Macon legal secretary’s murder featured on Discovery TV’s ‘Your Worst Nightmare’

The story of a Macon woman’s 2012 murder during an embezzlement scheme will play out on television this weekend.

Investigation Discovery will feature the slaying of legal secretary and office manager Gail Spencer on its “Your Worst Nightmare” series Saturday at 10 p.m.

“I think it’s something Middle Georgia wants to know about,” said Greg Fischer of Macon, whose film location scouting company worked on the show’s dramatizations.

When Fischer got the script, he quickly noted that the storyline was familiar. He remembered the slaying and arrests of four people, including one of Spencer’s coworkers.

Fischer, a former real estate appraiser, had closed on a couple of houses at lawyer Calder Pinkston’s old firm where Spencer worked.

At Pinkston’s former office on Vineville Avenue, Spencer met Tracy Michelle Jones, the woman behind the plot to steal more than a million dollars.

A promotion for the television episode titled “Twisted Plan” reads: “When trusted legal assistant Gail Spencer fails to show up for work, her co-workers are rightfully concerned. But as the sordid details of her abduction come to light, suddenly it seems like someone at the office may know more ... “

According to court testimony, Jones recruited her lover, Michael Brett Kelly, then 18 years old, to hold Spencer captive at her Stinsonville Road home.

While Spencer was away from the office, Jones wired money away from the firm and into the thieves’ accounts.

Kelly later admitted to sodomizing and suffocating the 58-year-old grandmother, who begged for her life.

Not long after Spencer’s body was found, someone Kelly had tried to recruit in the caper went to police. He and Jones were arrested.

Kelly’s half-sister, Courtney Nicole Kelly, and a lookout, Keith Anthony Dozier, also faced murder charges in the case.

All but Dozier pleaded guilty. A jury later found Dozier guilty, and he was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Jones and Kelly also are serving life sentences without parole. Courtney Kelly also was sentenced to life, but with the possibility of parole.

The case might be closed, but Fischer said the program provides insight into what happened.

“I think it gives the family and those involved to tell their story and get some closure,” he said.

While the case is familiar to Maconites, the show’s scenery won’t be.

“I wish we had filmed in Macon,” Fischer said.

Due to union rules, they had to scout locations within a 30-mile radius of Atlanta, he said.

Several businesses and homes in Jonesboro will be featured in the actor-driven dramatizations of the crime, but the program includes real interviews with those close to the case.

This story was originally published January 22, 2018 at 12:36 PM.