Harbison Canyon

A former security guard at the Big Oak Ranch testified Tuesday that he received an anonymous note after the slaying of Herman (Rock) Kreutzer’s son-in-law that said he “better forget everything or else.”

Larry Stilwell, 47, concluded his testimony in the murder trial of his former boss, who is charged in the April 11, 1984, slaying of James Spencer. Spencer, 32, was married to Kreutzer’s daughter, Kelly.

Stilwell, who has been moved out of state in a witness relocation program, said Kreutzer and his 27-year-old son Jerome gunned down Spencer in a garage on the Harbison Canyon ranch.

The San Diego Superior Court jury saw the note Stilwell said he found under his door a few days after the slaying. The words were on a sheet of paper and were pasted together from newspaper clippings.

“What you’ve seen and heard at the ranch you better forget or else,” the note stated, with the words “or else” on a line by themselves.

“Talking to police can be brutal for you and your whole family,” the note concluded.

Also read into evidence was a letter Stilwell sent to Sheriff’s Detective David Decker one day after the killing. Stilwell wrote that he wanted authorities to have some information in case he was killed.

“I know who shot James Ray Spencer . . . We are scared. There are to (sic) many people who could do us harm,” Stilwell wrote.

Stilwell also testified that Herman Kreutzer said he was going to hold his son-in-law’s tools in lieu of payment for eye injuries the rancher sustained during a fight March 24 with Spencer.

Shortly before he was killed, Spencer called his father-in-law a vulgar name and accused him of stealing his tools, according to Stilwell.

The jury will visit the ranch Monday.