WKYT Investigates: 30-year wait for answers in Anna Manning case

DANVILLE, Ky. (WKYT) - More than 30 years after Anna Lee Manning was last seen, her estranged husband and his mother have been arrested in connection with her murder.

Anthony Manning and his mother, Barbara Manning, were indicted and arrested last week. Human remains were found on a property belonging to Barbara Manning this week and have been sent to the State Medical Examiner’s Office in Frankfort to be identified.

Anna Lee Manning was last seen on Nov. 19, 1992, on North Third Street in Danville. The Boyle County Sheriff’s Office says she wasn’t reported missing until Feb. 25, 1994. It’s unclear why it took so long for a formal report to be made.

At the time, her aunt, Elsie Williams, told police she saw Anna with a white man.

“She said that she’s never seen the man before,” said then-Sheriff’s Deputy Philip Dean in 2016.

Case reopened by chance

Dean told WKYT he stumbled across Anna’s file in 2015 while looking for a file in a different case.

“I felt that I didn’t find it on accident, that maybe it was meant for me, maybe I could do something about it,” Dean said.

A month after WKYT’s 2016 interview with Dean, the discovery of new information and evidence led investigators to a 5-acre property on Spring Valley Road near the Boyle and Lincoln County line. Neighbors said it belonged to the father of Anna Manning’s estranged husband, Anthony Manning.

WKYT crews watched as crews dug up several areas of the property, even moving trailers and sheds to do so.

“We have recovered some evidence. The FBI has some of that, and as you can see, we’ve recovered several guns that we have to work with to find if it is stolen,” said Sheriff Marty Elliott in 2016.

According to neighbors, Anthony Manning lived in the home at the time of Anna’s disappearance.

Anna feared for her safety

The day after the 2016 search, WKYT sat down with Anna’s cousin, Carolyn King, who didn’t want to be on camera, fearing for her safety. She said Anna’s disappearance was no accident.

“I know she would not walk off and leave that baby,” King said.

When she disappeared, Anna had a 2-year-old daughter.

King told WKYT Anna feared her estranged husband, Anthony. The Danville Advocate Messenger had previously reported that Anthony was charged with kidnapping her, serving just one month of a six-month sentence in the case.

“She was trying to get away from him. That’s what she wanted. She was scared,” King said.

Charges filed after decades

Anthony Manning is charged with murder, tampering with evidence, and abuse of a corpse. Barbara Manning faces complicity charges.

Elsie Williams, Anna’s aunt and the last person to report seeing her alive, says she always believed Anthony was behind her niece’s disappearance.

“I told him to his face it was him. I said, sooner or later, boy, they are gonna get you. Cause I’ll never stop until somebody does,” Williams said.

Through the years, Williams says she’d even heard of Anthony bragging about the case, but the person who told her about it was too scared to go to the police.

“He wouldn’t do it. He was scared to death. He said they will kill me, they will kill me,” Williams said.

Human remains discovered

On Memorial Day, exactly one week after Anthony and Barbara were indicted, investigators were back at the Mannings’ property on Spring Valley Road. The same property they searched in 2016.

This time, they found human skeletal remains buried in a shallow grave.

“I knew she was there. And I told them over and over again, for years, that she was there,” Williams said.

Ephriam Helton, the attorney representing Anthony and Barbara Manning, says his team told prosecutors where on the property Anna’s body was buried, leading to them finding the remains.

“We believe the family needed closure. We could’ve sat on that information, but we did not believe that was the right thing to do,” Helton said.

Helton says the facts of the case don’t support the murder charges. Because the case stems from 1992, he says many witnesses are dead, eliminating potential evidence.

Additionally, Helton argues Barbara shouldn’t be charged at all.

“We do not believe Ms. Manning was aware of anything,” Helton said.

However, Helton believes there’s someone else who does have information and some legal responsibility in the case.

“There’s an individual that’s no longer here that owned that property that I think has a great deal of culpability in what transpired. As I said, just, people need to keep an open mind,” Helton said.

At the time of the 2016 search of the property where investigators found human remains believed to be Anna’s, WKYT was told by neighbors that Anthony Manning’s father owned the property at the time of Anna’s disappearance.

Anthony and Barbara Manning are both being held in the Boyle County Detention Center on $2 million bonds. They’re scheduled to be arraigned on June 15.