Chapter 1: What happened to Spencer Irwin on that fateful day?
All right, everyone, if you have been waiting for the perfect moment to pick up my latest novel, The Missing Half, this is it because it is officially out on paperback and there is more waiting for you inside. There is nothing better than getting cozy and diving into a story that you can't put down.
And now you can take the missing half anywhere, crack the spine, roll the cover, and lose yourself in a mystery that will keep you guessing until the very end. And in paperback, the ending extends beyond where the story has before. And just when you think you have it all figured out, now there is a new chapter. One more piece of the puzzle. One more twist that you didn't see coming.
If you're ready for a story full of secrets, surprises, and a final turn that will stay with you, grab your paperback copy of The Missing Half now, wherever books are sold. Hi, Crime Junkies. I'm your host, Ashley Flowers.
And I'm Britt.
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. And now she's got us in her corner.
And you won't believe what together we found. This is Spencer Irwin's story. 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 a.m. on Friday, August 2nd, 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. 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 going to have to wait five agonizing days before while they get him cleaned up and transferred to the funeral home before she can see him.
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Chapter 2: Why did authorities dismiss Spencer's death as an overdose?
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 bruises.
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. And Kelly's asking all the right questions. Like, okay, I hear you. But Fresno PD are like, you know, I don't know, didn't collect anything.
Because there was nothing to collect or because you just didn't collect things that were there? Like, those are two pretty different things.
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.
So then what killed him?
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.
Right. 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.
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Chapter 3: What were the toxicology results and what did they reveal?
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.
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?
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.
Yeah, we don't have evidence because we didn't do anything to collect evidence. Like, that's the issue here, right?
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. The wilderness is meant to be a place of peace, but for some, it became the setting of tragedy.
The podcast Park Predators explores true stories of people who encountered danger where they least expected it, deep in forests, along remote trails, or while camping under the stars. Each episode examines a different case with the same careful research and storytelling you get here on Crime Junkie. You can start listening to Park Predators now wherever you get your podcasts.
Thankfully, Kelly Irwin 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.
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Chapter 4: How did Kelly Irwin begin her own investigation into her son's death?
Plus, Spencer's on Kelly's account, so she would have had to authorize any kind of like transactions that he would have made.
And there's no footage of Spencer coming back to the apartment?
No, he just vanishes somewhere after leaving the apartment around 8 a.m.
And then his body is found when exactly?
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.
Right.
So, like, had he been there the whole time? Less time? Is there, like, time missing? We don't know.
I mean, wouldn't he have been found if he was there the whole time?
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.
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Chapter 5: What inconsistencies arose during Kelly's search for answers?
It just drove away.
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... 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.
Okay, but did they?
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.
So it's not like they were getting, like, multiple calls like this.
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.
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Chapter 6: What role did Angel Gonzalez play in Spencer's life?
She was pretty sure he wasn't Spencer's cousin. And Kelly later learns that this guy's name is Angel Gonzalez.
Angel, that's the guy whose phone Spencer used to call his mom, right?
Correct.
And I guess that's what I'm getting at. Kelly knows that, like, Spencer and Angel were supposed to be checking in on the 29th, right?
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.
Thank God.
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. 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. And his tox results prove that.
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Chapter 7: How did the investigation shift after new evidence was uncovered?
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 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. 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. 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.
I mean, which is what Kelly's been saying.
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. 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.
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Chapter 8: What does Kelly hope to achieve moving forward in Spencer's case?
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. The wilderness is meant to be a place of peace, but for some, it became the setting of tragedy.
The podcast Park Predators explores true stories of people who encountered danger where they least expected it, deep in forests, along remote trails, or while camping under the stars. Each episode examines a different case with the same careful research and storytelling you get here on Crime Junkie. You can start listening to Park Predators now wherever you get your podcasts.
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.
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.
If that white Kia is really involved.
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?
And Spencer was on Kelly's phone plan, right? Like, did she pull the logs? Was there any more activity?
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.
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