Murder suspect wants death
SEATTLE – A woman who has pleaded not guilty to killing six members of her family on Christmas Eve in the rural town of Carnation has called a TV station to confess to the crimes, saying she wants the death penalty.
Michele K. Anderson and Joseph Thomas McEnroe, both 29, gave detailed confessions when questioned by detectives, prosecutors say, but not guilty pleas are routinely entered in potential death-penalty cases. Both are charged with six counts of aggravated first-degree murder.
Anderson told KOMO-TV on Thursday that she has committed other crimes, all leading up to her actions on Christmas Eve.
“I need to be executed for everything that I’ve done,” she said. “Deciding that I want to die was the most difficult decision I’ve ever had to make, and I was able to make it without a second thought because I know what I’ve done and I want to take responsibility for it.”
Anderson said her public defenders, Cindy Arends and Kevin Dolan, and the legal system have prevented her from changing her plea in court.
Dolan told the Associated Press on Friday that he and Arends were unable to comment on Anderson’s statements.
According to charging papers, when Anderson and McEnroe arrived at the home of Anderson’s parents on Christmas Eve, McEnroe shot her father, Wayne Anderson, 60, in the head. Her mother, Judy Anderson, 61, rushed out from where she had been wrapping presents, and McEnroe killed her, too.
The pair hid the bodies, and when Anderson’s brother Scott arrived with his wife, Erica, both 32, and their two children, 5-year-old Olivia and 3-year-old Nathan, Michele Anderson and McEnroe executed them, the charging documents say.
The two were arrested when they returned to the home in rural Carnation, east of Seattle, the day after Christmas, as detectives were processing the murder scene.
Prosecutors have given no motive, but said Anderson told detectives her brother owed her money and that she was upset because her parents did not take her side. She also said her parents were pressuring her to start paying rent for staying in a mobile home on their property.
In May, a King County judge ordered Anderson to undergo a competency evaluation to determine whether she is capable of assisting in her defense at trial.
The defense has until July 10 to submit Anderson’s mental-health history and other evidence in its attempt to persuade King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg not to seek the death penalty. Satterberg has until Aug. 4 to make a decision.
Anderson said her lawyers have been violating her rights.
“They even came out and said to me … that life in prison without parole is a tougher sentence than the death penalty,” she told KOMO-TV.
But Anderson said a life term would be easier.
“I think the death penalty is the worst thing because I’ve adapted quite well to life in jail and I can adapt in prison.”