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By then a “prosperous dairy farmer” according to newspaper accounts, the 43-year old Spencer lived in Wixom, Michigan with his wife and two children. For the past five years, however, he had been making hunting trips to Long Lake near Sault St. Marie, Ontario with Helen Grier, a “pretty” stenographer 15 year his junior.

On one such trip in October of 1937, they crossed the Canadian border separately and spent the first night in a hotel under the names of Mr. and Mrs. B.M. Sprague before traveling on to the cabin further north. According to Fred Olar, a local caretaker who had spent time with them there doing chores, they seemed to be enjoying themselves. Miss Grier was known to have been something of a heavy drinker and Spencer often tried to keep her from boozing it up too much. There was even some talk that she had tried to throw herself off the balcony of the cabin on a previous trip.

On the night of October 28, Spencer came to Olar’s house in an agitated state and announced, “Helen has blown the top of her head off.” (Although, when he later went to the home of William Roach to use the phone, he was quoted as saying, “There’s been a murder at Long Lake.”) Spencer said he had been off tracking moose by himself and returned to the cabin to find the young woman lying in a pool of blood with a .22 next to her, the butt at her feet and the end of the barrel at her elbow. There was no suicide note present. Two full cups of coffee sat untouched in the dining room.

In early January 1938, the coroner’s jury announced that Grier had died “from a bullet fired by a person unknown with strong suspicion of Vernon Spencer.” He was already in custody as a material witness, but was now formally arrested and charged with murder. The case went to trial in Sault St. Marie in April. In the end, Spencer was acquitted, a verdict that proved to be very popular with those in the courtroom. When it was announced, they broke into spontaneous applause. The cheering throng surged forward to congratulate Spencer and his wife, who had stood by his side throughout the ordeal. It took some time to restore order to the courtroom.

From this great reserve, it is impossible to say that justice was served or foiled. On one hand there is a woman with a history of drinking and possible melancholia involved in a clandestine affair with a married man who may have been sick of being the other woman and who decided to end it all. On the other, there was nobody else there to see or hear what really happened in the remote Northwoods. Maybe they’d quarreled over him not leaving his family for her and it got out of hand. It does seem odd that two cups of coffee had been prepared even though Spencer was allegedly out on the trail tracking game.

One thing we do know: Spencer’s wife took the “stand by your man” concept to a whole new level. Perhaps she knew of her husband’s relationship with Miss Grier and was accepting/resigned to it. Perhaps they had what we now call an open marriage. And what of the photo seen below, taken at tthe time of his trial? It would seem that Spencer’s mother was still in his corner, too. It would seem that Spencer had a remarkable power over the women in his life.