A Small Oversight: C. Anderson

In 1999, a man named Cornealious “Mike” Anderson was arrested for armed robbery of a Burger King employee. He was sentenced to 13 years in prison for this incident, however he never was summoned for his actual prison sentence. 

C. M. Anderson was given a second chance at life in the public. Listen along as Tori and MyKenna hear what Anderson does with his second chance, some of their own small oversights in life, and what second chance they would take if it was given. 

References: 

“Man Who Went to Prison 13 Years Late Ordered Released” CBSNews (2014)

“Cornealious Michael Anderson III” American Encore (2025)

“Judge Rules 13-Year Sentence Man Never Served is Complete” NBC News (2014)

“Judge Frees Man that Clerical Error Kept From Prison” USA Today (2014)

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

In 1999, Cornelius Mike Anderson robbed the assistant manager of Burger King in Missouri. He was sentenced in 2000 to 13 years in prison. However, Anderson was inadvertently given a second chance. Come along with McKenna and Tori as they learn a little bit about oversights that can have a large response in Anderson's life and in their own.

SPEAKER_02 0:48

Hello. Hi. Happy Friday.

SPEAKER_01 0:51

Happy Friday. Today was really chaotic. You know, we keep saying every week that we record that this is the week from, and then every week it gets worse.

SPEAKER_02 1:00

But can we talk about the Amber alert during Carline? Everyone's phones. And the I thought the it came over the walkie-docky or something. It probably did.

SPEAKER_01 1:10

Because Officer SRO was out there. So I probably came over his.

SPEAKER_02 1:15

Oh, that makes sense. Yeah. But I was like, what's happening? I'm like, there's no weather alert. And then I my phone, I thought someone was calling me. Yeah. And I looked, and it was that. I can't tell you the last time I got an Amber alert.

SPEAKER_01 1:27

Me either. And it was close. Did you see where it was? Spartanburg. Bartonberg, yes. I think.

SPEAKER_02 1:35

Yeah. But that was crazy. And it made the cake uh dismissal even more chaotic.

SPEAKER_01 1:40

Even more.

SPEAKER_02 1:41

It was really what a day. I definitely got my steps in. Yes.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Wonking kids to cars. Oh, yeah. 100%. Because we had one person out on our team.

SPEAKER_02 1:50

Oh, I didn't know that.

SPEAKER_01 1:51

Yeah. She wasn't here today. And so, and we have one teacher, and I totally get it. But once her kids are all gone, she just like disappears and doesn't really realize because her kids sit opposite of ours. And so when all hers are gone, she's like, Oh, well, that's it. So I'm leaving. And so then me and the two other were like trying to get all of this one teachers together, and she has a lot of late kids. So I mean it was fine.

SPEAKER_02 2:16

Yeah. And I had two out. Two out, and there's normally four people from my team all together, and two of us are inside listening for names to be called, and two are outside. Well, one person stayed inside today, and it was me, but everyone was very helpful putting because we have three-year-olds that can't put themselves in cars.

SPEAKER_01 2:34

I will say what surprised me is they know what their car is. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:38

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 2:39

I was concerned whenever I like we didn't have time. So Tori and I were trying to figure out like, I wanted to see if my team could help in any way just because our car line, we're going through construction at our school right now. So our car line is even very different than what it used to be, and we're not able to really push them as quickly as we would like to. Yeah. Um, and because Montessori joined regular car line, we have what, like 70, 80 extra kids. Yeah, and some in car seats. And some in car seats. Um, and so we were trying to figure it out along the way, but I didn't have time to ask, do they know their car? So I'm looking at this.

SPEAKER_02 3:15

They do for the most part. The only one was a parent got a new car. And I put her in her car, and I walked back in and I said, This was not the week to get new cars. Okay. Quite literally. But it turned out fine because she was it was coming up and she said, I think that might be it. And that's always another teacher was gonna walk her and she looked at me and I said, If it's her mom, yeah. Yeah. But it was, it was everything was fine, but I like stayed back to make sure that it was because nobody else would have known that it was that parent. We're getting better because we see them a little bit more regularly. My issue was in our car line, I knew all the cars. Right. When we mix them into regular car line, I'm like some of those cars are the same. Well, some of them are the same, and some of them there's so many cars that I feel like they're not quite as distinguishable almost because I'm like, that one kind of looks like it could be so and so's and then I find myself asking the kid, is that your car? Yeah. And they they tell me.

SPEAKER_01 4:27

Yeah, well, that's good. It was it was very nice. I was glad. Yeah. And the parents were helpful. They saw the look of concern on my face and they said, That that's my kid.

SPEAKER_02 4:38

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 4:39

It yeah. It turned out better than I expected.

SPEAKER_02 4:42

It was fine. It worked out, it just survived. And we were done before we sent to someone right before Carla. And I said, I hope everyone makes it home today. So if we do that, it's a win.

SPEAKER_01 4:51

Well, so I'm gonna take that and run with our icebreaker, okay, because we had to make sure we were on our P's and Q's today and make sure everybody was getting in their cars, even though we may not have known quite if they weren't our kid exactly. So our icebreaker today is what is one small oversight that led to a big difference?

SPEAKER_02 5:16

Mine is a little generic because it happens probably at least once a week. Okay. But it's when I'm planning to have either my duty-free lunch or my planning period to do something. Right. So it's not done before then and it needs to be done, and then something crazy happens. Ends up happening during that time, like maybe a parent calls or needs me to call them, or I have to go do something that someone asks me to do, and I don't actually end up getting what I needed done. Yeah. So then it's it's not done. So I think the oversight is assuming that I'll have that time.

SPEAKER_01 5:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:56

And then not having that time, and then it puts me behind.

SPEAKER_01 6:00

Yeah. So after you saying that, I think I'm gonna change mine. I originally told Tori that mine was gonna be like I set my alarm for morning duty. Um, and I try to make sure that it's set every Tuesday night because I have morning duty on Wednesday. Um, and there was one day where it didn't, and I was 30 minutes late, which meant that I was 30 minutes behind getting to morning duty, and that's all of morning duty. That's all of morning duty. And then you're having to reach out to people to see if they can pick it up for you. Um, but I think I'm gonna change mine to a little oversight being that like you see a parent's email come through, and you're like, hey, I'm gonna get that in just a second, and don't ever write it down, and then everybody else's emails come in, and there's this parent that's been waiting for me to respond for a week.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

That happened to me this week, actually, because I had a parent and it was a message, not an email, because we have like a messaging app that had messaged me a few days ago saying, Hey, my child has money in their backpack to make and I saw it, yeah, but whatever it would whatever was going on, and it was late or it wasn't even during school hours, but I was like, I'll I'll reply to that in the morning. And then I just never yeah, I didn't, and the child went to the book fair, it was fine, but that that parent kind of worries when I don't respond. Yeah, because this something similar happened a few weeks ago, and I had seen it, but I just hadn't. Sometimes they come through and things are so chaotic that teacher brain that I, you know, then a ki a child needs something and then another one, and it just never ends up. And I had seen it, and I try to tell them I don't reply. I promise I I saw it. Yeah. Because I I have the notifications on my phone, so I see them, but in that moment, sometimes I can't respond. And then I just responded to that parent this morning and said, Side out of mind. They had a great time at the book fair. I loved taking them. They knew exactly what they wanted.

unknown 8:12

All right.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

So our story um is about Cornelius Mike Anderson, and he goes by Mike. Um, Cornelius Mike Anderson was born in 1977, and as you heard in the blurb, um, he robbed Burger King assistant manager in 1999 in St. Charles, Missouri, which is a suburb of St. Louis. And actually, my brother lives in that area. Whenever I had to go take his wife, um we actually went through St. Charles and it was like a crazy whenever I was doing this research. I was like, oh my gosh. Oh wow. They're there. Um, and Anderson stole approximately$2,000 from from Burger. From Burger King.

unknown 8:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:58

So was the manager just working alone? It was an armed robbery. Um there was another guy with him. Okay. And I don't know if it was just the manager. I didn't see that in any of the news article that I found. Because while this is um a big deal and leads to the rest of the story, most of the articles were not about this. Okay. So Anderson's charges were that he was sentenced to 13 years in prison in 2000. He was arrested after he was called. Um, and then in 2000, he was sentenced to 13 years for an armed robbery. However, Anderson was never actually taken to prison.

SPEAKER_02 9:47

Um where where was where was he where where? What? So I'm I'm really curious where this is going. Anderson was at home.

SPEAKER_01 10:02

Just chilling, vibe in. And Anderson's order to report for incarceration never came. The police never came and got him. So Anderson reached out to his lawyer about it.

SPEAKER_02 10:16

Can I make a side note? Yeah. That's like in college when you're waiting in class and the professor never shows up and you're like, at what point can we leave?

SPEAKER_01 10:23

10 minutes. Yeah. Ten minutes. Well, you know, Anderson reached out to his lawyer and he was like, hey, when are they gonna come get me? And he was like, Don't worry about it. Just wait. They'll come for you. They'll they'll come and get you when they're ready. This is crazy. In the time that he was waiting, 13 years passed.

SPEAKER_02 10:46

I'm sorry, what he waited at his house for that long.

SPEAKER_01 10:50

Well, he he waited and waited and waited and waited, and no one ever came to get Anderson. That's his sentence. It is. So, you know, Anderson decided they haven't come to get me. Oh, Tori's making a face.

SPEAKER_02 11:12

Did he have like an ankle monitor or anything on? Not that I know of.

SPEAKER_01 11:15

So he was just He he got his sentencing and then they never came to get him. And so he just went home. And this is what Anderson did during his 13 years. Anderson started his own business. Three of them.

SPEAKER_02 11:32

Okay, so I was actually gonna say, did he just like show up for work again the next day and be like, they never they never showed up? I'm back to work.

SPEAKER_01 11:40

He kind of just started doing daily things. Um, he started his own business. In one of the reports, I saw three, but in some of them I saw one. And so like it's between one and three.

SPEAKER_02 11:53

Okay.

SPEAKER_01 11:53

So, but he at least started a business. He started his own business related to construction. Um, he got married, he got divorced, he got married, and ended up having three children, and even became a stepfather to one child.

SPEAKER_02 12:07

You would think though, when you're like filing for a marriage certificate, like someone would have noticed the oversight somewhere. Right. He didn't try to conceal it. Yeah, but that's what I mean is even crazier, is that no one but I don't know, just things that you use maybe your social security number for, or something like that. Just it would have been noticed somewhere. Right. That, hey, oh, you're supposed to be behind bars right now.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Little oversights. A lot of them. So, you know, he was just trying to live this as a second chance. He said that day by day, month by month, year by year, time passed and they never picked me up.

SPEAKER_02 12:52

And he got married twice?

SPEAKER_01 12:54

Mm-hmm. Ended up having three of his own children, and was a stepfather to a child.

SPEAKER_02 12:59

I wonder if when he met them, he was like, I'm supposed to be in jail right now, but here we are.

SPEAKER_01 13:04

Yeah. Well, and so Anderson really did just take this as an opportunity to say, uh, let me get my life together. Like, this is obviously a second chance for me. They haven't come to get me in the last week, haven't come to get me in the last month. Like, I really need to step up and and do what I should.

SPEAKER_02 13:22

I'm glad he did that though, because it could have gone very differently. Yeah. If it was someone else who maybe didn't want to turn their way together. Took it as a second chance to commit more crimes. Correct. So I'm glad that it worked out that way. And it was it happened to someone who decided that this was their second chance to be better.

SPEAKER_01 13:44

Yep. So all this being said and done, like I said at the beginning, it took them 13 years to find him or to like realize, not find him, because he was he was out and he didn't ever try to conceal it. But it took them 13 years to figure out that, you know, where's Anderson? So in July of 2013, when Anderson's original sentencing was supposed to be ending, someone at the Missouri Department of Corrections made a discovery. Anderson had never been put behind bars. Upon this realization, they wanted to make it right. Bring in Anderson. No, don't mess with this man's second chance. One morning in July, eight U.S. Marshals arrived at Anderson's home while he was making his three-year-old daughter breakfast.

SPEAKER_02 14:37

No.

SPEAKER_01 14:37

Came in with the guns and all.

unknown 14:39

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

That poor baby. So following this approach, the team took Anderson away to the Southeast Correctional Center in Charleston, Missouri, 150 miles from his wife and children.

SPEAKER_00 14:53

And Anderson.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

Yeah. And Anderson was 37. Like when they knocked, they came in and took him, he was 37. So 13 years had passed.

SPEAKER_02 15:09

That's insane. After 13 years, and wasn't his his sentence. 13 years.

SPEAKER_01 15:17

Yeah. Wow. Yeah. Like I said, it said that it was when his original sentencing was supposed to be ending, someone was doing clerical work and realized that he had never been put behind bars. That's what. Okay, okay. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 15:39

Mm-hmm.

SPEAKER_01 15:41

They said, where's Anderson? Please tell me there's more to this. There is. Okay. So what now? Anderson had been imprisoned, but was given another day in court in Charleston, Missouri. The judge for Anderson's case was Judge Terry Lynn Brown, the one of this, like after he had been put in the correctional facility in Charleston, Missouri. This judge was named Terry Lynn Brown of the Missouri's 33rd Judicial Circuit Court. Judge Brown listened to the testimonies of friends and family leading him towards his decision. And I mean, there was tons of people. He was active. I think I missed some of that. Yeah, sorry. He was active in his community. He was a coach for a youth football team. He volunteered as like the videographer at his church in Webster Groves, Missouri. Like he was active in the community. People loved him. He really took the second chance, turned life around. And Judge Brown said, quote, you've been a good father. You've been a good husband. You've been a good taxpaying citizen of the state of Missouri. That leads me to believe that you are a good man and a changed man. Judge Brown would give Anderson credit for the last 4,794 days, which is the time between when Anderson was first sentenced to the time that he was arrested in 2013. Anderson only ended up spending less than a year in jail waiting for this decision to be made. But the judge let him walk out. The judge said, You turned it around, and I'm gonna let you walk. And Anderson walked out with his wife and daughter on one arm and his mom on the other.

SPEAKER_02 17:36

Oh yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:37

I actually really it's a very wholesome story. Yeah. Yeah. And he realized, like, he was like, after he was just let walk out of the courthouse, he was like, you know, this was really a second opportunity for me. And I wanted to make it as best as I could. And the only way that I was able to do that was to turn my life around. And so he realized all of it.

unknown 18:01

I know.

SPEAKER_02 18:03

I feel like that's almost like a fate thing.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Yeah. 13 years. That's the crazy part. Is that he was supposed to be sentenced 13 years, they didn't realize because of this little oversight, yeah, that he they didn't realize till 13 years later. Wow. Yeah. So my takeaways are you should now be able to double and triple check when making arrangements. Absolutely. Dot your I's, cross your T's, um, and believe in second chances. And sometimes don't worry about it. Just go for it. If you get a second chance, just take it. Go with the flow. Yeah. Those are my takeaways. Wow.

unknown 18:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:46

And I know this one was a little bit shorter, friends. Um, but I do want to shout out my mom because my mom was the one who told me about like the gist of the case. And she was like, I really think you and Tori would enjoy learning about this. And this one's kind of more happy ending. Yeah. I like that. And it was yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

It was nice. Yeah. I I do actually I enjoyed that story. And I like that it worked out. Me too. For Mike. I know.

SPEAKER_01 19:19

I was and his family. When I first started, like when I first when she was telling me about it, I was like, please tell me they did not put this man back in for 13 years.

SPEAKER_02 19:26

Well, when you told me that, and I thought I thought that might be the end of the story, I was like, do not tell me it ends here because I that would have broken my heart.

SPEAKER_01 19:37

Well, and so one of the things that I saw while researching was an attorney was like, jail is supposed to be a place of rehabilitation. And the time that he was supposed to be in jail rehabilitating, he made the choice to rehabilitate himself. So even if we put him in jail for 13 years, he's already done the rehabilitation. So why would we put him back in there?

SPEAKER_02 20:00

Yeah. Yeah. And I understand needing to do the time and consequences for actions. Um but after 13 years when he's done all of this to right make why disrupt this life that that he has built, he has built. Yeah. Because I don't know.

SPEAKER_01 20:27

No, it makes sense. And it would be different. Like you said at the beginning, it would be different if he didn't make the change. And if he didn't make the change, then he probably would have ended up there anyway. And then they would have been like, oh, you were supposed to be here two years ago. But he chose not to. He chose to turn it around. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:50

That's a that's a really good one. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:53

Happy ending. I feel like we needed that after this week. And the last couple of cases we've done, I think we've also needed a happy ending. So, Tori, if you could have a second chance at an experience in your life, what would it be?

SPEAKER_02 21:07

The Aeristor. Oh. I went twice, and I don't remember enough of it. Most of it.

SPEAKER_01 21:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 21:20

Like that was a three and a half hour concert. And they've done studies, and they said that fans are in such a state of euphoria.

SPEAKER_00 21:30

Oh.

SPEAKER_02 21:30

That they almost black out. And when I saw that, I was like, oh, that is what happened. And it's a three and a half hour show. I remember 30, 45 minutes of it, and I have videos. Yeah. I both both of them. Both shows.

SPEAKER_01 21:47

Dang.

SPEAKER_02 21:47

Yeah. That's crazy. Three and a half hour show. Wow. And so that would be that would be it.

SPEAKER_01 21:56

That's a good one. Yeah. That's a good one.

SPEAKER_02 21:59

I immediately I immediately knew because I wish I could relive that all the time.

SPEAKER_01 22:06

I think mine's gonna be a little bit it's a little bit sadder, but it's okay. Okay. No, I I want a second chance to like be more around my dad. Yeah. Before he got sick. Because I was in college, I was student teaching, and I wish that I had balanced that life a little bit better. Right. So I think that would have to be like if I had a second time to do an experience again, it would definitely be student teaching, but also making a little bit more time for my family.

SPEAKER_02 22:40

Yeah, that makes sense. Yeah. I can see that.

SPEAKER_01 22:44

Didn't mean to ruin the mood.

SPEAKER_02 22:46

No, it's okay. It's okay. We're being honest. Yeah. Our brains were in two very different places. Yeah. But that's okay. Yeah. So let us know what yours are. Please. Because we're curious.

SPEAKER_01 23:00

Yeah. Let us know if you had a second chance at an experience. What would it be? Thanks for listening to True Crime Teacher Time. We'll see you bright and early next Monday morning.