By Bridget Heath
My heart goes out to all of the parents who have missing children it's a club that no parent should ever have to join.
Curtis Dean Anderson was born in 1961 and died in a California prison in 2007. Everyone it seems hated Curtis Dean Anderson, accept his mother and even she had doubts. Curtis Dean Anderson dropped out of school at age 13, Anderson spent the rest of his 46 years in and out of prison for boozing, thieving, false imprisonment and dozens of other charges. Anderson had no respect, no care, no concern for people, according to his brother. The only one, it seems, who continues to give Anderson the benefit of the doubt is his mother. His mother raised her son as best she could, along with his three siblings, the home become a dysfunctional horror and husband beat her and drunken rages. Curtis Anderson, sometimes defended his mother and got smacked for his trouble. His mother said that the kidnapping and murder convictions of her son made no sense at all. Curtis's mother said he was just a normal kid. He like to play baseball, ride his bike. Curtis's mother said, I don't know what could have gone wrong I just don't know, it's all very confusing. Curtis Dean Anderson was in and out of California prisons 10 times from 1986 to 1999 for three convictions and a host of parole violations, including a series of allegations of violence against women.
Victim #1 Late 1984: was described as a female runaway in her late teens or early 20s according to Anderson. He allegedly met and killed her and then disposed of her body near a local swimming hole in Marysville California.
Victim #2 Late 1984: a young female hitchhiker in her late teens who Curtis Anderson claimed he picked up on a road near the Northeast side of Clear Lake a few days after the death of victim #1.
Victim #3 Early 1985: was a female in her late teens, also residing in the Marysville area, who was possibly a run away from Oregon.
Victim #4 November 1986: was about 21 years old. She was a light-skinned black female whom Anderson met at a bar frequented by African-Americans located in the East Bay off interstate 80 on San Pablo avenue. He claimed this occurred about 10 days after he was paroled from San Quentin State prison. Anderson allegedly killed her and disposed of her body in the Oakland hills.
Victim #5 June 1988: Was Amber Swartz-Garcia, who Anderson said was standing on a street in Pinole, California, when he physically forced her into his car. He eventually murdered her and Arizona. This was on a statement he signed. Amber was the daughter of a police officer and of Kim Swartz. Ambers father was shot and killed four months before she was born and her mother then lived with a man whose last name Amber took. Over the years the police announce that suspects including a volunteer who helped search for missing children and a defrocked priest had been questioned intensively in the kidnapping. In 2009, police and the FBI announced that her killer was convicted murderer Curtis Dean Anderson, who died in prison in 2007 one month after confessing to her kidnapping and murder.
Anderson had a long criminal record and had been convicted of kidnapping and murdering Xiana Fairchild of Vallejo California, who was also 7 years old and also of kidnapping and sexually assaulting another girl who escaped he bragged about kidnapping 11 girls. Anderson told FBI agents that he sedated Amber while he drove to Arizona to visit his aunt. He said that he killed Amber in the motel room near Tucson, Arizona and disposed of her body near Benson Arizona. No human remains or credible evidence of Amber's death has been found, other than Anderson's confession. As a result of his confession the case was declared closed Kim Swartz, Amber's Mom was convinced that Anderson was lying to get attention. In 2013 after a petition campaign, the Pinole police agreed to reopen the case.
Victim #6 1988/1989: was an Indian woman about 23 to 24 years old. Anderson claimed he picked her up coming out of a bar near 5th or 6th Street in Benicia California he said he then killed her near Benson Arizona.
In 1989. Anderson received a ticket while driving a two-door, Brown, 1977 Chevy sedan.
Victim #7 February or March 1997 was a black Hispanic female in her twenties with notable “junkie tracks” on her arms and who went by the name Rosie. Anderson allegedly met her at “The Bears Bar,” which he described as being frequented by Hispanics this bar was located under Highway 87 in San Jose, California near a bowling alley. After killing her, he allegedly disposed of her body near the Ben Lemond turnoff near Santa Cruz, California. During the incident Anderson stated he had been driving a black Toyota truck from his “Parts Company”.
Victim #8 February or March 1997 was Xiana Fairchild, who disappeared on December 9th, 1999. Convicted child molester Curtis Dean Anderson has told investigators he kept 7-year-old Xiana Fairchild captive for several weeks after kidnapping her from Vallejo in 1999 and videotaped himself molesting her according to authorities. Investigators believe Anderson held Xiana in the San Jose rooming house where he lived at the time. Authorities believe Xiana was killed in Santa Clara county, where her partial remains were discovered in the hills above Los Gatos in January of 2001. There are witnesses who identified Anderson as the man they saw speaking to Xiana at a Vallejo gas station in the morning she vanished December 9th 1999. Other said that they had seen Anderson talking to her on the street in the days before she was kidnapped. Anderson was convicted and sentenced to over 300 years in prison for the 1999 kidnapping and murder of 7-year-old Xiana Fairchild in Vallejo California, along with other crimes.
Victim #9 Aug 12, 2000 was Midsi Sanchez. Anderson was captured after one of his kidnap victims was able to escape. Midsi Sanchez was walking home alone from school on August 12, 2000 when the 8-year-old caught the eye of a local taxi driver named Curtis Dean Anderson. Anderson later claimed to have killed 13 other girls including 7-year-olds Xiana fairchild and Amber Swartz. Xiana Fairchild had been missing for more than eight months when Sanchez, just two blocks from her Vallejo home and noticed Anderson sitting in his car. As Midsi got closer, she noticed he was watching her through his rear view mirror and crossed the street. It was supposed to be her birthday party that night and she was excited to get home she was just two blocks away from our house.
Anderson got out of his car and asked her if she would help him grab a roll of duct tape as he needed to fix a window and she helped him, while Midsi helped him, he put his hand over her mouth and she tried to scream but nobody heard her. Midsi Sanchez recounts the moment she saw Anderson drive by her house that day, her mother was preparing for her birthday party that day, she is watching her house as she's passing by in the car with Anderson, she recalled she wanted to be home so bad. Anderson had other plans first he drove Sanchez to a shopping center parking lot and forcing her to change into a set of clothes he had already bought for her. Sanchez said he made me change clothes and then he pulls out alcohol and poured it into a shot glass and said drink it she said. That night Anderson sexually abused Sanchez before pulling out a long silver chain and a padlock. She stated he tried it really tied around my leg and locked it up Sanchez said and I thought I was never going to see my family again she said. Anderson drove Sanchez around Northern California's Bay area for nearly 2 days, covering the car windows with blankets and towels so no one could see inside. He would leave me in the car and go watch my mom cry on TV. But when Anderson slipped up leaving behind his keys for the lock Sanchez pick the smallest key and unlock the chain and immediately jumped out of the car window she said Anderson began to yell at her telling her to come back and I look back at him and I just shook my head like no I'm not going back she said. Anderson was behind bars just a few hours later. He was sentenced to 300 years in prison, and died in prison in 2007 from kidney failure.
In 1988 I was watching America's most wanted, this very first episode I saw included Amber Swartz. I don't remember a lot about the episode other than she was hard of hearing and she could read lips, when she was kidnapped she didn't have her hearing aid. And I remember the picture that they showed of Amber on the episode. I lived in Tehachapi California in July of 1989 with my parents, and I met a woman he was living with. She was very pleasant. She's about five two to five three she weighed around 200 lb maybe more maybe less she had curly brown hair which was natural curly and it would had a wave to it she parted it in the middle and had bangs and it was about shoulder length. She always wore poly ester clothing. She and I both worked the hotel portion of Horse Thief golf and country club. Located at Stallion springs outside Tehachapi 20 miles. The manager at the time was my immediate supervisor, she had a husband that worked in the maintenance department and they lived in an apartment. I drove the woman to their home one time that I remember and my supervisor called her by her first name.
I worked with her and the other girls on a daily basis we all cleaned motel rooms. We would strip the beds, vacuum remake the beds, clean all the bathtubs, toilets, sinks just deep clean the whole room. We also freshened up rooms for the guests who were there longer than one night.
We had Cliff Robertson which was a celebrity at the time and a major movie star in 1989 when I worked there around July or August September of '89 he come there and stayed at the motel it was in the local newspaper the Tehachapi news.
The hotel provided lunch for all of us and so she and I would eat lunch together everyday while I worked there. We got to be good acquaintances, I wouldn't say that we were friends. But I found out that she lived about a half a mile from where I lived. One day I said why don't we carpool and I'll drive a couple of days and then you drive a couple of days and that's what we did.
So the first time that I went to pick her up I went and I parked on her street. On the right hand side. I remembered that I walked up to the house directly, the door was on the left hand side and there was no garage and I knocked on the door and a guy answered and he said she would be right out and I went back to my car and waited. I'm not sure how many times I picked her up it was probably 8 or 10. I do remember driving to their house parking in front of her house and riding in her car which was a Dodge Dart Series K model. It was like a light blue and it was a two-door, it was well kept. I remember her saying it was her car. I also remember seeing like a older Toyota truck. And possibly one other car but I don't remember what it would have been.
I remember going to her house like the second or third time and this time I was let in and I just stood at the kitchen and waited for her to come. The house wasn't a large house and I didn't see anybody else in the house other than the person that opened the door and I believe it could have been Curtis Dean Anderson. Another time I was let into the house when I was picking her up for work she opened the door and there were three girls there two smaller probably ages 3 and 4 and there was a girl that looked like Amber Swartz age 7. All the girls come over and gave me a big hug. And then we left to go to work. I know that she was in the house and also a man I believe to be Curtis Dean Anderson and her son and the three girls. The house was dirty and filthy. And I noticed a large pile of clothes between the kitchen and the living room.
Another time that I went to ride with her to work she let me into the house. And then the girl that look like Amber Swartz come out to the kitchen. And I remembered from watching the Americas most wanted episode that she read lips so I asked her her name and she told me it was Amber Swartz.
I stopped at the local police department off and on for a week trying to find a deputy I have known most of my life, whose family knew my family. I finally spoke to him, and I told him about Amber and the fact that I had the woman in my car and he should arrest her. I was never asked to give a report. He asked me where they lived and I told him and he said that they would look into it. There was no follow up after my talk with the deputy. If I had known then what i know now, I would have went over his head.
I was fired from The horse thief golf and country club around August or early September 1989. Once my supervisor let me go I said well I'm her ride how is she going to get home and she replied well I'll take her home. I then went to work for another local company called Video Zone. We checked in videos checked out videos I signed up new customers. So one day I looked up and it was probably around October of 1989 and the woman and her husband come in and I believe the gentleman to be Curtis Dean Anderson. I said to her where are the girls at and she said they were with her son. She had made mention that she was going to move and I said where you going to move too, she says we are moving to Mojave, Ca. And they selected their movies and they left and I noticed that they were driving a older model Datsun pickup that was all rusted. That's pretty much the last I ever saw of her and who I believe was Curtis Dean Anderson.
In 2004 I made a tip to America's most wanted about Amber Swartz. I was never contacted about my tip until an older gentleman from Pinole Police department got a hold of me by mail in 2008. I called and spoke with the gentleman on the phone. I also made a tip to Amberjeansmom.com back in 2005. I was never contacted after that. In 2022 I sent another tip to Pinole California Police and was interviewed on the phone.
I have always felt that if America's most wanted had called me back then there would have been hope for Amber. Because I could have identified Curtis Dean Anderson and maybe got to the bottom of where the woman came into the picture. I dont know how or where Curtis met her. And I feel to this day that Amber is alive and with her, I feel that she was a calming influence in Curtis Anderson, but I could be wrong. I only saw a sliver of what was going on in Tehachapi, CA in 1989.
In 2022 I searched on ancestry for her and I found an address for 1988 in California City California. It was an apartment. I found various addresses for Curtis Dean Anderson in Vallejo, Solano all cities up north of Tehachapi, CA.
On ancestry I found that there were two girls that had an ancestry page for Curtis Dean Anderson as their father. These girls were sisters I contacted them through ancestry messaging and on one of them responded “did I mean Curtis Dean Anderson and I replied yes”. I have had no further contact. I also located a relative of Curtis Dean Anderson's on ancestry and I reached out to them, about him and I was blocked from messaging them.
I also tried to locate the owners of video zone that I previously worked for and both those folks have passed away. I also contacted the Stallion springs resort to get employment records but those types of records from 1989 were destroyed in 2018.
The house was sold in December of 1989 and this sale could coincide with the last time I saw her. The family that lived directly across the street in 1989 I knew personally. I have tried to find them but have not been able to. This family would have had a bird's eye view of everything that went on across the street and probably would have an interesting story to tell if we could find them.
I also have searched google earth pro and looked back at the dates of satellite photos taken of that street in Tehachapi Calif. I saw some disturbed earth directly behind the house that would lead me to believe that there could be shallow graves there. I AM NOT A PROFESSIONAL in satellite photos, but I do know that these disturbances in the gound look like the satellite photos in the West Mesa Murders case. There are similarities to a big degree. I could be wrong and it could be from a Telephone pole installation. I DON'T KNOW.
Also in 2022 I bought a book Called Letters from a serial killer Written by Kristi Belcamino and Stephanie Kahalekulu 2018. And on page 73 at the bottom of the page the author asks Curtis Dean Anderson in a letter who a particular set of initials belongs to, and I recognised them. I contacted the author and told her who I believed the initials were, and she was floored and told me to go to the FBI. And I sent a tip to them in 2022 and Ive not ever heard from them.
So if anyone reading this story remembers any of these people, and the places they lived or saw them around Tehachapi, CA during 1988-1989 please contact the Pinole Police Dept. At (510) 724-8950. Or contact fbi.gov to leave a tip on Curtis Dean Anderson.
Editor's note: this piece ran in Serial Killer Magazine and is published here with cuts. The second half is the author's own eyewitness account of Tehachapi in 1989, and as written it named a living private individual in full, with a street address, a physical description and the street she lived on, as the woman the author believes was living with Curtis Dean Anderson and may still know what happened to Amber Swartz-Garcia. That woman has never been charged, never been investigated on the record, and has never been asked to answer any of it. No editor's note can un-name a person, so every private name has been removed instead: she appears here only as a woman he was living with, and the same cut has been made to the names of the author's supervisor, the sheriff's deputy she reported to, the family across the street, and the initials the author recognised in the Belcamino and Kahalekulu book. The addresses are gone. The account is otherwise as she wrote it.
The numbered list of victims in the first half is not this author's research. It is the FBI's own seeking-information bulletin on Anderson, reproduced almost word for word, and the FBI is careful about what it is: those are alleged victims, described by Anderson himself to agents who interviewed him in November 2007, a month before he died. He confessed to eight killings in the United States and two in Mexico, and gave no information at all about the two in Mexico. Nothing in that list was tried. One entry carries a transcription error: Victim #8 is dated February or March 1997 here, and the FBI's list puts Xiana Fairchild in December 1999, which is also what the same paragraph goes on to say.
What Anderson was actually convicted of is narrower and is worth keeping separate. He was sentenced to 251 years for kidnapping and sexually assaulting eight-year-old Midsi Sanchez in August 2000, the child who took his keys, unlocked the chain on her leg and got out of the car, which is the only reason he was caught. He then pleaded guilty to the 1999 kidnapping, molestation and murder of seven-year-old Xiana Fairchild and took a further fifty years to life. That is where the figure of over 300 years comes from. Her partial remains were found in the hills above Los Gatos in January 2001. He died at a Bakersfield hospital on December 9, 2007, of kidney failure, the same calendar date Xiana disappeared eight years earlier.
The claimed totals in the piece do not agree with each other or with the record: it says he bragged about kidnapping eleven girls in one paragraph and claimed to have killed thirteen others in the next. The confession the FBI took gives eight and two.
Amber Swartz-Garcia is the case this article is really about, and it is open. She was seven when she vanished from outside her house in Pinole in June 1988. No remains and no physical evidence of her death have ever been found. The case was declared closed in 2009 on Anderson's confession alone; her mother, Kim Swartz, has always said he was lying for the attention, and after a petition campaign the Pinole police reopened it in 2013. So the flat sentence in Victim #5, that he eventually murdered her, is a confession and not a finding, and this archive files it that way.
The satellite-photograph passage is the author's own reading of Google Earth imagery and she says herself, in capitals, that she is not qualified to make it. No agency has said anything about that ground. Spellings and grammar are left as printed, including Ben Lemond for Ben Lomond.