Spencer Brasure

Overview

Spencer Brasure was sentenced to death on August 25, 1998. The state’s highest court upheld his conviction and death sentence.

Timeline

• September 6, 1996 — Spencer Brasure, age 28, and an accomplice, Billy Davis, met former child actor Anthony Guest at a hotel in Hawthorne, California; Guest was hog-tied, repeatedly electrocuted with a cattle prod, gagged after being forced to eat glass, with a broken beer bottle shoved down his throat and his mouth taped shut; Brasure and Davis took turns bashing Guest in the head and electrocuting him; an industrial stapler was used to attach wood to his ears; his eyes were glued shut; they then shoved him into a van and drove to a Ventura County campground, where they removed the still bound Guest, threw him on the ground, doused him in gasoline, and set him on fire, leaving him to burn to death.
• September 13, 1996 — Anthony Guest’s body was found at a campground in the Hungry Valley State Vehicular Recreation Area near Gorman in Ventura County.
• 1998 — Spencer Brasure was tried, convicted, and sentenced in Ventura County Superior Court.
• August 25, 1998 — Spencer Brasure was sentenced to death.
• February 9, 2008 — The California Supreme Court upheld the conviction and death sentence.

The offence

Anthony Guest was kidnapped, tortured, and murdered. At the hotel in Hawthorne, California, Guest was hog-tied by Spencer Brasure and Billy Davis, repeatedly zapped with a cattle prod, gagged after being forced to eat glass, with a broken beer bottle shoved down his throat and his mouth taped shut. Brasure and Davis took turns bashing Guest in the head and electrocuting him with the electric prod. They used an industrial stapler to attach wood to his ears and finally glued his eyes shut. Brasure and Davis then shoved Guest into a van and drove to a Ventura County campground.

At the Ventura County campground, Brasure and Davis removed the still bound Guest, threw him on the ground, doused him in gasoline, and set him on fire, leaving him to burn to death.

The coroner testified at trial that Guest probably lived several hours in agony.

Investigation

Evidence was found at the scene of the crime which led police to Spencer Brasure and Billy Davis.

Trial

Spencer Brasure was tried, convicted, and sentenced in 1998 in Ventura County Superior Court. He was sentenced to death for the crime. The trial involved allegations that crime scene and autopsy photographs deprived him of a fair trial.

Brasure made death threats to five witnesses who testified against him.

Brasure cited 16 errors he said occurred at his trial, including allegations that crime scene and autopsy photographs deprived him of a fair trial and that the state’s death penalty violates the U.S. Constitution.

The prosecutor described Brasure and Davis’s slaying in the words: “the worst he had ever seen.”

Anthony Guest was a former child actor and was 20 years old at the time of his murder.

Sentencing

Billy Davis was let off with a life sentence.

Appeals

The California Supreme Court upheld the conviction and death sentence on February 9, 2008. The high court ruled: “We find no prejudicial error affecting the defendant's conviction or death sentence.”

Brasure had raised allegations including that the state’s death penalty violated the U.S. Constitution and that crime scene and autopsy photographs deprived him of a fair trial.

Executions in California and other states done by lethal injection were on hold until the U.S. Supreme Court ruled on the method’s constitutionality.

Other details

Spencer Brasure was from Hawthorne. Anthony Guest’s body was found in the Hungry Valley State Vehicular Recreation Area near Gorman in Ventura County.

The underlying reason the men targeted Guest was not known. It was also never known why Brasure and Davis met Anthony Guest at the hotel or how they knew him.

There were no memorials to Anthony Guest. He bore no relation to actors Christopher or Nicholas Guest.

Spencer Brasure sought “pen pals” from the outside world and had “pen pals” featured on a page by Canadian Citizens Against the Death Penalty.