DiMaggio’s family wants DNA tests on Hannah Anderson, her brother
Aug 21, 2013, 8:48 AM | Updated: 9:59 am
DiMaggio's sister Lora Robinson has requested for a paternity test just to make sure DiMaggio is not the father of Hannah and Ethan Anderson. (AP Photo/File)
(AP Photo/File)
The family of a man suspected of kidnapping a 16-year-old girl and killing her mother and brother wants DNA samples to determine if the suspect fathered the children.
On Monday, an Anderson family spokeswoman publicized that James Lee DiMaggio left $112,000 in life insurance from his job as a telecommunications tech to beneficiary Bernice Anderson, the grandmother of the Hannah Anderson, 16, who he kidnapped.
Lora Robinson, DiMaggio’s sister, said he could be the father of Anderson and her 8-year-old brother, Ethan. This could explain the unusual connection between DiMaggio and Anderson.
Robinson requested the paternity test.
Robinson believes it’s strange DiMaggio left money for the Anderson’s grandmother, which is why she said the DNA test seems appropriate.
A recent investigation has revealed that DiMaggio set a timer for his house to go up flames, killing Christina Anderson, 44, and Ethan Anderson, 8, the mother and brother of Hannah Anderson.
An incendiary device, handcuff boxes and “arson wire,” were found in DiMaggio’s home by detectives, according to a search warrant. They also discovered multiple letters from Hannah Anderson and a handwritten note.
Contents of the letters and the handwritten note were not revealed.
Police witnessed him on a Border Patrol surveillance camera at 12:10 a.m. on Aug. 4, just 20 hours before his home caught on fire, which led them to believe DiMaggio planned for his house to burn down with Anderson’s family inside.
Anderson said she didn’t know her mother and brother died until after she was rescued in the Idaho wilderness by the FBI. She said, on a social media site shortly after, that she was “on the road to Idaho” when DiMaggio’s house was set on fire.
After the week-long manhunt to find the pair, the FBI shot and killed DiMaggio in the rural woods of Idaho and reunited Hannah Anderson with her father.
A spokeswoman for Hannah Anderson’s family has disputed the suggestion that DiMaggio is the father of either Anderson child, saying DiMaggio didn’t meet Hannah’s mother until she was six months pregnant with her.
Spokeswoman Stacy Hess also said Hannah and Ethan’s father, Brett Anderson, submitted DNA used to confirm the identity of Ethan, whose remains were found Aug. 4.
Report by MyNorthwest.com intern Hannah Kadletz
