He Played A Cop. Now He Is A Prisoner.
Review by Kim Cantrell
With a wife and two children, Dale Anderson appeared to be your average family man.
But he carried secrets. Deep, dark secrets that lurked in the shadows; secrets of revenge and murder.
In September 1989, Jolaine Lanman and her three-year-old son Kenneth would meet the Anderson no one else knew.
After forcing Jolaine to write a note that placed blame for her death on his former co-workers, Anderson then killer the pregnant young mother and her son.
Illinois State Investigator Alva Busch recounts in his book Deadly Deception the case of a man who was so intent on revenge that he was willing to murder two innocent people.
Readers will be shocked and disgusted at the tactics of Dale Anderson, a wanna-be cop with severe sociopathic tendencies.
And quite likely a serial killer, as several unsolved cases within the area bear Anderson’s modus operandi and have strange connections to him.
But the story is the only enticement. As is the typical rule, cops who write their own stories tend to be too boisterious of their own roles and fall flat in what would otherwise be considered important, intruguing details to your average reader.
And that’s exactly the case with Deadly Deception.
However, it is a very interesting case; one about which there are no other books written. So I will recommend it to my fellow true crime fans.
Just be prepared to do a bit of skimming.
Updates on this case:
- Dale Anderson, now age 58, is currently incarcerated at Pontiac Correctional Center in Illinois where he will remain for the rest of his life.
- Rodney Woidtke was acquitted during a new trial held in 2001. His acquittal reverted the Audrey Cardenas murder to an unsolved status.
- John Lanman continues to reside in the Belleville, Illinois area.
What an interesting case! It seems too cinematic to be real. Someone could write this script and not get away with it. Just proves truth really is stranger than fiction.
It also gives insight into why courts do not allow “testimony” from the dead. The rule is if you can’t be cross examined, you can’t “testify.” In this case, if the poor girl who wrote the note could have been cross-examined by defense, she would have revealed the circumstances under which the note had been written. That’s why courts usually don’t allow in these kinds of notes although it’s often an extremely frustrating rule. This case shows us why they made the rule in the first place.
Camille Kimball
A Sudden Shot: the Phoenix Serial Shooter
I found this website very helpful, Dale Anderson was at the time of the murders and convictions married to my Aunt. I didn’t find about this “family secret” until about five years ago. I knew there was a book written but I did not know the name of it. I am very interested to see what insight this book can give me about the man my mother called her Brother-in-law. What a creepy thought!