Four Killed Over $350 Debt, Prosecutors Say -- But Defense Says Anderson Guilty Only By Association

BELLEVUE

Kim Wilson assumed David Anderson was her friend, prosecutors said. Someone she had helped and trusted for years.

So when Anderson lured Wilson to a park where he and his best friend would kill her before slaughtering her family in their home, prosecutors said, she had no way to know that he had masterminded Bellevue's worst-ever slaying down to the last detail - and all because she had the audacity to ask him to pay back $350 he owed her.

"To him, Kim Wilson owed him for the pleasure of his occasional company," Deputy Prosecutor Patricia Eakes said as Anderson's quadruple-murder trial began yesterday in King County Superior Court.

"He expected her to pay for that. And eventually, he made her pay for that with her life."

Anderson's lawyer told the jury a radically different story yesterday: that prosecutors already have the sole killer behind bars.

"Alex Baranyi and Alex Baranyi alone murdered this family, and the only evidence they have against David Anderson is guilt by association and talk," defense attorney Michael Kolker said.

Anderson, 19, is charged with four counts of aggravated first-degree murder in the Jan. 3, 1997, slaying of 20-year-old Wilson, her parents William and Rose, and her 17-year-old sister, Julia. If convicted, he would spend the rest of his life in prison without hope of parole.

Earlier this month, 19-year-old Baranyi was sentenced to life without parole after a jury convicted him of identical charges.

Yesterday, Eakes dramatically portrayed Anderson as a cool, calculating egomaniac who decided to satiate his homicidal desires on the woman who had bruised his inflated self-image.

Eakes said Wilson often took care of the then-17-year-old high-school dropout when he ran away from home - buying him dinners, cigarettes and coffee. When she asked him to pay up, Eakes said, Anderson became enraged.

"He expected her to be grateful, and he expected her to realize her small place in his world," Eakes said. "He, the very charming David Anderson, had condescended to spend time with (her). Didn't she realize that is what she got in return for her money?"

But Anderson needed help, Eakes said. Enter his best friend Baranyi, "a willing and enthusiastic participant in murder. . . . And he figured that even if the police became suspicious, he could always blame Alex Baranyi."

But Anderson made mistakes, Eakes said:

He bragged about his plans before he carried them out, she said. His alibi was a lie. The evidence at the crime scene revealed two killers, not one.

And most crucial, Eakes said, Julia Wilson's blood was on a pair of hiking boots found in Anderson's bedroom closet.

"So David Anderson sits here today, perhaps incapable of even understanding that his flawless plan has failed," Eakes said.

Nevertheless, defense attorney Kolker urged the jury to realize the evidence proves Anderson is innocent.

"What Alex did to those people was brutal," Kolker said. "But this same (evidence) will demonstrate that David didn't do this. He wasn't there, and Alex Baranyi committed these crimes alone."

Among other things, Kolker said, the alleged getaway truck didn't have blood in it.

None of the bloody footprints in the Wilson home matched Anderson's shoes, he said. And Anderson wasn't wearing those hiking boots that night, he said, suggesting someone else had borrowed them.

If Anderson had bragged about plans to kill them, it was idle chat, the lawyer said.

Testimony yesterday began with friends of Kim Wilson who saw her the day she died. The trial is expected to last six weeks. Ian Ith's phone message number is 206-464-2109. His e-mail address is iith@seattletimes.com