A mother was arrested after she allegedly continued collecting her daughter’s food stamps — for nine years after she went missing, police said.
Shannon Anderson, a homeless registered sex offender, was charged with felony food stamp fraud Wednesday for claiming benefits for her daughter, Jodie “Brooke” Anderson, who vanished from a Nashville restaurant when she was 18 years old, WSMV reported.
“Your baby’s missing and you’re capitalizing by going and drawing government benefits that our vets can’t even get,” Brooke’s aunt, De’Anna Anderson, told the outlet.
“That’s unacceptable.”
Brooke was reported missing in June 2018 after she and her mother — who were both homeless and drug addicts — went to a Jack in the Box.
Shannon, 51, who was the last person to see her alive, went to use the bathroom and found her gone when she returned.
Her daughter wasn’t reported missing until August 2018, while her mother was incarcerated, her aunt said.
The case went cold, but De’Anna hopes that her mom’s latest arrest will bring new attention to Brooke’s missing persons case.
“I was hoping for years we would find her, but everything points to murder,” she said, adding that her niece’s lifestyle leads her to believe she was likely killed.
“Finding her would take a huge load off of me and finding out what happened. Then I would want justice. If I said I didn’t, I’d be lying.”
Shannon previously worked for the Davidson County Criminal Court Clerk’s Office and as a school bus driver — before drugs upended her life.
She is listed as homeless and has a long criminal history dating back to 2013, including a charge for promoting prostitution in 2017 that landed her on the Tennessee sex offender registry, according to court records.
Shannon remains in custody on a $22,000 bond on all seven charges related to food stamp fraud, violating her sex offender registration and failure to appear.