LITTLETON, W. Va. — Two Pennsylvania residents could be back in West Virginia as early as next week to face murder charges in relation to a January triple homicide in Wetzel County.
On Tuesday, the West Virginia State Police announced State Troopers in Pennsylvania arrested Samuel Lee Spencer, 25, and his girlfriend Natasha Lynn Burns, 26 — both of Wind Ridge,Pennsylvania — on three counts of first degree murder at 10:38 a.m. on Monday.
Investigating troopers filed charges against the two following interviews, the viewing of video surveillance and the examination of physical evidence.
The key piece of evidence, according to Corporal W. D. Henderson of the Hundred Detachment, was Burns’ car.
“We siezed the vehicle, sent it to the lab, got some good DNA evidence out of that vehicle, which lead us to the suspects,” he said. “Everything just fell into place and I was able to get probable cause for the arrest warrants.”
It’s alleged the pair stabbed and killed Michael, 63, and Carmen McDougal, 55, and Jimmy Kisner, 49, of Aleppo, Pensylvania on January 14. The couple then set fire to the McDougals’s house in the community of Littleton.
Henderson said Kisner was at the home merely to visit his friends.
“He was often there. He was just a good friend and he was just at the wrong place at the wrong time.”
After thourough investigation, motive for the murders is still unclear.
However, Henderson postulates revenge may have been a factor.
Prior to the January 14 murder, Spencer’s first cousin was shot four times by three suspects from Uniontown on the McDougal’s property during a drug deal in 2012.
“McDougal would let these guys come in from Uniontown and do their drug transaction on his property between these guys from Uniontown and these Spencers,” Henderson, who is investigating both cases, said.
Though Spencer’s cousin survived the shooting, the family was angry at the McDougals, blaming them for the incident, and reportedly threatend taking revenge.
“Mrs. McDougal in the past had called me and said that she had recieved calls, or word through the rumor mill, that [the Spencers] were going to get them back,” Henderson said. “That’s how I came to that conclusion [of a revenge motive].”
Spencer and Burns both were denied bail by the Greene County, Pennsylvania Magisterial District Justice Louis Dayich, committed to the Greene County Prison and are scheduled to appear for an extradition hearing July 28 in Waynesburg, Pennsylvania.