Body Found After More Than 3 Decades, Husband And Mother-In-Law Charged With Murder

00:00:02
Speaker 1: Hey there, folks. It is Wednesday, May twenty seven, and a woman went missing at the age of twenty three, and now her husband and her mother in law have been arrested for her murder. But get this, she went missing thirty four years ago. And with that, welcome to this episode of Amy and TJ. These cold cases and these types of decades later cases are fascinating. In this one, rooms and clothes, not just one but two suspects, a husband and his mama.

00:00:35
Speaker 2: Yeah, I know this is a terrible, tragic story, but it's a story that gives hope to so many victims of crime who are waiting for answers, who are a waiting word what happened to their loved one. And that's exactly what was going on for the family members of Anna Lee Manning. She went missing in nineteen ninety two. But get this, she wasn't even reported missing until nineteen ninety four. It's incredibly sad to get your head around that, but it was over a year. She went missing in November of ninety two, was finally reported missing by her family in February of nineteen ninety four. And they say it's because of this relationship, this marriage that she had with a man. She said that she became a strange from her family, so they didn't even know where they lived. They didn't know anything. This young woman got married at sixteen and basically just got separated from her family.

00:01:30
Speaker 1: And every sh I noticed there were people out there who cared about her. Who were there really were And so this was an a awful situation. It sounds like she got into with this man and his side of the family and ultimately, now, according to authorities, that side of the family is the all the folks who dinner in.

00:01:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, And so her family now is just relieved. They've been waiting for so long. In fact, we'll get into what her aunt said, but her aunt raised her and said that she has cancer and she was praying every day that she would get some resolution, that she would get some answers, that she would finally know what happened to her niece, who she considered a daughter all these years later. And to finally this week get answers is a blessing. That she wasn't sure she was actually going to live to see. How about that?

00:02:21
Speaker 1: And here we are, we're still waiting for some confirmation actually about a body that has been found. So the way this went Rowlands, of course she goes missing. And here this is just days ago. The arrests happened, and then the search begins.

00:02:38
Speaker 2: And it's not because, by the way the folks arrested gave police any indication as to where Annalie Manning's remains might be. They just found her remains after a week of digging up five and a half acres. So here's what happened late last week. Yes, Annalie Manning's estranged husband, his name is Anthony Manning. He's now fifty nine years old. He was arrested and charged with murder, tampering with physical evidence, and abusive a corpse. And then yes, his mother, Anna Lee's mother in law, seventy six year old Barbara Manning, was also arrested and charged with murder, complicity to murder, tampering with evidence, and abusive a corpse.

00:03:22
Speaker 1: Look, I'm not saying anybody ever gets dulled up or has a good mug shot.

00:03:29
Speaker 2: You saw the mugshots.

00:03:31
Speaker 1: They're rough, pretty tough ones.

00:03:32
Speaker 2: Oh yes, there is especially pretty pretty rough. Yes, in terms of karma or anything like that. Just look at the mugshots. They've lived tough lives, and certainly it must have been a rough day being arrested because their mugshots are noteworthy, I guess would be one way to put it.

00:03:47
Speaker 1: In the past thirty four years since this woman's disappearance have not been kind.

00:03:51
Speaker 2: No, they have not so, And here's the deal about this property.

00:03:55
Speaker 1: This is so.

00:03:56
Speaker 2: The remains were found on Barbara Manning's property behind her mobile home. But investigators searched this same property ten years ago. They have been trying to solve this case for more than three decades. They were digging holes, they found nothing. This time around, after the arrests, they were hell bent on finding something and they brought an equipment, spent a week searching these five and a half acres. They tore down more than a dozen buildings on this property. I was trying to imagine what this property, but there was twelve different structures. They tore them down. They literally ripped five and a half acres apart, and couldn't believe it. But this week, finally they found the skeletal remains that they absolutely believe are Anna Lee Manning. They have to go through, obviously, forensic testing to confirm it, but they believe beyond a shadow of a doubt that they have finally found this missing young woman.

00:04:56
Speaker 1: We haven't said. This is in Danville, Kentucky, that area. You can imagine again, this is a huge property. The neighbors don't live on top.

00:05:05
Speaker 2: Of each other now like this is a rural area.

00:05:08
Speaker 1: Very much so. And the place is frankly kind of just a mess. There's a bunch of places you could have looked, and so it seems, I will, why didn't they just search or more exhaustive search ten years ago. This is a massive property to try to just you're looking for not quite a needle in a haystack, but kind of robes after thirty years, What was left? How much was left? How difficult was it to find that? Even and now the testing that's going to be done, I'm not sure how quickly I guess it would happen. Maybe there are teeth, maybe there are dental records, But to extract that DNA and do the whole thing they have to do, I'm not sure how long that'll take to get confirmation. But police aren't. Don't think they're going to be still searching for this one.

00:05:47
Speaker 2: No, no, no, no. They believe they have solved this long standing murder mystery, and yes we mentioned a little bit about the crime. She was last seen November nineteen ninety two. And it's actually so sad because her aunt, the one I mentioned who raised her like her own daughter, she said she happened to see her. She was standing outside of a jewelry store in town and shouted across the way, I'm going to come find you later today I have something I have to tell you. And at that point, in November of nineteen ninety two, Annaie was estranged from her husband, Anthony. They married back in nineteen eighty five. Again, she would have been just sixteen years old. She kind of ran away from her aunt's home, eloped and took up with him, really had zero contact with her family after that. She had one daughter, but Annelie and Anthony were separated. But before her disappearance, Anthony served six months in jail pleading guilty to basically kidnapping unlawful imprisonment, but he handcuffed her after she refused to have sex with him. She was able to escape and call police. So it's sad. There were other obviously early signs that this was potentially a violent situation and awful marriage that was ending, and even though he had served six months when he got out her she went missing pretty shortly thereafter.

00:07:07
Speaker 1: He spent time in jail for kidnapping his own wife. Correct, Okay, is what we're talking about here. So I don't know after all these years. You talk about hope at the beginning, but after all these years, like, what was it right? Because they found that, Yes, they have the body. They found the body now, but what was it that got them to a point where they felt they had enough evidence now to arrest them even before they did find the body?

00:07:34
Speaker 2: Yes, because look there there are and we can get into that after the break, because I wanted to get into how they got to this place after all these years. But the aunt said she kept telling police, I know that she's on that property. And when they found this these remains, she told a local reporter, I knew she was there. I've known all along she was there, and police had that same suspicion. But again, the property was so big. How do you tie these two to these crimes? When we come back, we're going to talk about what prompted the renewed interest in this case, Because these cold cases can sit in evidence locker rooms and in files and on computers for decades and people forget they literally gather dust. But it just took one detective who decided to dig a little deeper. We'll tell you what he decided to do when we come back, and welcome back everyone to this episode of Amy and TJ, where there is finally some relief and some answers for family members in Kentucky who have been waiting thirty four years to find out what happened to Anna Lee Manning. She was just twenty three years old when she went missing in nineteen ninety two, and late last week her estranged husband and her mother in law were arrested for her murder. And then just a few days later, police were able to finally find some human marine remains that they believe are those of Anna Lee Manning. And yes, a Boyle County Sheriff's deputy, his name is Philip Dean said he was looking through some cold case files saw this one and his quote was it just piqued my interest and I started trying to build up a case to see if I could give this family closure. The aunt has been talking about this, trying to keep detectives focused on her missing niece's case and finally, this one detective. We hear about this often. It just takes maybe a curious detective who has some time to actually review the evidence, and so he put it all together what they had and convened to grand jury.

00:09:50
Speaker 1: And that's it. No new evidence, no new what, no new break, no new smoking gun, no new nothing. It took somebody just took the time to submit some paperwork.

00:10:00
Speaker 2: Yes, it took time for this detective to put together all the evidence that was already there. There was nothing new. Think about it. They found her remains. I say they found her remains. They believe the remains are hers after they made the arrest, So they didn't have skeletal remains, they didn't have a body. They weren't even one hundred percent sure. They weren't even probably close to being sure that they were going to be able to find their remains because they had already tried multiple times and had not found her remains. So these arrests took place many, many days. Sometimes it just takes the renewed interest and curiosity of one detective and that is what broke this case and then presenting it to a grand jury. The grand jury reviewed the evidence and they handed down I believe it was last Thursday, the indictments against her husband and her mother in law, and bam, this case just broke wide open, and so it took just the interest of one detective.

00:11:00
Speaker 1: Now that things a little bit now, I would like to hear more about that. But if there is no smoking gun, if there is no new investigative work, somebody was just for thirty four years didn't want to take the time to put a file together. I assume there's got to be a little more detail we might hear about than that. But that's still glad to get here and get some closure. But Robes, it's we do see when we want a lot of true ground. Plenty of people do at this point, there's always that one detective, right the cold case get that's what I'm saying too.

00:11:28
Speaker 2: And he said.

00:11:29
Speaker 1: Yeah, I just took a look and renewed that isn't.

00:11:31
Speaker 2: You And that's yeah, some nice but look they've got you know, And yeah, there was no from what I have read, there was no new DNA. There was nothing. It was all circumstantial. But it was pretty obvious when you started looking at the details of this case. And it took a grandjury to say, hey, you've got enough here to hand down some indictments. And yes, they wanted to give credit to Deputy Philip Dean for really following through and seeing this through to this point right now, and so yes, it will take some time to officially identify the remains of skeletal remains. They found them, I believe on Monday afternoon of this week, and Anthony and Barbara have been booked on two million dollars cash bond, so they are not going to be able to post those bonds. I'm actually even surprised they they even put a dollar amount on these bonds after it's been all this time. They've been sitting there for three decades, being able to live their lives this whole time, and to think that her body was on their property all these years is very macob to think about. But yes, they are behind bars right now. They have an arraignment set for June fifteenth, where we might get some more details and certainly we'll hear how they plead in this case. But there's a lot to go through in terms of actually seeing this through to the end. But I do love the story that Analie's aunt just finally got that closure and she said she is dying. She said, I my days are numbered, and I didn't know that i'd see this day. I just think that that is one of those stories that give a lot of other families hope who are waiting for answers, who are waiting to find out just the not knowing. We still don't know, by the way, how Annie died. That's all still to be determined, and so there's a lot of detective work still to be done in this case. But we will of course continue to follow this as the court goes through its process. But it's nice to hear at least one family got some closure this week. And with that, everyone, we always appreciate you listening to us. I'm Amy Robach alongside TJ. Holmes. We'll talk to you soon.