Man Who Killed Wife Sought On Parole Violation Police Looking For Monte Anderson, Who Stuffed Wife’s Body In Suitcase
A Spokane man who served nearly 10 years in prison for killing his wife and stuffing her body in a suitcase is wanted by police for violating parole.
Monte Anderson, 43, was released from the state penitentiary in May 1994, when he returned to Spokane. He was sentenced to life in prison for the murder of his wife, Shelly Anderson, in the summer of 1984 but was eligible for parole after 7 1/2 years.
Anderson missed a routine appointment earlier this month to be tested for drug and alcohol use, said Joe Hancock, a parole officer with the Department of Corrections.
Since then, Anderson moved and hasn’t been heard from since.
Hancock refused to say if this was the first time Anderson violated his parole conditions since his return to Spokane. He also wouldn’t say where Anderson had been living.
Police apparently almost caught the ex-con late Wednesday, when they chased two men through Minnehaha Park in northeast Spokane.
The men abandoned a Plymouth Reliant that was registered to Anderson, and descriptions of one of the men given by witnesses matched Anderson.
Officers tried to pull over the car shortly before 10 p.m. at the corner of East Frederick and North Myrtle. Witnesses said one of the men had a gun.
The Reliant’s driver sped to the park and both men ran from the car. Officers found a loaded gun inside, and used a police dog to track the suspects through Esmeralda Golf Course. The dog lost the scent in some nearby woods.
Anderson was convicted of beating his wife to death a day after she served him with divorce papers more than a decade ago. Nearly 100 friends and neighbors helped police search for Shelly Anderson for more than two years after her disappearance on the South Hill.
Her skeleton was finally discovered by a man who bought Anderson’s house on East 13th in the fall of 1983.
The body was folded into a suitcase and hidden under pieces of roofing and pine needles in a backyard compost pile at the home.
Anderson, a cocaine addict, insisted he was innocent and blamed drug dealers for killing his wife because he owed them money.
While awaiting trial, Anderson fled to Utah, where he was arrested for six counts of theft involving a stolen credit card.
He was returned to Spokane, convicted of second-degree murder and sent to prison in Walla Walla.
, DataTimes ILLUSTRATION: Photo