Former Co-Worker Who Killed Black Man on Camping Trip Will Not Face Charges

After his death on Dec. 12, Pennsylvania’s Venango County District Attorney Shawn White announced at a press conference on Tuesday that Peter Spencer’s death was a result of self-defense under the state’s stand your ground law. Spencer’s family says they are “not surprised” by the announcement—describing his death as a ‘modern-day lynching.’

 

When Spencer’s pregnant fiancée dropped him off for what was supposed to be a fun camping experience with a friend, she didn’t know that it would be the last time she would see him. The 29-year-old Jamaican expat had been invited to the getaway trip by his former co-worker along the Allegheny River in Rockland Township. Spencer was living in Pittsburgh at the time and working in construction.

 

It’s said that he didn’t know the other attendees. Spencer was the only Black person there—the others, including his co-worker, were white.

 

The group was having a good time, according to White. Images captured events from the day that included a visit to a waterfall and an off-roading excursion. Hours later, Spencer would be found by the police face-down on the front lawn of a cabin and shot nine times.

 

What went wrong?

 

According to White, no one was under the influence of any narcotics at the time of interviews. He told the Inquirer, all witnesses were “alert times three.” But when police arrived at the scene at around 2:30 a.m., they found multiple firearms, “ballistic evidence” and controlled substances at the cabin.

 

The Daily Beast conducted an interview with Spencer’s mother Icilda Hunter who maintains her son had always been afraid to take drugs and hated taking over-the-counter medications.

 

During the press conference, White admitted there had been no previous history of drugs attached to Spencer—going as far as to say that Spencer told the other campers, he’d never taken psychedelic drugs before. A toxicology report revealed psilocin—a hallucinogen that is said to cause panic attacks and psychosis. The effects of psilocin are similar to LSD and last for hours.  

 

The shooter admitted to ingesting mushrooms which were said to have contained psilocin that day, but his toxicology test came back clean.

 

The investigations into the firearms and drugs at the scene are ongoing. As this story goes live, the origins of both, remain unknown.

 

Spencer began “acting crazy,” White said during the press conference. Investigators concluded the 29-year-old was shooting his AK-47 assault rifle into the sky, after—according to the campers, he began acting “angry and erratic.”

 

But it wasn’t until he pointed his rifle at his co-worker, according to investigators, that the shooter believed Spencer was in danger of being killed.

 

Six of the nine shots Spencer received were to the chest and his mother still has questions.

 

“They said Peter was going crazy shooting at people in a crowd,” she said to the Daily Beast, adding that police had told her no one else got shot that night. “Nobody got hurt, but he is shot and killed dead?” she questioned.

 

White said the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) had Spencer and his fiancée under investigation for the AK-47, which was missing a serial number, and an AR-15 also found at the scene.

 

When dropping him off at the cabin, his fiancée told investigators she didn’t see Spencer taking any guns with him. White says the AR-15 was purchased by her.

 

Weapons were present because the group were to go hunting and started doing so at around 9 p.m. the night Spencer died.

 

Whether his shooter’s gun was investigated, or legally registered was not revealed at the conference.

 

At one point, the campers all claim Spencer said he would “shoot up the place.”

 

The family maintains his killing was a “modern-day lynching.”

 

We previously reported on the passing of the Anti-Lynching Act, also named for Emmett Till, classifying lynching as a conspiracy to commit a hate crime that results in death or serious bodily injury. Perpetrators of lynching could face up to 30 years in prison.

 

Such allegations in the area where Spencer was killed, are handled by the Pennsylvania State Police’s Heritage Affairs team, which according to their website, is primarily responsible for training troopers on implicit bias, building relationships within historically underserved communities, and preventing and responding to hate/bias-related crimes. This investigation was handled by Cpl. Aaron Allen who is the Western Heritage Affairs Liaison Officer.

 

On Tuesday, Allen met with Spencer’s family to walk them through their decision to not classify the death as a hate crime, but the details of the investigation were not shared with the press.

When asked about the family’s reaction, Allen declined to answer, though he did say, “There was a lot of emotion.”

 

Federal hate crime charges could still be filed—though that decision would rest solely on Cindy Chung, the U.S. attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania who has held the office since November 2021. That same year she co-taught as an adjunct a course on federal hate crimes at the University of Pittsburgh School of Law. From 2007-2009 she served as Investigation Counsel in the Official Corruption Unit.

 

Spencer’s family is planning their own press conference to happen sometime next week. “Accompanied by Dr. Cyril Wecht” Attorney Paul Jubas said in a statement, “(we) will hold a news conference to respond in full to today’s news conference by the Venango County District Attorney and PA State Police.”

 

According to his website, Dr. Wecht is a forensic pathologist, attorney and medical-legal consultant who has performed over 17,000 autopsies and has supervised, reviewed, or consulted on approximately 30,000 additional postmortem examinations.

 

Spencer’s Brother, Tehilah told CBS, “It seems he left out key information, which we will address in due time.”