Decades After Woman Vanishes, Her Husband and His Mom Are Arrested

A Kentucky cold case that lingered for more than 30 years has led to two arrests—and a fresh search of a rural property, USA Today reports. Authorities in Boyle County say they've charged 59-year-old Anthony Blaine Manning with murder, tampering with evidence, and abuse of a corpse in connection with the 1992 disappearance of his wife, then-23-year-old Anna Lee Manning. His mother, 76-year-old Barbara Anne Manning, is charged as an accomplice to those same crimes. Both are being held on $2 million bonds. It's not yet clear if they have legal representation or when court proceedings will begin.

Multiple outlets including WKYT report investigators are now digging behind Barbara Manning's roughly 5-acre Boyle County property, where an excavator and several open pits have been seen. Anna Lee Manning was last known to be alive on Nov. 19, 1992, when an aunt saw her outside a jewelry store; Anna called out that she had something to tell her aunt, but they never spoke. Archived reports describe a troubled marriage that included a 1992 unlawful imprisonment conviction against Anthony after he handcuffed Anna while they were estranged. Detectives previously searched Barbara's land in 2016, but the case remained unsolved.

"I've been praying every night ... that they would find her," aunt Elsie Williams, who says she's long suspected her niece was buried on Barbara Manning's property, recently told WLEX-TV. She says she took Anna in around age 13 because her parents were abusive, and that once she married Anthony Manning around age 17, she suspected he was abusing her for most of their marriage.