TRAVERSE CITY - A federal grand jury in Detroit handed down a 10-count indictment Wednesday, charging Sandra M. Anderson with evidence tampering, obstruction of justice and lying to investigators.
The Midland woman and her dog, Eagle, dazzled police for years with their uncanny ability to locate human remains. Authorities now say she planted much of that evidence.
If convicted, she could get up to 65 years in prison.
Anderson, who previously has denied wrongdoing, did not respond to a phone message. Her attorneys did not return calls.
FBI agents arrested Anderson, 43, in April 2002 as she assisted a search in the Huron National Forest in northeastern Michigan.
The indictment accuses Anderson of planting bone fragments and carpet fibers in and around a tree stump and in a drained creek.
It says she also planted a bone during a 2002 search at the Proud Lake Recreation Center in Oakland County.
The indictment does not say where Anderson got the bones. Justice Department spokesman Jorge Martinez said he could not discuss it.
Anderson also is accused of planting evidence in other cases. She and Eagle found a bullet fragment in Lansing's Potter Park in July 2001 as part of an investigation into the slaying of Bernita White. Tests showed the fragment did not come from the bullet that killed White. None of the charges against Anderson relates to that case.
Other counts in the indictment contend Anderson tried to hinder the investigation of her conduct.
It says she gave a detective a bag containing a human bone and animal bones and lied about how she got them.
She asked two other dog handlers to write false reports supporting her story and lied repeatedly during an interview with investigators in May 2002, the indictment says.
Adela Morris, founder of the Institute for Canine Research near San Francisco, said Wednesday she had worked with Anderson and considered the charges against her "a bunch of baloney."
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