Your daily adult tube feed all in one place!
My dad 'abducted me', abandoned me at boarding school at just 5... before executing our family - but I don't believe he did it
After seven days as a fugitive, Ian Spiro was finally found, slumped in the front seat of his car in the Anza-Borrego Desert, California. Cause of death: cyanide poisoning.
The hunt for the debonair British businessman had been sparked after his wife Gail, 41, and children Adam, 14, Sara, 16, and Dina, 11, were found gunned down, execution style, in their San Diego home on November 5, 1992.
In the days after his death, news reports revealed increasingly bizarre theories.
Was this a 'murder-suicide' as the official ruling eventually stated - a twisted escape plan driven by desperate financial troubles and a crumbling marriage?
Or was it something even more sinister?
Ian Spiro and his second wife Gail on their boat in Nice in 1990. Two years later, Gail was shot in the head and Ian was the prime suspect
Samantha was her father's first child, but his life remained much of a mystery to her
As her new book Beyond Bullshit to Bliss is published, Spiro's daughter Samantha has broken her silence.
A self-help memoir co-authored with her husband Noah David, she reveals how they were able to find love and healing in the wake of immense personal trauma.
‘The events of that first week of November 1992 will remain forever heart-breaking,' says Samantha. ‘But this book isn't about assigning blame or revisiting unresolved questions. Instead, it's a testament to the power of human resilience and the possibility of finding peace even in the face of profound grief.’
Ian Stuart Spiro was an enigmatic figure for most of Samantha's 22 years - flitting in and out of her life after his marriage to her mother ended.
When Samantha was just five, he 'abducted' her and took her to live with him and his new wife, Gail, in Beirut.
'Initially, I was excited,' she says. 'My mum had been struggling with her mental health at the time and I was relieved to see him. I adored my dad and felt safe with him. I thought we were going on a fun adventure.'
The reality was far from 'fun'. 'We flew straight into war-torn Beirut, a whirlwind of chaos and violence, with a constant soundtrack of warning sirens and gunfire, day and night. I spent years cowering under tables at the slightest bang as a result.
'But, despite the constant fear, I was happy to be with my loving, funny dad and Gail, whom I'd come to love.'
She couldn't have known then that her father was, in fact, working as a spy - sometimes even jokingly called James Bond by friends and colleagues thanks to his English accent and his undercover activities.
News reports blared 'murder-suicide' and 'international spy' after the family's bodies were discovered
Ian's name was linked to Terry Waite, who had negotiated the release of hostages in Lebanon and was himself held captive for four years
Spiro was also connected to disgraced US Marine Oliver North, who was synonymous with the Iran-Contra affair
And while he was able to give his tiny daughter a semblance of a normal life, it didn't last long. As the Lebanese civil war intensified, Spiro sent five-year-old Samantha to boarding school, where she was desperately lonely, and spent nights crying herself to sleep.
'Life became a series of broken promises and long stretches of waiting,' she says. 'My father would call sporadically, promising to visit soon, but often failing to do so. When he did show up, with Gail, it would be for a fleeting two hours.
'This pattern continued on and off for about two-and-a-half years. We bounced between Beirut, Switzerland (where I attended another emotionally distant boarding school), and even the US for a short while, with stints in New York and New Jersey, where I went to normal day schools.
'By the time I returned to live with my mum in London in 1977, the chaos had taken its toll. Gone was the carefree child I used to be. Shyness, anxiety, and poor sleep became my constant companions.'
It wasn't until she was 14 that she saw her father again.
'That first meeting was awkward, and it took a long time to feel comfortable around him again.
'Despite that sense of detachment from him, however, I felt close to my half-siblings,' says Samantha. 'We were a whole unit in my eyes - I saw them as my brother and sisters, and that's how I still feel.'
Over the next few years, she spent more time with them, though no one ever talked about what had happened in Beirut and why her father had disappeared from her life for so long.
Samantha's first passport photograph, aged 6, after being placed in a boarding school in Beirut
Samantha and her father in the south of France, around 1972
Ian and Gail outside their villa in Nice around 1989. Gail was found shot in the head in their home in San Diego three years later
Ian and Gail - Ian wearing his trademark dark glasses
She knew he'd dealt in commodities, but could never have guessed that he had been living a secretive life as a spy, making contacts and negotiating with dodgy governments that were financing militia armies as part of global clandestine games.
His name was even linked to disgraced US Marine Colonel Oliver North, and the UK's Church of England envoy Terry Waite, who had negotiated the release of hostages in Lebanon and who himself was held captive for four years.
Spiro, Gail and their children settled in Rancho Santa Fe in 1991 and friends said they were happy there.
But neighbors became worried when they hadn't seen the family for four days after Halloween 1992. Curious, they peeked into the windows and discovered a horrific scene: Dina's lifeless body, a gunshot wound to the head.
The police arrived to uncover the terrifying truth. Gail, Adam, and Sara, were also dead, shot in the head in the same execution-style manner.
Samantha heard the news three days later in a whispered call from her Uncle Jo: 'Gail and the kids are gone,' he croaked. 'Shot dead.'
He added: 'Ian's missing. You have to know he was a spy... You might not be safe either. Call the police.'
Samantha went into hiding for weeks, stopped going to university for months, and feared that perhaps those responsible were coming for her and the rest of the family too.
'It was November 5 and I kept calling his number in the hope I’d get hold of him. Maybe he was trying to find a way to contact me, his first-born child,' she says. 'If he had, I could have warned him, brought him home.'
But the line remained unanswered and her father was found dead in his car three days later.
'Despite the confusion, the numbness I was feeling was bizarrely soothing. The tears wouldn't come. Not even when watching the bodies of Adam, Sara, Dina, and Gail being wheeled out in body bags on TV,' she says.
'It was only after the funeral, a busy, press-heavy ceremony in a quiet village in Cumbria, England, that the dam finally broke. The tears flowed freely, a torrent of grief for the years of lost love, and the childhood snatched away from me at the age of five.'
Sara and Dina - Samantha's half-sisters - were both shot in the head, age 16 and 11
Samantha (center) with Adam and Dina in Cumbria for Christmas 1987. She was close to her half-siblings and considered them her brother and sisters
Questions and conspiracy theories continued to surface. Some claimed the family had been the victim of a hit - a move to stop Spiro disclosing details about a major terrorist network in the US.
An article in The Sunday Telegraph in December 1993, written by its then-Chief Foreign Correspondent Con Coughlin, suggested as much - that Spiro's death was a chilling message to other operatives: keep quiet or face the consequences.
In October 1995, after months of investigations and interviews with friends, neighbors and colleagues, the police closed the case, ruling that Spiro had been responsible for killing his family, prompted by debts that had spiraled to $5 million.
A rambling recording found near his body, in which he spoke about himself in the third person and said that Gail was planning to leave him, offered evidence that supported the official conclusion. Gail's own diaries backed that up.
Also, beside his body was found a book called 'Final Exit', which details that the easiest, most painless way to commit suicide is by ingesting cyanide.
However, despite the 'case-closed, murder-suicide' verdict, Samantha and the family continued to believe in Spiro's innocence.
'The official coroner ruling was a bitter pill to swallow,' admits Samantha.
'Neither I nor anyone who knew my father truly believed it. And deep down, I knew that he wouldn't hurt his beloved second family, especially Adam, his only son. He loved Gail and my sisters, but the bond he had with Adam was unique, a deeply cherished connection.'
Ken Quarton, Gail's half-brother, dedicated the rest of his life trying to prove Ian's innocence. He died in 2012, in his early sixties.
'I knew I couldn't let the same obsession overwhelm me. I had to try to make peace with my past.'
Samantha moved to Hong Kong in 1996, and built a career as a journalist, 'a path driven by my desire to understand the world my father had operated in, a world cloaked in shadows and intrigue.'
But, still haunted by her past, she retrained as a cognitive behavioral hypnotherapist and reiki master teacher. 'The focus wasn't on dwelling on my challenging childhood, but a chance to discover the "real me" buried beneath the layers of unresolved emotional pain.
Samantha and Noah travel the world telling their stories
The couple got married in London on September 25, 2020
Flowers left after the funeral in Cumbria, England, in 1992
'It was during this period that I met Noah. Ours wasn't a typical love story. We were both the walking wounded, carrying the scars of our own trauma.
Noah's brush with cancer in 2012, a life-threatening wake-up call at 57, became the catalyst for a major transformation. He ditched his glamorous, hedonistic, booze-and-drug-fueled womanizing lifestyle for good.
He had struggled with his own demons, broken marriages and financial misfortune, before overcoming a second cancer diagnosis. The couple got married in London in September 2020.
‘Coincidentally, Noah worked on Adnan Khashoggi’s luxury mega-yacht in the early 1980s, during which time he looked after many guests and foreign dignitaries,' notes Samantha.
'It would not be surprising if he had met my father. Given the nature of his and my father's stories, and the world they inhabited at that time, this coincidence feels significant to me. Perhaps Noah unknowingly holds a piece of the puzzle.'
The pair have poured their experiences into Beyond Bullshit to Bliss: A Transformative Guide to Finding Self-Love, Abundance & In-Lightenment.
'The horrific events of our past no longer haunt us,' Samantha says. 'Instead, they serve as a powerful reminder of the strength we've discovered within.
'My father's story may remain a mystery, buried in the desert in California. But his death and the pain it triggered, ultimately led me to a place of peace and profound self-discovery.'