Carmina Nina Ilch Anderson, known as Nina, was 42 when she was shot to death at a small mobile home in Stratton Park, just outside Fort Collins, Colorado. She and Charles LeRoy Anderson had married on February 12, 1973; nine days later, on the night of February 21, 1973, neighbors later found a figure covered by a white sheet in the couple’s home. Nina’s two youngest daughters, Lisa and Paula, were in the residence that night; Lisa, then ten, later became the persistent advocate who challenged the original ruling.

The death was initially ruled accidental after Chuck Anderson said a .22-caliber revolver discharged while they were handling it; he sustained a non-fatal gunshot wound to his hand. Decades later the Larimer County coroner amended the cause of death to suspicious for homicide in 1996. A renewed inquiry followed publicity in 2002, and Chuck Anderson was arrested in March 2003. He confessed to shooting Nina and, under a plea agreement governed by laws in effect in 1973, was charged with manslaughter and received a one-year sentence.

Are there readers who remember the Stratton Park community at that time or who can add details about how the case was handled in the years after 1973?