Dennis Anderson, a convicted killer that federal authorities believed was in Escambia County, was found hanged in a Pensacola motel room last Friday, according to The Harris County (Texas) Sheriff’s Office. He was wanted for obstruction of an investigation by tampering with evidence of a human corpse and was a suspect in a woman’s murder in Texas.
The U.S. Marshals Florida Regional Fugitive Task Force and Texas authorities believed Anderson fled the Lake Charles, Louisiana area October 24 on a Greyhound bus and was headed to Pensacola due to arrive around 5:30 a.m. last Tuesday morning. Police and Marshals in Houston began their search for Anderson after a Crime Stoppers tip led authorities to find a woman’s body in a barrel at his Houston-area home last Thursday.
Dennis Anderson was wanted for questioning after a grisly find of a woman’s dead body in a barrel. The lady in the barrel has not been identified yet but according to the search warrant the woman was not wearing any pants or underwear but had a T-shirt on marked with a blue-flowered pattern and the word “Cherokee.”
They estimate she has been dead for several months. The remains were sent to the Harris County Institute of Forensic Sciences for identification and to determine a cause of death. I will be referring to this case as “the Lady in the Barrel” until we know who she was. More here.
Update: “The lady in the Barrel” has been identified by DNA. Forensic scientists used DNA that was collected during the autopsy of Tracie De Ann Lutz. Tracie was killed in 1990. Her DNA was used to identify her slain twin sister Stacie Anderson.
Stacie’s skeletal remains were found stuffed inside a barrel at her husband’s home in 2010. Her husband, Dennis Anderson, later committed suicide after being hunted by police. In a suicide note he confessed that he had killed his wife. Stacie Anderson had not been seen since 1999. Dennis Anderson never reported her missing.