ABINGDON, MD—A 25-year-old Abingdon man has been sentenced to life in prison, with all but 75 years suspended, after pleading guilty to first-degree murder in the stabbing death of a 73-year-old woman in February 2024.

Angelo Terrell Spencer admitted to killing the woman in her Bel Air home during a Friday morning hearing in the Circuit Court for Harford County, according to the Harford County State’s Attorney’s Office. Spencer pleaded guilty before the Honorable Paul Ishak.

The Bel Air Police Department was dispatched to the residence on Feb. 22, 2024, for a reported stabbing and found the 73-year-old victim in the foyer of the home suffering from multiple stab wounds, prosecutors said.

Despite life-saving efforts by emergency medical personnel, the victim was pronounced dead while en route to the hospital, according to the state’s attorney’s office.

The victim’s granddaughter was at the scene and told police that her ex-boyfriend, Spencer, had entered the home and stabbed her grandmother, prosecutors said.

Officers with the Harford County Sheriff’s Office located Spencer at his home and took him into custody, the state’s attorney’s office reported.

After being read his Miranda rights, Spencer agreed to speak with detectives and admitted to texting the victim’s granddaughter the night of the murder and wanting to see her, according to prosecutors.

He told detectives he went to her home, making a noise by “crunching branches” near the rear basement door. When that failed, he got back in his vehicle and drove to the Bel Air Home Depot, the state’s attorney’s office said.

While at the Home Depot, Spencer saw a marked police car in the front of the store and waited for it to leave before entering and purchasing a glass cutter, pocketknife, and a pair of gloves, according to prosecutors.

He then returned to the victim’s residence and used the pocketknife to cut through a piece of the laminate material covering a window of the rear basement door, prosecutors said. He failed to unlock the door, revealing a key lock deadbolt.

Spencer then went to the front of the residence and knocked on the door. When the victim answered, Spencer told her he was “looking for John,” according to the state’s attorney’s office.

The victim told him she didn’t know anyone by that name, and Spencer forced his way into the home, prosecutors said. He admitted to stabbing the victim in the shoulder, panicking, and continuing to stab her multiple times.

The autopsy report revealed that the victim had 25 stab wounds to her neck and upper back area, according to the state’s attorney’s office.

Following the attack, Spencer fled the scene and drove to Bel Air Middle School to pick up his girlfriend from work, prosecutors said. He then went to H&R Block to get his taxes and stopped at the Bel Air Safeway to wash his hands before collecting his daughter from daycare and returning home.

Investigators corroborated Spencer’s version of events after speaking with his girlfriend, who told them she didn’t notice anything strange about Spencer’s behavior, except that she found it odd that he called his son and told him he loved him and cried, according to the state’s attorney’s office.

State’s Attorney Alison M. Healey issued the following statement: “Angelo Spencer deserves every day of this sentence for the violent, unjustified, and brutal murder of this seventy-three-year-old grandmother.”

“The premeditated steps he took to take her life are incomprehensible,” Healey said. “I hope that her family can now have some peace knowing her killer has been held accountable.”

This article was written with the assistance of AI and reviewed by a human editor.

Photo by RODNAE Productions from Pexels

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