On July 7, 2001, Donna Anthony and her children were declared as missing by the Maricopa County Sheriff's Department. Two weeks later, on July 21, David Anthony was arrested in connection with the disappearances.
A well publicized trial followed. Anthony's defense introduced Rosa Romero, who had been married to Samuel Romero. According to court records, Rosa Romero declared that Samuel Romero had a violent character and had threatened her before, and she suspected it was him, not David Anthony, who may have been involved in the disappearance of Donna Anthony and her two children.
Vince Imbordino, a deputy attorney working with Maricopa County, where Phoenix is located, accused Anthony of killing his wife and her children in order to hide sexual assaults he had allegedly been committing against Danielle Romero. Imbordino also said that Anthony had stolen money from Donna Anthony, and he signaled David Anthony as a man who enjoyed flirting with numerous other women.
On April 1, 2002 he was found guilty of three charges of first-degree murder, despite the lack of the victim's bodies being found.
As time went by, the mystery of Donna Anthony's disappearance as well as those of her children grew.
On October 18, 2005, construction workers who had been contracted to work on the building of a Walmart store found two trash drums hidden under a tree in Buckeye, forty miles from downtown Phoenix. Skeletal remains were found inside the drums.
Police were called to investigate the area, and, after collecting the skeletons, DNA testing was performed, confirming that the skeletons belonged to Donna Anthony and her daughter, who was fourteen at the time of her death. On October 31, police investigating the area found a third trash bin, with more remains inside. The third trash can was found with help of a metal detection machine that had been loaned by the Phoenix Police Department from the United States Air Force. Maricopa county sheriff Joe Arpaio, a particularly outspoken sheriff, told the Arizona Republic that he was "99 percent sure" that the remains inside the bin belonged to Donna Anthony's son Richard, who was twelve at the time of his death.
Arpaio has expressed his views on the Anthony murder case, saying on a press conference that "(he hopes) to be around however long it will take to see the needle go into (Anthony's) arm", adding that "(he guarantees he) will be at the execution chamber (to witness Anthony's death)."
David Anthony is currently appealing his murder convictions.
On Monday, July 28, 2008 an Arizona Supreme Court ruling says death row inmate, David Anthony, convicted of murdering his wife and her two children is entitled to a new trial.
The Supreme Court says the trial judge wrongly allowed the prosecution argue that Peoria's David Lamar Anthony had a motive to kill his family because DNA evidence indicated he had molested his wife's 14-year-old daughter.
The unanimous ruling issued Monday says the evidence of alleged molestation wasn't strong enough to support that argument.
