A southwestern Indiana man has become the third person to plead guilty in connection with the death of a disabled Virginia woman whose body was found buried beneath a garage last year.
Gary Wayne Anderson, 57, pleaded guilty Tuesday to a felony charge of assisting a criminal. In exchange, prosecutors dismissed several charges he had faced, including murder and battery in the death of Evonne Pullen, 29, of Winchester, Virginia.
His co-defendants, Joan Paul, 56, and her daughter, Angela Paul, 32, each pleaded guilty in July to neglect of a dependent causing death in Pullen's death, the Evansville Courier & Press reported. Prosecutors also agreed to dismiss murder and other charges they had faced.
Anderson and the Pauls were arrested in November 2019 shortly after Anderson, who was Joan Paul’s boyfriend, told police where Pullen’s body was located.
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Police found Pullen’s remains wrapped in a tarp under the garage floor of a home in Evansville.
She was reported missing by a family member in Virginia in July 2018 and was last seen that September. The Evansville Police Department opened a missing persons case but received few leads.
The defendants told police that Pullen drowned after being sprayed with a kitchen sink nozzle, although their stories differed regarding who was the killer. An autopsy determined that Pullen died of blunt force trauma.
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Pullen reportedly met Angela Paul at a shelter in Virginia and moved to Evansville to live with her family. Anderson told police the younger Paul brought the woman to Indiana to take her disability checks, which stopped being collected immediately after the woman’s death.
Anderson and the Pauls will be sentenced Aug. 20.
