S6.E9

Timothy Spencer: The Southside Strangler

Episode aired 2014
44m

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With only circumstantial evidence available, Virginia authorities use DNA testing to tie the meticulous and well-spoken Southside Strangler to his series of prolonged torture-murders.With only circumstantial evidence available, Virginia authorities use DNA testing to tie the meticulous and well-spoken Southside Strangler to his series of prolonged torture-murders.With only circumstantial evidence available, Virginia authorities use DNA testing to tie the meticulous and well-spoken Southside Strangler to his series of prolonged torture-murders.

Director
- Neil Edwards
Stars

See production info at IMDbPro

IMDb RATING

7.3/10

YOUR RATING

Director
- Neil Edwards
Stars

1User review

See production info at IMDbPro

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Featured review

7/10

Timothy Spencer: The Southside Strangler

Timothy Wilson Spencer was a serial rapist who was convicted of murdering four women (including a 15 year old girl) and is known to have murdered at least one more. Shockingly, an innocent man was convicted of the murder of Carol Hamm; David Vasquez had confessed to her 1984 murder, he was pardoned in 1989.

It is best not to discuss Spencer's disgusting modus operandi. Likewise it is best to ignore the psychobabblers, but this documentary also features the detectives who worked the case, and Wilson's younger brother who said he could imagine him being arrested for theft, but never murder. Wilson had in fact served a prison sentence for burglary, when he graduated to murder he found at least three of his victims through Richmond's Cloverleaf Mall (which was closed in February 2008). Fortunately, Virginia still has the death penalty, although at present no one has been executed there since 2017 when double killer William Morva was dispatched by lethal injection.

Spencer died in the electric chair on April 27, 1994, a shade over six years after his arrest. Some killers languish on death row for decades, unnecessarily, but thankfully not this one.

a_baron
Feb 9, 2025
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Trivia
Timothy Spencer became the first serial killer in the United States to be convicted on the basis of DNA evidence. In turn, David Vasquez, previously convicted for one of Timothy's murders, was the first to be exonerated on the basis of contradictory DNA evidence.

Quotes
Herself - Forensic Psychologist: A person who becomes singled out because of... they're very attractive or they're very unique, um, in a way that people respond to and treat as if they're quite special - especially if they're already narcissistic - they will believe that they should be accorded certain treatment, and when they don't get it, they could get angry.