So it was with nervousness and anticipation that in the late 1980s Sherry and Rick found themselves at their aunt’s house in Columbia City, Ind., waiting to meet their father, Terry Anderson. The years apart had resulted in obvious differences. Sherry and Rick were Chicagoans. City people. Terry was an outdoorsman, brawny and fearless, a hunter and fisherman who loved to roam the woods with his turkey call.
Still, Terry saw a second chance and took it. He welcomed his adult children into his life, which now included a third wife and a toddler daughter. The Andersons lived on ten acres in Mongo, a small, rural town in northeastern Indiana. A big field of corn separated them from their nearest neighbors.
During visits to Mongo over the years Sherry and Rick accompanied Terry in the outdoor activities he loved most: Musky fishing, deer and turkey hunting, bird watching. He worked where he was most happy --- in the trees, at a tree removal and utility company. His wife, Darleen, worked at a dairy product manufacturer. She loved garage sales and antique shopping. Their daughter, Amanda, was a country girl, slightly timid, slow to make friends perhaps, but good at school. Not a troublemaker.
A close bond was formed between the adult children and their father. The years apart became a distant memory. Rick, a pastor, eventually moved to California and his visits became a little less frequent, but Sherry, now married, was only a few hours away in Chicago. She visited when she could.
Sherry felt lucky to have her father back in her life, to have the opportunity to make up for lost time. She never imagined she’d soon lose him again.
Thursday, October 20, 2005 was a typical night for Terry and Darleen. After they returned from their jobs, Darleen puttered around the house while Terry retired to his pole barn to work on his tractor. Darleen paid a quick visit to her mother, who lived in a trailer on the property. By 8 p.m. Darleen was hunkered down in the living room for the night. Around this time Darleen’s mother glimpsed a pair of headlights pulling into the driveway.
The next morning Amanda, who had recently moved in with her boyfriend, came by the house to pick up Terry for work. What she found instead was a breathtakingly brutal scene. Darleen, dressed in sweat clothes, was on the couch in the living room. A book was in her lap. The television was on. A bowl of popcorn sat next to her.
A routine domestic scene, except that Darleen Anderson, 57, had been beaten about the head more than a dozen times.
Police later found Terry Anderson, 59, in his pole barn. He, too, had been savagely bludgeoned to death. It’s been speculated that the murder weapon was an axe.
Terry and Darleen Anderson
The crime scene presented mixed clues. There was an element of overkill, which suggested a personal connection to the victims and a great deal of rage. Yet several items were missing from the home, including a gun, crossbow, and collector coins, suggesting a home invasion. But if robbery were the motive, the murderer seemed to know the layout of the house --- the house wasn’t overly trashed as if the killer were hurriedly searching for things to steal. The stolen items were specifically targeted. And items of obvious value were left behind. Was it only made to look like a robbery?
The victims had no defense wounds. Sherry feels that this fact, along with the time of night and the way Terry and Darleen appeared to be relaxed when they were attacked, means the killer was someone her father and stepmother knew, someone they felt comfortable having at the house.
The Anderson murders rocked the quiet rural area around Mongo. Investigators spoke in strong terms about solving the case, but they were stymied by a lack of evidence. DNA and fingerprint results didn’t pan out.
Meanwhile, the relationship between Sherry and her half-sister Amanda deteriorated quickly. They stopped speaking. It didn’t help that with the case stalled, speculation ran rampant, and most of it centered, rightly or wrongly, on Amanda, 20, and her circle of friends.
Amanda admitted on a local Mongo message board that police had interrogated her at great length. Their focus wasn’t surprising. She was the sole inheritor of her parent’s estate. She quickly moved into the house where they’d been brutally murdered, a move some people found hard to understand.
Even more curious: in a newspaper article published just days after the murders Amanda talks to the reporter about the extensive remodeling she intends to have done on the house.
The remodeling remained on her mind. When a poster asks her on a Topix message board dedicated to the case how she’s holding up, this is her reply:
I'm doing OK. Been busy on getting this mess of a house back into proper condition. I've had workers here everyday working on the remodeling and fixing up for the past month now. It's pretty hectic. I'm also going on seven months pregnant, so that doesn't make it any easier for me! It takes all I got sometimes just to get up and go to the store or something. The workers messed up my internet connection for about a week. Along with my washer and dryer... Oh well...
Three weeks after the murders moving trucks were seen pulling up to the house and Amanda and her boyfriend welcomed an acquaintance, a convicted felon, as their new roommate.
It’s since been revealed that Amanda had problems with drugs, specifically methamphetamine. Last year she was arrested, with two others, for manufacturing meth inside the property she inherited from her parents.
To Sherry, Amanda was always the slightly shy country girl, a top student who didn’t cause Terry and Darleen any trouble. She didn’t know that they were concerned about Amanda’s drug use and, shortly before their deaths, had confided to friends about it. Apparently they also didn’t like that Amanda had moved in with her boyfriend. They sensed he might be bad news. Disapproval and tension were in the air.
Sherry doesn’t know for sure who killed her father and Darleen, but she feels strongly it was someone they knew. Terry’s gruff exterior masked a warm heart, and it’s possible he was sympathetic to the wrong person --- someone who needed money, or counsel, or his approval.
“My Dad was awesome,” says Sherry. She misses him, the father who reentered her life as an adult, who taught her, a city girl through and through, to love and respect the woods, the birds, everything about the outdoors.
She’s driven now by a need for justice. Not content to wait around, she’s in frequent contact with investigators (“I force myself on them,” she laughs) and has started the “Terry and Darleen Anderson Foundation,” through which a $20,000 reward is offered for any tip which leads to the arrest and conviction of those responsible for the murders.
“I’ve been waiting three and a half years for that ultimate call,” says Sherry.
If you have any information on this case, call the LaGrange County Sheriff's Department at 260-463-7491, or Crimestoppers at 1-800-342-STOP.
