Pair plead not guilty in Carnation slayings

As she waited for her sister to enter a King County courtroom Thursday morning, Mary Anderson closed her eyes, clasped her hands beneath her trembling chin and slowly exhaled.

When Michele Kristen Anderson was led in by jail guards, Mary Anderson began to shake and cry from behind the bulletproof window separating her and dozens of friends and family members from the two suspects accused of slaying six members of the sisters' family on Christmas Eve.

Michele Anderson and her boyfriend Joseph McEnroe, both 29, each pleaded not guilty to six counts of aggravated murder in the six slayings.

Mary Anderson clenched her fists and slowly shook her head. "That doesn't mean they're going to get away with it," she told her family and friends surrounding her at the arraignment.

Michele Anderson and McEnroe could face the death penalty if convicted of killing Anderson's parents, Wayne Anderson, 60, and Judith, 61; her brother, Scott; his wife, Erica; and the couple's two children, Olivia, 5, and Nathan, 3, inside the elder Andersons' Carnation home.

King County Prosecuting Attorney Dan Satterberg has 30 days from the arraignment to decide whether to seek the death penalty for the two, who are being held without bail. They will return to court Jan. 29.

The suspects were dressed in street clothes and free of handcuffs after Judge Cheryl Carey ruled this week that appearing in their High Security Inmate uniforms and restraints could prejudice a future jury.

McEnroe and Anderson stood separated, flanked by their attorneys, as Senior Deputy Prosecuting Attorney James Konat began to read aloud the charges against them, one by one.

When Michele Anderson was asked to confirm her legal name, she could barely be heard in the hushed courtroom and was told to answer again. "Yes," she murmured in the same faint voice she would use throughout the hearing.

She was then asked whether she understood the charge of murder for each victim. "Yes," she said when asked if she understood she was accused of killing her father. "Yes," she said again for her mother, her brother and his wife, her niece and, finally, her nephew, the last one to be shot in the head inside the rural home.

McEnroe was also read the charges against him one by one, and answered "yes" to the questions in a clear, low voice. Mary Anderson's son, Ben Anderson, began to sob and grabbed for his mother's hand. "Be strong," she mouthed as tears ran down her face.

As the charges for killing Olivia and Nathan were read, Erica Anderson's relatives began to cry more loudly and glared at McEnroe, whose previously long, shaggy hair was freshly cropped.

His defense attorney, C. Wesley Richards, who later said it was too early to discuss the case publicly, entered the not-guilty pleas on his behalf.

Police say Michele Anderson and McEnroe armed themselves with handguns just before 5 p.m. on Christmas Eve, entered the home of her parents as they were wrapping presents and preparing for a family dinner, and fatally shot them.

When Scott and Erica Anderson and their children arrived a short while later, they were shot and killed as well. According to police, after she watched her husband die, Erica begged her sister-in-law and McEnroe not to kill her or her children and managed to dial 911 before McEnroe tore the phone away from her.

Charging documents say McEnroe then shot her to death before turning the gun on the children.

Michele Anderson reportedly told police she was tired "of everybody stepping on her." She also reportedly told police she had decided if her family did not start showing her respect by Dec. 24, she would kill them all. Anderson also was angry that her parents were pressuring her to pay rent for the trailer she shared with McEnroe on the elder Andersons' wooded Carnation property, she told police.

Natalie Singer: 206-464-2704 or nsinger@seattletimes.com