Fatal Fire is Called Arson

The December 12 fire that killed a woman and her three children in their rural mobile home, apparently was arson, an investigation by the state Fire Marshal’s Office has determined.

Local law enforcement authorities decline to comment on what evidence led to a grand jury indictment that alleged Terry Anderson set the fire that killed his wife and children.

Anderson, a 28-year-old Olney businessman, was indicted May 3. Richland County Sheriff, Joseph Willis and State’s Attorney Brad Vaughn declined to comment on what evidence led to the murder indictment against Anderson. He was charged in the deaths of Betty Anderson, Jennifer, 9; Matthew, 7 and Katie, 11 months.

David Wells, director of the State Fire Marshal’s Division of Arson Investigation, said Thursday that his office’s report on the fire says it apparently began in a pile of tires underneath the mobile home. Also, the fire apparently had been set, he said. The report did not say who set it.

At a January Coroner’s inquest into the fire deaths, Anderson said he left the mobile home about 7 a.m. December 12 to work on the new home. The fire was reported at 7:37 a.m. by a passing jogger.

Anderson told the coroner’s jury that several tires were stored underneath the mobile home.

The coroner’s jury determined that Anderson’s wife and children died of smoke inhalation. It recommended that fire and law enforcement officials continue the investigation into the blaze.

Herald & Review (Decatur, IL) – Friday, May 20, 1983

Betty Anderson, 28, and her three children, Jennifer age 9, Matthew, age 7 and Katie Elizabeth, age 11 months, all died in a fire at their Rt. 2 mobile home Sunday morning December 12, 1982. Services at Summers Funeral Home, Olney with burial for all four in Crest Haven Cemetery, east of Olney.

Mrs. Anderson was born in Olney, January 29, 1954, to Byrl and Myra (Hanes) Pittman. She married Terry Anderson on February 24, 1973.

Mrs. Anderson was an employee of Olney Trust Bank.

She is survived by her parents, Byrl and Myra Pittman, her husband, Terry Anderson and a brother, Robert Pittman of Cincinnati, Ohio.

She was preceded in death by stillborn twin boys.

Published in Olney Daily Mail.(IL)