PETER SPENCER, with fiancee, Carmela King.
Community demands answers surrounding suspicious death
by Rob Taylor Jr., Courier Staff Writer
What is known is that Peter Bernardo Spencer, full of life on the afternoon and evening of Saturday, Dec. 11, 2021, was found the next day in front of a home in Venango County, Pa., lifeless, shot multiple times.
What is not known is pretty much everything else, such as, who did this to Spencer, the 29-year-old Jamaican immigrant who, according to his family, would “give you the last dollar out of his pocket” if someone was in need?
There have been no arrests, and the Venango County District Attorney’s office has publicly requested more time to conduct its investigation. More time was requested after the four people who were present at the time of Spencer’s death were questioned by police, then released.
PETER BERNARDO SPENCER was found dead in Venango County on the early morning of Dec. 12, 2021.
That development didn’t sit well with Spencer’s family, friends and supporters, who seem to be growing with every passing day, nearly two months after his death.
“It appears that the persons that are in leadership in law enforcement in this county (Venango) and in this state are waiting for us to stop ringing the bell that it’s time for something to be done,” voiced Bishop Errenous McCloud Jr., of the Third Episcopal District of the AME Church. He and other pastors and faith leaders stood in solidarity with Spencer’s family during a news conference at Bethel AME Church in the Hill District, Feb. 2. “…We are not going away. Not today, not tomorrow, not next month or next year. This is their waiting game and our tragedy.”
Spencer, who originally came to the U.S. in 2013, was invited to a weekend of hunting by a White male co-worker, according to Spencer’s fiancee, Carmela King. Other friends joined the excursion. Somehow, around 2:30 the next morning, Dec. 12, 2021, Spencer was dead from nine gunshot wounds in front of a residence in Venango County’s Rockland Township, about 75 miles from Pittsburgh to the north.
“This is a HATE CRIME!,” wrote Spencer’s sibling, Tehilah Spencer, on a GoFundMe page dedicated to Peter Spencer. “Peter was MURDERED in Rockland Township, Pennsylvania in a backwater rural town where he was completely vulnerable and cut off from everything and everyone. He was slaughtered and killed in what I consider an act of MODERN DAY LYNCHING!”
BISHOP ERRENOUS MCCLOUD JR., of the Third Episcopal District of the AME Church.
“Peter Bernardo Spencer made a mistake, and his mistake was going into some woods with some people who he thought were his friends,” Bishop McCloud said. “He didn’t know he was going to die. He wanted to be picked up the next morning. If we have a conscience, it’s now time for it to come forward. Nobody deserves what this man got. No person coming to America, slave or free, deserves to be shot at like an animal.”
“Shooting down a man in a forest is a type of ugly that moves us to seek justice,” added Rev. Larry Pickens, executive director of the PA Council of Churches, at the news conference. “We understand that sometimes we need to respond and say to those in authority, we’re not going to take it anymore.”
Spencer’s family said his dream was to open a restaurant to help support his mother, who had moved to the U.S. prior to Spencer. He was known to cook and feed the homeless, as well as police officers.
ICILDA SPENCER-HUNTER, mother of Peter Bernardo Spencer. (Photo by J.L. Martello)
“He was a good person, in every way,” Spencer’s mother, Icilda Spencer-Hunter, told the New Pittsburgh Courier after the Feb. 2 press conference. “Whenever you came to him for help, he never said no. He always tried to help. He read a lot, and when his friends were thinking about opening a certain business, he would do research” on it to see if it was a good investment, she said of her son.
“He’s a person who always said, ‘If I want to look good, I have to work hard to look good.’ So he would work, he’d do anything, like cutting the yard if that’s what it came down to. He taught himself to be a construction worker. He was just a person who was always good with his hands.”
Paul Jubas, attorney for the Spencer family, has publicly expressed his disdain for the lack of information the Venango County District Attorney’s office has provided the family, or how they’ve handled the case from the outset.
“They don’t have anything to say to us, unfortunately,” Jubas said at the news conference. “It’s hard to imagine any sort of justification for how this investigation has been handled so far. It really leads the entire community with no other option but to view the entirety of the investigation with tremendous skepticism.”
The Venango County District Attorney’s office estimated that its investigation would be complete between mid-February and early March. Venango County DA Shawn White will then review all the information and decide if charges will be filed.
“Rest assured, the Venango County District Attorney’s Office will take every measure to ensure that justice is sought wherever it may be found,” the DA office’s statement, dated Jan. 25, read, obtained by the Courier.
Reverend Pickens, of the PA Council of Churches, sure hopes justice is sought.
“Our voices will continue to stir and speak out until we learn what has happened to our brother,” he said at the news conference. “His blood keeps crying out to us, and because of that, we must respond.”
PETER SPENCER’S FIANCEE, CARMELA KING, is consoled by Spencer’s mother, Icilda Spencer-Hunter, after a news conference at Bethel AME Church in the Hill District, Feb. 2. (Photo by Courier photographer J.L. Martello)
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