The death of a 5-year-old Tallahassee girl has caused a pouring of grief and raises doubts about whether Florida’s system of protecting children from abuse has failed.
Look | Missy Mogul, who passed away on May 19th, spins around in her final dance recital
Investigators say they were terribly abused before their death on May 19th, but they will spin around at their final dance recital of 2023.
Pepper Mogul saw his granddaughter Missy for the last time in Leon County Courthouse. There, the abusive stepfather, a five-year-old, was brought to trial after being arrested for sex stabbing of a secret child.
Chloe Spencer, mother of Mogle’s daughter, Missy, said on April 15th that the little girl was hungry. Mogul appeared with a happy meal from McDonald’s and a message of hope that she had whispered in Missy’s ear.
“I told her I loved her,” she said. “I kept kissing her and told her I was doing everything I could to get back to her house.”
However, Missy never returned to her grandparents’ home in Wakula County. There, 23-year-old Chloe Spencer and her husband, 35-year-old Daniel Spencer, were in love and attention for years before they gained custody of her.
Just a few weeks later, on May 19th, Missy lost consciousness and rushed to the hospital after police said they had been seriously abused at Cloes Penser’s home in the wealthy Tallahassee area at Daniel and Cloes Penser’s home. Her mother and stepfather were arrested the same day and charged with first-degree murder on July 21st. The pair could face death penalty, prosecutors say.
Her death sparked a pouring of grief in the Florida capital, raising questions about the state’s child welfare system, courts, police and others may not be able to protect her.
The judge’s decision not to let Daniel Spencer go to prison led to harsh criticism from State Attorney Jack Campbell after he was convicted of a previous sex stab wound and then freed him shortly before the murder, urging Attorney General James Usmier to propose a new law of Missy’s honor.
Missy’s end mise coincided with a significant decrease in Florida in the number of children placed in foster care due to abuse, abandonment or neglect.
It also coincides with the decline in Leon County, a child sanction investigator who plays a key role at the forefront of abuse cases, according to the Florida Child Welfare Dashboard office.
Missy’s loved ones, including Pepper Mogul and her husband Andy Mogul, have accused police and DCF of not doing anything further after receiving complaints last year that Daniel Spencer had abused her.
The state agency may have been able to receive a complaint from the dependency judge, a regular step in cases of sexual abuse, but instead signed a suspicious solution designed to keep Missy away from her stepfather, but to send her back to him.
According to a confidential DCF document obtained by Tallahassee Democrats and the USA Today Network (Fla.), the agency has confirmed the arrangement that Chloespencer gave Missy to a family friend who has a simple power agreement that Chloe can revoke at any time.
“It was destined to fail,” said Robert Latham, lawyer, child welfare expert and associate director at the University of Miami Children & Youth Law Clinic.
“Something bad will happen.”
At the time of her death, Missy was living with her mother and stepfather, three other young children, a retired doctor who owned the Tallahassee home. Court records show that he was like Daniel Spencer’s adoptive father.
However, Missy grew up in Wakula County, mainly with Pepper and Andy Mogul. They got temporary custody before her first birthday after saying that her daughter, a 17-year-old daughter, had no interest in raising her.
In 2023, when Missy was three years old, Chloe Spencer filed in court to regain custody. When General Dina Foster heard of the incident in Wakula County, he discovered that Chloe Spencer was “no longer ineligible” and that there were no issues related to the DCF, safety plans, or injunctions.
Foster writes that Daniel Spencer, who worked for Publix, showed “stability” and did not abuse alcohol or drugs. However, she pointed out the concerns she had expressed by her grandparents.
“The petitioner testifies that his mother is once again unstable and worried about a proper transitional plan,” she wrote. “The petitioner expressed concern that Mr Spencer had abused his mother in the past.”
After July 10, 2023, Foster heard a hearing in favor of Chloe Spencer, writing that she and her parents agreed that the transition plan was in Missy’s “best interest.” Circuit J. Lane Smith approved the recommended order. Pepper Mogul said the ruling came despite her warnings in public court.
“I said, ‘I’ll give you six months of Chloe with that baby and something bad will happen,” she said.
Chloe Spencer reclaimed Missy on February 3, 2024, Moguls said in court filings. A few days later, Chloe Spencer gave Missy to Peig Carnahan, a friend who served alongside Andy Mogul, an army mechanic who had retired in the Second Persian Gulf War. She also signed a power of attorney so that Carnahan, known as the “maternal aunt” in the DCF records, could take Missy to the doctor if necessary.
Less than two weeks later, on February 16, 2024, Daniel Spencer was arrested after traveling to meet someone who thought he was a 15-year-old girl but was actually a police officer. It prompted Chloe Spencer to amend the power of attorney and designated Missy not to contact her stepfather, Pepper Mogul said.
A few days after Daniel Spencer’s arrest, Missy’s grandparents filed a petition in a Family Court case for Missy’s emergency custody. Judge Smith denied that as the custody case has already been closed.
Missy said she was abused, but that wasn’t enough for investigators.
In July 2024, Moguls received a call from Carnahan saying he needed to go to her place right away. On boarding, they received another call from someone who said Daniel Spencer had abused Missy.
“I told the DCF and the police department to wait for me when I got there,” Andy Mogul said.
Mogles discovered that 4-year-old Missy told one of Carnahan’s roommates and then one of the others afterwards. She told her grandparents a story. Grandparents are said to have been abused during their overnight visit.
“She said he was touching me and choking me,” Andy Mogul said.
Andy Mogul said he called the police where he arrived quickly, followed by DCF investigators. The officer spoke to Carnahan and Missy, but it wasn’t Moguls, the couple said. Missy then met with the police several times, and they expressed doubt about the allegations.
“They kept saying that Missy was all over the place with what she was saying,” Pepper Mogul said. “They (said) she was instructed to say that.”
Both the DCF and the Tallahassee Police Department have concluded the investigation without taking any apparent further action. Consulting with TPD, Campbell said the only evidence was from someone too young to learn the truth from a lie.
TPD refused to publish records relating to the investigation of abuse, citing Marsy’s law. DCF also refused to release records, citing Florida law.
Pepper Mogul said she, her husband and others made numerous calls to the DCF Abuse Hotline. According to a DCF confidential court filing, the agency concluded its investigation the same month it came in.
“The department’s investigation was closed as the mother signed a power of attorney to live with her maternal aunt and (Daniel Spencer) agreed that she should not be in touch with her child,” the DCF said in a court application.
Missy returns to Tallahassee’s mother and stepfather
Pepper Mogul said Chloe Spencer tore the agreement shortly after the investigation was over. In September, Carnahan had left the state and he returned Missy to Spencer.
Carnahan then said she and others had appealed to DCF to take action, but Missy was caught up in a house in the Southwood neighborhood of Tallahassee, and prosecutors said Daniel and Chloe Spencer choked and tortured her. Both plead not guilty to the charges.
In July 2024, Pepper and Andy Mogul filed a new petition in Wakula County in search of Missy’s custody. The hearing was set for January, but it was cancelled.
The hearing date for Pepper and Andy Mogul’s petition to get Missy back was set for June 3rd, almost a year after they filed it. By then, Missy was dead.
Judge Baker Carper explains why she didn’t send Daniel Spencer back to prison
A few weeks before Daniel Spencer was charged with murder on May 19, 2025, Missy Mogul’s death went before a judge with unrelated minor sex stabs.
“That could have been prevented.”
DCF issued a brief statement about Missy’s death in a July 16 email to the Tallahassee Democrats and the USA Today Network, but said that Florida could not elaborate on the incident.
“The Florida Department of Children and Families is working closely with law enforcement to investigate any child deaths related to allegations of abuse, neglect, or waiver,” the agency said. “Information specific to this case is confidential in accordance with section 39.202 of Florida law.”
The DCF Child Lethality Prevention Program website has shown 257 child deaths so far in Florida this year, but only three people in “Infirted Trauma” were not included in Missy’s case. The main cause was 27% own death, 9% related to sleep and 7% naturally.
Missy died in the morning, and Robert Freebre, a retired doctor who lived with Spencer, heard a major crash in her bedroom. Daniel Spencer claimed the camera had fallen, but Flèble suspected it because the noise was so loud.
Police reports say about 30 minutes later, Spencer came to him with Missy’s limp body. Frable was running CPR when the first responder arrived. Investigators said Daniel Spencer appears to be taking “illegal drugs” when he spoke to them. Her loved one said he used methamphetamine.
According to police and DCF reports, Missy suffered injuries “head to toe” that included bruises at various stages of healing, fragments of face, and ligature marks and burning marks around the wrist. Investigators also found surveillance video from Missy’s bedroom.
“The evidence reviewed depicts the hours of Daniel being physically abused Melissa, tugs her arms violently, pushing her face into the bed, tying her legs and her hands together, covering her with a pillow and comforter,” the arrest report states.
The DCF website states that a “special review” of Missy’s case is ongoing and that “causal factors” are under investigation.
In the days following her death, state attorney Campbell blows up Baker Carper’s decision by saying, “I’m five years old, where a five-year-old child lived.”
In June, Attorney General Uthmeier proposed “Missy law.” This would ban the defendant from being released after being convicted of a sexual offence. He said “Missy’s incident was very tragic because “it could have been prevented.”
The Moguls also believe that Missy’s murder is avoidable if someone listens to them. Pepper Mogul said the agency didn’t check up at Missy again after DCF concluded its abuse investigation.
However, it was not the last time DCF heard of Spencer or her child. On October 31, 2024, Chloe Spencer called police and allegedly Daniel Spencer pushed her into the wall the night before during an argument. No arrests were made, but TPD submitted an online report to DCF when necessary as the child was at home during the incident.
What Mogul remains is photos and memories of Missy, who loves ballet, plays with her dog Daisy, and dots on children younger than her.
“DCF should have followed up,” Pepper Mogul said, “and by keeping my baby safe, I did the right thing.”
On July 11, Peppermogle called the Leon County Detention Facility to obtain information from his daughter about another death in the family. To her surprise, Chloe Spencer was allowed to call back. Mogul called her on the speaker phone.
“We told her we love her and she wanted to reach out to us and get the baby back,” Pepper Mogul said. “And she starts crying and says, ‘I know, mom, I’m sorry.’ ”
Contact Jeff Burlew at jburlew@tallahassee.com or 850-599-2180.
