Dad admitted killing, Oklahoma City police official says

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GUTHRIE — A Guthrie man confessed on Monday that he killed his 6-year-old daughter and told police where he put her body, a police spokesman said.

The body of Denise Anderson, a “very bright little girl” who “loved her parents,” was found Monday morning in a wooded area near Star Spencer High School, and the state medical examiner said the child died from gunshot wounds to the head.

Matthew Peoples, 23, confessed to the killing during an initial interview, said Oklahoma City police Lt. Don Holland. Soon after, police recovered the girl's body near a school baseball field in Spencer.

Guthrie Police Chief Damon Devereaux said there is evidence the homicide happened at Peoples' residence, but wouldn't elaborate.

“We still have a lot of questions to have answered,” Devereaux said.

Denise lived with her mother, Secoria Anderson, and attended Martin Luther King Jr. Elementary School. On Sunday, she went to visit her father in Guthrie, Lakeishia Freeman, the girl's cousin, said while speaking on the porch of Secoria Anderson's Oklahoma City home. Freeman said the child's mother was too distraught to talk.

Peoples told the child's mother he dropped off their daughter with one of her friends at Secoria Anderson's home on Sunday, Freeman said. Secoria Anderson spoke with her friend, learned they weren't together and then called police.

Peoples was initially arrested by Oklahoma City police on a complaint of desertion of a child under the age of 10. Monday evening, he was being interrogated at the Guthrie city jail. A sheriff's spokeswoman said it was expected Peoples would be booked into the Logan County jail.

Stunned family members said they had never known there to be violence or trouble between the girl and her parents. Freeman said Denise was a “lovable” girl who had a lot of friends and asked her mother if she could spend more time with her father.

“I've been around her (Denise) since the day she was born,” Freeman said. “She was a very bright little girl. She loved her parents. She loved her family. She loved her pets. She had a very loving spirit.”

Devereaux, the Guthrie police chief, said investigators were working to piece together details. Once Oklahoma City police found Denise's body, state agents and Guthrie police cordoned off a half block area around Peoples' home at 2006 W Logan with yellow crime scene tape. The neighborhood is described as mostly quiet by those who live there.

Neighbor Mary West, who lives north of Peoples, said she didn't hear anything unusual Sunday or early Monday.

West said she was disturbed by the news, adding, “It is just kind of a shock knowing someone like that is right across the street from me.”

In Oklahoma City, grief counselors were summoned to the elementary school where Denise was a first-grader, school district spokeswoman Tierney Cook said. School officials and staff members were not giving interviews, Cook said.

Eugene Gaddis, picking up his grandchildren from the school Monday afternoon, said he expected Denise's schoolmates to be “heartbroken” when they realize what has happened.

Contributing: Staff Writer Brian Sargent