Alan: Some crimes must be remarked.
This is one of them.
Although I was raised in a Christian tradition that posited a real devil "out there" who actively tempted -- and sometimes possessed -- people, I am increasingly of the opinion that almost all evil is, as the ancient Greeks posited, attributable to "the absence of good."
Unless people are educated to "have a life" (or otherwise discover some creative outlet) the drive to fill the void of emptiness with destructive "drama" becomes unusually strong.
Physics tells us that one of the strongest physical forces is that of a void seeking to be filled.
So too with meta-physics.
Life without parole for Carnation family killer
Michele Anderson follows beau to prison for Christmas Eve killing spree
Updated 1:43 pm, Thursday, April 21, 2016
You could be forgiven for thinking there was little left to say eight years after the Christmas Eve massacre of a Carnation family.
On Thursday, though, the time finally came to say goodbye to a killer.
Olivia and Nathan Anderson would well on their way to adulthood now. Their grandma guesses they’d be fishing and camping with their parents, Erica and Scott.
Scott’s mom Judy Anderson would probably have retired from her job at the Carnation post office to rove with Wayne Anderson – Scott’s dad, Olivia and Nathan’s grandpa and her husband. Wayne and Judy dreamed of buying an RV and seeing the places they couldn’t get to during their busy middle years.
Instead, of course, they’re dead.All six were shot in Wayne and Judy Anderson’s home on Christmas Eve 2007 in an ambush by the couple’s daughter Michele Anderson and that woman’s boyfriend, Joseph McEnroe.
Anderson and McEnroe killed Wayne and Judy Anderson first, hid their bodies and then waited for Scott, Erica and the children to arrive. Erica Mantle Anderson pled for her children’s lives; the killers shot Nathan, 3, and Olivia, 5 ½, anyway.
That tragedy was compounded by a lesser one, a grinding legal process that finally reached an apparent end on Thursday with Michele Anderson sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. McEnroe received the same punishment months ago after a jury spared him the death sentence sought by prosecutors.
Anderson offered a few tears Thursday facing those who loved her family, but nothing more. Her attorneys assured the courtroom that she was full of remorse despite her silence.
Anderson offered a few tears Thursday facing those who loved her family, but nothing more. Her attorneys assured the courtroom that she was full of remorse despite her silence.
Her silence may have been a mercy.
Most of the legal wrangling in the years that followed her family’s annihilation concerned Anderson, who churned through highly qualified defense attorneys with regularity. Litigation related to the death penalty – the punishment initially sought by prosecutors – slowed justice’s march as well. Senior Deputy Prosecutor Scott O’Toole described it as a “war of attrition” that justice ultimately won.
There was no mystery to what sentence Anderson would receive. Absent a death sentence, the only punishment under Washington law for her crimes – six counts of aggravated first-degree murder – is life without parole.
While their sanity was at times hotly contested, the facts of Anderson and McEnroe’s crimes have largely been clear since their arrests two days after the murders. Among the small horrors revealed by King County Sheriff’s Office detectives tasked with solving the larger crime was a 911 call.
Erica Mantle Anderson wasn’t given time to summon help before she was gunned down by her sister-in-law and McEnroe. But her voice was caught on a dispatch recording begging for her children’s lives.
“Not the kids,” she pled in her last moments. “No.”
King County Superior Court Judge Jeffrey Ramsdell struggled to maintain his composure when Senior Deputy Prosecutor Scott O’Toole reminded him of that tape. Ramsdell presided over the prosecution for years, and – like the court staff, attorneys and two dozen jurors – has had Anderson and McEnroe’s crimes forced on him.
Speaking from the bench at the King County Courthouse in Seattle, Ramsdell spent little time reflecting on what he described figuratively as “a marriage made in hell” between Anderson and McEnroe.
Instead, the judge took the moment of Anderson’s sentencing to reflect on the toll paid by those caught in the wake of the killings.
“Fortunately, this lengthy chapter of your waking nightmare is over,” the judge said. “I sincerely hope that when you leave here you will never have occasion to visit this courthouse again for reasons related to these murders. I also hope that the healing that has been delayed by this process can begin in earnest, and that happier times will prevail.”
“The fortitude it took to listen to that 911 call in which Erica pleads to spare the kids is beyond my comprehension,” Ramsdell told Erica Mantle Anderson’s parents, Tony and Pam Mantle, who steadfastly attended the separate trials of Anderson and McEnroe.
Speaking for the dead, Ramsdell added, “I don’t think they want me to waste this precious opportunity addressing Ms. Anderson.”
Prosecutors initially sought death sentences against Anderson and McEnroe but dropped that request against Anderson after a jury spared McEnroe’s life following a 2015 trial. The only other sentence available to Ramsdell was the one he imposed.
A freeloader living on her family’s property, Anderson told police following her arrest she had been fantasizing for weeks about killing her family.
Armed with pistols, Anderson and McEnroe first ambushed Wayne and Judy in their home. Anderson shot at her father, while McEnroe ultimately killed both of Anderson’s parents.
Anderson shot her brother and his wife as they arrived inside the home. Erica Mantle Anderson was able to call 911 before she died.
“Erica knew you would shoot the kids,” Pam Mantle told Anderson on Thursday. “She begged you not to and you did it anyway, because that’s how you roll.”
“You had the opportunity at any moment … to get the hell out of Dodge. But you didn’t. You decided to be a brat,” continued Mantle, who lost her daughter and first two grandchildren to Anderson and McEnroe.
Erica Mantle Anderson was alive when McEnroe murdered her children. Nathan was shot dead in his mother’s arms.
McEnroe and Anderson were arrested after returning to the property the day their victims were discovered. Anderson immediately admitted to killing her family, blaming her brother and parents for driving her to it.
According to court papers, Anderson claimed McEnroe killed the children because she told him to. She told detectives she wanted to spare them living with the memories, and protect herself from a living witness.
“I wanted my mom, brother and dad to die because they abused me over the years,” Anderson told police. “I wasted my life because of these assholes. It’s not fair.”
Prior to the killings, Anderson and McEnroe led unexceptional lives. Both struggled socially until they found each other in an online fantasy fiction chatroom. They’d been living rent-free with Anderson’s parents for months when the killings occurred.
Like Anderson, McEnroe was sentenced to six life terms. In Washington, defendants who are sentenced to life are expected to remain confined until death.
Anderson’s mental health has been erratic since her arrest – she moved to a state psychiatric institution several times – but her attorneys did not put forward an insanity defense.
Ramsdell presided over McEnroe’s trial as well. That months-long affair saw McEnroe take the stand for several days during which he was often wracked by shaking sweats while whispering his answers to the attorneys’ questions.
Speaking after the sentencing, Pam Mantle said she hopes McEnroe and Anderson will “just put the devil to rest” and stop fighting for another day in court. Mantle said she has every bereaved mother’s fear – that her child will be forgotten.
O’Toole assured her that Erica, Nathan, Olivia and the rest won’t be forgotten.
“We will not forget them,” the prosecutor said. “We go off to do different things, but we still have them in our minds.”
Addressing the family members and jurors gathered for Thursday’s sentencing, Ramsdell closed on a note of hope.
“When confronted by a senseless tragedy like this one, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that most people are good, caring and kind,” Ramsdell said. “Thankfully, evil is the exception to that general rule, even though it demands greater attention which also seems to magnify its presence.”
Anderson remains jailed without bail pending her transfer to state prison. McEnroe is currently being held at Washington State Penitentiary in Walla Walla.
Seattlepi.com reporter Levi Pulkkinen can be reached at 206-448-8348 orlevipulkkinen@seattlepi.com. Follow Levi on Twitter at twitter.com/levipulk
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