Father accused of murdering 67-year-old alleged rapist of his 14-year-old daughter makes startling bid for public office



An Arkansas father accused of murdering the 67-year-old alleged rapist of his 14-year-old daughter is making a surprising bid for public office after he said the "system failed" him and his family.

Aaron Spencer, 37, announced last week that he's is running for Lonoke County Sheriff. As it happens, the Lonoke County Sheriff's Office investigated last year's headline-grabbing case involving Spencer.

'Through my own fight for justice, I have seen firsthand the failures in law enforcement and in our circuit court.'

The Facebook video from Spencer's campaign is captioned: "It’s time to bring trust, accountability, and safety back to our community. Join us on this journey to build a sheriff’s office you can believe in!"

In the campaign video, Spencer notes that "many of you know my story."

"I'm the father who acted to protect his daughter when the system failed," Spencer says.

Spencer adds that he is a husband, a combat veteran of the 82nd Airborne Division, a contractor, and a farmer.

"Through my own fight for justice, I have seen firsthand the failures in law enforcement and in our circuit court," Spencer states. "I refuse to stand by while others face these same failures."

Spencer also stresses in the video, "This campaign isn’t about me. It's about every parent, every neighbor, every family who deserves to feel safe in their homes and safe in their community. It’s about restoring trust, where neighbors know law enforcement is on their side and families know that they will not be left alone in a moment of need."

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As Blaze News reported last October, Spencer was arrested after authorities said he fatally shot 67-year-old Michael Fosler, who reportedly was in a vehicle with Spencer's 14-year-old daughter.

Spencer reportedly went to his daughter's bedroom to check on her. Citing an affidavit, CNN said the daughter was gone, but there was a stuffed animal wrapped in her hoodie under the blankets in her bed.

The Lonoke County Sheriff's Office said in a statement that deputies were dispatched regarding a missing teen at approximately 1:12 a.m. Oct. 8, 2024. However, while en route, deputies were notified that Spencer had located his daughter in a vehicle with Fosler.

The affidavit states that Spencer used his vehicle to rear-end Fosler’s Ford F-150 truck at an intersection, forcing it off the road.

"A confrontation between the two adult males ensued, which resulted in a shooting," the Lonoke County Sheriff's Office stated.

According to the affidavit, Spencer told police that he "had no choice" but to shoot Fosler.

The New York Post, citing the affidavit, reported that Spencer told investigators that Fosler "lunged towards him" with something in his hand and shouted, "F**k you!"

The affidavit states Spencer fired at Fosler until his weapon was empty and then jumped on him and pistol-whipped him.

Police said Fosler was pronounced dead at the crime scene.

Citing court records, the Northwest Arkansas Democrat Gazette reported that Fosler was out on bond at the time of the shooting after being arrested and charged with two counts each of fourth-degree sexual assault, sexual indecency with a child, and internet stalking of a child. Fosler also faced one count of electronic facilitation of child sexual abuse and 35 counts of pandering or possessing depictions of sexual conduct involving a child.

CNN added that "the family had been on edge" and that "three months earlier the teen, then 13, revealed she’d been sexually abused by a 67-year-old man she met at the home of a family friend."

Spencer was arrested and soon charged with second-degree murder. Spencer was released on a surety bond and has pleaded not guilty.

Spencer's pretrial hearing is scheduled for Dec. 17.

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A Change.org petition titled "Absolve Aaron David Spencer of Charges Stemming from Saving his Daughter's Life" was launched and has more than 361,000 signatures.

Spencer's wife, Heather, said in a GiveSendGo fundraiser that her daughter had been "targeted, groomed, and ultimately raped by the boyfriend of a family friend," the Post reported.

"We let the justice system do its job," Heather Spencer said. "The monster who hurt our child was charged quickly, but released even faster on a $50k bond. He was awaiting court in December for several felonies in relation to what he did to our child."

The mother called her husband a "hero" and said that her "child would have not come home if my husband hadn’t found her."

Lonoke County Sheriff Jeff Staley told the Democrat Gazette that he couldn't comment on the Spencer case because of the pending trial.

But Staley did say in an emailed statement, "I will be seeking re-election to continue being your Lonoke County sheriff. Since 2013, I have served as sheriff of Lonoke County with a clear mission — to protect our citizens and hold those who break the law accountable. From day one, our focus has been on three major threats to our communities: drug traffickers, sexual predators, and thieves."

The Lonoke County Sheriff's Office did not immediately respond to a request for comment from Blaze News.

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Man accused of strangling his parents to death for 'blood money' may have dug his own grave in bone-chilling TV confession



A New York man made a bone-chilling on-air television confession to killing his parents and burying them in their backyard.

Last month, 53-year-old Lorenz Kraus reportedly emailed a two-page statement to news outlets regarding a shocking admission.

'After he died, my mother put her head on his chest — and she was there for a few hours, then I finished her.'

Stone Grissom, WRGB-TV's news director, told the Times-Union that he promised Kraus to publish his statement on WRGB's news site if he came to the station for an interview.

"I called him to verify who he was," Grissom said. "On the phone, he told me he buried his parents in his yard. When I asked if he killed them, he said, 'I plead the Fifth.'"

Kraus reportedly arrived at the news station within an hour.

Grissom admitted there were major concerns of "inviting someone suspected of a double murder into our station."

Grissom noted that he personally frisked Kraus upon his arrival and that a plainclothes police officer was in the news station's secured front lobby.

Greg Floyd — a broadcaster since 1979 — had only 10 minutes to prepare for the eyebrow-raising interview.

During the jarring 31-minute sit-down, Kraus described the deaths of his aging parents as mercy killings to stop their suffering from multiple maladies.

Floyd asked Kraus, "So did you kill your parents as a mercy killing to put them out of their misery?"

Kraus avoided the question.

'What was I supposed to do with this money?'

After Floyd pressed Kraus about what he did to his parents, Kraus responded, "I buried them in their property."

Kraus said his parents died around August 2017.

Floyd asked Kraus if his parents asked him to take their lives, and Kraus responded, "Implicitly, but not explicitly."

Kraus added during the interview, "I did my duty to my parents. My concern for their misery was paramount."

Kraus did not mention if his parents had terminal illnesses.

In the stunning on-camera confession, Floyd pushed Kraus on whether he murdered his parents — 92-year-old Franz Kraus and 83-year-old Theresia Kraus.

Floyd — a six-time Emmy award-winning broadcaster — asked Kraus, "They knew that this was it for them, that they were perishing at your hand?"

Kraus replied, "Yes. And it was so quick."

Kraus said he was "shocked" at how his father "died surprisingly quickly."

Kraus confessed he strangled his parents to death. He admitted that he killed his father first by strangling him with his hands.

"After he died, my mother put her head on his chest — and she was there for a few hours, then I finished her," Kraus stated.

Kraus confessed that he killed his mother by strangling her with a rope.

When asked what was going through his head as he killed his parents, Kraus said, "Not thoughts — action, make sure it's done, not fool around, not make a mistake. But you know, the police would say what an incompetent idiot I am."

Kraus said it took him two or three days to decide to bury his parents in the backyard of their property in Albany.

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Kraus also is accused of stealing his parents' Social Security payments after they died.

Floyd asked Kraus if he knew there were financial benefits to killing his parents.

Kraus claimed the "government is pissed because I took the Social Security money and gave it to people in the Philippines."

Kraus said his parents' murders were "not a kill-for-money case."

Floyd fired back, "Some would call that blood money."

Kraus responded, "What was I supposed to do with this money?"

Video posted online by WRGB shows police arresting Kraus in the station's parking lot on Sept. 25, just moments after he left the television studio.

Albany County District Attorney Lee C. Kindlon on Monday announced that Kraus has been charged with murder in the first degree, two counts of murder in the second degree, two counts of concealment of a human corpse, grand larceny in the second degree, and identity theft in the first degree.

'Cadaver dogs picked up on a scent, and a subsequent excavation in the backyard turned up the couple’s bodies.'

A public defender entered a not guilty plea during a Monday court appearance.

Kraus is being detained without bail at the Albany County Correctional Facility.

Floyd interviewed Kraus a second time from jail. However, Kraus' public defender allegedly shut down the interview.

According to Floyd, after six or seven questions, the public defender said, "That's it, you're walking out of here right now."

The Associated Press reported that Albany County Assistant Public Defender Rebekah Sokol — who represented Kraus at a hearing last Friday — said she would be investigating how the interview came about because "if the media was essentially an agent of police in this matter, that could raise questions about whether (Kraus') comments in the interview would be legally admissible at trial."

Kraus' parents were never reported missing, and soon "federal agents started investigating suspicious Social Security payments in their names," WJLA-TV reported.

The indictment accused Kraus of assuming the identity of his father and stealing funds from the family’s estate "in excess of $50,000" sometime between Aug. 30, 2017, and May 27, 2025.

On Sept. 23, 2025, "Cadaver dogs picked up on a scent, and a subsequent excavation in the backyard turned up the couple’s bodies," Albany authorities stated.

Kraus is scheduled to return to court Oct. 28, WRGB reported.

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From Puff Daddy to Prison Daddy



Sean “Diddy” Combs — mogul, producer, and architect of a billion-dollar brand — was sentenced Friday to more than four years in federal prison for his despicable crimes against women. The sentence won’t shatter the glossy mythology he’s sold for decades. The headlines will obsess over the punishment and whether justice was done. But the deeper story is the culture he built — and that millions of Americans continue to bankroll.

Let’s stop pretending: No other major American music genre has a criminal record like rap. This isn’t a bad apple. It’s a poisoned orchard.

No other genre has turned crime, misogyny, and hatred for order into cultural virtues.

Tay-K was convicted of murder in 2019 and again in 2020 for a separate shooting. He’s serving 55 years. South Park Mexican is doing 45 years for child sexual assault. C-Murder? Life for killing a teenager. Big Lurch is doing life for murder and cannibalism. B.G. just got out after 14 years for weapons and witness tampering. Chris Brown — who still charts — pled guilty to felony assault of Rihanna and keeps finding trouble. Shyne served nearly a decade for a nightclub shooting that Diddy himself may have committed. Kodak Black, Max B, Crip Mac, Flesh-N-Bone, Big Tray Deee — all convicted felons.

That’s not some obscure playlist. That’s the soundtrack.

Try compiling a similar rap sheet for classical violinists, country balladeers, or pop crooners. Even rock, infamous for its drug excesses, never reached this level of violence or degradation.

Still think this is just about “personal behavior”? Listen closer.

Even when not committing crimes, many hip-hop “artists” glorify them. Anti-police, anti-woman, anti-civilization — these aren’t exceptions but industry standards. “F**k the police” wasn’t a phase. It was a forecast. “Shoot a cop, that’s my solution” isn’t satire. It’s strategy.

You don’t have to dig to find chart-toppers dripping with misogyny, death threats, and celebrations of drug-dealing and street violence. This isn’t fringe content. They’re topping the Billboard charts.

In what other industry could someone openly brag about pimping women, selling narcotics, or “sliding on ops” and still land Super Bowl halftime shows, Sprite deals, and White House invitations?

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Photo by Kevin Mazur/Getty Images

Defenders call it “storytelling,” “street realism,” or “art.” But these aren’t neutral observations. They’re recruitment ads for a culture of moral rot. Many rappers don’t just depict criminality — they embody it, and their fans reward them for it.

Every stream, download, and ticket sale is a vote for decadence — a few more dollars for the next defense attorney, a little more validation for the notion that responsibility is oppression and chaos is authenticity.

Even academics have noticed. Law journals have dissected the way hip-hop glorifies violence while its corporate enablers polish the packaging. The same elites who decry “toxic masculinity” will nod along to lyrics calling women “bitches” and “hoes.” The same corporations that preach “inclusion” will bankroll artists who sneer at civilization. The same politicians pushing gun control will campaign beside men who made fortunes romanticizing drive-bys.

Yes, hip-hop has artistic power. It grew from hardship and gave voice to the voiceless. But no other genre has turned crime, misogyny, and hatred for order into cultural virtues.

There’s a difference between reflecting reality and selling it — between giving voice to pain and turning pain into product. Today’s rap industry isn’t holding up a mirror to society. It’s pointing a gun at it.

The Diddy sentencing should be a wake-up call. It isn’t just a reckoning for one man. It’s a moment of clarity for a culture that has lost its moral compass.

The question isn’t only who committed the crime. It’s who bought the album.

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Second chances kill innocents



Republicans might finally take me seriously after years of warning: America suffers not from mass incarceration, but from mass under-incarceration. The system needs tougher sentences, not softer ones.

The brutal murder of 23-year-old Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska, allegedly at the hands of career criminal Decarlos Brown Jr. on a Charlotte commuter train, didn’t reveal anything new. It shocked the nation precisely because it put on camera what has become routine in our cities since the bipartisan “criminal justice reform” wave dismantled Reagan-era tough-on-crime policies.

Legislators will have a choice when they reconvene: Pass strong reforms like these or watch more innocent people die.

For every man like Brown who slipped through the cracks, at least 10 more walk free when they should be locked up for life.

Brown had been arrested 14 times since 2007. His record included assault, felony firearms possession, robbery, and larceny. He didn’t see the inside of a prison until 2014, when an armed robbery conviction earned him a mere four years. He racked up more arrests after his release in 2020, but neither prison nor psychiatric commitment followed. The justice system looked the other way.

The result was predictable. Brown’s obvious mental instability made him even more dangerous than an ordinary criminal. Yet over the last 15 years, Republicans and Democrats alike embraced “reform” that made second chances for the violent and insane a top priority. They weakened sentencing, gutted mandatory minimums, downgraded juvenile crimes, eased up on drugs and vagrancy, and abandoned broken-windows policing. Hard-won gains against crime and homelessness evaporated.

The final insult: Brown was last released on cashless bail by North Carolina Magistrate Judge Teresa Stokes, allegedly affiliated with a pro-criminal “second chances” group. But violent offenders don’t just get second chances. They get third, fourth, and 15th chances. Most criminals never even face charges. Prosecutors downgrade cases. Convicts skate on early release. The cycle spins on.

Look at the numbers. In 2024, the FBI’s incident-based reporting system logged over 12.2 million crimes. Strip away drug and gun cases, and the picture remains grim: 2.4 million violent crimes with no arrest. Another 1.25 million serious property crimes — arson, burglary, motor vehicle theft — with no arrest. Every year, more than a million offenders escape justice. Meanwhile, the nation’s prison and jail population sits at roughly 1.9 million.

Even when police make arrests, punishment rarely follows. In 2021, only 15,604 people went to prison for robbery despite 121,000 reported incidents. Just 4,894 went away for car theft out of 550,000 cases. Even homicide convictions lag far behind — just 6,081 murderers entered prison against more than 15,000 killings.

This isn’t a statistical fluke. It’s a system that fails to punish violent crime year after year.

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Screenshot/Charlotte Transit Authority

So what needs to change? Here’s a checklist every state legislature should adopt in the next session:

  1. Ban public encampments on streets, sidewalks, and public property; allow lawsuits against localities that fail to enforce.
  2. Elevate porch piracy penalties, following Florida’s lead.
  3. Impose stiff punishments for organized retail theft and flash mobs.
  4. Tighten “truth-in-sentencing” laws to ensure violent offenders serve their full terms.
  5. Pass anti-gang statutes that cross county lines, fund prosecutions, and mandate enhanced sentences for gang-related crimes.
  6. Let prosecutors, not judges, decide whether to try violent juveniles as adults.
  7. Set mandatory minimums for carjackings, especially for repeat offenders.
  8. Impose harsh sentences on felons caught with firearms, and harsher still when they use them.
  9. Require parole violators to finish their sentences.
  10. Hold repeat offenders without bond; revoke pretrial release when new crimes are committed.
  11. Fund prosecutors’ offices to clear the backlog of violent felony cases.
  12. Strengthen “three strikes” laws to eliminate loopholes.
  13. Apply the death penalty to fentanyl traffickers.
  14. Mandate quarterly public reporting of judges’ sentencing records in a searchable database.
  15. Criminalize squatting and streamline removal.

Legislators will have a choice when they reconvene: Pass strong reforms like these or watch more innocent people die.

Social media outrage won’t fix this crisis. Neither will empty calls for “accountability.” As Iryna’s grieving family warned, “This could have been anyone riding the light rail that night.”

That’s the truth — and unless lawmakers act, it will be the truth again tomorrow.

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