Caleb Anderson (Shelby County Jail)
GREEN BAY, WI (WTAQ-WLUK) — A man already serving a life prison sentence in Alabama was sentenced Monday in Brown County to life in prison for the Green Bay leg of a three-state crime spree.
Caleb Anderson, 25, pleaded no contest last month to a count of first-degree intentional homicide for the 2022 murder of Patrick Ernst.
Anderson, of Caspian, Michigan, faces a mandatory life prison term. Judge Thomas Walsh ordered he not be made eligible for parole in Wisconsin.
The three-state crime spree allegedly started with a sexual assault of an 18-year-old woman in Iron County, Michigan, on Aug. 1, 2022. The next day, he traveled to Green Bay and killed Ernst in Ernst’s apartment. From there, Anderson fled to Alabama, where he killed Dwight Dixon before being arrested.
In January, Anderson was sentenced to life without parole in Alabama.
Prosecutors in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula have decided not to pursue the case for the alleged assault there.
In the Green Bay case, Anderson told investigators he found Ernst through Grindr, a smartphone app men use to meet other men for sex. Anderson said he did not intend to have sex with the victim, but thought it would be a quick way to find someone to kill, according to the criminal complaint.
“I always just wanted to kill somebody” since he was 14 or 15 years old, he told police in an interview, according to the criminal complaint.
Through tears, Anderson allegedly told police he put a sweatshirt over Ernst’s mouth so his neighbors wouldn’t hear him screaming. He said Ernst kept asking him, “Why are you doing this to me?”
Investigators say they checked on Ernst after he didn’t show up for work. They entered his apartment to find it trashed. Officers found Ernst’s body in his bedroom. A forensic pathologist from the Brown County Medical Examiner’s Office counted 38 stab wounds to Ernst’s head, neck and abdomen, along with 12 more to his left hand and arm, with some of those being defensive wounds.
Written on the wall above the body was “Psalm 23:4 Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for thou art with me; thy rod and thy staff they comfort me,” along with the date.
A note was written on a piece of paper on a chair, reading, “I Am so Sorry.. he didn’t deserve this.”
Anderson took Ernst’s car and headed to Alabama, police said. He was arrested in Alabama, but not before killing Dixon, whom he said he also met through the smartphone app. Anderson also claimed to have set fire to a church, though he was unable to tell investigators where the church was.
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