LEONIDAS, MI (WKZO AM/FM) – NBC offered a two hour long Dateline special on the Venus Stewart murder case Sunday night.
The television show detailed the trial of Doug Stewart, and the critical role that Ricky Spencer played in providing an alibi for Stewart, who traveled from the East Coast to Michigan to commit the crime. It was Spencer’s testimony at trial that was key to getting the conviction.
It was also his testimony that finally convinced Jamie Hess that her brother might be guilty.
Doug Stewart met Spencer gaming online.
When Hess approached Venus’s mother, Therese McComb, to rekindle their friendship last year, they began to apply pressure on Stewart to reveal where she was buried.
That pressure, the exhaustion of his appeals and the promise that Stewart would have access to an X-box in jail finally got him to show detectives where he buried Venus last October.
Venus McComb Stewart was born in Coldwater, Michigan, graduated Bronson High School in 1992, and later earned a bachelor’s degree in law enforcement at Western Michigan University.
She had also worked in the fraud department at PNC bank.
Venus Stewart went missing from outside her parent’s home in Colon Township in April 2010. The disappearance followed a bitter custody dispute. Doug Stewart was convicted of murder by a St. Joseph County jury in 2011 at the end of a three week trial. He is now serving a life prison sentence.
(reporting by John McNeill)
