Sandra Anderson
Appearances
Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Her Famous Cadaver Dog Was Fake - The Sandra Anderson story
So this woman and this dog, they get famous by pulling one of the craziest scams I've ever talked about. And there are a whole lot of dead bodies involved in this scheme. Now the woman, her name's Sandra. And Sandra is a dog trainer. And one day, she adopts this Doberman crossbreed from the pound. And his name is Eagle.
Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Her Famous Cadaver Dog Was Fake - The Sandra Anderson story
And pretty quickly, Eagle, boom, he sniffs out some bones. And everyone's all excited like, oh, the dog found some bones. This could be a lead. So they stop the search for a few months and they go and they forensic test the bones. But unfortunately, those DNA tests find that the bones belong to not the victim of the crime they're investigating, but they belong to three other random people.
Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Her Famous Cadaver Dog Was Fake - The Sandra Anderson story
People not involved in this case at all. So police are like, well, that's weird. Why are multiple random strangers bones out here? Did we just discover the dumping grounds of a serial killer? So then they resume the search. Now, one of the officers working on this case is this guy, Mark David.
Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Her Famous Cadaver Dog Was Fake - The Sandra Anderson story
And Mark David has been personally trying to solve this murder for 20 years and he is super invested in it. And on the first day they go back to searching, he's out there in the forest with the search crew and he's searching his ass off and he can't find anything.
Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Her Famous Cadaver Dog Was Fake - The Sandra Anderson story
But then he looks over at Sandra and Eagle, and he sees Sandra reach down for her pant leg, almost like she's tucking it in her boot or something. And immediately after that, Eagle is signaling that he found something. So they go and they check it out, and it's another bone. And Mark David is like, that's weird. I was just on my hands and knees searching that area.
Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Her Famous Cadaver Dog Was Fake - The Sandra Anderson story
There was no bone there, and now there suddenly is? So, Mark David, he starts getting suspicious, and he starts thinking to himself, wait a minute, what if Eagle isn't finding these bones at all? What if Sandra is planting all the bones there? Now, this is a big accusation to make, and Mark David, he doesn't want to just accuse anyone of anything. He doesn't even have proof.
Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Her Famous Cadaver Dog Was Fake - The Sandra Anderson story
So Sandra starts training Eagle to become a cadaver sniffing dog, which is one of those dogs that helps police solve cold cases by sniffing out human remains. So she trains Eagle and Eagle happens to be really good at cadaver sniffing. He goes out and he starts sniffing around and he helps police solve case after case after case. And he starts getting known as one of the best in the business.
Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Her Famous Cadaver Dog Was Fake - The Sandra Anderson story
So, he and two forensic technicians also working on the case, this guy, John, and this woman, Jenny. John, Jenny, and Mark David, they all three decide to just keep a close eye on Sandra while they all search. Then, the next day, they go back out into the woods to look for more human remains. And at one point, they're all searching near a small stream. And Sandra, she bends down.
Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Her Famous Cadaver Dog Was Fake - The Sandra Anderson story
And she low-key starts taking something out of her boot. And Jenny, who's been watching Sandra closely, she notices. And suddenly, bam, she reaches over and she grabs Sandra's closed fist. And Sandra's like, what the hell? And the two struggle back and forth. And Sandra refuses to let go of whatever it is that she's holding.
Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Her Famous Cadaver Dog Was Fake - The Sandra Anderson story
And finally, they force open Sandra's hand and she's holding a human bone. A bone that she was about to plant for Eagle to find. So it turns out that Eagle, he's a fine cadaver dog. He's as good as any other.
Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Her Famous Cadaver Dog Was Fake - The Sandra Anderson story
But Sandra had been planting evidence at all these crime scenes like bones and human remains for Eagle to find because she's been trying to make him look more talented at his job than he actually is. Now, cadaver dog trainers have access to some human remains and bones and stuff that they get from forensics labs so that they can train their cadaver dogs.
Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Her Famous Cadaver Dog Was Fake - The Sandra Anderson story
That's how she has all these bones to just plant. And so Sandra has just been taking these remains and planting them at crime scenes and just faking it. Not just in this case, but on a lot of the cases she and Eagle have done over the past 10 years. It's not even clear when she started planting the evidence or why she even did it.
Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Her Famous Cadaver Dog Was Fake - The Sandra Anderson story
She and Eagle were known as the best in the business, so I guess she just liked the attention. And at this time in the world, police wouldn't just DNA test every single bone fragment found at a crime scene. They would assume that it belonged to the victim. So Sandra had been getting away with this for years. Anyway, so Mark, John, and Jenny, they report Sandra to the FBI.
Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Her Famous Cadaver Dog Was Fake - The Sandra Anderson story
And the FBI immediately steps in, and they search Sandra's car, and that's where they find a bag of human bones. Then they get a search warrant, and they search her home, and then they find yet another bag of human bones. Girl's got a lot of bones. And so then pow, they arrest her. And I don't have a mugshot of her, but here is her and Eagle in real life.
Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Her Famous Cadaver Dog Was Fake - The Sandra Anderson story
And she's charged with falsifying material facts and a bunch of other stuff, and she takes a plea deal, and she's sentenced to 21 months in prison, and she's ordered to pay back over $14,000 in restitution. While Eagle, he wasn't charged with anything. That little jerk got off scot-free. Bad dog.
Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Her Famous Cadaver Dog Was Fake - The Sandra Anderson story
In fact, he's so good at it that Sandra and Eagle start getting invited to speak at conferences. They get invited to do work in Bosnia and Panama to look for victims of political violence that happened there. They get invited to Ground Zero in New York City to help look for missing people after the September 11th attacks. They even get featured on an episode of the TV show Unsolved Mysteries.
Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Her Famous Cadaver Dog Was Fake - The Sandra Anderson story
And so pretty quickly, people are looking at Eagle like, damn, he's really good at this. How'd he do that? He must have had a really talented trainer. Until... So 10 years go by, and Sandra and Eagle are still at the top of their game, solving cold cases left and right. But then one day, the FBI and local police, they asked Sandra and Eagle to help them solve a murder that had gone cold.
Ray William Johnson: True Story Podcast
Her Famous Cadaver Dog Was Fake - The Sandra Anderson story
And this particular murder case is a cold case where they've been looking through a large area of the woods for over 20 years, trying to find remains of this missing woman, who they suspect had been unalived and dumped there. So Sandra and Eagle and everyone working on this case, they all get together and they start searching through these woods.