Keith Robert Anderson was a 22-year-old man last seen on February 5, 1984, in the Hot Sulphur Springs area of Grand County, Colorado, where he had gone to a horse barn connected to the place where he boarded his horse. Online missing-person and cold-case records describe Keith as a White male with brown hair and brown eyes, standing about 6 feet 3 inches tall and weighing about 190 pounds.
What began as an ordinary visit to a barn became the start of a long and painful absence: Keith was never heard from again, and the details left behind suggested almost immediately that his disappearance was not voluntary.
After Keith vanished, his truck was found still idling near the barn. His German Shepherd was in the back, waiting, while Keith himself was nowhere to be found. That detail has remained one of the most haunting parts of the case, because it suggested that Keith had not simply walked away from his life, his vehicle, or his dog. Investigators later found some of Keith’s blood in the barn, including blood reported on manure, and witnesses in the area reported hearing several gunshots around the time of his disappearance. The Colorado Cold Case Files classifies the case as a homicide, while missing-person sources continue to note that Keith’s body has not been found.
The investigation focused on the circumstances inside and around the barn. The barn was owned by Vernon “Spud” Weaver, and Keith was known to board his horse there. According to case summaries, a. 44 caliber magnum handgun that Weaver normally kept under the seat of his truck was reported missing the day after Keith disappeared. Four months later, the gun was reportedly found on Ute Pass, but investigators were unable to match it to a bullet recovered in the case because the gun barrel was too rusted. These details deepened the suspicion that Keith had been harmed at or near the barn, but they did not provide the final proof needed to fully explain what happened to him.
David Russell Buttel has been identified in online case accounts as the prime suspect in Keith’s disappearance. Those accounts state that Buttel had moved from Illinois to Colorado with a girlfriend, and that the woman later left him and was living with Keith Anderson at the time Keith disappeared. Buttel also boarded horses at the same barn and admitted he had been there that day. According to The Charley Project’s summary, Buttel told authorities that Keith got a bloody nose before walking outside, and he also said he noticed that Keith’s horse was injured. The horse died two days later, and a. 44 caliber bullet was found in the horse’s body.
Other reported details added to investigators’ concerns. A witness reportedly saw Buttel’s truck near Anderson’s ranch with something wrapped in blankets in the back. Buttel refused to take a lie-detector test and left the area shortly afterward, according to case summaries. No charges have been filed in connection with Keith’s disappearance, and Buttel’s whereabouts have also been described as unknown. The absence of Keith’s remains, the passage of time, and the disappearance of a person investigators wanted to question have left the case suspended between strong suspicion and unanswered proof.
Keith’s family endured the kind of grief that comes not only from loss, but from never being able to lay that loss to rest. A reposted Denver Post account describes Keith’s father, Bob Anderson, still searching years later and even traveling to Illinois for the funeral of Buttel’s father in the hope that Buttel might appear and reveal where Keith could be found. That effort speaks to the depth of a parent’s need for answers: not simply to know who was responsible, but to bring Keith home. The online record does not indicate that Keith has been found alive or that his remains have been recovered, and the exact course of events after he was last seen remains unknown. Keith Robert Anderson’s case remains the story of a young man last seen at a Grand County horse barn, an idling truck with his loyal dog left behind, blood and gunshots that pointed to violence, a suspected connection that was never resolved in court, and a family and community left with decades of unanswered questions.Last Seen: Feb 5, 1984
