Do you know who murdered 20 year old Jason Anderson in 1996? Jason Anderson was a 20-year-old white man working at the Carolina Pet Center on Airport Road in Greenville, South Carolina, when his life was cut short during an armed robbery on April 27, 1996. On that day, he was on duty at the pet store with his coworker and friend, Kyle Rollins, when two men came in and turned what should have been a routine shift into a fatal encounter.
During the course of the robbery, the intruders opened fire inside the business, killing Anderson and leaving Rollins seriously injured. The violence was swift and devastating, leaving a young employee dead and his coworker fighting for his life in a crime that shocked the local community.
Investigators quickly identified the crime as a homicide committed in the course of an armed robbery, and the Carolina Pet Center itself became a grim landmark in the case, repeatedly named in official summaries and public appeals over the years. The circumstances have remained consistent in those accounts: Anderson was shot to death inside the store, Rollins was gravely wounded, and the assailants escaped without being apprehended. Despite the seriousness of the crime and the fact that there were two perpetrators, authorities have never publicly identified them by name. The men are routinely described in official and media references only as “two men” or “two unidentified men” who carried out the robbery and shooting before disappearing, leaving behind few answers and no closure.
Over time, Anderson’s killing has moved from an active investigation into the realm of cold cases, but it has never been forgotten. The Greenville Police Department has included his case on its cold case posters and within its broader cold case files, summarizing the essentials: the date, the location at Carolina Pet Center on Airport Road, the cause of death by gunshot, and the fact that Rollins was seriously injured in the same attack. Crime Stoppers of Greenville likewise lists the homicide as an unsolved crime from April 27, 1996, reiterating that Anderson was shot to death during a robbery and that the second victim survived despite his injuries. These recurring summaries, reproduced across law-enforcement-linked pages, local crime databases, and regional publications, all underscore the same unresolved story: two robbers, one murdered employee, one badly wounded coworker, and no identified offenders.
In the decades since the shooting, authorities have tried to keep the case in the public eye, hoping that time might loosen tongues or bring forward someone who knows what happened inside the pet store that day. A privately funded reward of up to $36,000 has been widely advertised for information leading to the identification and arrest of the suspects, and contact numbers for the Greenville Police Department’s Cold Case Unit and Crime Stoppers have been repeatedly circulated with Anderson’s name and case details. Yet, even as nearly thirty years have passed and the case is featured in cold case campaigns and media retrospectives, there have been no publicly announced arrests, no named suspects brought before a court, and no trial or conviction to answer for his killing. Anderson’s death remains officially unsolved, his case still carried forward in posters, databases, and appeals that continue to ask, in one form or another, who killed Jason Anderson in 1996 and when those responsible will finally be held to account.
