Jesse Michael Anderson was born on May 3, 1957, in Alton, Illinois, and spent his formative years there. His father died of a heart attack during his teenage years, and his mother later remarried. Anderson graduated from Alton High School in 1975 and pursued higher education, eventually earning a Business Administration degree from Elmhurst College in 1984.

His first marriage, to Debra Ann Eickert, ended in divorce in 1984. That same year, Anderson married Barbara E. Lynch on March 30 in Chicago, Illinois. The couple eventually settled in Cedarburg, Wisconsin, where they raised three children. On the surface, Jesse Anderson appeared to be a well-established and respected member of his suburban community. He was treasurer of the local Lions Club and volunteered at Divine Word Catholic Church.

Friends and neighbors described him as a seemingly stable man with no outward signs of financial distress or domestic trouble. However, beneath this appearance of normalcy, Anderson harbored darker intentions that would ultimately unravel his life and end in one of the most notorious prison deaths in modern U.S. criminal history.

On the evening of April 21, 1992, Jesse and Barbara Anderson went to a movie and dinner at a TGI Friday's near the Northridge Mall in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After dinner, in the restaurant's parking lot, Jesse attacked Barbara, stabbing her 21 times in the face and head. He then inflicted superficial stab wounds on himself to fabricate a story of a random attack. 

Anderson claimed that two Black men had assaulted them, even providing police with a Los Angeles Clippers cap he alleged belonged to one of the assailants. However, a university student came forward, stating that Anderson had purchased the cap from him days earlier. Further investigation revealed that the murder weapon, a red-handled fishing knife, had been bought by Anderson from a local military surplus store. These pieces of evidence led to his arrest on April 29, 1992.

Anderson's trial began on August 3, 1992. Despite his claims of innocence, the jury found him guilty of first-degree intentional homicide on August 13, 1992. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with the possibility of parole after 60 years. The case drew significant attention due to Anderson's attempt to falsely implicate Black men, highlighting issues of racial bias in criminal investigations.

While serving his sentence at Columbia Correctional Institution in Portage, Wisconsin, Anderson was assigned to a work detail alongside fellow inmates Jeffrey Dahmer and Christopher Scarver. On November 28, 1994, the three men were left unsupervised while cleaning a bathroom. Scarver, who harbored animosity towards both Dahmer and Anderson, attacked them with a metal bar from the prison weight room. Dahmer died shortly after the attack, while Anderson succumbed to his injuries two days later, on November 30, 1994.