Episode 178: The Duct Tape Killer

 In this episode Janus and Joyous discuss the case if the Duct Tape Killer Robert Leroy Anderson. While he may have had more victims we are unaware of, he most certainly abducted and killed Piper Streyle and Lyssa Damansky. Join us as we dive into this one.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Unsung Murder Ballads is a true crime podcast, and as such, we will be discussing topics that are disturbing, graphic, and often violent in nature. So this is not for children under the age of 13.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

But you know this because you did start playing this episode. So here are some things you might not know about us.

SPEAKER_00 0:18

We are going to be critical of mistakes made by both criminals and law enforcement.

SPEAKER_01 0:22

We're going to express our views on things that you might not always agree with.

SPEAKER_00 0:26

We will occasionally go on an off-topic tangent.

SPEAKER_01 0:29

And we're going to use dark humor to express ourselves now and then.

SPEAKER_00 0:33

So if you're easily triggered, this might not be the podcast for you.

SPEAKER_01 0:38

However, if this is your cup of tea, then raise your pinky finger while you sip and join us for this week's horrific case, you sick bastards. And I'm Joy Estad.

SPEAKER_00 1:02

Alrighty. So the tonight we have, and I said it before I hit record, but we have a new serial killer case. Well, not new, but new for us.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

Well, I mean, we don't usually repeat, so yeah, you're right.

SPEAKER_00 1:15

We don't. Although we have, I have re-recorded, so I guess arguably we have repeated. You just haven't been involved in the repeats.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

And I could be, because honestly, I forget everything.

SPEAKER_00 1:26

You know, you're right. We've said it a couple times. We should just do that.

SPEAKER_01 1:30

Yeah, I mean, I'm just waiting for you to prank me and start a case that I should know because we've done it before.

SPEAKER_00 1:38

And then I just haven't pranked me. I you know, I just think I just don't know how far I would want to take that joke if you don't catch on at all.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

That's so fair. It'd be a terrible episode for our listeners.

SPEAKER_00 1:49

But it would be also really funny. And speaking of listeners, it would be. We have had two requests from a listener. One I saw and kind of forgot about, so I apologize. And the other one he just recently reached out. So I am working on those two. Uh, we'll spread them out a little bit, but thank you for the suggestions. So hell yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Hell yeah.

SPEAKER_00 2:09

One of them, when though even the way he described it in the message, I was like, oh shit. So we're doing that's gonna be the first one I do. I'll probably it'll probably be in a few weeks because I guess obviously you've got to do it.

SPEAKER_01 2:22

Was it a case that you hadn't heard of?

SPEAKER_00 2:24

Yes, it was a case I had not heard of, which is impressive.

SPEAKER_01 2:28

That's rare. Yeah, I'm impressed.

SPEAKER_00 2:30

I mean, there's a lot of cases I haven't heard of, you know.

SPEAKER_01 2:33

Lots of people have murdered. It's this crazy thing.

SPEAKER_00 2:36

What bothers me is there are some cases I want to cover, right? Uh, for example, and we've talked about this in the past, but there's a case right here where I still live in the city of Worcester, Massachusetts, and there was a case not even a half a mile from where I live where a woman was pregnant, someone murdered her, took the baby, tried to pass it off as her own. But it's so similar, it's so similar to the other one we did that happened in like Kansas or Missouri that I'm like, I don't want to do it. It's the same story almost. It's fair, and it's fucked up because I think this other woman deserves to have her story told, but it's like it's so similar. I'm like, aren't we just repeating ourselves? And I I hate that.

SPEAKER_01 3:17

Yeah, that's and it's also sad history repeating itself. That fucking sucks.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Yeah, it was I went I researched it all uh mainly because when I heard where it took place, but once I got all the details, I would have to, and I hate to say this, I would have to overstuff it with details to make the case longer than 20 minutes because it all happened very fast. Yeah, and there isn't a lot of details either, because the families of the victims they didn't they don't want to talk. There's no information out there.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

That's valid, they don't have to talk.

SPEAKER_00 3:49

Yeah, so and then they the house that it happened in has actually been torn down and it is now a park because it happened right next to an elementary school.

SPEAKER_01 3:59

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

So it's fucked, but it I can't really talk about it because I just feel like we're re-treading, you know, and granted, some of these serial killer cases are very similar, which is why I haven't done some of the other famous cases because they're also very similar.

SPEAKER_01 4:17

And we gotta switch it up.

SPEAKER_00 4:18

Yeah, we gotta keep it, yeah, we gotta keep mixing things up. So with that said, uh, this one is you know the the same but different. That's that's the key here, I guess, right?

SPEAKER_01 4:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:30

All right. There's not much of a teaser, we're just gonna drop right into the action. You ready?

SPEAKER_01 4:35

All right, let's do it.

SPEAKER_00 4:37

On Monday, July 29th, 1996, that was Nathan Striel's second birthday, and the family had a good day celebrating. They had started the fun early that day, around 9 30 a.m., because both their mother Piper and their father Vance had to go to work that day. Now, after the party was wrapped up, Piper was supposed to bring the kids to the babysitters and then go to work. However, at 3 p.m., Patty Sinclair Sinclair, a daycare worker at the Southeastern Children's Center where Piper worked, called the Streel house because Piper didn't come in.

SPEAKER_01 5:17

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 5:18

So Patty was surprised when three-year-old Shayna answered the phone in tears. Now, Shayna is Piper's three-year-old daughter. You have two-year-old Nathan and three-year-old Shayna. Now, Patty asked if anyone was home, but Shayna told her that it was just her and her brother in the place all by themselves.

SPEAKER_01 5:40

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 5:41

Patty was even more shocked when little Shayna said that she thought her parents were dead and hung up the phone. So Patty immediately. Right? So Patty immediately calls back. And Shayna answered again, continuing to cry, saying that she didn't want her parents to die.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

How old did you say this girl is again?

SPEAKER_00 6:05

Three.

SPEAKER_01 6:06

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

She is a baby.

SPEAKER_01 6:09

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 6:10

Shayna told Patty that her mother had left with a man in a black car. Now, Patty stayed on the phone with her for about 45 minutes trying to calm Shayna down while simultaneously getting a coworker to call the sheriff's office. Sheriff Gene Taylor arrived at the Streel home around 5 p.m. Now keep in mind that's two fucking hours.

SPEAKER_01 6:36

Yeah. Wait, what the fuck?

SPEAKER_00 6:38

I was gonna say this is near Sioux Falls, South Dakota. So maybe it does take that long. I should say that. But still, two hours.

SPEAKER_01 6:51

Yeah, that seems crazy, but I guess, you know, we're not people who can conceive of living in such a rural place.

SPEAKER_00 6:56

Yeah, like I I mean everything was almost within walking distance of me, right where I'm at. Same with you, pretty much, because you're Boston.

SPEAKER_01 7:03

Oh yeah. Yeah. Yeah, I don't even own a car.

SPEAKER_00 7:06

Exactly. I can't imagine not owning a car in South Dakota.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Yeah, no, I don't think that I don't think that's a reality for anyone.

SPEAKER_00 7:14

Yeah, I don't think so either. I don't think Uber's really making that much business out there either.

SPEAKER_01 7:20

No, no, they are not.

SPEAKER_00 7:22

So Sheriff Taylor arrives at, again, as I said, 5 p.m. and he noticed that because they live in a trailer, he notices that the trailer door was open. So he just enters. Now the place was in disarray, which suggested to him that there had been some sort of struggle. He saw Piper's purse that had been thrown about, like all the contents were thrown about on the floor, along with other household items that were just kind of everywhere. The sheriff found Shayna and two year old Nathan in the back of the trailer. They were unharmed but crying, and Nathan was walking around like he was in some sort of haze.

SPEAKER_01 8:01

Oh, these poor kids have been there for there so long by themselves.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

Well, neither Piper nor Vance were there. Oh so Taylor suspected that the children had been there for quite a while, as you just said, and he called in a criminal investigator named Jim Stevenson, and the two of them sat down and questioned three-year-old Shayna about what happened. She told them that her mommy was gonna die, that a mean man had come into the trailer, argued with their mother, and fired a gun. Now Piper was afraid Piper was afraid this guy might ha harm her children, so she told Shayna and Nathan to run and hide as this intruder grabbed her and took her away in his black car. And Shayna also remembered that the guy had stolen a blue tent that was there, which was actually a birthday gift for Nathan.

SPEAKER_01 8:56

That's where it crosses the line.

SPEAKER_00 8:58

You're gonna steal a two-year-old's fucking birthday gift?

unknown 9:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 9:02

Yeah. This is this above all is where I cross the line.

SPEAKER_00 9:06

You're you're really funny about all that, but alright. I understand your the bit, you know, but like at the same time, you're like, it is fucked up, but really we have a whole lot more to do here. Oh man. So a little more than an hour after Sheriff Taylor arrived, Vance finally came home. He had been at work and had even tried calling at one point, but no one had answered.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Shayna immediately How has no one called him yet?

SPEAKER_00 9:35

I don't know. It's 96 cell phones are kind of in their infancy.

SPEAKER_01 9:41

Right, so don't we all have everyone's work contact? But he may then you'd have your work phone.

SPEAKER_00 9:47

Again, don't know because think about it. He he had to be to work before Piper did. I do know that much. Like I think three hours before she had to be to work. So he probably left probably halfway through the birthday party. And he's a plumber, which I didn't mention. So he may not be on call since cell phones aren't everywhere in ninety-six.

SPEAKER_01 10:09

Oh, very fair. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 10:11

So there's that possibility. So Shayna threw herself into her father's arms and began crying. As he's asking her what happened, she couldn't really communicate with him. She was so stressed by the entire day's events that being in the basically the safety of her father's arms, she just dissolved into just a crying mess. Which makes sense.

SPEAKER_01 10:34

Totally makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 10:36

All he was able to make out from his daughter was that a man had come in, stole Nathan's tent, and that her mother wasn't coming back, is what she kept saying.

SPEAKER_01 10:46

Ugh.

SPEAKER_00 10:48

Vance's concern turned to absolute fucking horror when he learned more of the details from the sheriff and this guy Stevenson. You know, he learned that his wife had been abducted, and there wasn't much he could really do but sit there and just comfort his children and kind of hope that the police could find her. Alive, preferably, obviously.

SPEAKER_01 11:07

Yeah, that's horrific.

SPEAKER_00 11:10

I can't imagine being that helpless. I don't know that I could just sit there and take care of my kids either.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

Right. I mean, but it's also like, fuck, I'm useless. Like it's that would be miserable. Trying to cope yourself and trying to help your kids.

SPEAKER_00 11:24

I would want to be out there searching with a fucking gun. That's what I know here in Massachusetts, they're not gonna let me do that. But maybe in South Dakota, they don't. No.

SPEAKER_01 11:37

You go far west enough, they don't stop you.

SPEAKER_00 11:39

Yeah, right? Like Texas, they're gonna be like the whole neighborhood.

SPEAKER_01 11:42

No, I just mean Western Mass.

SPEAKER_00 11:44

Oh, oh. That's fine. Oh man, that's like an inside joke for Massholes everywhere. Basically, to anyone who doesn't live here, anything on the western half of Massachusetts is essentially considered like the middle of nowhere. You might as well be in Kentucky.

SPEAKER_01 12:07

I mean, it's pretty rural out there. All of our population is concentrated very closely on Boston and then out there. They got they got rural freedom out there.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Yeah. Yeah, it's you're you're not wrong. So three days after Piper's abduction, Vance suddenly remembered an important piece of information. He then called the police and told them what he remembered, which was that a man had come to their trailer days before Piper's disappearance. He said this man was balding in his twenties, and he told them that his name was Rob Anderson. Now he had come to their trailer around 7 30 in the morning on July 26th to inquire about enrolling his own kids in this Bible camp for children that Piper and Vance actually ran every July.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

Now Vance told police that Anderson seemed really startled when he saw Vance there, as if he didn't expect him to be home. He also said that once Anderson kind of overcame that surprise, he asked about the camp. And that's when Vance referred him to Piper, who explained that the camp was over for that summer, but that he could sign his kids up the next year. So now Anderson agreed and he wrote down his name and telephone number before he left. So police immediately began investigating this, as they should. Their new suspect was 26-year-old Robert Leroy Anderson, a maintenance man at a place called John Morell and Company meat packing plant. They also learned that Anderson had been married twice and had four children.

SPEAKER_01 13:58

Okay, so that him him wanting to place his children in camp, not implausible.

SPEAKER_00 14:02

Correct. There's a degree of plausibility. Several witnesses, though, that police talked to claimed that they had seen a black truck in the vicinity of the Streel trailer on the day that Piper went missing. One of the witnesses was a highway worker. And he told police that he saw that black Bronco three separate times that day. Once was around nine once was around 9 45 a.m. Second time about an hour later, 10 45-ish. And the final time around 12 30. Now a couple that didn't live too far down the road from the streals, and it's important to remember this is South Dakota. I'm not sure how close this house really was.

SPEAKER_01 14:46

Right.

SPEAKER_00 14:47

But it is also a trailer. So I I my initial assumption was that these were almost on top of each other, like a trailer park, but I don't think that's the case here.

SPEAKER_01 14:57

No, it's independent trailers. Good for that.

unknown 14:59

Right.

SPEAKER_00 15:00

So this neighbor said that they saw a black Bronco around 11 45 AM close to the Strails trailer. And that later they also noticed Shayna and Nathan standing alone by the roadside looking upset. Oh. What bothers me is you didn't go check.

SPEAKER_01 15:22

Right. Like you obviously know these people. You're not gonna check on these kids.

SPEAKER_00 15:25

Like how bad of a parent does somebody have to be before you snap in. Like you see their kids outside. Regardless.

SPEAKER_01 15:35

But I guess, you know, they probably live out rural, they're free, probably free range kids, you know?

SPEAKER_00 15:40

Yeah, you know what? You're probably not wrong. Although again, it's also it's also 1996. Yeah, exactly. Two and three years old. So they also said that an hour after seeing the kids standing in front of the driveway, they saw a man in a black baseball cap and jeans walking out of the striel residence.

SPEAKER_01 16:01

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 16:02

So I think that's odd too. It kind of fucks up the timeline, but again, we're also everything we know right now is coming from an upset three-year-old.

SPEAKER_01 16:12

Yep, that this is true.

SPEAKER_00 16:15

So, yeah. Okay, so on July 30th, after the abduction, investigators contacted Anderson and they asked him to voluntarily come down to the police station and have a chat with him. Which he did.

SPEAKER_01 16:29

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 16:29

I know, right? He actually fucking did it.

SPEAKER_01 16:32

Yeah, I mean it's a smart thing to do.

SPEAKER_00 16:34

Exactly. Guilty or innocent, yeah, go down and talk to the police. Except realistically have a lawyer present. My advice to everybody out there, regardless of why. During Anderson's interview, which was an eight-hour conversation that was videotaped.

SPEAKER_01 16:51

Damn.

SPEAKER_00 16:52

Anderson calmly admitted to going to the Streel trailer four days earlier. Even though he hadn't established an alibi for the day that she had been had gone missing, he did tell investigators that he did return to the Streel's house to ask permission to use the archery range that was on their property. But that no one had answered the door.

SPEAKER_01 17:14

What the hell?

SPEAKER_00 17:15

Right? And that no one had answered the door, so he left.

SPEAKER_01 17:19

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 17:20

So I'm imagining a really big property. They have the trailer they're living in, and an archery range. That sounds like a pretty cool backyard. And it also makes sense why a two-year-old is given a tent for a birthday present.

SPEAKER_01 17:33

Yes, very much makes sense.

SPEAKER_00 17:35

Yeah. Now Anderson denied that he knew anything about Piper's abduction or her whereabouts. But they would eventually catch him in a lie while they were interrogating him. Investigators got a search warrant for his home and his vehicle, which was a blue Bronco, not a black one. During the search, they found something that would prove to be really incriminating evidence against him. Unfortunately, this doesn't lead to finding Piper. But as investigators searched his truck, they discovered several receipts for duct tape, black water-based tempora paint, paint brushes, and a bucket. And we're gonna get into why that breakdown of that paint is so important. Because you know me, like I'm not gonna waste time on little details, I'm not gonna stretch that out. I would have said just black paint. That's important. Right. So now most of these purchases were made a few days prior to the day that Piper went missing. Investigators suspected that the paint was used to disguise Anderson's Bronco. Oh because this type of paint can be put on very quickly and washes off almost as quickly.

SPEAKER_01 18:57

Fascinating. Had never thought to camouflage my car.

SPEAKER_00 19:01

It's crazy.

SPEAKER_01 19:03

Now my thing is why things that we don't consider.

SPEAKER_00 19:06

Well, my thing is like, sure, you you don't want your blue truck to be seen, so you paint it black, but like why would you keep the paint in your car?

SPEAKER_01 19:16

Right. And just a lot of just a lot of questions here.

SPEAKER_00 19:19

Yeah, he's not that bright. I mean, it's smart, but not that smart. Right. And of course their suspicions proved to be right. They had experts come in and analyze the paint on the truck, which after they chemically tested it, proved to do how he had done exactly what we just said. Which is fucking crazy. And they found other witnesses that stated they saw him cleaning his vehicle the same day that Piper disappeared.

SPEAKER_01 19:49

And it was believed Okay, this guy's not fucking slick.

SPEAKER_00 19:53

No. And obviously they think that that's when he cleaned off his car to bring it back to blue, which is just crazy to me.

SPEAKER_01 20:01

And then this is a you know, I gotta say, this is this is a new one.

SPEAKER_00 20:05

Right? It's I I gotta give him credit. I would never have thought of it.

SPEAKER_01 20:10

I mean, I've certainly never heard of it. Heard of doing this to your car.

SPEAKER_00 20:16

The only thing, the only thing I have that's close. Have you ever seen the I mean it's an 80s movie, but it's got uh Michael Keaton in it called Johnny Dangerously? Probably I don't think so. It is an awesome comedy. It's a spoof on the life of like mafia gangsters, and they're breaking Johnny Dangerously out of prison, and they're escaping in like a black sedan, and they're listening to the police radio and they're hearing it. So the one of the people, the one of the accomplices, gets out of the car and he's peeling off shelf paper and turning the car from black to white. That's hilarious. And then when they announce on the radio that because it's a comedy, they're like they announce that now he's in a white sedan, he gets up and he peels it off again, but this time it's blue with bunnies and duckies on it.

SPEAKER_01 21:03

That's hilarious.

SPEAKER_00 21:05

And he looks over at the woman who's driving, and she's like, you know, for maybe when we have kids someday. And it's just hilarious.

SPEAKER_01 21:11

Oh, that's good. That's good.

SPEAKER_00 21:13

This is what this makes me think of.

SPEAKER_01 21:17

Yes, one of those stranger than fiction ones.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

And again, go check out Johnny Dangerously, all our listeners. It's really funny, it's very clever the way they did it. Fantastic. And there's even a running gag, and I have to do this now. There's a really funny running gag where the actor Joe Piscopo is in it. And every time somebody does something to him, like someone punches him in the face, he'll be like, You shouldn't punch me in the face, Johnny. My mother punched me in the face once. Once. It's like this running gag. Anyway, that's a good bit. It's a really good movie. It's really, really good. Okay. So police found even more incriminating evidence against Anderson. They discovered a wooden platform that had holes drilled into it, which was believed to have been used as a restraining device for a person's hands and ankles.

SPEAKER_01 22:13

I hate that.

SPEAKER_00 22:14

Yeah. Kinda reminds me of Gacy. You know, where he would Yeah. So that platform had been sized to fit perfectly in the back of a truck. Thus the Bronco. The investigative team also found hairs attached to the wooden platform that genetically matched pipers. Oh no. Moreover, they found a dirty shovel, furniture moving straps, weeds inside a toolbox, and dog hairs similar to the Streel's dog were also discovered in his truck.

SPEAKER_01 22:52

Huh.

SPEAKER_00 22:53

So it's becoming increasingly clear that Anderson has this darker side than what he had presented to police, right? So they started digging in even harder. And at his Sioux Falls home, they found a pair of jeans in his laundry basket that were stained with what appeared to be blood. The jeans were taken to the police lab and analyzed, and it turned out that the DNA structure of that stain was blood, but they couldn't match it to Anderson or any member of his family.

SPEAKER_01 23:25

Wait, didn't we say that he worked no, it's the husband who works at the meatpacking factory.

SPEAKER_00 23:29

No, so he's the so her the husband's a plumber, Vance is a plumber, Anderson is a security guard at a meat packing place.

SPEAKER_01 23:39

Gotcha. Okay. That's a place to get blood on your clothes.

SPEAKER_00 23:43

True. True. And and again, at that point, they can't identify, you know, they know it is blood, but it doesn't belong to those family members, but they believe it's pipers. But it's 96, so I don't know how good DNA testing was then.

SPEAKER_01 23:56

I think they could definitely distinguish the species, but I don't know. Yeah, I don't know 96.

SPEAKER_00 24:03

Yeah, I don't know either.

SPEAKER_01 24:04

Well, they all barely alive.

SPEAKER_00 24:06

They also found semen stains on the genes, but were not able to genetically match them to Anderson because it was a limited amount of the specimen.

SPEAKER_01 24:17

Fascinating. There's nothing incriminating about having your own jizz on your jeans.

SPEAKER_00 24:22

Agreed. And who knows? That could have easily been there because you and your wife had a quickie and you didn't get it fully undressed.

SPEAKER_01 24:29

Right.

SPEAKER_00 24:29

Right.

SPEAKER_01 24:30

I mean that's like I said, nothing incriminating.

SPEAKER_00 24:32

No. And they also discovered handcuffs. I'm sorry, handcuffed keys at his house, but he denied ever owning a pair of handcuffs. So that's weird.

SPEAKER_01 24:42

Which is interesting because it's like there's lots of plausible deniability for owning handcuffs.

SPEAKER_00 24:48

Right. Right. But the problem here is you have a lot of circumstantial evidence adding up.

SPEAKER_01 24:55

Yes, indeed.

SPEAKER_00 24:58

So after questioning Anderson, he was free to go, but police certainly still had their suspicions that he was involved in Piper's disappearance.

SPEAKER_01 25:07

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 25:08

So of course they're digging in to make their case. And on the same day of Anderson's interview, they brought in three-year-old Shayna and her father Vance down to the police station to look at a photographic lineup. One of the pictures they put out there was obviously Anderson, but it was an older photo where he had long hair and a mustache, which he didn't have the day he showed up at their house. The day he tells them that he shows up at their house. Shayna and Vance were both unable to identify the man in that lineup had that had been the man that came to their house.

SPEAKER_01 25:45

Yeah, it's like if it's an old picture, like they only saw him once.

SPEAKER_00 25:49

So two days later they were brought back in. And this time they had an updated photo of him from his visit to the police station. And that time both of them picked out Anderson from the lineup as the man who had entered their house.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:06

Yeah. So with this positive ID, Sioux Falls police had the evidence they needed to press charges against Anderson. And on August 2nd, 1996, he was arrested on only two counts of kidnapping. They didn't have enough to get him on murder yet. Because, you know, they they're lacking a body.

SPEAKER_01 26:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 26:27

So in September of that year, police launched a massive search for Piper and for any evidence that might convict Anderson of murder. They employed the help of hundreds of volunteers who searched the wooded areas around Big Sioux River. During the hunt for evidence, significant items were recovered. They found half of the shirt Piper had been wearing that day when she disappeared. They also found a roll of duct tape with human hairs attached to it. The hair would later be analyzed and found to be consistent with a sample taken from Piper's hairbrush. And of course, the duct tape was the exact same type of duct tape found in Anderson's truck.

SPEAKER_01 27:16

Of course.

SPEAKER_00 27:17

Yep. He is known as the duct tape murderer. I don't know if I mentioned that.

SPEAKER_01 27:22

You did not mention that, but uh, you know, I see why.

SPEAKER_00 27:26

Yeah, at least he didn't name himself, right?

SPEAKER_01 27:29

Yeah. He doesn't get to have a cool name. That's you fucking loser.

SPEAKER_00 27:33

Well, other gruesome physical evidence was discovered around the river, which included several lengths of ropes and chains, eye bolts, which I initially thought were something that someone had used on someone's eye, but they're actually just that looped screw type of thing you would put in a board to run, you know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 27:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 27:52

But so I had to look that up because I was like, fuck is an eye bolt, but it's it's not as Frankenstein ass. Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 28:00

Like, yeah, I see what you were picturing.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

They also found half-burned candles and a vibrator.

SPEAKER_01 28:08

Oh, I do not like that combination of items.

SPEAKER_00 28:12

No. And it is obviously believed that these items were used to torture Piper.

SPEAKER_01 28:19

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 28:20

Now it was surmised that after Piper was abducted, Anderson drove her to a wooded area near Baltic, which is part of that area, and while he was there, he bound her to the platform, gagged her with duct tape, sheared her shirt off, and then methodically tortured her with the candles and the vibrator before sexually assaulting her.

SPEAKER_01 28:42

Oh, that's awful.

SPEAKER_00 28:44

It is then believed that he killed her and disposed of her body, most likely in the river. For the record, Piper Striel has never been found.

SPEAKER_01 28:57

Oh, that's so sad.

SPEAKER_00 28:59

Anderson admitted to police and friends that he liked anal sex, and that was something his wife never wanted to do. So police are thinking this is part of his motive.

SPEAKER_01 29:12

Which is fucked up. Yeah, it's really fucked up.

SPEAKER_00 29:17

I mean, realistically, find someone you can pay to do that if that's what you really, really need. I guess.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Right.

SPEAKER_00 29:27

Fucking weird. So in May of 1997, Anderson was tried and found guilty of kidnapping Piper. He was sentenced to life in prison in South Dakota State Penitentiary. However, this wouldn't be the only charge he would be convicted of.

SPEAKER_01 29:46

I was gonna say it's kind of crazy that they put him away for life without a bar.

SPEAKER_00 29:50

Yeah. He's going away for life for only kidnapping. And I guarantee you, and they I have no information on this, but I'm willing to bet they made him a plea deal to reveal where she was, and he probably didn't take it.

SPEAKER_01 30:04

Yeah. Yeah, that would make sense.

SPEAKER_00 30:06

Right. Now one of Anderson's lifelong friends, a guy named Jamie Hammer, brought forth evidence which provided investigators with new information about Anderson's sexually sadistic and predatory behavior. They essentially learned that Piper wasn't his only victim.

SPEAKER_01 30:27

Oh, well, good on this guy who was his friend for having the integrity to be like, I'm not gonna sit by and watch this happen.

SPEAKER_00 30:35

Well, yes and no. I don't know what made this guy change his mind, but he has information.

SPEAKER_01 30:41

That's true. I guess he was holding on to that information at one point, huh?

SPEAKER_00 30:44

Exactly. So during interviews with police, Hammer said that as far back as high school for them, he was aware of Anderson's obsession with torturing and murdering women. His obsession with it, not necessarily his acting on it.

SPEAKER_01 31:00

Okay. Hate that. And we're staying friends because right?

SPEAKER_00 31:06

Well, because they both have an obsession with it, I'm assuming. Because it my next line is literally Hammer was intrigued by the idea. Oh. Yeah. And keep in mind, Anderson's only like two in his mid-twenties. So we're only talking like eight to ten years. But still, that's a long time to not say something.

SPEAKER_01 31:26

Yeah, it is a long time to not say something.

SPEAKER_00 31:29

Here they are in high school talking about torturing and murdering women, and it wasn't long before the two of them decided that maybe they should act it out. Let's go for it. Jesus. They literally started to plan a way to abduct women together. So the two of them went out and they got what's generally referred to as wheel poppers, those those nails that like that rack you throw across a street, and when a car goes over it, it flattens their tires.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_00 31:56

So they got some of those and placed them on the road. And they waited for a d victim to drive by, get a flat tire, and you know, presumably pull over.

SPEAKER_01 32:07

The f that is fucked up.

SPEAKER_00 32:09

Well, again.

SPEAKER_01 32:10

This guy's just admitting to this.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

Right. This admitting to it after the fact. Years after the fact. Now keep in mind, this is South Dakota. So again, it's not like what we're used to where cars are going by all the time.

SPEAKER_01 32:24

Fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 32:26

So, with their attack planned out, and what Hammer didn't know was that Anderson had already selected a victim. It wasn't gonna be a random person. He had someone in mind.

SPEAKER_01 32:38

Oh.

SPEAKER_00 32:39

It was a woman by the name of Amy Anderson, no relation to Andre Anderson here, the perpetrator, which would have been fucking weirder.

SPEAKER_01 32:49

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:51

So Amy Anderson, she was 26. He decided that in November of 1994, so two years before abducting Piper, as she was driving down the street, she ran over the wheel poppers, and as planned, her tires went flat and she pulled over on the side of the road. As she and I gotta give this woman credit, and again, this is the 90s, so it's not like you can just call up like AAA on your cell phone, right? She gets out, she goes to her trunk, and she's about to take out her spare tire and change her own tire when Anderson grabbed her and carried her off the road towards a wooded area.

SPEAKER_01 33:32

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 33:33

Now, luckily for Amy, she was able to break free and she was able to flag down a passing car that did actually stop and pick her up. Wow. Now this attempted kidnapping of Amy remained unsolved for all those years until Hammer finally spoke up.

SPEAKER_01 33:54

Whoa.

SPEAKER_00 33:55

Fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_01 33:56

Yeah. Oh, that poor girl. Holy shit, how terrifying is that? Like never figure out who had tried to attack you.

SPEAKER_00 34:04

Right. I I I would be afraid to drive alone anywhere. And I would never and I would never stop for a flat tire. I would run that rim into the ground. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 34:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 34:15

Exactly. So two years later, when Anderson was on trial for the abduction of Piper, this is in 96, Amy's case was brought forth again because at this point now Hammer's talking. And she was able to identify Anderson in a police lineup. But he would never actually stand trial for that crime. Because another friend of Anderson's, a man named Glenn Marcus Walker, he would be the one to claim responsibility for that because he apparently was also involved in it.

SPEAKER_01 34:50

Why is everyone stepping up and saying, Oh, it was me, it was me.

SPEAKER_00 34:53

It's really fucked up. Yet one guy who could have gone his whole life and no one would have ever known he was involved, and he throws Anderson under the bus. And as they're about to get him, this other guy comes out of nowhere and basically jumps in front of the bullet for him.

SPEAKER_01 35:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

It's so funny.

SPEAKER_01 35:10

And like maybe he was involved, but I'm sure he's claiming, oh, it was just me. It was only me. I did it.

SPEAKER_00 35:16

Oh, oh, just wait. We have don't worry. Walker has a lot to tell.

SPEAKER_01 35:20

Oh, Jesus. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 35:22

Yeah. This kind of reminds me of like the Snowtown murders where it was a group of people, uh, or even the family murders in Australia. I don't understand how a group of people can come together for such fucked up things.

SPEAKER_01 35:35

And yet Yeah, it's like use your management powers for good. Right. Well, like come come to my work and like make people work together. That'd be so cool.

SPEAKER_00 35:47

Well, so Walker, like I said, comes out and he confesses that it was him that tried to abduct Amy and he pled guilty to the offense, but it's not the only crime he would admit to that he committed with Anderson.

SPEAKER_01 36:01

Jesus! So what's going on?

SPEAKER_00 36:04

So he takes the bullet for the guy and then reveals other shit that they did.

SPEAKER_01 36:11

What the fuck?

SPEAKER_00 36:13

Right? This was bizarre. So investigators discovered that several months before Amy was attacked, Anderson and Walker had committed yet a different gruesome crime. In 1991.

SPEAKER_01 36:27

They never stopped.

SPEAKER_00 36:29

In nineteen ninety-one, Lisa Lissa and Bill Domansky had moved to South Dakota from the Ukraine. They were eager to start a new life in the U.S. And they were they both began working at the John Morel and Company meat packing plant.

SPEAKER_01 36:48

Uh-oh.

SPEAKER_00 36:49

It was there that Lissa befriended the plant's maintenance man, Robert Leroy Anderson. As with his buddy Hammer, Anderson and his other lifelong friend, Glenn Walker, wanted to experience abducting and killing a woman.

SPEAKER_01 37:08

I just like I don't get it.

SPEAKER_00 37:12

I'm with you.

SPEAKER_01 37:12

Are you people sitting out here out there with that fantasy?

SPEAKER_00 37:15

Like you know, probably.

SPEAKER_01 37:18

I have like I've never in my life of all the things I want to experience.

SPEAKER_00 37:25

I'm not gonna lie. I not I've never fantasized about wanting to just go out and abduct and kill somebody. But there have been people in my life that have wronged me that I have thought gruesome fantasies about. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 37:38

Sure. But that's that's different. That's not you dreaming of like, oh, I hope hopefully someday I'll kill.

SPEAKER_00 37:44

Right, I'll get to experience this crazy thing. No, no. So yeah, but apparently that's something people think about. Clearly.

SPEAKER_01 37:51

I hate it.

SPEAKER_00 37:52

Agreed. So together these two devised an elaborate plan to kidnap Lyssa. Anderson had been stalking her for several months. And one night they put wheel poppers on the road to damage her tires. Over the night they did it, it didn't work because Lissa she just didn't stop her car. She kept going. Oh smart girl.

SPEAKER_01 38:17

Or like, you know, she didn't notice.

SPEAKER_00 38:19

Maybe.

SPEAKER_01 38:20

Maybe it only popped him a little bit, like a little leak.

SPEAKER_00 38:23

Maybe, but it it doesn't unfortunately it doesn't save her from this.

SPEAKER_01 38:26

Oh no.

SPEAKER_00 38:27

On August 26th of that year, Anderson approached her in the parking lot where they had worked together, and at knife point he ordered her into his vehicle.

unknown 38:38

Fuck.

SPEAKER_00 38:39

And Anderson and Walker drove Lissa to Lake Vermilion. When they were there, Walker watched as Anderson dragged Lissa out of the car and raped her several times.

SPEAKER_01 38:54

Oh God, that's awful.

SPEAKER_00 38:57

Lyssa pleaded desperately for her life, but they both just ignored her. Oh during the testimony given by Walker several years after this happened, he informed police that Anderson suffocated Lissa with duct tape and then buried her remains beneath a cherry bush. Oh at the time of Lissa's death, she was six weeks pregnant. Oh so to make that I want to put that tragedy in full perspective. This is a couple who left the Ukraine for a better life in the US. She was about she had was six weeks pregnant, and these fucking assholes destroyed both their lives.

SPEAKER_01 39:44

Oh, that breaks my heart.

SPEAKER_00 39:47

So shortly after Anderson was convicted of kidnapping Piper in 1997, Walker confessed to police that he was an accomplice in the abduction and murder of Lyssa. He also told them he would show police the location of Lissa's body. Wow. So on May twentieth of 1997, Walker led police to Lissa's shallow, unmarked grave at Lake Vermilion. When they dug up the area under that cherry bush, the remains they found were only portions of her skeleton. In nineteen ninety nine, Midwest News article stated that forensic experts recovered a total of fifty-seven items related to Lissa, which were identified as a tooth, a rib, the bones from her left and right wrist, several fingers, a right foot and ankle, several fingernails, a jaw, and various throat bones. Yeah. They also found near the grave a pair of work gloves, bullet casings, Lissa's shoes, a part of her belt, jewelry, and pieces of her clothing. Now Anderson had decided to remove the skull and teeth from the shallow grave because he had a feeling that someday Walker might reveal the location of Lissa's body, and he wanted to remove any like identifiable things. Yeah. Fucking crazy.

SPEAKER_01 41:26

I hate it. Like the one time he has foresight.

SPEAKER_00 41:30

Right. When Anderson went back to remove her skull and teeth, when he exhumed her remains, the things he took with him, he threw out his car window as he drove away from the scene, scattering them about. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:47

Idiot.

SPEAKER_00 41:48

Well, no, because they didn't recover those things. So this was years before. This was years before they they, you know what I mean, this guy talked to police. So those things are were lost. True. Very true. Again, people aren't he's not the brightest bulb on the tree.

SPEAKER_01 42:07

No.

SPEAKER_00 42:08

So then Anderson's prison cellmate, a man named Jeremy Brunner, came forward with information because Anderson had been bragging to him about the murders of Piper and Lyssa.

SPEAKER_01 42:22

Jesus. Who does this? Who uh people who think they're in like safe company, I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 42:30

I you know what? That's the only possible answer. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 42:34

Like they think, oh, these guys in prison are so cool, and they're gonna think I'm so cool if I tell them that I'm a murderer and I have killed women.

SPEAKER_00 42:42

I gotta say, throughout my life, right, and I'm 50 something, right? Throughout my life, I have learned that whenever I try to be cool, I just look like an idiot. I just just be yourself, you're fine.

SPEAKER_01 42:56

Yeah, that's a fact of life for sure.

SPEAKER_00 42:58

You called me out on it once. I remember I'll never forget it because it was hilarious when you did it. We were driving back from a we went to see a late night movie, and we were driving back, and I was going down like these dark back roads, and I said, the only thing I'm worried about is a deer jumping out in front of me. And I said something like, I swear to god, if one does, I'm just gonna eat it. And you were like, Yeah, okay, asshole.

SPEAKER_01 43:22

I was like, Yeah, fucking right.

SPEAKER_00 43:25

It was so funny.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

You wouldn't get your hands that dirty.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

Anyway, but that's what I that's what this guy makes me think of. Like someone who's just trying to be so cool and he brags and like what he thinks cool is gonna be in prison. Right. So his you know, his bunk mate, his cellmate here, Brunner, he told authorities that Anderson admitted that he was a serial killer and that he kept trophies of his victims at his grandmother's house. Oh. He even told

SPEAKER_01 44:00

Admitting to so many things.

SPEAKER_00 44:02

Between him and his two idiot accomplices, I I it's amazing they got away with any of it.

SPEAKER_01 44:08

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 44:09

For any any amount of time. Yeah, idiots. So he literally told Brunner the exact location of these items. And they were later found exactly where Brunner told them that they would be. They were literally tucked Crazy. They were tucked between the ceiling and the wall of his of Anderson's grandmother's basement. Some places Brunner Guy had never been.

SPEAKER_01 44:34

Wild.

SPEAKER_00 44:35

That stash included a ring and a necklace that belonged to Piper and something from Lissa as well. As well as a gun that Anderson had carried with him. Which, of course, they did find bullet casings at Lissa's gravesite.

SPEAKER_01 44:49

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 44:50

During another conversation, Anderson had asked Brunner to murder Walker for him, his buddy here that he thought was gonna talk to police. He wanted Brunner to murder him because he didn't trust him and he needed him to stay silent about the crimes.

SPEAKER_01 45:08

Asking your friend to kill your other friend is fucking nasty words.

SPEAKER_00 45:13

It's so weird.

SPEAKER_01 45:16

It's also so stupid. I can't emphasize just how stupid that is.

SPEAKER_00 45:20

Could you imagine? I mean, you know my friends, right? Could you imagine if I asked one to murder another, they would all turn me in.

SPEAKER_01 45:29

That's like you're asking one to murder another because because he knows about your crime, so you want him dead. Right, which tells you participated in a crime.

SPEAKER_00 45:37

Exactly. It's stupid.

SPEAKER_01 45:41

So man.

SPEAKER_00 45:43

So Brunner agreed. And Anderson drew No, hold on, hold on, hold on. So Anderson drew up two maps for him. One map depicted the location of Walker's house, and the other map showed where Anderson's grandmother lived, so that he could go to the basement to get the gun that he stashed there.

SPEAKER_01 46:02

And that's how there's nowhere else to get a gun.

SPEAKER_00 46:05

And that's how Brenner was able to show police exactly where everything was in Anderson's grandmother's, you know, apartment when he turned him into police. He wasn't gonna actually kill this guy for him. He just did it to fucking turn him in.

SPEAKER_01 46:21

That's crazy. I do love all his friends are betraying him.

SPEAKER_00 46:25

Right. Except two of them are betraying them at their own cost. Right.

SPEAKER_01 46:31

This Brunner's doesn't really make sense, but okay.

SPEAKER_00 46:34

I mean, maybe they lived with a degree of guilt. They must have.

SPEAKER_01 46:38

Could be.

SPEAKER_00 46:39

But this Brunner guy is actually gonna get a shorter prison sentence for what he's helping police with.

SPEAKER_01 46:45

Ah, true. There is a motive there.

SPEAKER_00 46:47

Right.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

To help. I mean.

SPEAKER_00 46:50

So Brunner's testimony, along with what was taken from Walker and Hammer, proved to be instrumental in securing another conviction. So on September 4th, 1997, Anderson was charged with murdering Lissa Domansky, and he was also charged with the rape and murder of Piper Streel. Yeah, that entire trial lasted about a month, and the evidence against Anderson was overwhelming. And on April 6th, a jury found him guilty on four counts of rape and murder of Piper and the kidnapping and murder of Lissa. Three days later. Three days later, he was sentenced to death by lethal injection.

SPEAKER_01 47:34

Oh shit.

SPEAKER_00 47:35

South Dakota being. I think I'm with you. Mostly I don't agree with the death penalty, but in some cases, yes. Yes and yes.

SPEAKER_01 47:45

Right. And we we've talked about it many times where I'm like, I don't think it's justice.

SPEAKER_00 47:49

I agree, but I also don't want to pay any money to keep these people alive.

SPEAKER_01 47:55

Right. We pay a lot of tax dollars to keep people in private for profit prisons.

SPEAKER_00 48:00

Exactly. So Anderson's friend Walker was tried for his crimes in March of 2000, and he pled guilty to attempted kidnapping of Amy Anderson, accessory to kidnapping, and first degree murder and conspiracy to kidnap Lissa Domansky. He received a total of thirty consecutive years behind bars at the South Dakota State Penitentiary. In January of 2002, Anderson filed for a death sentence appeal with South Dakota Supreme Court. And the court would finally make their decision in May of 2003, but it wasn't gonna matter.

SPEAKER_01 48:40

He was gonna die anyway, you're gonna tell me.

SPEAKER_00 48:43

On March 30th, while awaiting the outcome of his appeal, Robert Leroy Anderson committed suicide.

SPEAKER_01 48:52

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:53

Yep. Anderson was not in his Yeah, exactly. Anderson was not in his death row cell, but he was alone in a segregation cell, and that was when he was found hanging from a bed sheet tied to a bar. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 49:08

Well, there you go.

SPEAKER_00 49:09

Now there is reports that three months before his death, his own father had committed suicide from a gunshot wound to the head, and some people think that may have pushed him over the edge. Personally, I doubt it, but who knows?

SPEAKER_01 49:24

I think Right, who knows? It certainly is an impact, certainly puts an idea in your brain.

SPEAKER_00 49:29

Right. Well, I think Piper's husband Vance said it best, and this is what I'm gonna close with. Quote, this is what we were after anyway. It just saved us some time and effort, unquote.

SPEAKER_01 49:42

Well said. Exactly. I agree.

SPEAKER_00 49:45

And that is the case.

SPEAKER_01 49:47

Saved some tax dollars too.

SPEAKER_00 49:49

Exactly. And that's the case of the duct tape killer.

SPEAKER_01 49:54

Fuck that idiot. I'm glad he's dead.

SPEAKER_00 49:58

Yeah, I I hope he's burning in a hell that is beyond my imagination.

SPEAKER_01 50:04

Amen to that.

SPEAKER_00 50:06

Right? I actually I I we had it so some friends of mine and I have had some conversations lately, and we'll wrap up the whole thing with this thought. Other than the actual idea of a hell where you're in eternal hellfire, what do you think is the worst way to spend eternity? I'm gonna give while you're thinking about it, I'm gonna give you some ideas that we came up with.

SPEAKER_01 50:28

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 50:29

One is, and some of them are funnier than others, but I came up with this one where you die of a heart attack in a public bathroom stall, and you're forced to haunt that stall.

SPEAKER_01 50:44

Ooh.

SPEAKER_00 50:45

That's a rough one.

SPEAKER_01 50:46

That's a pretty good one.

SPEAKER_00 50:47

One of my coworkers came up with you either fall overboard or your ship sinks in the Bering Strait. So then for the rest of eternity, you're floating in freezing water with your eyes just high enough to see nothing but endless water.

SPEAKER_01 51:03

Yeah, it's pretty rough.

SPEAKER_00 51:05

Uh, another friend of mine came up with the idea that you're murdered and you have to witness the people you love being basically tortured and killed on a loop. But the reason they're being tortured and killed is because you died.

SPEAKER_01 51:19

Oof.

SPEAKER_00 51:20

Yeah. So those are the things.

SPEAKER_01 51:22

That's some real creative, horrific shit y'all came up with.

SPEAKER_00 51:25

Right, right. Exactly. So I've been asking everyone, so even the listeners, come up with something, leave it in the comments, which will be crazy in our comments, but bring it on.

SPEAKER_01 51:34

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 51:34

So if you but I love it.

SPEAKER_01 51:36

Have you come up? I think you you die by drowning, and you but you're immortal and you keep coming back alive only to drown again.

SPEAKER_00 51:46

Oh god, yeah, that's a rough one. Someone had said the same thing with fire, but I was like, no, that's hell. Like, that's not gonna work.

SPEAKER_01 51:52

But water is that is literal hellfire. Yeah, that's that's the concept of that lore. Exactly.

SPEAKER_00 51:58

You're you're just forever burning, but the forever drowning, that one's brutal.

SPEAKER_01 52:03

Yeah, that one would suck. So that's that's my answer. Boredom. Forever boredom.

SPEAKER_00 52:09

You have to like oh yeah, sitting there with in absolute nothingness.

SPEAKER_01 52:15

In absolute nothing forever, just to be alive and go insane.

SPEAKER_00 52:19

So, yes, everyone, thank you again for joining us. Once again, I'm Janice Dead.

SPEAKER_01 52:23

And I'm Joyce Dead.

SPEAKER_00 52:25

And we'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_01 52:26

Bye.