416: Jerry Spurgers – Abduction of Kacie Rene Woody, A Parent's Worst Nightmare

In this episode, retired agent Jerry Spurgers reviews his investigation into the abduction and murder of thirteen-year-old Kacie Rene Woody by a 47-year-old California man named David Leslie Fuller. Kaci met Fuller, who posed as a 17-year-old named David Fagen, in a Christian chat room for teens.

Jerry Spurgers worked this case with a team of local detectives, sheriff’s deputies, and members of the Little Rock Division’s Evidence Response Team.

Jerry is the author of A Parent’s Worst Nightmare: True Stories of the FBI’s response to Missing Children is a collection of eight cases in which FBI agents and support personnel in Arkansas and their state and local counterparts raced against the clock as they attempted to rescue missing children. Not only does the book tell the story of innocent victims, but it shows the importance of interagency cooperation while also ensuring parents and caregivers are aware of the perils our children face. Kacie Rene Woody’s case is featured in the book.

This is Jerry’s second true crime book. He reviewed the case featured in his first book, Murder at Midnight: The FBI’s Battle With Violence and Drugs In A Small Southern Town, on FBI Case File Review episode 388: Jerry Spurgers – Disappearance and Murder of Federal Witness, Death Crime Scenes.

“So we’re trying to figure out who David Fagan is, and as we’re doing this, primary investigators at this point in time are the Arkansas State Police, Faulkner County Sheriff’s Office, and the FBI. Conway, Arkansas, is located probably 20 minutes or so from where Casey lived. Their detective sergeant for their criminal investigative division took the initiative and had his detectives checking with the hotel personnel and see if they could locate a David Fagan. And fairly soon, they went to a hotel that the manager said, ‘We don’t have a David Fagan, but we have a guy named David Fuller.'”Retired Agent Jerry Spurgers

Photo by Trenton Almgren-Davis/Arkansas House of Representatives.

Special Agent (Retired)

Jerry Spurgers

5/1997–1/2021

Retired agent Jerry Spurgers served in the FBI for 24 years. After graduating from the FBI Academy, he was assigned to the Little Rock Field Office, where he worked on the Violent Crime squad. His duties ranged from working automobile “chop shops” and interstate theft cases to extortions, kidnappings, bank robberies, and homicides in which the federal government had jurisdiction. He was promoted to supervisory special agent and managed the squad for several years before stepping down.

For most of his career, he was a member of the Evidence Response Team (ERT), a collateral duty he assumed in addition to his violent crime work. This duty allowed Jerry to process a variety of crime scenes in Arkansas as well as to respond to the Egyptian Airliner crash in 1999, to the Staten Island landfill following the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and to New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. He also taught forensic classes to state and local officers in Arkansas and international students in El Salvador and homicide investigators in Vancouver, Canada.

Jerry’s favorite aspect of ERT was assisting other agencies in homicide cases, which afforded him the rare opportunity as an FBI agent to participate in over 25 death investigations. While most of these were local matters, some were prosecuted in the federal system. Five of those investigations involved serial killers.

After Jerry retired from the FBI, he was hired by the Arkansas House of Representatives as the Chief Security Officer/Sergeant at Arms.