TIPPAH CO., Miss. (EYT) – Three former Jefferson County residents have been indicted in the murder of Mississippi businessman Kirby Carpenter.
Jeffrey and Karen Spence, along with their daughter, Caitlin, have each been indicted on one count of conspiracy, two counts of larceny, and one count of capital murder.
Carpenter was found shot to death outside his home near Booneville, Mississippi on December 2, 2022.
U.S. Marshals arrested Caitlin Spence on Thursday, November 30, 2023, in Jefferson County. Jeffrey and Karen Spence were arrested the same day in Smyth County, Virginia.
Carpenter’s sister, Kaysie Barnes, said the Tippah County District Attorney’s Office shared the news of the indictment with her family on Monday.
“The District Attorney’s office has contacted our family to inform us that the evidence in Kirby’s case was presented to the grand jury,” said Barnes in a post on the Justice for Kirby Facebook page.
“We’ve been notified that the 3 people previously charged with capital murder in this case (Jeffrey Spence, Karen Spence, and Caitlin Spence) have now been indicted by the grand jury.”
The Tippah County Court delivered the indictments to EYT Media on Thursday.
Kirby Carpenter
Carpenter was a successful serial entrepreneur and dealer of precious metals. His death was reported to authorities on December 2, 2022. They believe Carpenter was murdered with a shotgun or a gun that shoots shotgun-style shells on November 30, after he had returned home from grocery shopping.
Carpenter was in a relationship with Caitlin Spence. The couple lived together in the Dry Creek Community outside Booneville with their infant daughter.
According to sources close to the case, Caitlin’s parents went to visit Carpenter and Spence “for a couple of weeks” following the birth of the child. They ended up staying four months. Caitlin Spence told Carpenter’s family that her parents left Mississippi and went to Virginia the night before Carpenter was killed.
Jeffrey and Karen Spence returned to Mississippi on December 3rd, the day after Carpenter’s body was discovered by Caitlin Spence behind his garage.
The following day, Carpenter’s mother, Mattie Jane Jones, discovered that the locks to the home and the codes to the safes that Carpenter had inside his home—safes used to store precious metals, documents, and guns—had been changed.
“Fearing” that the Spences would abscond with Carpenter’s valuables, which, they say, now belonged to his children, Jones was appointed as administratrix of Kirby Carpenter’s estate.
“We started an immediate inventory to make sure they couldn’t take things out of the home,” said Kaysie Barnes, sister of Kirby Carpenter. “Looking back on it, we should have kicked them out. But in our minds, we were thinking this is the baby’s home. We were so deep in our grief, we just weren’t thinking.”
According to Barnes, it is unknown how many valuables were removed from the home before the inventory.
All three Spences and the baby left Mississippi and traveled back to Virginia on December 20, three days after Carpenter’s funeral, Barnes said.
As the administratrix of the estate, Jones set up child support payments for Carpenter’s baby, which they sent by check to a home in Saltville, Virginia, an address that was given to them by Caitlin Spence. After a couple of months, Carpenter’s family said that Caitlin Spence stopped communicating with them.
After not being able to check on the baby, Barnes said she made a call to law enforcement in Virginia to do a welfare check. When law enforcement arrived, according to Barnes, the house at the address was found to have burned to the ground. The only thing left standing was the mailbox.
Soon after the Spences were arrested, EYT Media broke the news that Jeff Spence paid cash for a Venango County home.
It is unknown what evidence the Tippah County Sheriff’s Department has that established the probable cause for the arrests of Caitlin, Jeffrey, and Karen Spence. An affidavit of probable cause still has not been released to the public.
Karen Spence is a former nurse at Clarion-Limestone High School.
Jeffrey Spence formerly owned the White Oak Whitetail Deer Farm in Reynoldsville, Jefferson County. He was found guilty in 2005 for the 1999 theft of a whitetail deer buck named Goliath. The 28-point buck disappeared from the Wild Bunch Ranch deer farm in Clarion County in October of 1999. The animal was 2 years old at the time of its disappearance and weighed in at 260 pounds.
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