The 1982 Cold Case of Anne Pham has been Solved
The 40-year-old cold case of the kidnapping, assault, and murder of five-year-old Anne Pham was solved last week in Monterey California using DNA evidence. The perpetrator, now in his 70s, has been taken into custody in Nevada, waiting to be extradited to California for trial.
On January 21, 1982, Pham went missing after walking to Highland Elementary School in Seaside California. According to NPR, her body was found two days later, showing signs of being sexually assaulted and her cause of death being strangulation. The newly identified perpetrator is Robert John Lanoue. Lanoue, now a registered sex offender, was 29 years old at the time of the kidnapping and murder, living nearby Pham’s home.
According to CBS, Pham’s case was reopened in 2020 when Monterey County’s District Attorney’s Cold Case Task Force submitted DNA taken from the crime for additional testing that was unavailable to original investigators, most likely some form of a genealogy test from Seaside’s police chief’s comments. Lanoue will be charged with one count of first-degree murder, with the additional special circumstances to his punishment of this murder taking place during a kidnapping and after performing a vulgar act on a child.
