A Man Thought He Got Away With a Burger King Robbery but Karma Caught Up 13 Years Later
A man robbed a Burger King, stealing $2,000, and was sentenced to 13 years in prison. The punishment seems high for the crime, but it won’t be the first time people have felt that way, and everyone eventually has to comply with the ruling. This man, Cornealious Anderson, somehow avoided his punishment. He got to live his life for over a decade, with no one from the authorities coming to get him.
For 13 years, he went on, building a new life with a family and a business. Did he really believe he had escaped his fate? It’s hard to imagine looking over your shoulder for that long. But then, karma came calling, and the outcome was something no one could have ever predicted.
A Robbery, A Conviction, A Vanishing Act
The whole wild ride began on a warm August night in 1999. In St. Charles, Missouri, a young man named Cornealious Anderson and his accomplice robbed a Burger King manager. They took a BB gun to the scene and stole about $2,000 right as the manager was about to drop the cash in a bank’s night deposit box.
A quick-thinking witness got their license plate number, and the police traced it back to Anderson. Two months later, they finally caught up to him. In March of the following year, Anderson was found guilty and given a 13-year prison sentence. He was told to wait for instructions on when and where to report to prison.
That instruction never came. Days turned into weeks, then months, and eventually, a year. He waited. He even reached out to the court, filing official documents that clearly stated he was not in custody and included his home address. He was told it was the state’s job to find him, not his to turn himself in.
The system was convinced he was in prison. He was simply forgotten.
Building a Life on a Shaky Foundation
With no one coming to his door, Anderson chose to write his own story of redemption. He didn’t flee to another state or hide. He lived his life openly, building a new existence for himself on what must have felt like borrowed time.
He learned the carpentry trade and started his own construction company. He paid his taxes, registered his businesses, and even settled traffic tickets. He married, became a father to three children, and volunteered at his church and his son’s youth football team.
Over more than a decade, he became a pillar of his community and a hardworking, honest man with a family to support plus a business to run. This was the exact opposite of the person who robbed that Burger King.
The Knock He’d Stopped Waiting For
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Anderson’s life went on without a hitch until July 25, 2013, when everything changed. On that very day, a clerk at the Missouri Department of Corrections was doing an audit and noticed the error. It was the same day Anderson was scheduled to be released if he had gone to prison as planned.
The authorities moved swiftly. A SWAT team was sent to his house, bursting into his peaceful morning as he was making breakfast for his three-year-old daughter. He was taken into custody to serve the sentence that everyone had forgotten about.
The arrest made international headlines, sparked an online petition with over 35,000 signatures, and even got the attention of his robbery victim, who spoke out in his favor. It seemed unbelievable that a man who had completely turned his life around would be sent to prison for a mistake that wasn’t even his.
A Different Kind of Justice
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After spending nearly a year behind bars, Anderson had his day in court. He argued that taking him away from his family would amount to cruel and unusual punishment. When the attorney for the Department of Corrections spoke, he didn’t fight back; he simply acknowledged Anderson’s good behavior since the robbery.
Then, the judge, Terry Lynn Brown, made a decision. Brown praised Anderson for being a “good father, a good husband, a good taxpaying citizen.” He declared that Anderson had already proven he was a changed man and that sending him to prison would serve no purpose. With that, he granted Anderson credit for the entire 13 years he had spent as a law-abiding citizen. Anderson was free to go home to his family.