State of Iowa v. John Walter Spooner

IN THE COURT OF APPEALS OF IOWA
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No. 24-1180
Filed January 7, 2026
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State of Iowa,
Plaintiff–Appellee,
v.
John Walter Spooner,
Defendant–Appellant.
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Appeal from the Iowa District Court for Black Hawk County,
The Honorable David P. Odekirk, Judge.
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AFFIRMED
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Martha J. Lucey, State Appellate Defender, and Theresa R. Wilson,
Assistant Appellate Defender, attorneys for appellant.

Brenna Bird, Attorney General, and Joshua Henry, Assistant Attorney
General, attorneys for appellee.
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Considered without oral argument
by Ahlers P.J., and Chicchelly and Buller, JJ.
Opinion by Buller, J.

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BULLER, Judge.

John Spooner appeals his conviction for involuntary manslaughter,
challenging sufficiency of the evidence. This conviction was returned after
another jury found him guilty on many of the same facts for arson in the first
degree; we affirm that conviction today in State v. Spooner, No. 24-0249, 2026
WL ___ (Iowa Ct. App. Jan. 7, 2026). On review, we affirm because this case
was a battle of the experts, and it is not our role to second-guess which
experts the jury chose to believe.

BACKGROUND FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS
Spooner had been staying for a few days at the home of Tony Grider,
where Grider lived with a few roommates. The roommates had odd
interactions with Spooner the night before the fire: Spooner asked one
whether he felt “safe” in the house, and another overheard Spooner pacing
and talking to himself. They thought Spooner seemed “delusional” or was
“tripping,” and sometimes he saw “[t]hings that aren’t really there.”

The morning of the fire, a neighbor encountered Spooner at a nearby
church parking lot. Spooner was again acting strangely, and he was carrying
a blue lighter and flicking it repeatedly. The neighbor recorded videos of
Spooner in which he can be heard talking about “blow it up,” “smoke,” and
“snakes.” The neighbor saw Spooner walking toward Grider’s house. And
when the neighbor returned about ten minutes later, she saw “[f ]lames
coming out of the roof.”

The roommates were awakened by a loud noise like glass breaking and
quickly realized the house was on fire. Bystanders and first responders
reported that the fire appeared to start or was most intense around the front

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porch. By the time firefighters arrived, the front of the house—including the
porch—was engulfed in flames.

One resident of the house escaped out her first-floor window, while
another jumped from his second-story window to escape. Grider was still
inside in his bedroom directly above the fire, but the flames were initially too
hot for anyone to safely attempt a rescue. Eventually, firefighters tamed the
blaze and found Grider unresponsive and “covered in soot” on his bedroom
floor; he was pronounced dead at the hospital. After performing an autopsy,
the medical examiner ruled the cause of death “inhalation of products of
combustion and thermal injuries,” both internal and external.

At the scene, witnesses and first responders spotted a gas can in the
street about a house-distance away from the fire, and police seized it. One of
the roommates encountered Spooner and asked him why he didn’t alert her
to the fire; Spooner asked her if she saw a “serpent” near the porch and told
her the serpent was “coming” for her.

Police spoke to Spooner while responding to the fire, and he told them
that he saw the fire, it started on the porch, he thought “Tony” (Grider)
started it, he tried to put the fire out with a bucket, and he moved the gas can
from the porch to the street. Spooner was, according to police, “kind of hard
to understand.” At one point in this conversation, Spooner said—more or
less unprompted—“this is not arson.” An officer found a blue lighter on
Spooner’s person while transporting him to the police department. And
another officer observed Spooner saying “things that didn’t make sense”
when he was placed in a holding cell.

In its case in chief, the State presented expert testimony from a local
fire investigator and the city fire marshal; a private fire consultant testified for

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the State in rebuttal. These experts opined that the fire started on the porch
using an ignitable fluid like gasoline, burned through the “junk on that
porch,” then spread into the interior of the house. And they testified that they
ruled out alternative causes like electrical issues, weather, or a cigarette.
Testing at the state crime lab established there was gasoline in the gas can
and one of the samples recovered from the deck.

The defense experts disagreed with the State’s witnesses. A defense
expert focused on engineering testified that the cause of the fire was
undetermined and it more likely originated in the living room. And a defense
chemistry expert opined that the gasoline found in the gas can did not match
the gasoline found on the porch decking. A Division of Criminal Investigation
criminalist disputed whether the chemistry expert’s conclusion was
scientifically valid and testified that the standards for the laboratory
equipment at issue specifically prohibit the kind of matching the defense
expert performed.

Investigators also collected surveillance footage from the
neighborhood. Video showed Spooner repeatedly walking up to the porch
before the fire started. No one else walked up to the porch during that time.
Video also captured the gas can rolling into the street, Spooner picking it up,
and later throwing it.

At trial, Spooner told the jury that he and others smoked
methamphetamine in the house the night before the fire. He said that he
made the statements to the neighbor because he wanted to “say[] something
crazy trying to make her leave.” He said that, although he didn’t start the fire
(and suspected someone else did), he noticed a fire on the porch, tried to put
it out, and threw a nearby gas can into the street. He explained the statement
about seeing the serpent by telling the jury he got bit by a snake and now

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“every time I get paranoid I start seeing snakes.” Methamphetamine use, he
said, makes him more paranoid.

The county attorney charged Spooner with murder in the first degree,
but the jury found him guilty of lesser-included involuntary manslaughter, a
class “D” felony in violation of Iowa Code section 707.5(1)(a) (2022).
Spooner appeals, arguing there was insufficient evidence he started the fire
resulting in Grider’s death.

STANDARD OF REVIEW
We review sufficiency-of-the-evidence claims for correction of errors
at law. State v. Jones, 967 N.W.2d 336, 339 (Iowa 2021). “In determining
whether the [factfinder]’s verdict is supported by substantial evidence, we
view the evidence in the light most favorable to the State, including all
‘legitimate inferences and presumptions that may fairly and reasonably be
deduced from the record evidence.’” Id. (citation omitted). We do not
substitute our view of the evidence for that of the factfinder. See State v.
Hernandez, 20 N.W.3d 502, 507–08 (Iowa Ct. App. 2025) (en banc). And,
“[w]hen a case evolves into a battle of experts, we, as the reviewing court,
readily defer to the [factfinder]’s judgment as it is in a better position to weigh
the credibility of the witnesses.” State v. Jacobs, 607 N.W.2d 679, 685
(Iowa 2000).

DISCUSSION
This case was a classic battle of the experts in which we owe great
deference to the jury’s decision on which experts to believe. See id. On the
one hand, the State’s expert testimony supported a fire started by Spooner
on the porch. On the other, the defense experts pointed toward an unknown
cause and different origin for the fire, which at least arguably weighed against

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Spooner as the arsonist. The jury chose to believe the State’s witnesses,
which we observe is supported by a significant amount of circumstantial
evidence—like the video footage, Spooner’s admissions, and his possession
of the blue lighter. Spooner has not established any valid basis on which we
could substitute our view of the evidence for the jury’s. See id.; Hernandez,
20 N.W.3d at 507–08.

AFFIRMED.

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