Dallas County Public Defender's Chief Investigator Charged With Murder in His Wife's Stabbing Death
Jimmy Spurger, 54, who supervised investigators for the office that defends people accused of crimes, is jailed without bond after Maria Spurger, 53, was found stabbed during a Friday night welfare check in Uptown. The county has suspended him and cut his access.
DALLAS — The man who supervised the investigators of the Dallas County Public Defender's Office is now himself jailed on a murder charge. Jimmy Spurger, 54, the office's chief investigator, is charged in the stabbing death of his wife, Maria Spurger, 53, who was found with stab wounds inside a residence in the 2300 block of North Akard Street in Uptown Dallas, according to Dallas police. Officers responded to the residence shortly after 11 p.m. Friday for a health and welfare check. According to an arrest affidavit obtained by FOX 4, paramedics found Maria Spurger on a couch with a knife in her neck.
Spurger was booked into the Dallas County Jail on Saturday on a murder charge — a first-degree felony under Texas law — and remains in custody without bond, according to jail records. Dallas County Judge Clay Jenkins moved on the employment side Sunday: "Upon notice of this tragic murder, I instructed Administration to place the employee on suspension and remove his access," Jenkins said in a statement. Court documents obtained by NBC 5 show Spurger had filed for divorce on Oct. 26, less than two weeks before the killing, with Maria Spurger named as the respondent.
The professional reversal is stark. According to the Public Defender's Office website, Spurger had served as chief investigator for the past 11 months — supervising, training and overseeing the investigative staff — after more than 13 years in the office, primarily in its Capital Murder Division, and more than 20 years in law enforcement specializing in homicide investigations. Dallas police say the motive and the circumstances of the stabbing remain under investigation. A murder charge is an accusation, not a conviction: Spurger is presumed innocent unless and until he is proven guilty in court.
