Violent End Shatters Image of an All-American Family

After 23 years of marriage, Roy and Deborah Anderson still met each other for lunch, the NASA electronics technician often joining his high school sweetheart at the elementary school where she was a secretary. Both worked at Edwards Air Force Base, where Roy Anderson recently won a special achievement award for his job performance.

The base served as a family gathering place even after Anderson retired as a sergeant two years ago, having spent 20 years in the Air Force. Daughters Amy, 17, a senior and champion volleyball player with a full scholarship to Colorado State University, and Heather, 15, a freshman, would ride into work with their mother and primp in the Branch Elementary School office before starting their day at nearby Desert High School.

Their older sister, Melissa, 20, had been the 1988 Desert High School homecoming queen.

“Every morning they’d kiss her and say, ‘Goodby, Mom,’ ” Branch Principal Mollie Graham said.

But Monday morning, the lustrous illusion of an All-American family was shattered. As the Andersons finished breakfast in their Lancaster home, authorities said, Roy Anderson fatally stabbed Melissa in the upstairs master bedroom after she had dressed for work. Then, authorities said, the 39-year-old father came downstairs, shooting his wife, Amy and Heather in the head, before turning his .38-caliber handgun on himself and firing it into the base of his chin.

According to investigators, Anderson fired six bullets at his wife and daughters Amy and Heather, reloaded and fired two more. He used the ninth bullet on himself.

Deborah, 40, was carrying a plate of pancakes when she was shot. Amy and Heather were found nearby on the first floor, their gym bags packed and ready for school. Melissa lay next to three bloody kitchen knives.

“I would never in my wildest dreams ever expect to hear anything like this about this family,” said Roy Anderson’s brother-in-law, Ron Reynolds, from his home near Springfield, Ill., where Roy and Deborah Anderson grew up. “We got the call last night and I’m still waiting to wake up from this nightmare.”

Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Sgt. Dirk Edmundson, the lead detective on the case, said investigators were looking for a motive, although they knew the Andersons had separated last year and had seen a marriage counselor.

“There had been some domestic problems but nothing like this,” Edmundson said. “I’m baffled myself.”

Roy Jerome Walter Anderson--known as Jerry to his family in Illinois--was devastated when his wife and daughters left him last year, said one of Deborah Anderson’s co-workers. He would phone the Branch school office repeatedly and come by at lunch hoping to talk to his estranged wife, said assistant secretary Marsha Segler.

“He just was a fish out of water without her,” she said.

Although they reconciled before Christmas and appeared to be happy, Roy Anderson was afraid his wife and daughters would leave him again, Segler said. She said Deborah Anderson told her recently that when she and her husband argued over even routine matters, he would say to her, “ ‘You’re not going to leave me again, are you?’ ”

Segler also said the family was under financial pressure, although she declined to discuss details. The Andersons bought their home three years ago--their first after moving out of military housing--for about $120,000, according to public records. They recently bought two 1991 cars, a Honda and a Nissan, and their home included an elaborate entertainment center, investigators said.

“Roy was the type that would want the best, the newest and the most for his family, and if it meant going into debt for it, then he was just the kind to put that aside because he wanted to give to his family,” Segler said.

Melissa Anderson’s boyfriend, Edward Granados, said Roy Anderson often argued with his wife and daughters over money, displaying a violent temper.

“He’d yell, scream, hit,” Granados said.

“I had to take her to my house one time because he might have killed her then,” Granados said, referring to an argument between Roy Anderson and Melissa, who was working at a Canyon Country travel agency. Granados, who planned to marry Melissa, said that during the argument Anderson accused his daughter of being self-centered and spending too much money.

All three girls played varsity volleyball at Desert High School, a high-pressure, time-consuming activity that was also expensive, friends and teachers said. Amy and Heather also belonged to a private volleyball club in Bakersfield, whose annual membership fee was several hundred dollars, their school coach, Debbie Lewis, said.

The family traveled virtually every weekend to tournaments. Amy and Heather had also made an elite national team of volleyball players to be groomed during summer training for college sports and, possibly, the Olympics, she said.

Anderson “adored his family,” Lewis said. “I don’t think there’s supposed to be understanding in all of this. I think he just wanted to keep them all with him,” she said.

School counselors and administrators urged to students Tuesday to express their grief, Principal Bill Appleton said.

The school plans a memorial service Friday afternoon. Once autopsies are completed later this week, family members expect to bury the Andersons in Illinois--Roy Anderson apart from his wife and daughters at his in-laws’ request, his brother-in-law said.

Times staff writer Steve Padilla contributed to this story.