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| Burr,Ann Marie 1961; Washington State | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 30 2006, 11:38 AM (2,110 Views) | |
| oldies4mari2004 | Jul 30 2006, 11:38 AM Post #1 |
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http://www.charleyproject.org/cases/b/burr_ann.html
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| oldies4mari2004 | Nov 20 2006, 10:50 PM Post #2 |
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Ann Marie Burr Above Images: Burr, circa 1961 Vital Statistics at Time of Disappearance Missing Since: August 13, 1961 from Tacoma, Washington Classification: Non-Family Abduction Age: 8 years old Height and Weight: 4'2, 35 pounds Distinguishing Characteristics: Caucasian female. Blonde hair, hazel eyes. Burr's name may be spelled "Anne." She has red marks on her left hand. Clothing/Jewelry Description: A blue flowered nightgown and a religious medal with engraved images of Jesus Christ and the Virgin Mary. Details of Disappearance Burr was last seen in her north Tacoma, Washington home on August 13, 1961. She shared her bedroom with her three-year-old sister, who had a broken arm at the time. In the middle of the night, Burr brought her sister to their parents' room because she was crying. Their parents told them to go back to bed. Burr has never been heard from again. Burr's mother got up at 5:30 a.m. The front door had been locked and chained the evening before, but Burr's mother found it open. A small living room window which had been closed the night before was also open, and a bench underneath the window had been overturned. Footprints were found outside the house, but they had been distorted by rainy weather and no one could tell if they were from a man, a woman or a child. There was no sign of Burr anywhere and no sign of a struggle in her bedroom. Her sister and her two brothers who slept in the basement had not been disturbed, and the family dog had not barked. Burr's disappearance was treated as an abduction from the beginning. Authorities theorized that she was possibly taken by someone she knew. They investigated convicted sex offenders living in the neighborhood, but could link no one to her disappearance. The case grew cold and remained so until the serial killer Theodore Robert "Ted" Bundy came into the spotlight in the 1970s. A photograph of Bundy is posted below this case summary. He was convicted of several murders and is suspected in scores more, including in the disappearances of Georgeann Hawkins, Debra Kent, Donna Manson, Denise Oliverson, and Nancy Wilcox. He was executed in Florida in 1989. Bundy lived only blocks from Burr's home at the time of her disappearance, and he knew her. Burr's relatives say he and the child were friendly with each other and he could have convinced her to leave her home with him. He was only 14 years old when she disappeared and was not suspected until the other killings came to light over fifteen years later. It is worth noting that Bundy confessed to many murders he had not been charged with, but always denied involvement in Burr's presumed abduction. Nonetheless, many people believe she was his first victim. Burr was about to begin the third grade at school when she vanished. She is described as an intelligent but shy child. Her case remains unsolved. Investigating Agency If you have any information concerning this case, please contact: Tacoma Police Department 253-798-4721 Source Information NewspaperArchive The Crime Library CyberSleuths Crime Web The Stranger Beside Me by Ann Rule Updated 2 times since October 12, 2004. Last updated May 7, 2006; picture and height and weight added, clothing description and distinguishing characteristics updated. Charley Project Home |
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| oldies4mari2004 | Nov 20 2006, 10:51 PM Post #3 |
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Ann Marie Burr
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| oldies4mari2004 | Feb 10 2007, 05:29 PM Post #4 |
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http://z13.invisionfree.com/PorchlightUSA/...opic=3038&st=0& |
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| Ell | Apr 29 2007, 01:11 PM Post #5 |
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Heart of Gold
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Delta Democrat-Times 8 Thursday, May 31, '62
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Ell Only after the last tree has been cut down; Only after the last fish has been caught; Only after the last river has been poisoned; Only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten. | |
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| Ell | Oct 22 2007, 04:32 AM Post #6 |
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Heart of Gold
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How do families mourn loved ones they're not sure are really gone? By Rebecca Morris Special to The Seattle Times ELLEN M. BANNER / THE SEATTLE TIMES Beverly Burr's daughter Ann disappeared from the family's Tacoma home in 1961, when Ann was 8. She's never been found. Burr still thinks of her daughter every day. IT STORMED THAT NIGHT, hiding any sounds that might be heard in a big house. Sometime late on Aug. 31, 1961, 8-year-old Ann Burr brought her younger sister to their parents' bedroom. Mary was crying because she had gotten sand under the cast on her broken arm, and it itched. Beverly and Donald Burr reassured her and sent the girls back to bed. The next morning, Beverly went to check on the children. Mary was asleep in her bed, but across the hall, Ann's room was empty. Beverly found a living-room window ajar and the front door, usually locked from the inside with a deadbolt, standing open. A bench had been pulled up outside the window. Someone had climbed in, then left through the front door with Ann. The abduction of the blond girl with bangs and a ready smile was Tacoma's biggest story of 1961. But months, then years, then decades passed. Beverly and Donald Burr had no body to bury, no cemetery to visit and no end to this devastating and complex grief. They suffered what psychotherapist and author Pauline Boss calls "ambiguous loss." "Ambiguous loss is any kind of loss with no clear information on the status of a missing person," Boss explains. "People are denied the symbolic rituals that ordinarily help us cope with a loss, such as a funeral." Ambiguous loss is not new — wars are especially cruel in creating it — but the study of it is. Boss calls it a grief that defies closure. It's a grief shared by many of the families of the missing that capture our attention: six men still trapped deep inside a Utah mine; Steve Fossett, the millionaire adventurer who vanished on a solo flight; Natalee Holloway, the Alabama teenager who went missing in Aruba. Keeping hope alive Families of the missing are members of a unique brotherhood. Many are afraid to move in case their child, now grown, tries to find them. They keep phone numbers unchanged for decades. They preserve their child's bedroom just as it was. They live as if their loved one might knock on the door any day. That's the way it has been for the family of Air Force Col. John Robertson, a father of four from Edmonds who was shot down over North Vietnam in 1966. "He was always kept alive in the family," says his daughter, Shelby Quast, who was 4 when her father disappeared. Her mother, Barbara Robertson, still celebrates her wedding anniversary. She kept money set aside so she could buy her husband a new wardrobe and a Mercedes when he returned. She encouraged her daughters to travel to Cambodia and Vietnam, investigating sightings of him in work camps. After all these years, Quast, an attorney in Virginia, says if there were news of her father, she would pursue it, "But in a different way. I'd say, 'Prove it to me.' You can't say, 'Enough, I give up.' I would never say that. We always thought he was alive." "I hate that closure thing" "When I first saw that window open, I knew I would never see her again," Beverly Burr says. "I knew I would never know what happened." In the faded newspaper clippings about Ann's disappearance, Beverly is a pretty blonde of 33, mother of four photogenic children. Burr is 79 now, and her hair is gray, but her memories of that period remain sharp. Near the television where she watches "Dancing With the Stars" are albums filled with faded newspaper clippings. There are the first stories about Ann's disappearance, a missing-persons poster, stories about sightings of Ann in California, even the obituaries of the two lead detectives who had vowed to find Ann. And there are more personal items: Ann's second-grade report card with a note from a teacher about how well she expects the girl to do in third grade; a newspaper story about Beverly and Donald adopting a baby girl, Laura, two years after Ann disappeared; and a photo of an azalea sent by author Ann Rule, who mentioned the Burrs in her book about Ted Bundy. There is even a page of photos of the Puyallup woman who showed up in 1994 claiming to be Ann. DNA tests showed she wasn't. As time passed, the Burrs' friends or acquaintances would suggest that it might be time to move on, time to not think about Ann so much. "I don't pay any attention to that," Beverly says with a dismissive wave of her hand. "I hate that closure thing." Criminal folklore has it that a 14-year-old named Ted Bundy was the Burrs' paperboy; he wasn't. But his uncle lived nearby, Ted visited and Ann passed the house on her way to and from piano lessons. Beverly doesn't know if Ann and Ted knew each other. In the 1980s, when Bundy was on death row, he admitted to 35 murders but hinted there were far more. Beverly Burr wrote to Bundy, and they began a correspondence. In one letter, Bundy wrote: "Again, and finally, I did not abduct your daughter. I had nothing to do with her disappearance. If there is still something you wish to ask me about this, please don't hesitate to write again. God bless you and be with you. Peace, Ted." Building resilience Learning to live with the loss is the key to moving forward, even if that means keeping hope alive for decades. "The only way to survive is to keep two opposing thoughts, to straddle between hope and hopelessness," according to Boss, psychotherapist and professor emeritus of the Department of Family Social Science at the University of Minnesota. The author of two books on ambiguous loss, she has researched and worked with 4,000 families around the world — including families who lost a loved one on Sept. 11, wives of pilots missing in Vietnam and of husbands lost at sea, and families in Kosovo where thousands of people have been missing since ethnic cleansing in the 1990s. She has expanded the focus of her research to work with families coping with the psychological absence of a loved one; for example, the families of patients with Alzheimer's. If the ambiguous loss can't be resolved — and often, it can't — then the goal is to increase the resilience of those left behind. That happens by forming new attachments, and finding a new identity and new things to hope for. Those who don't, or can't, risk serious depression and broken relationships. Boss is convinced that unresolved grief is responsible for many personal problems. Boss says it was a Minnesota couple, Elizabeth and Kenny Klein, who showed her how people with ambiguous grief go on. In November 1951, three of the Kleins' four young sons, ages 4, 6 and 8, disappeared while playing by the Mississippi River. Although two of their caps were found in the river, the family is convinced the boys didn't drown, but were abducted. For a while the couple placed an ad in the newspaper — "Lost: Three Boys" — hoping one of the boys would see it and contact them. Today, 56 years later, Elizabeth (Betty to her friends) continues to believe that one, or maybe all three, will someday walk through her door. Kenny Klein believed it too, to the day he died in 2005. "Course, they wouldn't know me now," Betty laughs, alluding to her age, 82. "And they would be in their 60s." To many, such a declaration 56 years later might seem unbearably sad. But Boss says what makes the Kleins good teachers is that they exhibit hope tempered with reality. "They found a way to balance hanging on with letting go." The power of a gesture When there is no body to bury, symbolic gestures are important. After the search for the trapped miners in Utah was called off, families and friends stood on a hill and released a golden eagle into the sky. Boss has worked with families who have buried a favorite guitar in a coffin, or a husband's bowling ball. After Sept. 11, families were offered a vial of dirt from Ground Zero, which many found helpful and meaningful. The Burrs finally held a memorial for Ann in 1999. Beverly says that after Ann vanished, what sustained her were the other children, all younger than Ann. "They needed me very much, and I had to remember that." Also helpful during a long police investigation: gardening and her Catholic faith. She made sure to add "And bless our little Ann" to any prayer. During the 1999 memorial service, Ann's younger sister Julie — who along with her brother Greg, slept soundly that night in 1961 — thanked her parents. "You probably wanted to crawl into bed and bury your head as each day and year passed with no answer," she told them. "But instead you gathered strength and provided us with a wonderful childhood." Julie was right about her parents wanting to hide, Beverly says. "I think the hardest thing is that it was in our minds every minute, but school was starting. We, Donald and I, couldn't have cared less, but we had to pretend for the sake of the children. They were so young and they were terrified and would ask, 'Will he come and get us, too?' " Donald Burr died four years ago. Since then Beverly has moved to a small, bright-blue house. Her son lives on Fox Island, and her daughters live in Bellingham; Seattle; and Albany, Ore. Beverly thinks of Ann first thing, every day. But except for the albums, Ann has no more prominence in the house than Julie, Laura, Mary or Greg. Now there are pictures of grandchildren — about Ann's age then — on Beverly's refrigerator. In her den are photos of all the children. Ann, whether in her Blue Bird uniform, or with Santa Claus, or with her dog Barney, remains 8 years old. There is only one other thing frozen in time. Beverly Burr's phone number is the same one the family had in 1961. She has never changed it, just in case. Rebecca Morris has been a broadcast and print journalist http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/livi...34_loss210.html |
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Ell Only after the last tree has been cut down; Only after the last fish has been caught; Only after the last river has been poisoned; Only then will you realize that money cannot be eaten. | |
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| monkalup | Mar 10 2008, 07:43 PM Post #7 |
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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June 2, 1962 Winnipeg Free Press Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada Report missing girl seen Portage La Prairie (CP) - Police are investigating a report that nine-year-old Ann Marie Burr, kidnapped in Tacoma, Wash. last year, was sighted here Thursday. The operator of a service station told police he saw the Burr girl in the station's cafe. He said a blonde-haired girl accompanied by two women and a man had breakfast in the restaurant, but he did not recognize the girl at the time. Hours later, he saw a newspaper picture of the Burr girl and it fitted the description of the girl in the restaurant. He called police. Name of the man or his place of business in the southern Manitoba prairie city was not released. The Burr girl was kidnapped from the bedroom of her parents Tacoma home last Aug. 31 and has been the object of a search in Canada and the United States ever since. Authorities have offered a $5,000 reward for the return of the girl to her parents and arrest of her abductors. The garage operator told police the adults spoke a little too sharply to the girl to be her parents. She walked up to a candy counter at one point and he asked where she was from. The girl said she was from Tacoma. Royal Canadian Mounted Police have alerted border points to keep watch for the group. The newspaper picture the restaurant operator saw has been circulated to newspapers in the hopes somebody might spot the missing girl. |
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Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
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| monkalup | Mar 10 2008, 07:43 PM Post #8 |
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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Oakland Tribune, Oakland, CA June 3, 1962 Nationwide Hunt Pressed for Missing Tacoma Girl Tacoma, Wash. - Mr. and Mrs. Donald Burr tucked their eight-year-old daughter Ann Marie safely into bed on a stormy night last August. They heard her prayers, kissed her goodnight and turned out the light, just as they had in turn for each of their three other children. Mary, 3, was in an adjoining upstairs bedroom. Julie, 7, and Greg, 5, were in the basement bedroom. Sometime before 5 a.m. Ann Marie carried little Mary to Mr. and Mrs. Burr's downstairs bedroom because Mary was restless and couldn't sleep. Mrs. Burr took both of them back upstairs. By dawn Ann Marie had vanished. She hasn't been seen since. "When Mary came to our bedroom again, Ann wasn't with her and I took her back to bed. I looked in on Ann and she was gone," Mrs. Burr said. Chief of Detectives R J Drost said the abductor didn't leave "five cents worth of clues" when he or she entered the Burr home through the window, walked directly to Ann Marie's bedroom took her away on the night of August 30-31. A piece of woolen cloth torn from the kidnaper's clothes and left hanging on a window nail is all police have. Not even a muddy shoe mark or fingerprints. Mrs. Burr said she and her husband sleep with their bedroom door open as do the children. "But we couldn't hear a thing that night. Not a thing." Drost is working on the possibility that a person who was familiar with the Burr home and who may have known the family years ago may be involved. |
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Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
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| monkalup | Mar 10 2008, 07:44 PM Post #9 |
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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Other bits of info: Full name of chief investigator is Robert J Drost Ann Marie's father worked as a warehouseman at nearby Camp Murray. http://findmywayhome.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=8 |
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Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
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| Nut44x4 | Aug 3 2011, 01:36 PM Post #10 |
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Advanced Member
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http://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/artic...jectid=10742769 Old vial of blood may help crack murder mysteries By Guy Adams 5:55 AM Thursday Aug 4, 2011 Ted Bundy, the prolific serial killer who confessed to murdering at least 30 young women in the 1970s, could soon have more deaths added to his toll. Police in Florida have found a vial of his blood, allowing them to create for the first time a full DNA profile that may help solve a string of cases. The vial was discovered in the Tallahassee Crime Laboratory, where it had been since 1978 when Bundy was arrested for the murder of a 12-year-old local girl. Most biological evidence in the case was destroyed years ago. Bundy went to the electric chair in 1989, aged 42, after being found guilty of three homicides. Only 20 of his victims have been identified, but he has been linked to dozens of unsolved murders over a four-year period from 1974. Some estimates put Bundy's potential list of victims at almost 100, across several American states. Since most of the women he is known to have killed were violently attacked and then raped, it is probable that he left DNA evidence. Linking Bundy to surviving evidence has been difficult. He was executed before the advent of DNA technology, and forensic experts have previously been unable obtain anything that might allow them to build a satisfactory profile. Letters sent by Bundy were examined but found not to contain surviving saliva samples. A dental mould of his teeth had been contaminated by excessive handling. A tissue sample taken from his body before he was cremated had deteriorated to the extent that only a partial profile could be created. The blood sample was remarkably well preserved, allowing David Coffman, the laboratory's chief of forensic services, to extract "a beautiful profile". It will be added to the FBI's national DNA database, allowing detectives pursuing cold cases from the time Bundy is believed to have been active to confirm his involvement in unsolved crimes or eliminate him from inquiries. Among the first cases that it may help solve is the abduction of Anne-Marie Burr, 8, who disappeared from the bedroom of her home in Tacoma, near Seattle, in 1961. Bundy grew up nearby, and she is his first suspected victim. |
| and Justice for all .... | |
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| monkalup | Oct 5 2011, 12:02 AM Post #11 |
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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DNA evidence unlikely to show whether Bundy abducted Tacoma girl It doesn’t appear DNA evidence will reveal whether serial killer Ted Bundy is responsible for the disappearance of 8-year-old Ann Marie Burr, who vanished from her North End home 50 years ago. Ann Marie Burr is shown in an undated file photo. MORE PHOTOS STACIA GLENN; Staff writer STACIA GLENN The News Tribune Published: 10/04/11 7:45 pm | Updated: 10/04/11 7:55 pm 3 Comments It doesn’t appear DNA evidence will reveal whether serial killer Ted Bundy is responsible for the disappearance of 8-year-old Ann Marie Burr, who vanished from her North End home 50 years ago. Several pieces of evidence from the city’s oldest unsolved case were sent to the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory in August to be analyzed. Forensic scientists were unable to develop a suspect DNA profile from the evidence, Tacoma police said Tuesday. Citing the ongoing investigation, police spokesman Mark Fulghum said he could not say what evidence was tested or why a DNA profile could not be established. “This avenue hit a dead end, but the investigation itself is not over,” he said. Detectives will continue interviewing witnesses and poring over binders and boxes associated with the case. None of the suspects, including Bundy, has been ruled out. Police have not said how many people have been investigated over the decades in connection with the blond girl’s abduction. Ann Marie was taken Aug. 31, 1961, from her home in the 3000 block of North 14th Street. After being woken by her younger sister Mary’s crying, Ann Marie took her to their parents and then returned Mary to bed. When Mary’s cries woke her mother about 5:30 a.m., Beverly Burr found Ann Marie’s bed empty, a living room window open and the front door ajar. The girl, who was the oldest of four Burr children, was never seen again. Detectives and academics long have wondered whether Ann Marie was the first of Bundy’s dozens of victims. He had a paper route and frequently visited his uncle, who lived in the Burr neighborhood. But before his execution in 1989, Bundy wrote a letter to Ann Marie’s parents and denied having anything to do with their daughter’s disappearance. He confessed to killing 30 victims and is suspected of slaying dozens more. Bundy told law enforcement he killed 11 women and girls in Washington, although investigators were only able to identify eight of them. The other three remain a mystery. It took a push from detectives working the Burr case to help get Bundy’s DNA profile added to the FBI database of convicted offenders. Bundy’s execution happened before the creation of state and national databases but a vial of his blood was recently found in evidence collected during a 1978 arrest in Florida. It was enough to create a DNA profile. But because a suspect profile could not be developed from evidence in the Burr case, it’s impossible to determine if one of Tacoma’s most notorious sons was involved. “That means we go back to where we were before,” Fulghum said. Stacia Glenn: 253-597-8653 stacia.glenn@thenewstribune.com Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/10/04/1...l#ixzz1ZsetorXg http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/10/04/1...ly-to-show.html |
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Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
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| monkalup | Oct 5 2011, 12:28 AM Post #12 |
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/07/30/1...ylink=mirelated Detectives probe killer Ted Bundy's ties to missing Tacoma girl Serial killer Ted Bundy has long been suspected in the abduction of 8-year-old Ann Marie Burr, who disappeared from her North End Tacoma home in 1961. Over the years, academics, police investigators and relatives of Bundy and Ann Marie have debated whether she was the first of his dozens of murder victims. It’s all been speculation and theorizing based on police interviews with Bundy, books and media reports about him and his intriguing connections to the Burr neighborhood. PETER HALEY THE NEWS TRIBUNE Tacoma News Tribune cover from Jan. 25, 1989 MORE PHOTOS Related Content • DNA use is common now, but wasn't during Ted Bundy's heyday STACEY MULICK; Staff writer STACEY MULICK Published: 07/30/11 6:32 pm | Updated: 07/31/11 11:32 am 23 Comments Serial killer Ted Bundy has long been suspected in the abduction of 8-year-old Ann Marie Burr, who disappeared from her North End Tacoma home in 1961. Over the years, academics, police investigators and relatives of Bundy and Ann Marie have debated whether she was the first of his dozens of murder victims. It’s all been speculation and theorizing based on police interviews with Bundy, books and media reports about him and his intriguing connections to the Burr neighborhood. Soon, Tacoma police detectives could have a more concrete answer. Officials in Florida are working to have Bundy’s DNA profile uploaded into the FBI’s national database by mid-August. Tacoma detectives hope to compare it to evidence that was never analyzed in the Ann Marie case. “From a historical standpoint, there is this belief that Ted Bundy could be responsible,” said detective Gene Miller, who leads the Tacoma Police Department’s cold case unit. “It’s a question that needs to be answered from a historical standpoint as well as an investigative standpoint.” Ann Marie’s family wants to know, too. Her parents have died but her siblings still don’t know what happened to their big sister. “It would help put some closure on it one way or another,” Julie Burr said Friday. “If we could learn anything to understand what happened or learn what happened, that would be our desire.” Having Bundy’s DNA in the national database also could shed light on other unsolved cases in states, including Washington, where he preyed on young women and girls. Before he was executed in 1989 in Florida, the 42-year-old Bundy confessed to killing 30 victims. Law enforcement investigators were not able to identify all the victims and suspected he killed dozens more. He confessed to killing 11 women in Washington state. Investigators were able to identify eight of them. The other three victims remain a mystery. Bundy’s killing spree and execution came before the creation of state and national databases that contain millions of DNA samples of convicted offenders. Law enforcement agencies use the databases to crack unsolved crimes, strengthen their evidence against suspects or to clear them. The effort to get Bundy’s profile into the FBI database has spanned several years. It got a jolt of energy after Lindsey Wade became the latest in a long line of Tacoma homicide detectives to look again at Ann Marie’s disappearance. As usual, Ted Bundy’s name came to mind. In January, she picked up the phone and called Florida, wondering if anybody still had a sample of the killer’s DNA. VANISHED For more than three decades, the name of Tacoma’s most notorious son has been linked to one of the city’s most baffling crimes. Ann Marie, the oldest of the four Burr children, vanished from her home in the 3000 block of North 14th Street. In the early morning of Aug. 31, 1961, the blond-haired girl woke up when her 3-year-old sister Mary started to cry. Mary had a cast on her arm and it was bothering her. Ann Marie took her sister to their parents, who comforted the girls and asked Ann Marie to take Mary back to bed. About 5:30 a.m. Mary started to cry again, waking her mother. In checking Ann Marie’s upstairs bedroom, Beverly Burr found the bed empty and her oldest daughter missing. Searching the house, Beverly Burr found a living room window open and the front door ajar. The 8-year-old’s room showed no signs of a struggle and the family’s cocker spaniel hadn’t made a peep. Ann Marie, who’d been dressed in a floral white-and-blue nightgown and was just days away from starting third grade, was never seen again. BUNDY'S KILLINGS Bundy was born Theodore Robert Cowell in 1946 in Vermont. He later moved to Tacoma and took his stepfather’s last name. He had a paper route and frequently visited his uncle, who lived in the Burr neighborhood. He later studied at the University of Puget Sound and University of Washington. In the 1970s, Bundy began his spree of raping, torturing and killing women and girls in at least five states, including Washington. The first time he was caught was in Utah in August 1975, when a state trooper spotted Bundy in his Volks-wagen Beetle, parked outside a neighbor’s home where two young sisters were there alone. Bundy was convicted of attempted kidnapping and sentenced to 15 years in prison. He was extradited to Colorado to face charges there, but escaped twice. He showed up in Tallahassee in 1978. Within days he crept into a Florida State University sorority, killed two women and hurt two others. Less than a month later, he kidnapped and killed a 12-year-old girl. Florida police arrested Bundy in a stolen car a week later. He was convicted and executed for killing the two sorority sisters and the girl. Before his execution, Bundy wrote to Ann Marie’s parents and responded to questions they had about their daughter. He said he didn’t know what happened to the little girl and denied having anything to do with her disappearance. “At the time, I was a normal 14-year-old-boy,” Bundy wrote. “I did not wander the streets late at night. I did not steal cars. I had absolutely no desire to harm anyone. I was just an average kid.” LOOKING FOR DNA Over the years, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement’s regional crime lab in Tallahassee has received many calls from detectives, asking about Bundy. Most of the time, the techs had little information to share. About 2002, the lab received a partial profile of Bundy’s DNA. A private lab had developed the profile based on tissue taken from Bundy’s body before he was cremated. The profile was too limited to be uploaded into the FBI’s database but it could be used for comparisons when detectives called about unsolved slayings where Bundy was a suspect. None of the comparisons linked Bundy to a killing, said David Coffman, the lab’s director. To know for sure, investigators needed a complete DNA profile. To get that, Coffman needed to find a new sample or piece of evidence to test. He’d looked for a usable blood sample from evidence in the Bundy cases in Florida but came up empty. No one had taken a sample in the years between Bundy’s conviction and his execution. “It kind of reached a standstill,” Coffman said recently. “There was nothing to get a sample from.” Then he took the call from a homicide detective in Tacoma. GETTING A PROFILE Last December, Wade was researching Bundy in connection with Ann Marie’s case. Her disappearance is the oldest mystery assigned to the Police Department’s new “cold case” unit. Wade found Bundy’s DNA profile wasn’t in the national database. Surprised, she called Coffman. “I wasn’t sure where this path was going to lead,” she said recently. After the two talked, Coffman got to thinking. The crime lab had a display case of items from the Bundy murders. It was featured on tours of the building. He checked the display and found a set of dental impressions in some evidence boxes. He wondered if they could find DNA on the wax molds. When the lab’s technicians inspected the molds, they found them covered with fingerprints. That would contaminate any DNA. Strike one. In the meantime, Wade contacted author Ann Rule, who’d known Bundy and written a book about him. The serial killer had sent her letters from prison and Wade thought his DNA might be found on the stamps on the envelopes. Wade got the letters and envelopes but didn’t need to get them tested because Coffman was finally having some luck. He contacted the clerk’s office in the Florida county where Bundy killed the 12-year-old girl. Investigators still had evidence from the case, including a vial of Bundy’s blood drawn when he was arrested in 1978. Coffman submitted the sample for a DNA profile and scored. “We were shocked how we got a complete profile,” he said. “It was a beautiful profile.” The profile matched the partial profile Coffman had on file. It also was complete enough to be eligible for the FBI database. Given the age of the sample and that it was collected when Bundy was arrested, there were some legal hurdles to cross. The profile couldn’t be uploaded into the database as a convicted offender because the sample was taken before Bundy’s convictions. It also was collected before Florida required DNA samples be taken from convicted offenders. “We didn’t know how to do this since he was collected, tried and executed before” the database was created, Coffman said. In 2009-10, the Florida Legislature expanded the state’s DNA law to allow law enforcement officers to collect samples from suspects upon their arrests. The law took effect this year. Working with his legal department, Coffman got Bundy’s DNA profile into a special “legal” category in the national database. “This is sort of an unusual situation,” Coffman said. “He’s a suspect but a dead suspect.” SEEKING A CONNECTION Last week in Tacoma, Wade and Miller sorted through the box of evidence from the Ann Marie case. With Bundy’s DNA profile on its way to the FBI database, they worked to get the local evidence ready for testing. Even after 50 years DNA could still exist on the evidence. The detectives will soon send it to the state crime lab to find out. “They probably will be able to get something,” Miller said. Though Bundy is the most prominent possible suspect in Ann Marie’s disappearance, he isn’t the only one. “There are many other names listed in the case file,” Wade said. If a DNA profile can be found, it will be compared with those of convicted felons in the state and national databases. It also will be run against unsolved cases where there is DNA evidence from unknown suspects. The FBI will issue a nationwide bulletin informing law enforcement agencies that Bundy’s DNA has been added to the national database. Wade and Miller are working with the Washington Attorney General’s Office on a similar announcement to agencies in the state. “It’s not just our case,” Wade said. “Once the word gets out, other agencies can look at their old cases.” Read more: http://www.thenewstribune.com/2011/07/30/1...l#ixzz1ZslAzyA7 |
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Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
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| monkalup | Oct 5 2011, 11:27 PM Post #13 |
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The Old Heifer! An oxymoron, of course.
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DNA Evidence Fails To Link Ted Bundy To Ann Marie Burr Hopes for closure for the relatives of missing Ann Marie Burr were dashed Tuesday, when authorities said there was not enough amplifiable DNA to link her disappearance over 50 years ago to Ted Bundy. The young Washington State girl, long considered a possible victim of the notorious serial killer, has been missing since she was 8 years old. Weeks ago, there was a glimmer of hope that this 50-year-old mystery would be solved when police sent the Washington State Patrol Crime Laboratory several key pieces of evidence from the case. Authorities were hoping to develop a DNA profile of the suspect that they could compare to a profile that was recently obtained from a vial of Bundy's blood. It took several weeks for the tests to be conducted. Police are now saying the evidence did not contain enough measurable DNA to yield a complete profile, the Bellingham Herald reported. "This avenue hit a dead end, but the investigation itself is not over," Tacoma Police Department spokesman Mark Fulghum told the Herald. Ann Marie was taken from her family's Tacoma home on Aug. 31, 1961. Police believe her abductor entered through an unlocked window, grabbed the young girl and left through the front door, which was left ajar. Investigators discovered a faint footprint outside the window, which they believe was from a size 6 or 7 sneaker. "I was awakened early in the morning with men shining flashlights in my face. They were the police," Ann Marie's sister, Julie Burr, told KOMO 4 News. "Seeing my parents running through the kitchen opening drawers and looking under beds looking for my sister -- I remember that like it happened yesterday." Burr added, "I think we spent most of our weekends [after that] going out looking for her." Ann Marie Burr Authorities interviewed several persons of interest, but were unable to determine what happened to Ann Marie. Bundy lived only a few blocks from Ann Marie's home. He had a paper route in the area and would often visit a neighboring uncle. Bundy was only 14 years old at the time of Ann Marie's abduction and was not considered a potential suspect. It was not until years later, when Bundy was arrested for multiple homicides, that authorities began to take a close look at him. Bundy is believed to have murdered dozens of women in Utah, Idaho, Washington and Colorado throughout the 1970s. He was captured in Florida in 1978 following the murders of two college students and a 12-year-old girl. Bundy received the death penalty for the Florida crimes. Before his execution, Bundy confessed to killing more than 50 women. Some suspect Ann Marie was his first victim. During Bundy's confessions, former King County detective Bob Keppel unsuccessfully tried to get the serial killer to talk about his first kill. "We'll have to bring that up, do that some other time. If there is another time," Bundy replied, according to recorded confessions obtained by KIRO-TV. There was no other time. Bundy was executed on Jan. 24, 1989. Ann Marie's father died in 2003 and her mother in 2008. Both the young girls' parents went to their graves without knowing what happened to their daughter. http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/05/a...3_lnk3%7C101934 |
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Lauran "If you have a chance to accomplish something that will make things better for people coming behind you, and you don't do that, you are wasting your time on this earth." The late, great Roberto Clemente. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, any copyrighted work in this message is distributed under fair use without profit or payment for non-profit research and educational purposes only. | |
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| tatertot | Oct 7 2011, 03:24 AM Post #14 |
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Advanced Member
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http://www.examiner.com/crime-media-in-nat...coma-girl-video Ted Bundy not linked by DNA to missing Tacoma girl (video) Jason Taylor, Crime & Media Examiner October 6, 2011 Investigators were unable to link notorious serial killer Ted Bundy to the disappearance of an 8-year-old Tacoma girl, Ann Marie Burr, who vanished from her home some 50 years ago. Evidence from the unsolved case was sent to the Washington State Crime Laboratory for analysis back in August. Tacoma police reported this week that forensic scientists failed to develop a DNA profile from the evidence that could have potentially linked the girl’s disappearance to Bundy. Speaking of the DNA link, Police spokesman Mark Fulghum said, "This avenue hit a dead end, but the investigation itself is not over." Ann Marie was reported missing by her parents on August 31, 1961. Police believe the abductor entered the house from the back door and exited with Ann Marie out the front door. Many have speculated over the years that the girl was Bundy’s first victim. Bundy had a paper route near where Ann Marie lived, and an uncle he would visit in the neighborhood. Despite the DNA setback, detectives are determined to continue the investigation into the disappearance of Ann Marie. Theodore Robert "Ted" Bundy, born Theodore Robert Cowell, November 24, 1946, was one of America’s most infamous serial killers. During the 1970s, Bundy kidnapped, raped, and murdered numerous young women, primarily from the Northwestern States. Although Bundy confessed to 30 murders, some close to the Bundy case believe he was responsible for murdering at least one hundred women. Bundy’s reign of terror ended when he was captured in Florida in 1978 after two successful prison escapes. Bundy subsequently received three death sentences for murders he had committed in Florida. He was executed on January 24, 1989 in Raiford, Florida. |
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3:45 AM Jul 11