Insets: Tara Anderson (Madison County Jail) and Phillip Armstrong (Barry Wilson Funeral Home). Background: The 100 block of Madison Avenue in Granite City, Illinois, where Anderson shot and killed Armstrong (Google Maps).
An Illinois woman will spend more than five decades behind bars for killing her ex-boyfriend after she fired what she described as a warning shot that went through a fence and hit him from 100 feet away.
Tara A. Anderson, 40, was sentenced to 55 years in prison on Tuesday for the death of 39-year-old Phillip Armstrong, the Madison County State's Attorney's Office said in a press release. She was convicted of first-degree murder in May.
The shooting occurred on Sept. 24, 2023, outside Anderson's home in the 100 block of Madison Avenue in Granite City, which is in southern Illinois.
Prosecutors said Anderson requested that Armstrong pick up a vehicle from her home. When Armstrong arrived, Anderson "confronted" him as he was trying to load the car on a trailer before she walked inside her home and came back out with a handgun.
She fired a shot that went through a wooden fence and hit Armstrong. Anderson was about 100 feet away when she fired, the Belleville News-Democrat reported.
At trial, Anderson testified she fired a "warning shot" to "scare" Armstrong away. But prosecutors pointed out that the justification did not make sense because Anderson was the one who asked Armstrong to pick up the vehicle in the first place.
The state also presented evidence that Anderson wanted her ex-boyfriend dead, telling a friend that she was "going to kill that [expletive]."
"These were not idle threats. They were promises," Assistant State's Attorney Morgan Hudson told jurors during closing arguments. "She's a woman of her word."
Madison County State's Attorney Tom Haine said Anderson was "angry, armed and looking to harm."
"No one gets to claim 'warning shot' after firing directly into an area where they know a person is standing," Haine said. "The law is absolutely clear: If you shoot at someone and hit them, that is not an accident. That's murder."
Armstrong's daughter, now 13, delivered a victim impact statement to the court.
"It felt like my whole world had been taken away from me, and I didn't know how I was supposed to keep going without my dad," she said.
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