HOUSTON (AP) - A convicted killer is sought after a tip led to a woman's body in a barrel at his Houston-area home.
Harris County Sheriff's investigators say the search continued Tuesday for 64-year-old Dennis Ray Anderson.
A tip to Crime Stoppers led deputies last Thursday to the home and the barrel. Authorities are working to identify the victim, whose wore a T-shirt with blue-flowered pattern and the word "Cherokee."
Anderson faces charges of tampering with evidence, related to the corpse.
Anderson was sentenced to life in prison for murder over the 1972 slaying of a woman and her 3-year-old granddaughter during an antique shop robbery Kountze. The victims were Mabel McCormick and Leslie Bowman.
Anderson served near 17 years in prison before being paroled in 1989.
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Cheryl Bean remembers January of 1972 and the tragic killing and cover-up fire at a former Kountze home and antique store.
"We got here and it was still smoking and people were standing in the yard, shaking their heads, people were crying, and when we heard the news we couldn't believe it" said Bean.
That news was of the brutal murders of grandmother Mabel McCormick and her 3 year-old grand-daughter Leslie Bowman.
Former Hardin County Sheriff at the time Billy Payne told 12 News HD Anderson and his accomplice were both found guilty in change of venue trials; Anderson was sentenced to two life terms for the murders, and a twenty year maximum sentence for arson. His accomplice only received 10 years probation.
But after serving 17 years of his two life-term sentences, Anderson was released on parole, and now Houston authorities are on the lookout for the convicted murderer. After finding a woman's body tied up and stuffed into a barrel in his backyard. Police made the discovery while following up a crime stoppers tip Thursday.
"It's a terrible thing and I hope he doesn't kill anybody else, but the problem is that people like that usually do" said Bean.
So far, Anderson has only been charged with tampering with evidence regarding the corpse, not with the woman's murder. But Bean hopes police can find Anderson, and get some answers.
"He can be a wolf in sheep's clothing and hopefully he'll be caught soon" said Bean.
