In 1992, cops found a murder victim without head, hands, feet. They say they just arrested his killer

One brisk spring morning, Tony Bledsoe pulled out of his driveway in a gray 1971 Oldsmobile Cutlass.

The 24-year-old father lived with his wife on a quaint street in the small town of Arcadia off Indiana 19. Bledsoe had just $8 in his pocket on the morning of March 16, 1992, and an eighth of a tank of gas in his car. Then, he vanished until his dismembered courts were found weeks later, but his case went cold.

However, on Tuesday, investigators from Indiana State Police announced “a significant breakthrough” - they had arrested Bledsoe’s suspected killer. Thomas Anderson, 53, was charged with murder in connection with the decades-old slaying.

The murder, police say, unfolded all because of an altercation over a stolen stereo.

Police revealed that a dismembered torso was found about 29 miles away at a dump site in Putnam County on April 3, 1992, less than three weeks after Bledsoe went missing. The remains, which were found without a head, hands and feet, were only identified as Bledsoe’s in 2018 using DNA testing, Sergeant John Perrine said, according to WISH-TV.

“This arrest is not the conclusion of our investigation,” he added.

The mystery around the victim’s disappearance began to unravel after the defendant's nephew, Scottie Anderson, told police in 2018 that his uncle watched as his friend, Andy Emmert, brutally killed Bledsoe.

A dispute allegedly erupted over a radio, worth an estimated $3,000, which the nephew said his uncle and Andy Emmert had removed from a car they had stolen.

Scottie Anderson told investigators that the two men had traded the stereo with Bledsoe in exchange for auto parts. But when the victim learned it was stolen, Bledsoe demanded a refund and threatened to go to the authorities.

Anderson chaperoned Bledsoe to Emmert’s house in Noblesville, Indiana, under the guise that he was going to get his auto parts back, investigators said.

Instead, police said that Emmert pulled out a “rifle” and shot Bledsoe in the head.

Falling backward, Bledsoe continued to gargle, which saw Emmert allegedly pull out what Anderson referred to as “Boy Scout knife” and stab him repeatedly in the torso. An autopsy later determined the body had been stabbed six times. Anderson told police that he then struck the victim over the head with a baseball bat, according to court documents.

The men transferred Bledsoe's body to a bathtub where they removed his head, hands and feet to make him “unidentifiable,” investigators said. The body parts were placed in a pickle bucket full of concrete.

Anderson and Emmert wrapped the victim's body in nylon cord and spray-painted it black to “make it more concealable,” police said.

Investigators said that Bledsoe’s remains were placed in the trunk of Anderson’s girlfriend’s car before they were dumped in a ravine about 10 miles away from Greencastle.

The body was allegedly placed under a piece of wood, and the tarp it was shrouded in set alight.

According to the court documents, Anderson spoke to police on three separate occasions during their investigation and confessed to playing a part in the murder of Bledsoe.

A search of Emmert’s home in October 2024 uncovered a knife hidden in a safe matching a description of the weapon given by Anderson. Police also said they found two Oldsmobile Cutlasses at his property. Emmert has yet to be charged in connection to the case, and police hve not said why.