| The Palm Beach Post
Editor’s note: This story first appeared in The Palm Beach Post on April 5, 1986.
This story on Anita Spearman’s killing in 1985 is part of a new True Crime series by The Palm Beach Post.
Gun for hire 37-year-old professional mercenary desires jobs. Vietnam veteran. Discreet and very private bodyguard, courier, and other special skills. All jobs.
That was an ad that ran on page 107 of the September issue of Solder of Fortune magazine. The ad included a phone number and an address in Gatlinburg, Tenn. They belonged, according to an affidavit filed yesterday (April 4, 1985) by sheriff’s investigators, to Richard Savage.
Savage, now accused of being a contract killer, is owner of the Continental Club, a striptease bar in Knoxville, Tenn., that has been raided various times by local authorities.
Two employees at the club, the investigators said, were Sean T. Doutre, a bouncer and sometime hitman, and Ronald L. Emert, a “bagman” — the one who admitted ferrying money from Robert Spearman to Savage.
Robert Spearman, a former Marine, kept copies of Soldier of Fortune around his suburban Lake Park home, according to his mother-in-law. In October, investigators say Spearman called Savage five times. He wanted Savage to arrange the murder of Spearman’s wife, Anita, the assistant city manager of West Palm Beach, according to the probable cause affidavit.
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They negotiated a price.
“The contract killing of Anita Spearman was for $20,000,” the affidavit says.
‘He wanted to see her suffering stop’
Spearman, the affidavit said, told Savage his wife “was dying of cancer and was in bad shape and he wanted to see her suffering stopped.” Later, Spearman told Emert, “he had to resort to prostitutes and other women to take care of his needs and that he’d found somebody else.”
The contract, detailed in sheriff’s Detective William Springer’s formal accusation, involved the delivery of money by Spearman to two men on three occasions, one muffed murder attempt and finally the Nov. 16 beating death of Mrs. Spearman as she lay in her bed.
These were details, though, that sheriff’s detectives did not learn until after March 18, when they received a call from a federal Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent in Knoxville. That, detectives said, was the turning point in what had been a fruitless investigation.
How the murder of Anita Spearman went down
The following is a chronology of the events that unfolded in the death of Mrs. Spearman and the arrest of her husband, according to Springer’s affidavit.
On Oct. 16, Savage flew to Palm Beach International Airport, where he collected $2,000 from Spearman, Emert said. That same day, Savage asked Emert to drive to West Palm Beach to pick up the rest of the money.
Emert and Doutre left Knoxville Oct. 20 in a white Toyota Corolla, drove straight through and arrived in West Palm Beach Oct. 21
Before they left, Emert was given $50 in travel money and a piece of paper on which was written Spearman’s name and address (on a canal off Prosperity Farms Road, north of PGA Boulevard between what is now Palm Beach Gardens and Juno Beach). He also was given the phone number of Spearman’s marine construction company, which Emert wrote on another piece of paper. Detectives said they recovered the second piece of paper.
Emert was told to collect $18,000 from Spearman, give $1,000 to Doutre plus $250 for expenses and then fly back to Tennessee. Doutre was to be left with the car.
A quick meeting at North Palm Beach Denny’s; smothering requested
In West Palm Beach, Emert and Doutre checked into an Econo Lodge and called Spearman at work. Emert said they then met with Spearman at 2 pm Oct. 21 for about 20 minutes in the parking lot of Denny’s Restaurant at US 1 in North Palm Beach.
Emert said Spearman told him “he wanted it to look like a burglary and that his wife would be in the wheelchair, that she was taking medication …that she would be drowsy and that he didn’t want any blood or mess …that he would prefer for Anita Spearman to be smothered or something like that.”
Spearman also wanted the killing done in the late afternoon and he wanted it done within a week. Emert said Spearman said he would leave the sliding glass doors open, and he wanted the killer to ransack the house and take Mrs. Spearman’s jewelry, Emert told the police.
Spearman kept talking. “His wife’s illness was getting on his nerves,” Emert said. “He loved her clearly, but he had found somebody else. After Anita Spearman was killed, he was planning on taking a long vacation.”
Then Spearman gave Emert a manila envelope containing two business-sized envelopes. In each of the smaller envelopes was $4,000, Emert said. Spearman told him he’d have to get the other $10,000 out of a safety deposit box the next day.
Next, Spearman show them where he lived. Spearman drove his Chevy Blazer while Emert and Doutre followed in the Toyota. When Spearman pulled into his driveway, they drove by.
Emert and Doutre went to have a $524 stereo system installed at World of Sound, and they checked into another hotel, Hollywood Palms in West Palm Beach.
About 10 am Oct. 22 again in the Denny’s parking lot, Spearman delivered the remaining $10,000 to Emert. The money was packaged similarly to that of the day before. Spearman told Emert then that he had located Savage through the Soldier of Fortune ad.
At first, Doutre failed to carry out Anita Spearman’s murder
Emert said he took a Blue Front jitney from Denny’s to Palm Beach International Airport and caught a flight back to Knoxville. Later, he was paid $500, half of what he was to receive from Savage’s wife, Debra.
Meanwhile, Doutre was supposed to have killed Mrs. Spearman. Emert later learned from Savage that “Doutre had fouled up the contract to kill Mrs. Spearman.”
Investigators later determined from records that eight more phone calls were made form Spearman’s business to Savage’s club or home between Oct. 25 and Nov 11.
Emert said Savage told him on Thanksgiving Day, Nov. 29, that “he had to send Doutre back to Florida to complete the contract … that Doutre had taken care of it, meaning the murder of Anita Spearman.”
Mrs. Spearman’s body was found by her husband about 7:50 am Nov. 16. Part of her battered skull was covered by a pillow and her left foot hung off the bed.
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Detectives found a side door on the west side of the garage standing open. They said they believed it was the point of entry, but they could not find any evidence that it had been forced open.
Detectives interviewed Spearman on Nov. 16 and again on Nov. 18. He said he had awakened about 6 am Nov. 16 and looked in Mrs. Spearman’s bedroom. She was asleep. He said they slept in different rooms because she had had surgery and his movement in bed hurt her.
Spearman looked back in later and found his wife awake. While she went to the bathroom, he brought her a glass of apple juice. Then he told her goodbye and said he would buy her a sausage biscuit at a McDonald’s restaurant.
He said he had breakfast with Leon Hodge, owner of E&H Boat Works at the Denny’s in North Palm Beach from about 6:30 to 7 am before he bought the biscuit for Mrs. Spearman and went to his business, Bob’s Boat Works, on Idlewild Road in Lake Park. He stayed there from 7 to 8 am when he went home to check on Mrs. Spearman.
As soon as Spearman entered his wife’s bedroom, he saw jewelry boxes overturned on the dresser.
Mrs. Spearman, white and cold with some blood on her, was lying on the bed with sheets strewn everywhere.
When he could not wake her, he went to the kitchen. The phone was off the hook. Spearman picked it up and called the emergency number for the police and rescue squad before he went across the street to a neighbor’s house.
Wedding band with ‘I love you forever’ inscribed missing from the Spearmans’ home
Spearman told detectives that a keepsake diamond ring and a wedding band with “I love you forever” inscribed inside were missing from Mrs. Spearman’s hand.
He also said he was missing an Ithaca 12-gauge shotgun that he had bought from Tuppen’s sporting goods store in West Palm Beach. He said he didn’t know the serial number.
On Nov. 17, Doutre was arrested in Maryville, Tenn., for possession of a Toyota rental car that hadn’t been returned in Houston. Maryville police had investigated Doutre after he was involved in a traffic accident with the car on Oct. 27
Police confiscated several guns, including Spearman’s shotgun, from the car after Doutre was arrested. He told police that the guns belonged to Savage. He had driven the car to Florida and Georgia on several occasions.
Police checked the guns with the National Crime Information Center to see if the guns had been stolen. Nothing turned up on Spearman’s shotgun because Palm Beach County Sheriff’s detectives did not know its serial number.
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On Nov. 19, sheriff’s detective Van Garner learned the serial number from Tuppen’s and entered it into the NCIC as a stolen weapon.
I wasn’t until March 19 that agent Grant McGarity of the federal bureau of Alcohol. Tobacco and Firearms office in Knoxville called sheriff’s detective Sgt. John Kianka and said he had Spearman’s stolen shotgun. McGarity also said Emert had given him a statement about coming to Florida to collect money from Spearman for the contract killing.
On March 20, Springer went to Knoxville to interview Emert. Afterward, detectives checked out his story.
A receipt from the Econo-Lodge showed that a person who stayed there Oct. 21 had the same address as Emert once did in Wayne, Mich. The registration card at Hollywood Palms showed Emert had checked in there Oct. 21
A check at World of Sound showed that a man with the same address as Doutre in Knoxville paid cash for a stereo on Oct. 21
Robert Dix, the Blue Front jitney driver, remembered picking up a white man who stopped at a convenience store to buy envelopes and then stuffed money in them on the way to the airport. Detectives checked with Delta Air Lines to find that Emert flew from West Palm Beach to Knoxville with a change of flights in Atlanta Oct. 22
Phone records showed 13 calls made from Spearman’s business to Savage between Oct. 13 and Nov 11.
A receipt dated Nov. 14 from “Top Hat Car Wash” in West Palm Beach or Riviera Beach was found in Doutre’s car.
Doutre’s wife, Linda, told police that her husband had brought her some jewelry — a tricolored bracelet and a pearl necklace — when he returned from Florida in November.
Everything finally fell into place for sheriff’s detectives.