Colonel Spangler

Army Colonel Spangler was one of the suspects during the murder investigations of Army Lieutenant and Fort Lafayette mainstay Nora Lewis in The Root of All Evil (Case #64, or Case #8 of Pacific Bay), burglar Theo Mercier in Under the Thunderdome (Case #77, or Case #21 of Pacific Bay), and storm chaser Peggy Pascal in The Eye of the Storm (Case #79, or Case #23 of Pacific Bay).

Profile
Colonel Spangler is a 56-year-old Army Colonel (as his name suggests) who has green eyes, and wears a standard Army officer suit with a white shirt and a black neck tie underneath his army coat. He has 4 silver stars on his shoulder and has standard Army decorations coming from his years of service. Spangler dons a standard Army officer's cap also with 4 silver stars. Also, in his second case appearance, he sports a blue badge around his neck which says "Jazz Town Evacuation". Apart from that, he has black hair (hidden in his cap), and it is known that he uses lemongrass, has gardening skills, drinks chicory, and uses insect repellent.

Role in Case(s)
Colonel Spangler serves as the head of the United States Army's Fort Lafayette base stationed in Bayou Bleu, and is currently in charge of the Thunderdome evacuation project to extract as many lives out of Hurricane Zelda's sight in Jazz Town. He is also known to be the head of the Army Special Projects Division.

The Root of All Evil
The first time Spangler was called into investigation was when the team found a military schedule at the victim's locker of Fort Lafayette and gave it to Hannah Choi for analysis. Hannah managed to crack the military schedule and realized the victim was a participant in a project named Alternative Universal Defense Resources on Elected Youth, abbreviated as A.U.D.R.E.Y.--in which Hannah deduced it as being a cover-up done by the military to keep info out of public. Hannah managed to expose Colonel Spangler as the leader of the project, so the team went to Fort Lafayette to talk to him.

Spangler was upset when the police had to tell him about Lt. Lewis's death but Frank told Spangler it was a criminal investigation under civilian authority. Spangler told the team that the project was given to Lt. Lewis to find new grounds for military training, but never knew that she would not survive in the hostile swamps. He personally thought that the military should investigate Lt. Lewis's death but Frank countered that the death occurred on civilian soil, grounds for the Pacific Bay Police Department to do the investigation.

The second time Spangler was interrogated was immediately after Chief Marquez commanded the team to head to Fort Lafayette to release Hannah and to have her exonerated of treason charges against her. All Chief Marquez knew before she went to Fort Lafayette to reason with Spangler was that Hannah was hacking to assist the team in the murder investigation albeit the military would not allow that--something the Chief wanted to talk some sense into the military official.

Upon arrival at Hannah's cell, Spangler declared what the team wanted was superceded by military authority. Chief Marquez didn't buy Spangler's claims and requested Hannah to be released and exonerated of high treason charges or she would permit the media to publish a story about Project A.U.D.R.E.Y. (a mission Lt. Lewis was working on) as the Chief was not afraid of doing so because she knew what was happening within the Pacific Bay Police Department's touch. Dumbfounded, Spangler gave the team clearance to wander around Ft. Lafayette to continue the investigation, but not without interrogating the Colonel once again.

Frank told Spangler that Project A.U.D.R.E.Y. wasn't about finding new training grounds, but to investigate old experiments conducted by Pacific Pharma and wondered as to why Spangler would do such a thing. All Spangler knew was that Lt. Lewis found some weird sprouts using the formula to grow a plant into a gigantic plant in Swamp Forest, so Spangler grew one sprout in his office, knowing that formula made the plant gigantic. Spangler sent Lt. Lewis to intercept Swamp Forest once again where she found the carnivorous plant (which killed her), and attempted to get the gigantic plant project open once again but Frank told Spangler to stand down since the higher-ups had a reason to scrap the project.

Although Spangler was innocent after Ray Westman was found guilty of grand homicide, Chief Marquez held a personal grudge against the military given what happened to Hannah during the investigation--him confiscating Hannah's laptop was enough to make Chief Marquez uneasy, so she requested the player to accompany her to talk some sense to Spangler following the indictment. Spangler felt it was a military right to retain Hannah's laptop but Chief Marquez made it clear that the laptop was Pacific Bay Police property, but being the persuasive chief Andrea was, Spangler agreed to have the player retrieve the laptop but at the expense of having the player hack the computer and give it back to Hannah following the Blue Screen of Death. Chief Marquez was displeased when Spangler tampered with the laptop prior to Hannah's retrieval.

Colonel Spangler's stunt on Hannah's laptop angered her as she found out the military placed electromagnetic pulses to compromise her laptop. Although Chief Marquez approved Hannah's earnest investigation in the abandoned lab, she couldn't cover Hannah's vendettas as she required the player to accompany her but in exchange Hannah would behave. Hannah found a suitcase with a broken incubator pieced together, and found out that it was the device that caused Hannah's laptop to act up. Hannah would have one final word with Spangler about the incubator (which he claimed it was military property) that made Hannah's laptop act up in which Spangler wanted to revive the cancelled experiments to be promoted to a better district of Pacific Bay but felt that it was too much of a hassle and opted to give up on the lost experiment anyway.

Under the Thunderdome
Colonel Spangler was in charge of the Thunderdome evacuation project to extract as many lives out of Hurricane Zelda's sight by all means possible, but became a suspect when he saw Theo Mercier's body stuffed inside a military crate. Spangler recognized Theo as a thief and a troublemaker who didn't make any friends under any circumstances throughout his life. Spangler was generous enough to give Amy Young and the player the address to the Mercier residence, which was severely hit by Hurricane Yves.

Colonel Spangler's troubles were far from over as during the investigation, Amy and the player found a confidential memorandum at the Mercier residence (following Chief Marquez's order to make a second trip to the Mercier residence due to rising waters), in which Hannah managed to incriminate the document as being information about the Army's weather machine project. Amy and the player interrogated Spangler in the Thunderdome about what they found at the Mercier residence, in which Spangler was infuriated to know about a thief's success in stealing classified military documents. Theo was unsuccessful in cracking the code, but Amy told that the police were able to incriminate the document as a vehicle for the Army's weather machine project but Spangler countered that the project was top-secret and that he would not spill a word about what the document revealed. Amy and the player interrogated Peggy Pascal following their discussion with Spangler, although both Spangler and Peggy were innocent after the pharmacist was impounded for grand homicide.

Colonel Spangler would then be caught in the middle of the military laptop fiasco involving Peggy tampering with military property as a part of her quest in seeking the truth behind the storms. Furthermore, Amy and the player found a document of the weather project being headed by Colonel Spangler during the military laptop fiasco. Amy suspected Spangler since there were a lot of things (not limited to the weather machine) that he was hiding, but he was very upset when the police tried to leak the weather machine to the public. The military laptop fiasco and the events of this case would haunt Spangler for the hours to come.

The Eye of the Storm
Colonel Spangler found himself in deep trouble moments after Peggy was found dead.

Trivia

 * Colonel Spangler's first name is unknown as "Colonel" is an honorary rank of the army, and not a first name.
 * Spangler is one of the many suspects who appeared in three cases.
 * Spangler, Padre Rafael, Shelly Dulard, and Carly Lewis are thus far the only suspects who have physically appeared in two different districts of Pacific Bay.
 * Spangler is one of the characters who animate (or move) in at least one cutscene in the game.
 * Spangler is the only character in Pacific Bay that rewards you clothes in all his appearances in Additional Investigation.

Case Appearances

 * The Root of All Evil (Case #64, or Case #8 of Pacific Bay)
 * Under the Thunderdome (Case #77, or Case #21 of Pacific Bay)
 * The Eye of the Storm (Case #79, or Case #23 of Pacific Bay)