Dennis Ray Anderson

Serial Killer

Dennis Ray Anderson

Overview

Dennis Ray Anderson was a Texas murderer whose known crimes stretched across nearly three decades. He was responsible for the January 5, 1972 killings of 54-year-old antique shop owner Mabel McCormick and her three-year-old granddaughter, Leslie Bowman, near Kountze, Texas. After receiving two life sentences, Anderson was paroled in 1989 after serving nearly 17 years. Years later, his wife, Stacie Lee Ann Lutz Anderson, disappeared in Houston. Her remains were eventually discovered concealed inside a metal barrel on Anderson's property in 2010. Anderson fled Texas and, shortly before taking his own life in Florida, left a written confession admitting that he had killed his wife. Because Anderson killed victims during separate episodes many years apart, he is commonly classified as a serial murderer. Three homicide victims can be reliably connected to him: McCormick, Bowman, and Stacie Anderson. The exact date on which Stacie Anderson was killed has never been conclusively established, so no precise death date can responsibly be assigned to her.

The Kountze Antique Shop Murders

On January 5, 1972, Anderson and 21-year-old Fred Foy Young Jr. traveled to McCormick's Antique Shop, which operated from property along U.S. Highway 69 south of Kountze in Hardin County, Texas. Anderson was approximately 25 years old. Mabel McCormick lived at the property and operated the antique business there. With her that day was her three-year-old granddaughter, Leslie Bowman. The men were not complete strangers to McCormick. Reports from the original investigation indicated that they had previously visited her shop. On the morning of the murders, McCormick reportedly told her husband that two men who had been there before had returned and were behaving suspiciously. During the day, another man visited the business in connection with an insurance or freight claim. Anderson and Young were still present and showed him around the shop, and one of the men signed paperwork. The encounter later became important to investigators because it helped place the suspects at the property close to the time of the murders. ...

Confirmed Victims: (3)

Mabel McCormick Age: (54), Date of Death: 1972-01-05

The manhunt and trials of Dennis Ray Anderson and Fred Foy ...