On the morning of December 30, 1978, the bodies of 45-year-old Nancy Spangler and her two teenage children were found in their home in Littleton, Colorado. All three had been shot to death with a handgun. The children were found in their bedrooms and Nancy was slumped in a chair in the basement, a bullet wound visible on her forehead. A typewritten suicide note was found nearby, signed with her initial.

Join us at the quiet end for A Very Bad Husband: Robert Spangler. Nancy’s husband admitted to police that he and his wife had marital problems, that he planned to leave her, and that he was having an affair with another woman. The implication was that Nancy was so distraught over her failing marriage that she took her and her children’s lives. But many people close to Nancy couldn’t believe that she could kill her beloved children.  They wondered if Robert could have killed his entire family, setting the scene to make it look like a murder/suicide. This seemed even more likely after it was discovered that other people in Robert’s life had died suddenly in his company.

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Sources

Dying Man Admits He Killed Four in Family, LA Times, Catherine Tsai, 10/22/2000, retrieved 12/2/2024

Colorado News & The Denver Post Archives, retrieved 12/2/2024

Married to Murder by Robert Scott, 2004