Mark Anderson, Tiereney Nicole Anderson
More than three years after Tiereney Nicole Anderson was shot and killed at the age of 34, a jury in Harris County, Texas, found her husband guilty of murder. The Harris County District Attorney’s Office said that Mark Anderson, 36, not only committed the slaying but also shot himself at the crime scene in a transparent effort to blame the victim for her own death.
The defendant’s trial, which lasted a week, ended with jurors concluding that Anderson shot himself and called 911 to make it seem as if his wife’s death was merely the result of self-defense during an argument. District Attorney Kim Ogg said in a statement, however, that jurors “saw through” the defendant’s “obvious ploy” and correctly held him to account.
“This man not only killed the woman he had sworn to love and cherish, but he faked a crime scene to make it seem like it was her fault,” Ogg said. “We’re glad that the jurors saw through this obvious ploy to escape accountability and decided to put him behind bars for decades where he won’t be able to hurt any more women.”
Mark Anderson was sentenced Friday to 38 years in prison.
Authorities said that the defendant murdered the victim with a .40-caliber pistol at their Houston home on Aug. 4, 2019.
The DA credited Assistant District Attorney Anthony Osso for the successful prosecution.
Osso reportedly said there was evidence that the convicted killer had long abused Tiereney Nicole Anderson and threatened to shoot her in the head just months before he shot her in the chest. What’s more, Osso reportedly said, Anderson’s initial story about what took place changed.
“He abused her for 10 years before this happened, and he even threatened to shoot her in the head just three months before he actually killed her,” Osso said, according to KTRK. “His first story to police was that he shot himself, and that’s what you have to believe because he wanted to cover up the crime scene.”
Reports said that the defendant’s revised version of events for authorities didn’t add up either. During a walkthrough of the crime scene several weeks after the murder, Mark Anderson’s story about how the shooting happened reportedly changed and did not line up with the evidence at the scene, prosecutors said.
Jail records in Harris County reviewed by Law&Crime say that Mark Anderson was originally booked for murder on April 21, 2022. He learned his fate just under a year later.
[Images via Harris County DA’s Office]