Mother of 4 Murdered After a Night Out: The Case of Savannah Spurlock
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Hello everyone and welcome back. So happy to have you here joining me to talk about another case. If you are new, then welcome. So today's case, God, this one is very heartbreaking. It has been highly requested in my request form, which is always linked below if you didn't know that I have that. This is one I have wanted to cover for a while now. Today we're going to be talking about Savannah Spurlock.

who was a 22 year old mother of four who was first reported missing on January 4th, 2019. However, this case has since been solved. We will go over the entire case here in a moment, but before I get started, I did want to let you guys know that we have now reached over $60,000 raised for National Center for Missing and Exploited Children and I'm

I am so, so grateful to everyone who has participated in our various fundraising efforts throughout the last couple of months. We still have NECMEC merch available at milehighermerch.com. 100% of the proceeds is donated directly to NECMEC. So if you'd like to grab some of that, again, that's milehighermerch.com.

And then I wanted to tell you about additional ways that you can now help contribute to our fundraising for NECMEC. My company, Mile Higher Media, is going to be matching all donations made through my donation link to NECMEC from now until the end of the year. We are really excited to be doing this and we hope that it inspires all of you to possibly make a donation no matter the size to NECMEC. It's such a

wonderful organization to support. I mean, it comes up constantly in the cases that we cover, and I just know firsthand what an impact they make and that all donations will be used incredibly wisely. And again, I just want to thank everyone who has participated in our donation efforts so far. We wouldn't have been able to raise what we have so far without all of you.

But let's go ahead and get into this case here. Like I said, we're going to be talking about Savannah Spurlock, a gorgeous mother of four who was taken way too early in life. So Savannah Spurlock was born on February 5th, 1996 in Richmond, Kentucky. She was raised by her parents, Ellen and Cecil. And at the age of 10, she became an older sister to their family's youngest child, Stephanie. Obviously that's a big age gap. And I know some people worry that siblings won't

be as close if they're spread too far out, but these two were very, very close. Stephanie and Savannah just absolutely adored each other. Savannah loved to carry around her little baby sister when she was young and really treasured their close bond. Her mom remembers Savannah as being an extremely happy person.

kid. She was always energetic, loved playing with her friends and family, and spent most of her early birthday parties at the local roller rink. Savannah was also very passionate about dancing, and she joined the dance team in middle school and high school. And she was the type of girl who really got along with

everyone and had a ton of friends. She ended up meeting her best friend Sabrina when they were on the high school dance team and the two of them were very, very close, really inseparable, honestly. In 2014, they both graduated from high school and went on to attend Eastern Kentucky University together.

Savannah was an excellent student her freshman year of college and even earned herself an outstanding student award. At one point in college, Savannah and Sabrina lived together, but Savannah's life kind of took a different path because she ended up becoming pregnant with her first son, Noah. Now, she was definitely on the younger side, but that did not affect her ability to be a mother at all.

Her friends and family say that she just did not hesitate to take on the responsibility of being a parent. And it was obvious how much she loved her son. But obviously trying to juggle college and raising a baby is a lot of work. I truly cannot imagine now that I'm a parent myself, that is just very overwhelming.

especially when the right systems aren't in place to support parents who also need to work or go to school. It's unclear exactly how much help Savannah was getting, but eventually she got pregnant again. And with a second child, it became a lot harder to manage school as well.

The second time that she got pregnant was with her boyfriend, Shaq Smith. And when this happened, she decided to temporarily leave school at Eastern Kentucky. But her friends and family believed that she had every intention of returning one day. It just wasn't in the cards for her at that time. Savannah was only 20 years old when her second child, Jace, was born.

And from what I could gather, her boyfriend Shaq seemed to be very involved and, you know, really helped her out with her other son who wasn't biologically his, but treated them both as his children. Savannah worked for a while in the restaurant industry, and she also worked as a lifeguard, which she really loved to do that. Obviously, it was a huge challenge for her to have two young kids before the age of 20.

but she seemed to be handling it pretty well. She loved being a mom. She loved her sons more than anything in the world. And anyone who was in her life at the time knew that about her. Eventually though, her and her father Cecil got in a bit of a falling out in 2018. He felt that she was not fully dedicated to being a parent because she did enjoy going out from time to time. I mean, she was still very young and still trying to

you know, live it up in her youth. She had an interest in going to bars and hanging out with her friends. And Cecil said he eventually had to give Savannah some tough love and just cut her off from any financial support that he was offering. Savannah's parents were actually divorced at this point. So this tough love and these feelings were just coming from her father. Her mother was still very involved with her and her mom helped a lot with the kids. Now,

everyone has their own opinion on how to parent and what level of normalcy, you know, you can have after having a baby. And I am certainly not here to judge victims or their parents on their decisions, you know, in their life leading up to what happened to them.

And I would very much appreciate if we don't victim shame and mom shame Savannah, because I know that there will be people that do that, but it's useless. It's not helpful. And it's honestly just rude and not a good look. So I suggest you don't do it. I mean, at the end of the day, Savannah's children were loved. They were fed. And I think it's really important that we put aside our own, uh,

on parenting for the sake of telling her story. So sometime in 2018, around the time her father, you know, cut her off financially to give her a bit of tough love, she really started to struggle. Her close friends and family said that she was just dealing with a lot that year. And although no one has really exactly specified what she was going through, it seemed it was definitely taking a toll on her. And to add to whatever else she was dealing with, Savannah ended up becoming pregnant again, and this time with twin babies.

boys. Her third and fourth sons, Zane and Ziri, were born on December 1st, 2018. And Shaq, her boyfriend, was the father to both of them as well. So by this point, Savannah is 22 years old and she has her hands full. She has a two-year-old, a four-year-old, and now she has newborn twins. So clearly she had a lot to manage. But I do want to point out that because it was so much to manage, they weren't all in her care all of

the time. The twins were primarily in Shaq's care after their birth, which there isn't a lot of detail about this and it's really no one's business, but it seems that this was something she was really struggling with. So for the rest of that December, she did have the kids, you know, part of the time, the twins, and she was still taking care of her two-year-old and four-year-old son and then taking care of the newborns on the days that she had them.

This is obviously a huge responsibility for someone who is 22 years old. And it definitely took a toll on her.

So after the holidays passed, it was January of 2019. And on January 4th, she had every intention of staying home that day. That night, her mother was helping her with her two older sons and Shaq had the newborns. So Savannah was planning to just be at home with her mom and the kids. But then the opportunity to go out with some friends came up and her mom said it was fine. So she decided to go home.

to go out. Her mother felt like she could use a small break that night and she could just see how hard her daughter had been working, trying to take care of her children. So she decided to support her in going out. And Savannah's plan that night was to meet up with two friends, a male friend and a female friend. And the three of them were going to go to a bar in Lexington, Kentucky. So she actually borrowed her mom's car to pick up her female friend. And then the two of them went to pick up their male friend around 10 p.m. that night, January 4th. And their male friend was located in Lexington.

And going to his place first was sort of their, you know, home base for the start of their night. And it was helpful that he lived near a handful of bars. So when Savannah and her other female friend arrive at this male friend's apartment, they park outside and Savannah leaves a bag of personal items in the car and then takes a

purse, a smaller purse with her ID and money. And then the three of them went to a bar called The Other Bar and they arrived sometime around or after 10 p.m. But after a little while, the three of them actually split up and it's kind of foggy what really happened here. But Savannah and her female friend got in some type of fight. The details of this fight are not released, but it didn't seem like something that was a

major fight. It just seems like they got in some type of argument. And anyway, her female friend decided to leave because of this. And then her male friend decided to leave as well because he had a commitment the next morning, had to get up early, didn't want to be out late at the bars, whatever. So now Savannah's at this bar on her own. Again, this bar is called The Other Bar. I know that's kind of confusing. And obviously being at a bar by yourself is not an ideal situation. It's not always the safest situation. And Savannah did decide to stay there and

mingle with some guys that she had met that night. And she actually ended up staying there quite some time because she was seen leaving the bar around 2.30 a.m. when she was captured on surveillance video. And this surveillance video would actually be the last sighting of Savannah before she disappeared. And in the video, you can see her leaving the bar

with two men and she was actually with three men at the time but you can only see two of them on camera and this was you know as far as we know the last time that Savannah was seen however she did speak with her mother again that night actually she saw her because they did a

FaceTime call. It was around 2 45 AM. Her mom wakes up and realizes that her daughter's not home yet. So she decides to give her a call and check in on her and Savannah answers. I'm not sure how long that first call was. I believe it was very brief. The call was dropped. Not sure what happened there, but her mom decided to give her a call again. Savannah picks up

And like I said, this was a FaceTime. So her mom was able to see that Savannah appeared to be in the passenger seat of a car. She couldn't see who was driving or where they were going or any additional information. But Savannah told her mom that she was fine and that she wouldn't be much later. Now, Ellen did say that Savannah looked as if she was intoxicated or sounded like she was intoxicated. She could tell she was under the influence heavily, but she said she didn't look like she was in danger. She was obviously intoxicated.

The call was quick, and when it ended, Ellen didn't realize that this would be the last time that she would speak to her daughter, which is just heartbreaking. And then the next morning, Ellen wakes up and realizes that her daughter never came home that night, and I don't know what to do.

Obviously, she's freaking out immediately. This was extremely unlike Savannah to just not come home. If she was ever going to stay the night somewhere, she would, you know, give some type of notice to her mom, let her know where she was going to be. And the last time they spoke, she told her that she would be home shortly. So Ellen was totally shocked.

She tries calling Savannah, but by 8:30 AM, her phone is turned off. So she decides to call her friend Sabrina, hoping that maybe Savannah decided to stay the night there and just kind of was too intoxicated to tell her mom. Maybe she was still sleeping. You know, there had to be an explanation for this. But when she talked to Sabrina, it turns out she hadn't seen Savannah.

and she tried calling her and couldn't get a hold of her. In fact, Sabrina tried to call her 15 times that day and was unsuccessful. They knew that something was wrong, so they start calling every acquaintance they can think of of Savannah's and try to see if anyone had seen her between 2.30 a.m. and 8.30 a.m. that morning. Their concern obviously just kept growing as they realized that

no one knew where she was. So later in the afternoon, Sabrina gets a hold of the other female friend that Savannah went out with that night because the two of them drove Ellen's car to Lexington. She was hoping to locate the car and maybe that would give them some answers. This friend told Sabrina where they had left the car.

in Lexington. And so Sabrina goes out to try to see if the car is still there. And when it's still just sitting in the last spot that they left it, she knew something had to be really wrong. And at that point, she calls police and files a missing persons report. However, the police weren't super helpful. They told her that she had to wait 24 hours before filing a missing persons report, which is so unhelpful because they knew that by this point, it's 7pm at this point, they knew that

that if Savannah was okay and was somewhere, that she would have gone in contact with one of them, you know, Sabrina or her mother, and made sure that they knew she was okay. She tried to reiterate this to police and tell them how urgent this was and that they believed something bad had possibly happened to Savannah. But they just said, you know, she's an adult. She's able to leave on her own if she wants, and there's nothing we can do. Try again later, basically, which is just ridiculous. And it happens all the time.

all the time and it's just untrue. You do not need to wait any specific amount of time to file a police report. That is not a law anywhere. But anyway, they tell Sabrina she has to wait 24 hours before filing the report and to file it in Richmond, which is the city that she lived. Luckily, the Richmond Police Department did take their concerns much more seriously. They were able to pull up that surveillance footage from the bar that she was last seen at and use that to narrow down Savannah's last movements.

By Tuesday, January 8th, the Richmond Police Department made its first online post asking the public for help identifying and locating these men who were seen with Savannah in the footage. And they noted that the white male was seen driving a Chevy S10 pickup. A young Madison County mother has been missing for days. Savannah Spurlock's family is especially worried after she was seen on surveillance video leaving a Lexington bar with two unidentified men. At

LAX 18's Lee Searcy has the details in tonight's Big Story at 6.

The 22-year-old is a single mother of four. She was last seen leaving this Lexington bar around 2.45 Friday morning. These are surveillance pictures of Savannah Spurlock leaving the other bar on South Limestone with two unknown men. The white man was seen driving this black S10 pickup alone. So at this point, they launch a full-scale search for Savannah, and that starts on January 8th, and it continues for weeks.

And then unfortunately, weeks turned into months. On January 13th, her friends and family decided to launch kind of their own investigation, hoping to uncover anything that they could about the night that she went missing. And the support that they got from their community was very strong. People were just heartbreaking to hear this young mother of four had disappeared without a trace. Many people committed their own time to helping look for Savannah, and they put posters up all

all around, tried to spread the word on social media as much as they could. And many agencies also came together to aid the search as well. They got aerial search involved as well as canine search units. And as every day went by without answers, her family, her friends, the whole community just felt more and more heartbroken and hopeless until police finally identified two of the men in the surveillance footage.

And like I said earlier, they did note that there was a third man with the group, but that person was not seen on camera. A Garrett County police officer spotted that same truck on Highway 52 and conducted a traffic stop. He said this is the truck they're looking for. He said, I'm actually on the way to make a voluntary statement this time.

Officer Evan Preston followed that truck to Richmond, and that's where investigators were able to identify and question three people about Savannah's disappearance. So one of these guys ended up being someone named David Sparks. So it turns out that after leaving the bar,

Savannah takes off with these three men and they take two vehicles 40 minutes away to Garrett County. Savannah was in one car with two of the men and then the other guy just drove on his own.

Turns out she got in the car around 2.45, which is about the time that she spoke to her mom over FaceTime, and she sees that she's in the passenger seat of a car. And I guess this group was planning to continue their night of drinking at David's house, which was at the 100 block of Prince Court in Garrett County. But after a few drinks, these other two guys decided to head home for the night, and they leave Savannah with David.

Now, something was off about David, even to these guys from the beginning. They said that they thought that David was inappropriately touching Savannah and that he clearly wanted to have sex with her, but she was definitely too intoxicated, according to them.

I don't know why these two thought it was a good idea to leave her with David knowing this and having these concerns, but they did. In fact, one of them even brought up to the other like, hey, maybe we shouldn't leave her alone with him. And they decided, whatever, let's just go home. And they left her with him. Because we're looking for a body. Yeah. No ****.

They said it wasn't until days later when they found out that Savannah was missing that they started to feel like it was a bad idea to have left her alone with David. So one of these guys ends up reaching out to David and asks if he knows anything about Savannah and David claims he has no idea.

Asked him, you know, do you know, like, seriously, do you know what's going on with what she had, whatever? He's adamant, no. I don't know what she's at. Can you believe it? 70-30. If he hurt that girl, what'd he tell you?

Yeah, I feel like he eventually would. Have you asked him that yet? Yeah. I asked him. He's been adamant that he don't know nothing. That's why I asked him, like, bro, you need to be 100% A, like, on point because this is f***ing what it's all. But I told him at the end of the day, bro, like...

And one of these guys even told investigators that he felt that David was, quote, unorthodox and weird. I mean, he's got unorthodox...

So he knew something was off about this guy. He leaves this poor girl intoxicated at this random house 40 minutes away from the bar that they were at anyway. We'll never understand this at

at all. So investigators bring David in and talk to him and he had the same story as the other guys that they all left the bar together, took two different cars, drove 40 minutes from the other bar to David's house and that at some point the other guys left and said,

Savannah, according to him, decides that she should just stay there for the night. And he decides that she can stay in his room. And he says it was all normal from there. He went to sleep. She went to sleep. But at some point in the night, she woke him up and asked for his address, which he assumed was

was because, you know, she was going to have someone else come pick her up from his house. Then he says he went back to sleep and in the morning she was gone and he didn't think anything of it. He said he doesn't remember if anyone came to get her or what time she left. None of that. He just went back to sleep, woke up and she's gone. I got up and she wasn't there. My door was unlocked.

She wasn't. She was gone. So investigators asked him if he ever thought about the fact that maybe she was no longer alive. And he said that it crossed his mind, but he just hoped she was all right. If it crossed your mind that she may not be alive? That has crossed my mind. Okay.

But throughout his entire interrogation, investigators noticed that he was extremely cold in his responses, just very one wordy. And overall, they said he just kind of gave them a bad vibe. It was a general consensus that he was stone cold, that he was just there was something about him that just kind of made the hair on the back of your neck stand up when you talk to him.

And based on the information provided by the other two men and David's story, the police didn't have any reason to suspect the other two guys were involved in her disappearance. However, they knew something was up with David. David quickly becomes their number one suspect

And they eventually tell the public at the same time that they announced that they knew who the guys in that video were, that they were going to be executing a full search warrant on David's home. Now, David's parents also owned a farm in that area, which the police went to search on the 22nd. And they believe that if David had done something to Savannah, that this

likely would be the location he would choose to dispose of her body and any other type of evidence. They did seize a white vehicle that was found on the property, but otherwise the search turned up pretty empty. Now, what led them to seize the car is unknown, but Savannah's friends and family at this point were really holding out hope that this was going to bring them some type of answer.

People from multiple police agencies, along with volunteers from the Cajun Coast Search and Rescue Group, walked tree lines, ditches, and fields looking for the 22-year-old mother of four. They searched for clothing, a cell phone, any items that could give them an idea where to find her. The search area is less than a half a mile from where police executed a search warrant last week. They seized a car that night. And now that the community knew about David and they knew about his parents' property, the lack of evidence

there really only fueled them and local search agencies to push harder for answers. And her family, canine units, members of the community, even former Marines got together on February 5th, which would have actually been Savannah's 23rd birthday to search. And sadly, like I said earlier, the search continued on for weeks and then those weeks turned into months. And every day that passed, her family and friends are feeling less and less hopeful that

she is going to be found alive, which is the hardest thing in the world, I imagine, to accept. You know, I mean, they just understand statistically the longer time goes on, the less of a chance they are going to have of actually bringing Savannah home. And now it becomes a mission for answers, which, you know, is just devastating for the whole community, but especially her friends and family. Her family was just plagued

pleading to the public to come forward with any possible information. I mean, any little thing that could point them in the right direction. And they really used Facebook a lot to kind of rally together as a community. And it became kind of like a home base for information. And as you can imagine, her parents were just devastated. I mean, her father said that he didn't know how he could go on not knowing what happened to his daughter. And I just really cannot fathom what that would be like.

I don't know if I can keep on going and not knowing what happened to my little girl. I need to... I've got to know something. It's killing me, man. It is. It's taking a toll off me. I know eventually somebody will come up and say something. I just know it. Three men involved in this. Three men. Somebody knows something. Somebody that can't...

They'll mess up sooner or later. We'll find out what happened to her. But their community really did rally for their family. And they held fundraisers. There were t-shirts made that said Savannah Strong in her honor. And with the money they raised, they put together a reward fund. And they hoped that this would incentivize someone to come forward. And at its peak, they raised $15,000. It's hard. Yeah.

I'm doing all right, I mean, with my faith, my praying, the support of family, friends, community, but it is very difficult. I mean, it's 10 weeks.

10 hard weeks. - Amid the pain, Ellen and her family have been overwhelmed by the community's support. - The reward fund, if we might need to put up any money for anything else related to bringing her home. In the inevitable conclusion that she is not with us anymore, it would help her.

final expenses. So finally there was another break in the case on April 2nd, 2019. And this is when investigators executed a second search warrant at the exact location where she was last seen, David's house. Now, unlike their first search, police did end up uncovering several bits of evidence at the house this time. And this is very confusing because it was visible to the naked eye, but there was blood spatter on David's closet door. But they

apparently didn't see it the first time and this time they used some type of special blood detection spray. But anyway, it turns out this blood did match Savannah's DNA profile and this changes everything. And obviously that's huge evidence, but that wasn't all they found. They also found a very strange note written by David that was just sitting on his bedside table and it reveals some very dark things about

him. One of the searches of Sparks home days after Spurlock disappeared, police found blood spatter on the walls and doorways believed connected to Spurlock. Something else they found a letter of particular concern in Sparks bedside table believed to be written by him that conveyed disturbing thoughts. I'm going to read the letter to you all. It says, I simply don't care at all.

I feel no true love for anything now that I know who I really am. I see a greater need to hide my true self, but I just want to be free. I stay in a constant state of aggression. Nothing seems to help anymore. I have an abyss for a soul that sucks every attempt to make myself whole. I want my family to understand, maybe just to excuse my other actions over the years. But how do you look your mother in the eyes and tell you are a born psychopath?

that she gave birth to a monster, someone who wouldn't care a bit to squeeze the last breath out of another human or plunge a knife into their chest and smile about it. My mother, the only person in this world that I never want to disappoint, yet I see it on her face every day. What do I do?

Obviously, that is a very concerning letter and tells us a lot about what is going through David's mind and the type of person he might be. And clearly investigators bring him in right away to ask him about this note. And of course he has an explanation for it. He says that it was written two years ago and that he wrote it at a time where he was struggling because another woman had rejected him and he was kind of heartbroken and going through a hard time.

I'm assuming you all have read the page that was in my binder. Okay. That's why I kind of hesitated. That was about a year and a half to two years ago. He said he wrote it while in a dark place after being rejected by a woman. I was dealing with a lot of rage. I was depressed. I was just mad at the world.

But investigators don't really buy that. And this is just another indication that they are going after the right person. And after this, investigators end up getting into his Snapchat and they start looking at conversations that he's had about the case. And in these conversations, he's telling people about how police have been on his ass and how the whole thing has been stressing him out. He also says that there are wiretaps on everything and that the police have

profiled him as a psychopath. And to top it off, David also says that the only reason police are going after him is because it fits their narrative and that this is the story of the century, that two black men and a white male who's a psychopath killed this young girl. And I don't even really know where he was going with this, but

basically trying to convince someone that they only want to, you know, find him guilty because it would fit their narrative. And as they start bringing these things up to him, he becomes more and more agitated that they're clearly onto him and there wasn't much that he could do to throw them off his track. Basically, by this point, the police know that David is involved. They just need help.

more direct evidence. They need Savannah's body to prove what everyone already knows. So time is continuing to go by, you know, month three passes, month four, month five, and it's getting more and more difficult for her family and friends as time goes on. They know at this point the chances of her being alive were extremely slim and they were really trying to cope with the fact that she was gone.

but they desperately wanted her body to be found so they could finally lay her to rest and hopefully get the justice that she deserved. You know, after five and a half months, it's just not looking good. The way I look at it is if she isn't here, she's looking down on us.

in a better place in heaven. And she can see that we're taking care of her kids. - And finally, this became the reality because on July 10th, 2019, David's father was outside in his garden when he noticed an extremely foul odor.

By this point, he knew that his son was the prime suspect in Savannah's disappearance, and he was fully on board with helping the police nail down the evidence that they needed. So he lets them know that he is picking up this smell. They come out and search, and at first they find nothing, but he was so sure that this odor was like nothing.

nothing else he had ever smelled before. So he ends up contacting his lawyer and then his lawyer reaches out to the Richmond police. They get into their search warrant and they go back out for a second look. They actually got out to the property around midnight on July 10th and this is when they ended up finding Savannah's body in a strawberry patch.

It turns out she had been buried 19 inches down. Her feet were bound with tape and her body was folded in half. And there was also this gray rectangular rug that was found buried beneath her body. And I'll come back to the rug later, but this was a crucial piece of evidence that

prove that David was involved in her murder. First, we want to get to the big story. For six months, Savannah Spurlock's family has been searching for answers, hoping to bring the missing Madison County mother of four home. Their hopes were dashed last night when police found a body now positively identified as Savannah Spurlock buried behind a home in Garrett County. The owner's son, one of three men last seen with Spurlock in January, is behind bars tonight.

Police say David Sparks own father, a local minister, noticed a foul odor in the backyard of his property here on Folic Road.

He's the one who called his attorney, which then led to this massive police search around his yard and ultimately to the discovery of human remains buried, concealed in an unnatural position, according to the arrest citation. So after this, it only took hours for David to be placed under arrest for the murder of Savannah Spurlock.

And in addition to murder, he was also charged with tampering with evidence and abuse of a corpse. And at first, he tried to plead not guilty despite the overwhelming amount of evidence against him. As a result of the ongoing investigation, David Sparks, 23 years old of Lancaster, Kentucky, was arrested early this morning in connection to the recovery of Savannah Spurlock's body. He was lodged at the Madison County Detention Center charged with tampering with physical evidence.

and abuse of a corpse, and has since been taken to the Lincoln County Regional Detention Center. Over the coming days, detectives will continue their investigation into what led to the death and disappearance of Savannah Spurlock. And I know what you're thinking. How did police possibly miss her body in their first search? I mean, she was only buried 19 inches down. They should have been able to find her no problem. And I guess police felt the same way. How could they have possibly missed her the first time around?

But looking back, they realize that David's behavior may have been pointing them to her the entire time. How was she missed? There she was the whole time. That's something that I ask myself actually still when I think about Savannah is how did we not find her? How did I not find her? I actually stood there.

on the strawberry patch, like where it was. - Frays says looking back, Sparks was always keeping a close eye on them. - In fact, the day that we searched the first time with the cadaver dogs on the farm or at the family property,

Now that I can go back and think about it, he was absolutely 100% just focused on the garden. So now that the police had David in jail, they were able to find more evidence linking him to the murder. And the rug that I mentioned that was buried with Savannah's body, turns out it was the same rug that investigators saw in his room when it was searched back in April, which obviously makes no sense. And it turns out the very morning that she disappeared,

David texted his sister and asked where she got that rug from. Turns out it was from Walmart. He went and bought a new one and replaced it before they even came to look the first time. They also found out that David had been following the investigation thoroughly. They found tons of internet searches for Richmond missing mom, and he was clearly worried about it, knew that

were on to him knew that his time was probably limited david's preliminary hearing took place a few days later on july 15th your honor i observed with the assistance of the fbi special or evidence response team the body was exhumed from a clandestine grave that body was concealed within multiple black trash bags the body was unclothed the feet were bound with tape

And the body was in an unnatural position. Okay. Did you find anything lying next to her body against her body? I did. What did you find? It was what I would describe as an accent rug, rectangular in shape, grayish in color. This is heartbreaking, but Savannah's official cause of death has never been released because it's never been determined. Her body was, you know, very decomposed by the time that they found her and they weren't able to tell exactly what happened to her.

There was no evidence of lethal trauma. However, it is likely that she experienced some type of physical trauma, such as asphyxiation. So leading up to the trial, David was held in jail. And while he was in jail, one of the guards actually found these drawings in his cell that further confirmed that this guy is very dark.

and he was really battling a lot of demons, you could say. He had drawn a picture of two women. One of them was bound and the other was completely naked. On December 1st, 2020, which is the day that Savannah's twins turned two years old, David actually changed his plea to guilty. He pleaded guilty to murder, tampering with evidence, and abuse of a corpse.

And this plea was part of a deal that would require him to serve a 50-year sentence rather than the possibility of life in prison. His sentencing took place back on December 17, 2020. And because of COVID at the time, his hearing had to take place via Zoom. You agreed at that time to plead guilty to the charges of murder, tampering with physical evidence, and abuse of a corpse. Recommendation of the Commonwealth was 50 years on the murder, five years on the tampering, 12 months on the abuse of the corpse.

All concurrent for a total of 50 years. I will accept that recommendation and impose that sentence. David will be serving his 50-year sentence, which I do not think is enough, at the Southeast State Correctional Complex in Kentucky. And he will be eligible for parole on July 2, 2039.

or possibly even release on November 13th, 2068. It's just so infuriating. There was absolutely no need for this to happen, for this mother of four to be taken from her children, from her family when she was so young. Oh, it just brings tears to my eyes. It's unbelievably messed up to think about how avoidable this whole thing could have been. And just thinking about how David was that

dark that his selfish actions in this moment took this beautiful mother away from her four children and her whole family. I mean, the fact that they now just have to live without her because of this freak is so infuriating and beyond upsetting. And my heart just goes out to this family. It's terrible. If you are interested in learning more about Savannah, the Remembering Savannah Facebook page has several posts from family members over the years.

that detail, you know, what an amazing person she was and amazing mother she was. There are so many stories about, you know, good memories with her and, and about her strength and determination, even though she was dealing with so much at such a young age, her, her twins will be turning four years old this December. Um, just, you know, in the next week, December 1st. And, uh,

Thinking about the fact that they have to grow up without her. It's just terrible. I am glad to hear that, you know, her other family members are very involved in raising her four sons and that they are loved and will probably always be told so many stories about how amazing their mother was.

was. And for all four of them, living without their mother on the day-to-day has got to be so awful, but I can't even imagine how hard it must be for her family knowing that one day they will probably learn the truth of what happened to their mother and how just heartbreaking and traumatizing that would be.

Her family hasn't made any public statements about all of this or how they're doing since she passed, but her aunt Lisa did say that they really feel like Savannah lives on through her sons. And I thought that was very beautiful. This was a really hard case to cover, but I felt like Savannah's story needed to be told.

That is going to be it for me today, guys. Thank you for joining me for another episode and make sure you follow the show on Spotify and Apple podcasts. It really does help me out. If you want to watch the video version of this show, you can find it on my YouTube channel, which will be linked, or you can just search Kendall Ray. I will be back with another episode soon, but until then stay safe out there.