User:MorpheusKafka/Steve Spence

Steve Brantley Spence is a former college football linebacker at and graduate of East Carolina University and an alleged would-be spree killer. Spence is accused of strangling a woman in Virginia Beach, Virginia and stealing her SUV, which he drove to Ben L. Smith High School in Greensboro, North Carolina. He was tased and taken into custody by Greensboro Police Department units on the edge of school property while brandishing two handguns. Spence faces two charges of attempted first degree murder along with additional charges from both states.

Biography

Early Life

Spence grew up in Norfolk, Virginia, where he attended Ruffner Middle School and Maury High School and played varsity football all four years, earning all-district honors as a junior and senior. He was recruited by East Carolina, Delaware, and James Madison, and became interested in playing for ECU after attending football camps there.

College

Spence was enrolled in East Carolina University in Greenville, North Carolina from 2007-2010, where he graduated with degrees in Business Management and Marketing. He signed for ECU in February 2007, and was redshirted that year.

Careers

After obtaining his degrees from ECU, Spence worked in Muncie, IN and Fort Worth, TX before returning to Virginia in Febuary 2013. In 2012, he sat and passed the Series 6 and 63 securities licensure exams from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority. He was arrested on January 11, 2018 on felony unlawful possession of firearm charges in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania by Office Robert Bonino of the Philadelphia Police Department. According to FINRA filings, Spence admitted to the substance of the allegations, which arose from an 9mm handgun found in his car after a traffic collision; the charges were dismissed in 2016 following the completion of a diversion program. Those filings also show that he was terminated from employment in September 2017 at MML Investors Services, LLC "in connection with sales practice of traditional life insurance products," in the words of the firm.

Spence worked as an assistant football coach for Norfolk County Schools, coaching varsity football teams at Norview and Oscar Smith High Schools in Hampton Roads; he also served as a substitute teacher for the system.

Rampage

Planning

According to an arrest warrant filed in Guilford County, Spence allegedly handwrote a one-page plan of action, including at least six planned murders across three states. The document included time to rest and calculated travel times.

Virginia

Police in the City of Virginia Beach, Virginia allege that Spence was responsible for "brutally beating his current girlfriend," Denisha De`Sha Hughes and stealing her automobile on the morning of Monday, December 3, 2018 near the 4700 block of Alicia drive, . Spence was nowhere to be found when officers responded. At the time that he was arrested in North Carolina, he was wanted by the Virginia Beach Police Department for several charges regarding the morning's incident, including grand larceny (regarding an iPhone X), grand larceny of a motor vehicle (a Mercedes-Benz ML350 SUV), strangling another causing wound or injury, and assault on a family member.

North Carolina

Attempted shooting at Smith High School

At 12:40 PM on the same day, Patrick Jordan, a behavior intervention specialist employed at Ben L. Smith High School, a public high school in Southern Greensboro, North Carolina, observed a suspicious man moving towards the cafeteria, where students were eating lunch. Noting that the man had was not a badged visitor (as is required for all visitors) or a staff member, Jordan followed the man into the B building and into its cafeteria, calling out to him. After Jordan "sped up my steps and increased the volume of my voice," the man brandished a handgun while widely grinning.

Jordan recalls the man threatening to "let off," which he interpreted as an intention to indiscriminately fire into the occupied cafeteria. The man ordered Jordan to radio the two persons listed on the planning document to report to the cafeteria. Knowing that the individuals were not assigned radios, Jordan complied. Hearing Jordan's voice on the radio, Assistant Principal Lashonti Hines arrived at the cafeteria to determine what he needed. Hines walked between Jordan and the armed man, who had moved into the hallway; the man drew his handgun and yelled "Get back!," according to Hines.

Hines immediately ran into the courtyard and radioed for a lockdown while Jordan evacuated students from the cafeteria into a classroom, which could be locked; Hines credits the successful evacuation to students reading her and Jordan's body language, she claims that "they saw my face, they saw my movement and they could tell something was serious . . . when we made that call our kids were moving." After the cafeteria was evacuated, Hines reports that the man was walking about the courtyard between the school's buildings.

Officer D.K. Evans, an eight-year veteran officer at the Greensboro Police Department, had been serving as the School Resource Officer for Smith High School for the past few months. According to court testimony from a Greensboro Police Detective, Evans heard the call for lockdown over the radio and responded in less than a minute. Evans called for backup units and raced to the courtyard. Evans unholstered his weapon and chased the man, who was attempted to escape with two hanguns drawn, toward the school property line near Vanstory Street, where he was met by responding patrol units and arrested following the deployment of a taser; no shots were fired at any time by any person during the entire incident. Greensboro Police Chief Wayne Scott identified the man as Spence in a televised speech, and reported that Spence had a loaded 9mm and .45 ACP handgun drawn, one in each hand, with several boxes of bullets in his backpack.

Criminal proceedings

Subsequent to Spence's arrest, Greensboro Police units searching the area recovered Hughes' ML350 SUV at 3717 W Gate City Boulevard, the location of a nearby shopping mall, according to an incident report. A long gun and more ammunition was found inside the vehicle. Spence was arraigned in Guilford County District Court on charges of attempted first degree murder (two counts), going armed to the terror of the people, possession of a firearm on educational property, resisting or obstructing a law enforcement officer, possessing or receiving a stolen motor vehicle, and second-degree tresspass. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life without the possibility of parole, according to the judge. A total secured bond of $5.5 million was set and a mental health evaluation was ordered after he claimed that, "Jeremiah is screaming in my head," during the hearing.

Further Plans

The planning document included in Spence's warrant included a plan to murder one person in Durham along with their family, to rest, and then to proceed to Maryland and kill at least one other person; the bottom of the document is largely unreadable.