By Jean Cole
jean@athensnews-courier.com
— Athens Police have charged an Athens man — Lamar Wallace Anderson — with murdering his former girlfriend, who was found dead Sunday in a classroom at the old Trinity School in southwest Athens.
The victim, 26-year-old Wendy Defoe, also known as Wendy Bond, had obtained a protection-from-abuse order against Anderson in January, records show.
“They had been boyfriend and girlfriend and may have lived with each other at one time,” Capt. Floyd Johnson said. “We haven’t verified that.”
Anderson had been arrested “several times for a variety of crimes,” Johnson said. Court records show he pleaded guilty to assaulting a man in 1994.
Johnson declined to disclose how Anderson allegedly killed Defoe, and he said he did not know the motive at this time.
Investigators Johnny Campbell and Chris Slaton arrested Anderson, 45, of 18078 East Limestone Road, Lot D, on Monday morning on two charges — murder and violating a protection order. He was booked at the Police Department and was transferred to the Limestone County Jail. No bail has been set.
Police found the body of a white woman around noon Sunday inside a boarded-up classroom in what was once Limestone County’s only all-black high school. The school campus is located on six acres between Brownsferry Street and Westview Avenue.
“A guy was walking through there about 12:30 p.m. and saw a coat and a purse (on the baseball field in the rear of Lincoln-Bridgeforth Park near the historic school), and he called police,” Johnson said. “Officers Daniel McNatt and Greg Parnell responded and started looking. When they saw the stuff on the ground and tracks, they thought there had been a struggle there, so they went to see if they could find anything else.”
The officers found the body in the rear of the building facing Westview Avenue.
Johnson would not disclose the cause of death except to say Defoe was murdered and that her death was probably not due to gunshot.
Limestone County Coroner Mike West said the body was taken to the forensics lab in Huntsville, where the cause will be determined.
After discovering and identifying the body, police officers began combing the area and talking to residents.
“We wanted to see who she had problems with,” Johnson said. “Anderson’s name surfaced and he kept coming up as a suspect. Every person we talked to referred us to him.”
Through questioning, police learned Anderson had been looking for Defoe.
“She had been out of town and he heard she was back in town, so he started looking for her,” Johnson said.
When Defoe was last seen about 8:30 p.m. Saturday night, she was with Anderson in the area around Hine and Plato Jones streets, he said.
“Apparently something happened there (at the park) and then they went up in the school,” Johnson said.
Anderson turned himself in to police Sunday night after learning officers were looking for him “as a person of interest” in the case, he said.
City Councilman Jimmy Gill told fellow council members at Monday’s meeting he was saddened by the murder. He said he grew up in the area near Trinity High School. He said there are good people living in the area, and that Saturday’s violence does not represent Trinity School or the people near there.
Trinity school turned out many accomplished citizens before it closed in 1970 after the Supreme Court ruled schools should be integrated. In the years since its closing, the buildings have decayed. Windows are boarded up, but some doors can still be opened. Last year, a transient started a fire in one of the classrooms, apparently while trying to keep warm.
A group of Trinity alumni and other citizens have devised a plan and are raising money to try to restore buildings for use as a museum. The historic school site is also where Fort Henderson stood during the Civil War.
Johnson commended his officers for their work in the case along with crime-scene units from the Madison County Sheriff’s Department and the Madison Police Department. The sheriff’s department brought to the scene equipment that allowed police to create a digital diorama of the murder scene. Johnson also thanked the Alabama Department of Forensics Sciences for its help in the case.
Funeral arrangements for Defoe are pending at Limestone Chapel Funeral Home.
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