By Nancy Huddleston

A jury of five women and seven men found the man who has been dubbed the “Craigslist killer” guilty on all charges against him, including first-degree, premeditated murder. He now faces the possibility of life in prison.

Michael John Anderson, 20, of Savage, was accused of killing Katherine Ann Olson, 24, of Cottage Grove on Oct. 25, 2007, at his parents’ home in downtown Savage after she answered a fake babysitting ad on Craigslist. He showed no emotion when the jury’s verdicts were read at 10:20 p.m. Tuesday night in Scott County District Court.

He was not only found guilty of first-degree murder, but he was also found guilty of the lesser charges of second-degree murder, which carries a maximum sentence of 40 years in prison, and second-degree manslaughter, which has a maximum 10-year sentence.

A large contingent representing the family and friends of Olson sat silently in three rows of the courtroom and many wept as the verdicts were being read. They also enveloped Olson’s parents, Rolf and Nancy Olson, and her siblings, Sarah and Karl, in a sea of outstretched arms and hugs after the decision was reached.

Sentencing is scheduled for Wednesday morning at 10:30 a.m. in Courtroom 5 of the Scott County Courthouse. Judge Mary Theisen will take victim impact statements from the family of Olson before handing down a sentence against Anderson.

Olson was killed in October 2007 after she answered a Craigslist Web ad for a babysitter. Anderson placed the ad by posing as a woman named “Amy,” who’d just moved into town and needed someone to watch her 5-year-old child. Prosecutors said Anderson lured Olson to his parents’ home in downtown Savage to kill her and she was shot in the back as she tried to get away from him.

Defense attorneys stipulated several times during the trial and pre-trial that Anderson held the gun when it went off and killed Olson. But they described Anderson as “a dumb kid” who lured Olson to his parents’ home with “sexual intent, not murderous intent.”

Closing arguments

The jury deliberated for almost six hours after they sat through five hours of closing arguments that took place in a courtroom that was packed with spectators. Most of the people in attendance were friends and family of Olson and they were wearing purple clothing, Katherine’s favorite color.

Lead Defense Attorney Alan Margoles did his best to convince the jury that Anderson did not intend to kill Olson when she showed up at his parents’ home.

He offered four probable scenarios of what happened:

+ Anderson shot Olson to stop her and keep her there because she was fleeing from him;
+ The shooting was accidental and occurred due to the force of inertia when Anderson possibly tripped, causing an involuntary firing of the gun;
+ The shooting was accidental due to a sympathetic clenching of the trigger that might have happened because Anderson was trying to hold back his rambunctious 75-pound dog who wanted to be around him and a new visitor in the house;
+ Or, the shooting was accidental because it was a reflexive reaction because Anderson reacted to something else happening around him.

Chief Prosecuting Attorney Ron Hocevar said Margoles’ theories were not valid. “These are just theories; the evidence is not there,” he said in his rebuttal. “If you review all the evidence and the testimony, you’ll see that.”

As to the defense team’s assertion that Anderson lived in a fantasy world of video games and the Internet and was not capable of plotting to kill someone, Hocevar pointed to the evidence.

“The defense wants you to believe the defendant lived in an unreal world,” he said, “But he killed Katherine and when you kill someone you can’t just hit the reset button and she comes back to life.”

Hocevar also said there was no evidence that Anderson never had sex and intended to have sex with Olson after she answered the babysitting ad. Nor was there any evidence that suggested that it was Olson herself who tied the twine around her foot before she was killed and tried to flee before Anderson made her tie the twine around her other foot.

“If Katherine was fleeing, do you blame her,” he asked the jury.
“The theory that Katherine tied the twine is just a theory,” Hocevar said, “The defendant tied the twine to her right ankle and wrapped it around her other leg to make it easy to carry her out of the house.”

Hocevar used crime scene photos and evidence about Olson’s death to drive his point home.

“These exhibits speak a thousand words,” he said as he showed the jury a picture of Olson as she was found in the trunk of her car in Rudy Kraemer Park Preserve in Burnsville. “Katherine was alive. Look at the location of the sleeping bag and the location of her hands.
“He wraps her in a sleeping bag to get her out of the house, thinking she’s presumably dead,” he continued. “But look at her hands – they are pushing down the sleeping bag off her body.
“Look at the curl (of hair) in her fingers,” he went on, “That doesn’t just happen. It’s not a mistake. You don’t get hair wrapped in your finger when you’re being thrown in the trunk of your car. She was doing it intentionally as she lay there dying.”

Hocevar also said Anderson’s reaction to being picked up by police regarding Olson’s disappearance was to deny he knew her. Then when confronted with information gathered from Olson’s and Anderson’s e-mail exchanges about the babysitting job and the cell phone records that showed she called him just before she arrived at his house, Anderson changed his story and blamed a friend.

Then, Hocevar charged, after Anderson was in prison he bragged about being the “Craigslist killer” to other inmates. And when asked why he didn’t just plead insanity, Anderson reportedly said: “Then I’d have to pretend I was sorry,” and smiled.

Anderson’s defense team did not call any witnesses during the six-day trial and did not put Anderson on the stand. Instead, they admitted that Anderson killed Olson, but hammered home to the jury their belief that he never intended to kill her. And they said he lured Olson to the home with “some odd notion of romance;” yet when Olson arrived he didn’t have a plan of what to do.

Margoles poked holes in the state’s evidence, saying it was not a case of “who done it;” rather it was a case of “why and how did he did it.”

He asserted that Anderson was an “unemotional, clumsy kid with no social skills” and very little experience with girls. “He used the Internet in place of social skills,” he said, “He posed as Amy and others like he would if playing a role in a video game.

“This young man lived on the Internet when not playing video games or working,” Margoles said, “He lived in an unreal world.”

In fact, when he used a babysitting ad to lure women to his home, Anderson was simply mimicking other Craiglist ads, his attorney said. “He had no idea of how to properly address others. His world was almost as devoid of emotion as his computer. He wanted romance and sex, but he didn’t know how to get it.

“This was bizarre, odd, unfortunate and pitiful,” Margoles continued, “But in his mind, he was following in the footsteps of his sister, who met her husband on the Internet, and his brother, who met his girlfriend on the Internet.”

Margoles concluded that Anderson might have been bizarre, but he was not mean, angry or evil. Therefore, he implored the jury to find Anderson guilty of second-degree manslaughter – culpable negligence, because Anderson did act in a reckless manner and put others in harm’s way when he shot the gun.

“Mike Anderson is a man who lives within himself,” he said, “He has limited emotions and lives in a different world. Mr. Anderson caused Miss Olson’s death and you should convict him of manslaughter.”
Reaction to verdict

After the verdict was read, Margoles and Defense Lawyer Robert Speeter said their case was hampered by the fact that they were not allowed to bring Anderson’s diagnosis of Asperger’s syndrome into the courtroom.

“We would have had a different verdict because Asperger’s would have explained it all,” Margoles said, “It makes the unbelievable, believable.”

Speeter said there is an automatic appeal process on a first-degree murder conviction and they’d like to appeal and continue the fight to have Asperger’s syndrome considered as a way to explain Anderson’s actions.

“It is the glue that holds all of this together,” Speeter said of Asperger’s. “But Minnesota law is tough on these types of defenses and especially in a first-degree case.

Asperger’s is a developmental disorder and a form of autism that is characterized by clumsiness and a lack of social skills.

Hocevar said he knew the Scott County Attorney’s Office had a strong case. “Law enforcement did a marvelous job and we had good evidence to back up our case,” he said.

When asked about what clinched the case for the state, Hocevar noted: “There was not one exact lynchpin. It was a collection of the evidence as a whole that gave an overwhelming consideration to how he did it and what he did.”

Katherine Olson’s family gathered together to listen to Rolf Olson read a statement about the verdict in front of a grouping of pictures of her.

“The past year has not been easy for us, but the criminal justice system has paid out and we are pleased with the outcome and that justice has been served,” Rolf Olson said.

He characterized the family’s reaction to the verdict as “mostly sad.” “We’re glad justice was reached … but we’re also sad that we have to be here at all.”

Nancy Olson said now that a verdict has been handed down, the family can finally begin to heal. “We’ve had this albatross tied around our necks for 17 months and now we can begin to heal,” she said.

Rolf Olson said being at the trial and other legal proceedings was their “last act of parenting for our wonderful daughter, Katherine. It was important that we be here for her with her loving family.”
Steven and Barbara Anderson declined to comment to the media.

Nancy Huddleston can be reached at editor@savagepacer.com.