Spell was represented by Samuel Friedman and future US Supreme Court justice Thurgood Marshall.
He served in the U.S. Army before being dishonorably discharged after getting drunk, stealing an officer's car, and crashing it.
[1][4] Eleanor Strubing accused Spell of raping her four times at her home in Greenwich, Connecticut, kidnapping her, forcing her to write a ransom note for $5,000, and attempting to murder her by throwing her from a bridge, all on the night of December 10-11, 1940.
[5] On the morning of December 11 Strubing was found by two truck drivers by the Kensico Reservoir in Westchester County, New York, soaking wet and injured.
[6] Spell claimed that their sexual encounter was consensual, and that he suggested they go for a drive when she became anxious about becoming pregnant.