Spokane man pleads guilty in ‘horrific’ abuse

A Spokane man pleaded guilty Wednesday in a case involving the most horrific sexual abuse one Spokane County deputy prosecutor said she has ever seen.

Karl D. Anderson, 37, pleaded guilty to three counts of second-degree rape of a child and one count of second-degree assault of a child in exchange for having several other sexual assault counts dismissed.

Despite the dropped charges, Anderson is facing the same 18 years to life in prison that he would have received had a jury convicted him on all counts, Deputy Prosecutor Kelly Fitzgerald said.

“This is as bad of a case as I have ever seen in my eight years of doing this,” Fitzgerald said.

“To say these children went through horrific things is an understatement.”

After Anderson completes his prison term, he will go before the state’s Indeterminate Sentence Review Board, which could decide to keep him locked up for the rest of his life if it determines that Anderson is still dangerous.

Anderson has no previous felony convictions. But the abuse had been going on as long as the children, who were known to Anderson, could remember, Fitzgerald said.

According to court records, Anderson had sex with a girl “almost daily” and compelled her, another boy and a woman to perform sex acts individually, with him and on each other. Those acts included bestiality.

The boy, girl and woman have left the community “in hopes of trying to put their lives back together,” Fitzgerald said.

Asked if the woman is also facing charges, Fitzgerald said she had no comment.

“Often in these types of cases, they leave the victims very emotionally unable to handle trial,” Fitzgerald said.

Superior Court Judge Ellen Kalama Clark accepted Anderson’s guilty plea and set the sentencing hearing for April 11.

“I am in the process of dying,” Anderson told Clark.

“My kidneys are failing. I have type I diabetes.”

Fitzgerald said she has not seen medical records to back up Anderson’s claim.

However, Fitzgerald said she believes that the state Indeterminate Sentencing Review Board will never release him back into the public “given how horrific the facts were and how extensive the abuse was.”