Prosecutors have decided they will not press charges against a white man who shot and killed his black colleague while on a camping trip.
Vernango County District Attorney Sean White on Tuesday issued a statement about an unidentified white man who shot and killed 29-year-old Jamaican immigrant Peter Bernardo Spencer last December in a cabin in Pennsylvania.
“We believe that enough evidence has been presented in this case for self-defence that we will not be able to overcome our burden and show that it was not self-defence beyond a reasonable doubt, and for this reason charges will not be brought against the suspect in this case,” White said on Tuesday.
“This is my choice,” he added. — I think it’s right.
Peter Bernardo Spencer, 29 (pictured), was shot nine times after being the only black man invited to hunt with four other people in the rural town of Rockland on December 12.
District Attorney Sean White (pictured) announced that prosecutors would not press any charges against the white man who shot and killed Peter Bernardo Spencer last December.
Spencer’s father Conrad Lee (pictured with his son) reacted angrily to the district attorney’s decision, calling the investigation’s findings a “cover-up.”
Spencer of Pittsburgh was shot nine times: two bullet wounds to the buttocks and one to the neck. He was the only black man invited to hunt in the Rockland countryside with four other people on December 12th.
Spencer, who immigrated to America in 2013, worked in construction and contracting and was asked by a former colleague to go on a trip. White said the unidentified 25-year-old colleague who invited Spencer to the cabin shot him in self-defense after Spencer began acting erratically.
White said that that night Spencer, who was drinking, smoking marijuana and taking psychedelic mushrooms, began firing his AK-47 into the sky.
Witnesses said Spencer became more angry and unbalanced, telling his frightened co-workers “he was a god” and demanding their car keys and phones, White said.
White said Spencer’s white colleague fired a pistol at him only after the 29-year-old man pointed a rifle at him.
The district attorney said a colleague shot Spencer because he thought he was going to kill him and three other guests who were hiding out of fear.
White said investigators determined the white colleague was right to shoot Spencer, even though Spencer never shot him.
“He didn’t have to wait for a shot to shoot him,” Sean White said of the shooter. “He didn’t have to wait for a verbal threat.”
The case was controversial, it was even dubbed “modern lynching”, but Cpl. Aaron Allen of the Legacy Division, the division of the state police that investigates hate crimes, said Tuesday there was no evidence of a hate crime and that he would not be charged either.
“We also made sure that no hate and/or bias was found during this investigation, and I can tell you right now that no hatred and/or bias was found,” Allen said.
The investigators’ findings did not impress the Spencer family, who said they were not surprised by the announcement and vowed to continue to seek justice, including holding a press conference with a medical examiner next week.
visited the remote countryside where Spencer was found dead with nine gunshot wounds.
Spencer was reportedly shot nine times, with most of the gunshot wounds in the back and once in the neck.
Spencer was invited to the house by a colleague who said he shot him in self-defense. In the photo: the side door in the hunting lodge with a sign “We do not call 911.”
“We are not surprised by this, we have observed such behavior from the Pennsylvania State Police and the District Attorney of Venango County from the very beginning,” said family lawyer Paul Djubas.
Spencer’s mother, Isilda Spencer Hunter, told WTEA.com that she was devastated by White’s decision.
– I’m dead right now. This is how I feel, dead, no emotions, nothing. I’m trying to protect my other son,” Hunter said.
The father of 29-year-old Conrad Lee went even further, calling the district attorney’s findings a “cover”.
“This is just the beginning of the hand of justice/God coming down on the serpent’s head. We will squeeze the poison of corruption out of those involved in the assassination and cover-up in the coming days right in front of your eyes,” he tweeted on Tuesday.
“Trust me, they won’t get away with killing my son and this corruption,” he wrote in a subsequent tweet.
His parents were unhappy with the investigators after the December 12 incident, claiming they had been surrounded by a stone wall since the investigation began.
In an exclusive interview with last month, Spencer’s fiancée Carmela King, 28, said she and Spencer’s family had more questions than answers.
“No one contacted me or his mother about anything related to him or this investigation,” she said. “I believe the way this has been handled looks like a racial situation.
“I think the expectation was that it would just be another black man killed and it would be swept under the carpet. But that’s not the case here.
The King and Spencer family have said it cannot be ruled out that race may have played a role not only in the murder, but also in how it was treated.
Police found illegal weapons at the scene, including modified assault rifles, and drugs.
King said the colleague’s self-defense statement made no sense.
Regardless of what the man claims, she said, “I don’t understand why no one was arrested given the situation and scenario.”
White said that that night, Spencer, who was drinking, smoking marijuana, and taking psychedelic mushrooms, began firing his AK-47 into the sky.
Spencer was expecting his first child with fiancee Carmela King (pictured) when he was killed on December 12, 2021.
Carmela King, 28, told that investigators blocked her and Spencer’s family.
The family’s lawyer, Paul Jubas, echoed her confusion, telling : “This situation is just saturated with crime. All of this has criminal charges.
“So, whatever the supposed justification, [regardless] if a defense is brought forward, that should not immediately stop the filing of charges.”
Instead, Jubas told : “You are essentially running this shady investigation.
“Not only does the family not know who could be involved in this murder, but the entire community of Venango County has no answers, they are very suspicious and very worried about it.
“Absolutely no one has been held accountable and there is no reason for anyone to be charged.”
King recalled that there was nothing special about that December trip to the cabin. But nothing seemed so wrong to her as to warn her fiancé against the trip.
“I dropped him off and tried to ping my location so I knew exactly where to return. [to get him] because it was very rural,” she said.
‘Soon after [I left] I got a message that said, “Hey, I’ll just stay, come pick me up the next day.” Which was weird.
“I tried to call him. He didn’t answer. I simply replied, “Okay. Be safe. I love you and if you need me to come back tonight, I will.”
“I never heard from him again.
King tried to call Spencer during the night but never picked up, which she said was “unusual for him”.
This was especially unusual since she had not been feeling well earlier that day and was three months pregnant.
She said, “He would definitely say, ‘I love you,’ so it was unsettling. But at the same time, you try to think positively.”
But when he didn’t answer the next morning, King said, “I had a premonition to get up and leave. So I got in the truck and went there, probably around nine.”
King was about to turn onto the long road to the cabin when Spencer’s mother, Isilda, called.
“She said, ‘I need you to stop.’ She really didn’t want to tell me when I was driving. But I was already there [when] finally she told me that he was dead.”
King drove up to where the state troopers were blocking the stage. She saw the crime scene tape, flashing lights, and Spencer’s body lying in the yard.
She said, “The soldier didn’t let me run. I asked where everyone was and they said they were taking people in for questioning, but that was it.”
Spencer, who worked in construction and ran a catering company, recently got a CDL (class A driver’s license) and planned to become a trucker.
“He even talked about me and the kid going on the road with him, and after a while, you know, we had plans to buy a house and try to move up the career ladder, just to increase the wealth of our generation,” King said.
But she admits there were issues that Spencer needed to resolve before he could move forward towards the life they wanted to build.
And today, the family is wondering if his attempt to put some past affairs behind him could have played a role in his death.
Lawyer Jubas explained, “Peter had a criminal case (related to illegal possession of weapons and drugs) that he wanted to solve at the time.”
A week before Spencer’s death, the man who shot him came to his home and, according to King, discussed the details of the case with Spencer.
And on December 10, the night before he died, Spencer told friends he saw two undercover cops hiding near his home and wondered if he was being followed.
That same night, the man who later shot him sent Spencer an invitation to his family’s remote rural property via Snapchat.
It has become known to that the man also has a criminal record, and according to the Jubas family lawyer, he and some others in the cabin that night were implicated in a massive and ongoing federal ghost gun investigation.
Was Peter in a position where he knew too much about something more serious? Jubas asked.
“He wanted to start a new career, he had a new baby on the way, and he would be interested in working with the feds, maybe if he thought it could help in his criminal case.
Was this fear the cause of his death? Perhaps he was not invited with the intent to kill, but did something go wrong?
Maybe, but we just don’t know. And therein lies the problem. We have all these questions and theories, but where is the investigation in all this?
Jubas continued: “What we do know is that there were at least two ghost weapons at the scene, an ongoing federal investigation, banned substances, a dead body and no one was hurt, and no one has been charged or arrested so far.
“Tell me, what’s the point?”