06/04/2023
Another one of Harry’s claims of credibility is that he located the remains of Scott Spansel Jr. in 2005. Just like in many of his reports, Harry claims police “did nothing,” and their search dogs “failed to find anything.” He also bizarrely (and falsely) states that Scott’s remains surfaced in front of the young teen’s mother after law enforcement ignored his report.
Scott Spansel Jr. was a 15 year old teenager who went missing on the evening of Saturday, June 18, 2005. He had been drinking alcohol with friends at a local park in his community. The park had one large pond and two small ponds. Initially, family members searched for Scott on their own. It was when his family found Scott’s broken glasses and one of his shoes floating in one of the smaller ponds (the other shoe on the edge of the water) that they called 911 on the afternoon of Sunday June 19th. Since his shoes were found near one of the small ponds, that is where the first initial search efforts were focused. By Monday June 20th they searched the park for more clues, drained the pond his shoes were found in to a depth of 5ft and used underwater cameras & other tools to search. By the end of the day, they felt confident that Scott was not in the small pond where his shoe was found floating. By Tuesday June 20th, detectives were assigned to investigate the case. They spent Tuesday retracing steps and re-interviewing witnesses. They spent Wednesday conducting more interviews and were searching near the large pond for evidence. On Thursday June 23rd, Scott’s body was found floating in the pond by a woman labeled as a random citizen of Salem named Tammy Jordan. His remains did not emerge in front of his mother.
Harry searched the area on June 21st. According to Det. Jake Burke, Harry volunteered his services which Burke accepted, but Harry came that same day after law enforcement had left, rather than waiting until the following day to meet & search as asked. By the time Harry brought his dogs to search, police had already had shifted their search focus to the large pond after re-interviewing witnesses.
Some of Harry’s reports state Scott’s body emerged 3 inches from his flagging in the pond; some reports state it was 3 feet from his flagging. Pretty interesting for there to be discrepancies for someone who also claims to keep immaculate records. Scott’s body did not emerge in front of his crying mother as Harry states.
Link to article/interview of Det. Jake Burke of SPD:
https://tdn.com/business/local/salem-detective-disputes-oakes-version-of-search/article_08a2a32b-e31b-5c73-b226-7060c606bb2a.html
