In March of 1980, a 21-year-old woman named Andrea LaDeRoute disappeared from the small town of Fortuna, California, leaving behind a puzzling and ultimately tragic mystery. She was living with her 22-year-old boyfriend, John Arthur Annibel, who was the one to report her missing on March 18, 1980. From the outset, investigators focused on Annibel, and the investigation quickly uncovered troubling details.
Evidence, including human blood of Andrea's type A, was found on a mattress, bedsheet, and pillowcase in the cottage they shared. Shortly after reporting her missing, Annibel abruptly left his job at the Pacific Lumber Company and moved to Denver, Colorado. Suspicion mounted, and an arrest warrant was issued, leading to Annibel's extradition back to California. However, without Andrea's body, prosecutors lacked the sufficient evidence needed to formally charge him with murder at that time.
For more than two decades, Andrea's case went cold, her family left without answers. The silence was broken in August 2002, when forestry workers marking trees on Pacific Lumber Co. property near Carlotta discovered a human skull. The location was significant, as it was an area where John Annibel had once worked. Investigators, suspecting a link to the long-missing woman, submitted the remains for examination. Using dental records, the skull was positively identified as that of Andrea LaDeRoute. This breakthrough was further solidified by technological advances that had not been available in 1980; DNA tests were conducted on the blood evidence found in the couple's apartment years earlier, and it was a conclusive match to Andrea. An examination of her skull suggested that she had sustained some kind of blunt force trauma to the head, offering a grim glimpse into her final moments.
With the discovery of Andrea's remains, the focus once again fell squarely on John Annibel. By this time, he was already in prison, serving a life sentence for the 1998 first-degree murder of another woman, Deborah Sloan. Annibel was also the prime suspect in the 1976 rape and strangulation of 15-year-old Sherry Lynn Smith, though he was never charged in that case either. Following the identification of Andrea's remains, the Fortuna Police Department handed its evidence over to the Humboldt County District Attorney's office, naming Annibel as the only suspect in her murder. Sources conflict on what happened next; some reports state that Annibel was subsequently charged with Andrea LaDeRoute's murder, while others maintain that he was never formally charged with her death despite the new evidence. Despite the strong physical and circumstantial evidence connecting Annibel to the crime, the case against him for Andrea's murder did not proceed to a trial or conviction, leaving her family with a sense of unresolved justice.
