Man pleads guilty in stabbing death

BY ART BUKOWSKI
abukowski@record-eagle.com

June 21, 2008 10:38 am

—

TRAVERSE CITY — Jerry Jay Anderson appeared cheerful and spoke in a matter-of-fact tone as a judge asked him about the stabbing death of his ex-wife.

A shackled Anderson, 47, described how he had a "heated argument" with Gladys Jean Anderson at her home near Kingsley in early January. Jerry Anderson picked up a knife, he said, and repeatedly stabbed the woman.

"I think it was like four or five times," he told Grand Traverse Circuit Judge Philip E. Rodgers.

Anderson pleaded guilty Friday to a single count of second-degree murder. Sentencing is set for July 3, and he faces life in prison.

A prison sentence will only bring some measure of relief, said Thomas Seyler, Gladys Anderson's brother-in-law.

"I'd like to see him go to hell first," he said.

Anderson spent 25 years in prison for second-degree murder and assault with intent to commit murder after a 1980 attack in the Detroit suburb of Livonia. He married Gladys Anderson in 2004 while still incarcerated, and the couple divorced after his release from prison in 2006.

Gladys Anderson's sister, Virginia Seyler, said Jerry and Gladys Anderson developed a relationship as Gladys Anderson paid visits to her son, who also was in prison. She believes Jerry Anderson was only after her sister's money, she said.

Police found the body of Gladys Anderson, 67, in her Voice Road home in March. Investigators never pinpointed an exact date for the slaying, but they suspected the woman had been dead for several weeks.

Anderson on Friday estimated the incident occurred "early January."

"It really felt good, because this was the first time I really heard when he did it," Virginia Seyler said.

Jerry and Gladys Anderson lived with the Seylers for about four months shortly after his release, Virginia Seyler said. The Seylers accepted Anderson, and they're angry he reverted back to his old ways.

"He had an opportunity to be a human, but he just turned," Virginia Seyler said.

Farmington Hills resident Brenda Barnett sat through Friday's plea and tearfully embraced the Seylers and Gladys Anderson's other family members once Jerry Anderson was led from the courtroom. Jerry Anderson in 1980 stabbed Barnett and left her for dead in her Livonia home, and shortly before that incident he killed Barnett's father.

Barnett traveled to Grand Traverse County in April when Anderson initially was expected to plead guilty, but he backed out of that plea at the last second.

"What I wanted was closure and justice for (Gladys' family)," Barnett said. "Gladys deserves justice ... he should have never gotten out to do this in the first place."

Anderson and his court-appointed attorney Michael Hall asked Rodgers to schedule sentencing as soon as possible. Anderson was out on bond for a Washtenaw County armed robbery charge at the time of the slaying, and he said he hasn't yet been sentenced on that charge.

Michigan Department of Corrections records for Anderson show a host of other felony convictions, including drug trafficking, breaking and entering and armed robbery.

Copyright © 1999-2008 cnhi, inc.