Link reported to the Kettering Police Department on July 30, 2001, that his girlfriend, 29-year-old Shannon Noel Anderson, had not been seen for several days and that her 1997 Oldsmobile also was missing.
What started as a missing persons case evolved into a homicide investigation a little more than two weeks later. A decomposed body with “severe trauma” was discovered Aug. 16, 2001, in rural Ross County, in south central Ohio, that later was identified as Anderson through DNA testing. A few months later, on Oct. 23, 2001, Atlanta police found Anderson’s Oldsmobile abandoned in the airport parking lot, Heck said.
Anderson was the mother of two daughters, then ages 7 and 9, and she was estranged from her husband. Her cause of death was ruled multiple blunt force trauma to the head, according to the prosecutor’s office.
Link was the prime suspect all along in Anderson’s death, detective Greg Stout of the Kettering Police Department confirmed.
In 2002, a Montgomery County grand jury found there was not sufficient evidence for an indictment.
“Homicide cases are never closed investigations,” said Lynda Dodd, deputy chief of the criminal division of the Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office. “They always remain open and this case right here is an excellent example of that.”
This investigation was a collaboration of the Kettering Police Department, Tactical Crime Suppression Unit — made up of officers from Centerville, Germantown, Kettering, Miamisburg, Moraine, Oakwood, Springboro and West Carrollton — Montgomery County Prosecutor’s Office, Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Ross County Sheriff’s Office and U.S. Secret Service.
“This has been reviewed regularly by the Kettering Police Department ever since it happened,” Stout said.
Most recently, Dodd said, the Tactical Crime Suppression Unit and Kettering police “have done an enormous amount of follow-up work, and that follow-up work has been fruitful and has led us to the point where now the Montgomery County grand jury has said there is sufficient evidence to indict for two counts of murder.”
Investigators uncovered additional witnesses and completed further interviews And new digital forensic evidence testing was done that was not available two decades ago.
“Justice delayed is not justice denied,” Dodd said.
Link was booked late Monday morning into the Montgomery County Jail. Heck said prosecutors will be asking for a $5 million bond.
Credit: Montgomery County Jail
Credit: Montgomery County Jail
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