SPANGLER, Donna

The Arizona Republic December 29, 2000. A Colorado man accused of pushing his wife 200 feet to her death in the Grand Canyon more than seven years ago pleaded guilty Wednesday to a first-degree murder charge. Robert Merlin Spangler, 68, of Grand Junction, will be sentenced to life in prison under a plea agreement. He is scheduled to be sentenced March 12, 2001, at U.S. District Court here. Authorities said Spangler confessed to the crime last summer, shortly after being told by doctors that he had terminal lung and brain cancer. He also reportedly confessed to killing his first wife and their two children in 1978. "Spangler is a vicious killer who has been brought to justice," said Jose de Jesus Rivera, U.S. Attorney for Arizona. "It is difficult to comprehend how he could kill his wives and children in such a cold-blooded manner." Donna Sundling Spangler, 58, left behind five grown children and five grandchildren when she died on April 11, 1993, while backpacking with her husband along a developed trail. Robert Spangler told park rangers that his wife had fallen off a redwall on Horseshoe Mesa as she posed for a picture. But the death seemed suspicious to relatives, who said she was agile and afraid of heights. The victim was Robert Spangler's third wife. He also faces three Colorado charges of first-degree murder stemming from the shooting deaths of his first wife, Nancy, and their two teen-age children on Dec. 30, 1978, in Arapahoe County. Spangler told authorities he was enamored with another woman he had met at work - and would later marry - and felt that murder would be easier than divorcing 45-year-old Nancy after 23 years of marriage. His second wife, Sharon, died of a drug overdose at his home on Oct. 2, 1994. The couple was married in 1979 and divorced in 1988. He has not been implicated in that case.