Man convicted of murder at 12 linked to car theft

One of the youngest people convicted of murder in Washington state has been implicated by federal investigators in a car theft case at the Port of Tacoma.

The probe concerns six new imported vehicles worth more than $152,000 that were taken from locked storage areas late at night in November 2006 and June 2007 by thieves who used bolt cutters to get through a chain link fence on one occasion and rammed a gate with a stolen Honda Accord on another.

According to U.S. District Court filings, 20-year-old Jamar Jay Spencer's fingerprints were found on plastic sheets that were used to protect some of the cars, which were awaiting Customs clearance. Spencer, serving a state prison term on an unrelated charge, admitted he was involved but said he was a "peon," investigators wrote.

He was indicted in July on conspiracy to remove goods from the U.S. Customs and Border Protection and two counts of removing goods from the agency. He pleaded innocent last month and is scheduled for a pretrial hearing Sept. 22 in U.S. District Court.

Defense lawyer Philip I. Brennan Jr. would not comment.

"We're in the very early stages," Brennan said.

Spencer achieved notoriety when he was among the youngest of eight young people who were convicted in the beating death of a 30-year-old musician, Erik Toews, who was walking from his mother's home to that of a friend on Aug. 19, 2000. He was 12 at the time. Police say the motive was boredom.

Pierce County prosecutors said Spencer cooperated with investigators and accepted responsibility for his actions. He pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and first-degree robbery and was sentenced in 2002 to as long as 8 1/2 years in state juvenile custody.

Daniel Robertson, a spokesman for the state Juvenile Rehabilitation Administration in the Department of Social and Health Services, said he was barred by privacy laws from giving any information on programs in which Spencer participated while in custody.

Spencer was released in January 2006 and within a year fell in with Michael David Gillen, 22, who previously worked at a port operation in New Mexico and devised a plan to steal cars in Tacoma and sell them cheap on the street, according to federal court filings.

Gillen, also charged in Pierce County Superior Court with theft and malicious mischief, is accused of showing Spencer and other young men where to find keys to the cars and how to cut through fences without triggering sensors that would alert security guards.

Gillen, who was released on bail after pleading innocent to all state and federal charges, was "the main guy" and "called all of the shots," Spencer told federal investigators.

The car theft in which Spencer is charged occurred while he was free on bail after being charged in neighboring King County with illegal gun possession and riding in a stolen car. Last October he pleaded guilty and is now serving a two-year, seven-month sentence at the state prison complex in Monroe.

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Information from: The News Tribune, http://www.thenewstribune.com