A lawsuit against Caldwell County Sheriff Alan Jones and some of his investigators by a man they arrested in 2006 and charged with killing his wife, was expanded with additional details and filed Wednesday.
Jerry Anderson spent a year and a half in the Caldwell County jail before being acquitted of killing his wife, Emily Griffis Anderson. He first filed a lawsuit with the North Carolina District Court in March 2009 before withdrawing it the following month.
He filed a nearly identical suit with the U.S. District Court on Nov. 20.
Anderson's lawyer, Robert Elliot said he expects federal judges to be better versed in the laws addressed in his client's suit.
"It's a huge case," he said. "The man had a profitable dairy business in Caldwell County and was totally wiped out. … His damages have been substantial and some cannot be compensated."
Anderson was in jail for 18 months, his reputation may have been damaged beyond repair, his wife was murdered and her killer is still free, Elliot said.
Anderson's primary reason for filing the lawsuit is to vindicate himself and to honor the memory of his wife, Elliot said.
The lawsuit, filed in Buncombe County, names Jeffery Lee Stafford, Brian Anthony Bennett and Shelly Hartley, Christopher Brackett and Tracy Pyle as Jones' co-defendants.
Emily Anderson was reported missing Dec. 29, 2005. Caldwell officers found her white pickup truck at a Waffle House restaurant off Interstate 85 near Duncan, S.C. They had it towed back to Caldwell County where the tow truck driver discovered her body inside the toolbox in the bed of the truck.
Anderson became the main suspect in the murder when investigators learned he was named as the beneficiary of his wife's insurance policies taken out months before the murder. Anderson's lawyer said the insurance policies were taken out to secure the loans required to move his farming operation from Caldwell County to Tennessee.
Elliot called it a "results-oriented investigation" conducted against an innocent man by a law enforcement agency in desperate need of a suspect and an arrest because Sheriff Gary Clark was up for election.
Anderson was acquitted when the jury deadlocked 11-1 with 11 jurors voting that he was not guilty of first-degree murder. They reached their conclusion July 20, 2007, after a nine-week trial.
Alan Jones was not sheriff during the investigation and arrest. He was appointed to fill the remainder of Sheriff Gary Clark's term after he died Feb. 2, 2007.
Jones was named in the lawsuit for allegedly allowing investigators under his command to lie and fabricate evidence in an effort to convict Anderson after Clark's death.
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