Delmar Anholt Jr. and the Valentine’s Day Homicide

On February 14th, 1982, the gruesome discovery of a woman and her unborn child is made. Kneeling over the body is a man, attempting to gouge out the woman’s eyeballs.

But who is this couple, and what could have led up to the actions taken on this horrific night?

The Discovery

Instead of spending Valentine’s Day at home, trooper Ronald Ruecker was out patrolling U.S. Highway 30.

While driving South on the highway, Ruecker was heading towards a small town called Scappoose in Columbia County, Oregon. It was early evening, and the sky was overcast, but his car headlights outlined two figures lying a few feet apart on a hillside.

Ruecker grabbed his flashlight and made his way to the entrance of the Columbia Memorial Gardens, where the two figures were. Upon closer inspection, the first figure was simply a backpack, with a jacket draped over it. The backpack was soiled, but Ruecker had trouble discerning what the stains were with only his flashlight, so he decided to move on to the second figure.

The second figure ultimately turned out to also be a backpack, with a jacket draped over it. Here, we could expect Ruecker to be heading back towards his vehicle; however, it was at this point that he heard a voice coming from inside the cemetery.

Though it was too dark to distinguish what was happening from such a distance, Ruecker was able to see a person kneeling over another figure, who was lying flat on the ground. Getting closer, Ruecker was able to distinguish that the voice was from a male, who was saying ‘It’s okay man, It’s okay’ over and over.

Having not yet been seen, Ruecker moved closer to the couple and shone his flashlight over them. What he saw was horrific; the male had his thumbs pushed into the eyes of the other person, slowly rotating them until the eyeballs came out of the socket. The victim remained completely quiet and motionless, so it was likely they were already dead at this point, as it is unlikely anybody could reasonably withstand this amount of pain while alive and conscious.

The Crime Scene

Realizing he had been spotted, the man stopped and moved towards Ruecker, who managed to convince him to go with him towards the police vehicle. Ruecker called for backup and decided to venture back to the crime scene to begin determining what had happened.

Using his flashlight, he was able to make out that the victim was a young, dark-haired female, who he described as being ‘quite pretty’ despite her severe mutilations.

Though it was most likely hard to look at the woman without feeling nauseous, Ruecker managed to make some notes on the scene. The woman was wearing a t-shirt and jeans, with both her jeans and underwear pulled down below her knees. At this point, it became clear that the victim was penetrated with sections of a fishing pole.

Finally, Oregon State Police units arrived at the scene, as did the District Attorney and his chief investigator, Dalton Derrick. Following the observation of the scene, Derrick was assigned to the case, along with a Trooper named Michael Roberg.

The Suspect

The suspect was transferred to a hospital for blood and urine samples and analysts identified him as Delmar Anholt Jr, a 20-year-old residing in Portia. An inquest into his background revealed that Anholt attended a Catholic school, though he was suspended due to being a ‘poor student’, thanks to his marijuana and tobacco abuse.

He came from a well-respected family in the community, but he was well-known to authorities thanks to his criminal actions. He once threatened to kill his sister, after which he lived in a juvenile detention home. Anholt had also been convicted of first-degree theft and sentenced to fourteen months in Oregon Correctional Institution due to violating his probation.

A further background check revealed that Anholt allegedly had connections with the occult, with allegations claiming that he and acquaintances once sacrificed a cow in some form of ritual. Despite this being concerning, investigators were unable to link these disturbing allegations with the murder.

Preliminary Findings

The investigation into the crime scene was extensive, and photographs were taken from every possible perspective. Underneath the victim, investigators found two large rusted nails, two bloodstained sections of a broken fishing rod, and two used Fussee (roadside flares).

A Medical Examiner arrived at the scene to look over the injuries of the woman; he noted multiple punctures to the lower abdomen, puncture wounds to the face and eyes, and burns in the genital area. Finally, there was a metal spike embedded into the pelvis and a fishing pole protruding from her genitals.

The District Attorney described the scene as ‘The worst thing I’ve ever seen.’ He went into detail about the gruesome injuries the victim suffered, such as her eyes being gouged out, and spikes forced into her abdomen.

The victim was identified as 19-year old Tara Lea McCarthy, the girlfriend of Delmar at the time. Unfortunately, the victim was eight months pregnant at the time of her death, and the trauma she endured also resulted in the loss of her unborn baby.

The Victim

Little is available about Tara, including pictures, but it is known that McCarthy grew up in a large family, and met Anholt due to them going to school in the same area. When she was 15, lived with Anholt and his family as she finished school; because the rest of her family was moving away.

Investigators learned that during her relationship with Anholt, McCarthy became pregnant at least four times. On three of these occasions, Anholt demanded that the pregnancies should be terminated, however, this was not the case for her fourth and final pregnancy.

The investigation

An autopsy on the body of Tara emphasized that she endured severe pain before her death. The examiner in charge of performing this autopsy went as far as to say that aside from dismemberment cases, this was ‘’The most severe case of mutilation’ he had witnessed in his time as a Doctor.

Having been formally charged for the murder, Anholt was placed into the hands of Dr. Hugh Gardner, a psychiatrist, who diagnosed him with an anti-social personality disorder, describing him as egotistical and narcissistic, with little regard for life other than his own. Finally, though Anholt was using amphetamines at the time of the murder, Gardner firmly believed that it did not interfere with his cognitive ability, so did not influence him to commit the atrocities he did.

Multiple interrogations with Anholt led to the story of the murders finally being uncovered. According to Anholt, the couple were hitchhiking, but sought shelter in a barn on the afternoon of February 14th due to the rain. The weather improved, so the couple began walking towards St. Helens; cutting through a cemetery. Once inside, Anholt pressured Tara to confess to God, that she was carrying another man’s child. She refused, and as a result, Anholt murdered her, though some could say he had been planning the crime for some time.

The suspect believed Tara was carrying the baby of another man, though the child was later proven to belong to him, making the entire story even more tragic.

Anholt confessed to chasing Tara through the cemetery and punching her in the stomach until she collapsed. He then tied her up and began driving metal spikes into her body. The violence was mainly aimed at her stomach to kill the ‘demon seed’ he believed to be the child, though her face was also severely mutilated. He confessed to wanting to bury her, but Ruecker caught him before he was able to hide the evidence.

The trial and Sentencing

There was little that attorneys were able to push to pronounce the innocence of Anholt at trial. They attempted to say that the drugs in his system clouded his judgment, and he, therefore, did not know what he was doing when the murder took place.

This was countered by the prosecutor, using both Anholt’s confession and the opinion of the psychiatrist. It was agreed that Anholt was not under the influence of enough drugs to prevent him from forming intent and weighing up the consequences of his actions.

Unfortunately, Anholt was unable to be charged with the murder of his unborn child; due to Oregon law at the time. The law did not include unborn children in their definition of a human, so it was impossible to charge Anholt with both the murders that took place, even though he had clear intentions to kill the child.

What makes this story even more tragic is that the trauma Tara endured induced labor; however, the child was unable to be born due to the obstructions to the vaginal canal and abdomen. Ultimately, this meant the child had nowhere to move and likely suffocated or drowned.

Anholt was charged with the murder and torture of Tara McCarthy and sentenced to life in prison on May 25th, 1982, where he remains until this day.