Time behind bars not enough to deter some stalkers

Bill Gang

Saturday, July 19, 1997 | 11:34 a.m.

A Las Vegas real estate broker sat with cautious optimism in the back of a courtroom as 52-year-old Alva Leroy Spangler finally pleaded guilty to stalking her.

For the woman whose nerves have become frayed, if not unraveled, by the persistent pursuit, the guilty plea likely will mean at least a couple of years of peace.

Susan Faller admits she still is weighed down by the anxiety of memories and fear of what the future may hold, but the panic she used to experience is gone after seven years of coping with Spangler's hounding.

Gone also is what she said was her softer side -- the part of her that may have allowed Spangler to gain a grip on her life that he refuses to relinquish.

If anything, the articulate, white-haired defendant with a once-lucrative career in real estate is a slow learner.

Spangler spent 22 months in a Nevada prison for his earlier pursuit of the woman he had dated when they lived in the small city of Brooklyn, Mich.

Faller recalled that once, after she had told him the relationship was over, Spangler forced his way into her home. She said she slugged him in the mouth with a baseball bat, knocking out two teeth, but the next day he was back asking, "Can we talk about this?"

They had dated off and on for about six months and she said she had suffered beatings that were bad enough to leave scars on her face.

Another year of being stalked in a state with no stalking law at the time was enough for Faller. She said the police in Michigan conceded they were powerless to stop Spangler.

Faller fled to Las Vegas in 1992 and worked to revive her real estate career, but one day while attending a real estate school, she looked up and saw Spangler.

This, however, was Nevada.

By the time Spangler's obsession got out of control, a stalking law had been passed by the 1993 Legislature, giving police and prosecutors the ability to go after people like the defendant.

When Spangler ignored a 1994 protective order obtained by Faller, he was arrested and pleaded guilty in August 1994 to a charge of attempted felony stalking.

He was sent to prison for three years. But his obsession only festered.

Spangler accrued enough good time, despite numerous disciplinary complaints, to serve out his sentence in 22 months. It took him only five days after his release on March 17 to show up on Faller's doorstep.

Faller said she had braced herself for the visit since being informed by authorities of his release, and frankly was surprised he had waited that long.

As each day passed, she said she cautiously let herself begin to believe that he might have learned his lesson behind bars.

But then there was the knock on the door and only silence when she asked who was there. Another knock and another inquiry, followed finally by the reply, "Al."

That encounter was peaceful, Faller said, but when his later reconciliation efforts were rebuffed, he resumed his stalking pattern -- the phone calls, the threats, the obsession that she knew only too well.

Spangler was free only two months when the latest stalking charges were filed and he was returned to a jail cell in May.

He had tried to plead guilty last month, but he couldn't admit that he had done anything illegal -- insisting to District Judge Nancy Becker that Faller merely had misinterpreted his words.

Becker rejected the plea bargain, but on June 20 she gave him another chance to plead guilty or choose to take his chances with a jury.

Spangler finally admitted that he indeed had gone to Faller's home and had made threatening statements that he conceded were intended to scare her.

Faller recalled that Spangler had hissed to her on one occasion, "You better watch over your shoulder for the rest of your life."

In court, Spangler said meekly, "I'm very sorry for everything that has happened. I'm not going to go near Susan Faller ever."

Spangler then asked for a no-bail release to get his affairs in order before his Aug. 6 sentencing on the charges that could put him in prison for six years.

"I'm appalled that he would have the nerve to ask for that," snapped Deputy District Attorney Lisa Luzaich.

Faller recalled that he had used the same argument after his 1994 guilty plea before another judge, and it had worked.

The problem was that he didn't show up for his sentencing on that charge and spent 10 more months stalking Faller before he was stopped by police in June 1995 and arrested on the judge's warrant.

Becker denied Spangler's request for brief freedom, refusing even to set bail of any amount.

"The stalking laws were created because of people like Spangler," Luzaich argued.

"Every opportunity to stalk Susan, he has," the prosecutor said. "If anybody deserves never to get out of prison, it is this person."

Luzaich said if Spangler had not accepted the plea bargain -- which was not much of a plea bargain because he pleaded guilty to the only felony charge available -- she was going to ask the court that he be treated as a habitual criminal.

That would have carried a life prison term and at least 10 years behind bars before eligibility for parole. That still may be Spangler's future if he doesn't learn his lesson this time.

Having endured his obsession, Faller said she isn't optimistic. She remembered how the "nice man" she first met turned into an abusive boyfriend who refused to listen when she tried to break up.

"I've never been hit like that, never been beaten," she said. "It was so far out of my realm of reality and everything they say (about battered women) is true -- I blamed myself."

Faller said drinking was a problem for Spangler and she helped him stop for a while. She said she also helped him get medication to deal with his mental instability, but Spangler didn't follow through very long.

"He doesn't care to be good," she concluded. "He doesn't think he has a problem.

"Basically the whole thing has been a nightmare, horrible. What's scary is going to bed and hearing things.

"What it does is make you cold, hard ... a bitch."

She recalled that once Spangler came up behind her in a Las Vegas grocery store and grabbed her and she responded by screaming and hurling cans from the shelves at him.

"It doesn't embarrass me," she said. "I'm not afraid anymore."

But neither has she learned to deal with the strain of the last seven years. Although conceding that "most of the hatred is gone," she knows there are demons still lurking inside her.

"I have to get counseling," she said.