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When we stand across from our partner on our wedding day & exchange vows, we can only hope & imagine a happy, long life spent together. Unfortunately, it doesn’t always work out that way & the dreams of a life filled with joy & love can end in the most unimaginable way possible. This story is about the murder of 30-year-old Sonja Moen, a nurse, a mom of three, the life of every party—gone far too soon, leaving her kids and family shattered.
At 7:38 am on the morning of Thursday, August 10, 2023, authorities from the West Fargo Police Department responded to a new, beautiful two-story home on the 1100 block of Eaglewood Avenue after receiving a 911 call from Sonja’s husband, 31-year-old Spencer Moen, that his wife was not breathing, not responding & lying in the bathtub.
Spencer met arriving first responders & told them that his wife, Sonja Moen, had slept in the bathtub the previous night & he found her unresponsive that morning. He indicated that she’d planned to take a bath or shower & elaborated that she’d also vomited the previous night as well.
The couples were both natives to Watertown, South Dakota, but were currently living 146 miles north in West Fargo, North Dakota.
As authorities entered the bathroom in question, they found Sonja’s body; she was lying on her back, fully clothed in the bathtub & she had significant bruising to the left side of her face as well as her forehead. Both of her eyes had extensive swelling & appeared to be swollen shut. There was dried blood dripping down from the right corner of her mouth & bruising to her hands appeared to be defensive in nature.
Within only a minute of the first responding officer, Sonja’s mother, Kristin Scofield, arrived at the Moen home & ran to the bathroom where her daughter’s lifeless body lay, anxiously asking officers if she was breathing. She was told that Sonja was not breathing & police asked both her & Spencer to step out of the room With this, they moved to the adjoining bedroom where officers witnessed Kristin look her son-in-law in the face & say, Get the f– out of my house. As they stood in the bedroom, officers also noted bruising to Spencer’s knuckles on his right hand.
Shortly after, Sonja was pronounced dead by paramedics. At the time of her death, she had five-year-old twins & an 11-year-old daughter.
According to her obituary, Sonja was born on June 28, 1993 in Sioux Falls, South Dakota to parents Gary & Kristin Scofield. She grew up in Watertown, South Dakota & after graduating from Watertown High School in 2011, she completed one year at the University of North Dakota until her daughter was born in September 2012. Her twins, a boy & a girl, were born a few years later. Sonja never lacked the energy to laugh, play, snuggle & love on her kids, making sure they all felt special in their own way.
Despite the business of raising three young children, Sonja put herself through nursing school in order to become an RN so she could provide for her daughter before she eventually married Spencer. She worked in the endoscopy department at Stanford Health, making her way up to unit supervisor & eventually moved on to Valley Oral Surgery where her co-workers described her as bright & bubbly.
Her siblings joked that Sonja was the fun one, someone who was a free spirit, full of mischief & laughs, the life of the party. She was also incredibly kind, compassionate & someone friends could always confide in without judgement.
As authorities entered the primary bedroom of the home, they noted blood drops spotted on the floor to the left side of the bed as well as the foot of the bed moving in the direction of the bathroom.
Officers learned that one day earlier, on Wednesday, August 9, Spencer participated in a golf tournament before he headed to a Mapleton brewery where he was ultimately cut off by bartenders. Sonja & the twins picked him up after it was dark & before they headed home, they stopped at their friend’s house, Kyle & Savannah Prodzinski. Kyle had been at the brewery earlier that night with Spencer & during their time together, Spencer had tried to repeatedly charge his drinks to Kyle’s tab.
During their time at the couple’s home, Savannah & Spencer got into a disagreement about flooring work that Spencer had done since he billed them more than he initially quoted. According to Savannah, Sonja was always a very cheerful, happy person, even on occasions she was drinking. When Sonja & Spencer left the home, all was well & from there, they headed to a Holiday Convenience store to pick up sandwiches & cigarettes. Based on witness statements, the couple arrived home sometime around 10 pm.
Kristin, Sonja’s mom, indicated that on the morning of the 911 call, Spencer had taken his children to day care earlier than usual, dropping them off sometime between 7-7:30 am rather than their usual time of 9 am.
With the available information, Spencer was detained & transported to the West Fargo Police Department for an interview.
As Spencer spoke with officers, he indicated that when he & Soja returned home from golf & picking up sandwiches in Mapleton the night before, they were both intoxicated. When he was asked how Sonja injured her face, he explained that after they came home, she was walking up the stairs from the garage to the house & face planted. However, toxicology reports would later prove that .03 grams/deciliter of alcohol was found in Sonja’s body which was well below the legal limit of .08. A forensic pathologist, Dr. Kevin Whaley, concluded that she had been drinking, but had stopped sometime before her death.
Once inside, Spencer said he took their two children upstairs to their bedrooms & put them to bed. According to reports, the couple’s two younger children were home at this time which suggested that their 11-year-old daughter was not home at the time.
Once the kids were tucked into their beds, he said that he went back downstairs where Sonja was. They went outside to the garage to smoke a cigarette & began arguing. Things escalated & according to Spencer, Sonja smacked him in the head.
At some point, their daughter came back downstairs & Spencer told investigators that he walked her back upstairs & settled her back into bed. Sonja was still downstairs so he decided to just go to sleep in their shared primary bedroom.
When Sonja eventually made her way upstairs for bed, Spencer indicated that she jumped onto him while he was laying in the bed, attempting to sleep. She began hitting him & during their scuffle, they both rolled off the side of the bed. Now on the ground, Sonja continued to punch him & in order to defend himself, Spencer said he pushed his wife away by pushing on her throat.
According to Spencer, he managed to push Sonja off of him, but she came back & continued to punch him. At this point, he told detectives that he punched her 3-4 times in the face with a closed fist. While he was punching her, he sustained bruising to both of his knuckles.
Spencer said that when he finished delivering the punches to his wife’s face, he was able to get up off the ground. Sonja stood up in anger & said, F- you, I’m taking a shower. With this, she turned & walked toward the bathroom which was attached to their bedroom.
Once she was in the bathroom, Spencer said he never heard the water turn on, but he decided to go back downstairs to smoke & remained down there for about fifteen minutes. Before he went down though, he said he heard a commotion coming from the other side of the bathroom door where Sonja was, but he never investigated what was happening. Based on how he found her in the bathroom, Spencer assumed that the sound must have been from his wife falling in the bathtub, causing head trauma.
When Spencer came back upstairs after smoking, he went into the bathroom & saw his wife lying in the tub. She wasn’t talking, but he knew she was alive since she was making noises. He began dumping water on her in an attempt to rouse her so he could get her up, out of the tub & into bed. Despite the water being poured over her body, she gave no response whatsoever.
Unable to wake his wife, Spencer said he decided to leave her in the bathtub & he headed to bed & fell asleep.
When he woke up on Thursday morning, he went back in the bathroom & noticed that Sonja was still in the tub. Once again, he tried to wake her & once again, he was unsuccessful. Spencer said he leaned down & touched her & realized that she was cold to the touch, but he assumed she was likely just cold from laying in wet clothing in a porcelain tube all night. He also considered the possibility that Sonja was dead, but regardless, he left her there & gathered the children to take them to daycare.
When Spencer was back home from the daycare, he went back upstairs & once again, he tried to unsuccessfully wake Sonja up. When he saw that she was still unresponsive, he decided to call Kristin to tell her what was going on. He told her that he didn’t think her daughter was breathing & when their call ended, he finally contacted 911.
During the interview with Spencer, detectives also spoke with the couple’s two minor children who were both home during the night before. One of the children told investigators that they witnessed their parents wrestling & saw their mom’s blood on their dad’s face.
Officers also recovered both Sonja & Spencer’s Apple iPhones & learned that their older daughter called Sonja’s phone at 10:27 pm as well as 10:41 pm on that Wednesday night. She told them that rather than her mom answering her phone, it was her dad who answered. He sounded irritated by her calling & told her to go to bed since it was late. The daughter elaborated that while she spoke with her dad, she could hear her mom snoring in the background.
When Spencer was questioned about answering Sonja’s phone that night when their daughter called, he denied that the conversation ever took place.
As the interview came to a conclusion, Spencer was arrested for murder & transported to the Cass County Jail. Before he was transferred, authorities executed a search warrant in order to collect DNA swabs from Spencer & photograph the injuries to his body. They took photos of a superficial scratch on his right arm. At this point, they noted that he lacked any bruising, other than what was on his knuckles & no marks that were indicative of being punched or attacked by Sonja as he claimed.
A search warrant was also executed shortly after his arrest to seize & examine data from the couple’s phones. Spencer’s facial recognition wasn’t working at the time to open his phone so he entered his passcode on his own accord.
When Spencer’s cell phone data was reviewed, investigators found a video recording that depicted Sonja lying in the bathtub where she’d been found earlier that morning. According to the timestamp, the video was recorded on Wednesday night, August 9 at 11:37 pm. Authorities noted that in the video, her body was lying in the opposite direction from how she was found by responding officers which indicated she’d been moved & repositioned. This was in direct contrast to the story that Spencer provided when he indicated that his wife had been unresponsive the entire time she’d been in the bathtub & the fact that he hadn’t moved her.
During the recording, authorities could see & hear that Sonja was having extreme difficulty breathing & she was lying in an abnormal sleeping position. They could hear snoring sounds coming from her just as Spencer’s daughter reported hearing when she called her mom’s phone, but spoke with her dad instead at 10:41 pm. Once again, this is in direct contrast to what Spencer told authorities, that the conversation with his daughter hadn’t happened.
The snoring sounds that Sonja was making were consistent with agonal breathing, a term used to describe irregular, gasping breaths that happen when a person is near death. This happens when someone is not getting enough oxygen & is gasping for air & is normally seen after cardiac arrest or stroke & is a natural reflex when a person’s brain isn’t getting the oxygen it desperately needs.
The investigator who was reviewing the video from Spencer’s phone was able to determine that he was indeed the person recording it since he could hear him say, Sonja as he filmed his wife’s body in the bathtub. During the video, he made absolutely no attempt to provide any form of aid or intervention to his wife.
The next day, Sonja’s body was transported to the Medical Examiner’s Office in Grand Forks on August 11 for an autopsy. The preliminary findings indicated that she suffered from a subdural hematoma which is a collection of blood that forms between the brain & the layer of tissue that covers the brain. Her cause of death was determined to be from blunt force trauma to her head. She suffered at least one fractured rib, according to the autopsy. Her manner of death was listed as homicide.
At the time of her death, Sonja was wearing sweatpants, a shirt, no shoes & only one sock. One of her natural nails was broken & torn. She had two black eyes, bruising under her chin & scattered abrasions to her legs as well as injuries to her elbows & right hip that appeared to be as a result of being dragged across something. Defensive wounds were visible to her knuckles & hands & injuries to her arms appeared to be from grab marks. A bruise on her thigh appeared to be from a punch. There were little to no injuries to her back.
A neighbor, Brady Zins, who lived next door to the family for one year, indicated that he was kind of shocked but also not surprised when he learned of the murder because of Spencer’s previous behavior. During the year he’d lived there, he’d gotten the sense that perhaps Spencer wasn’t all there mentally or just a full blown alcoholic. He recalls often seeing the couple’s three children out having fun & playing & described his interactions with Sonja as pleasant as they would wave to one another when he came home from work. His interactions were not very positive with Spencer & he doesn’t believe that they had one normal civil conversation.
It turned out that it wasn’t Spencer’s first visit to the Cass County Jail as on the night of December 8, 2019, about four years earlier, officers were dispatched to 231 10 ½ W. in West Fargo in response to a domestic call. When they arrived, they found Spencer’s behavior to be very confrontational as a woman within the home attempted to explain to police what happened. After Spencer had gone out with a friend to watch the Vikings game, he came back extremely intoxicated & she discovered the two men fighting inside the garage; Spencer was on top of the man, choking him so she called 911. He was arrested for aggravated assault domestic.
The trial for Sonja’s murder began in October 2024 & lasted five days. Several witnesses were called, including the couple’s children as well as Sonja’s mother. Spencer’s 12-year-old daughter was a key witness & recounted calling her mother’s phone on the night of her murder, only to talk to her father. She described to the jury the heavy breathing she could hear in the background.
When Sonja’s twins, who were now 6-years-old, took the stand against their father, Spencer Moen watched from a separate room. The children indicated that they witnessed their parents fighting, that their daddy murdered their mommy & despite the fact that they tried to get him to stop, it was too late. During cross examination, both children told the jury that they still loved their dad.
According to the children, their parents were arguing at the gas station even before they got home. At some point, the fighting became physical & both kids tried to break up the fight & even tried to call 911.
When Kristin Scofield took the stand, she indicated that she had absolutely no doubt that Spencer was responsible for murdering her daughter. She had been growing concerned about their relationship as things were escalating between the couple who had been together for 17 years & had even taken her daughter to see a divorce attorney a couple of years earlier.
Jury members heard from Cass County Coroner Darrin Haverland who testified that the injuries to Sonja’s head & face could not have been caused by falling into the bathtub. Had that been the case, the bruising would have been localized to one side of her face rather than the injuries she suffered across her head. The forensic pathologist described the subdural hematoma that Sonja suffered with a midline shift of the brain, meaning the brain tissue shifted or displaced across the centerline of the brain because of the traumatic brain injury she sustained.
Jury members also watched the video that Spencer recorded of his wife on the night of her attack & saw Sonja lying in the bathtub with bruising across her face & body, her breaths making a rattling sound. Photos were also shown of Sonja in the tub that showed her face bloody, swollen & bruised beyond recognition, the same condition she’d been in at the time the video was recorded by Spencer.
The owner of the daycare where the Moen children attended since 2022, Bonnie Snyder, testified that Sonja typically dropped the children off at 8 am Monday through Friday & she was also the one who normally picked them up as well. Bonnie indicated that she could remember only one time that Spencer dropped them off other than the morning that Sonja was pronounced dead.During that day in question, one of the children appeared very sad while the other was quiet.
While the prosecution summarized the events that led to Sonja’s death which began with a day of Spencer drinking & ended in tragic violence at the home. Meanwhile, the defense maintained that Sonja’s injuries were simply a result of a fall which caused her to be fatally injured. They believed that this was not a murder case, rather an aggravated domestic assault case, possibly negligent homicide.
The prosecution highlighted the lack of injuries that Spencer had sustained despite his reports of being attacked & punched by his wife, arguing self-defense. On October 23, 2024, after a few hours of deliberation, jury members in Fargo found Spencer Moen guilty of Class AA Felony Murder for the death of his wife, Sonja Moen.
On December 30, 2024, Judge Nicholas Chase sentenced Spencer to life in prison without the possibility of parole. He referenced his lack of accountability & the severity of the crime as reasons for the harsh sentence. During his sentencing, Spencer voiced some remorse when he said, I never meant for this to happen.. She was everything to me. I feel lost without her. If I had the ability to go back & change it, I absolutely would. I am deeply sorry & I promise to be a better man.
Defense attorneys requested a 25-year prison sentence as well as lifting the no-contact order that prevented Spencer from seeing his children, arguing that his client’s actions that night were a result of alcohol & drugs & that as a person, he is not a danger to others.
In response, Judge Chase emphasized the man’s dangerous behavior which was exacerbated by alcohol & noted his attempts to create evidence for his defense during his interviews with police. He also highlighted the impact on the three children who witnessed their father’s violence toward their mother, something that will traumatize them for life.
Members of Sonja’s family, including her mom, her sister & her best friend, delivered emotional victim impact statements where they described the immense pain caused by her death. Since her daughter’s murder, Kristin has been caring for the Moen children & was thankful that Spencer received a life sentence as the impact on the children will remain with them through the entirety of their lives.
As of March 2025, Spencer Moen is appealing his conviction, something Cass County prosecutors indicate they were expecting.
Sonja’s family have created a gofundme page to help provide the best care to her three children after they’ve faced the loss of both of their parents. As of March 2025, they’ve raised over $54,000 of their $75,000 goal. The children are being cared for by both sets of grandparents, splitting their time between each.
Though the trial has come and gone & Spencer’s fate is sealed—life without parole—the echoes of Sonja’s laughter & her free spirit still linger in her family’s lives. They continue to fight on, raising funds to allow her children’s lives to be the best they possibly can in the wake of losing their mother, determined to keep her light alive. Her case is a stark reminder that behind every door, a story waits—sometimes a tragic one.
If you’re experiencing domestic violence, please contact the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233.
References:
- WebMD: What to know about agonal breathing
- Spencer Moen affidavit of probable cause
- Law & Crime: Husband who allegedly murdered wife first claimed she had been sleeping in the bathtub, later said she ‘face planted’ on stairs: Cops
- People: ND man told police wife died after she ‘face planted’ on stairs. Now he’s charged with murder
- KDLO Country: Watertown native appealing life prison sentence
- Msn: Killer husband forced to listen to courtroom rant by mother-in-law
- West Funeral Homes: Sonja Moen
- Gofundme: Supporting the family of Sonja Moen
- Fox News: North Dakota man fatally beat wife while kids were home, left her in bathtub to die: police
- KXLG: Watertown native sentenced to life in prison for murder of wife
- Valley News Live: Young children take the stand in day one of West Fargo murder trial
- Valley News Live: Young children expected to testify in murder of West Fargo mother
- Valley News Live: “Not surprised”: Community responds to West Fargo man arrested for murder
- INFORUM: Expert says single fall did not kill woman in trial of West Fargo man accused of killing his wife
