On Dec. 12, 2021, Peter Bernardo Spencer, a Jamaican immigrant who lived in Pittsburgh, died under mysterious circumstances in Rockland Township, Venango County.
Spencer, 29, had accepted an invitation from a former colleague to visit a riverside cabin. The visit did not go well.
Sometime just before 2:30 a.m., Spencer was shot nine times. Four of the bullets entered his back. Pennsylvania State Police found him dead, face down on the lawn, when they arrived. There were no weapons nearby.
State police took four people into custody, including a 25-year-old man who admitted to shooting Spencer in “self-defense.” The confessed killer is the former co-worker who invited him to the cabin in the first place. Drugs and guns were also found in the cabin, but the police released all four men after consultation with the Venango County district attorney’s office.
An investigation was promised, but nearly three months after Spencer’s death, there is no official account from the state police or the Venango County DA’s office about his death or the events that led up to it.
To date, no one has been charged with the killing.
The Spencer family is understandably angry and mystified by the silent treatment they’ve received from authorities. It is unthinkable that the family has yet to receive briefings or updates about Peter Spencer’s murder. After all, a confessed killer has been identified, questioned and released. Why?
The state police’s Heritage Affairs team, a unit that investigates bias crimes, is aware of Spencer’s murder and has been in touch with the Spencer family, but to date the murder is not being treated as a hate crime.
As murders go, this one looks doubly suspicious. Spencer was African American and shot four times in the back. The four people taken into custody were white. It appears they’ve gotten extraordinary forbearance from the Venango County DA’s office. Meanwhile, the investigation seems to have stalled, if it was ever pursued seriously in the first place.
Attorney General Josh Shapiro said he couldn’t investigate unless Venango County officially requests help. That’s not happening. That means it will be up to the U.S. Department of Justice to investigate this case before it cools any more than it already has.
Meanwhile, there have been insinuations about Spencer’s character while his killer’s motivations escape public scrutiny or discussion. Had Spencer been white and the four people taken into custody that night were Black, does anyone think they would be free after so little scrutiny?
Why hasn’t the Venango County DA’s office or the state police briefed the Spencer family on its findings? They — and the entire community — deserve answers. Peter Bernardo Spencer deserves to be more than a mysterious footnote in the news cycle of Western Pennsylvania.
— Pittsburgh Post-Gazette (AP)
