Bart Spayd, 26, a white male from Newark, Delaware, was shot to death late on Thursday, July 11, 1985. He and his friend Thomas Garvey were found lying in the driveway outside Garvey’s home at 2195 Pleasant Valley Road, each suffering multiple gunshot wounds. The quiet stretch off U.S. 40 near Glasgow stirred with sirens after gunfire shattered the night; when troopers arrived, the two young men were already beyond help, the gravel drive turned into a crime scene beneath the porch light of a modest country house.
Investigators pieced together a sparse timeline from the echoes left behind. Neighbors reported the sound of a car racing away into the darkness and could offer no clear description, and detectives found no immediate witnesses to the killings. With little physical evidence publicly described and no apparent motive established in those first days, the case hardened into a mystery that would linger for decades, preserved in the state police’s roster of unsolved homicides.
Despite periodic appeals for information over the years, authorities have not announced any arrests, nor have they publicly identified a suspect or suspects in connection with the double homicide. The file remains open, an enduring cold case marked by the simple facts of two friends cut down in a driveway and an assailant who vanished into the summer night.
