Secrets in the Basement – Ann Anastasi

Good evening everyone! Welcome to episode 2 of season 2! Today we are back into our isocolese love triangles and this triangle is a doozy!

By the way, did you catch our first episode of season 2? The Lobster Family – the Case of Grady Stiles? If not, you have to listen to that crazy episode! After you’re finished this episode, just go back to episode 40 and catch it. We had a someone put a cape on and an S on their chest (the S didn’t stand for Super though) and give us a bad review for that episode. They claimed that we were making fun of disabled people, but they clearly didn’t listen to the show. They decided to stick up for a wife beater and child abuser. We gave their review a review. If you’d like to hear that, head on over to our Fan Page – just search Love and Murder Fan Page in Google or in Facebook and request to join.

Today we’re going to be talking about the case of Ann Anastasi. No, not the notorious Ann Anastasia – although that’s another interesting murder story that we might do a show on later. This case we’re talking about tonight is the story of Ann and Anthony Anastasi.

Ann Marie Anastasi was born sometime around 1973. There’s not much background information on where she grew up or where she came from, or even her maiden name, I do know that she grew up around Maryland.

Anthony Anastasi was born sometime in 1975, and while his own past is still unknown, he met and fell in love with Ann in Maryland. This story, quite literally, picks up right in the middle of their marriage.

Now, Ann and Anthony had moved from Maryland to Michigan because of Anthony’s volunteer work as a youth hockey coach. At this time, the couple had been married for 18 years and had 5 children together. By the time our story picks up they had quite literally spent a lifetime with each other, working and raising children. This is a mundane routine most couples with children fall into.

Now, one day, Anthony had met a 25-year-old woman named Jacqueline Riggs.

Jacqueline Riggs was born in 1990 and described as a sweet and gentle person. Her family said she was a loving daughter and sister. She worked in childcare and would often look after her nieces and nephews. At the time that her and Anthony met, she was down on her luck and was just going through some bad situations. She became friends with Anthony because, at the time, she saw him as a father figure and someone she could count on, someone she could talk to about what was going on in her life.

Over time, Anthony introduced Jackie to Ann and brought to Ann the request of a threesome. Now here’s where we have conflicting stories. On one hand, the three of them hit it off and an amicable relationship started. According to this story, their relationship lasted for about 4 months until Anthony asked Ann to let Jackie move in with them.

In the other story, Ann, Jackie, and Anthony had a 3-some and Ann didn’t much like it. Anthony forced her to continue with this relationship, which they did for about 4 months, until Anthony asked Ann to let Jackie move in with them.

When Ann told Anthony that they should move back to Maryland, Anthony agreed. “But,” said Anthony “Only on one condition.” He would only move to Maryland if Jacqueline moved too AND moved in with them. What is it with the guys in our stories? Where are these gorilla sized cajones coming from? What would you do at this point? Continue with the marriage or end it?

Well, Ann decided to stay and accept Anthony’s offer and allow Jacqueline to come and live with her, her kids and her husband. Ann wasn’t happy about this move in at all, and after Jacqueline moved in in the summer of 2015, the supposed “happy-go-lucky threesome” all but ended. Why do you think that she was ok with this arrangement?

For Anthony, though, it was like the more the merrier. Either he thought it would make them a big happy family or he didn’t care what Ann thought. Ann and Anthony moved into a rental home in Lothian, Maryland, just less than an hour away from Washington, D.C. It was a charming and promising little home. It was perfectly situated on a nice chunk of land in a pretty rural area. They had maybe four or five bedrooms and it was very spacious. Wait, did I say “little home?” The house, the land, and the property was just perfect for a family of seven – oh yea I forgot, there’s now 8. Because Ann already didn’t want to keep Jacqueline in the house and definitely not around her children, Anthony and his girlfriend settled in the basement.

The basement didn’t have good living conditions; cold concrete floor, no walls, no privacy, and completely unfurnished. It was a poor setup but it was Anthony’s attempt at making sure his Jacqueline was still in his life. By 2015, Jacqueline Riggs was a complete member of Anthony’s family. Notice I said Anthony’s. Jacqueline would sleep in the basement of the house and would go up the stairs to have dinner with not only Anthony, but also Ann and their five kids. And Ann? Well, she literally cooked dinner for everyone, kept the house clean for everyone, did the shopping for everyone, and generally kept the peace for everyone.

Even though it looked like Ann was now ok with the situation, she was never really happy. She kept it this way because all she wanted was for her marriage to get back to the way it was and for her husband to get rid of Jacqueline. She was angry but she never let Anthony know. In a way, she was always scared of Anthony because if she complained, he threatened to leave her and her kids. Sometimes, he would threaten to just get a divorce and marry Jackie.

This was Ann’s worst nightmare so she tried her best to make the most of the situation.

The only time she ever complained to Anthony, she said she wanted the affair to end and wanted Anthony to send Jackie back to Michigan. Instead, Anthony told her she needed to mind her own business and if she didn’t like it, she would need to leave the house. After that, Ann decided to completely check out of her marriage; not leave, but to ignore her husband.

Anthony, on the other hand, decided to turn completely to Jackie. Something that looked to be in the works already anyway, because during all of this time, instead of having sex with Ann, he was constantly going downstairs to Jackie. He no longer cared about Ann, and only showed that he cared about Jackie. By this point, Anthony begins to spend more and more time downstairs in the basement, ultimately spending many nights a week basically living down there with her. They would lock themselves up and spend hours and hours together. I wonder what they were doing.

By this point, Ann was completely alienated from her marriage. It was official. Her husband just could care less about their marriage. He still loved his children though and didn’t let anything interfere with his and their relationship. But him and Ann were like strangers to each other; only passing by to change into pajamas, brush teeth, cook food, or whatever else Anthony couldn’t only do in the basement. They barely spoke to each other. Ann sort of accepted everything and continued on with her life as a mother. She was lonely; she didn’t have anyone to turn to.

Apparently Anthony was very abusive throughout their relationship. He constantly beat Ann, threatened her, and made threats about the children. Once, he locked her out of their house during a snowstorm and in another instance, he sent her to Florida and then had the children vote on whether or not she should be able to come back. He told Ann’s family that he had affiliations with a well known Michigan biker gang and that he was friends with people who would kill them if he asked them to. He also threatened Ann with this.
Now, Ann had a pretty big trust fund. By big, I mean her trust fund was $1 million dollars. I couldn’t find where it came from, but it was there. Ann and Anthony had been using the trust fund for a while to get by, but now Anthony was using the money all for himself. He literally went on shopping sprees with Ann’s money. He would buy flat screen televisions and once, he even bought a Harley Davidson motorcycle. When the money was all spent, he would then go to Ann demanding her to bring him more. Ann started going to relatives to ask for money. She should have just told him no, but we know how some people in abusive relations trick themselves into thinking they’re doing the right thing.

After awhile, Ann became pretty sick of this. I mean, dealing with a situation of living with your husband and his girlfriend and no one caring about you or your feelings can do something to a person. Where could she go? Who could she turn to? What could she do? Well .. the obvious answer is ‘get a divorce and get the hell out of there, right?’ Well, it’s not as easy as we’re thinking.
Ann didn’t have anybody to help her or to talk to so she turned to her best friend; her 13 year old daughter. Her young daughter a loving child. She loved both her mom and dad and was, in fact, a daddy’s girl. Throughout all of this she still spoke with her dad and hoped for their family to stay together. She was described as loyal and trustworthy.

She had witnessed the bizarre living situation of her parents. She wasn’t very fond of Jacqueline and was quite angry with her father, even though she still spoke to him. At one point in time, she overheard her father and Jacqueline talking about potentially starting a family. She’d even spotted a used pregnancy test in Jacqueline’s room – the basement. This totally angered the child and she felt that her father was starting over without them; that he was abandoning his entire family to make a new one.

Now, October 5, 2015 started out as any normal day did. Ann went to the grocery store, ran some other errands and when she came back home, she went looking for Anthony, probably to find out what he and Jacqueline wanted for dinner. However, she found him dead of a gunshot wound. The gun sat beside him so she figured it might be a suicide and she called 911.

911: 911 what’s the emergency?

“I just spent the day taking kids to the dentist and then going grocery shopping and I’m supposed to be leaving to take my husband to a doctor’s appointment right now. But he’s not responding at all and he’s got his gun laying next to him in the bed.”

911: “Do you think he shot himself?”

“I don’t know. I didn’t turn the lights on in the room.”

Police arrived at the scene while she was still on the phone with the 911 operator. When they arrived she let them in and officers noticed that she was really calm, not crying, and appeared even shy. She didn’t act like a women who just found her husband shot. Which doesn’t mean anything. People process shock and grief differently. Officers went through the house, which was cluttered and packed like a hoarder. They went to the bedroom and found Anthony on the bed, shot in the temple, with a .45 pistol near him. His arms were outstretched and he was laying on his back. Initial investigation showed that the gun had been fired at close range and it did look like a suicide.

When they spoke with Ann, she recounted her day; she’d taken her kids to school, took one of the younger children to the dentist, and went grocery shopping with her 13 year old who was home sick. She also told officers that a lot had been going on in their life, her husband had had a lot of back surgeries, couldn’t work and he had shown signs that he was depressed, but she never thought he would take his own life.

Police at the scene began writing it up as a suicide and, while doing this, asked Ann if there was anyone else in the house.

“Yes my 5 children, but 4 of them are at school right now. Like I said, my 13 year old is home sick. And, oh yea, Jacqueline Rigs who’s a 25 year old woman who we took in. She lives in the basement apartment.”

Police: “Well is she home?”

Ann: “ ‘Well I don’t know, I hadn’t heard from her today. The last thing I heard from her was her and Anthony were arguing last night. When he came back up to our room, he wouldn’t tell me what the argument was about. He just told me to get the cats out of the room and that I need to go sleep in the kids’ room.”

So police went down to the basement and were shocked by what they found.

When they first started going down the stairs to the basement, they heard loud heavy metal music playing. As they got to the bottom of the stairs, they saw Jacqueline’s body on a blood soaked carpet in the middle of the room. The body had been stabbed multiple times everywhere – the head, torso, arms, neck. And even the legs.

Officers notated blood on the walls, on the floor, and on the bed. It appears that Jacqueline had put up a massive fight. They also noted that the outside door was locked and the windows were screwed shut. The room also had piles of trash all over the place.
Police deduced that Anthony had come downstairs, fought with and stabbed Jacqueline, then went upstairs and shot himself. So they wrote it up at a murder-suicide.

They wrapped up at the house and left.

Over the next couple of days, the chief medical examiner informed investigators that a projectile was still in Anthony’s head. This was a catalyst that changed the way investigators saw the case. They know knew they weren’t dealing with a murder-suicide.

Investigators obtained a search warrant and went to search the messy and cluttered home. In the master bedroom they found a .45 caliber spent shell casing. They took this shell to the lab and compared it to what was found in Anthony’s head. What was found in his head was a .380 caliber. Now the question is, could you put a .380 bullet in a .45 gun? Even the cops thought of this and tested it out; the bullet just fell out. So basically this proved that the gun they found near Anthony was not the gun that was used to kill him (or as a suicide as the killer wanted police to think).
Medical examiners also found that Jacqueline’s body had forty two knife wounds: where she was stabbed 20 times and slashed 22 more times.
Now police are scratching their chins trying to figure out what actually happened.

The only person they have to question is Ann.
They call Ann and her 13 year old daughter into the precinct for questioning – not as suspects, but just to see maybe what they’d witnessed.
Here is the transcript from the interrogation, which came from truecrimedaily.com:

Ann started off talking about the abuse in the house and that’s where we pick up:
Detective: “What’s the worst threat he ever made towards you?”
Ann: “Held his gun to my head and told me to get out of his house.”
Detective: “And when was that?”
Ann: “That would have been a couple months ago.”
Detective: “OK.”
Ann: “And I’m told if I ever tell the police about it, I ever tell anybody about it, he’s going to kill me and whomever I tell.”
She also revealed to them who Jacqueline actually was.
Detective: “I have to ask this question, Ann: Do you think that your husband and Jaqueline were messing around?”
Ann: “Oh, I know they were.”
Detective: “They were. And how do you know they were?”
Ann: “Because he’d spend most — well, not most — he’d spend a lot of nights down there with the doors locked. Like, a lot of them.”
Detective: “Did you ever confront him about it?”
Ann: “I was told that basically to mind my own business, and he’s going to do what he wants to do, and if I didn’t like it I can get the f— out of the house. And I’m not going to abandon my kids and leave them in that kind of situation.”
Ann: “So I would regularly tell him, ‘She needs to get out. If you’re going to stay with her, then you can both get out. Why are you here in the house if you don’t want to be with me? You two can just pack up and go.'”

While doing the interrogation, Ann agrees to do a gunpowder test, gave them her cell phone, and allowed them to take a DNA sample from her. She also did a polygraph test and was calm, collected and very cooperative. “Does it matter if I’m yawning during this?”

As is normal procedure, Ann and her daughter were not questioned in the same room. Her daughter was down the hall answering her own set of questions. As calm as Ann was is as hysterical as her daughter was. She was very erratic and tried to run out of the police station. What do most 13 year old girls do – even without trauma. They talk – ALOT. Now mix in the fact that a parent was dead. Ann’s daughter was talking, talking, talking. She even told the police about that pregnancy test that I mentioned earlier.

Like Ann, police took her daughter’s phone to go through it and what they saw surprised them. There was a group text, with a bunch of detailed messages, between Ann, her daughter, and someone else.
Detective: “There’s a couple things I need to clear up real quick. The test that they took from your clothes and your hands? Well, they were all sent off.”
Ann: “Probably found lots of cat milk on there.”
Detective: “Well, we found a lot of gunshot residue on you and on the clothes.”
Ann: “Really? Well that’s weird.”
Yea weird indeed
Detective: “You have a failed polygraph. You did not just fail it, you flunked the hell out of it.”
Detective: “The gun that was found next to your husband was tested, OK? And compared to the bullet that was found in his skull, OK? There is no possible way that that weapon fired that bullet found in your husband’s head.”
Detective: “We got some phone records, and that night you and [minor’s name redacted] talked for 582 seconds at 3 in the morning. That’s about 10 minutes.”
Ann: “That might have been a butt-dial.”
Detective: “That’s not a butt-dial. That’s a long conversation.”
Cops know that call was not an accident.
Detective: “This is bad for you. This is real bad for you. Do you understand that?”

In going over the text messages from the two phones, investigators saw that yes this was actually a murder AND it was a murder that was planned out by Ann and her daughter. Why do these people keep writing out all of their plans? Now, I really searched for these text messages because I really wanted to read it out to yall, but I couldn’t find it at all. If anyone finds it, please don’t hesitate to send it to us.

They were also able to find out who the other person was, Ann’s daughter’s 18 year old boyfriend named, Gabriel Struss. Yes, you heard me. A 13 year old had an 18 year old boyfriend. It’s like that case we had with the 12 year old from Canada and the 23 year old boyfriend – case number #39 – 5 Kid Murderers.
Anyway, Gabriel was kind of an “unattended kid” meaning he didn’t have a good upbringing. His parents didn’t really pay attention to him and he raised himself.
So, in the texts, officers see that Ann and her daughter convinced Gabriel that Anthony and Jacqueline were abusive to the entire family. They asked him if he wouldn’t mind killing them, and once they are dead, he could move in. Soooooo, if it were me I’d say no but then again, he was probably just looking for love; looking for a family and some love. Not that I’m giving him an excuse.

They even went so far as to plan the murder via their text messages. There was a text from Gabriel that said: ‘I’m gonna slit the girl and bust the dad.”
Investigators picked up Gabriel and brought him to the station for questioning. The interrogation actually went pretty easy because Gabriel wasn’t a murderer and he felt a huge sense of guilt. Because of all of this he sang like a bird and told them that Ann was the one who planned everything.

Now this is when the whole story comes out:
On the night of October 4th, Ann and her daughter went to pick Gabriel up. Then, while everyone was going about their night, Gabriel waited in the back yard. When everyone was asleep, Ann went down to the kitchen and let him into the house. That’s when she gave him the .380 gun and a knife. Gabriel went down to the basement where Jacqueline was sleeping – gun in pocket and knife in hand. She woke up to being stabbed and, of course, started fighting. However, she wasn’t strong enough to fight off Gabriel and, as he said, he just kept stabbing until he was sure she was dead. He then goes upstairs to where Anthony was sleeping and shot him in the head.

After this, Ann’s daughter took him home.
While they were gone, Ann got Anthony’s .45 out from under his pillow – for protection, he always kept his gun under his pillow, and put it in his hand and waited for her daughter to come back home.

The next morning, the family got up, had breakfast, and went about their day as if nothing had happened.
Of course, all three of them were arrested
Ann was charged with first degree murder, two counts of second degree murder and the use of a fireman in the commission of a felony.

Her daughter was charged with two counts of first degree murder and accessory after the fact.
Gabriel was charged with two counts of first degree murder, two counts of second degree murder, two counts of conspiracy to commit first degree murder, two counts of conspiracy to commit second degree murder and two counts of firearm use in a felony crime of violence.

Ann was held without bail as it was argued that she had “conspired with the teens and was instrumental in the subsequent attempt to cover up the crimes.”
Ann claimed that she was innocent and wanted to take her case to court. However, while she was in jail waiting on her trail she made a phone call:

“Even though we all think that the world is a better place for him being gone, and that her stupid fucking twit ass should’ve known something was gonna happen, getting 12 jurors to see the same thing is a problem. Problem is, it’s not only him. There’s also a 24-year-old girl who’s dead in my basement. She was a whore who moved into my house with me and my five kids. Her whore ass should have stayed up in fucking Michigan. She shouldn’t have moved down here, she shouldn’t have moved into my house. How could she possibly have thought that was going to go well?”

Investigators confronted Ann’s defense team about the calls. They’re shocked and meet with her to urge her to take a plea deal to avoid a trial. Of course, Ann takes it and in December 2016, entered Alford pleas to two counts of first-degree murder and a gun charge. An Alford please, also known as a best interests plea, is a guilty plea where the defendant doesn’t admit to the criminal act and asserts their innocence. This meant that while Ann maintained her innocence, she admitted that there was enough evidence that would result in her conviction. In May 2017, Ann was sentenced to life in prison. The judge suspended all but 40 years in relation to Anthony’s death, because Ann’s attorney argued that she’d already served 20 years in her abusive marriage, and all but 60 years in relation to Jacqueline’s murder. Ann also received an additional five-year sentence for the gun charge. They were to be served concurrently. So basically, she’s expected to spend at least the next 60 years behind bars. So she’s slated to get out in 2077 when she’s 104 years old.

And what about the two teenagers?

Her 13 year old daughter was placed in a juvenile facility where she would then be released when she was 21 years old. So that’s only 8 years and she will be out in 2025.

In court, Gabriel was sentenced to 60 years in jail. During his sentencing, he expressed regret, remorse, and anguish for his actions and told Jackie’s family how he wished he could take back what had happened. In many ways, Gabriel was saved. His attorneys fought for his reduced sentence on the basis that he had been an incredibly fragile and lonely individual who had been manipulated by Ann to carry out the murder. Prosecutors even went so far as to describe him as a puppet in a sinister plot masterminded by a scorned wife. In June 2016, Gabriel Struss pleaded guilty to two counts of murder and got the same deal as Ann: two life sentences with all but 60 years suspended. So he would get out in 2076 and will be 79 years old.

And that is the story of Ann Anastasi.

Ann is in prison, Gabriel is in prison, the 13 year old is in juvi, Anthony is dead, and Jacqueline is dead.
What did you think about that story?

A lot of people feel like Ann got away with it. She didn’t carry out the murders but she did mastermind the whole thing. What do you think?

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