Cook was well-known at the funeral home as a charming, well-dressed visitor with a taste for expensive cars. He stopped in frequently, employees recall, to brief Spencer on his policies and sometimes collect payments. Now when Spencer phoned his insurance agent, Cook wouldn't return the call.
After doing some investigating on his own, Spencer complained in December to the state insurance department that his signature had been forged on the $12,250 check, and the money cashed through the bank account of a neighboring church--where Spencer says Cook was a member. (Cook did not respond to numerous requests for an interview with the Observer.)
In his complaint, Spencer states that he also learned, while ferreting out what had become of his $12,250, that Cook and Spencer's former bookkeeper, Jimmie Hudson, had taken out a $50,000 life insurance policy on the undertaker. Cook, according to insurance department records, signed his name as a witness on the policy application.
A distraught Spencer turned over this information to Fort Worth police. He told officers he never authorized Hudson or Cook to take out a policy on his life.
According to police reports, when the policy initially went into effect, Spencer's mother (now deceased) was to be the beneficiary. "However," the report states, "after the insurance had already been into effect, this Jimmie Hudson had changed the policy to make her[self] the beneficiary."
Hudson denies all of the allegations. "All I ever did was try to help Gregory," she told the Observer. She declined further comment.
But according to insurance company records turned over to state investigators, Hudson made all the payments on the life insurance policy through her personal checking account, and all notices were sent to her home.
"I have been mentally distraught at the idea of someone insuring my life without a reasonable insurable interest," Spencer wrote in his complaint to the state insurance department. The agency is investigating Spencer's complaints against Hudson and Cook; the cases are still open.
On January 30, 1995, Fort Worth police issued an arrest warrant for Cook in connection with the missing $12,250. Cook turned himself in the next day, and was released on his own recognizance.
Some time after Spencer had filed his complaint with the state insurance department, its investigators learned that Cook had been operating illegally as an insurance agent--his license had been revoked in 1991. Insurance department records show, in fact, that Cook has had many complaints lodged against him--and has compiled a long list of disgruntled clients.
Today, Spencer claims the insurance cases are tied to the attacks on his life--despite Fort Worth police detective J.H. Ladd's statement that Cook and Hudson aren't considered suspects.
Spencer says he's anguished by his belief that police aren't concerned about the unauthorized life insurance policy. Someone's out to get him, he maintains, and no one in authority seems to care.
To be sure, some of Spencer's enemies are clearly tickled by the undertaker's troubles.
"If I were a younger man," says Thomas Russell, "I'd kill him myself."
Spencer, as always, puts such spiteful talk in the Lord's hands.
"I'm such an envied person--people don't understand how I've gained my success," Spencer says. "But it has been honest, godly success.
"The wisdom of man don't bother me," he adds. "The Lord will deal with these fools.
