Murder of Gretchen Anthony: Cover-Up, Arrest, and Sentence

The Gretchen Anthony murder is the March 2020 killing of a 51-year-old Jupiter, Florida mother by her estranged husband, David Anthony, who stabbed her at their home, disposed of her body in a wooded area three miles away, and then used the early confusion of the COVID-19 pandemic to buy time by texting friends and family from her phone that she had been quarantined with the virus. He fled across six states, was arrested in New Mexico, and in December 2020 pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and kidnapping. A Palm Beach County judge sentenced him to 38 years in prison.

Who Gretchen Anthony Was

Gretchen Anthony had a 12-year-old daughter from her first marriage to Jeff Dreier, with whom she co-parented.¹ She married David Anthony in Las Vegas in 2015.² By the fall of 2019 the marriage had deteriorated. David moved in with his mother, and the couple mutually filed for divorce on February 28, 2020.³

David was under mounting strain in the weeks before the killing. In February 2020 he was fired from a gym job after an erratic public outburst tied to the death of basketball star Kobe Bryant.⁴ On March 14, one week before Gretchen disappeared, Riviera Beach police arrested him at Singer Island’s Ocean Mall after officers watched him pace, sweat, and approach teenage girls; when they moved to detain him, he slammed a truck door on a female officer’s arm, and a search turned up a large knife, a passport, and a large amount of cash.⁵ He was charged with resisting arrest with violence, released on bond three days later, and ordered not to leave Palm Beach County.⁶

The Morning of the Killing

Gretchen was last seen at work on March 20, 2020.³ Investigators determined she was killed the next morning at her home on Sunshine Drive in the Mallory Creek neighborhood of Abacoa in Jupiter. A neighbor reported hearing “blood curdling screams” and cries of “No! No, it hurts!” from the direction of the patio or garage between 6:00 and 6:30 a.m.⁷

A Blink doorbell camera captured David at the house at 6:15 a.m., followed by shouting. A garage camera recorded what appeared to be a motionless person with light hair and a water jug with blood on it before David pulled the camera down.² Cloud footage later pulled from the security provider showed a struggle inside the home and Gretchen being dragged toward the garage. On one recording she could be heard pleading, “Alexa, call 911.”⁴

When police searched the house, they found large bleach stains on the garage floor, blood on the walls and in the master bedroom, blood-stained towels in the washing machine, and broken glass in the bed. Blood was also on the steering wheel and gearshift of Gretchen’s MINI Cooper.² Neighbors reported smelling chemicals and seeing water running from the garage the following day.

The COVID-19 Cover Story

The country was entering pandemic lockdowns, and David used the moment to delay any search. On March 23 he used Gretchen’s phone to text at least five people, including family members, friends, and neighbors, saying she had been diagnosed with an “acute” case of COVID-19 and taken to a “CDC approved task force” facility. He told one neighbor she was in a 14-day quarantine and asked her to watch his cat while he picked up his dog. Jupiter Medical Center later confirmed Gretchen had not been a patient there since 2008 and that transporting coronavirus patients to a CDC facility was not their protocol.³

The Cross-Country Flight and Arrest

Family members reported Gretchen missing to Jupiter Police on March 25, 2020. Officers found her MINI Cooper parked at Jupiter Medical Center with her purse inside but her phone gone.³ David had already left Florida in his black Nissan Frontier truck, violating the bond conditions from his arrest the week before.

Investigators tracked both phones heading west by cell tower pings. By March 27 the phones pinged off a tower in Texas.³ A store clerk in Pensacola later told police David had tried to sell him a bag of women’s jewelry.⁸ To avoid detection, David disguised his truck as a work vehicle by parking it in public areas and setting up cones and a portable tent around it.⁹

Jupiter police coordinated with police in Las Cruces, New Mexico, who located the truck. A search warrant on the vehicle turned up Gretchen’s stolen phone, the home security cameras David had pulled from the walls, and Amazon Alexa devices. One of those Alexa devices had recorded Gretchen’s cries for help. A cadaver dog also alerted to decomposition in the truck.²¹⁰

Because investigators initially lacked enough evidence for an immediate arrest, David was briefly released and allowed to leave with his dog. After more analysis of the recovered footage and digital evidence, Jupiter Police Detectives Jared Kenerson and Kelly Sanders traveled to Las Cruces and arrested him on March 31 while he was walking the dog.¹⁰

During interrogation, detectives showed David the recovered security footage. He insisted 35 times that Gretchen was alive.¹⁰ He also claimed Gretchen had uncovered “illegal federal tax fraud,” a claim investigators confirmed was baseless.⁴ He was held at the Doña Ana County Detention Center and extradited to Palm Beach County on May 14, 2020.¹¹

Plea and the Recovery of Gretchen’s Remains

David was first charged with kidnapping and second-degree murder, and the murder charge was later upgraded to first-degree murder.⁴ On December 21, 2020 he pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and kidnapping, which took a possible death sentence off the table.¹² The plea was conditional: he had to disclose the location of Gretchen’s body, and if the remains were not found, the deal would be vacated.⁸

That same afternoon, around 3:30 p.m., investigators recovered Gretchen’s remains in a wooded area along Bush Road, behind the Walmart on Indiantown Road in Jupiter, about three miles from her home.⁸¹³ An autopsy confirmed she had been stabbed multiple times.⁴

Sentence

Palm Beach County Circuit Court Judge Kirk Volker sentenced David Anthony on January 14, 2021 to 38 years in prison, with a requirement that he serve at least 85 percent of that time. He received credit for 295 days already served.⁷¹⁴

At the hearing David told the court, “There’s no excuse ever for what I’ve done,” and, “I’ve created irreparable damage in the world of people who loved me.” He attributed his actions to an addiction to “medicinal-grade marijuana” combined with “untreated mental health issues” and a delusion that the COVID-19 pandemic was an “Armageddon” he felt compelled to escape.¹⁴ His defense argued he “suffered from bipolar disorder and depression” and “was not born a murderer.” Prosecutors said they had never been presented with any evidence supporting the claim of mental illness.¹²

Gretchen’s sister Sarah Carey addressed David directly. “You are pure evil. You are a monster,” she said. “You stole a mother away from her child. What happened to Gretchen is truly horrific and has left us with deep sadness.”¹⁴

1
Miami New Times. The True Story of the Gretchen Anthony Murder in Jupiter, Florida
2
Palm Beach Post. Man Takes Plea in Estranged Jupiter Wife’s Disappearance, Death
3
ABC News. Florida Man Used Coronavirus Quarantine Rules to Cover Wife’s Murder
4
Oxygen. David Anthony Used COVID to Hide Murder of Wife
5
WPBF. Police Body Cam Video Shows Violent Arrest of David Anthony Before Wife’s Disappearance
6
WPBF. Accused Husband in Wife’s Murder Used COVID-19 as Reason for Her Disappearance
7
WPTV. Jupiter Man Sentenced to 38 Years Behind Bars for Wife’s Kidnapping, Murder
8
CBS 12. Man Pleads Guilty to Killing Wife, Agrees to Disclose Location of Body
9
Good Morning America. Florida Man Accused of Using COVID-19 to Cover Killing of Estranged Wife
10
CBS News. Gretchen Anthony Murder Evidence
11
ABC News. Friend of Missing Florida Mom Speaks
12
WPBF. David Anthony Sentenced in Jupiter Murder
13
WPTV. Jupiter Man Pleads Guilty to Second-Degree Murder in Wife’s Disappearance
14
CBS 12. Man Who Killed Wife in Abacoa Faces Sentencing