Anthony Pardon: Murder of Rachael Anderson, Trial, Sentence, and Appeal

Anthony Pardon is an Ohio man convicted in February 2020 of the aggravated murder, rape, kidnapping, aggravated burglary, and aggravated robbery of 24-year-old Rachael Anderson in Columbus. A registered sex offender with a violent record dating to 1982, he is serving two consecutive life sentences without parole plus 63 additional years at Allen Correctional Institution.¹

The Killing of Rachael Anderson

Rachael Nicoletta Anderson, born January 28, 1994, was a funeral director and embalmer at Shaw-Davis Funeral Homes who had moved to Columbus in May 2017 after earning her degree from the Cincinnati College of Mortuary Science.² She lived alone in a two-story apartment on Allegheny Street on the east side of the city.

Her last known phone communication was at 6:30 p.m. on Sunday, January 28, 2018, her 24th birthday. When she failed to appear at work the next morning, a coworker went to check on her but left without finding her. A friend with a spare key returned later and discovered her body in an upstairs bedroom closet. She had been bound, gagged, sexually assaulted, and killed by ligature strangulation, with stab wounds to her head and neck.³

How Investigators Identified Him

Anderson’s debit card was missing, and that was the thread investigators pulled first. Surveillance footage captured a man using the card at multiple locations starting the night of the murder, with a driver waiting in the car. The passenger in the footage was Anthony Sleet, a panhandler who told police a stranger had recruited him with offers of money and hotel rooms in exchange for using the card. Sleet died later that year, before trial.³

The forensic evidence pointed to Pardon. Y-STR DNA profiles from swabs taken from Anderson’s body and from the cords used to bind her matched him. Franklin County Prosecutor Ron O’Brien said Anderson’s rape kit “turned up no DNA other than Pardon’s.”⁴ Cell tower and Wi-Fi records placed his phone in the immediate vicinity of Anderson’s apartment between 8:04 p.m. and 9:25 p.m. the night she was killed.⁵

Pardon was arrested as he left his sister’s home. A search of the car turned up a baseball hat, gloves, clothing, a cell phone, a knife, and an air pistol. Inside the residence, investigators found clothing with Citi Trends tags and casino receipts.³

A Long Record of Violence

Pardon had been in and out of prison since he was a teenager. On May 4, 1982, he pleaded guilty in Ohio to aggravated robbery, attempted murder, aggravated assault, and rape. He served about 24 years and was released in 2006.⁶⁷

Unable to find work in Ohio, he moved to Georgia in late 2006 or early 2007, where he applied for an apartment and a maintenance job under the alias “Anthony Bohanan” using a fraudulent driver’s license. His Social Security number tied him back to his Ohio sex-offender registration, and he was arrested in February 2007. A Georgia jury later convicted him of two counts of failing to register as a sex offender and two counts of first-degree forgery.⁶ He served more than nine years in Georgia before being released in June 2017.⁸

He returned to Columbus that same month and registered as a sexual predator with the Franklin County Sheriff’s Office, with additional registrations in September and December 2017.⁸ Anderson was killed roughly seven months later.

The Trial

The case was tried in Franklin County Common Pleas Court before Judge Stephen L. McIntosh. Ron O’Brien led the prosecution, assisted by Jennifer Rausch and Amy Van Culin; Isabella Dixon represented Pardon.⁹¹⁰

Over five days, prosecutors called 14 witnesses and rested the case on three sets of proof. Pardon’s DNA was on the cords binding Anderson’s ankles, on her thigh and wrist, and on swabs from the sexual assault examination. Phone location data and email account records put him in or near her apartment for about 90 minutes on the night of the killing. And financial records with surveillance footage traced Anderson’s stolen debit card to Pardon and his sister.⁹

Deborah Pardon, Anthony’s sister, testified that he had given her the debit card along with the PIN and that she initially thought it belonged to his girlfriend, who shared Anderson’s last name. She identified herself and her brother in footage from a clothing store, a shoe store, a Kroger, and a casino the day after the murder, and said she realized the truth after hearing a news report naming the victim. “I kind of panicked ’cause I knew I was in some kind of trouble,” she told jurors. Investigators confirmed she would not be charged so long as her testimony was truthful.⁵

On February 13, 2020, the jury convicted Pardon on every count.⁹

The Sentence

Because the aggravated murder charge carried a possible death sentence, the case moved to a penalty phase. The jury recommended life without parole rather than death. Dixon told the court her client’s crimes were “the result of extreme physical neglect and extreme emotional neglect” and noted that “most people, at least in this day and time, are just not in favor of the death penalty.” O’Brien said he accepted the outcome, adding that “Anthony Pardon should die in prison and he will die in prison so as not to prey on another young woman or any person.”¹⁰

Judge McIntosh imposed the sentence on March 17, 2020.¹¹ After merging the aggravated murder counts, the court ordered the remaining terms to run consecutively:

Aggravated murder: life without parole.
Rape: life without parole, with a sexually violent predator finding.
Aggravated burglary: 11 years, plus 10 mandatory consecutive years as a repeat violent offender.
Kidnapping: 11 years, plus 10 mandatory consecutive years as a repeat violent offender.
Aggravated robbery: 11 years, plus 10 mandatory consecutive years as a repeat violent offender.

The total came to two consecutive life terms without parole plus 63 years.³

The Appeal

Pardon appealed to Ohio’s Tenth District Court of Appeals, arguing ineffective assistance of counsel. His central claim was that his lawyers should have objected to the admission of Anthony Sleet’s recorded police interview; because Sleet had died before trial, Pardon said admitting the recording violated his confrontation rights.

The court rejected the argument. It found that defense counsel had stipulated to admission of the interview as part of a deliberate strategy, using Sleet’s inconsistent descriptions and his identification of a different suspect to attack the police investigation. The court also held that the DNA and geolocation evidence was overwhelming enough that any error would have been non-prejudicial. On March 8, 2022, the Tenth District affirmed the conviction and sentence in full.³

Where He Is Now

Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction records list Pardon at Allen Correctional Institution under offender number A776509, admitted July 6, 2020, with an aggregate sentence of life without parole.¹

1
Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction. Offender Search – Anthony Pardon
2
Shaw-Davis Funeral Homes. Rachael Anderson Obituary
3
Supreme Court of Ohio. State v. Pardon, 2022-Ohio-663
4
The Columbus Dispatch. Rachael Anderson’s Brother
5
The Columbus Dispatch. Anthony Pardon’s Sister
6
Georgia Court of Appeals. Pardon v. State
7
WANE. Ohio Man Could Face Death Penalty in Rape Murder Case
8
The Columbus Dispatch. Suspect in East Side Slaying
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The Columbus Dispatch. Anthony Pardon Found Guilty Rape
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ABC 6 On Your Side. Jury Deliberating Ahead of Sentence Recommendation for Anthony Pardon
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WCBE. Anthony Pardon