On a summer day in 1987, the lives of Janet Marie Armstrong, a 73-year-old White/Caucasian woman, and her husband, Norman B. Armstrong, came to a violent and unexpected end. The couple from Bountiful, Utah, had gone target shooting on July 22nd with a man they knew, Russell M. Anderson. Their bodies were later discovered near an I-80 overpass at 6000 West.
The circumstances of their deaths were revealed to be a tragic outcome of a day that began with a recreational activity.
Anderson, who was a friend to the Armstrongs, would later recount that he had been drinking with them before he "just went berserk" and shot them both. The weapon he used was a gun he had gotten from Norman Armstrong himself. Their son later recounted that his parents were good people who were working towards getting their children back from the foster care system.
The investigation into the double homicide ultimately led to the arrest of Anderson. His violent spree, however, was not limited to the deaths of the Armstrongs. A little over a month later, on August 29, 1987, Anderson shot and killed another man, Frank R. Boulton, in the parking lot of a church in Bountiful after they had been drinking together.
Russell M. Anderson was eventually apprehended and faced justice for his crimes. He pleaded guilty but mentally ill to the three murders and was handed a sentence of three consecutive terms of five years to life in the Utah State Prison. A judge ordered him to be sent directly to prison rather than a state hospital, reasoning that his condition was not treatable. During a parole hearing in 2014, Anderson expressed some remorse for his actions, stating that he "wasn't myself back then" and that what he did was "stupid." He remained incarcerated.
