Ann Anastasi

This is one of those cases in which you are left stunned that the perpetrator thought they could get away with the crime considering all of the “dumb” moves they made. So much of this case just seemed so obvious to even the lay person that to believe investigators would buy the story, especially with the resources they have at hand seems ridiculous. And yet, it appears that is exactly what Ann Anastasi did.

In October of 2015 Ann Anastasi called the police in Lothian Maryland and reported finding her forty year old husband Anthony, dead in their bedroom. When investigators arrived she would proclaim that Anthony had committed suicide. As is protocol investigators cleared the house and then they began looking around and they went much further than the bedroom in which Anthony Anastasi lay. In the basement they would find the body of twenty-five year old Jacqueline Riggs. When Ann was told of this discovery she seemed to be surprised and insisted it must have been a murder/suicide then.

It is true that Anthony Anastasi had a gunshot wound to his head, and it is also true that there was a gun laying next to his body. While I cannot say that the gunshot wound was in a position in which he could have shot himself I can say that the gun was not the one that shot him, although that would not have been known immediately. Investigators were suspicious enough of Ann's story that they tested her for gunshot residue and both her body and her clothing tested positive.

It did not take long for investigators to figure things out, but in the end while prosecutors alleged Ann Anastasi was the mastermind behind the two murders, she was not the actual perpetrator. Ann had enlisted the help of her then thirteen year old daughter, Sara, and Sara's eighteen year old boyfriend, Gabriel Struss. Despite the fact that Struss was the person who actually committed the murders most will agree he was another victim of Ann Anastasi's. Text messages and phone calls between the three were made in which they discussed the plan in which both Anthony Anastasi and Jacqueline Riggs would be murdered.

On October 4, 2015 Gabriel would go to the Anastasi house where Ann would give him the gun that he would eventually use on Anthony. None of the three players in these murders would take their case to trial so there are some holes that cannot be filled in. It seems as if Jacqueline had been murdered first in her basement bedroom. The coroner determined she had twenty stab wounds and twenty-two additional cuts from a knife. Then it seems that Gabriel went upstairs and shot Anthony as he slept. It is not clear exactly what happened to the gun that was used or where the gun came from that was found next to Anthony. Ann would wait “several hours” before she would call 911.

Gabriel, a young boy who had been raised on the streets with his addict mother until he was seven and had been under the influence of drugs, both legal and illegal at the time of the murders, would plead guilty in June of 2016 to two counts of murder. In February of 2017 he would receive a sentence of sixty years. Thirteen year old Sara would be charged as a juvenile but it was not clear what, if any time, she was given. It seems that by December of 2016 Ann knew her “gig” was up I suppose and she took an Alford Plea (meaning she did not admit guilt, but only that the prosecution had enough to reasonably convict her) to two counts of first degree murder. At her sentencing hearing Ann's defense argued that her life had been full of abuse, both as a child, and as a spouse to Anthony. Her attorney pointed out several instances but it is unclear just what proof there had been other than simple allegations.

It was apparently established that both Anthony and Ann had initially had a sexual relationship with the twenty-five year old Jacqueline Riggs at some point. I never saw anything that indicated that this relationship was not consensual by all parties. Jacqueline moved into the Anastasi home in the summer of 2015 but at that point only Anthony continued the relationship with her. There were allegations that Jacqueline may have been pregnant or thought that she was. To be fair, I saw nothing that indicated that she was pregnant at the time of her death. Prosecutors say this continued relationship between Anthony and Jacqueline caused extreme tension in the Anastasi home.

It does appear however that the judge believed at least some of the allegations of abuse against Ann. She was sentenced to life in prison on two counts of first degree murder plus five years on a firearm charge. Now, I looked to see what “life in prison” in Maryland means because the way the sentence for Ann was described was that she received life sentences, but, “all but forty years were suspended” on the charge for Anthony and “all but sixty years were suspended” on the charge for Jacqueline. The sentences were to run concurrently, meaning all at the same time so in essence she got sixty years. The sentence, or at least as it was described did not say “with” or “without” parole but it appears that parole in Maryland is hard to come by regardless. Before parole can be given to those who have been given life sentences the governor is required to sign and it has been said that it has never happened. The Maryland Department of Corrections website only informs me if an inmate is in the system and nothing else so I cannot tell you whether Ann or Gabriel will ever see the light of day.