By Ray King
A Pine Bluff woman convicted of killing her son in 2021 has failed to convince the Arkansas Court of Appeals that Judge Alex Guynn erred when he denied motions to suppress statements she made to police while being interviewed and admitted into evidence hotel receipts and a video.
Gwendolyn Spencer, 39, also contended that Guynn should have instructed the jury on manslaughter.
Spencer is currently serving a 28-year sentence for first-degree murder at the McPherson Unit of the ADC in Newport and will be eligible to apply for parole in 2040.
Police initially questioned Spencer after they responded to her home on March 27, 2021 where they found the body of her son in the carport. She later was questioned at the police station by Detective Chris Wieland who did not read her Miranda rights to her initially because he considered her a witness. She was not in custody at that time.
After about 15 minutes, Wieland said he became suspicious of Spencer and did not believe her answers, so he left the room, got a rights form and read it to Spencer, who asked for an attorney.
At trial in 2024, the jury was told Spencer’s son died from a single gunshot to the chest on March 27, 2021. The jury found Spencer guilty of first-degree murder and using a firearm to commit the murder.
Regarding her claims about the manslaughter instruction, the Appeals Court said when instructions for a lesser offense are read and a jury convicts of a greater offense, any failure to read the lesser offense instruction is cured. Here, the jury was read instructions for first and second-degree murder and convicted Spencer of the greater offense.
As to the objections to the hotel video, the Appeals Court said Spencer raised a hearsay objection during the trial but did not claim that the evidence had not been authenticated by a hotel agent as required by state law, so the appeals court said they would not deal with it on appeal.
