Douglas Stewart

We all know that when someone disappears or is murdered the first suspects are those closest to the victim. It is not necessarily unusual for one spouse to kill another or to even pay someone else to do it for them. In fact, I have often said that sadly those sorts of cases are almost “run of the mill” cases. It is also not unusual for a convicted perpetrator to maintain their innocence for... well, forever. The latter is one of the main things that make this case a bit unique from other cases. Even still this case has a few twists and turns that you do not see often.

Doug Stewart and his wife, Venus, had a very fast courtship. They were married four days after they had met each other. Doug's sister was friends with Venus and had introduced them. They both lived near the Colon Michigan area. After a few years they began to have some problems and for whatever reason they decided that moving to another area would give them a “do over” and would energize their marriage if for no other reason than for their two young daughters. The couple decided to move to Newport News Virginia. It is unclear how long they were there but in early 2010 the marriage was still failing and Venus decided to move back to Michigan with their two daughters and filed for divorce.

There seems to be a bit of a dispute as to what was the cause of the breakdown of the marriage. There was a lot of talk about Doug being very involved with playing X-box. And, while it does play a prominent role in what happened later I have to say I am unsure that it was as bad prior as being described. On the other hand, living with "gamers" I also know how out of control it can become. That being said, I found at least one article that stated there were police reports that stated Venus had left Doug due to accusations of domestic violance as well as accusing him of molesting one of their daughters. In fairness, I must say that it I did not find anything else on these accusations. In fact, I recently watched a television episode on this case and I do not recall seeing this mentioned.

Venus and the girls moved in with her parents in February of 2010 back in Colon Michigan. On the morning of April 26, 2010 she had gone outside to get the mail and had simply disappeared. Her father, who seemingly worked a night shift job and been awoken by the girls and discovered his daughter gone.

It seemed obvious that Venus had not just simply left the home. As is most often the case Venus' family and friends never believed she would have left her children. On top of this all indications were that Venus was still in her night clothes when she stepped outside the home and she took nothing with her including her car, or her phone. There was one thing that investigators thought could link them to a suspect, packaging for a plastic tarp. This was collected as evidence.

Of course Doug Stewart was first on the suspect list due to his history with Venus and the fact that everyone informed the investigators that the pending divorce was acrimonious. Investigators rushed to talk to him. Doug insisted that he was not involved in the disappearance of his wife and that he had remained in Virginia the entire time. Initially to investigators he seemed to be telling the truth. On the day of Venus' disappearance Doug's credit card had been used at several places and even a payment was made to his lawyer in his office.

Still investigators couldn't shake their belief that Doug was involved. There just seemed to be no other suspects in Venus' disappearance. This would indicate that this could have been a random crime by a stranger. While those types of crimes happen, they are rare and much harder to solve so investigators thought they needed to look a bit deeper into Doug and his alibi. They were able to trace his phone and Internet activity and this led them to a man named Ricky Spencer.

One thing that was very much common knowledge was that Doug had been very much involved in online gaming. Some felt his lifestyle of playing X-Box on a regular basis was at least part of the problems between Doug and Venus. Doug spent a lot of time not only playing on the X-Box but also chatting through X-Box Live with other players. This is where Doug Stewart met Ricky Spencer, a resident of Delaware. Investigators were able to get cell phone records belonging to Doug and saw several phone calls, especially around the time of Venus' disappearance between Doug and Ricky Spencer. Once investigators got a look at Ricky Spencer they realized that he looked rather similar to Doug Stewart. They also ran Ricky Spencer's phone and they realized that around the time of Venus' disappearance Ricky's phone came on for a short period of time but it pinged just blocks from Doug's home. Now investigators wanted to talk to Ricky Spencer.

Investigators knew when they first began speaking to Ricky that he was not completely telling the truth. He admitted that he had visited with Doug Stewart in March during "Spring Break Week" saying only that the two had met on X-Box Live. It seems that Ricky knew that investigators knew there had been several phone calls between the two but it does not appear that he realized that they already knew that his phone had pinged in Virginia during the time that Venus had disappeared. So, when they asked Ricky when he had last seen Doug he had stated during that week in March. When they confronted him with the information that they knew Ricky cracked and began telling another story.

Now, if you read the stories from that time period, as well as those throughout Doug Stewart's subsequent trial and for many years after his conviction you will get the impression that the only "real" evidence prosecutors had on him was the word of Ricky Spencer. Defense attorney's would hammer this through to the jury and would point out that Ricky had not only initially attempted to lie to the investigators, but he had also lied to his parents about his whereabouts and his reasoning for them. However, this is not completely true. I am not going to say that there are not cases out there that have not relied solely on the word of another person but in general those types of cases are rare. For the most part law enforcement and prosecutors do not just go on the word of someone else. First they will try to verify the story they are told with others and they look for more evidence independant of the story told by another person. They know that not everything they are told is the truth so they have to find the evidence to prove what the person has told them. This is not to say that the initial story is not taken seriously, because it is and it give the investigators a little more to look into. That is what happened in this case.

Ricky told investigators that after meeting Doug in person during March he had met with him two other times. Both times the two met up in Maryland and parted ways while Ricky headed to Doug's apartment in Newport News and, according to Ricky, Doug headed to Michigan. Ricky admitted that he knew that Doug had intended to murder Venus when he went to Michigan.

The first attempt was made when the two men met on April 15^th. Ricky claimed that the following morning he got a phone call from Doug Stewart telling him that the plan was off because he had been pulled over by a police officer in Ohio. Ricky told investigators that the plan had been for Ricky to impersonate Doug while he was gone so that it appeared that Doug was still in Newport News and solidified an alibi for him. Ricky insisted to investigators that upon Doug's return he had informed him that he would not help him in another attempt but that Doug had all but blackmailed him and threatened to tell Ricky's parents things that either were not true at all or things that Ricky knew they would disapprove. So, the two men met up again on April 25^th.

Once again Doug headed towards Michigan while Ricky headed to Virginia to impersonate Doug. Ricky stated that on the morning of April 26^th Doug had called him and told him that he had murdered Venus. According to Ricky, Doug told him that he had attacked and grabbed Venus outside her parents' home. He then placed Venus in her car and drove to a selcuded area in which he had previous knowledge. Doug allegedly believed that Venus was already dead but upon reaching his destination he realized she was still alive. At this point Ricky stated that Doug told him that he then put Venus in a "head lock until her nose bled" and he knew she was dead. He then buried her and headed back towards Virginia. After the phone call Ricky left Doug's apartment and and went to Doug's lawyer's office to make a payment. He had gone in there wearing a hoodie sweatshirt and sunglasses. After leaving the attorney's office Ricky then used Dougs credit card at a movie theater and a fast food restaurant.

When confronted with Ricky Spencer's confession Doug Stewart stood his ground calling Ricky a liar and insisting he was not involved in the disappearance, and now murder allegations, of his wife. For investigators they dug in deeper. First they were able to determine that Ricky's story about Doug telling him he was pulled over by a police officer in Ohio turned out to be true. Then there was a search made on Doug's vehicle. Inside they found a receipt from a Wal-Mart in Ohio. The receipt showed that a plastic tarp and a shovel were bought. If you ever watch or read true crime things then you know that if someone is planning a murder, or has committed one, the worse idea they can have is to go shopping at Wal-Mart for items. They keep excellent records and a lot of video evidence. By the time investigators were all done they could prove that Doug Stewart had gone into the Wal-Mart in Ohio on his way to Michigan and walked out with a plastic tarp and shovel, among other things. They were also able to prove that not only the packaging for the tarp found near where Venus disappeared was the same type of tarp that he had bought. To add to this a partial fingerprint had been found on the packaging and they were not able to eliminate Doug as being the person who had left it. So, while Ricky Spencer seemed to get the "ball rolling" and lead investigators in the right direction, it was not solely his confession or "story" as some wanted to say, that prosecutors had against Doug.

All of this information led to Doug's arrest and trial. He was convicted in the murder of his wife and in April of 2011 he was sentenced to life in prison. For his part in failing to report Doug's plan, and impersonating him, Ricky Spencer was given a one year prison sentence and three years of probation. He was released in March of 2012.

Over the next several years Doug Stewart continued insisting he was innocent but appeal after appeal was denied. It seems that even Doug's sister believed he was guilty and apparently told him so. Over the years his sister became very close to Venus' family, and the children her brother shared with Venus. If you ask his sister she will say that the relationship she developed with Venus' mother (her father has since passed away) helped her to convince her brother to talk to authorities. Investigators will say that they visited Doug every year in hopes that he would reveal where Venus' body was located. Regardless who was able to convince Doug to change his story and talk, he finally did so in October of 2018.

Media reports stated that Doug had made a deal with authorities to tell them where to find Venus' body could be found and that it had included allowing him to have an X-Box while he was in prison. Of course this brought a lot of ire from the community at large. Investigators seem to not necessarily dispute that Doug had attempted to negotiate getting an X-Box, but they claim that things were already in the works to bring them to the prison. I am unsure that there is anyway to prove these claims.

In the end, whether he was given promises for things, including the X-Box, the ultimate result was the discovery of Venus' body. In his confession Doug Stewart finally admitted that basically everything Ricky Spencer had told investigators and how prosecutors deducted things was correct. He took investigators to the place in which he had buried her body.

If this case proves anything it is that no matter how adamant a suspect claims to be innocent and can convince some that it is true, that is not always the case.  It took not only pressure from either family or authorities to get Doug to confess, it took him making sure he had no more appeals available to him before he would do so.  Some give him the benefit of the doubt that remorse for his actions make him confess.  Maybe it did. Except I cannot give him that much credit.  In my opinion if he was at all remorseful he would have confessed much, much sooner.

Finally in the end Venus' mother was able to properly bury her daughter.