A Fatal Affair: The Murder of Helen Grier [Part I]
I first read about Helen Grier in September 2022, when my local online paper, the SooToday.com, ran a two-part article about her unsolved murder. As the author of two mystery series and seven novels, my first thought was “Here’s a possible idea for my next Marketville mystery.” (My Marketville mysteries are what I like to consider “Cold Case Cozies.”) I printed the article, stuck it inside a folder and more or less forgot about it while I researched, wrote, and published Finding YOUR Path to Publication, followed by Self-publishing: The Ins & Outs of Going Indie in 2023.
I say “more or less forgot about it” because every now and again I’d hunt through old newspaper archives to learn a bit more about Helen Grier. And with every thing I read, I knew one thing: Helen Grier’s story deserved to be told. And it deserved to be told as fact, not fiction. I just didn’t know how I was going to do it.
And then I met Amanda Capper, another Sault Ste. Marie author. Turned out she’d been wanting to write about Helen Grier for more than a decade. In fact, she even knew the current owner of the hunt camp where Helen Grier was murdered. We applied for Ontario Arts Council funding (to assist with research and other expenses) and were approved in October 2025. A Fatal Affair: The Murder of Helen Grier, will be published on October 28, 2026, the 89th anniversary of Helen’s death.
Here’s a brief recap:
Helen Grier was a 28-year-old stenographer from Pontiac, Michigan. At the time of her death, she had been seeing 40-year-old Vernon Spencer, a married father of two. Spencer, a former professional baseball player (albeit mostly in the minor leagues), had inherited his father’s dairy farm in Wixom, Michigan, and ran the day-to-day operations. By all accounts, Grier and Spencer had been having an affair for five or six years.
In October 1937, Helen and Vernon arrived in Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario, Canada, and registered at a local hotel as Mr. and Mrs. Sprague. The following day they made their way to a hunting cabin on Long Lake, about 45 minutes away by car. The cabin was owned by a Dr. A.A. Holcomb of Pontiac, Michigan.
On the afternoon of October 28, 1937, Spencer, having purportedly been out looking for moose tracks, entered the cabin to discover Helen’s body lying in a pool of blood. She had been shot in her left temple. According to Spencer, he immediately went to the nearest neighbour in search of a phone. The three-mile trek, which typically took less than an hour, took Spencer four. He would later tell police that he had experienced trouble with his flashlight, missed the trail, and gotten lost in the bush.
There’s a lot more to the story, as you can guess, though the bottom line is that in January 1938, Vernon Spencer was charged with the murder of Helen Grier. His trial was held in Sault Ste. Marie, Canada, in April 1938. After a scant three-hour deliberation, Vernon Spencer was acquitted of all charges, and returned to his dairy farm in Wixom, his wife by his side.
Some believe Vernon Spencer got away with murder. Others believe Helen, with a history of depression, may have taken her own life. Still others think one of the “bachelors” (single men in the area, in search of logging work) may have been responsible.
Amanda’s opinion on whodunit and mine differ. But what we think doesn’t matter. Our job is to research historical archives, present the facts we discover without bias, and let the reader be the judge.
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The past Chair of Crime Writers of Canada, Judy Penz Sheluk is the bestselling author of seven mystery novels, five anthologies, and two award-winning books on publishing, including Finding YOUR Path to Publication and Self-publishing: The Ins & Outs of Going Indie. Find her at www.judypenzsheluk.com.