Inset: Marshall Todd Anderson (New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office). Background: The house where Anderson killed his father then hid his body (Google Maps).
A 63-year-old man in North Carolina may spend more than two decades behind bars for killing his own father, beating the 83-year-old man to death and then hiding his body beneath a tarp in the older man’s backyard. A New Hanover County judge on Monday ordered Marshall Todd Anderson to serve a sentence of 18 to 22 years in a state correctional facility for the 2024 murder of William Thomas Anderson, authorities announced.
According to a news release from the New Hanover County Sheriff’s Office, deputies at about 8 p.m. on Feb. 22, 2024, responded to a call from a family member seeking a welfare check on the elder Anderson at his home in the 900 block of Marlowe Drive in Wilmington, North Carolina. The house is about 125 miles southeast of Raleigh, North Carolina.
Upon arriving at the scene, first responders said they searched the backyard of the victim’s home and found his body concealed outside. The elder Anderson was pronounced dead on the scene. His manner of death was determined to be a homicide and the cause of death was determined to be blunt force trauma.
Marshall Anderson was quickly identified as a person of interest in his father’s death. Authorities searched the area and said they found him walking down S. College Road, near a local Best Buy. He was immediately placed under arrest and remanded to the New Hanover County Detention Facility without bond.
Court documents obtained by StarNews Online provided additional details about the circumstances of William Anderson’s death.
According to the report, Marshall Anderson’s son — the victim’s grandson — had stopped by his grandfather’s house to check on him because the 83-year-old had been showing the early signs of dementia. When he arrived at the residence, he found his father was already there. Marshall Anderson reportedly told his son that he’d just seen his grandfather a minute earlier.
“When the grandson began to search the house and then the yard for his grandfather, the defendant told him not to disturb a blue tarp in the backyard under which he claimed there was trash,” a probable cause affidavit states, per Wilmington NBC affiliate WECT. “The grandson began to search the surrounding neighborhood and called 911.”
In the short while it took for deputies to arrive at the home, Marshall Anderson had reportedly disappeared. Investigators later learned that when Marshall Anderson saw patrol lights approaching the home, he asked a neighbor to give him a ride to Walmart.
Authorities said that William Anderson had been dead for at least 12 hours when his body was recovered.
During the sentencing hearing, several of the victim’s family members addressed the court.
“The grandson spoke at the sentencing and gave voice to the hardship that the defendant has inflicted on their family and loved ones, and the heartbreak when someone chooses drugs over their own family,” a release from the district attorney’s office said.
