indiana State Prison at Michigan City while Smith, Wright and Stonebraker are all serving their sentences at Pendleton Correctional Facility.
Once a year, the four inmates are eligible to appear before the parole board and request that it recommend clemency, said Donnett Dempsey, Department of Correction program coordinator for the victims' witness resource service.
Funeral services are 10 a.m. Saturday in Rockville Christian Church, with burial in the Mount Moriah Cemetery, north of Hollandsburg. Visitation is from 4 to 8 p.m. Friday in Gooch Funeral Home in Rockville.
Patricia Pastore can be reached at (812)231-4271 orpat.pastore@tribstar.com
Story created Oct 28, 2004 - 09:44:06 CDT.
October 29, 2004
Betty Jane Spencer
Betty Jane Spencer, the lone survivor of the 1977 Hollandsburg murders, died on Oct. 26 of chronic lung disease. She was 71.
On Feb. 14, 1977, four men carrying shotguns entered her home in Hollandsburg, Ind., about 50 miles west of Indianapolis. The robbers pocketed a few items and $40 in cash, then ordered her and her four children to lie face-down on the living room floor.
That's when the shooting started.
Spencer's son Gregory Brooks, 22, and her stepsons Raymond Spencer,17, Reeve Spencer, 16, and Ralph Spencer, 14, were executed. Betty was also shot in the back, but she survived the wound and pretended to play dead. Determined to leave no witnesses behind, one of the robbers kicked her and shot her a second time. That bullet grazed her shoulder and skull, and blew her wig off. Assuming she was dead, the gunmen left.
The telephone lines were cut so Spencer trudged through the snow and called the police from a friend's house. Authorities eventually apprehended Roger Drollinger, 24, Daniel Stonebraker, 20, David W. Smith, 17, and Michael Wayne Wright, 21, and charged them with the slayings. Spencer's testimony helped convict all four men of murder; they were later sentenced to life in prison. The notorious crime was chronicled in the 2004 book "Choking in Fear" by Mike McCarty.
The experience of surviving an armed robbery and losing her boys left an indelible mark on Spencer, one that inspired her to become a champion of victim's rights. Over the next three decades, she helped change 56 Indiana laws and founded the Parke County Victims Advocate Foundation, an organization that provides crisis counseling to crime victims and keeps them notified of court dates. Spencer also joined the National Organization for Victim Assistance, the Protect the Innocent Foundation and Mothers Against Drunk Driving. In 1983,President Ronald Reagan honored her efforts at a White House ceremony.
Spencer's resolve to keep her sons' murderers in jail never wavered. Each time the men applied for clemency, she would appear at the hearing and testify against them. Last week, Spencer videotaped her plea to the parole board for use in future hearings.
"It is her dying wish that none of the four men ever get out of jail," said her friend Kenneth Coleman. He plans to take up Spencer's fight and argue against parole for the Hollandsburg killers for as long as he lives.
Posted at 06:35 AM | Tributes (8)
- http://www.topix.com/forum/city/bloomingdale-in/TCHU496RRLM1D71GS/p2
Kate
Noblesville, IN
Jun 5, 2008
4
Okay, I wasn't going to write anything, but I have to set the record straight. I am the grand-daughter of Keith Spencer, and this is what I was told:
Drollinger was an admirer of Charles Manson, and he recruited Stonebreaker, Smith, and Wright to go with him to a random house where they would rob and kill whoever was inside.
It was Valentine's Day, 1977, and my Grandma Betty was at home with her son and 2 of her 3 step-sons (My Grandpa Keith's 3 boys). My mother was out with my father on a date, which is how she was spared. My Grandpa worked nights as a broadcast engineer in Indianapolis, which is how he was spared. Drollinger picked their home because of the nice cars outside. They thought that surely, if there were nice cars outside that there would surely be drugs and cash inside. Great logic, isn't it?
Well, there were no drugs, and no cash to speak of. Only $40 in cash and a couple of small items (my grandma's jewelry and such). While they were robbing my family, my oldest uncle, Raymond, arrived home from visiting his mother. The four men jeered him, and forced him to lay face-down shoulder to shoulder with his three brothers. They told my Grandma to lie on the couch.
And then they started shooting. My grandmother played dead, but they saw her breathing and shot her some more. Her wig was partially blown off, making them thing they had destroyed her head the same as they had destroyed the heads of my uncles. The worst is that the 4 enjoyed it. They wanted to do it again. My grandmother heard their laughter. ALL of their laughter.
When the 4 had left, my Grandmother heard running water, and raised her head to ask if everyone was ok. But they weren't. It wasn't water she was hearing. It was blood.
My Grandma tried to call for help, but the phone lines were cut. The home was on an isolated back rode, so in the middle of winter, my Grandmother ran through the snow, over a partially frozen creek, and to her neighbor's home. Mind you she was bleeding profusely from her wounds on her head and back.
My great-uncle had to identify the bodies. He said it was worse than anything he had ever seen in Vietnam. To this day he has to sleep with the TV on because the nightmares still haunt him.
That's the story. SO DON'T TELL ME THAT A CHILD MURDERING COWARD SHOULD BE ALLOWED TO ATTEND HIS MOTHER'S FUNERAL. DON'T TELL ME THAT THEY WERE TOO YOUNG. THEY MURDERED CHILDREN IN COLD BLOOD AND LEFT MY GRANDMOTHER FOR DEAD. MY UNCLES DIDN'T GET TO ATTEND GRANDMA BETTY'S FUNERAL. THEY WEREN'T THERE FOR MY MOTHER'S WEDDING, MY SISTER'S WEDDING, OR MY WEDDING. THEY NEVER GOT THE CHANCE. DON'T YOU DARE TELL ME THAT THOSE MURDERERS SHOULD GET A CHANCE OF THEIR OWN.
I understand that some posts are from family members. I am sorry that you and your families were put through this ordeal. And I do believe in forgiveness. But, I am reminded of something that my Grandma Betty said about forgiving the men who killed her boys:
"When Jesus was on the cross, he told the criminal next to him that he was forgiven. He didn't say he could get down!" -Betty Jane Spencer
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1953 - 2014 (60 years)
