Neighbors await verdict

Community continues to debate innocence of guilt of farmer accused of killing wife

Jerry Anderson was charged with murder in January and could face the death penalty

Sunday, November 12, 2006

By Marcie Young
Charlotte Observer Staff Writer

SAWMILLS -- A year ago, cattle roamed the open field of a bustling Caldwell County dairy farm, and their owner was planning to start another farm in neighboring Tennessee.

Now the milking stalls sit empty, and no-trespassing signs border the perimeter of the land as Jerry Anderson, the farmer, waits in the Caldwell County jail to be tried in the murder of his wife.


Although the farm is silent and abandoned, the debate over Anderson's innocence is as lively as ever.
Numerous people exchange e-mails on a popular Internet forum, topix.net, about the grisly murder case, many maintaining Anderson's innocence and questioning the limited evidence investigators have released.

And people in the southwestern part of the county, where the Andersons used to live, still argue about the case.

"If the paper comes out with an article about Jerry on the front of it, it will be sold out in two minutes," said Dowe Annas, a lifelong Caldwell County resident who lives about a mile from the farm.

"If something like this happened in Charlotte, it'd just be an ordinary thing, but when it happens in a small community like this, it just throws you off-center."

Neighbors, who knew the Andersons from services at Dry Ponds Baptist Church or from the couple's daily visits to a local gas station and deli, fall into two camps - those who believe adamantly that Anderson is innocent and those reserving judgment until the details of the crime are released during trial.

"Everybody is eager to see what happens," Annas said. "There's a group of people who just don't want to believe it and I'd imagine there's a few who are dead certain he did it."

On Dec. 29, Anderson reported his wife, 49-year-old Emily, missing, prompting a massive search. Her body was found 10 days later in an S.C. restaurant parking lot, about 100 miles from Lenoir, crammed in the large tool compartment of her Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck.

Two bullets had penetrated Emily Anderson's body, one through her abdomen, spleen and kidney and another through her back, lung and heart, according to an autopsy report from the N.C. Chief Medical Examiner's Office.

Her husband, 47-year-old Jerry Anderson, was charged Jan. 27 with first-degree murder in his wife's killing and could face the death penalty if convicted, according to Observer archives.

For more than 10 months, investigators from the Sheriff's Office have continued their probe into the murder, which they believe happened Dec. 29 near the Anderson's dairy farm in Sawmills.

While authorities piece together details of the crime, neighbors discuss what they already know and wonder about what they still have to learn.

Had Emily Anderson planned to divorce her husband of 4 1/2 years, as her brother Mike Griffitt told the Observer the day Jerry Anderson was arrested?

Was there enough time for Jerry Anderson to drive the pickup truck to South Carolina and get back to Caldwell County in time to report his wife missing?

Why did Jerry Anderson get a passport shortly before his wife was killed, as reported in the Observer, and did it have anything to do with the more than $4 million in life insurance on Emily Anderson?

At PD Grocery and Deli, about a mile from the farm, neighbors congregate almost daily for coffee, egg sandwiches and conversation. The murder of Emily Anderson, who Annas said visited the store the day investigators think she was killed, has been a popular topic.

"It shocked everybody," he said. "No one has any idea who did it or what happened."

Now, Annas said, he and the rest of the small community are waiting to see what unfolds in the courtroom. "We know what we've read in the paper, and it don't mean a thing in the world until it gets in front of the judge," he said.

Oliver Wilson Smith lived across the street from the Andersons and watched Emily Anderson sing in the choir at their church on Dry Ponds Road and often helped Jerry Anderson repair fences at the farm.

He said he has a lot of questions about who killed Emily Anderson and that he's certain it wasn't her husband.

"What have they got?" Smith said. "Ninety percent of the people around here think he's innocent. Anyone who really knows Jerry doesn't think he did it."

Dykes Wilson's family used to own the land before Anderson began farming there and still lives next door to the farm. He was out of town Dec. 29, he said, and thinks investigators will need to produce a lot more evidence if Anderson is guilty.

"I just don't know how they'll prove it unless someone saw him do it," he said.

The lead investigator on the case, Capt. Jeff Stafford, said he knows that residents adamantly defend Jerry Anderson, who is scheduled to appear in court for a bond hearing on Monday. And he knows people want more details from the investigation.

"There's just things that just need to wait for trial," he said. "To stand on the outside and not have all of the details, how can you make an opinion?"

Releasing too much evidence too soon, Stafford said, could also impede Anderson's right to a fair trial in front of a jury of Caldwell County residents.

But until then, Annas, Wilson, Smith and the rest of Sawmills will have to wait for the answers the community has been hoping for.


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