Sheriff: Man dies of heart attack after killing aunt, her boyfriend
Sheriff says Melvin ‘Chip’ Anderson’s fate was ‘cardiac karma.’
PORT ST. LUCIE — A Port St. Lucie man suspected of killing two people days apart last month suffered a fatal heart attack as he tried to flee the scene of the second murder, the St. Lucie County Sheriff ’s Office said Wednesday.
Investigators say Melvin “Chip” Anderson, 61, fatally shot Gary Boice, 70, on the morning of Feb. 28, days after he killed his aunt, Gabriele Reusch Legg, 56, and stuffed her body in the garage of the Port St. Lucie home they shared.
Anderson then stole Boice’s white BMW from his home on Shelley Terrace but crashed the vehicle a short distance away as he suffered a heart attack, authorities said. He later died in a hospital.
In a news conference Wednesday streamed on the office’s Facebook page, Sheriff Ken J. Mascara described Anderson’s death as “cardiac karma.”
The bodies of Anderson, Boice and Legg were found Feb. 28 at separate locations about a mile from one another. Investigators believe Boice killed Legg on Feb. 19, stabbing her multiple times in a bedroom, then rolling her body up in a rug and placing it in the garage of their Ash Avenue home.
Investigators say Anderson was angry because Legg was planning to move out and live with Boice, whom she was dating. Anderson and Legg were related by her marriage to Anderson’s uncle, who died in 2015.
Anderson, who had a heart condition, worked for Legg’s painting business and had become dependent on her. Legg had become “the primary figure in Chip Anderson’s life,” Mascara said.
“We don’t believe there was any sort of romantic relationship between them, but it’s clear that Gabriele was very important to Chip,” the sheriff said.
Investigators found a .45-caliber Glock handgun on Anderson’s body at the Oleander Avenue crash site, and a ballistics analysis matched it to casings found at Boice’s home, Mascara said.
“Based on the analysis of evidence collected and statements received by friends, family and witnesses, it is our conclusion that Chip Anderson was angry about Gabriele and Gary moving in together, killed both of them and then died himself while trying to flee the area that morning,” Mascara said at the news conference.