TV crime program Sunday to focus on Hollandsburg case

Friday, April 18, 2014

The Valentine's Day 1977 Hollandsburg slayings are the subject of an Investigation Discovery Channel documentary TV series "Very Bad Men," airing at noon Sunday.

The episode, titled "Thrill Killer," focuses on Roger Drollinger, the mastermind of the Parke County slayings who died recently at the Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Carlisle at age 61.

"Very Bad Men" airs on the Investigation Discovery Channel, which is channel 471 on the Greencastle Comcast cable system.

The episode also addresses the book "Choking in Fear," chronicling the Hollandsburg case and written by Mike McCarty, a Wabash College and Southmont High School graduate.

Drollinger had been serving four life sentences for the slayings of Ralph, 14, Reeve, 16, and Raymond Spencer, 17, and their stepbrother, Gregory Brooks, 22, during an early morning home invasion that also severely wounded the boys' mother, Betty Jane Spencer.

Spencer, who died in 2004, survived by playing dead after a shotgun blast at close range blew off her wig, leading the assailants to believe she had been killed.

She lived to provide the key testimony against Drollinger and his three accomplices -- Daniel Stonebraker, then 20, Michael Wright, then 21, and David Smith, then 17 -- fingering Drollinger, who was 23 at the time, as the ringleader.

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  • Cinergy metronet customers, it is currently "On Demand".

    Go to Menu-Search-"Thrill Killer"... and there it is...

    -- Posted by dothecrimedothetime on Fri, Apr 18, 2014, at 10:06 AM
  • What about the crime of forcing taxpayer's to house, and feed these cold-blooded murder's for the last 30+ years? Also the injustice done to Mrs. Spencer that she had to live her life out without her family, while these thugs get to live and have visitation with theirs.

    -- Posted by WONDER on Fri, Apr 18, 2014, at 1:11 PM
  • Missed this and can't find it on Comcasts On Demand or IDs website. Any ideas?

    -- Posted by harlan on Mon, Apr 28, 2014, at 7:19 PM
    Response by Eric Bernsee:
    Try on-demand Investigative Discovery. It was there last week. "Thrill Killer" is the title of the episode. Very Bad Men is the series title.
  • Thank you Eric.

    -- Posted by harlan on Fri, May 2, 2014, at 8:30 PM
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