Investigators Allege That Murdered Mom's Ex Threw Her Cell Phone Out Of His Truck

Investigators allege that the ex-boyfriend of a Florida mom whose body was found in an Alabama barn earlier this month threw an item out of his truck window in connection with the case.

Marcus Spanevelo, 34, has been in custody in Tennessee since April 3 on charges of tampering with evidence, giving false information concerning a missing persons investigation and destruction of evidence. He was arrested on a warrant out of Santa Rosa County in Florida after police there allege that he was involved with the disappearance and death of his ex-girlfriend, Cassie Carli.

Carli, 37, of Navarre Beach, Florida vanished on March 27 shortly after a custody exchange with Spanevelo, the father of her 4-year-old daughter, as previously reported. She was later found dead in a shallow grave inside the Alabama barn.

Spanevelo was extradited back to Florida and he made his first court appearance on Tuesday. First Judicial Circuit Judge Clifton A. Drake ordered him held on $21,000 for the charges and for a new and fourth count of refusing to provide authorities with a DNA sample, Fox News reports.

An affidavit of complaint related to Spanevelo’s first three charges, obtained by Fox News, gives more insight into the allegations against the father. It claims that Spanevelo provided false information "by not disclosing pertinent information about where he stopped along his route of returning home to Panama City Beach with [redacted] later that evening." 

They also allege that he threw an item out the window of his truck. It is not clear what that item is but investigators have previously alleged that Spanevelo took and disposed of her phone. 

"Marcus had spoken to a person and told them he had located [redacted] in his truck and threw it out of the window," the recent affidavit states, regarding the item.

The phone has since been recovered and investigators say that Spanevelo wrote texts from that phone while posing as Carli.

 "I’m sorry, car was acting up, and I broke my phone,” was one of the texts sent to Carli’s distraught and worried father, according to Fox News. “Marcus is working on it. I will stay at his place tonight. He is paying me some money to do some stuff around his house." 

Just days before Carli’s murder, Spanevelo was ordered to pay her legal fees in their ongoing custody battle. She vanished after a scheduled custody exchange of their daughter in the parking lot of the restaurant Juana’s Pagodas in Navarre Beach, Florida. Her car and purse were found in a parking lot near the restaurant before her body was located.