MYSTERIOUS DEATH OF: Spencer Irwin

11:00Ashley Flowers: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?

11:11Brit Prawat: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, 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.

11:48Ashley Flowers:Yeah, we don't have evidence because we didn't do anything to collect evidence. Like, that's the issue there, right?

11:55Brit Prawat:Yes, yes. But if they want evidence, fine. Kelly's going to 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. Debt can get messy fast. Different cards, different rates, and somehow you're paying more in interest than your actual balance. It gets overwhelming and it feels hard to get ahead. That's where today's sponsor SoFi comes in. SoFi could help you take control and get your money right. It's the all-in-one finance app that helps you bank, borrow, and invest your money all in one place.

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14:45Brit Prawat: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. She could just tell. And those fears were confirmed in the beginning of July when she found out that Spencer 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 had to wait for a spot to open up, and that wouldn't have been until the end of July.

15:28Brit Prawat:Now, any time Spencer started drinking again, it made Kelly nervous. 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 going to go to a detox program for like a week, so he'd be off the grid. 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.

16:06Brit Prawat: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 going to still be able to keep doing his classes at Fresno City College while he was checked into rehab, like through his phone and online.

16:40Brit Prawat:On Saturday, this would have been July 27, 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'd need to wait a little bit before she could give him a ride. And he's like, listen, no problem. I'm just going to head out before it gets too hot. I'll walk again.

17:04Ashley Flowers:Wait, whose phone did he call from if his phone wasn't working?

17:07Brit Prawat: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 going to be checking into rehab with Spencer on the 29th.

17:19Ashley Flowers:OK.

17:20Brit Prawat: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. It was just inconsistent. Yeah. So shortly after 8 a.m., 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.

17:50Brit Prawat: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. 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.

18:29Ashley Flowers:And there's no footage of Spencer coming back to the apartment.

18:32Brit Prawat:No, he just vanishes somewhere after leaving the apartment around 8 a.m.

18:37Ashley Flowers:And then his body is found when exactly?

18:40Brit Prawat: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.

18:58Ashley Flowers:Right.

18:58Brit Prawat:So, like, had he been there the whole time? Less time? Is there, like, time missing? We don't know.

19:04Ashley Flowers:I mean, wouldn't he have been found if he was there the whole time?

19:08Brit Prawat: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.

19:42Ashley Flowers:And in relation to, like, his apartment, the Verizon store where he was headed, where is this loading dock?

19:49Brit Prawat: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.

20:30Brit Prawat:Or if you want our tape, you got to bring the police back with you. 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.

21:07Brit Prawat: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. 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 p.m. 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.

21:50Brit Prawat: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, 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.

22:34Ashley Flowers:Okay, could she tell anything about the car that was driving in and out?

22:37Brit Prawat: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.

22:47Ashley Flowers:Oh, those are like super boxy and identifiable.

22:50Brit Prawat: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 going to be some kind of link that will 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.

23:28Brit Prawat:And oddly enough, one of the first few times she went there, 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 these were Spencers. 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.

24:01Brit Prawat:And she wishes she did because when she went back another time, they were gone.

24:07Ashley Flowers:And I assume that it wasn't the police who went back and got them.

24:10Brit Prawat: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.

24:49Brit Prawat:But they didn't go back there. It just drove away.

24:54Ashley Flowers:The crime scene unit didn't even drive back to the crime scene? Nope. 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...

25:08Brit Prawat:I mean, they don't even, but they don't, they shouldn't even need to know that to do their job. Right. This is their job. 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.

25:28Ashley Flowers:Okay, but did they?

25:30Brit Prawat:Well, 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.

25:44Ashley Flowers:So it's not like they were getting like multiple calls like this.

25:47Brit Prawat: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. Tox results came back with no red flags.

26:25Brit Prawat:So her detectives are like, well, you know, like maybe he had a mental crisis and took his clothes off and was like walking around naked. 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?

26:49Ashley Flowers:That literally makes zero sense.

26:51Brit Prawat: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?

27:04Ashley Flowers:No footprints are no footprints. And there's someone here. So like he didn't just appear.

27:08Brit Prawat: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.

27:53Brit Prawat: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. For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet. But not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. And in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time. Listen to The Deck now, wherever you get your podcasts.

28:37Brit Prawat: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 and the program was that the landlord had full authority to go into the tenant's apartments to make sure that nothing bad was going on. And so on July 31st, when Kelly couldn't get a hold 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.

29:10Brit Prawat: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. 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.

29:47Brit Prawat:She was pretty sure he wasn't Spencer's cousin. And Kelly later learns that this guy's name is Angel Gonzalez.

29:54Ashley Flowers:Angel, that's the guy whose phone Spencer used to call his mom, right? 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?

30:07Brit Prawat:Right, exactly. It's not adding up. Angel was supposed to check into him. 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.

30:29Ashley Flowers:Thank God.

30:30Brit Prawat: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.

31:13Brit Prawat: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.

31:25Ashley Flowers:And his tox results prove that.

31:27Brit Prawat: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.

31:39Ashley Flowers:Is that true? I mean, I guess I've always been under the impression that if you die from meth, I don't know, meth is in your system. Wild, right? That seems like a one-to-one, like, that's what happens.

31:52Brit Prawat: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.

32:16Ashley Flowers:I mean, if you're Kelly, I have to imagine it feels like you're, like, losing your grip on reality. Gaslighting you, right? It's what I'm saying. 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... Telling you not to, like, believe your own eyes and ears. Gaslighting you. Yes.

32:33Brit Prawat: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 and the reason they had for even being in that area, which was completely unrelated to Spencer in any way.

33:22Brit Prawat: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 because this witness says that they saw marks around Spencer's neck, specifically a purple mark on the back of his neck.

34:07Brit Prawat: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. Yeah. 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.

34:27Ashley Flowers:Wait, so there were photos taken?

34:29Brit Prawat: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 breadth. If this case wasn'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.

35:10Brit Prawat: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 investigators 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.

35:50Brit Prawat:But weirdly, his arms and his head were much darker than the rest of him. 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 honed 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's where I have to take a step back. Like, I've been doing this a long time.

36:26Brit Prawat: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. I needed like a real seasoned forensic pathologist to look at these pictures and tell me what we were seeing. So we got a hold 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.

37:01Ashley Flowers:I mean, which is what Kelly's been saying.

37:03Brit Prawat: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?

37:40Brit Prawat: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. 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 with them being too symmetrical. That's not him flailing.

38:02Ashley Flowers:Also him having some kind of medical emergency related to his alcohol abuse doesn't make any sense to me because he's naked.

38:09Brit Prawat: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. Right.

38:25Ashley Flowers:I've seen that before.

38:26Brit Prawat:It's July in California. Not cold. 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.

39:05Brit Prawat:Banerjee said there is a world where she could see this being considered an unsuspicious death. 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. Which their theory we know is wrong because of the tox results. 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.

39:43Brit Prawat:She said it might just be a skin fold from like how he was laying, but it also could be a ligature mark.

39:52Ashley Flowers:And the only way to know for sure would be an autopsy.

39:56Brit Prawat:Yes. So Dr. Banerjee 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.

40:15Ashley Flowers:In these pictures, did you see any of his clothes or like other things?

40:20Brit Prawat:No, 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. But you want to know something weird about that? Sure. 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.

40:59Brit Prawat: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. For decades, some cold cases have been reduced to files in a cabinet, but not anymore. I'm Ashley Flowers, and me and my team on the deck have been traveling across the country to report on these forgotten cases. and in some instances, it's resulted in these cases being solved after decades. Join me every Wednesday as we revive these stories one card at a time.

41:42Brit Prawat:Listen to The Deck now, wherever you get your podcasts.

41:49Brit Prawat: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 to help people in similar situations to Angel.

42:35Brit Prawat: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.

42:56Ashley Flowers:If that white Kia is really involved.

42:59Brit Prawat: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've 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?

43:14Ashley Flowers:And Spencer was on Kelly's phone plan, right? Like, did she pull the logs? Was there any more activity?

43:20Brit Prawat: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.

43:56Brit Prawat:And Brent, I'm actually going to have you read his response.

43:59Ashley Flowers:Ugh, 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 slash frame of mind I'm in. And if it's okay 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.

44:26Brit Prawat: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 state of mind, if you 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.

45:02Brit Prawat:Our reporter has called so many numbers associated with him or his mom, but they all led nowhere. 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 is any helpful location data. TBD on those results. But like this more than anything to me feels like like progress for the first time. Right. And I'm hoping that they're even looking at the same time.

45:43Brit Prawat: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, who Spencer told his mom he was having issues with right before his death.

46:28Brit Prawat: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.

47:05Ashley Flowers:Is this someone that he had trusted?

47:06Brit Prawat: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.

47:13Ashley Flowers:Tyler and Angel.

47:14Brit Prawat:Well, yeah, Angel. But like, I'm pretty sure Angel came after his stuff was already stolen. Got it. 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 that 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.

47:50Brit Prawat: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, 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 10th or during that time. It seems like he got away with it because like nothing happened after that.

48:25Brit Prawat:So I don't know what motive Tyler would have to do something to Spencer.

48:30Ashley Flowers:And Kelly gave all this information to police too.

48:32Brit Prawat: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 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.

49:06Brit Prawat:Maybe Spencer was in the wrong place at the wrong time, which would take this investigation down a completely different path. 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.

49:48Brit Prawat: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. 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.

50:27Brit Prawat: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. 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 Louie while he was walking on an outdoor trail one day.

51:06Brit Prawat: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. And I'm going to 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.

51:42Brit Prawat: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. May he rest in peace. And may you all cherish in the memory of him as I will. Wow. Kelly has no clue how this guy found her or remembered Spencer's name.

52:22Brit Prawat:But 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, everyone 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, you can contact the Fresno Police Department directly at 559-621-7000.

53:16Brit Prawat: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, tips at audiochuck.com.

53:44Brit Prawat:You can find all the source material for this episode on our website, crimejunkie.com.

53:49Ashley Flowers:And you can follow us on Instagram at Crime Junkie Podcast.

53:52Brit Prawat:We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.

54:32Brit Prawat:Crime Junkie is an AudioChuck production. I think Chuck would approve.

54:40Ashley Flowers:Okay, Crime Junkies, you know I absolutely love a twist and a turn, especially when it comes to people who turn out to be someone they're not.

54:48Brit Prawat:that's why I have been obsessed with the podcast Chameleon

54:52Ashley Flowers:every Thursday host Josh Dean deep dives into a scam so bizarre it will leave you wondering how did they get away with that it is truly one of my favorite podcasts right now and I've been listening for years I think you'll love it too listen to Chameleon wherever you get your podcasts