Robert Leroy Anderson 1

It’s been almost 30 years since Robert Leroy Anderson, a serial killer active in the Sioux Falls, South Dakota area, committed his first egregious act, ultimately landing him a death sentence and shocking the state. Here's a timeline of his crimes.

1. LARISA DUMANSKY

Larisa Dumansky, a 29-year-old Ukrainian immigrant living in Sioux Falls, was getting off her usual night shift at a meat packing plant called John Morrell & Company when she disappeared.

Bill Dumansky, her husband, was at home, expecting her to return in the early hours of the morning. Only as he got ready for work himself did he realize his wife had never come home.

Bill drove through the town, looking for any trace of her that he could find. Her car sat, parked, with a few flat tires at the meat packing plant. He noticed those immediately because she had been having recurring flats in the past several months, which was strange, but even stranger to him was that her keys still hung in the door.

Bill Dumansky called police, only for them to turn their suspicions onto him. They suspected Larisa Dumansky had run off, possibly after an argument. They implied that the Dumansky's were in an unhappy marriage. Except, Larisa Dumansky was several weeks pregnant, and Bill was adamant they were happy together.

Police turned their attention to another possible suspect, a coworker who had been in prison and working alongside Dumansky on work-release. She often gave him a ride back to the jail at night because they worked the same shift. On the night of Aug. 27, he had looked for Dumansky but couldn’t find her. The man claimed he hitched a ride with another coworker back to the jail, where he was recorded checking back in for the night. His alibi checked out. Authorities searched for answers but there were none to be found. This happened on August 27, 1994.

Larisa Dumansky’s case went cold.

2. Piper Streyle

The morning of July 29, 1996, Piper Streyle, 28, was getting herself and her children ready for their days. Her husband, Vance, 29, had already gone to his plumbing job at around 6:30 that morning. This left Piper Streyle to drop the kids off at their babysitter and get herself to work.

But when Vance Streyle went to pick up their kids from daycare that afternoon, though, he was informed by their sitter that they never made it in that day. Concerned, he called the house. No answer. He left a voicemail.

“Honey, where are you?” He asked.

It was a question that would never be answered.

Around 3 p.m. a coworker of Piper Streyle’s, Patty Sinclair, called the house, worried because it wasn’t like Piper Streyle not to show up to work without calling. Instead, 3-year-old Shaina Streyle answered the phone.

Sinclair asked the little girl, "Is your mom home?"

"No," Shaina said softly. The little girl informed Patty Sinclair that she and her brother were alone in the house. Sinclair asked where her parents were, to which Shaina replied, "They’re probably killed.”

The little girl hung up the phone.

Sinclair redialed the number in shock after directing a coworker to dial 911, where she kept the toddler on the phone until deputies arrived. This time, Shaina, "was in near-hysterics," Sinclair recalled during her testimony later on.

“I don’t want my mommy to die!” The toddler sobbed into the phone. “I don’t want my daddy to die!"

When police arrived, the house was a mess, with obvious signs of struggle. The sheriff found the children, alone and unharmed, in the back bedroom; Streyle’s purse had been emptied on the floor. Nathan was silent and Shaina sobbed relentlessly.

Eventually, police started to extract the events from the little girl. Shaina told the sheriff that she didn't know where her mother was, but that her father was at work. She said that “a mean man” had come into their house. He drove a black vehicle with black wheels. He yelled a lot and shot a gun. She then recounted that her mother told them to run and hide. The “mean man” had taken her brother’s blue tent, an early birthday present from the day before.

Shaina was insistent that her mother was going to die. “She’s not coming back,” she told her father upon his arrival to the family home.

After bringing in South Dakota Division of Criminal Investigation agents, the investigation quickly picked up clues on Piper’s disappearance. Neighbors recalled seeing a flat black utility truck in the area, and another couple who also lived in the area saw “a nervous young man in jeans and a baseball cap” walking from the house to the blue Ford Bronco in the drive.

Vance remembered something late that night. The description of the vehicle matched one he’d seen three days prior except for the color, as did the description of the man, who had stopped to inquire about the Streyle’s Bible camp for his own kids at about 7:30 that morning.Vance Streyle called police back to give them a proper description of the man: white, in his mid-twenties, chubby and balding.

Vance remembered his handshake was limp, and that the man had almost seemed surprised to see him there. He seemed like he didn’t know what to say at first, but eventually mumbled out a few questions about the family’s Bible camp. He called himself Rob Anderson and even left his number to be put down on their wait-list for the following year's Bible camp.

Though there wasn't much to be found at the Streyle family home, authorities did retrieve a 9 mm bullet casing from the front driveway. That was the only trace Piper Streyle's abductor left behind.

Investigators had fully identified the Streyle's visitor as Robert Leroy Anderson. Anderson was 26, a high school drop-out who worked the night shift at a meat packing plant at John Morrell & Co. in Sioux Falls. He had been married twice and had four children of his own. He owned a blue Ford Bronco, and when police pulled him into a 7-hour-long interrogation, he wore jeans, a T-shirt and a baseball cap.

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