Tyler Anderson was born on February 22nd, 1995. He lived in the Kenmore neighborhood of Akron, Ohio with his mother, Terri Hastings, during the school year and spent summers in Florida with his father, Kenneth Anderson Jr. His parents had divorced when Tyler was young, and he also had two considerably older half-brothers.
His mother later remembered him as a fairly typical teenager: sometimes difficult, but generally pleasant, energetic, and generous with his friends. He enjoyed shopping, BMX bicycles, and performing jumps on his bike. Friends later told Hastings that Tyler would sometimes buy them food or help them financially when they were struggling.
His enthusiasm for BMX riding also reflected what his mother described as a fearless streak. Tyler would take falls, get back on the bicycle and keep riding.
By 2012, however, he was also beginning to get into trouble. Tyler had been skipping classes and was eventually removed from Kenmore High School. His mother subsequently enrolled him at Akron Digital Academy, hoping that its combination of online and in-person instruction would work better for him.
In April 2012, Tyler and a friend were arrested after breaking into and vandalizing a Kenmore business. Hastings later said she hoped the juvenile justice system might frighten her son into changing direction.
He never had the opportunity. Less than a month later, Tyler was murdered. On May 17th, 2012, his body was found at 2314 21st Street SW in Akron. He had suffered a gunshot wound.
Investigators were eventually able to reconstruct much of Tyler’s activity before his death. Surveillance footage showed him getting off a bus and returning home. He later rode his bicycle to a friend’s house and remained there for a while. At approximately two thirty p.m., he left on foot and headed in the direction of Kenmore Boulevard. That was the last confirmed sighting of Tyler alive.
Police would later develop a theory about why he was heading there. According to investigators interviewed years later by the Akron Beacon Journal, another teenager attending Akron Digital Academy had allegedly shown Tyler a handgun. Detectives were told that Tyler arranged to meet the sixteen-year-old after school because he intended to buy the weapon.
Authorities have not said that they can prove every detail of that proposed transaction, but it became central to their reconstruction of the hours immediately preceding Tyler’s death.
Police believe Tyler encountered two teenagers after leaving his friend’s house. One was approximately sixteen years old and the other about seventeen. Both had connections to Youngstown, although the younger teenager had moved to Akron and attended Akron Digital Academy. Investigators believe the pair were traveling in a Dodge Durango.
Their reconstruction places the younger teenager behind the wheel, the seventeen-year-old in the front passenger seat and Tyler in the rear.
Exactly what happened inside that vehicle remains uncertain. Police believe Tyler was shot while sitting in the back seat. Investigators later said the bullet traveled through Tyler and then through or toward a rear passenger-side window, shattering the glass.
Detectives believe the Durango was then driven to 21st Street SW, where Tyler’s body was removed from the vehicle and left in a residential driveway.
Police located video apparently showing the Dodge Durango traveling along Kenmore Boulevard. One detail stood out: the vehicle’s rear passenger-side window was missing or broken. That was consistent with investigators’ theory about the trajectory of the shot that killed Tyler.
According to the later police reconstruction, the teenagers subsequently parked the Durango on 10th Street near the home of the younger suspect. They then went to a nearby dollar store.
Surveillance cameras recorded people associated with the investigation purchasing bleach, lighter fluid, and charcoal. Police eventually released store footage to the public, and investigators said it helped them identify the young men they suspected in Tyler’s death.
When questioned later, however, the teenagers and one of their relatives reportedly told investigators that the purchases were for an ordinary cookout.
Detectives came to believe that the bleach had been purchased in an effort to clean evidence from the Durango and that the lighter fluid may have had an even more destructive purpose.
Hours after Tyler’s death, the Durango disappeared from Akron. At approximately three thirty a.m. the following morning, a Dodge Durango was discovered burning in Youngstown. The fire virtually destroyed the vehicle.
Investigators believed it was the same Durango they had been tracking in Akron, in part because the vehicle had the same missing rear passenger-side window. The registered owner was a Youngstown woman who was related to the younger teenager suspected by police.
The destruction of the vehicle was devastating to the investigation. Detectives believed the Durango potentially contained physical evidence of Tyler’s shooting, but the fire was so severe that investigators were unable to recover useful forensic evidence from it.
Police also examined telephone records. According to investigators, the registered owner of the Durango had communicated with the younger suspect while he and his companion were traveling toward Youngstown. Later that morning, at approximately eleven thirty a.m., the owner reported the Durango stolen to Youngstown police.
Eventually, Summit County Crime Stoppers received information that seemed to bring investigators even closer to an answer. According to detectives, a teenager contacted Crime Stoppers and identified the same two youths police already suspected.
The tipster reportedly said the suspects had admitted shooting Tyler and described him as having been “getting squirrely” before the gunfire. What that phrase meant has never been established.
Investigators heard rumors that Tyler might also have had access to a firearm, although police never recovered a gun that could be connected to him. Detectives considered several possibilities: perhaps Tyler had attempted to rob the other teenagers; perhaps they intended to rob him; perhaps an argument or perceived threat had escalated suddenly. Police have never claimed to know precisely why the trigger was pulled.
The teenager who provided the information would not cooperate with prosecutors. That left investigators with a familiar problem in homicide cases: people were willing to speak informally or anonymously, but not necessarily willing to testify under oath.
Over the years, Akron investigators became increasingly outspoken about how close they believed they were to solving Tyler’s murder. Neither suspected teenager has been publicly charged in connection with Tyler’s death, so their identities could not be treated as those of convicted, or even formally accused, killers.
But detectives interviewed for a major 2024 review of the case were unusually direct. Retired Akron detective Jim Pasheilich said investigators were effectively certain they knew who was responsible but lacked one final piece of evidence necessary to move forward with charges. Police said both men they suspected remained alive as of 2024 and had subsequently spent time in prison for unrelated matters.
The case remained active. By 2024, detectives were pursuing DNA testing on an item recovered near Tyler’s body. Authorities have not publicly identified the object in detail. Investigators hoped improved forensic testing might finally provide the independent physical connection they had lacked for years.
Tyler’s murder profoundly affected his mother. Terri Hastings refused to allow the case to disappear from public attention. She and others in the Kenmore community became involved in the Save Our Youth and Stop the Violence Movement, organizing marches and vigils against the increasing gun violence affecting Akron’s young people. The group also called attention to heroin overdoses, another growing problem in the community.
As of this writing in October 2026, the murder of seventeen-year-old Tyler Anderson is still unresolved.
