Larisa Dumansky's Murder
In 1991, Larisa, 29, and Bill Dumansky moved to South Dakota from the Ukraine. They were eager to start a new life in the United States and they both began working for the John Morrell & Co. meat packing plant. Eventually, Bill found work elsewhere, but Larisa remained at the company mostly working the night shift. It was there that she befriended the plant’s maintenance man, Robert Leroy Anderson.
Glen Walker
Like with Hammer,
Anderson confided his violent murder fantasies to his lifelong friend, Glen Walker, who shared a common interest. They both wanted to experience what it would be like to abduct a woman and then kill her. Together, they devised an elaborate plan to kidnap
Larisa.
Anderson had been stalking her for several months.
Anderson and Walker put “wheel poppers” in the road specifically to damage Larisa’s tires, hoping to abduct her after she stopped. However, their plan didn’t initially work out the way they hoped. Larisa did experience many flat tires. Yet, she never stopped her car in an isolated place, which made it difficult to abduct her because of the risk that they would get caught. Instead, they decided to try another method.
On August 26th, Anderson approached Larisa in the parking lot where they worked. He held her at knifepoint and ordered her into his vehicle. Then Anderson and Walker drove Larisa to Lake Vermillion. When they arrived at the lake, Walker watched as Anderson dragged Larisa out of the car and raped her several times. According to Hazelwood and Michaud, Larisa pleaded desperately for her life but Anderson ignored her.
During testimony given by Walker several years after the incident, he informed police that Anderson suffocated Larisa with duct tape and then buried her remains beneath a chokecherry bush. At the time of Larisa’s death she was approximately six weeks pregnant.
Shortly after Anderson was convicted for the kidnapping of Piper in 1997, Walker confessed to police that he was an accomplice in the abduction of Larisa. He told them that he and Anderson methodically planned and carried out the kidnapping, but he claimed that he was not involved in her rape or murder. He also said that he would show the police the location of Larisa’s body.
On May 20th of that year, Walker led the police to Larisa’s shallow unmarked grave at Lake Vermillion. When they dug up her remains they realized that portions of her skeleton were missing. A 1999 Midwest News article stated that forensic experts recovered a total of 57 items related to Larisa, which included a tooth, a rib, the bones from the left and right wrist, several fingers, a right foot and ankle, several fingernails and jaw and throat bones. Moreover, they found at and near the grave a pair of work gloves, shell casings and bullets, Larisa’s shoes, a part of her belt, jewelry and pieces of her clothing.
The authorities were baffled as to why only part of Larisa’s body was present in the grave. There were no signs that large animals disturbed the site because it was neatly covered over. The police would get their explanation from an unlikely source several months later.
