A six-week missing person investigation turned into a death inquiry on Sunday, September 27, when police found human remains in the woods near Pelham’s Wild Timber community. Pelham police officers and the Shelby County Coroner’s Office responded to the location shortly after receiving a tip about a deceased person in the brush. Authorities quickly made a preliminary identification: the remains belonged to 67-year-old Glen Spence, an Alabaster man missing since mid-August.
Investigators working the case have spent weeks trying to piece together a puzzling timeline from the day Spence vanished. On Thursday, August 13, security cameras recorded Spence walking his usual routes near Southbrook Village Shopping Center in Alabaster. At roughly 2:00 p.m., he got into a vehicle and accepted a ride out toward Pelham.
What happened next remains one of the central puzzles of the case. Investigators confirmed Spence was dropped off in Pelham, a distance far too long for him to have walked back home on foot. Yet by 6:45 p.m. that same evening, a witness who knew Spence well saw him back in the Southbrook Village parking lot near 1st Street Southwest. Police believe he accepted a second ride from another driver to get back to Alabaster, but that driver was never identified.
After that evening sighting, Spence vanished completely. He carried no mobile phone, and his medical conditions meant he could easily become disoriented or struggle to ask for help. As the days ticked by, Alabaster police launched search efforts using ground crews, ATVs, UTVs, and aerial drones to cover wooded lots and roadsides between the two towns.
Detectives combed through local tips and urged drivers who might have picked Spence up on August 13 to contact 911. Investigators wanted to map out his exact movements and establish where he went after returning to the shopping center. Despite public appeals and community search efforts, no solid leads turned up until the discovery in Pelham over six weeks later.
At the discovery site in Pelham, officers found no obvious signs of physical trauma on Spence’s body, according to preliminary police reports. Because the physical evidence at the scene left key questions open, the Shelby County Coroner’s Office turned the remains over to the Alabama Department of Forensic Sciences for thorough testing.
Forensic examiners are now working to establish the exact cause and manner of death through detailed toxicology and physical evaluations. Pelham police and Alabaster detectives continue to review the case files, keeping the investigation open until official forensic reports provide a clear picture of how Spence ended up in the woods.
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