A former reality TV bailiff is opening up about the death of his wife. This comes years after he was acquitted of her murder.
The former Harris County, Texas, deputy turned reality TV bailiff, Renard Spivey, 68, appeared on the CBS News show “48 Hours” earlier this week. He answered questions about what happened in the summer of 2019.
“I love my wife. I did everything for her,” Spivey told CBS News. “Anything she wanted…I always treated her like my queen.”
He insisted his wife’s death was an accident.
ABC 13 reported Spivey was a Harris County deputy at the time of his wife’s death. He joined the force in 1996.
Authorities said Spivey was shot in the leg and his wife, 52-year-old Patricia Spivey, was killed while the couple fought over a gun.
Prosecutors alleged the struggle happened during an argument over alleged infidelity.
“She thought I probably was cheating on her or something because we wasn’t intimate anymore,” Spivey told CBS News. “I told her no, that’s crazy.”
Spivey said at that point, he was curious why Patricia was hiding her phone from him.
“When I walked over to her… I was getting ready to go to bed, and every time I walked over to her, she’d turn her phone down, and then I was trying to kiss her,” Spivey told CBS News. “She said, ‘I’m not kissing you’.”
CBS News reported Spivey grabbed Patricia’s phone and went into the closet. He said seconds later, Patricia was pointing a gun at him.
“I was really scared ’cause … you never put your finger on the trigger unless you prepared to shoot.”
Spivey claimed Patricia shot him first. He added the gun went off two more times, hitting Patricia and killing her.
Former prosecutor Lisa Andrews questioned how many times Patricia was actually shot based on his demeanor in a 911 call.
“He was pretty calm,” she told CBS News. “The demeanor does look pretty off to me.”
Andrews also pointed to the fact that in the 911 call, Spivey refers to his wife as “they.”
“He doesn’t say, my wife or she… It’s an emotional step back from — from what has happened.”
It took Spivey two-and-a-half minutes to say he accidentally shot his wife, CBS News reported.
Andrews listened to the 911 call on CBS News.
“It’s like he can’t bring himself to say what he’s done,” she said. “For him not to reveal that information … with two decades of law enforcement training … to me, that was a consciousness of guilt.
Spivey argued he was traumatized.
“Well, when you traumatized … and to see your wife shot, and you shot too at the same time, it’s a lot.”
Spivey was acquitted of murder charges in December 2023.
He was arrested in March 2026 for allegedly stealing $400 from a waitress’ fanny pack, ABC 13 reported.
Aside from his career as a deputy, Spivey appeared as a bailiff in 212 episodes of “Justice for All with Judge Cristina Perez” between 2012 to 2020.
