Trial Opens in Pontotoc for Father Accused of Killing Daughter’s Boyfriend
PONTOTOC, Miss. — The capital murder trial of 67-year-old Jeffrey Spence began this week in Pontotoc County, with prosecutors and defense attorneys laying out sharply conflicting accounts of his alleged role in the 2022 killing of Kirby Carpenter, a Tippah County businessman and the boyfriend of Spence’s daughter, Caitlin.
Competing Narratives
At the heart of the case is the question of Spence’s whereabouts on November 30, 2022, the night Carpenter was shot dead at his rural home. Prosecutors maintain that Spence traveled from Virginia to Mississippi to commit the murder, motivated by money and Carpenter’s collection of gold, silver, and cash. They pointed to valuable items later discovered in Spence’s safety deposit boxes and storage units as evidence of theft tied to the killing.
The defense insists that Spence was more than 500 miles away in Saltville, Virginia, on the day Carpenter was killed. They intend to call witnesses to confirm his presence there and argue that the state’s case relies on the word of unreliable informants and assumptions drawn from Spence’s long history of collecting coins and precious metals.
The Crime and Discovery
Authorities believe Carpenter, 36, was shot around 7 p.m. on November 30 inside his garage. He died from a single shotgun blast to the chest and neck area, fired from about 15 feet away. Investigators testified that his body was then dragged into a cluttered outdoor storage area, covered with a curtain or tarp, and weighed down with a full-size pickup truck tool box.
Carpenter’s partner, Caitlin Spence, did not discover his remains until the afternoon of December 2, more than two days later. She called 911 in a distraught state, and responding deputies found the scene largely undisturbed. Carpenter’s truck was locked, groceries remained inside, and his keys and a substantial amount of cash were still on his person. Missing, however, was the satchel he was known to carry, often filled with deeds, paperwork, and money.
Evidence and Testimony
Tippah County investigator Chris McAllister described the initial scene for jurors, noting that the house’s exterior security cameras had been disabled. In his experience, the circumstances suggested the work of someone familiar with Carpenter and his habits, rather than an opportunistic burglar. Photographs shown in court led some members of Carpenter’s family to briefly leave the room.
The jury also heard from Bart Adams, an estate attorney who worked with Carpenter for more than a decade. Adams outlined Carpenter’s many ventures, from precious metals trading and rental properties to liquor sales and music, and confirmed that Carpenter routinely carried large amounts of cash and firearms. After Carpenter’s death, Adams said multiple relatives and associates, including Jeff and Karen Spence, removed items from the home, forcing him to intervene to protect the estate.
An estimated $1.5 million estate was eventually cataloged, though Adams said the amount of cash and precious metals recovered was surprisingly small. Break-ins at both a National Guard vault and his own law office complicated the process of securing assets, with thousands of dollars’ worth of items lost before an auction company could complete its inventory.
A Slow Investigation
The investigation initially stalled, despite suspicions raised when Spence and his wife returned to Mississippi for Carpenter’s funeral and stayed several weeks afterward. A breakthrough came months later, first with an anonymous letter from Spence’s son-in-law, and then with a statement from convicted felon David Barnes who had done odd jobs for Carpenter. That witness claimed to have overheard Jeffrey and Caitlin Spence making incriminating remarks during Carpenter’s funeral. Those leads culminated in the arrest of Jeffrey, Karen, and Caitlin nearly a year after the killing.
Searches of their residences, deposit boxes, and storage units uncovered caches of coins, silver, and cash. Prosecutors have portrayed these as stolen from Carpenter, while the defense insists they were legitimately acquired over many years of collecting.
The Jury and What’s Ahead
Because of pretrial publicity in Tippah County, the case was moved to Pontotoc County, where an all-white panel of 12 jurors and three alternates was seated. The trial is expected to continue into next week, with Caitlin Spence scheduled to testify on Friday. She has already pleaded guilty to accessory after the fact to capital murder in exchange for a reduced sentence and has agreed to testify against her father.
The proceedings will likely hinge on whether jurors believe Jeffrey Spence was in Mississippi the night Carpenter died — or hundreds of miles away in Virginia.
