True Crime All The Time - Robert Leroy Anderson

Episode Date: January 13, 2020

On this episode, we're discussing South Dakota killer Robert Leroy Anderson. Anderson had sexual murderous fantasies that he decided to carry out. He even enlisted the help of his best friend to abduct women so that he could carry out his fantasies.Join Mike and Gibby as they discuss the murderous Robert Anderson. This is a man that made his own tire poppers to help disable the cars of women so that he could abduct them. There's no way to know how many potential victims Anderson may have had. Police caught up with him quickly after his murders but it took Anderson blabbing to a cellmate to help seal his fate.You can help support the show at patreon.com/truecrimeallthetimeVisit the show's website at truecrimeallthetime.com for contact, merchandise and donation informationAn Emash Digital productionSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

everyone and welcome to episode 165 of the true crime all the time podcast. I'm Mike Ferguson and with me as always is my partner in true crime. Mike Gibson. Gibby, how are you? Yay, man, I'm not doing too bad. Yay. Did you say, I don't know what I. Hey, yay. Yay. Yeah. Hooray for me. No, that's good that you're doing good. Yeah, not doing too bad. You know, second week of January, everybody's still trying to get their footing. People are back to work. Yeah. For me, it was always kind of a strange time of year. You know, you had this rush of the holidays. Absolutely. And then that ends. And then you're like, oh, man, I got to do this all over again for another year. Yeah, here we go. It's kind of that feeling. But then every, you know, you do start to settle in. Get your little list out, you know, how I'm going to do things better this year. I'm going to schedule my stuff, you know, things I'm going to get my little calendar out, my little make me better calendar.

Yeah, well, everyone has their New Year's resolutions. Sure. I have the same one every year. I'm going to eat better and I'm going to exercise more. Well, you ate better tonight. No, we had pizza. That's eating better, man. That was good.

And we didn't even put any veggies on it. No, we didn't. But I have been, you know, playing basketball at the Y. I'm going to start using my new cycling machine. So, and my wife's committed to us eating better. Yeah. And when she says that, that that, basically means that I'm only getting healthy stuff.

She's pretty good about that. She is. You're going to eat a lot of green stuff. I can see it coming. We will see how it goes. All right, Gibbs. We have some new Patreon supporters. So let's give our shout-outs.

All righty. We had Leanna Apple. Hey, Leanna. Melanie Selick. What's going on, Melanie? Crystal Nichols. What's going on, Crystal. Lorraine Rothwell.

Rothwell. Daniel Yates Cornwall. Oh, the Cornwall from the Sky-ish Empire. You think, you think, Everything's Scottish. Well, you know. It does sound very fancy. I haven't been watching Outlander lately.

Have you? Yeah. Stephanie Giberson jumped out of our highest level. I feel like I'm related. Giberson. Yeah. You know. I'm sure you are some way somehow.

Yeah. Sabine level. Hey, Sabine. Brittany Buell jumped out of our highest level. Thanks, Brittany. Kimber Hanrahan. Han around. No.

Andy Snyder jumped out to our highest level. You just shut me down anymore. You're like, yeah, no. Thanks, Annie. And Annie's shoutout comes from her husband Scott. So it's kind of cool. Yeah. I think it's a Christmas present, one of probably many.

Yeah. To Annie from her husband. I just thought it was a cool gift. She loves the show. And he does too, but he wanted to shout out to be in her name. So here's to you, Annie. I want a T-Cat shout-out. You get a T-Cat shout-out every week from your adoring fans.

That's true. The Gibby fan club. We had Hildy Scumfoss. Hey, Scumfoss. Stephanie. Stephanie. Sidney. What's up, Sidney? Megan Hunt.

Thanks, Megan. Pat Beaumont. Hey, Beemont. Max and Senas. Ah, and Sinas. Felicia Campbell. Hey, Felicia. Ashley Verado.

Hey, oh, Verato. Verato. Ashley Nicole. Hey, Ashley Nicole. And Brian. Hey, Bran. What is it Breon? Well, I said Brand.

It sounded like you said brand. I said. As in a brand muffin. Ooh. That's fibricious. Yes, it is. Then if we go back into the vault Gibbs. Yes.

This week we selected Lisa Moss. Hey, Lisa. Thank you. So been with us a long time. We're still in the 2017s for vault. Really? Yeah. Wow.

We just have a lot of listeners that have continued to support us for a long time. Do you get getting water and food back in that vault? No. Okay. They have to sit there and just wait until their turn is up. And then we had some PayPal support as well. We had a good friend of the show, Terry Timlet. Yeah, Terry.

Noel Sophie jumped out with a very sizable donation. Awesome. Thank you, Noel. We had Thomas Clark. Thanks, Thomas. Adam. Hey, Adam. And Renee Tupacoff.

Tupacoff. Yeah. Also with a very sizable donation. So we appreciate that. Do, absolutely. All right, Gibbs, right now we have an episode out on. on true crime all time on salt. We're tackling the I-70 killings case.

And granted, there have been a lot of murders that have occurred along this really long stretch of I-70. These are a very specific set of murders that a lot of people have linked. Now, with that comes the fact that some people think some of them are connected, not all of them. but nevertheless, it's a very interesting set of unsolved murders. So make sure you check that out. I can't believe CrimeCon is in like three months. Oh, it's going to be here soon, man.

Very, very quickly. If you're going, if you're going to buy your standard badge, make sure you use our promo code, T-CAT 20. You'll save, what is it, 10, 15%, 15%, 15%. 100%. I think it's 15% off your standard badge price. And we'd love to see you. Absolutely.

You know, it's in Orlando. Gibby will take you to Disney World. Yeah. You can ride the magic teacups with him or whatever they have nowadays. It'll be magical. It will be magical. It's the most magical place on Earth. Yeah.

And if you're really, we're going to go to Harry Potter World afterwards. Mm. A universal. Yeah. Get some wands and wave them around. Get some pumpkin juice. I don't think it's pumpkin juice, but I think it's something else. Oh, I don't know.

Yeah. My daughters and I went. Butter beer. Butter beer. That's what it is. Yeah. All right, buddy, are you ready to get into this episode of true crime all the time? I'm ready, man. We are headed to South Dakota, which I believe is our first time there. I could be wrong. We've only done 300 and some odd episodes. So it is hard to keep track. It would be difficult. We're going there to discuss Robert Leroy Anderson, who became known as the duct tape killer. Very ominous. Very ominous. Now, duct tape is a wonderful thing. It's a great invention. Many uses. You've heard the old saying, if you can't fix it, duck it.

That's right. Or duct it, however you want to say it. The problem is duct tape, if you think about it, has been used by criminals probably since it came out. Yeah. It's very binding. Like you said, it has a lot of uses. It can be used in the first. various ways. That's not how it's supposed to be used. Right. That's easy to get a hold of too. It's,

yeah, it's not a controlled substance or anything like that. It's not going to draw a lot of suspicion when you walk into lows and pick up a roll of duct tape. No. You can get away with one or two rolls without someone batting an eye. I know they give you a hard time when you pull your truck in there and have somebody load the whole back of the truck bed. Yeah, when you get a couple skids, they want to know what's going on, man. Need that duct tape. Yeah. So Robert Leroy Anderson was born in Sioux Falls, South Dakota in 1970 to Leland and Ruth Anderson. Another case gives where we don't have a ton on this guy's early life, it does not appear that he really ever left the Sioux Falls area. If he did, it wasn't for very long.

He attended Washington High School, but never graduated. Got married fairly young. and he and his first wife had one child. They divorced in 1990. And it was really then that Robert moved into a mobile home park in Sioux Falls. He got remarried to a woman named Elaine. And he and Elaine would have three children. They had Zachary in 1991, Nathan in 1993,

and a daughter, Samantha in 1995. Robert and Elaine worked together at the John Moran. and company meat packing plant. Kind of famous. Yeah. I've got some meat from there before. I'm sure you have. Yeah.

You like your meat. I do like my meat. I'm what I've been told. So this plant was in Sioux Falls. I mean, essentially this whole entire case takes place in the Sioux Falls, South Dakota area. The other thing about Robert Anderson is he really didn't have much of a police record. He was charged with giving a false. named to police in 1988.

In 1990, he was convicted of giving alcohol to a minor. And then in 1995, he had a pretty serious speeding ticket. But that's not a lot. It's not anything that's going to make you suspicious of anything. Well, especially compared to what we're normally talking about, right? The criminal records of some killers that we're normally running through, they can be quite extensive. Right.

You can oftentimes see them escalating throughout the years, kind of in a pattern that's making you think, okay, what's going on here? You're getting worse and worse. I didn't see that with this guy, Robert Anderson. Yeah, no real telltale signs on where he was at it. No, you wouldn't look at it and say, this guy is headed down a path to becoming a monster. No. You just wouldn't look at it that way.

But this story really starts in 1994. Robert has been remarried now for a number of years and has two small children. He's only 24 years old. But he begins having sexual fantasies. I don't know exactly what age, but I know by this time he's having them. And these are not the normal sexual fantasies of that most men have. You know, his fantasies involved abducting and. murdering women.

That's a whole other fetish. I'm, you know, it is. Wow. And I don't even call that a fetish. No. To me,

a fetish is you like what? I don't know. Feet, high heels, legs. That's your world. Brunettes. I mean,

there are a lot of sexual fetishes. Sure. Absolutely. Yeah. That are, for the most part, you would say, right,

Gibbs, completely harmless. Yeah. As long as you find somebody that is okay. Yeah. Indulging you. with whatever fetish you're into,

maybe they like it or maybe they just put up with it either way. The bad part always comes in where somebody has a sexual fetish. Yeah. And they're doing something illegal up into and including kidnap, murder, sexual assault, all of these things to fulfill their fantasies. You know, if you keep it confined to whatever,

your bedroom and between two, consenting adults have at it. Right. Do your thing. But when you start forcing it and forcing people to do things that they don't want to do and obviously sexual assault and ending someone's life and all of that. But I think that's the problem that we see in a lot of these cases. There are a lot of killers that have fantasies that have some sexual component to them. Right. The problem is they're not willing to just live with the fantasy or they're not able to be satisfied with the consensual part of it. They have to take it to the next level and dominate, impose their will, get what they want by illegal means. Yeah. And we know once they even get that, they're still not satisfied.

Sure. They got to do the next thing and then the next thing and it just never ends. Right. You're always ratcheting it up. Right. And apparently these fantasies that Robert had, he shared with his longtime friend, a man named Glenn Walker. The pair had been friends since fifth grade. And they worked together at the John Morel plant at some point, and I really don't know how this happens, the two discovered that they shared the same fantasies. So bizarre. Well, how in the world does that that conversation come up? We've been around each other for a long time. Sure. And we have other friends too. Do we? Do we have other friends? You do. But those conversations, you know, don't just pop up. Like, yeah, I really like to find somebody that I could, you know, murder. Yeah. Why I'm having sex with

them. Who in the world just all of a sudden opens up and how does that conversation even start? I don't get it. Well, for me, I still think, how did they even, the concept of it? How did that even get into their head? I have no idea. You know, how did that vision come to them, let alone two guys from the same town that knew each other? How do they get that in their head? Well, it's not going to end well.

I can tell you that. Because basically what happens is they're sharing these fantasies. They find out that this is something that they're both into. and the two began plotting to turn the fantasies into reality. And it was during that part that Robert Anderson suggested a woman he knew from the plant, where they all worked, named Larissa Dumansky. Larissa and her husband Bill had immigrated from Kiev in the Ukraine. They wanted to start a new life in the United States.

They ended up settling in Sioux Falls. and they both got jobs at the John Morel and company meatpacking plant. So you're seeing a connection here, right? All of these people that we talked about so far work at the same place. By 1994, Larissa and Bill had been married for eight years. Larissa was 29. Bill was 32. And he had left the plant to become a carpet installer.

They had two daughters, six and seven years old. and Larissa was six weeks pregnant with their third child. So this is a couple that came over to the United States to make a better life for themselves. Sure. They wanted a better life for their children. It sounds like they were working towards that goal. Yeah. Sounds like they were doing everything the right way.

But it was on August 27, 1994. Larissa was finishing up her night shift at the plant. she was last seen leaving her job around 1 a.m. Her husband reported her missing the next morning at 846. The guy woke up Gibbs and realized that, you know what, my wife never made it home. She should have been here over seven hours ago. Yeah. That's a that's concerning, you know. I mean, it's one thing if you woke up maybe at 2.33 o'clock, well, maybe she went with the, you know, with some of the people from work, got a drink or got a late dinner. or some food or something like that.

But I can see how it would happen. Because I'm telling you right now, if I worked that shift, knowing how early my wife goes to bed, she would have no idea, whether or not I came home at 1,130 like I was supposed to, or I never came home at all until she woke up to go to work. She just wouldn't know.

But she's out, she's out. She doesn't think about it until she gets up. Well, no, she wakes up rather easily, but there would there would need to be something to wake her up. Right. In the absence of that something, she would just sleep through the night. And I would too. I sleep like a freaking tank.

She could probably bounce on the bed and you probably wouldn't wake up. And I don't know why she would be bouncing on the bed, but I get your story. I know. It's your story. Yeah. So scary, right? As a husband or a wife to realize that your spouse should have come home and they didn't. He contacted the police.

Police later found. Larissa's van in the plant parking lot with the keys still in the door. They also found that her van had a flat tire, but there was no sign of Larissa. Searches were organized. A $13,000 reward was offered. What no one would know for years is that Robert Anderson and Glenn Walker had decided to finally act out on their fantasies. What happened was Robert Anderson confronted Larissa.

in the parking lot early that morning of August 27th, he abducted her at knife point and forced her into his vehicle with Glenn Walker. They drove Larissa out to Lake Vermillion, and it was Anderson who dragged Larissa out of the car and raped her multiple times. Then he used duct tape to close off the air from her nose and mouth, essentially suffocating her with this duct tape. And I think you could see how that would happen. You know, we talked about duct tape a little bit.

Very sticky, very hard to get off. Oh, yeah. If you wrap it even a few times around someone's wrist, let's say. That is not easy stuff to get out of. No, no. And they show stuff on the internet all the time. About how to get out. Yeah, I'm telling you, if someone does it right,

if they bind your wrist together the right way, duct tape. It's not going to pop off that. It's very strong. Yeah. It will also take your mustache right off. Don't ask me how I know. But I can tell you it will. I'm still sorry about that. And that's all I can say. And you should be. Yeah. It took a long time for that to grow back in. I know. I'm sorry. But this is horrible, right? Abducted Larissa, raped her, killed her, and then Anderson buried her body under a bush. That is Anderson's first known murder. You have this guy with him, right? His friend Glenn Walker, who will talk about sporadically during the episode.

He comes in and out, comes into play in various ways. The pair stayed together and they decided that they were going to strike again just a few months later. It was on November 10, 1994, that a woman named Amy Anderson, no relation to Robert went to police with a harrowing tail. She said that two men in a maroon car had been kind of playing with her on the road, right? They would pass her. They would slow down, let her get in front.

Then they would speed up and pass her again. Just taunting her. Messing with her. And, you know, again, what is she to think? Is that something sinister? Is that kids playing around? Right. You don't know.

But then her. tire went flat. So she stopped. They stopped and they tried to abduct her from her car, but she was able to get away. But let's hear Amy tell some of the story in an interview that she did with television station KSF-A-Y about her ordeal. I mean, there's still not a day that goes by that I don't think about it. I still think about it every single day in one way or another. And we played this sort of little game a couple times. And I decided something's not right here, this is weird. Labrard Anderson got out of his car

and left the door open, which these things are all things I remembered, kind of later. He walked over and he had his hands in his pockets and he didn't say anything to me and I had my trunk open and I said, well, oh, thank you so much for stopping, trusting, you know. I sort of bent down to get the jack and as I did that, he grabbed me around my waist and pulled me towards the ditch.

I just was lucky enough to be able to just grab the trunk edge of my car and grabbed the trunk and, you know, he, I think, kind of tumbled back as I pulled forward. I was terrified. So Gibbs, that was just a piece of a longer interview that Amy did with KSFY, but you can hear it in her voice. And I'm sure this interview happened many years later. She was terrified. She said it. Yeah. And, you know, this is a person that got away. But there's no doubt in my mind, she would have been. the second victim of Robert Anderson had things gone differently. I truly believe his plan was to murder this woman. Yeah, if she knew what happened to Larissa just months before, man.

And she's going to find out later on. She comes back into the story. But again, you and I have talked about it, people that get away. Yeah, it's a scary thing at the time. but then to find out later that who the person really was was this sadistic killer and here's what they were going to do if they had their way if they got a hold of you this is step one two three whatever it was was going to happen and they did it to other people yeah something that something that you're probably not able to block out all the time like you wish you were that is

going to pop into your head from time to time for the rest of your life yeah and I I can actually visualize what she said, you know, him pulling her towards a ditch. And she just happened that her hand just was able to just get the edge of that trunk. And then he stumbled. Yeah. And she's able to get away. I mean, there's more to the story. I didn't want to tell the whole story.

I think she jumped into the car of a passing motorist. She was able to get away was the key point. And one thing I really want to stress is that Robert Anderson, used tire poppers. And these were things that he made himself. Some reports said he made him at the plant, the John Morel plant. Oh, really? I guess in his spare time. He was, I think he was a maintenance man. So he might have had some spare time. Sure. I don't know exactly how they were made, but I think they were metal. They obviously had to have some type of spikes. I'm thinking like spike strips, right, that you see from police. They're able to throw them down. Sure. It pops the tires on a car.

These probably weren't that fancy, but they were designed to do the same thing. The other thing is he painted them black to blend in with the road. So it's not like, you know, your headlights would shine on these and you'd be like, oh my gosh, what is that? They would just be black. Yeah, you wouldn't know until you hit it. Right. This is something that he apparently also tried to use. You know, on Larissa prior to her murder because she had reported a number of flat tires. But it would come out later that I guess the tire would go flat, but she never stopped in the remote area that Robert was hoping she would. Oh, okay.

She kept on moving at least to a point where he and maybe Glenn Walker, who was with him, they weren't comfortable doing whatever it is their plan was. Smart on her part. Yeah, it's a tough call, right? We all know that with a flat tire, you can do some serious damage going too long. Yeah. But you also don't want to be stuck out in the middle of nowhere,

defenseless. Yeah, I mean, if you, look, if you think you're at risk, I mean, just go ahead and drive on the rim. I mean, you're going to have to get a new wheel. Yeah. But 600 bucks, but what, you know what? $600 bucks versus your life.

If I was talking to my daughter, I would say pour it on till the sparks fly. We'll buy a new rim. Yep. Figure it out later. Yep. But it is scary. Gibbs,

when you think about, okay, how many times did Robert Anderson try this? How many other potential victims were there? Some of them had flat tires probably, but didn't stop where Anderson thought was a good place. they may have just driven on never having known that they were actually the target of a killer. They're just thinking, man, these tires really suck. Yeah. I keep getting flats with them.

I just had a flat and I went home, told my husband, we got it fixed. End of story. Yeah. They only knew. And then in what seemed kind of strange to me, Anderson went silent for a couple of years. It happens from time to time. Now, it was during that time that he, He had his third child, Samantha. So conceivably, that could account for a lull. Sure. Those of us that have children know it's, you know, it's not a easy time. No, it's not.

To have a newborn. You don't have a lot of extra time. You're tired. You're cranky. I don't know that he's ever said why there was a lull in his killings, but it's possible that had something to do with it. And we've seen that with other killers. Yeah.

that they've stopped for a while while they had a child. Yeah. All right, Gibbs, let's take a quick break to talk about our sponsor Thread Up. Listen, it's a new year. It's time to refresh your wardrobe. At least that's what my wife and daughters keep telling me. This is the time of year that they like to go through their closets, get rid of some things, replace things that they no longer wear with things that are new and exciting.

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And for True Crime All the Time listeners, here's an exclusive offer just for you. Get an extra 30% off your first order at threadup.com slash T-Cat. That's T-R-E-D-U-P.com slash T-Cat for 30% off your first order. Threadup.com slash T-Cat for an extra 30% off today. Terms apply. But in 1996, he struck again. And this time the target of his murderous fantasies was a woman named Piper Stryly. 28-year-old Piper was married to 29-year-old Van Stryly. And the couple lived outside of Sioux Falls in a rural town called Canistota. Sounds like you said Canisota. Very similar.

Yeah. Well, and when I say rural town, Gibbs, I looked it up. The census from 2010 said that this. This town had a population of like 600 and some. That's a big town, man. It's very rural. I bet that you don't have to worry about people knowing your business in that town. No.

Nobody would know who you are. No. You'd never have to say hi to everybody you pass. No. Man. But you know, towns like that, they have their good size and they have their bad sides. Yeah. That's true.

You know, everybody kind of looks out for one another because it does seem pretty close-knit, I would think in a small town like that. The problem is what you just said. You can't do anything. No. Without someone knowing your business, it's almost impossible. It's like you go get your haircut when you walk out, man. By the time you get to the diner, they were talking about what you were talking about at the haircut.

Yeah. So, I mean, I know you don't get your haircut, but. I don't need to, but I appreciate you pointing that out. Yeah, you're welcome. Now, Vance was a plumber while Piper worked at the southeastern Children Center in Sioux Falls. Gibbs, this was a deeply religious couple. In fact, they met while attending the same Bible college and they got married in 1988. The couple had two children, three-year-old Shana and one-year-old Nathan.

And Piper and Vance ran a children's Bible camp in July of each year. So again, very religious to go to the extent of holding your own Bible camp for children. you're really going out of your way there to do something that you deeply care about. But I really wanted to mention it because it comes into play. Because it was on July 26, 1996, that Robert Anderson visited the Vance home on the pretences of wanting to send his kids to this Bible camp. So not only was he there at the Striley home, but he even wrote his name and address on. on a piece of paper at the house. And then just three days later, he would abduct Piper Stryly.

And by all indications, Gibbs, this was a victim that he had already targeted. Because that was one thing I really wanted to find out, right? Did he go to this house, see Piper, and then she became a target of his fantasies? But I found out that wasn't the case. he went there on that first day to abduct her that day. Oh, he was planning not to waste any time. No. So that means he had already either seen her before.

Sure. Had targeted her somehow, but he didn't because her husband was home. But here's the thing I couldn't wrap my mind around. If you went there to abduct a woman, why in the world would you write your real name, address and everything on a piece of paper. Stupid criminals, man. That does not make any sense. Anderson returned to the Striley home three days later on July 29.

And this day just happened to be little Nathan's second birthday. Vance had left earlier that morning for work. And Piper was getting ready to take the kids to the babysitter. And then she would head off to her job. You look at that schedule and you can apply it to how many couples across the world? Many, many, many. And you can flip-flop them, right?

Maybe the wife leaves early and the husband's taking the kids to daycare and then going to work. But there's some formula or some format of that schedule that a lot of us have had over the years. Very universal. The problem is before Piper left the house, Robert Anderson entered the home

and abducted her Gibbs right in front of her two young children. He forced her out of the house into his vehicle and then drove off. He put duct tape over Piper's eyes and mouth. And then Anderson ultimately raped and killed her and then buried her body. So this happens in a lot of cases, right? People don't show up for work. And normally these are people that don't have a habit of missing work. so coworkers get worried pretty quickly and they got worried when Piper didn't show up for work.

They called her house and it was the three year old Shana who answered the phone. She was hysterical and said that she and her brother were alone. She told the caller that her mother was probably dead and hung up. This girl's only three years old. Can you imagine what the kids are going through? No, because they witnessed their mother being. forcefully removed from the home. I can't imagine being that friend, co-worker, calling the house, and hearing a three-year-old tell you that, and then hanging up. Like, I just, oh, I could not imagine.

I do think she also may have said that a man took her mom in a black vehicle. I'm not sure if she told the caller that or if she told that later to police. But I think, you know, what's amazing is even at that very young age, right, kids know that this is not right. This is something horrible that has happened. You wonder how long she had to wait there till someone called too, you know? Well, I don't have the exact timing, but it was the better part of the day because this was early in the morning when this happened. I think Vance, her husband, tried to call a couple of times, didn't get an answer. And then it was maybe sometime in the afternoon that the office called her house.

So, you know, call it five, six hours probably, alone, crying, worried about your mom. It's heartbreaking. Oh, it is, man. But it's also heartbreaking to know that Piper's been killed and that these two kids are going to have to grow up with the knowledge that they witnessed a part of that. Yeah. Her being kidnapped at least. That's something they won't ever forget.

No. And there's nothing they could have done, two, three year old. The sheriff's office was called. They raced out to the scene. When they got there, Gibbs, they basically found the house a mess, right? It was clear to them that there had been a struggle. They found both children shaken but unharmed. And it was little Shana that told police that a man took their mom away.

and she also said that he fired his gun. So she's giving them as much information as she can. Maybe he fired his gun as a warning to her to stop fighting me, come with me or I'll hurt one of your kids. That is one of the prevalent theories out there that she put up a fight until he threatened her kids. And then at some point she realized she couldn't fight anymore. she couldn't take the chance that this man was going to hurt her kids. I don't think anybody can know that for sure, but that is one of the theories. Shane also told authorities that the man took a blue tent with him when he left.

So apparently this was one of Nathan's birthday presents. Oh. They had bought him a blue tent for his birthday. Outside in the driveway, police found a nine millimeter shell casing. But then you have Piper's husband vans. right, returns home to have to find out this awful news. Cannot even imagine Gibbs what was going on in this man's head when he heard what had happened to his wife.

I mean, you just would want to turn every stone over every place, just try to find her. You just would, I mean, you'd be out of your mind with grief, with anger. All these emotions, I would think, would be flooding you. You know, concern for your kids. who had to witness this concern for your wife because you don't know what's happened to her. Well, based on seeing the house the way it was, you know it's not good. No, you know it's not good. But it was Vance Stryly that put police on to Robert Anderson because he remembered this guy.

Stopping by a few days ago before his wife was abducted. He thought it was strange. And he told police all about it and was even. able to give them his name. And again, that's why I make such a big deal about if you know you're going somewhere to do something bad, why in the hell would you put your name on a piece of paper? Yeah. It's like chapter two of a good do not do book if you plan on being bad, you know, don't put your name on a registration list. Yeah, exactly. But now the police have a very good suspect. And as they're investigating, they found people who described seeing a black Bronco

multiple times near the Stryly home on the day of the abduction. One neighbor put the Bronco in the driveway of the Stryly home. And all of this is important, right, for later on. One of Anderson's neighbors told police that he saw Robert vigorously cleaning out his Ford Bronco multiple times on the morning of the 29th. So obviously none of this is good for Robert Anderson. It's not making him look good, but it's not nailing him to the wall either at this point. What it did do was cause the police the day after the abduction to reach out to Robert Anderson. They asked him to come down to the station for questioning.

This all happened very quickly, right? The next day, they already have the name of a suspect, he's at the station being questioned. He does not, at first, ask for a lawyer. I know in your book, that is a big mistake. A huge mistake, especially if you know you're guilty. Did something wrong, which he did. It's going to come back to bite him. You know, at the same time, police got a warrant to search his Bronco and his trailer. And things really went downhill very quickly for Robert Anderson. Because he's in this interrogation room with professionals who are trained to break you down. He ended up admitting that he was at the Estrily home a few days before the incident. And Gibbs, this was like a seven, eight hour videotaped conversation.

Oh, a lengthy interrogation. Yeah, it was pretty lengthy. And they wore him down to the point where later on he admitted being at the house on the day of the incident. But this is what he claimed. He claimed that he was there to ask the property owners if he could use their archery range. He said he knocked on the door, but no one answered. They also asked him about the disappearance of Larissa Dumanski, and he denied any knowledge of that. But here's the key thing about this seven, eight hour interrogation.

It's on video. At some point, maybe an hour or two in. he said he wanted to leave. Oh. Which was his right. Sure. The problem is he'd already dug the hole. Right.

Within the first hour or two. But they still questioned him for like six hours. So not to give anything away, but what will ultimately happen at trial is that the judge will allow the first couple of hours and not the portion after which he said, you know, I really want to go home. Right. Well. But it wouldn't matter.

matter because the juicy stuff was in that first part. He was a talker. He let it all out really quickly. Very quickly. And then he got tired and he said, you know what? Or maybe he got wise and said, I don't know what I'm doing here. Why am I answering questions when I don't have to? Yeah. Which an attorney would have told you from the very beginning. Don't say it work. Just ask for the attorney, man. It's so easy. Just ask for the attorney. But you and I love it when they don't because this is what happens. These guys are not smart enough on their own to know I should just keep my big yapper shut. Yeah. Well, they think they know better. They do. And we run into this all the time. They think they're smarter. Right. They think they can

come up with a couple of lies and the police are going to say, okay, go home. We're done looking at you. Yeah, they think they can beat the system. But oftentimes it doesn't happen quite that way. So the interrogation didn't go well for Anderson, but it was really the searches of his Bronco and his trailer that would be devastating. Inside the Bronco, they found a lot of evidence, including a roll of duct tape. They found some hairs that were consistent with the Stryle's dog. They found some chain. They found some water-based black paint, which will come into play. then inside his trailer, investigators found Anderson's jeans.

And they were stained with both semen and blood. You think maybe you might want to do something with those? I thought you would have got rid of those when you had the chance. Either burn them, wash them, throw them in a river or something. Driving around with them. Apparently, they found some handcuff keys on his key ring, which, you know, most of us carry handcuff keys around us on our key ring. It's SOP, standard operating. procedure for most. I mean, I'm just, I know it is for you, but you're not most people.

Maybe I shouldn't have mine on my key ring anymore. No, you're not most people. They also found receipts, not only showing that he had bought certain items, but time stamping them and, and all that, some items that they found, some items that were not recovered, but didn't look good to him. Well, he's definitely not the best criminal. No, no, no, no. Horrific thing that he did. but his way of going about it, you know, putting his name and address down and keeping the receipts and keeping the clothing from the victim. I mean... Well, he didn't keep her clothing.

These jeans were his. Yes, I mean, his clothes. That, you know, happened to contain both semen and her blood. So he's got her DNA all over his genes. But you and I joke about it a little bit, right? The intelligence of some of these criminals. The fact of the matter is we don't want them to be intelligent. Oh.

We want them to continue to do all these dumb things so that they are much easier to catch. And we can make fun of them. Always make fun of them. Investigators also found some of these homemade tire poppers that I talked about very quickly. Vance Stryly picked Robert Anderson out of a lineup as the man who had been at their house days before his wife, was abducted. And I think even more importantly, Gibbs, the daughter, the three-year-old daughter, Shana, picked Anderson out as the man who had entered their home and taken her mom. It's impressive. A three-year-old. And then we have to go back to Amy Anderson. She's the

woman that we heard the clip of. She's the one that got away. She also picked Robert Anderson out of a lineup as the man that tried to abduct her in 1994. You add all of this together, right? Not looking good for Mr. Robert Anderson, right, Gibbs? I think the credibility that she adds and her story, I think just locks it in. And you're talking about Amy Anderson. Absolutely. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Now, does it prove that he kidnapped Piper? No. But it sure shows that he has the know-how, the desire. to because he's tried to do this before. Yeah. So why wouldn't he try to do it again? I think Vance picking him out. That's a big deal. But I really think it's, it's Shana,

little Shana saying, this is the man that entered my home and took my mommy. You know, for a little girl to have to be a big girl that day, man. Oh my gosh. Because she's grieving already. Yeah. And Vance is too. But they're doing whatever they have to do to help find their wife and mother. Police arrested Robert Anderson on August 2nd, and they charged him with kidnapping. Piper Stryly. You know, this happened very quickly, like I mentioned. So during this time period, police were searching for Piper.

They couldn't find her. In fact, Gibbs, her body has never been found. I'll just go ahead and give that part away. Right. So without her body or more evidence pointing. to her murder, they felt that all they could do was charge Robert with, at that point in time, is kidnapping. It was reported that over 200 police officers and volunteers were involved in the search for Piper. And then just the month after Robert was arrested, searchers found some duct tape

with hair attached that matched Piper's hair. They also found a cut up t-shirt that matched what she was wearing the day she disappeared. But apparently what they had was not enough to move forward with murder. Right. They could do kidnapping. They couldn't quite make murder. At least they didn't think they could. So they stuck with the kidnapping.

But even with that, friends, friends, families, neighbors, they were all shot to learn that Robert Anderson had been arrested and charged with such a vile crime. Many of them came out in support of him, saying, you know what, there's no way this guy could have done this. Yeah, he really had people snowed, man. Well, I do think this is one thing about Robert Anderson. And it's, and it holds true with many of these killers. He had two different sides to him, right?

One side that he showed to coworkers and his family and all that. And that was the happy go lucky. I'm a good guy's side. But then he had these dark fantasies. That was a completely different person. aside that he didn't show to very many people. But all of these people that, you know, were sticking up for him,

they were pretty adamant about it. There were some neighbors quoted in the paper saying that they wouldn't believe it. No way was this true. And the only way they would believe it was if he came out and confessed to the crime, which he's not going to do. No, he's not going to do that. Because by now he's got an attorney.

Oh, I'm sure he does by now. because he's been charged. Robert Anderson went on trial for the kidnapping of Piper Stryly in 1997. And the prosecution laid out their theory along with their evidence, which was pretty overwhelming. And it went like this, right? Anderson got off work from the John Morel and company plant a little before 8 a.m. on July 29th. He went to Menards. He bought duct tape, a paint brush, and a bucket at around 8.13 a.m. Then he stopped at a gas station, filled his Bronco up with gas, and he bought some cigarettes. Then he headed straight to the Stryly house. And like we said, he abducted Piper in front of her kids and pulled her out of the house. As he was dragging her outside, he broke a step on the deck.

It was also said that at some point, he fired a warning shot. We mentioned. the fact that he fired his gun. Yeah. You said it was most likely a warning shot to Piper. Right. This is serious. Work with me or I'm going to hurt one of your kids. And I do believe police thought that as well.

And I think Gibbs that also helps explain the 9mm casing that police found at the scene. Prosecutor said that Anderson handcuffed Piper to two homemade rings that he had mounted in his bronco. And it was during the sexual assault that Anderson's genes got stained with both his sperm and Piper's menstrual blood. So this is why he should have gotten rid of his genes. Yeah. To my knowledge, there would have been no way that he doesn't know that his genes have all this

blood on them. Yeah. And he doesn't know where it came from. It is very odd that he didn't choose to. to somehow dispose of these genes. Right. Again, I'm glad he didn't. Oh.

But when you're, you're just thinking logically, how does a, how does a person make that type of mistake? Or why do they think that that's not going to matter? Just because they're so cocky that they're going to get away with this and police are never going to be knocking on their door? No, I think they're cocky like that. So there's no need to. That's, that's the only thing I can come up with.

Yeah. I don't need to get rid of these. I'm good. They're never going to find me. Right. Those are good genes too. After the murder and burial, Anderson disposed of her clothing, the duct tape, a vibrator, which apparently he had with him, and a candle by scattering them out the window, I think, along the way as he left. They also talked about how Anderson disguised his bronco by painting it black with temporary paint or some type of water-based washable,

paint. Yeah. Like that time of my car in high school got painted pink because we were spraying the victory bell at some other school. Right. I've heard you tell that story. And all that, as we shot it up with the fire extinguisher, we didn't realize that what we shot up would also come back down and it coated my car. But you were able to get it all. We were. Okay. We had to drive immediately to a car wash and not look suspicious at all driving to that spot with a partially pink car and sitting there hosing it off within the war stall. Yeah, and I think that's what he did as well, right? We mentioned his neighbor saw him cleaning out his vehicle.

I think he also took it somewhere and was able to wash off this black paint, but they later found the paint. So it probably wasn't that hard for them to put it together. His Bronco was blue. That was the key. And all of the eyewitness description said it was black. Well, it was black for that period of time. In what was thought to have been a very strange move, Anderson's defense team didn't give a closing argument.

I don't know if I've ever heard of that. That's strange. Now, it's been theorized that his defense team thought that the state's case was so weak that they didn't want to give them a chance to have the opportunity for a rebuttal. The prosecution makes their closing arguments. The defense makes theirs. And then the prosecution, I think, gets a chance to come back and say something about what the defense has said. And then it's done. But if the defense makes no closing arguments, then they don't get another time up to bat.

Yeah. They don't get the second time up to bat. That's been a theory that's floated around. Now, I will say that later on, Robert Anderson said he wasn't happy about it. Well, of course, that's what he's going to say because it didn't work. It didn't work. And that's how you get maybe an appeal. Yeah.

Yeah. He said he wasn't happy about it. But hindsight's 2020. Yeah. I think the key is that the evidence was pretty overwhelming. And the jury convicted Robert Anderson and he was given a life sentence. It was reported that this guy showed no emotion after he received his sentence. And I don't think it was too long after that that Robert's wife Elaine divorced him and took the

children. I think she stuck by him in the beginning. My assumption is the evidence started to come out, didn't look good. Yeah. And she thought, no, not worth it. I mean, I know a lot of people say that they are super loyal, they're ride and die or whatever. Man, you're not going to be ride and die for somebody that does something like that. You just not.

For the rest of their life? Yeah. And the rest of your life, essentially. Somebody does something that horrific. Goodbye. Well, and it's not just for you, right? You have kids. What's it like for kids to go to school with all the other kids knowing that your father is a murderer?

Yeah. So my thought is you better change that last name quick. You know they probably had to. Probably move to a different school district and try to start over. Probably have to move to another state. Now, normally this would be kind of the wrap-up section of a T-CAD episode, but there's so much more that happens in this case. It was really not that long after Anderson's kidnapping conviction that his friend Glenn Walker turned on him. This guy basically opened up to police that he played a part in the kidnapping and eventual murder of Lurray.

Drissnazky. Yeah. He also played a part in the attempted kidnapping of Amy Anderson, but he took it a step further. And he ultimately led police to the shallow grave at Lake Vermillion where Larissa Dumanski was buried. When they started digging, though, all they found were some bone fragments. And there's a reason for that.

We'll talk about it in a minute. But the bone fragments were enough. using DNA, they were able to connect them to Larissa Damanski. They also found pieces of blue jeans and shirt that was consistent with what Larissa was wearing when she disappeared. On top of that, they found 15 spent 9mm shell casings. So this is not good for Robert Anderson either. Now, he's already been convicted for the kidnapping. Right.

And he's been sentenced to. life in prison. And you think, okay, what else are they going to do to them? Well, there's really only one other step to take. Exactly. And that's what they're going to go after. Well, now they have better ammunition to go after them and with. Yeah, they have some.

They're about ready to get a whole bunch more because Robert Anderson made a huge mistake while he was in prison. He befriended a fellow prisoner and thought that he was hatching a scheme with this guy. To do a few things. Number one, he wanted to frame someone else for his crimes. Number two, he wanted his friend Glenn Walker eliminated. He wasn't happy with Glenn because Glenn had spilled the beans. Sure.

And then number three, he wanted someone on the outside to go to his mom's house and retrieve some evidence that he had hidden. So three things that he's trying to work out with this fellow prisoner. and he told this guy everything. I mean every intimate detail of all of his crimes. Why do people think that it's okay to befriend somebody in prison? And how do you think you can trust somebody that's in there for some other heinous crime? Yeah, I mean, you should know it's the last place you should go and think that you're going to be able to trust somebody.

Half of them are in there for fraud. The rest of them are in there for illegal activity. and especially this guy, right? We're going to talk about this guy more, but the guy he befriended the fellow prisoner, he wasn't there serving life. I think he had at the time like 18 months left or something like that. So the guy went along with it.

And he told Anderson that he would kill Walker as soon as he got out of prison. He told him that he would contact someone on the outside to go get this evidence that. that was at Anderson's mom's house. But what he really did, this guy whose name was Jeremy Bruner, he went to authorities. And he told them everything. And I mean everything because Anderson had spilled everything. Spill the beans, man. He didn't hold anything back.

So this guy, Jeremy Bruner, was able to provide police with details of the kidnappings, the rapes, the murders. but he was also able to tell police that Anderson had kept some items from the victims and had stored them at his mother's house. He also told them where to find a bullet hole in the Striley home. And this is important because it had never been found. Yeah. In the previous investigation, he also was able to tell authorities that Anderson had gone back. to where he buried Larissa Damanski and had dug up her remains near late Vermilion.

He removed the teeth from her skull so authorities couldn't match dental records. And then he scattered the bones in the Big Sioux River. So this really helps explain why authorities only found a small number of bone fragments when they were led to the site by Glenn Walker. it's because Anderson had already been there, dug most of it up. Right. Now, he wasn't able to get all of it. There were still some bone fragments.

So Jeremy Bruner was released from prison on November 13th. I couldn't figure out exactly how early he got out, but he definitely got out early for this cooperation with police. But no doubt, he provided police with everything they needed. And thankfully he did. Yeah, I agree with you because I think. some of the things that he was able to tell police, I don't know if they ever would have been able to figure it out. You know, they had already searched the Stryly home. They didn't find this bullet hole.

They had already searched his mom's house previously. They didn't find any evidence connecting Anderson to the kidnappings and murders. But now, armed with this information from Jeremy Bruner, they searched his mom's home again. And this time, Gibbs, they knew exactly where to look. I mean, I think there were hand-drawn maps that said, here you go. X marks the spot. Yeah. And they found the mother load hidden in the ceiling of the basement.

So this is what they found. A necklace that was confirmed to have belonged to Larissa Dumanski. They found Piper Stryly's wedding ring and two sets of handcuffs. Now, remember, they already have the keys, right? They found the keys on Anderson's key ring. But they never found any handcuffs. Now they have the handcuffs. They also found a 9mm pistol.

Then they went to the Striley home and they found the bullet hole inside the house. Apparently he had shot down through the carpet. So the shag carpet had essentially hidden this 9 millimeter bullet hole. Yeah. They got underneath the house and they found the 9mm slug. That's perfect for them. It's great evidence. It really is.

I don't think that it was very hard for the authorities to figure out, you know what, this Jeremy Bruner guy was really telling the truth. Yeah. And I don't know why he wouldn't because he only had 18 months left. He was not going to jeopardize his time in prison by sending them down a rabbit hole. I mean, what has the world come to? You can't even trust a fellow convicted felon. I know, man.

I mean, that's what our society has come to. You just can't tell your secrets to anyone anymore. I know, you can't, man. And I'm kind of concerned about some of the few things I've told you, you know. But the other thing I think about is, so this guy has, let's say, 18 months to go. I don't know the exact number. He got out somewhat early. But I don't think it would have.

have mattered if he shaved a month, three months, six months. Yeah. He would have done anything and said anything he had to and told whatever information he had to give them to get out any amount of time earlier than he was supposed to. Well, he hit the mother load. He really did. Of information that, you know, definitely got him out sooner than he should have been. But you know what? on the other side, I would have paid a lot of early release time for that information. Hey, if this matches up and that gets us the conviction we want, you're out. Sometimes the authorities have to make deals with people. Yeah.

And a lot of times these people, they're not great people. But you have to look at the, what's the worst evil of the two? This guy, he's in it for 18 months. And I don't know what he was in for, to be honest with you. but him getting out a little bit earlier than he was supposed to versus having the concrete evidence needed to solve two murders. I'll take that. He's a snitch now anyway. He probably dead, man.

Well, and that, I didn't really talk about that, but they did have to put him in like ad seg. Yeah. Because he was outed as a snitch and everybody in there wanted to kill him. You know how that goes, man. And there were some back and forth. there was some talk about the fact that he wasn't going to testify at trial. There was some talk that he needed to testify before trial because he wasn't, they weren't sure if he was even going to make it.

It was a lot of back and forth. Snitch is a bitch found in a ditch, man. Hey, that's what I heard. So on September 4th, 1997, Robert Anderson was charged with kidnapping Larissa Dumanski, as well as the rape and murder of Piper, striley. and prosecutors said that they were going to seek the death penalty. And you and I hinted at it, right? Sure.

What's left to do? The guy already has life in prison. Well, they're going after the death penalty. And you and I have talked on a number of episodes. The guy's already serving life in prison. Do we need to take him to trial to convict him of murder when he's never getting out anyway? And apparently they did this cost benefit analysis. Sure.

And they weighed everything. They knew it was going to be expensive. And they said, you know what? We don't care. We want a conviction. We want justice for Larissa. We want justice for Piper. And we're going after this guy to the full extent of the law.

So if you are him knowing that they could take you back to trial and you'll probably lose. So I'm Anderson now. You're Anderson now. I'm the most horrible guy in the store. Okay. Yeah. Makes sense. Yeah.

So as you sit there, terrible guy, if you could, I wonder if this is a way to benefit everybody by saying, hey, we got you, but it's going to cost us all this money, maybe $500,000. Or you go ahead and just sign this document, and instead of us paying $500,000, we'll give $50,000 to your family. So they, clue that they're going to need some money. I know she's divorced in you or whatever, she left you, whatever. It applies to anybody. Or give them money. Case solved.

Case solved and I'm taking the death penalty? Just saying. That's the only way it works. They were not going to try him and allow him to plead down to life. Yeah. Then there would be no reason to even before. No, the only reason they were doing this is they were going for the full throttle. So you think me as this heinous killer is going to.

Yeah. is going to give a rat's ass about my family getting a little bit of money. Well, that's your kids. And sign it over and sign on the dotted line basically saying, yeah, I'm okay with that. Go ahead and give me the death penalty. But you're getting a killer last meal. Legally, I don't know if that would work. But I can't imagine too many people would sign up for that.

Because here's the thing, Gibbs. Do they really love their family? I mean, deep down. Probably not. Because if they did, why would they do what, why would they? And take the chance of ruining their lives and so, yeah, I don't know. Roberts trial began in 1999. And we're not going to go super in depth into the trial.

The prosecution had a mountain of evidence, even more so than they had in the kidnapping trial. They also had a number of crucial witnesses. Anderson cellmate, who turned on him testified. they had the evidence collected at his mother's house. A ballistics expert testified that the 9 millimeter they found matched both the shell casings found at Larissa's burial site and also the slug found underneath the Striley home. That's huge. It is huge. It is tying that gun found in Robert's mom's home to both of the murders.

A woman named June Peterson testified that she had heard Anderson talk about abducting women on a number of occasions. So according to this woman, Robert said that it would be very easy to kidnap someone, do whatever you wanted to do to them sexually. You could take someone, push them into a car, and nobody would be the wiser. Okay. That's not good because that's essentially what you do. did. Right. And why are you telling all of these people what your deepest, most violent fantasies are? This woman also testified that Robert had shown her his 9mm handgun and his handcuffs. And I guess all he talked about, according to her was deviant sexual behavior. It's just that was like his go-to topic of

conversation. He's a very strange individual. Really? No, I completely agree with you. Knowing that you're thinking about acting out on these violent fantasies, you would think maybe not a good idea to run around town telling a bunch of people what they are and how you might accomplish them. Not smart. Not smart at all. But, you know, we said he was dumb on so many levels. Yeah, I don't know what his overall intelligence level was, but there's no doubt he did a lot of things that you would have to call not smart or dumb over, you know, this period of time. Maybe he's just one of those guys that he just was overconfident in himself. I think sometimes things that we look at and think are not smart.

Yeah. Are really a result of overconfidence. Yeah, yeah, I think he thought he was bulletproof for sure. Mm-hmm. Why not tell this woman? she's not going to betray me. Why not tell my cellmate? He's never going to betray me.

No, never. And he can help me accomplish these goals that I want to get done. Right. Larissa's husband William Dumanski testified, as did Piper's husband, Van Stryly. Little Shana did not testify. But the jury heard about her ordeal and the things that she said through the testimony of her father. The prosecution showed jurors Anderson's videotaped interrogation that was made in July of 1996. And on this tape, the guy changed his stories a number of times about being at the Striley home.

At one point, he said he had been there once days before Piper's abduction. Then later, he said that, yeah, I was there the day she was abducted. At one point he said he saw only one car in the driveway and thought they must be out so he left. Yeah. And then at another point he said he knocked, no one answered. He said he heard children's voices inside. So he figured that their mom must be taking a nap. At another point, he said he drove by the house a half hour later and no one was there.

He's all over the place. And I think it really showed to the jury. Right. And remember, they were only allowed to play. play an hour or two of this videotaped interrogation, but it really was the best of the seven or eight hours. The trial lasted about six weeks. And it culminated when the jury found Anderson guilty of his charges. Apparently Gibbs, the only time this guy showed any emotion during his trial was when his family got on the stand. So this is after he's been convicted, but before he's been

sentenced, his family's on the stand. They're pleading for his life. His mother got on the stand, showed the jurors pictures of his children and said that they needed their father. Okay. She cried on the stand. She said, please don't kill my son. You know, she's saying all these things to try to affect the jury. Other family members took the stand to do the same. It was reported by one of the Sioux Falls papers that none of the jurors shed even a single tear. But one woman on the jury did smile briefly. Oh. Like they were not swayed at all. Right. I guess they were not buying this show of emotion for the man they had just convicted of these brutal crimes. And think about it, right? You're saying that this man's children, they need his father. And I'm saying, yeah, Shana needed her

mother. Right. Nathan. Yes. Larissa's two children needed her. Let's not forget she had a, she was pregnant. Absolutely. Six weeks. So when you weigh those two things, and yes, I do feel bad about this guy's kids because they did nothing wrong. No, but they need a father. They just don't need him. I would say that exactly. His wife should find somebody else. Yeah. What kind of guidance is this man going to give them from prison. How to heat up ramen, how to do pushups, how to put a phone book down your pants in case you get shanked in the yard. The multiple uses of petroleum jelly?

We don't know. I'm just saying. I just think it's a tough argument to make when your son has taken two women. Yeah. Away from their husbands, their kids, their families. There's nothing good about this man being a. in those kids' life. I think other than to say he's their dad, which he is.

He is, biologically. He's just, but he's not any role model that those kids should be looking towards. Yeah, I agree with you 100%. So, I mean. It was on May 4th, 1999 that Robert Leroy Anderson was sentenced to death. And we have to talk more about his friend Glenn Walker. He was ultimately charged with kidnapping, first degree murder, and conspirators. to commit kidnapping and murder in the cases of Larissa Dumanski and Amy Anderson.

In 2000, Walker accepted a plea deal that involved him taking a polygraph. So this is strange, Gibbs. Apparently, the judge said, okay, you can take this plea deal, but as part of it, I want you to take a polygraph so that we know all of the things that you're saying are true. Okay. Walker failed the polygraph and the judge didn't like it. So he tacked on five years onto what had been the agreed upon 25 year sentence. So clearly somebody on the prosecution side must have felt he wasn't 100% truthful to even have that contingency placed in there.

Either that or the judge himself, just wasn't feeling it. Yeah. But I found it fascinating because you and I often talk about polygraph tests. We talk about their uses, their validity. So to have the judge require this guy to take a polygraph and then to tack on five years because he failed it, I just knew that was something that we had to talk about. He still got off good, in my opinion. You know, I mean, yes, they needed him to land the bigger fish. They did.

They did. But he got 30 years. and his role was not as significant as Roberts, but still very significant. But he would have came forward earlier after Larissa. Piper would still be alive. Yeah, that's truly, that's truly possible. It's sentencing Glenn Walker gave an apology. He said, Your Honor, I know what I did was inexcusable.

If I could change things, I really would. I am truly sorry for the actions and the pain I have brought their family. the judge came back and said, you helped take away from them everything they loved when you took part in these wicked crimes. It's very well said. I kind of like this judge. Yeah. I mean, it's very well said. And you and I have said similar things in a bunch of different episodes. In December 2002, Robert's father, Leland Anderson, took his own life, shot himself in the head. I really didn't have much more around it. Yeah. I don't know the reasoning by. behind it. I mean, if it had anything to do with Robert and what Robert did, he waited a number of

years to do it. Then on March 30th, 2003, Robert Leroy Anderson was found hanging in his cell. He was in Ad Seg, just after 2 a.m. He had taken his life. I guess prison staff tried to revive him. They performed CPR, but he was later pronounced dead at a Sioux Falls hospital. I found an article Gibbs in the Argus leader of Sioux Falls, the Sioux Falls paper. Yeah, it's a good article, man. That really piqued my interest. The article talked about the death of Robert Anderson, of course, but it also talked about Bill Dumansky, the husband of Anderson's victim, Larissa.

We often talk about the toll that these killers acts have on the friends and family of their victims. This guy, Bill not only lost the love of his life, lost. lost the mother of his children, but he was not allowed to have the remains of his wife to bury. What they actually were able to collect. Right. The police said they needed to keep them in storage as long as Anderson was in jail.

Really, for any type of appeals or processes. Yeah. And maybe that standard operating procedure nine years had gone by. who knows how much longer it would have been had he not taken his own life, Bill expressed eagerness in this article about bringing his wife's remains home and being able to give her a proper burial. So it's all heartbreaking. Sure. All of the things that the families of victims have to go through on top of losing their loved ones,

it's like they just keep getting punished over and over for the terrible deeds of a another person. Yeah. And I get it. There's, it's a system. There's rules. There's regulations.

Right. But it can't be easy to understand. Right. Okay. You found some of my wife's remains. I'd like to have them so that I can bury her. No, you can't have them because we have to keep them in storage until this guy's case is fully

resolved. It's a hard pill to swallow, man. It definitely would be. I'm thinking it would be as if this guy almost still has a hold on you. Yeah, I think you're exactly right. It's going to linger for the, like you said, till he is either dead or leaves prison. Which we know he's not going to do. Right.

So essentially until he's executed. Yeah. Is probably what this guy was thinking. Now, he ended his life before he could be executed. But some of the members of Anderson's family have been. very quick to point the finger at the prison system. After his death, some have gone as far as to say that they believed there was foul play, essentially saying that the prison system killed Robert Anderson.

But I don't know, Gibbs. Some of the arguments they made, I thought were a little strange. They said, okay, this guy was supposed to be an ad seg. And he was, right? Administrative segregation. How did he have access to anything that could hurt him? Well, the prison officials came back and said, you know what? The guy wasn't on suicide watch.

He had sheets. He had linens. Right. He made his own noose. And he used that to kill himself. But what a terrible case this was. You have Robert Anderson, who no doubt was a horrible guy. He was somehow able to get his friend involved in his murderous sexual desires.

That's still very strange to me. Yeah. How all of that went down. you have at least one victim that survived that has to deal with what happened for the rest of her life. Sure. And then you have the families of these two wives, mothers, daughters, sisters that have to deal with the loss of their loved ones all at the hands of this man, Robert Leroy Anderson. Why? Because he had fantasies involving sexually assaulting and murdering women that he chose to,

make real. And Gibbs, this is a guy that I don't think would have ever stopped on his own, ever. I mean, you can look at him making his own device to blow out tires. Yeah, he was calculating on how he did things. So absolutely, this was going to continue on. Yeah, I think he spent a lot of time on his fantasies, right? I don't know how many years he had these and how much it consumed him. But after he made the decision that he was really going to kill, I think he put a lot of time into it, thinking about how to carry out this next level. Yeah. Now, he wasn't great at it, but I still think he put a lot of time into it.

He thought he was great at it. Yeah. I mean, I'm sure he thought, okay, if I do this, this and this, I'm going to get away with it. Right. And to be honest with you, he could have gotten away with some of it. Sure, he could have. Had he not trusted people and started. talking. But that's it. That's it for the case of Robert Leroy Anderson. Just another POS that,

you know, came across. Yeah. There's a bunch of them out there. Every week, man. Every week. Every week. There's a new POS. We've got some voicemails. You want to check those out? Yeah, I do. Hi, Mike and Gibby. This is Chris Dodge Hill in Arizona. I just been holding out on calling you guys and leaving a voicemail. Didn't really know what to say. But I absolutely love your guys as podcast. I love listening to it and it helps get me through my day at work. I work on trucks. That's all I really got to say. But I am Team Ferguson because he does not get enough love.

So Team Fergie, thank you. And keep your own time ticking. And he has a big old truck. Well, it's not that big. But true words have never been said, Gibbs. Team Fergie gets very little love. Team Gibby gets the bulk of the love. And I'm okay with that.

I'll complain about it from time to time. But for the most part, I'm okay with it. Love is shared. The love is shared. Can't have Team Gibby Love without having Fergie, man. Now, some degree of each, you have to have some degree of each. But, you know, people are more voistrous about their support of you. Well, that's like, you know, we've had this conversation.

What you hear is one side. Sure. You know, they don't get to hear me rouse you back. a lot of times. Oh yeah. There are people, I actually got an email the other day. There are people that think, oh, Fergie's too rough on Gibby. Yeah. Right. Well, we're trying to, you know, make this dynamic work for the show. What they don't realize is that I dish it out too. You dish it out very well in real life. I've said this before. Yeah. You become somewhat passive, sometimes on the podcast. You've, you've zinged me from time to time.

but you are more passive on the podcast than you are in real life. You dish it out better in real lives. Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. Hey, soon as you hit the stop recording, I'm coming at you. You're coming after me. Yeah.

Hey, guys, this is Dylan from Longview, Texas. I just have to say I'm a big fan of the podcast. I listen to it every single day. I work on an armored car. So it's probably kind of weird that I work on an armored car. And I'm listening to a true crime podcast, but nonetheless, I've always been entertained by true crime stories. I do have one suggestion.

I don't know if many people actually have the gut to possibly talk about it. It's still a bit of a sore subject to this day. The case happened about 10 years ago. Plus, unfortunately, as the case of Chris Ben Woff, a former professional wrestler from Canada, unfortunately, he was involved in a double murder suicide of his life, Nancy, and his, I believe, his 7-year-old son, Daniel at the time, and then, unfortunately, took his own life. Again, it's a bit of a sore subject, especially for myself as a wrestling fan and probably many other wrestling fans around the country or even around the world.

Hopefully it can be a possibility for the near future. I love what you guys are doing. Please keep up the fantastic work. Enjoy the rest of your week. You guys, keep your own time. Take it. Thank you. So he works in the armored car.

Mm-hmm. So just hypothetically. Yeah. If somebody wanted to get the money out of there. How would they do it? What's the best entrance? Where's the soft spot on the armored car? Well, I was going to ask him, so when he's,

working on these armored cars, are they filled with cash or completely empty? Yeah. And if they are filled with cash, what address do you work at when you're taking care of these armored cars? Exactly. It's just just a curiosity. Yeah, not that we wouldn't do anything. Yeah. But I will say this, Chris Benoit is on the list. Yeah. And has been for a very long time. I've never really been a huge fan of professional wrestling, so I don't know a lot about it. I remember when I was younger, Hulk Hogan's and the Rick Flares and some of those people. Andre the Giant. Andre the Giant.

Yeah. But to be honest with you, I don't know a lot about professional wrestling, but it's still a true crime story. So, you know, could make the podcast for sure. You don't know the Rock? Yeah, I know the Rock, but not from wrestling. Stone Cold? I know, yeah, but not from wrestling.

That's because you do the same thing. You crash beer cans on your forehead, too. I know. That's why. So it doesn't impress me all that much. No. This is Vanessa from Newfoundland, Canada again. I had called you back before, and I got cut off twice because of my phone.

So hopefully this game, a new Patreon about last month, and I'm so enjoying it. I love battery evenings, and I love Monday morning. I don't even mind driving the work on Monday morning because you guys are just breaking my whole week. So I will continue to support you, and I love you guys, and you know what? I may be able to go to crime con in Florida. My mom and stepdad just recently used to Florida from Connecticut. So I know it sounds like that call ended abruptly. She thought that it was no longer recording.

Oh. But there was additional stuff afterwards. She just didn't think it was for us. She was actually mad that, I don't know, her cell phone wasn't working or something. So I cut that all. So there's some things you just can't play. It wasn't anything bad. It was like, you know, when you.

you think a call got cut off and you're like, she wasn't cursing or anything. It's just like, oh my gosh, I can't believe that happened again. She sent me a lot of messages on Messenger on Facebook Messenger. And just again, she's like happy with the show, loves you. And, you know, just wants to let it be known that she's the number one fan. Oh, yeah. I definitely wanted to play the email. Sure.

I just had to explain why it cut off so abruptly. Well, you had to play the voicemail and read the email, but I get, oh, yeah. Thanks for correct. Yeah. Gibbs, we had mail back. Oh, okay. Gary Moll sent us in some cigars. Cigals.

And I might be saying his name wrong. I don't know. Gary will tell me. Allison McCormick sent you a Twizzler woman. Really? Which is surprisingly anatomically correct and a little scary. That's, uh, I'll have to check it out. Yeah.

And then John Stickley sent me some Harley Chips from North Carolina. And he sent you his CDs, a musician who tours the country listening to True Crime all the time. Really? Yeah. Play a little of his stuff on my way home. Yeah. He said he'd let us know if he was ever in Dayton. We'll go check him out.

All right. All right, buddy. That is it for another episode of True Crime all the time. So for Mike and Gabby, stay safe and keep your own time ticking.