Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes
- The Utah Court of Appeals upheld Spencer Greenway's murder conviction for killing Adam Cross.
- Greenway's appeal argued his attorneys should have objected to showing texts and jail calls to the jury where he made unrelated threats.
- Greenway killed Cross, his friend, in West Jordan after accusing him of having an affair with his girlfriend.
SALT LAKE CITY — An appellate court said a West Jordan man was rightly convicted of murdering his former best friend, whom he accused of having an affair with his girlfriend.
Spencer Greenway was sentenced on Dec. 9, 2022, to 15 years to life in the Utah State Prison after a jury found him guilty of murder, a first-degree felony, for causing the death of Adam Cross, 27, at his home in the early morning on April 21, 2020, in West Jordan.
Greenway argued in his appeal of the conviction that his attorneys should have objected to some messages and jail phone calls being shown to the jury in his trial. Utah Court of Appeals judges ruled in an opinion published on Thursday that Greenway did not prove his attorneys' actions caused him prejudice.
The jury was given a special verdict form allowing them to find him guilty of murder based on different qualifications. They did not find that he "intentionally or knowingly" caused the death of his friend, the typical definition of murder, but found that he was guilty of murder because he intended to cause injury, knowingly caused a grave risk of death, and acted under circumstances showing depraved indifference to human life.
The appellate court ruling said Greenway and his girlfriend had a "rollercoaster" relationship, and he suspected his girlfriend was cheating on him with his best friend. In January 2020, his newly pregnant girlfriend asked him to leave the home. After she fell asleep and while he was packing to leave, he found text messages on his girlfriend's phone that led him to accuse her of having an affair and then go and confront Cross.
A woman who was identified in police documents as Cross' girlfriend reported seeing Greenway hitting Cross' head with a baseball bat in a fight that began in the garage and went out onto the street. She also said she saw Greenway point a knife at his friend and then run to his car.
According to the opinion, the woman rushed Cross to the hospital, and he lost consciousness in a fall while she was trying to place him in a wheelchair. He later died from "several stab wounds and significant head trauma," the opinion said.
Greenway then returned to his home and told his friend, who was dating a roommate, that Cross had hit him with a wrench, so he hit him with "a bat with barbed wire." He told his girlfriend a similar story, showing both of them the bloody knife.
When he was arrested later that day, he had a knife on his belt and blood on his pants. He admitted to officers that he was angry and wanted to confront Cross, and claimed his friend had threatened to shoot him before he pulled out the knife. He initially told officers he had a little piece of wood, but later admitted it was a bat wrapped in barbed wire.
In the appeal, Greenway contested the use of a text exchange where his girlfriend told him she was dating someone with the same first name as his friend. He said it better not be Cross, another text when he said he would kill Cross "No joke." if she saw him again, and a jail phone call where he said he "might have to kill" the girlfriend's OBGYN if the doctor was male.
His attorneys argued in closing arguments that he sent "all kinds of just outrageous threats," but they were all things that never happened. The attorney told the jury the messages only show he says outrageous things and doesn't follow through.
