Officer honored for his work in homicide case

A Spokane police officer is being honored for his work in the hours after a mother and her two children were found murdered in February.

Officer Jerry Anderson will receive the Chief’s Citation Award for helping secure a federal search warrant that led police to the location of suspected triple killer Dustin Gilman, police announced in their newsletter released Thursday.

Anderson and his colleagues were trying to find Gilman, 22, after Tracy Ader, 32, and her two sons, Damien, 10, and Kadin, 8, were found strangled in their home at 4411 N. Whitehouse St. on Feb. 10.

Anderson worked through the night and into the next day trying to find Gilman. He learned by the middle of the morning on Feb. 11 that U.S. Marshals Service has superior equipment for tracking cellphone signals.

Anderson was not familiar with federal search warrants and had never been trained to write one, but he worked with federal agents over the next 22 hours to secure the warrants. His work led police to Gilman’s body on Feb. 13. Gilman had fatally shot himself.

“Many officers were outstanding during this investigation, but despite having to take on procedures that he had never seen before, Officer Anderson did not rest until he had done everything he could do to bring justice to a shattered family,” interim police Chief Scott Stephens wrote.

Though the suspected killer is dead, the investigation into the stranglings is ongoing, Detective Jeff Barrington said Thursday. Barrington said he’s awaiting lab tests.