Al Spencer

Al Spencer was an outlaw whose account, as later relayed by Dick Gregg, offered one of the clearest indications that William K. Hale had tried to hire gunmen to kill William Smith and Rita Smith. Spencer refused the proposed job, but his later death left the story difficult to verify and of limited value as courtroom evidence.

Identity and Place in the Investigation

Spencer was associated with the Al Spencer Gang, a group known for robbery and violence. By the time T. B. White sought information about the Smith house bombing, Spencer had already been killed. White therefore learned of Spencer’s connection to Hale’s alleged murder plot through Gregg, who had belonged to the gang and was then serving a robbery sentence.

Gregg had reason to be wary of speaking about Hale. He reportedly feared that if word got out, his life would be in danger. He nevertheless agreed to tell White and other agents what he knew, hoping to reduce his sentence. Spencer’s account thus reached investigators indirectly: Gregg described what Spencer had told the gang after a private conversation with Hale.

The Proposed Smith Murders

Gregg placed the meeting in the summer of 1922. According to his recollection, Spencer and several associates went to one of Hale’s pastures near Fairfax after Spencer said Hale wanted to meet with the gang. Hale rode up through the tall prairie grass, and the group gathered by a creek and shared whiskey. Hale then took Spencer aside. After the two returned and the gathering broke up, Spencer told the others what Hale had proposed.

As Gregg recounted it, Hale offered at least $2,000 to kill a couple: an older man and a woman. When Spencer asked whom Hale meant, Hale named William Smith and his wife, Rita Smith. Spencer rejected the offer, saying that he would not kill a woman for money. Gregg said Hale hoped he might accept the job instead, but Gregg also declined.

The account gave the proposed bombing a possible connection to a hired-gunman network: Hale, according to Gregg, had approached Spencer through a criminal gang rather than carrying out the violence himself. It did not establish who later planted the bomb or prove that Hale ordered the attack. Its significance lay in the alleged offer and the identity of the intended victims, not in a witnessed murder.

Testimony and Its Limits

White believed Gregg was speaking honestly and regarded Spencer’s refusal as evidence that the outlaw retained a boundary against killing women for hire. That judgment did not remove the evidentiary weakness. Gregg was a convicted robber seeking a shorter sentence, and Spencer—the person who could have confirmed what Hale said—was no longer alive.

Another possible source was also unavailable. Gregg told agents to find Curley Johnson, saying Johnson knew about the Smith house bombing and would talk. Johnson had died suddenly less than a year earlier; the reported explanation was poisoned alcohol. Spencer’s death and Johnson’s absence left investigators with no direct corroboration of Gregg’s account.

Death and Narrative Significance

A photograph caption records that Spencer was shot dead on September 15, 1923, after a posse of lawmen caught up with him. The newspaper account of his death described a famous bandit dying with a Winchester in his hands, in the hills that had sheltered him. By the time Gregg named him as a witness, Spencer’s violent end had already turned a potentially testable lead into hearsay.

Spencer’s role in the investigation is therefore defined by both the information attributed to him and its limits. His refusal to participate did not undo Hale’s alleged attempt to recruit the gang, but it placed a reluctant outlaw at the center of a chain of testimony that White could not fully close. Spencer offered a glimpse of how the Smiths may have been targeted; his death helped ensure that the glimpse could not, by itself, become proof.