Davy Cleon Spencer Jr., the 47 year old Wilmington man charged in the April 5, 2026 fatal stabbing of 21 year old Marine Lance Cpl. Daniel Montano, was not a stranger to North Carolina courts.
Court records reviewed by The Salty Soldier show Spencer’s criminal history stretches back more than 30 years, including prior convictions, assault related charges, probation violations, resisting an officer, stolen vehicle offenses, repeated driving while license revoked cases, and habitual felon status.
Spencer is currently facing one count of second degree murder and two counts of assault with a deadly weapon with intent to kill in connection with the downtown Wilmington incident that left Montano dead and others injured. Those charges remain pending, and Spencer is presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in court.
But the pending murder case now raises a broader question: how many times did Spencer pass through the justice system before he was accused in the killing of a young Marine?
The answer is not simple, but the record is long.
Some of Spencer’s earliest cases may date back to when he was still a juvenile and a very young adult, though portions of older North Carolina court records do not always make that distinction clear in public databases.
In 1995, Spencer pleaded guilty to assault inflicting serious injury in New Hanover District Court and was placed on supervised probation, court records show. The same case later involved a probation violation. Records show he received a 45 day jail sentence that was suspended while he remained under probation supervision.
Court records also show Spencer faced assault on a female charges in both 1995 and again in 2013. Both cases were ultimately dismissed by prosecutors.
The following year, Spencer pleaded guilty in a felony breaking or entering a motor vehicle case. Court records show he received supervised probation, intensive supervision, and a sentence ranging from seven to nine months tied to the felony offense. The case later resulted in a felony probation violation, with jail credit applied after the sentence was modified.
By 1997, Spencer was again convicted, this time for unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. Court records show he pleaded guilty and received an active 45 day sentence, with credit for 16 days already served.
In 1998, Spencer was charged in Superior Court with possession of a stolen motor vehicle, marijuana possession, weapons on educational property, driving while license revoked, second degree trespass, and felony probation violations. Court records show he ultimately pleaded guilty to possession of a stolen motor vehicle, while several other charges were dismissed. He received supervised probation and later served additional time after another probation violation.
That pattern continued over the years: serious allegations, some convictions, some dismissals, probation violations, failures to appear, and cases resolved through plea agreements or dismissals.
In 2011, Spencer was charged with assault inflicting serious injury. That case was later dismissed by prosecutors in 2013, according to court records. The same file also shows multiple orders for arrest connected to failure to appear issues before the case was eventually closed.
In 2013, Spencer was charged with assault on a female and interfering with emergency communication. Those charges were later dismissed by prosecutors.
The more serious designation came later. In 2015, Spencer pleaded guilty to habitual felon status in New Hanover Superior Court, according to court records. The file lists aliases including Davy, Davey, David, and Davie Cleon Spencer Jr.
A separate habitual felon case from 2014 was later dismissed as part of a plea agreement, according to court records.
Most recently, less than a year before Montano was killed, Spencer was arrested in a 2025 Wilmington case involving resisting a public officer, marijuana possession, and assault on a government official or employee. Court records show he pleaded guilty to resisting a public officer and marijuana possession. The assault charge involving the government employee was dismissed as part of a plea agreement. He received a 27 day active sentence with credit for time already served.
That case is significant because it shows Spencer was still actively moving through the criminal justice system in 2025, only months before he was accused of killing Montano.
Despite a criminal record stretching back decades, much of Spencer’s history appears to have resulted in probation, plea agreements, dismissed charges, or relatively short periods of confinement.
Even after felony convictions and probation violations, court records repeatedly show Spencer returning to supervised release, reduced sentences, or negotiated resolutions.
None of this proves Spencer committed the April 2026 stabbing. That is for a court to decide.
But the records do show a decades long pattern of criminal charges and convictions, including violence related allegations, felony convictions, habitual felon status, failures to appear, probation violations, and repeated encounters with law enforcement.
The uncomfortable question is whether the system treated Spencer as a chronic offender, or whether the revolving door simply kept turning until someone was killed.
That does not mean every dismissed case should be treated as proof of guilt. It should not. Dismissals matter. Plea agreements matter. Prosecutors often make decisions based on witness cooperation, evidence issues, court resources, and the likelihood of securing a conviction.
But for the public, and especially for Montano’s family, the record raises a fair question: how many warning signs were there?
It also raises a broader issue for a community that sits beside the East Coast’s largest Marine Corps base. Wilmington and the surrounding area regularly attract young Marines from nearby Camp Lejeune into its nightlife districts, bars, and downtown corridors. That reality carries an expectation that repeat violent offenders and chronic offenders moving through the court system are being adequately addressed before another tragedy occurs.
Montano’s death was already disturbing because of the video evidence showing the aftermath of the stabbing and the police response that followed. Now, the court history adds another layer to the story.
The video itself is too graphic to publish publicly here, but age-verified subscribers can view the footage through our subscriber portal with appropriate content warnings.
This was not just a random suspect with no known history.
This was a man whose name had appeared in North Carolina court records for decades before he was charged in the gruesome killing of a United States Marine.
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