Does Anyone Remember This East Coast Homicide Case?

[elranchero20]

Hello All! I keep having flashbacks several times a week about a case I saw on UM probably sometime in the mid 90's while it was on Lifetime. This case probably happened somewhere on the east coast but I don't remember exactly. It was about a couple that was returning home from a trip and the husband went upstairs to tuck in a child. However, he never made it back out as he was shot several times and passed on. This case is so terrifying; it is probably a close third after the Canada river rest stop murders and the guy that was being chased by madmen on his motorcycle. Does anyone remember this case or know if there are any updates? Thanks!

[crystaldawn]

I've wondered about an update in that case as well. The murder victim was a deputy named Charlie Anderson. I believe it happened in California. His family had just returned from an outing and he went in to bring his sleeping son to bed. His wife stayed out in the car with the baby until Charlie returned to get him as she had a back injury and couldn't lift him I guess. Anyway she heard a sound and went in and found her husband laying near the stairs and had been shot to death. I remember Charlie's sister saying he was laying there dead with his eyes open and had a look of terror on his face. She speculated like he had known his attacker but I thought that look could have just as easily been from being startled as no doubt he was expecting his house was empty. Someone called the police department shortly after and said they knew who did it. They didn't want their voice recorded so the detective in charge told them to call back on his line that wasn't recorded. He said he would but never called back. I would like to know as well if anyone was ever arrested in that case.

Here's a memorial page:

http://www.camemorial.org/htmprev/anders87.htm

[TosaTillie]

Any thoughts that the wife arranged the murder? Was the child harmed?

[Kane]

Originally Posted by TosaTillie

Any thoughts that the wife arranged the murder? Was the child harmed?

The child was out of harm's way when Charlie Anderson ran into the intruder.

As for the idea that the wife arranged the murder, I don't buy it. Maybe Charlie came home at the wrong time? Maybe someone was waiting for Charlie, and only intended to kill him and no one else? Only if or when the case is solved will we know.

[crystaldawn]

I always figured Charlie Anderson interrupted a burglary in his home. It was late at night when he arrived and there may have been intruders that went in previously because the house was empty. What I don't understand is the tribute page says he leaves behind 1 child. In the reenactment he had two children and thats why Charlie's wife didn't go in at the same time he did, she was sitting out in the car waiting for Charlie to come back and get the second child as she had a back injury they said. Interesting.

[UnsolvedMystFan]

I know I'm a couple years late to this thread, but I just happened to be browsing through the 'unexplained deaths' section over on unsolved.com and I came across this case. So I came here to SITON and looked for threads discussing it and there aren't any...just threads that mention him in passing. How come no one's sleuthing this? It seems so mysterious, i'm surprised.

So are there any updates now? The whole thing just seems SO bizarre. I think unfortunately because of Charlie's profession an extra complication of sorts leaves the possibility of a disgruntled former arrestee (is this a word?) or perhaps someone he testified against. I hate to say it but maybe the possibility of an 'inside job' should have been thoroughly researched. You just never know nowadays...

Also I wanted to say CrystalDawn you sure know your UM cases! Do you have them all archived in your head or something? :P Also who is that grotesque figure in your new avatar? He's seriously making my stomach turn.

[crystaldawn]

Originally Posted by UnsolvedMystFan

Also I wanted to say CrystalDawn you sure know your UM cases! Do you have them all archived in your head or something? :P Also who is that grotesque figure in your new avatar? He's seriously making my stomach turn.

Thank you! I would say about 95% are archived in my head (lol) once in a while if someone wants specific details I will look it up.

The man in my avatar is Manny Morino. I was watching a UM from '95 and there was an update he was captured. He was wanted for mail fraud and bilking seniors out of their money in a phantom housing development scam. When I saw that mug I thought it would make a great avatar, lol.

As far as Charlie Anderson, I recently read the book about the Dan Montecalvo case called "Final Vows". Dan Montecalvo was convicted of murdering his wife and his story was featured on the short lived spin-off "Final Appeal" and also on the Spike revamped UM. He claims he is innocent and a mentally unstable neighbor has pretty much confessed that her and her friend were looking for money for drugs one night, broke into their house and killed his wife. This neighbor also seems to be a suspect in the murder of Charlie Anderson. She doesn't come out and flat out confess but does act strangely and he was no doubt killed by a would be robber and another interesting fact is he only lived blocks from the Montecalvo's. Personally I think she's the one who killed Charlie Anderson.

[ddelta]

This case always bothered me too. Just everything seemed to perfect. Like who could have possibly known that Charlie would come into the house first before his wife? Not saying it was a planned hit, but I am thinking someone knew their routine (like a neighbor or something). Waited for Charlie to put the kid in the bed and killed him and ran out of the house. If he walked in on a burglary gone bad, why would the intruder wait until he put the kid in his bed. Charlie probably would have never seen the person if he went back outside to get the next child. Seems like it was a plan to kill him.

Also, I don't remember but did UM ever say if the house was ransacked? If it was not, that is another red flag that this was directed at Charlie and not a random act he walked in on.

[justins5256]

I have thought often of the anonymous tipster who phoned in. I wonder what information he might have had. If the re-enactment is accurate, this person claimed they knew the killer's identity. I wonder why he never called back when he said he would. Cold feet perhaps?

[Wamisto]

Originally Posted by Kane

As for the idea that the wife arranged the murder, I don't buy it.

Kane, I'm curious as to why you don't think the wife had anything to do with it.

Personally, I am inclined to believe the wife actually pulled the trigger. Her story is a bit suspicious to me. It is believable that she had a bad back and could not carry the child in, but it seems a convenient way for her to explain how she (a) was not shot either, and (b) didn't see anything or hear anything except for a pop.

Plus, there is no evidence to indicate anybody except members of the family were in the house.

[Kane]

Originally Posted by Wamisto

Kane, I'm curious as to why you don't think the wife had anything to do with it.

Personally, I am inclined to believe the wife actually pulled the trigger. Her story is a bit suspicious to me. It is believable that she had a bad back and could not carry the child in, but it seems a convenient way for her to explain how she (a) was not shot either, and (b) didn't see anything or hear anything except for a pop.

At this point, I don't know of any evidence that points to the wife being possibly the killer or even an accessory. Nor can I think of a reason why she would want Charlie dead. But I'm not saying it's impossible for her to have been involved. While one might find the "bad back" story suspicious, it's not enough to prove deception on her part.

As for her not being shot, maybe there's a plausible explanation for that: Maybe the killer discovered she was outside and, knowing that she didn't spot him, saw no need to kill her. The unknown murderer could have exited the house from an area where he would not be easily seen. But of course, that's just speculation on my part.

Plus, there is no evidence to indicate anybody except members of the family were in the house.

Absence of evidence is not always evidence of absence. Maybe the killer didn't leave much evidence of his presence to begin with. Or maybe the cops wanted the unknown killer to believe there was no evidence of anyone at the crime scene besides Charlie and his family. In other words, maybe the detectives did find evidence of an intruder but are keeping it from the press, hoping a suspect will goof up by indicating a knowledge of that evidence when it could only be known by the perpetrator or those closest to the investigation.

This too, of course, is only speculation. But for now, in the absence of any hard evidence, I'm giving Charlie's widow the benefit of the doubt.

[Wamisto]

Thanks for the explanation, Kane. The problem is - as it always is - UM leaves out a lot, and it is never certain what they have left out.

You say:

As for her not being shot, maybe there's a plausible explanation for that: Maybe the killer discovered she was outside and, knowing that she didn't spot him, saw no need to kill her. The unknown murderer could have exited the house from an area where he would not be easily seen.

These are possibilities, but considering that when a family returns home, 99 percent of the time the husband and wife enter the house together or the wife enters first as the husband parks the vehicle (in the garage or whatever), and considering that the highest proportion of homicides are committed by the spouse or hitman hired by the spouse, the story about the bad back just seems very suspicious to me.

[TracyLynnS]

Charlie Anderson's case is really is sad. Here was what seemed to be a great guy, doing a good job in law enforcement, a happy family man with young kids, (just got back from visiting family members, around midnight) when he was murdered.

IIRC, the segment shows home video of him ATV riding with his kid, and some other scenes where he's just generally having a great time being a dad.

My immediate first suspect was the wife because the story of his murder seemed so much like an inside job. But then weirder things have happened, just as CD mentioned about Dan Montecalvo. Everything in his case looked like he probably killed his wife, life insurance motive, etc, but turns out she may very well have been murdered by a drugged up neighbor.

That neighbor seemed to know too much detail about the crime scene. Without that info, I would have thought the husband was guilty for sure and it definitely shows how unpredictable people can be when they're strung out on drugs or desperate for cash to get another fix.

I watched this one yesterday and still have it on pause on the DVD. I'm going to go have a look, to make sure I get all my facts straight. I'll post back to let you know what I find out. It seems that Mr. Anderson doesn't have enough info on him here so I'll try to summarize the segment for future reference.

Back in a few....

[TracyLynnS]

January 24, 1987 Deputy Sheriff Charlie Anderson was gunned down in his Burbank, CA home.

The next day, an anonymous witness called the Burbank police claiming that he knew the identity of the killer. After stating that, he eventually hung up without revealing any useful information. He was nervous about the call being traced and his voice being recorded. The investigator he spoke with gave him the number to his secure line that was unrecorded, and asked him to call it in 2 minutes so they could speak privately. The informant never called that secure line and never called back to reveal what he knew.

His exact words were, "I know who did the shooting". None of his remarks identified the shooter as male or female. In other words, he never said, "I know the guy who did the shooting" or "I know the woman who did the shooting".

Charlie was a 14 year veteran of the LA county sheriff's department. He was a skilled driver who trained other cops to handle their vehicles in dangerous situations.

Coworkers stated that he got along with everybody. While he was appropriately serious on the job, he had a good sense of humor.

By all accounts, he was a good father who spent a lot of his free time with his two sons. Home videos show him teaching his child to ride a bike, fatherly hugs and kisses for his kids, and fun outings like ATV riding.

Until his murder, it was thought that he had no enemies whatsoever.

His wife, Beth, told police that around midnight on the night of the murder, Charlie, she, and the kids returned home from visiting her parents. Because of her back injury (I assume that she couldn't lift the sleeping kids from the back seat of the car, so Charlie carried in one child while she waited in the car until he could come get the other child. I also assume this was for safety reasons, not wanting to leave a child alone, out in the car at night.)

While waiting for Charlie to come out of the house, she heard several "backfires". Upon hearing these sounds, she walked into the house to see if anything was wrong. (Here is where I started to get suspicious. If she thought it was a backfiring car, why did she suspect something was wrong in the house?)

According to the reenactment, she found him shot dead at the top of the stairs. She ran downstairs, outside, and pulled the younger son from the backseat of the car. (Again, I was wondering, what happened to her back injury at this time? They say she was in no condition to be carrying heavy objects, but her back is fine now?) She went to the neighbor's house for help.

"Initially, the detectives believed that the house was being burglarized, that Mr. Anderson had interrupted a burglary, and confronted the suspects. One of the things that was not consistent with a burglary was that the suspect had very carefully moved items. Normally in a burglary, the suspects are working very quickly. They will pull out a drawer and dump it just to examine all the contents at once."

"What the investigators found was that the drawers had been either pulled out partially or carefully pulled out and maybe one item removed. They felt that it was inconsistent with most burglary scenes."

(While I think that this can definitely point to the wife or someone who knew the victim as being the perpetrator, surprisingly, this was also similar to the Montecalvo case, where the druggie neighbors, who lived not too far from the Andersons, did not "toss the house" in the expected fashion, and went pretty much for the cash box they were looking for. Could these, possibly the same perps, have known about certain items and looked specifically for them, and not just do the "take absolutely everything of value" scenario that is the MO of some burglars?)

Other signs that the burglary had been staged: They selected certain items and placed them together to be taken from the house. They overlooked other items that were much more valuable and were in plain sight. This led to a second official theory that it was someone who knew Deputy Anderson.

It was Charlie's sister Trish who was at the scene after being called by a neighbor, made the comments regarding the "wide eyed look" as if he had been "shocked or betrayed". This sight still bothers his poor sister.

Evidence at the crime scene was ambiguous. All identifiable finger prints belonged to members of the family. Lack of evidence has caused this case to come to a standstill.

At the time of the airing, a $25,000 reward was being offered and the police believed that the mystery caller was their best chance at solving the murder.