Rigby’s longest-serving police chief looks back on 43-year career and tragic double homicide
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Editor’s note: This is the tenth in a series of stories about former lawmen in eastern Idaho.
RIGBY — Wearing shorts, a polo shirt and a baseball cap, Larry Anderson looks back on a 43-year law enforcement career in the building that now bears his name.
The 79-year-old Rigby man was the city’s police chief for 35 years — the longest-serving chief in the state, as far as he knows. He stepped down in 2012 and the building that houses the police department at 173 East Main Street was renamed The Larry G. Anderson Law Enforcement Building in his honor.
Now 11 years into his retirement, Anderson has been doing a lot of traveling with his wife, Darlene. In a conversation with EastIdahoNews.com, he says they’ve been to Europe several times, as well as Mexico, Alaska and Hawaii.
“(It’s something) we should’ve done before, but in law enforcement you just can’t take off when you want to,” Anderson says.
His decision to retire happened abruptly and he says his wife was surprised when he woke up one day and said he was finally going to step down.
When asked if he misses law enforcement, Anderson’s response was “not anymore.”
“I’ve been out of it long enough that it doesn’t bother me anymore. I love meeting up with the guys that were around when I was here and talking with them. Other than that, I don’t really miss it,” says Anderson.
As he looks back on his career, Anderson says working in law enforcement just isn’t the same as it was when he had the job. Still, Anderson is proud of his service to the community over the years and Rigby is the only place he wanted to be.
Anderson got his start with the department in 1969. At the time, he’d just completed 13 months in the army’s 1st Air Cavalry Division in Vietnam. He grew up in Idaho Falls and his uncle, Claude Webster, had been an officer with the Idaho Falls Police Department. Anderson decided to follow in his footsteps.
“I was talking to my wife one day and she said ‘I think they have a job opening in Rigby.’ She was a secretary for a judge. So I went and applied for it and they gave me the job,” Anderson recalls.
Eight years later, the city council was looking to hire a new police chief when the old one retired. Anderson submitted his application with a recommendation from the former chief and was selected. He had no idea then that he’d be running the department more than three decades later.
Career highlights
Anderson recalls several incidents during his tenure that stand out most to him in hindsight. He cites two major fires — the Royal Theater fire on March 13, 1979 and the Reed Drug Store fire on July 8, 1988. Both of these fires were highlighted in a 2018 EastIdahoNews.com report.
The Rigby Middle School shooting on May 6, 2021 was not the first time something like that occurred. In February 1989, Anderson says a 14-year-old boy was arrested after he pulled a gun at the old Rigby Junior High School, threatened a teacher and students and took a 14-year-old girl hostage.
“He tried to fire the gun, but it didn’t go off,” Anderson says. “He had this grandiose (idea) of taking this girl (the hostage) and go off and get married. He kept saying they were going to be happy together the rest of their life. The girl didn’t want anything to do with it. She didn’t have a choice in the matter.”
Anderson declined to say the boy’s name, but they eventually caught him at the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints stake center across the street.
“He was coming down the hallway and I jumped out and grabbed him. Somebody else got there and he went down,” Anderson remembers. “He grabbed the gun and somehow pulled the trigger. His thumb got stuck between the hammer and the bullet. We pulled the gun away.”
The boy spent several years in juvenile detention, Anderson says. He doesn’t know what happened to him after that.
Another gun-related incident involving a special needs kid happened a short time after that.
“He didn’t shoot anybody,” Anderson says. “The teacher had him pretty well knocked out before I got there.”
A bitter divorce turns deadly
The most prominent case in Anderson’s mind is a double homicide that happened on February 1, 2004. Gregg Whitmore and his girlfriend, Karen Cummings, were asleep at home. Around 1:15 a.m., Whitmore’s ex-wife, Shana Parkinson, entered the house on 2nd South and stabbed them both to death.
“She went in and stabbed (Whitmore) several times,” Anderson explains.
After stabbing Cummings, Parkinson left. Authorities later found Parkinson at a Rexburg gas station covered in blood.
“(She initially told deputies) she didn’t know how (the blood) got there. A deputy questioned her and we arrested her,” says Anderson.
Her trial took place three months later and lasted several weeks. Ultimately, Parkinson’s sentence was 27 years to life in prison. She remains in the Idaho State Correctional Institution to this day. She’s up for parole in eight years.
Parkinson’s motive for the murder, according to Anderson, is that she was mad at Whitmore. It had been a bitter divorce and she was upset that Whitmore left her.
Whitmore’s younger sister, Connie Allen, introduced Parkinson and Whitmore to each other. She provides additional details about their relationship that led up to the murder.
“Gregg was a victim of domestic violence. He had been abused … by Shana. That is why he finally got away from her,” Allen says. “She had some mental illnesses (tied to) alcohol abuse and prescription drugs.”
Allen says Parkinson stalked Whitmore following their separation and divorce. It got progressively worse over time. Allen reports Parkinson was calling Whitmore 400 times a day at one point. She cites instances where Parkinson slashed Whitmore’s tires, bashed in his car and “terrorized his house” by starting a bonfire in the backyard and burning his personal things.
Parkinson was nothing like this at the time she and Whitmore met, and Allen says she was surprised when all of this came out.
Whitmore and current Police Chief Allen Fullmer grew up together and were best friends. Fullmer was trying to get back in law enforcement at the time, but he failed the written test. In retrospect, he feels God had a hand in that.
“That was God protecting me because I would’ve been working (the night of his murder) and I couldn’t have handled that,” Fullmer says.
Despite Whitmore’s tragic death and the longterm effect it’s had on his family, Allen is grateful to the efforts of law enforcement in her brother’s case and she speaks highly of Anderson all these years later.
“Larry Anderson is the most amazing person in the world. I have the most respect for that man,” she says.
Allen shares her memories of the case in the video above.
Anderson is appreciative of the community’s support of the men and women in uniform over the years and their willingness to help when needed. It brings him a lot of satisfaction to see officers that he hired years ago continue to work up the ranks and serve wherever they live.
“In a small town … you get to know everybody. You may lock horns, but if you need something somebody’s going to help you,” says Anderson. “It’s the people. You enjoy working with and working for them.”
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