Dognaper Took Pair’s Happiness : Crime: The couple is offering a $10,000 reward for return of their beloved pet. ‘It’s like we lost our kid,’ the woman says.

Two months ago, William and Irene Anderson were tied up and gagged with duct tape while their home was ransacked by a robber in a ski mask who emerged from their bedroom closet.

The ordeal hasn’t ended there for the elderly couple who live near Universal City. Along with $30,000 worth of jewelry, something much more valuable to the Andersons was stolen--their 4-year-old Scottish terrier.

According to Irene Anderson, 66, the robber demanded $15,000 in ransom for “Mr. Beasley” while he was still at their home on April 28 and followed up during the next 10 days with two ransom notes and a telephone call. Now the police investigation is stalled and the Andersons, who have heard nothing more from the dognaper, are offering a $10,000 reward for the return of their pet--no questions asked.

“I’d have given them anything not to take my dog, anything they wanted,” said William Anderson, 97, a retired lighting technician who has worked on such pictures as “Some Like It Hot” and TV shows such as “Gilligan’s Island” during a long Hollywood career.

“We’re so brokenhearted over this dog,” said his wife. “It’s like we lost our kid.”

Ironically, the dog sensed something was up before the ordeal began that afternoon in April. “I had just come home and was lying down on the bed when I noticed Mr. Beasley sniffing at the closet,” Irene Anderson said.

After her husband and the couple’s driver had entered the bedroom to take the dog for a walk, the robber, wearing a ski mask and armed with a handgun, burst out of the closet. He tied up all three of them before taking Irene Anderson’s jewelry and cameras belonging to her husband.

The robber had a parting shot.

“He said he would like to have $15,000 in ransom money for the dog which he would pick up from our mailbox the next day,” Irene Anderson said. He then put the leash around the dog and dragged it out of the home. The couple’s driver wriggled free from his ties in time to see the robber bundle the dog into a Chevrolet Monte Carlo and speed off.

According to Irene Anderson, plainclothes police officers put some fake money in the mailbox the next day and waited for the dognaper to show up. No one ever did. The couple then received a ransom note that demanded $15,000 in cash “or I’ll take your dog (sic) life.”

A second note told them to hand over the ransom at a fast-food restaurant in El Monte but no exchange was made. “Beasly (sic) still fine, but he need you, Senora,” the note said. The Andersons also received a telephone call in which the caller said only, “Elysian Park, 11 o’clock.”

Detective Mike Thrasher of the Los Angeles Police Department’s Hollywood Division said the investigation of the Anderson robbery “at this point is still open, but we have no leads.” He added: “There were some ransom demands (for the dog) which we followed up and no one ever showed.”

The unsuccessful search for Beasley has been grueling for his owners. William Anderson had to be hospitalized because of the anxiety. “I still cry over it,” he said.

With the police inquiry languishing, the Andersons have tried several other ways of retrieving their pet--from circulating posters made by a pet-finding service in San Jose called Sherlock Bones to hiring a private detective.

The Andersons offered a $1,000 reward on the posters. Now they are offering 10 times that. “We’re just so desperate to get him back,” Irene Anderson said. “We don’t care about having anyone arrested for this. Absolutely no questions will be asked,” she added.

Anyone with information about the dog, which has a distinguishing pea-sized bump on his head, should call Sam McDonald, a friend of the Andersons, at (818) 848-7966.