Rebecca Spencer's House

Author: Jewls Krueger

The Spencer house stands on Inez Avenue in the Buttonwoods section of Warwick, Rhode Island. In July 1987 it was the scene of the first killing committed by serial killer Craig Price, who was only 13 years old at the time. His victim, 27-year-old Rebecca Spencer, lived two houses away from him. The crime went unsolved for more than two years and was closed only after Price killed a mother and her two daughters nearby and confessed to both cases. Spencer's murder is often overshadowed by the later Heaton killings, but it was where the case of the teenager later called "the Warwick Slasher" began.

Rebecca Spencer

Rebecca Ann Battey Spencer, known as Becky to her family and friends, was born in December 1959 and was 27 when she died. She was a mother of two and, at the time of her death, was preparing to move to a new neighborhood. Her family remembered her warmly in the years that followed. Her mother kept her photographs displayed at home, and her brother became an outspoken opponent of any reduction in Price's sentence. Spencer is buried in Glenwood Cemetery in East Greenwich, Rhode Island.

Craig Price

Craig Chandler Price was born in Warwick in October 1973 and grew up in the Buttonwoods neighborhood, a short distance from the Spencer home. He was known locally as a friendly, well-liked boy, though he had begun accumulating a juvenile record for burglary and theft. Price was 13 when he killed Rebecca Spencer, and he is often described as the youngest serial killer in United States history. Two years later, he would kill again.

The Murder of Rebecca Spencer

On the night of July 27, 1987, Price entered the Spencer home. Investigators later concluded that he had come to steal and was surprised to find Rebecca there. He took a knife that was already inside the house and stabbed her to death in her living room. The number of wounds was extreme, a pattern an FBI profiler would later describe as "overkill." Because the weapon came from inside the home and little evidence was left behind, the case proved difficult to solve, and it went cold. Rebecca's body was discovered by her brother.

The Investigation

For more than two years, Rebecca Spencer's killing remained unsolved. Her family grew frustrated with the lack of progress and feared the case would never be closed. That changed over Labor Day weekend in 1989, when Joan Heaton and her two daughters were found stabbed to death in their home one street over. FBI profiler Gregg McCrary noticed that both crimes shared the same extreme, frenzied character and concluded they were likely committed by the same local person.

Within days, investigators focused on Price, a 15-year-old neighbor, and arrested him. He confessed to the Heaton murders and, under further questioning, admitted that he had also killed Rebecca Spencer two years earlier.

Recent Developments

Because Price was a juvenile, Rhode Island law at the time allowed him to be held only until age 21, and he was tried and convicted as a minor. The prospect of his release drew national attention and led the state to change its laws so juveniles could be tried as adults, though the new rules could not be applied to Price retroactively. He has remained incarcerated because of crimes committed behind bars. In 2004 he was transferred to Florida, and in 2019 he was sentenced to 25 years there for the attempted murder of a fellow inmate. As of 2026, he remains in prison in Florida.

Rebecca Spencer's House Today

The Spencer home remains a private residence on Inez Avenue in the Buttonwoods section of Warwick, a quiet neighborhood of single-family homes near Oakland Beach on Narragansett Bay. Photographs taken years after the murder show an ordinary suburban house on an ordinary street, unmarked and indistinguishable from its neighbors.

Anyone who wishes to see the area should stay on public roads and sidewalks, avoid disturbing or photographing the people who live there now, and remember that this is a private home and a place tied to profound loss for the Spencer family.