Jackson Jambalaya

The Clarion-Ledger continues to bungle the Heather Spencer murder story in its latest coverage. Perhaps this should be expected as the newspaper has rotated this story among FIVE different reporters: Goldstein, Joyner, Gates, and two others whose names I can't remember. What a nice way to cover stories: transfer them from reporter to reporter to that no one develops any true knowledge on the subject and the reporter is always scrambling to develop new contacts on research.

The Cl reported recently:
"Linda Francomb of Leelanau County, Mich., filed the lawsuit against George Bell III and Robbie Bell on behalf of her daughter, Mary Heather Spencer.Spencer was raped, beaten and strangled on the night of Sept. 10, 2007. Her body lay in Robbie Bell's Jackson home for hours before being discovered the next day.The lawsuit, filed June 2 in Hinds County Circuit Court, states Robbie Bell should have known her son, George, had "severe personal and emotional problems," including a history of drug addition and violence.
The lawsuit, which seeks unspecified damages, says Robbie Bell was home the night of Sept. 10 and that if she or George Bell III had called for medical attention or law enforcement, Spencer would not have died.
George Bell III held officers at bay on Sept. 11 at a Jackson gas station for more than four hours with a gun to his head and his mother by his side before surrendering. He pleaded guilty to capital murder and was sentenced in February to life in prison without parole.
Robbie Bell was charged with accessory after the fact. Mississippi Attorney General Jim Hood said his office later dropped that charge because there was a lack of evidence in the case."I think certainly Linda hopes to obtain some justice and wants to know what happened," said Eric Stracener, Francomb's attorney.
Attorneys for Robbie Bell and George Bell III could not be reached for comment.
To comment on this story, call Blair Goldstein at (601) 961-7034."

There are several problems with this story. When Ms. Goldstein wrote this story, it was her FIRST week working at The Clarion-Ledger. Nice work guys. Assign this story to a brand new reporter. I mention this because it explains some of her errors, which were probably upsetting to the family, to say the least.

The first error occurred when she reported Ms. Spencer was strangled. There was no strangling. period. The autopsy never once mentions strangled. The FIRST time the word "strangling" ever appeared was by George Bell, III in his guilty plea. See previous post on the case:
"I just saw something that caught my eye on the WJTV website:"Bell admitted to kidnapping, sexually assaulting and then beating and strangling his girlfriend, Heather Spencer, to death. " http://www.wapt.com/news/15211732/detail.html
This very interesting for several reasons. This is the first time a possible strangling was mentioned. All other media coverage has omitted that word as it has been consistently reported Mr. Bell beat the late Heather Spencer to death and sexually assaulted her. It is strange suddenly today, Mr. Bell said under oath that he strangled Ms. Spencer.
If Ms. Spencer's death was caused by strangling, that would mean she probably died during Monday evening, not Tuesday morning. This is VERY important since Mr. Bell's mother, Robbie Bell, was indicted for being an accessory as the media reported it was possible Ms. Spencer died Tuesday morning, not Monday evening. Such a scenario would provide Ms. Bell with a possible defense as she would probably not at home when the attack occurred.
There is just one problem with this defense and it is the fact the autopsy established a time of death, and it supposedly was on September 11, not 10. Either she died earlier of strangulation, which would shut off the oxygen to the brain or she died of the beating. This is important as it has been alleged Ms. Spencer did not die for several hours. The coroner's report will state the cause of death and if the allegations are true, consequently, there remains a strong possibility a conspiracy between Mr. Bell and his mother exists and his statement he strangled Heather (the family was outraged when they heard this, one of the relatives started shouting it was a lie in the courtroom) is his attempt to get Robbie Bell off the hook." http://kingfish1935.blogspot.com/search?q=strangled

What Ms. Blair did was read her little archives, probably just the story reporting on the guilty plea, saw the word "strangled", and ran with it, not bothering to talk to other reporters that covered the story or examine their research.

The second error was when she reported Ms. Bell was in the car with George Bell, III as he held a gun to her head for several hours. Um, no Ms. Goldstein. If you had bothered to read the archives or examine the video, you would have seen immediately such was not the case. She was outside of the car for the whole ordeal. The only person George Bell, III pointed a gun at in the car was himself. There has been no testimony that a gun was held to her head. Nice try to build false sympathy for the defendant in this lawsuit.

"Kingfish, you're being a little hard on this reporter." Not really. After the newspaper referred to Robbie Bell as Robbie Spencer and refused to apologize for it after being notified of the outrageous error, they get no breaks from me and don't deserve any. Their reporting on this story has been sloppy and they have often gotten the facts wrong. At times one wonders if the conspiracy theories about the CL helping Ms. Bell because she is in the media are true or if the reporting and editing is that bad. I'm inclined to believe the latter is true. See additional Heather Spencer posts on the bottom right hand side of the page.