BAKERSFIELD, Calif. (KGET) — The man accused of brutally raping and attempting to kill Cari Anderson is scheduled for retrial next year after a jury hung on four of five charges.
On Friday, a trial date of Feb. 13 was set for Michael Allen Fontes. He’s charged with attempted murder, aggravated mayhem, kidnapping to commit robbery and rape.
In a trial that ended in September, jurors acquitted him of sodomy but couldn’t reach verdicts on the other counts.
Fontes, 50, is accused of attacking Anderson after she left a bar on Nov. 23, 1997, and leaving her for dead behind Golden Empire Transit’s maintenance yard off Golden State Highway and F Street. A GET employee found Anderson naked and unconscious hours later. There was extensive bruising to her face and body, and her throat had been slit.
Anderson survived but suffered permanent injuries. She died in late 2021.
In 2019, with advances in technology, investigators took the suspect’s DNA profile and uploaded it to a genealogy database. Further investigation showed Fontes’ DNA matched the profile, according to police.
At trial, Deputy Public Defender Sebastien Bauge argued Fontes engaged in consensual sex with Anderson. Someone else attacked her afterward, he said.
