Meet, Marry, Murder - Season 1, Episode 40 - Sanutti-Spencer - Full Episode | Forensic Files

[Music] spencer doesn't want a divorce and if there has to be one there will only be
one winner do you understand you don't win spencer frank spencer had somebody else to
overcome his father-in-law rocco a man with connections to the mob i think rocco left him with the message
that any further disputes between him and his daughter could result in frank getting hurt or even killed
maria's threats to frank were so detailed so gnarly so disgusting saying that she would cut off his hands that he
could never hold his children again this is the kind of thing that you learn from
knowing a father who has roots in the mafia detectives in hemlock pennsylvania were
about to unravel the life and crimes of the sanuti family and the marriage of frank spencer and maria sanuti spencer
[Music] [Music] maria sanuti grew up in new jersey part of a large italian-american family they
were close maria spencer was one of four kids she had three siblings maria sanudi was
beautiful smart maria had attended a law school in georgia an unaccredited law school
although she was barred and licensed to practice law in georgia the law a profession chosen by a young
woman whose father had chosen a life of crime maria's father was rocco franklin rocco
was an individual who had essentially resided in state prison for a majority of his adult life
despite his prolonged absences rocco franklin was a big influence on daughter maria's developing personality
i think in many ways maria may have learned from an early age that abuse and crime are things that are no
problem that perhaps are even rewarded in the way that she grew up she's she doesn't have any problem with her
dad being a tough guy after maria's mother teresa divorced rocco she and her children moved to
pennsylvania where maria would eventually meet her future husband frank spencer they relocated to the selinsgrove
area which is very close in proximity to where frank spencer grew up in columbia
county frank and maria met in columbia county where frank and his family ran their
junkyard business frank was instantly attracted to someone he found dynamic confident
i think maria was a very type a personality maria seemed like an amazing person at first glance she was
outgoing people liked her she was able to really bring out the best in people it seemed frank spencer had a
very different personality he was popular in the central pennsylvania community where he lived frank spencer
was just one of those really nice guys he had a lot of friends and they all considered him
his best friend i think sometimes people are attracted to people who maybe represent a part of
their personality they're missing or a part of their life that they're wishing to have more of and i think
certainly maria looked like that to frank in the beginning because she was kind of exciting you couldn't really
predict what she was going to do she was adventurous in 1997 they elope i think for maria it was something that she
would just typically do and for frank it kind of seemed exciting okay let's do this you know we're in love why not
for frank it represented maybe this hopeful future where he would just have this excitement for the rest of his life
but in only a positive way over the years they have two children cyrus their son and frankie their
daughter fast forward to the early noughties and maria and frank looked like they were
living the classic all-american family life they had two lovely children both of them very athletic and prominent
in their community each of the kids had a great deal of friends but appearances of family contentment
were deceptive frank and maria by all accounts had a very acrimonious relationship they were
at odds with each other constantly making up and breaking up seemed to be the course of their marriage
defense attorney christian hoy got to hear maria's take on the relationship just seemed that frank and maria's
marriage was really suffering from a great deal of bickering and infighting between them so
it was a difficult marriage by all accounts frank's commitment to his job became a
source of conflict between the couple frank's father decides to retire in 2006 and
frank then at that point takes over the family business which is a junkyard and you know he's a good guy and he
treats all the employees like family so this is this whole new family that's coming into their world now and maria's
not so sure she likes it she's just not cut out for this [Music] this is not the life that she signed up
for she pined for that life that she was adventurous and risk-taking on a daily basis now she couldn't do that as much
she had so many responsibility to tend to children family matters and i think she grew increasingly
unhappy and blamed her husband for it and when the spencers disagreed they didn't do it calmly
the police were called several times as this violence and a relationship escalated
the local police had been involved in numerous domestic disputes between the two individuals property damage property
theft each one pointing the finger at the other maria would later tell her defense
lawyer that both sides were equally at fault constant fighting between themselves
some issues regarding infidelity between themselves and both of them but when it came to arguments maria
appeared to give as good as she got when these incidents would happen frank would call the police
he wanted it on record but he didn't really want to press charges on her i think frank definitely saw that this was
a pattern of escalation and i think he started to fear more and more for his own safety and that's why he wanted to
have the police document all of these events and he still would call the police and he would make them file the
reports because i think he really knew that if he wasn't able to stop maria or if
she didn't desire the change herself that eventually it was going to come to blows and that he would suffer those
consequences in 2006 frank spencer decided enough was enough he served maria with a divorce petition
but he didn't leave her the couple continues to live together they're trying to keep things as normal
for the children as they can frank is such a wonderful father that he proposed this amazing
way to keep the children as stable as possible and that is for the children to stay in the home and for the parents to
travel back and forth into the homes so that they can have that stability that children so desperately need
as splits go it was far from straightforward even though they they actually kind of
physically separated from each other there were many times where they reconciled let's say between
you know 2007 and 2010. there were many instances where they'd reconcile maria would
return to the family home for months they would have another disagreement the police might get involved they had many
of those make up break up reconciliation moments according to her friends despite their
difficulties maria did not want to divorce frank a fact which put his life in danger
she's told people over the years that if he ever threatened to divorce her she'd
kill him well now she's talking more and more openly about what she wants to do frank first reported one of maria's
threats to kill to the hemlock police department in 2007. yet maria sometimes managed to present a
reasonable face to the world and to frank saturday february 6th at 3 57 p.m listen i know for some strange
reason you'll think that i was attempting to threaten you or i was attempting to
scare you back to me or i don't know how your mind works but listen i mixed signals from mrs sanuti spencer to
her husband frank still living together would the divorce happen and if it did what future if any did frank spencer
have despite divorce proceedings franco maria's on off relationship continued punctuated by frequent violent incidents
in 2008 maria is arrested when she causes a disturbance at the school where her daughter attends she
goes to pick up her daughter and her mother-in-law shows up at the same time and she gets in this scuffle with her
maria is charged with disorderly conduct harassment and endangering a child because she doesn't
buckle up the child in the car eventually the prosecutor doesn't think he can really make all those cases so he
arranges a plea deal and she pleads to disorderly conduct and she pays a 600 fine
during the scuffle maria had warned frank's mother she would have him killed not the first time not the last time
that she issued that warning [Music] former homicide detective rod demery suspects that at the time no one in
columbia county was too concerned by maria suniti spencer's brash words i think in hindsight you know obviously
people wish they had taken these threats more seriously but the reality during that particular time people are
listening and dismissing and probably chalking it up to what they did oh she's a black widow but not
really thinking that it would actually happen perhaps on her own maria would not have
acted on her threats but in early 2009 she gained a powerful ally her father rocco franklin was eventually paroled
from state prison in 2009 he relocated to a town about 70 miles away from where maria and
frank lived in columbia county it was harrisburg pennsylvania which is the capital of pennsylvania when rocco was
paroled a number of threats and a number of interactions between maria and frank
took place namely maria suggesting that her father rocco would cause him harm or hurt him
if there were any further domestic disputes between maria and frank and she often jokes to friends that you know if
if my dad's out of prison you know maybe frank will behave voice mail messages recovered from
frank's phone hint at how maria was using her father's freedom to play games with frank i was surprised to find that
my father wants an apology that wasn't a little thing funny ways just want you to say sorry and i got
nothing to do with it it appeared from frank's interaction with his friends that he was very
concerned about rocco franklin being paroled from prison and being out and available perhaps to
injure frank or cause him harm or confront him over the difficulties he was having with maria i thought i'd let
you know because i care about you because i wanted you back not because i wanted to
frighten you anything i just wanted you to know that he wanted an apology if you want to
be stubborn about it that's on you take care frank was afraid deathly afraid of rocco
maria on the other hand was pretty proud that it was her father i think that gave
her a sense of power maria probably had been whispering in her father's years all these years when
he was in prison about how horrible frank was and how they needed to ruin his life and now that maria's father was
out of prison they could finally make it a reality in many ways maria's father was probably
looking for that chaos again looking for that excitement and looking for a reason
to commit crime once again despite the threats and frank's obvious fear he and maria continued to swing
between blazing rows and passionate reconciliations until that is frank met someone new
frank started dating a woman named julie dent very seriously and i believe that really was the final
moment between the two that drove them apart and drove them to getting the final divorce decree in 2012.
when frank met his new woman julie dent maria became really angry probably for a sense of loss of control
or reality actually sitting in that they were truly getting divorced she would leave threatening messages and
and tell julie you know you don't really think he loves you or things to kind of
shake her in the relationship naturally once frank began to date julie dent who by all accounts was fairly squared away
she had a home of her own she worked she had a good job a well-paying job she would often encounter the kids frank
would have custody of the children uh julie would spend time with the children and frank i think that was something
that naturally bothered maria and caused a lot of problems between the parties from text messages later discovered it
was clear that maria had become increasingly paranoid about julie spending time with the children
some of those text messages dealt with everyday custody issues involving frank and julie and maria's children
and a lot of them frankly seemed legitimate from maria's perspective she was protecting her
children she was inserting herself on behalf of her children hey julia taurian spencer
do me a favor don't watch my children do not get between me and frank like you and my children do you understand me
maria was upset about those events and that created a whole separate set of animosity between the the parties
on the 31st of october 2009 halloween the harassment by maria and her father rocco turned into a more tangible
criminal act the first property crime involved a breaking and entering into frank's
mother's property where the junkyard was housed and different financial documents were
stolen from the property but what's odd is that the only thing that's taken are business records business records that
you know could prove how much frank actually is making but nothing else is taken it was always
believed that those financial documents related to custody and support issues that were being played out in court in
2009 and 2010. strangely the documents that were stolen from frank's business showed up at
maria's doorstep again very peculiar they only benefited maria the records were potential ammunition
for maria in the spencer's now acrimonious divorce and she made little secret of the fact
that they had been stolen for her benefit [Music] shaken but not undeterred frank
continued dating judy dent they are madly in love and and they they don't want this to ruin that they even
book this romantic caribbean vacation maria wasn't going to allow that to happen
the night before they're to leave on their vacation maria calls frank and she she says you
know really i need to talk to you about something maria invited frank ironically to a
hotel in a neighboring town on the night of january 23rd of 2010. on that night maria invited frank to
dinner and then to stay overnight in the hotel she sent a message to the new woman in
frank's life too her reasons for spending the night with frank became clear the following morning
when frank returned to his home on the morning of the 24th he found a number of fire trucks the fire marshal and local
police surrounding his burned out building frank's mother's home burns down luckily
she wasn't there and he wasn't there the family dog is killed in the fire and the
house is destroyed as the wreckage continued to smolder the following morning the architect of the
attack made herself known maria shows up and she clearly drives by to be seen she's smiling and she
obviously wants people to know that she had some involvement in this or control over this particular crime
it was believed and argued by the commonwealth that maria engineered that fire using rocco franklin to set the
fire and destroy the property maria sends frank these taunting messages you know one of them is karma
is just a wonderful thing i mean since you've just torn our life apart you know yours your life just went up in
flames it seems fair doesn't it the theory in court of course was that maria was paying frank back for taking a
vacation with julie in january of 2010 and as a consequence the home was burned to the ground
the fire is is determined to be an arson but there's just not evidence to show who's behind it so it remains unsolved
frank began to fear what his estranged wife and her father would do next it seemed for sure to be escalating over
time each act was worse than the last and i think this is when frank really became fearful for his life that
this is going to end in disaster and possibly his own death [Music] in the summer of 2010 it was julie
dent's turn to feel the heat of maria sanuti spencer's wrath it began with a face-to-face threat
right after the bombing of frank's mother's house julie was confronted by maria at a game
and maria told her your house is next then more vitriolic text messages followed you better watch your julie you
know her life is is about to to take some dangerous turns too she's going to lose her job
she's going to lose you she's going to lose everything so she's constantly threatening this couple she's trying to
break them apart that she's really angry no one took maria's threat seriously in late summer she struck again
2010 another vacation had been planned with julian frank uh on august 25 of 2010 while julie dent
was asleep in her home uh by herself her home was set on fire a side window was smashed out
fluid was placed into the home and ignited by a road flare and the home suffered significant fire
damage julie thankfully was able to get out of the home escaped off of a roof and was able to escape
without being harmed nevertheless her home was completely destroyed by the fire once again fire marshals investigated
what looked like a deliberate attack when investigators are investigating arson they look for a
point of origin to find out where the fire actually started and kind of build a theory from there
they want to find out if there were accelerants used or or any other materials to get the fire to start
a jack belonging to a nissan vehicle once owned by mr rocco franklin was found at the scene
believed to have been used to pry open a window to allow the accelerant to be put into
the homes to set the house on fire carjack a plastic jug a partially used flare a lot of physical evidence pointed to
rocco franklin for the firebombing of julie dent's home on august 25th of 2010. there was mole
folks that responded to the fire saw a corvette speeding away from the scene rocco franklin owned a corvette at the
time the evidence against rocco franklin and maria was stacking up but no arrests
were made it must have felt a frack like nothing and no one could stop them i think it made maria feel very powerful
to instill fear on somebody and to make them feel powerless almost two years after julie dent's home
was destroyed frank and maria's divorce was finally granted the parties were actually by law
divorced on june 8 of 2012 which becomes an important date in the case the divorce decree assigned ownership of
the family home on fairview drive sullensgrove to frank frank should have been relieved that his
ordeal was over but he told friends he still didn't feel safe a number of them had been confided in by
frank in the days and weeks leading up to his death wherein he indicated that he felt his
days were numbered that maria and her father had something planned for him and he had become very scared
on june 27th frank wrote to maria asking her to stay away from the house three days later news of the termination
of the spencer marriage was published in the local paper later that same day frank and maria had
a very public run-in he had attended a baseball game for his young son who was about 10 to 12 years
of age at the time and played in the local little league that evening maria likewise attended the
game and frank was seen harassing maria at the game maria was a diabetic and a very brittle diabetic at the time had
lots of neuropathy difficulty walking and things of that sort and all of the accounts of frank's friends who
testified at trial suggested that frank was mocking her publicly and kind of embarrassing her
about her limitations did frank's mockery push maria over the edge or had she always planned to take
final revenge on the husband who was determined to leave her because soon after frank spencer was dead
that all occurred on the evening of june 30 2012. it is believed from the forensic
evidence that he was killed about 12 hours later on the morning of july 1 2012. 46 year old frank spencer had been
killed but it would be two days before the crime was discovered on july third friends who hadn't heard
from frank since the baseball game went to his home in selinsgrove to investigate
when frank was found he was found in the doorway of his home in a pull of blood his arms were
stretched out above his head and it appeared that he had been dragged within minutes police arrived and
secured the scene the police noted prominently a gunshot wound to his head the second shot was a closer shot
through the bicep and into the chest cavity was this the handiwork of maria and rocco frank's friends were in little
doubt but detectives needed the evidence to prove it immediately on a inspection of a crime scene of a
shooting you're looking for blood spatter where the blood may have landed you're looking for
projectiles that may have come from a bullet that's entered the body or may still be in the
body you look for shell casings anything that can kind of get you that firearm information that you need and you're
looking for the angle or the trajectory for where the bullet may have went in also the the velocity of blood spatter
how fine the mist is on the wall or there are a lot of different things that make a shooting
different from any other murder the blood evidence certainly told a story frank is found dead
on the front porch of his home he's lying in a pool of blood and it looks as though the blood has
been like pushed with a a push broom or something that would indicate that someone may attempted to clean up the
blood or or wipe the blood investigators take a a piece of the tile floor and they are able to lift from that a bloody
footprint and it matches to a size 11 dr scholl's escape model sneaker the same kind of shoe
that maria's father rocco is known to have worn it looked likely that rocco had been at
the scene but what about his daughter maria finally they found a rubber glove located inside the home this was a glove
that would be typically worn by an individual that was cleaning a toilet or a sink or using some kind of industrial
cleaner in their home that glove ultimately had dna belonging to maria spencer inside of it
while investigators were meticulously processing evidence they noticed two significant
absences frank's truck and frank's dog on the morning of july 1st 2012 the police were able to gather
video surveillance from local stores and businesses that operated along the highways that surrounded frank spencer's
home they were able to piece together frank's coming and goings from the night before and the morning after the june
30th baseball game they figured that the murder happened at about 8 30 in the morning on july 1
because they saw his harley-davidson pickup truck leaving along the highways adjacent to his home
in and around the point in time the quality of the video wasn't sufficient enough to tell who was
driving the vehicle but one thing was clear is that someone was driving frank's truck from the crime scene
the ford f-150 harley-davidson vehicle was located in sunbury township wherein maria spencer
her brother owns a bar so that was the first piece of evidence found in that vehicle was mr spencer's wallet which
was loaded with cash and credit cards so the police eliminated robbery as a motive for his killing pretty quickly
when the truck was found frank's dog wasn't in it as police continue their investigation
they get some help from an unlikely source about an hour away from frank's house
these two wedding planners are setting up for a wedding and all of a sudden this dog walks in
this this weimaraner and he's happy and healthy and wagging his tail and he's clearly somebody's dog he's not
a stray and you know the couple doesn't know what the deal is but they report this
dog you know has just turned up at our place as it turns out this dog was frank's dog motley
the dog was found near a catering facility about 10 miles away from the home of rocco franklin
the wedding venue was on the north susquahani trail at dofin 40 miles south of frank's home and just a few miles
from harrisburg where rocco had lived since his release from prison so the police concluded pretty quickly that
mr franklin's uh activities included taking mr spencer's truck loading the truck with mr spencer's dog
going to the son's bar in sunbury and then making his way back to his home where the dog
was left unharmed at a catering facility and later recovered that day as detectives were building a timeline
of events around frank spencer's death he was in the mortuary in bloomsburg what the coroner had found would offer
an even more revealing picture of how frank spencer had died as investigators determined that the the
first shot was from a rifle and possibly a longer distance they expanded the crime scene they went into the woods
frank spencer had been shot twice on the doorstep of his family home but both bullets had not come from the same
weapon investigators determined that frank had actually been shot by two guns one was a rifle shot at a long distance
the other was a close-up shot and that would indicate something more personal when
it's discovered that a shot may have come from a rifle or a long-range weapon we're going to try to determine where
that shot was fired from they searched the area and it's it's at this point of the year it's summer
time so the woods are all leafed out and they're you know it would be easy for someone to hide out in the woods
they went into the woods and they found a tree that was y shaped perfect for a bipod or a tripod type
steadying of a rifle for a shot a tree stand that was set up in a tree about 150 feet up a hill
directly across the street from frank spencer's home they search this area where this tree is
and they find a spent bullet casing and then they also find a soft case for a rifle there they believe the first shot
came from rocco franklin who was perched across the street in the tree stand having used a long gun or a rifle to
shoot the first shot that they believe went through mr spencer's neck what happened next is less clear
they think and have argued at trial that a second shot occurred after frank dropped at the
front door after the first shot made contact with him they believe that second shot came from
a handgun they recovered a bullet from the body of mr spencer and it was indeed later
traced back to a handgun they believed the second shot was discharged from a handgun at close range and actually
killed frank spencer but detectives couldn't prove who had fired the shots forensic evidence placed
maria and her father at the scene but that didn't prove they were killers so a couple of months go by and
when police are trying to get them to talk they call maria in for questioning and
she refuses they call rocco in and he's okay so he goes in and he agrees to talk to
investigators and they ask him so where were you on the day of uh and rocco is you know he loves this kind of cat and
mouse game while i went there i you know i was home all day i didn't leave and during that interview rocco said
that he had not left his home in harrisburg but detectives knew differently cell phone evidence is is awesome
it provides investigators not only communications and in conversations but points of of
where they were in their travel it's gotten advanced enough to actually make animated maps of someone's
movement on a crime the cell phone contacts that mr franklin had showed him at or
near the catering location in harrisburg where the dog was found they also located him in and around the sunbury
township area where the f-150 had been found questioned about the presence of his dna
and fingerprints at the crime scene and on frank's truck rocco franklin told a far from credible story
and when they say you know we know you were at frank's house oh you know that's right i forgot i went
um i went to frank's that day to you know to clean i was doing some laundry and um and i used a push broom to sweep
the floors this from a man who could not stand his daughter's estranged husband a man who
had for months made frank's life hell and he said that at one point he wanted to
test drive frank's truck and purchase it and frank's response to him was i'll wrestle
you for it so obviously you can see that he's trying to put together a a reason why his dna would show up at
the scene and he's enjoying every minute of it circumstantial evidence was slowly
stacking up in august 2013 13 months after frank's murder prosecutors convened a grand jury
to determine if there was enough evidence to charge maria sanuti spencer and her father rocco franklin
so in the months leading up to the indictment of maria and rocco maria and rocco were asked to come to testify
before the investigating grand jury in pennsylvania ultimately she went before that grand
jury as did rocco and gave statements that were obviously under oath maria in her testimony just goes on and on and
on she she barely stops talking she denies of course everything she denies terroristic threats and everything else
but the authorities have the evidence and so they filed charges on her they filed charges of
12 counts of perjury more than a dozen other charges and most importantly the murder of frank spencer
in a process fraught with delays maria was not arrested until july 28 2014 two years after frank's death
detectives go to arrest maria and she freaks out on the same day authorities also issue a
warrant for ronco's arrest but he is nowhere to be found he has flown the coup it turns out
right after his grand jury testimony he boarded a plane nobody knows how he got there but he
ended up living in argentina and he was living in argentina undiscovered for an extended period of time
ultimately he was located he was detained and he fought extradition during the time that
he was fighting extradition the trial of maria spencer commenced it was november 2015. maria stood alone
in the dock to answer for frank's death motive was the government's biggest piece of evidence they had
piles of text messages piles of police criminal reports piles of circumstantial evidence of her
involvement in property crime she had the motive she had the anger she had the ability
with her father having been out on parole and that she was the driving force to get her father behind the property
crimes the arsons and ultimately his you don't win spencer maria's conviction looked likely because
of her own words written and spoken over the course of the previous 15 years one of the more prominent statements
attributed to maria took place at a football game uh shortly after frank spencer's murder where she allegedly
said to one of his friends that she was responsible for the murder and that he might be next if he steps out of line
with maria and rocco one of frank's friends comes up to maria you know just wants to
be safe and he says you know maria i would never i would never do anything to you know in
front of your kids i would never do anything to disrespect you and she looks at him and she says
that's why you're still alive but then she goes on and she says you know the last thing he saw before he died was
me this said prosecutors placed maria firmly at the scene of frank's death and may even have proved that she fired the
bullet that killed him the government argued that maria was the perpetrator of the second fatal shot in
other words she was the first individual onto the decking after mr spencer was shot by mr franklin from the tree stand
across the street and that she approached mr spencer as he lied in blood outside his front door on the
porch deck and administered so to speak the kill shot with a small handgun maria and her lawyers refuted that
version of events lots of physical evidence electronic data based evidence suggested that mr
franklin was the sole perpetrator of the crime we still believe that and we still
think that maria didn't have the physical or mental capacity to do what they claim she did
would the jury agree on november 18 2015 they retired to consider their verdict i think a jury and injury deliberations
are always nail biters because they're humans and no two humans are alike so you can have a room with 12 people and
10 could be thinking the same thing with the other two don't after eight hours of deliberation the
jury comes back maria spencer is found guilty on all charges the murder of frank spencer
12 counts of perjury arson conspiracy terroristic threats they sentence her to life without parole plus 50 years
if you're convicted of first degree murder the sentence the only sentence you can get is a mandatory life sentence
she received additional time for some of the additional offenses she's currently
housed in a state correctional facility in pennsylvania and will be for the rest of her life
in the event that her appeals are unsuccessful in october 2018 after a lengthy extradition process maria's father
returned to face justice despite the slew of forensic evidence he denied everything
two years later her father rocco goes on trial and he too is found guilty he's guilty of frank's murder
arson and burglary the jury sentences him to life without parole plus 45 years how did maria saluti spencer come
to join her father in a life of violence and criminality she grew up with a criminal dad she
learned a lot of her worst behaviors from him and so she knew how to intimidate people she knew how to carry
out her threats and she didn't cover her tracks very carefully because this is not what an impulsive person does an
impulsive person isn't all that thoughtful and planful about the crimes that you're committing you just commit
the crimes and it probably gave her a sense of a high in many ways they enjoy this idea of playing god being able to
take out somebody's life and i think they really wanted to see that suffering up front they wanted to see the blood
they wanted to see him take his last breath they wanted to see him suffer and that really points the way to
maria and her father being the worst kind of psychopath that we usually would know of
some continue to believe that maria is innocent but it was shown in court that she was a woman who made vows to kill
who terrorized frank spencer in an escalating campaign until she committed the ultimate crime against the man
she had once vowed to love until death parted them [Music] [Music] you

Maria Sanutti-Spencer was supposedly raised by a mobster. Her violent threats turned out to be more than just words when her husband Frank dared to leave her.

Though wedded couples vow to stay together until death do they part, this new true crime series looks at what happens when a groom or bride causes their beloved's death.

Brief Summary

Frank Spencer's tumultuous marriage to Maria Sanuti ends in murder, influenced by her criminal father and escalating violence.

Key points

Maria's Threats Escalate. Maria's threats become increasingly violent, culminating in a series of alarming incidents.
The Fire Incident. Frank's mother's house burns down, leading to suspicions of arson against Maria.
Julie's Home Targeted. Julie's home is set on fire, indicating escalating threats from Maria and her father.
Frank's Death. Frank Spencer was found dead in a pool of blood, raising suspicions about his estranged wife and father-in-law.
Evidence Against Maria. Forensic evidence links Maria and her father to the crime scene, but proving their guilt is challenging.
Maria's Conviction. Maria Spencer is found guilty of murder and sentenced to life without parole plus 50 years.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

You don't win, Spencer.

Frank's realization about the stakes of his situation.

0:26WatchJun 8, 2022

Tension

85/ 100High tension

More from True Crime Files

Solve the Crime

Read a real case one clue at a time, then see how your call held up against the investigators.