On the morning of Jan. 27, 1968, the battered body of a young woman was found in a snowbank near Skyline Boulevard and Old La Honda Road near Woodside. The woman had been stabbed and sexually assaulted. The body was identified via fingerprints as belonging to Mrs. Fairley Louise Anderson, a resident of West 41st Avenue in San Mateo. Law enforcement determined the body had been dragged through two barbed wire fences and dumped while still alive, where she died of exposure or blood loss or a combination of the two.
Anderson's last movements were easily recreated. She left her San Jose job on a northbound bus, telling coworkers that instead of going directly home, she was going to an appointment with a dressmaker in Redwood City. After that appointment, if she ever made it, she was seen in a Redwood City bar in the company of one Jack Robert Daniels. The two left together at about 11 pm and were seen entering Daniels's company car. She was never seen alive again.
Daniels was questioned briefly, and an appointment was set up for an in-depth interview the following day. Daniels left in the same company car and vanished.
Later, Daniels wrote letters to his very pregnant wife from Albuquerque and Memphis, copping to the fact that Daniels was an alias, that his real name was Robert Elmer Barry, and that law enforcement wanted him in Pennsylvania for a variety of crimes including embezzlement and aggravated assault.
The car he fled in was found abandoned in Reno in March, and records indicated he rented another vehicle in that city. But he surrendered to the San Mateo sheriff on March 12, understanding that he would get to see his new infant child.
He was indicted for murder and ordered into custody without bail. At his subsequent trial, according to The Times newspaper, "Barry told the jury that he had been drinking with the…victim on the night in question but insisted that he let her out of his car at a San Mateo bar and did not see her again."
Some of the jurors bought his story, and the trial on Aug. 24 resulted in a hung jury. At the second trial, overseen by a judge instead of a jury, the charge was reduced to voluntary manslaughter. A lie detector test, not seen by the judge, indicated Barry was involved in Anderson's death.
The judge found Barry guilty on Nov. 15 based primarily on Barry's flight from the area after the crime.
