Soldier Arrested 40 Years After Girl, 5, Was Abducted on Her Way to School and Later Found Dead

[Sugar Cookie]

A Nevada man has been arrested and charged with the decades-old murder of Anne Pham, the 5-year-old elementary school student who was abducted on her way to her kindergarten class.

Robert John Lanoue, 70, a former Fort Ord soldier, was charged July 7 with one count of first-degree murder, with special circumstance allegations that he killed Anne while committing kidnapping and a lewd act on a child under the age of 14.

"The guy is a complete monster," Seaside Police Chief Nicholas Borges tells PEOPLE. "He's every person's nightmare. The world is a safer place with this guy off the streets."

Anne's gruesome 1982 slaying shocked California's Monterey County city of Seaside.

The girl was abducted on her way to her kindergarten class just before 11 a.m. on Jan. 21 of that year.

The youngest of 10 siblings, she had convinced her mother that she wanted to walk the few blocks to school alone.

"Normally she walked to school with her mom but on this particular day it was raining, and she convinced her mom and older brother she wanted to walk to school herself," Borges previously told PEOPLE.

She never made it.

Her body was found on the Fort Ord Army base by Army investigators two days later about one mile away from her elementary school, near a shooting range.

She had been suffocated and sexually assaulted, according to police.

Borges says Lanoue lived around the corner from Anne and her family.

Lanoue, then 29, was never a suspect at the time, and Anne's case eventually went cold.

"This guy was never on the radar," says Borges. "Never. This guy was totally hidden in plain view, just right there."

Lanoue, who lives in Reno, eventually left the area and spent more than 20 years in prison for sexual assault offenses, according to Borges. He was in jail on a probation violation at the time of his arrest.

In 2020, Monterey County District Attorney's Office Cold Case Task Force and the Seaside Police Department reopened Anne's case and submitted evidence for DNA testing.

"A new type of DNA testing not previously available to earlier investigators identified Lanoue as the suspect in Pham's murder," the district attorney's office said in a press release.

"The DNA process, it is a newer technology, but it hasn't been used in a criminal conviction previously," Monterey County District Attorney Jeannine Pacioni tells PEOPLE. "This involves DNA which doesn't come from the root of a hair.

"I wish that he would've been caught earlier, because this guy went on with his life, to just create havoc and horror wherever he went," says Borges. "She was a five-year-old little girl in this country to start her life, to make her family proud and to just live the American dream and that in and of itself is just heartbreaking. This family fled from Vietnam. They fled from war. The United States of America was paradise for the family. So never in their wildest dreams did they think coming here and being in this cute little town, even though it was rough back then, would result in losing their little angel."


Lanoue is currently being held in custody in the state of Nevada and is awaiting extradition back to California.

Soldier Arrested 40 Years After Girl, 5, Was Abducted on Her Way to School and Later Found Dead

 

[Hermy]

Anne never even made it to first grade for no other reason than because Lanoue decided otherwise.

Given his age and the trail of destruction he has left in his wake, he should be fast-tracked to the execution chamber.

 

[Dzaniel]

I love the solving of these cold cases.

 

[Spider]

He's too old to fight the other inmates when they beat and tear his ass up for the sins he's committed. He won't get the death penalty but his final days won't be pleasant.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

 

[Alf]

I love the solving of these cold cases.

He just learned what, "You can run but you can't hide", really means.

--Al

 

[thuumpr]

He's too old to fight the other inmates when they beat and tear his ass up for the sins he's committed. He won't get the death penalty but his final days won't be pleasant.

I'm sure Bubba would appreciate a cell mate that doesn't just lay there...

 

[VLGRDSPLY]

That poor mother prob blamed herself every day for letting her baby take that walk alone.... I hope she knows it was not her fault... RIP sweet angle

 

[Alxprkrkrls]

When I saw the headline I thought “wow this guy has been living his life since the 1960’s I’m so glad they finally got him”
1982?!?! 40 years ago??!?! No. That can’t be. The math just doesn’t add up.

 

[Mountaineer95]

Even though he spent 20 plus years in prison, there were still many more years during which he likely committed similar crimes. I’m not even sure this particular murder was his first. I hope they do a deep dive into his timeline from the 70s until now. Regardless, she is not his only victim, for sure.

 

[Mazikeen69]

Real Monster. RipLil Angel. You will always be remembered and loved

 

[McDanel]

Reminiscing over his time in Nam.

 

[Bobbo]

Hopefull, this will keep him in prison for the rest of his miserable days.

Put him in Gen Pop and make a pay per view and take bets on how long he’s gonna last.

 

[r0ckstar666]

Sad it took so long to arrest grandpa chester. However hopefully one of the inmates will show him some love

 

[TX Leather Face]

Did Henry Lucas “confess” to it? Check out Netflix’s documentary and see how corrupt the cops and FBI were with him.

 

[Sugar Cookie]

A man who pleaded guilty last month to the rape, kidnapping and murder of a 5-year-old girl in a 1982 cold case has been sentenced to life in prison.

According to a press release from the Monterey County District Attorney's Office in California, 72-year-old Robert John Lanoue of Reno, Nev. was sentenced Thursday, March 20, to 25 years to life in prison plus 31 additional years for the rape and murder of 5-year-old Anne Pham of Seaside, Calif. He was also ordered to register as a sex offender for the rest of his life.

Pham disappeared while walking to her Kindergarten class at Highland Elementary School on January 21, 1982, the D.A.'s Office said. She was never seen alive again, and her remains were discovered on the since-closed Fort Ord Army base in Monterey.

"Her parents realized when she never made it home after school that she had gone missing. Two days later, her body was discovered," Lana Nassoura, Monterey County assistant district attorney, told local Monterey affiliate station KSBW 8 last month.

Officials found at the time that she had been sexually assaulted and strangled, per the D.A.'s Office, but investigators did not arrest anyone and Pham's murder went cold for more than 40 years.

An investigator interviewed Lanoue in July 2022, and he admitted to picking Pham up in his car but claimed that he couldn't remember committing the murder, per the D.A.

He "acknowledged that he may have blocked it out of his memory to protect himself," the D.A. added. "He admitted that he had a history of sexually assaulting young girls."

According to Stars and Stripes, Nevada records show that Lanoue is a registered sex offender in his home state for a 1998 conviction for crimes against a minor in Las Vegas. When he was arrested in July 2023, he was already in prison in Nevada's Washoe County jail, where he was booked for a parole violation, the Associated Press reported.

On Feb. 20, 2025, Lanoue pleaded guilty to first-degree murder, kidnapping, committing a forcible lewd act on a child under 14, forcible rape and forcible sodomy.

“This case in particular is so difficult to see go unsolved because it was just a young girl, a completely innocent victim on her way to school, and for it to go unsolved for 40 years was a blow to the community," L'Heureux told KSBW last month.

“We have been in contact with her family, they've been made aware of every step of the process in this case, and they have been made aware of the resolution," Nassoura added to the outlet. "They’re happy to see finality, finality in this case and see that finally justice was served."

https://people.com/anne-pham-killer-robert-john-lanoue-sentenced-11701163