“He said, ‘See? I told you we’d find your deer,’” recounted Rod Miller about the moment his friends told him they’d found his missing buck, a monster of a whitetail deer that was stolen from him in 1999 by Jeff Spence. “I didn’t look at the antlers, I looked at the face. I knew that deer! The antlers change over the years, but not the face.”
Now that he knew where Goliath was, Miller got busy getting his property back. It meant getting a lawyer involved.
Spence had been hiding Goliath inside a barn on his Reynoldsville farm. Feeling pressure, he sold the rights to shoot the buck at a hunting ranch to a hunter in Missouri. Seeing Goliath, though, the hunter approached six other enthusiasts and had raised the money to purchase him as a breeder. If Goliath was shipped out of state, it would be difficult to get him back.
“I told my lawyer, ‘We’ve got to move on this. I don’t know if they’re going to shoot Goliath or try moving him,’” said Miller. Fortunately, Spence didn’t have the paperwork in order to move Goliath out of state. Of course, Miller didn’t know that.
So, Miller’s lawyer got busy suing in Clarion County Court. Miller, unlike Spence, was fastidious with paperwork. He had everything in order and gave it to his lawyer, who prepared a motion seeking a court order for Goliath’s return to Miller. The trophy buck had been missing for four years, and Miller didn’t want another minute to go by without him being returned.
Miller’s lawyer prepared him by telling him that after the motion was filed, he’d have to go in and convince the judge that the buck really belonged to him. He waited outside the court. When his lawyer appeared in the hallway, Miller stood, ready to go in and make his case. His lawyer waved him off and said, “He signed it. You can go pick up your deer.”
“We had to go through all kinds of departments to get the paperwork signed and sealed, and to get a deputy to go out and serve the warrant,” said Miller.
As the deputy served the warrant on Spence, Miller waiting in his truck outside the Spence’s property. After a while, Miller says Spence came out and said, ‘Rod, if that’s your deer, you can go ahead and take him.’
Rodney Miller in front of Goliath’s mount inside the RDM Goliath Hunting Lodge.
Spence claimed he bought the buck he called Hercules from an auction in Ohio. He couldn’t remember who the seller was or where the auction took place, he claimed. Even after his conviction, Spence never changed his story.
Miller pulled into the Spence farm, towing a trailer. He loaded a tranquilizer dart into a gun and pointed it at Goliath. Only he and Spence were in the pen at that moment.
He fired his rifle, which propelled the dart into Goliath, beginning the sedation process, then it ricocheted back toward Miller and Spence, nearly hitting Spence in the head. “Just a little closer and I would’ve got them both,” winked Miller.
After Goliath was unconscious, Miller says he approached the buck and looked closely at the purple cow tag that had been placed in the animal’s ear. He moved the tag and saw “I7” tattooed on the ear, confirming it was his buck. Two later DNA tests provided additional confirmation.
Noticing that Goliath was morbidly obese—Miller estimates he was about 400 pounds at the time—he put the buck back on a proper diet, helping Goliath to shed the extra weight. Spence, Miller learned during the trial, had been keeping Goliath inside a barn and was only feeding him shelled corn.
“He wasn’t feeding him what he should have. The vitamins and minerals, etc. Shelled corn is about the cheapest feed you could feed a deer,” said Miller, noting that he was surprised Goliath hadn’t already died of acidosis.
Even with the pounds having dropped off in the months following Goliath’s return, Miller noticed Goliath showed signs of distress. It looked like he might have an injury, but he couldn’t tell what it was.
Goliath improved over the following summer, but by the fall he was exhibiting the same symptoms.
On December 6, 2004, Miller found Goliath laying down in the pasture. As he approached, Goliath got on his feet. Later that day, Miller went back outside and found that Goliath was dead.
Miller had his vet examine Goliath that day. The vet found blood in the chest cavity with no other signs of trauma. He diagnosed Goliath as having had a massive heart attack. A necropsy confirmed the finding.
“If I’d have had Goliath the whole time he was missing, who could tell what he would have become?” posited Miller.
Jeff Spence, who is currently accused of murder alongside his wife, Karen, and their daughter, Caitlin, was eventually charged with three third-degree felonies—theft, receiving stolen property and conspiracy to commit theft. He was represented in the criminal trial by local legal legend Ralph Montana.
Mugshot of Jeff Spence, in custody on suspicion of the murder of Kirby Carpenter.
“People told me when he got Montana, who was the best lawyer for counties around, people said ‘You just lost,’” remembered Miller.
The trial lasted a few days. Miller testified against Spence. After both the prosecution and defense teams rested their cases, the jury were given instructions and retired to deliberate. A verdict was returned after about four hours, according to Miller. Guilty.
“The number one jury called me about a month after Jeff was sentenced”, Miller said. “He said, ‘I want you to know it didn’t take four hours. When the twelve of us went to deliberate, we decided to take a vote right off the bat.’ He said it was twelve to nothing right then.”
Jeff Spence continued to proclaim his innocence, telling the Chicago Tribune, “The bottom line is, I was not guilty then, and I’m not guilty now.”
“He never admitted guilt, but his computer was incriminating,” Miller stated. “He told people the cops and the game wardens were picking on him. He didn’t do it. He didn’t know who did it. But his computer proved differently.”
Spence was sentenced to 90 days in the county jail plus seven years of probation for the two counts he was convicted of, which ran concurrently.
“When the judge did that, his wife stood up in court and asked if he could go to his daughter’s graduation,” recalled Miller. “I almost jumped up, but I didn’t. I stayed seated. I wanted to tell the judge, ‘Yes, he can go to his daughter’s graduation. In his pinstripes.’ But I didn’t.”
Caitlin, Jeffrey, and Karen Spence (inlay) are charged with murdering Kirby Carpenter.
Jeff, Karen, and Caitlin Spence are currently being held in the Tippah County, Mississippi jail awaiting trial in the murder of entrepreneur Kirby Carpenter.
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