‘Spook’ Spann gets probation, $10,000 fine, hunting suspension for permit violation

Nationally known hunter and television host William “Spook” Spann of Dickson was placed on federal probation for three years and fined $10,000 Thursday in Kansas City for illegally killing a deer on land he didn’t own at the time. Spann, age 49, also will pay $10,000 in restitution and lose his U.S. hunting privileges for six months plus another six-month suspension in Kansas. As part of a plea bargain agreement, the U.S. Attorney’s office said Spann will forfeit the antlers and any molds of the antlers from the record whitetail buck he killed in Stafford County, Kansas, during a videotaped bow hunt in 2007. The U.S. Attorney’s office in Kansas City said Spann held a non-resident, hunt-only-on-your-land permit at the time he killed the buck on land he didn’t own but later leased. He was indicted in September and pleaded guilty in November. A second count charged Spann with transporting the antlers across state lines to Tennessee. The host of the hunting show Spook Nation, Spann was facing up to 10 years in prison and fines up to $270,000.