Pod Insights Crime Junkie MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Spencer Irwin About this episode Spencer Irwin was just 30 years old when he vanished one Sunday morning in July 2024. Days later, his body was found in a way that raised questions – naked, alone and quickly dismissed by authorities. But their assumptions about Spencer were wrong. As his mother began asking questions, the answers she received only raised more red flags: no autopsy, missing belongings and a timeline full of gaps no one seemed interested in filling. When toxicology results came back, they didn’t just complicate the story, they began to unravel it.
Transcript 10,839 words · 3 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
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2:17 Ashley Flowers? Hi, crime junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.
2:19 Speaker 01 And I'm Britt.
2:20 Ashley Flowers? Today's story about Spencer Irwin is one that I know you've never heard before, because it's never been reported on before. And that's probably because if you were to ask Fresno Police, there's no story to tell. Or at least, they would have said that for a while. Spencer was a 30-year-old man that they found naked, covered in dirt, at the bottom of a loading dock back in 2024. They initially assumed that he was homeless, assumed he died of a drug overdose, assumed that there was nothing they deemed worthy of investigating. So they didn't. But, boy, were they wrong. Because Spencer Irwin was none of the things they assumed. And he has a mother in his corner, who has been doing all the investigating they wouldn't.
3:06 Ashley Flowers? And now, she's got us in her corner. And you won't believe what together we found. This is Spencer Irwin's story.
3:48 Ashley Flowers? From the moment Kelly Irwin first got a call from the Fresno County Deputy Coroner telling her that her son was dead, things felt disorienting. It was just before 11:00 a.m. on Friday, August 2, 2024, when she was told that her 30-year-old son Spencer had been found, the day before, naked near some dumpsters. And they couldn't say for certain yet, but based on the fact that there were no external signs of trauma, they were pretty sure that he died from an overdose. Kelly never knew her son to use drugs, and she had no idea why he would be naked or why he was found where he was. Honestly, part of her was sure that this was some kind of- Huge misunderstanding, like it had to be someone else and everyone was just confused. It had to be.
4:32 Ashley Flowers? Kelly wanted to go down to the Fresno County Sheriff Coroner's office to see him for herself. But they tell her that she can't. They are sure it is Spencer and she's gonna have to wait five agonizing days while they get him cleaned up and transferred to the funeral home before she can see him. But five agonizing days later, that doesn't even happen. Now Kelly knows the guy who works at the funeral home and he stops her. And he's like, listen Kelly, I'm not gonna let you see him. Spencer was in such an advanced state of decomposition that they wanted to spare her from that being the last mental image of her son. So instead, she asked to see at least a picture of a tattoo that Spencer had. When they gave her that, she finally believed them.
5:15 Ashley Flowers? It really was her firstborn that they found. But she still can't understand how. According to the medical examiner, they were still waiting on the toxicology results to come back, which they were pretty confident were gonna confirm what they'd been thinking all along, that Spencer just died from an overdose. But like I said, Kelly had never known her son to do drugs. And I don't mean that in like a naive parent way where you think your kid is like some kind of saint and you're like oblivious to what is like actually going on in their life. Kelly is the first person to tell you that Spencer struggled with alcohol use and was currently in a period of recurrence. He was really open with her about his struggles, but he wasn't the party with drugs type of guy. She said that he would drink alcohol, beer or vodka, but typically at home in sort of
6:00 Ashley Flowers? like a self-medicating type of way, by himself. Now, the thing you gotta know about Kelly is all she's after is the truth. So even though drugs didn't make any sense to her, she wasn't even ruling that out. She was just asking herself, why now? Who would Spencer have gotten them from? Like, is it possible that someone else drugged him? Was there something that they were all just missing here?
6:22 Speaker 01 And did the autopsy show anything at all?
6:24 Ashley Flowers? Well, no, because there was no autopsy done.
6:28 Speaker 01 I'm sorry, what? I mean, how are we even talking about tox screens, but there's no autopsy?
6:34 Ashley Flowers? The ME's office told Kelly that Spencer was released without one because they didn't think he needed one.
6:40 Speaker 01 How do you even know that at this point?
6:42 Ashley Flowers? Because they just said they took some blood samples to do a tox screen.
6:46 Speaker 01 Like a tox screen to confirm the conclusion they already made, even though you can't actually make that conclusion without the results.
6:51 Ashley Flowers? Exactly.
6:52 Speaker 01 Okay.
6:53 Ashley Flowers? And listen, Kelly didn't just sit back and take this answer. She knew that they should be doing one. She was pushing them over and over to do one. Except the more that she pushed, the more she said that the coroner's office refused. And the deputy coroner tells her like, listen, we've seen this before. Based on how we found him, we are confident he took some kind of illegal drug, something that made him so hot, he stripped down naked before he died. And they point out that there were no footprints in the dirt around him. They only saw what they call a quote unquote, "snow angel" pattern around his head and arms that they suspect he made while overdosing. They tell her that there are several other people who have died in this same manner.
7:35 Ashley Flowers? And Kelly's asking all the right questions, like, okay, I hear you. If he took something and removed his clothes, then where are they? Did they get collected? Do you have pictures from the scene to confirm if his clothes are around him? No one's turned clothes back over to me, so like, where are his things? But Fresno PD are like, you know, I don't know, didn't collect anything.
7:57 Speaker 01 Because there was nothing to collect? Or because you just didn't collect things that were there? Like, those are two pretty different things.
8:04 Ashley Flowers? That is what I'll be attempting to answer throughout this episode. I believe some of his things may have been around there. And it's a real shame that they didn't try to collect more. Because near the end of September, Spencer's toxicology results do come back. And they do not make this the open and shut case that Fresno PD thought it was. Based on the coroner's report that Kelly got and shared with us, Spencer did have alcohol in his system, but only at the level of .03. And only two drugs showed up, a barbiturate and gabapentin. But neither of them were at toxic or lethal levels.
8:44 Speaker 01 So then what killed him?
8:47 Ashley Flowers? We won't ever know because by the time these results came back, Spencer had already been cremated. Authorities wouldn't do the autopsy. So when Spencer's body got released, Kelly, Spencer's dad Dave and Spencer's girlfriend Kate got together and decided that Spencer would have wanted to be cremated. And then after they did that, they had a service to honor his life. And get this, Kelly didn't know that private autopsies could be requested. So she just took the coroner's office at their word.
9:17 Speaker 01 Right, because like they're the authorities. It's their job to handle these situations properly. Like if they say like, nothing to see here, you want to be able to believe them.
9:26 Ashley Flowers? Exactly. Why would a family be read up on like this option of a private autopsy without reason? And it was heartbreaking for us to be the ones to tell her that that was an option. There's even a really easy phone number to remember that Kelly hopes people listening to this will pay attention to in case they're ever in this unimaginable scenario. Super easy, 1-800-AUTOPSY.
9:48 Speaker 01 Yeah, I remember we learned about this in the Amanda Wankowski case, right?
9:52 Ashley Flowers? Yes, yes. So you guys, commit this to memory, 1-800-AUTOPSY. Maybe a private autopsy would have given Kelly the answers that she was looking for because she is stunned to see in the report that not only did her son not overdose, the coroner's report ultimately rules her son's manner of death as natural and his cause of death as probable sudden cardiac death from chronic alcohol and tobacco use.
10:21 Speaker 01 Okay, I'm going to need you to like walk me through this. If he just had some random cardiac event, why is he one, naked? And two, at a loading dock where he, unless you know differently and haven't told me yet, had no business being? Like this is like a pretty random place for him to be.
10:41 Ashley Flowers? That part has zero explanation. The report just focuses on his past medical history of alcohol abuse, his high blood pressure, elevated heart rate, among other conditions. Yet when Kelly actually sat down with the coroner's office to go over all of the results, she says that they Admit to her that since they couldn't find a clear cause of death, their only option was to call the manor natural causes.
11:04 Speaker 01 Okay, I'm not a coroner, but I'm pretty sure that wasn't their only option.
11:09 Ashley Flowers? You could be a coroner, though. Remember, in many places, you don't need to have a medical training to be a coroner.
11:15 Speaker 01 Which is still wild to me.
11:18 Ashley Flowers? The sheriff coroner on these reports, John Zanoni, doesn't have medical training. He's got a BS degree in criminal justice with a minor in agriculture business.
11:28 Speaker 01 I feel like with my history, I could also be a coroner with those credentials.
11:33 Ashley Flowers? And he's been a career law enforcement guy who was voted into the position.
11:36 Speaker 01 I mean, great reminder to pay attention to local elections.
11:40 Ashley Flowers? You need to be voting for the person who you would want in charge of solving your homicide, not the person with your preferred color tie. And I keep saying, I'm done with right and left. It is about right and wrong here. But here we are. Kelly has the coroner's office telling her that this is the best they can do with what they have because they don't have an autopsy. But this version of best is just not good enough. So Kelly goes to meet with the Fresno PD detectives and begs them to do a real investigation. She's like, listen, I just need answers and everything you've been telling me about my son is wrong. Like, listen, she was patient. She tried trusting everyone, gave them time to do all their tests. But now, something different needs to happen
12:25 Ashley Flowers? before more critical evidence is lost out on. And in response to this impassioned plea, she says that one of the detectives on the case is like, listen, your son died from natural causes. There's no evidence of a homicide here. Case closed. Your son struggled with alcohol use. At least now, you don't have to worry about him relapsing.
12:46 Speaker 01 Okay, Ashley, I've been in recovery for four years and I hope to God that you would prefer me here and like, doing well but maybe struggling here and there than, I don't know, dead?
12:58 Ashley Flowers? If someone dared say that to my face, so help me God. And we reached out to the Fresno PD for comment, not just about this specific interaction, but any comment about this case as a whole. And they declined. But Kelly is a better woman than me because she told us that even though it was jarring for her to hear that, and obviously it stuck with her,
13:19 Speaker 01 Yeah.
13:20 Ashley Flowers? she didn't have any ill will against that detective. She's had a lot of people say strange things to her after her son passed. So she could look past that. What she couldn't look past was the case closed, no evidence of a homicide stuff.
13:34 Speaker 01 Yeah, we don't have evidence because we didn't do anything to collect evidence. Like, that's, that's the issue here, right?
13:41 Ashley Flowers? Yes, yes. But if they want evidence, fine. Kelly's gonna give them evidence. Because little did they know, just days after Kelly learned that Spencer had died, she started doing her own investigation. And there is nothing like the power of a mother on a mission.
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16:18 Ashley Flowers? Thankfully, Kelly Erwin is a crime junkie. So when she found herself in the impossible situation of having to investigate her own son's death on her own, she knew all the right documentation to collect and what leads to follow. And by doing that, she was able to lay out for us a clear timeline of Spencer's last movements, going all the way back to the month before his death, in June 2024. That was the month that Kelly first noticed Spencer had started drinking again. She kept an eye on him, and he was still going to school at Fresno City College, maintaining his grades, but she could just tell. And those fears were confirmed in the beginning of July, when she found out that Spencer
17:00 Ashley Flowers? had to go to the hospital and get stitches after he drank too much, fell, and got a pretty big cut on his forehead. After this, he was open with his mom about wanting to get help, and he planned on checking into a local rehab, but he He had to wait for a spot to open up and that wouldn't have been until the end of July. Now anytime Spencer started drinking again, it made Kelly nervous. She, she's a mom, right? Like she worried about him. But they'd made it through this before and Spencer had been pretty good about communicating with her when he was trying to get back on track. Now, in the time before he was set to check into rehab, Spencer tried detoxing. He told his girlfriend Kate that starting on July 10th, he was gonna go to a detox program for like a week, so he'd be off the grid.
17:41 Ashley Flowers? But I know his sobriety didn't last because Spencer went to the hospital on July 24th with abdominal pain, nausea and a headache. The same symptoms that he had come to the hospital with before when he was in withdrawal. Now, the report says that Spencer told them he last drank alcohol two days before that. But he was trying to detox again so that he could start a rehab program on July 29th. Now, he was discharged from the hospital that same day and in communication with Kelly in the days that follow. Like there were things that he needed to get in order before checking into rehab. Number one on his list was getting his phone fixed. Like it had been randomly like turning off and he needed it because he was gonna still be able to keep doing his classes at Fresno City College.
18:25 Ashley Flowers? While he was checked into rehab, like through his phone and online. On Saturday, this would have been July 27th, Kelly knows that Spencer walked to a Verizon store, like a four mile walk. But unfortunately, it was closed when he got there, so he had to walk back to his apartment. The next day, Sunday, Spencer called Kelly and asked for a ride to that same Verizon store. But she told him that he need to wait a little bit before she could give him a ride and he's like, listen, no problem. I'm just gonna head out before it gets too hot. I'll walk again.
18:52 Speaker 01 Wait, whose phone did he call from if his phone wasn't working?
18:56 Ashley Flowers? I think he used a buddy's phone, this guy named Angel, who he had met in that like July 10th detox place. And Angel, I guess, was actually gonna be checking into rehab with Spencer on the 29th.
19:07 Speaker 01 Okay.
19:08 Ashley Flowers? And just to make it clear, like, his phone, it obviously wasn't working this time because he called from Angel's phone, but it wasn't like totally broken from what I could tell. It just kept turning on and off or whatever.
19:16 Speaker 01 It was just inconsistent.
19:16 Ashley Flowers? Yeah. So shortly after 8:00 AM, Spencer walks out of his apartment carrying a black backpack. He's got a black hat on, he's wearing jeans, a white shirt with black shoes. And Kelly confirmed these details with Spencer's landlord, and she also got a still image of him leaving, so we have like visual proof of what he looked like when he left. Now, the exact route that he took is unknown. Now Kelly asked detectives to look at traffic cameras in the area along the route that she was pretty sure Spencer would have taken, but that request was ignored. So there's no concrete evidence to prove his path. The best Kelly can do is map out the most likely route, which would have taken Spencer along this busy street through a mostly residential area.
19:59 Ashley Flowers? But somewhere along the way, Spencer's path had to have diverged. Because when Kelly tracks down the Verizon employee that was working on Sunday, they told her they never saw anyone matching Spencer's description that day. Plus Spencer's on Kelly's account, so she would have had to authorize any kind of like transactions that he would have made.
20:17 Speaker 01 And there's no footage of Spencer coming back to the apartment?
20:20 Ashley Flowers? No, he just vanishes somewhere after leaving the apartment around 8:00 AM.
20:25 Speaker 01 And then his body is found, when exactly?
20:28 Ashley Flowers? His body is found Thursday, August 1st. But the thing is, like, no one can tell her when his body actually had ended up there. Because on the coroner's report, Spencer's day and time of death is listed as the day and time that they found him and responded to the scene. And we know that he was already showing signs of decomp by then.
20:46 Speaker 01 Right.
20:46 Ashley Flowers? So like, had he been there the whole time, less time, is there like time missing? We don't know.
20:53 Speaker 01 I mean, wouldn't he have been found if he was there the whole time?
20:56 Ashley Flowers? Not necessarily. So when you see pictures, he was kind of tucked back behind this building, and this wasn't a super busy loading dock. And for most of the day, he would have been in a shaded area. So even if someone was driving by on like the parking lot part above the loading dock, I don't think that like he would have stood out. But the thing is, even in a shaded area, an expert That we talked to said that the thing that they would expect was for him to have been more decomposed if he was there for all four days. So I don't know, I think there very well could be missing time that like we need to fill.
21:31 Speaker 01 And in relation to like his apartment, the Verizon store where he was headed, where is this loading dock?
21:37 Ashley Flowers? Not on the way. I mean, it's closer to the store than his place, but there's like no direct path to the store that goes by this area. And actually, the next piece of the mystery clicked into place when Kelly actually went in person to see the area where Spencer was found. So this is like a storage area for a waste company in Fresno. This is basically where they store dumpsters and stuff, and it is not heavily monitored at the time. Now, when Kelly was there, she was looking for places with cameras and she found multiple. But most of them gave some kind of excuse for why they couldn't help. They were either like, oh, we don't like have tape or whatever, or tape erases after 24 hours. Or if you want our tape, you gotta bring the police back with you.
22:22 Ashley Flowers? But thankfully, there was one business that still had footage and they were willing to let Kelly see it. And this camera is pointed in the direction of one of the two gates that allows people on and off this property. And just to like orient you, so like imagine you're overhead looking down on a rectangular building running vertically. At the bottom, you have like the main road and to the right and left of this building, you can enter what's basically like a parking lot that runs like a U around the building. And the loading dock where Spencer is eventually found is like in the very back. So from the vantage point overhead, the camera is pointing at the entrance on the left. Now Kelly spends hours going through the footage, which seems to only capture when it's motion activated.
23:06 Ashley Flowers? But she's hoping to see some sign of Spencer going behind the business between July 28th and August 1st. And while she doesn't get any confirmed footage of him on this camera, there is something that catches her eye. The timestamp on the footage said that it was just after 10:00 PM on July 29th, when a car. Pulls up to the entrance. The security gate is already open, so this car can drive right through. But as it does, it turns off its lights. Now, the quality isn't great, and what we've got is a video that Kelly took of the original footage on her phone. But you can see that the car pulls in, goes off screen,
23:48 Ashley Flowers? and then it's out of sight for less than 15 minutes. Then it comes back and just leaves the way it came in. After the car leaves, there's something else that is captured. Now, I only have a short clip of this. But the video starts with someone standing by the front of the building, alone and in the dark. And then they walk off, like out of frame, but in the opposite direction than where the car came and left from. But Kelly finds it odd that anyone is out there in this area at this time.
24:22 Speaker 01 Okay, could she tell anything about the car that was driving in and out?
24:26 Ashley Flowers? Well, the footage is too blurry to make out any kind of license plate. But the good news is the car is distinctive enough that you can very clearly tell the make and model. It is a white Kia Soul.
24:36 Speaker 01 Oh, those are like, super boxy and identifiable.
24:38 Ashley Flowers? Yeah, which gives Kelly hope that maybe if she can find a connection to anyone involved in Spencer's life, who has access, has a white Kia Soul, maybe this is gonna be some kind of link that will like, lead her to what happened. Because though she can't prove anything from this video alone, she feels confident that something happened to Spencer on Sunday, the 28th. And whatever that car was doing back there on the 29th had something to do with how his body ended up back there. After Spencer's death, Kelly would go back to that area and look around at the back of the building where he was found, looking for anything that might resemble evidence. And oddly enough, one of the first few times she went there,
25:19 Ashley Flowers? she saw a pair of dirty underwear laying at the bottom of the loading dock. And I'm using the term like "loading dock" kind of loosely. Basically, there was this platform, and then like, three steps down, and you were on the ground level. So it's not like this big pit or anything. But she took a picture of the underwear, because without a doubt to her, she believes- believes these were Spencer's. Kelly told our reporter Taylor Day that Spencer wore a specific brand with unique designs on them. He had like 30 pairs of these things. Now Kelly didn't collect them at the time and she wishes she did because when she went back another time, they were gone.
25:55 Speaker 01 And I assume that it wasn't the police who went back and got them.
25:58 Ashley Flowers? No, she told them about the underwear though. She's giving everything that she finds to Fresno PD as she finds it. But what they do with it at the time is a mystery to us all. Kelly believes that Fresno PD just wrote Spencer off from the beginning because they just didn't want to investigate. And when I say from the beginning, I mean, right there at the scene. Because guess what else she saw on surveillance footage when she kept combing through it? She saw officers respond on August 1st. And she says she watched a police car drive back there real slow. Then an ambulance, a crime scene unit van even pulled up. But they didn't go back there. It just drove away.
26:42 Speaker 01 The, the crime scene unit didn't even drive back to the crime scene?
26:48 Ashley Flowers? Nope.
26:48 Speaker 01 Oh, the more you tell me, the more pissed off I'm getting. Like, they didn't know who this person was, what his history was, what had, I mean,
26:56 Ashley Flowers? They don't even, they, but they don't, they shouldn't even need to know that to do their job.
26:59 Speaker 01 Right, this is their job.
27:01 Ashley Flowers? That's what I'm saying. They wrote him off and never gave him the courtesy of a proper investigation. Now remember, their excuse at the beginning was like, oh, we see this all the time. We get calls like this, man on drugs, strips nude. That's why they handled it the way they did.
27:16 Speaker 01 Okay, but did they?
27:18 Ashley Flowers? Well, this is, this is the question. We requested records for calls of service within this like triangle around where Spencer was found. When our FOIA came back, it turns out Spencer was the only death of a person call that came up in the year leading up to his death.
27:33 Speaker 01 So it's not like they were getting like multiple calls like this?
27:35 Ashley Flowers? At least not in this specific area. Now I'll say their jurisdiction is much bigger than just this small area. And in this area, there were quite a few welfare check calls, like sick or injured people. There were three suicides, but like nothing like this. So Kelly takes all of this proof, what she feels is important evidence. And she has a sit down with detectives and she's like, listen, I'm going to walk you through this. And then you tell me if at the end, this all sounds like natural causes. And hypothetical after hypothetical is disproven on drugs. Nope. Tax results came back with no red flags. So our detectives are like, well, you know, like maybe he had a mental crisis and took his clothes off and was like walking around naked.
28:20 Ashley Flowers? But Kelly's like, okay, but like probably not because wouldn't that have been reported? So they say, well, you know, maybe he got hot and went back behind the building to cool off and then just like passed away. But Kelly's like, you're telling me that Spencer walked over four miles to that loading dock to cool off?
28:37 Speaker 01 Would that literally makes zero sense?
28:39 Ashley Flowers? No, no. And then they point back to the fact that there were no other footprints around him in all that dirt. There was just that snow angel pattern. And then Kelly's like, okay, but then riddle me this. How did he end up there if there are no footprints?
28:52 Speaker 01 No footprints are no footprints and there's someone here. So like, he didn't just appear.
28:56 Ashley Flowers? Every time Kelly pushes back detectives are like, well, you know, yeah, you're right. This doesn't make sense. And so Kelly keeps advocating for Spencer. And eventually, finally Fresno PD opens a formal investigation. At this point, they're like six weeks behind and so much evidence has been lost. But Kelly has developed one more lead that she hands them. And it's the one in her mind that is the best place for them to start. You see, before Kelly got the call from the coroner's office, she had been looking for her son. She hadn't heard from him in days, which was unusual. So on July 31st, she had called his landlord and asked her to do a welfare check.
29:41 Ashley Flowers? And the call that she got back on that same day was weird. The landlord said that she had checked Spencer's apartment and Spencer wasn't there, but someone else was.
29:55 Ashley Flowers? Let's face it, if student loans are slowing down your financial goals, it might be time for a smarter strategy. That's where today's sponsor SoFi comes in. SoFi is helping you tackle student debt by refinancing your loans with flexible monthly payments that fit your budget. We're talking about the potential to lower your interest rate, reduce your monthly payment, or even pay off your loan sooner, depending on the term you choose. You can also consolidate your student loans into one simple monthly payment, so you could save more each month and work towards achieving your long-term financial ambitions. SoFi offers competitive fixed and variable rates, and no origination fees, prepayment fees, or late fees required. It takes just two minutes to check your rate with SoFi, and they have already helped over 500,000 members refinance more than $50 billion in student loans.
30:38 Ashley Flowers? Visit sofi.com/crimejunkie to see how much you can save. That's sofi.com/crimejunkie, and start making smarter money moves with SoFi. SoFi's student loans are originated by SoFi Bank, N.A., member FDIC. Additional terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891.
30:58 Speaker 01 College is a lot like Halloween. You can become whatever you want to be. The difference? A costume lasts one night, but a college degree lasts a whole lifetime. Try on something new with Southern New Hampshire University. They've got over 200 online degree programs for all kinds of career goals: business, healthcare, technology, you name it. Plus, with no scheduled class times or live lectures to attend, you don't have to quit your day job to work toward your dream career. And get this: SNHU has some of the lowest online tuition rates in the US, which means you can still be that house that gives out full-size candy bars. So instead of pretending to have your dream job, why not earn a degree that helps you get there for real? Start your free application today at SNHU.edu/crimejunkie. That's SNHU.edu/crimejunkie.
31:47 Ashley Flowers? Kelly told us that Spencer was part of something called the Hope Program, a housing initiative designed to help and support Fresno City college students experiencing homelessness. The program also provided substance use counseling for those dealing with addiction. And part of the agreement with Spencer's college in the program was that the landlord had full authority to go into the tenants' apartments to make sure that nothing bad was going on. And so on July 31st, when Kelly couldn't get ahold of Spencer, she asked them to go in and check on him. So when the landlord called to report back, she told Kelly this strange story. She said that when she entered his door code and walked into the small studio apartment, she didn't see anyone. So she was about to turn around and leave, but then she heard this sound come from the bathroom.
32:31 Ashley Flowers? So she goes over and opens the door, and there was this guy just in there. And she's like, "Who are you?" Because she knew it wasn't Spencer. And this guy's like, "Oh, you know, I'm Spencer's cousin. He's letting me stay here while he's in rehab." But the landlord doesn't think that's true. Like I said, she like knows Spencer, she knows Kelly. She's also seen this guy around. She didn't know who he was. She was pretty sure he wasn't Spencer's cousin. And Kelly later learns that this guy's name is Angel Gonzalez.
33:04 Speaker 01 Angel, that's the guy whose phone Spencer used to call his mom, right?
33:08 Ashley Flowers? Correct.
33:09 Speaker 01 And I guess that's what I'm getting at. Kelly knows that Spencer and Angel were supposed to be checking in on the 29th, right?
33:16 Ashley Flowers? Right, exactly. It's not adding up. Angel was supposed to check in too. He's not supposed to be there. So Kelly asks if detectives can look into this guy. But Fresno PD just tells Kelly, "Listen, we'll keep you posted." And they also want her to stop doing her own investigation, especially in that part of town, because they tell her it's not safe for her. Naturally, though, Kelly doesn't stop.
33:38 Speaker 01 Thank God.
33:39 Ashley Flowers? Day after day, she shows up going from business to business, asking anyone if they've seen her son. She shows them Spencer's picture. She also goes into different homeless encampments along the route that he would have taken from his apartment to that Verizon store. But she doesn't get any leads. And to Kelly, even after the police start investigating, she says it feels more like detectives were trying to do everything they could to prove their conclusion, rather than look into whether or not foul play could have occurred. Like, they spoke to Spencer's girlfriend Kate months after his death. And in their quick 15-minute interview, they basically tried to explain how meth could cause someone to die in the manner that Spencer was found.
34:23 Ashley Flowers? Our reporter spoke to Kate, and she told us that she was adamant with detectives that Spencer was never known to use meth. Yes, he drank, but he did not use hard drugs like that.
34:34 Speaker 01 And his tox results prove that.
34:37 Ashley Flowers? Yeah, so Kate is saying like the detectives were trying to tell her that meth may or may not show up in tox results. And she said that they told her it wouldn't have been impossible for it to be in his system without showing up in the results.
34:49 Speaker 01 Is that true? I mean, I guess I've always been under depression that if you die from meth, I don't know, meth is in your system.
34:58 Ashley Flowers? Wild, right?
34:58 Speaker 01 That seems like a one-to-one, like, that's what happens.
35:01 Ashley Flowers? Yeah, and listen, I was like, I felt like I was losing my mind. I felt like I was being gaslit with them. I tried finding something definitive, and I did find a couple of studies. There was one from 2015, another from 2024, and everything I'm reading indicates that if you got meth in your system, it would show up. Basically, Kate feels like they were telling her this so maybe that she would convince Kelly that that's what could have happened, and maybe this whole thing would just, like, go away.
35:26 Speaker 01 I mean, if you're Kelly, I have to imagine it feels like you're, like, losing your grip on reality.
35:31 Ashley Flowers? Gaslighting you, right? It's what I'm saying.
35:33 Speaker 01 Yeah, like, everything seems so black and white, because it is, and the people who are supposed to be helping you, like you said, they're just...
35:39 Ashley Flowers? Telling you not to, like, believe your own eyes and ears.
35:41 Speaker 01 Gaslighting you.
35:42 Ashley Flowers? Yes, that's what led Kelly to our website at the end of last year to fill out our case suggestion form, asking us to help her. So I put one of our reporters, Taylor Day, on it to help Kelly. And together, they have still been uncovering new information, including finding a witness who was near that loading dock the morning that Spencer was found. They were there when officers arrived. And they told us that to them, it looked like a homicide right away. Now, the witness, who was at the loading dock the morning that Spencer was found, asked to remain anonymous for a number of reasons. But we verified their identity
36:25 Ashley Flowers? and the reason they had for even being in that area, which was completely unrelated to Spencer in any way. This person told our reporter that they were there when responding officers first arrived. And they said that the officers were immediately super dismissive, basically just like, oh, another transient that OD'd. Now, they may have jumped to that conclusion because this place was an area where sometimes transient folks would be. And on a few occasions, unhoused people would use that area to camp out in. But the witness said that they don't even know how they jumped to that conclusion about Spencer because he didn't have any of the telltale signs that he was living on the streets. And they took even bigger issue with the fact that they were writing this off as an overdose
37:07 Ashley Flowers? because this witness says that they saw marks around Spencer's neck, specifically a purple mark on the back of his neck. And the witness said that they spoke up immediately, saying to the officers that this did not look like an overdose, which, if that's true, changes everything.
37:28 Speaker 01 Yeah.
37:29 Ashley Flowers? So we knew what we had to do. Our reporter goes to Kelly and gets her to put in a records request for the crime scene photos.
37:36 Speaker 01 Wait, so there were photos taken?
37:38 Ashley Flowers? There were photos. This is the one thing they did do, and did it well, it seems. Now, we had Kelly ask for them because departments will often release more information to families than they will to media outlets. And sure enough, they were willing to give them to her. Now, she wasn't ready to see them. It's why she had never requested them before. So she, as soon as she got them, forwarded them right along to us. And Brett, if this case was Isn't confusing enough, these pictures add a whole nother layer. But one thing is clear as day, and that's that Spencer's cause of death is not clear. And there absolutely should have been an autopsy to determine how Spencer Irwin died.
38:19 Ashley Flowers? Now, the photos we got are essentially fully unredacted, so I could see a lot of detail. When Spencer was found, he was face down on top of a thick layer of dirt and surrounded by discarded trash. He's fully nude, and just like investigator said, clear as day, there are what look like snow angel marks around the upper half of his body. But interestingly, nothing around the lower half that would show like similar movement. And we talked about decomp earlier, Spencer definitely had been dead for at least a little while before these photos were taken. Because when they roll him over, you could see that lividity was present and all of the blood had pooled to the front of his body. But weirdly, his arms and his head were much darker than the rest of him.
39:04 Ashley Flowers? Though it was like kind of hard to tell like what was dirt, what might have been decay. I didn't know what that meant, but here is the thing that I hone in on because thank God for high quality crime scene photos. I was like zoom, zoom, like zooming in on his neck, trying to see what this witness saw. Now, I couldn't tell much from the back, like his hair is kind of in the way. But when they roll him over, like right freaking there is a line across Spencer's neck. Now, here is where I have to take a step back, like I've been doing this a long time. I've seen my fair share of crime scene and autopsy photos now, but I don't want to do Spencer or Kelly a disservice by getting carried away with my opinion.
39:44 Ashley Flowers? I needed like a real seasoned forensic pathologist to look at these pictures and tell me what we were seeing. So we got ahold of Dr. Priya Banerjee, a board certified forensic pathologist who was gracious enough to help us make sense of all of this. First and foremost, the fact that Spencer was found face down, nude, and outside is a red flag enough that an autopsy should have been done. That's what she said, full stop.
40:10 Speaker 01 I mean, which is what Kelly's been Saying.
40:12 Ashley Flowers? Yeah, and Dr. Banerjee's next comment was on those snow angel marks. She said those didn't make sense to her. And honestly, she brought something up that I hadn't even thought about. One that the coroner's office surely didn't think of. And it's that the marks could have been completely unrelated. She says this is a high-traffic area with dumpsters like moving around. And she says the marks are almost too symmetrical. She says it's like too circular, like maybe something else caused those before he was even there. And we asked her all of the things, of course. I'm like, well, what if like someone was on his back, like holding him down? And he's like flailing around, like, could that cause what we're seeing? And she says, no, still, it's too symmetrical. And so then, you know, I was like, well, you know, he abused alcohol.
40:56 Ashley Flowers? And one thing that has kind of like loomed over this case is the possibility that he died of something related to that. Like, could he have had a seizure or something? And she said, nope, like with these marks, like same thing, like you run into the same problem of them being too symmetrical. Like, that's not him flailing.
41:11 Speaker 01 Also, him having some kind of medical emergency related to his alcohol abuse doesn't make any sense to me because he is naked.
41:18 Ashley Flowers? Agreed. And even in an overdose situation, Dr. Banerjee told us that stripping down isn't something she typically sees. The paradoxical undressing, as she called it, is typically seen in situations where the body is super cold, like hypothermia.
41:34 Speaker 01 Right, I've seen that before.
41:35 Ashley Flowers? It's July in California, like it is not cold, no. Him being undressed, though, helped in a huge way with Dr. Banerjee's assessment. Because she could see almost all of him. She could see that there were no signs he had been in a fight or in a struggle of any kind. There were no bruising on his knuckles or anything. Now, the one thing I asked her about specifically were his head and his arms. I told you they were a lot darker. And I thought this like meant something. Thank God, we talked to an expert. She said, no, this is actually something pretty normal to see, like when a body decays. So basically, when looking at it all, Dr. Banerjee said there is a world where she could see this being considered an unsuspicious death.
42:20 Ashley Flowers? There is no external. Trauma, you know, like the sheriff's coroner is saying, so maybe no foul play. But she said the only way to know that would be to do an autopsy. She said you have to to connect the dots, to rule out other options or to even prove their theory right.
42:39 Speaker 01 Which their theory we know is wrong because of the tox results.
42:42 Ashley Flowers? Yes. And listen, she clocked that same straight line mark right under Spencer's jawline that goes straight back. But she said there is a world where it isn't suspicious. She said it might just be a skin fold from like how he was laying, but it also could be a ligature mark.
43:01 Speaker 01 And the only way to know for sure would be?
43:04 Ashley Flowers? An autopsy. Yes. So Dr. Bannergy can't tell us from the pictures what killed Spencer. But after her consultation, what I am confident of is that his case was mishandled from the jump in a way that would have serious implications for its solvability down the line.
43:25 Speaker 01 In these pictures, did you see any of his clothes or like other things?
43:30 Ashley Flowers? No, there, there's actually like a couple of clothing items up on the dock itself, kind of like above Spencer. But we showed images of just those to Kelly and she said those didn't look like Spencer's things. So as far as we've been able to tell, his stuff is still missing, including that phone that we know he had on him when he was headed to the Verizon store.
43:52 Speaker 01 Oh.
43:52 Ashley Flowers? But you want to know something weird about that?
43:55 Speaker 01 Sure.
43:56 Ashley Flowers? Kate told our reporter that sometime after Spencer's death, she was on Snapchat and she saw Spencer's name pop up as like a suggested friend. Like, because it's people in her contacts or whatever. But under his name is what stopped her in her tracks because it was a username she didn't recognize. It started with Smiley and then it had six numbers after it. And when it hit her who that could be, it stopped her dead in her tracks.
44:28 Ashley Flowers? Let's face it, if student loans are slowing down your financial goals, it might be time for a smarter strategy. That's where today's sponsor SoFi comes in. SoFi is helping you tackle student debt by refinancing your loans with flexible monthly payments that fit your budget. We're talking about the potential to lower your interest rate, reduce your monthly payment, or even pay off your loan sooner, depending on the term you choose. You can also consolidate your student loans into one simple monthly payment, so you could save more each month and work towards achieving your long-term financial ambitions. SoFi offers competitive fixed and variable rates and no origination fees, prepayment fees, or late fees required. It takes just two minutes to check your rate with SoFi, and they have already helped over 500,000 members refinance more than $50 billion in student loans.
45:11 Ashley Flowers? Visit sofi.com/crimejunkie to see how much you can save. That's sofi.com/crimejunkie and start making smarter money moves with SoFi. SoFi's student loans are originated by SoFi Bank, N.A., member FDIC. Additional terms and conditions apply. NMLS 696891.
45:31 Speaker 01 College is a lot like Halloween. You can become whatever you want to be. The difference? A costume lasts one night, but a college degree lasts a whole lifetime. Try on something new with Southern New Hampshire University. They've got over 200 online degree programs for all kinds of career goals: business, healthcare, technology, you name it. Plus, with no scheduled class times or live lectures to attend, you don't have to quit your day job to work toward your dream career. And get this: SNHU has some of the lowest online tuition rates in the US, which means you can still be that house that gives out full-size candy bars. So instead of pretending to have your dream job, why not earn a degree that helps you get there for real? Start your free application today at SNHU.edu/crimejunkie. That's SNHU.edu/crimejunkie.
46:20 Ashley Flowers? The six digits in the username that popped up on Kate's phone were an exact match for Angel's birthday. Angel, whose middle name, by the way, includes Smiley. And they know this for a fact because Kelly found Angel's driver's license in Spencer's apartment with his full name and date of birth. So let's go back to Angel for a second. It turns out, we know he only knew Spencer for like three weeks. Like I said, they met at that detox program that he went to on the 10th. After that, Spencer let Angel stay with him while they waited for their spots to open up in the rehab center. Angel was experiencing homelessness and Spencer had made it his life's mission
47:03 Ashley Flowers? to help people in similar situations to Angel. Now, when Kelly was telling us about Angel and the way that he was basically integrated into all the different aspects of Spencer's life, you could have made us believe that Spencer had known this guy for years. And listen, being an associate doesn't make him complicit. Neither does him being found in the apartment the day before Spencer's body is discovered and likely after he was already dead.
47:27 Speaker 01 If that white Kia is really involved.
47:29 Ashley Flowers? Right, if. But Angel lied about Spencer's whereabouts. Like, he's saying that he checked in to the rehab place, which like, doesn't make sense to me because they had been doing everything together. You know Spencer's not coming home because you're there. You didn't check into rehab. So like, what's up?
47:45 Speaker 01 And Spencer was on Kelly's phone plan, right? Like, did she pull the logs? Was there any more activity?
47:50 Ashley Flowers? Oh yeah, again, she's a crime junkie. That's one of the first things she did. There was no outgoing activity after the 27th. And only two numbers had like been incoming after that. So the phone basically had stopped using her phone plan. And in case you're wondering, yes, of course, police have all of this information too. Initially, Kelly said Fresno PD couldn't locate Angel to question him, despite getting his mom's address where she heard that he spent time. Now, Kate said that she was able to talk to Angel through Facebook. And she asked him if there was literally anything he could tell her about what could have led to Spencer's passing. And Bren, I'm actually gonna have you read his response.
48:30 Speaker 01 I completely understand, and I was kind of expecting this message. To be honest with you, I don't mind at all opening up to you. I just feel like it's not fair to Spencer to talk to you about this in the state/ frame of mind I'm in. And if it's OK with you that we pick up on it tomorrow, probably in the morning should work for me. I just want to be in a more sober, sort of more genuine state of mind. I feel like he deserves at least that. I have nothing but good to say about him.
48:56 Ashley Flowers? Yeah, that makes sense. Except, he doesn't follow up. Kate sent us screenshots, and she asked him about the area where Spencer was found. She told him it didn't make sense why he was over there. And Angel did respond to that, but just with this short message. He said, "I've never been there with him. That's odd why he was over there. He's never mentioned it." So Kate messages him back, asking about Spencer's, like, state of mind, if he ever saw Spencer hanging out with somebody who drove a white Kia Soul, but, nothing. Ghosted, never got a response. And let me tell you, Angel is not an easy guy to track down. Our reporter has called so many numbers associated with him or his mom, but they all led nowhere.
49:40 Ashley Flowers? Though I will leave you with this one little glimmer of hope. As we were wrapping up our reporting, Kelly sent us an email saying that Fresno PD located Angel and interviewed him. And it was thanks to that screenshot of the Snapchat. She said they also got search warrants signed and subpoenaed Spencer and Angel's phone records to see if there's any helpful location data. TBD on those results, but like, this more than anything to me feels like, like progress for the first time.
50:10 Speaker 01 Forward motion, yeah.
50:11 Ashley Flowers? Right. And I'm hoping that they're even looking beyond just Angel, because there is someone else that Kelly has questions for. I told you, there were two numbers that had contacted Spencer's phone after he disappeared. Well, one ended up being his therapist, but another, they couldn't identify. So Kelly and Kate sent a text to this number, asking if it was Angel. And the reply was, "No, this is happy." And this is where things like start falling into place a little bit because when Kelly and Kate were canvassing the area, trying to find people who had seen Spencer, they had stopped at this one smoke shop and were showing pictures of Spencer, but they had also brought along a picture of another guy, one of Spencer's neighbors,
50:55 Ashley Flowers? who Spencer told his mom he was having issues with right before his death. This guy's name is Tyler. But the person behind the counter looks at that picture of Tyler and is like, "Oh, that's Happy. He's a bad guy." Now Tyler lived next door to Spencer and he was also in the Hope program. And the reason they had been carrying around his picture is because two weeks before Spencer's death, Spencer allegedly told his mom he was pretty sure that Tyler broke into his apartment while he was in the detox program and stole his money, his Playstation and a laptop. And at the time, he was sure it had to have been Tyler because he knew his door code.
51:35 Speaker 01 Is this someone that he had trusted?
51:37 Ashley Flowers? So I don't think so, but for some reason, he told Kelly that Tyler was like the only one who knew his key code, though I don't know how he got it.
51:43 Speaker 01 Tyler and Angel.
51:44 Ashley Flowers? Well, yeah, Angel, but like, I'm pretty sure Angel came after his stuff was already stolen.
51:48 Speaker 01 Got it.
51:49 Ashley Flowers? Now Spencer didn't call the police at the time. He wanted to like handle it himself. And all we know about how that worked out comes from Spencer's landlord, who said that after he accused Tyler of stealing, a bunch of guys came over with knives and bats, I guess to like intimidate Spencer. But Kelly said that Spencer locked himself in his room and then nothing happened. Now Kelly feels pretty certain that Tyler did take the stuff because as fate would have it, Kelly was going through Facebook Marketplace and she typed in Tyler's full name. And sure enough, there was a sale posted on Facebook for a 2012 Lenovo ThinkPad, which is what Spencer supposedly had. There's even a picture with the specs and Kelly showed her husband Spencer's dad,
52:33 Ashley Flowers? who was like an IT guy. Apparently he like fixes and builds laptops all the time. So he's got like an eye for these things. And he tells Kelly he's pretty confident that that laptop is the one that he gave to Spencer for school. But here's the thing, if Tyler took that stuff, that was back on like the like 10th or during that time.
52:51 Speaker 01 Yeah.
52:51 Ashley Flowers? It seems like he got away with it because like nothing happened after that. So I don't know what motive Tyler would have to do something to Spencer.
53:01 Speaker 01 And Kelly gave all this information to police too.
53:03 Ashley Flowers? Yeah, of course. She says that like basically what she got back is they told her there's no connection or even proof that the laptop like that he even stole the stuff because they're like, we can't do anything without the receipt for the laptop. Now, I don't know where police stand with Tyler or if they're investigating him at all. To me, like I'd be like trying to run this laptop down, like who has it now? Who did he sell it to? You could probably do like a forensic audit to like prove it was Spencer without the receipt. I don't know. Again, these are leads, but they're still not proof of anything. And there is a very real possibility that we're looking at this all wrong. Maybe Spencer was in the wrong place at the wrong time, which would take this investigation down a completely different path.
53:45 Ashley Flowers? Maybe Spencer died because of complications related to his abuse of alcohol. The problem is enough wasn't done to prove anything, which feels like a crime in and of itself to me, that for almost two years Kelly has had to fight, to wonder, to investigate lots of times on her own because the proper actions weren't taken early on enough in the beginning to actually give her like an answer or peace. So she has been looking for answers on her own ever since. Reaching out to us was one of Kelly's efforts to do that. She also connected with a medium. Kate did too. And their experiences were pretty similar. It's not physical proof of anything, but it has been helpful for them.
54:29 Ashley Flowers? Both Kate and Kelly were told that three people may have been involved in Spencer's death. And the message that Kelly got from Spencer is that he wasn't doing anything wrong. It was just wrong place, wrong time, wrong people. The medium said Spencer wanted Kelly to know that he was sorry for what happened. And above all, he wanted her to be careful. Kelly's being careful, but she has also been a relentless investigator and advocate for Spencer's story, not taking no for an answer, and now that's starting to pay off. Kelly tells us now she's incredibly hopeful for the work being put in by the current investigator, Sergeant Antonio Rivera. She said that he is following up on leads, contacting the right people, and taking her seriously.
55:14 Ashley Flowers? The tragic irony of it all is how Spencer cared so deeply and wanted to help people, especially unhoused individuals. Spencer talked a lot about how if he could just save one soul by helping someone through addiction, then his own suffering would have been worth it. And Kelly told us about this one time when Spencer said he met this young guy named Louis while he was walking on an outdoor trail one day. Spencer saw that he appeared to be unhoused and he stopped to talk to him. And Spencer said that he wanted to give him hope. Spencer even went back and took him some clothing and some food. And this happened like several years before Spencer passed away. Well, a few days after Kelly found out that Spencer had died, she was sad, she couldn't sleep, so she opened Facebook in the middle of the night and she had gotten this message.
55:59 Ashley Flowers? And I'm gonna read it for you. It said, "I only knew Spencer briefly. I was homeless and going through a very tough time in my life. I met Spencer at a park one day and we chatted for a good while and even hung out once or twice after that. He was sincerely a shining light in those dark times. One of the reasons I made it through was because of people like him who treated me so well and pushed me to make things better. I've since then been doing fairly well for myself and can say I grew a lot. I never would be able to say that if it wasn't for him being the person he was. I cannot express my sorrow for what has happened. I sincerely hope it brings comfort to those close to him to know he helped save one soul.
56:39 Ashley Flowers? May he rest in peace and may you all cherish in the memory of him as I will."
56:45 Speaker 01 Wow.
56:46 Ashley Flowers? Kelly has no clue how this guy found her or remembered Spencer's name, but...
56:54 Ashley Flowers? That was the reminder she needed to see that Spencer's life was purposeful, and he helped so many people along his journey. Because to Spencer, every one was valued. But yet in his death, responding officers assumed he was an unhoused individual who overdosed, and it doesn't seem like they valued him at all. They wrote him off immediately, ruining his chances at a proper investigation. Like I said, Kelly has been championing her son's story. And I truly believe that together, crime junkies, we can get answers. I feel like we are on the edge of a major breakthrough. So if you have any information regarding the mysterious death of Spencer Irwin,
57:39 Ashley Flowers? you can contact the Fresno Police Department directly at 559-621-7000. Or if you want to remain anonymous, you can contact the Valley Crime Stoppers by texting "VALLEY" to 738-477. And if you have information for us, you can always email us, [email protected] .
58:15 Ashley Flowers? You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkie.com.
58:20 Speaker 01 And you can follow us on Instagram, at @crimejunkiepodcast.
58:23 Ashley Flowers? We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.
59:02 Ashley Flowers? Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. I think Chuck would approve.
59:11 Speaker 02 When the nights grow longer, the shadows start to stir. And that can only mean one thing. Full Body Chills is back. This season, step inside original tales where every doorway leads somewhere darker, every stranger carries a secret, and nothing is ever quite what it seems. Each story takes you somewhere new, but be careful. You never know what might follow you home. So gather round, listen close, and stream Full Body Chills wherever you get your podcasts.
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