SPENCER, Sandy

Wickenburg Sun, Wickenburg, Arizona January 8, 1976 Sandy Spencer, a 19-year-old high school senior, was found strangled to death two miles south of Wittmann New year’s Day. The woman’s nude body was discovered by three horseback riders about noon in an open desert area approximately 300 feet North of Patton Road east of Crozier Road, according to Deputy Phil Yale of the Maricopa County Sheriff‘s Department. The Maricopa County medical examiner called to the scene determined the cause of death to be suffocation. Stab wounds were found on the woman’s lower abdomen. Miss Spencer, who lived with her parents at 39th Drive in Phoenix, was last seen alive at 12:30 a.m. Wednesday morning when she left her job at a west side Jack-in-the Box drive in. Miss Spencer is the seventh young Phoenix area woman found murdered since 1971, and the fourth since this October. Deputy Yale said there are a number of similar circumstances surrounding the deaths. . . most victims were in their late teens or early 20’s most were abducted from the west side of Phoenix near McDowell Road and most have been found in open desert areas northwest of Phoenix. The causes of death have not been consistent, though, and Deputy Yale said there has not yet been a definite link established to relate all murders to one killer. Detectives have been assigned to each individual case, and there is a team of detectives working to coordinate evidence to see if there is a profile, he said. Three days before Miss Spencer was killed, the body of another Phoenix woman was found near Bartlett Lake northeast of Phoenix. Cause of death was manual strangulation. “We’re pretty close to a solution on this one,” said Dep. Yale. “The husband has given us a statement in regard to his wife’s death,” he said. Dep. Yale said that to his knowledge none of the murdered women were from the Wittmann area. Most were abducted on the west side of Phoenix, usually late night, and always from somewhere other than their homes. “Most bodies have been found in a general area northwest of Phoenix . . .in open desert areas that are on a rapid route out of Phoenix.” He said.