January 30, 2025 • 35 mins
Detectives investigating Danny Burroughs' disappearance stumbled upon shocking evidence at the home of his wife, Loretta. Hidden in her guest bedroom, they discovered Danny's body concealed in multiple layers of plastic. Loretta’s confession unraveled a web of lies and deception, revealing a disturbing truth about his death and her actions.
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Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
When Danny Burrows disappeared from his home in May's Landy,
New Jersey, his wife, Loretta, said he ran off with
another woman, a waitress who worked at a restaurant Danny
and Loretta used to go to when they were on
vacation down south.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
But not everyone bought Loretta's story.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
There was a lot of rumors and deceptions surrounding Daniel's disappearance.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Six years later, detectives executed simultaneous sirch warrants, one on
Loretta's New Jersey home and the other at Loretta's sister's house,
where Loretta had been staying. Investigators never imagined what they'd find.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
When we entered the house, we were all shocked. I
think it was the last thing we expected.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Honestly, she was.
Speaker 5 (00:46):
An elder care nurse for years, just taking care of
other people, and when you look at this case, you
could see through that mask.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
We're in South Jersey today for the conclusion of the
disappearance of Danny Burroughs. I'm Sloan Glass and this is
American homicide and just a warning that what you're about
to hear is graphic.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Please take care while listening.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
By May of twenty thirteen, Danny Burrows had been missing
for nearly six years. The case had gone cold until
prosecutors received a tip that Loretta Burroughs had forged some
legal documents. This sparked a search warrant of the two
residences where Loretta had been staying, her home and her sisters.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
We were of the understanding that it was for insurance
for all documents with the capacity that could find possible
items of evidentiary value related to a homicide or at disappearance.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
So as Loretta Burrows was being questioned at her sister's house,
another team led by Sergeant Caroline MacDonald was searching Loretta's
home in Ventnor City, New Jersey.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Loretta Burrough's house was impeccably clean. When I entered, it
smelled very fresh. Generally speaking, it was as if she
was expecting visitors.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Her beachy two bedroom, two back Duplaque sat a couple
blocks from the Atlantic Ocean and just minutes from the
many casinos and nightlife of Atlantic City.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
At that time I was conducting the search, I was
the one photographing. My primary area of concern was her bedroom.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
That's where I started.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
What particularly stood out to me in Loretta's bedroom was
the organizational aspect of her closets. She had every pair
of shoes that she owned in their own little tupperware
cases stacked on top of each other on the top
of her closet.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Sergeant MacDonald had the camera and her team had a
system in place.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Every time an item of potential evidence area value is
located within the residence, whoever's searching that area will call
your name so you can photograph it as it exists.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
While she was in Loretta's bedroom, the lieutenant in the
guest bedroom called her name.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
In my mind, I'm thinking, okay, he found something of interest.
So when I walked into the bedroom, it had bunk beds,
some kids items in there, and we were made to
understand that that is the room that when her grandsons
came over they would sleep.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
And standing in front of the closet was the lieutenant.
He had a puzzled look on his face.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
When you opened the first set of closets, there wasn't
anything of particular interest in there. It was kind of empty.
When you got to the second closet and you pulled
open the doors and there were a lot of clothing
items in there.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Mixed in with Loretta's clothing and Christmas decorations.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Was something odd.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
There was a stacked object and it had blankets draped
over it and clothing items draped over it, things on
top of it, appearing to cover up whatever the object was.
He called my attention to it because he found it
to be strange. They were the only items in the
house that appeared to be concealed in a strange way.
(04:04):
As we started to remove the coverings around the tupware containers,
there were plastic bags, garbage bags.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
In fact, there were nine layers of black plastic garbage bags.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
As we dug deeper into it, we were finding little
air freshener beads that were melting and coming apart. We
were finding dryer sheets that had sense to them.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
You probably know where this is going.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Even with all of those air fresheners, Sergeant MacDonald noticed
a smell she described as decomposition.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
As it became stronger and stronger and started to fill
the room, we stopped. I called the Medical Examiner's office,
and as I was hanging up the phone with them,
another sergeant who was present, he was coming into the
room to let me know that Sergeant Doherty was interviewing
Loretta Burrows and that we were going to find Daniel's
(05:02):
body inside the house.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
You may remember from the last episode another team of
detectives was questioning Loretta at her sister's house.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
It was almost simultaneously that the discovery happened, as well
as the phone call.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
As the team photographed the many plastic bags, dryer sheets,
and air freshener beads. Loretta Burrow sat with Detective Shallick
and Sergeant Lynn Doherty.
Speaker 6 (05:29):
She simply said, oh, you, Detective Shallock, and I said yes,
And she says, I want to talk to your Mirandezer.
And at that point she tells us everything that happened
Rightad said that they had gotten into an argument.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
She told the police the argument she had with Danny
happened in August of two thousand and seven.
Speaker 6 (05:46):
Daniel pushed her on the bed, and once that happened,
she got a knife from the kitchen and repeated stabbed
Daniel and killed him.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
She said she stabbed him.
Speaker 7 (05:58):
She said he was in the bathroom and he fell
into the bathtub, and that she left the body in
the bathtub.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Loretta said she killed Danny, but it was in self defense.
Speaker 7 (06:09):
Everything that she told us, was about her being the victim.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Keep in mind, Danny was recovering from shoulder surgery at
the time and his arm was in a sling.
Speaker 7 (06:20):
That doesn't mean he couldn't throw her on the bed,
but the way the house was set up, She then
ran down the loft, down the steps, through the living room,
into the kitchen to grab a knife, and then back
through the kitchen, through the living room, up the steps,
through the bedroom, and into the bathroom to protect herself
(06:43):
from the.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Person that was upstairs. The whole time, it didn't add up.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
So the picture that Loretta's painting would mean that she
got into her car and drove to a theme park
in Pennsylvania for a vacation with her daughter and of
Cole and her grandchildren.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
All well, her husband was still in the bathtub.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
And if you remember from the last episode, Loretta told
Nicole that Danny called her during that trip.
Speaker 7 (07:10):
When we said, why would you tell Nicole that you're
calling Danny and having conversations with him, and she said, oh,
I was calling him to see.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
If he picked up.
Speaker 7 (07:19):
But you just said you knew he was dead. She's like, oh, yeah,
I just like was hoping. I mean nothing she said
made sense.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
That's when investigators began to connect the dots.
Speaker 7 (07:31):
She's telling people that he's calling her from Florida, and
he's clearly not. So she was laying foundations for people
to not be suspicious of him disappearing the whole time.
You know, why are you going to report Hi missing?
I told you I talked to him.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
He's not missing. He's in Florida.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
You know what investigators were getting at is that Loretta
had a clear plan over the last half decade. She's
spun a tangled web of lies to cover the fact
that she stabbed and killed her husband.
Speaker 7 (08:02):
I asked her in the interview, Okay, so you stabbed him, right,
you're saying that there was this fight and you stabbed him.
Did you ever think to call nine one one, Like,
even in the heat of passion, if if you're mad
at somebody and you stab them, which is still like
a terrible, horrible thing, what do you do? You call
nine one and try and get the medical attention. And
(08:26):
then she said something to the effect of and he's
still with me, right, Danny's still with me? Something like that.
I'm like, keep like a vile blood around her neck?
On a necklace, Like, what kind of crazy thing is
she talking about? That he's still with me. I never
imagined that she was going to tell us what she
(08:46):
told us. And then she said, I just put him
in a rubber made container.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
That's the same plastic container the police found hidden in
Loretta's guest closet.
Speaker 7 (08:56):
We asked her, like, how did you put his body
into rubber bean container? Shaguard just like pushed it in,
And we specifically asked her if she had cut up
his body or anything, and she said no, But then
later the autopsy report showed that there were cut marks
on the bones.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
And then she tells us that she.
Speaker 7 (09:20):
Had to put like transition into another container, which is
the one we found him in, and that his head
fell off, so she put that in a separate container,
and she claimed to take the body out of the
closet and talk to it.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
So just to be clear, Loretta says she killed the
man she loved since they were kids, and she loved
him so much that she stuffed his dead body into
big plastic containers and then talked to the body.
Speaker 7 (09:55):
Six seven years, she's been traveling around with this body,
keeping it.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
It's like something you watch on TV.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
At first, Loretta said she kept Danny's body in a
container out in the yard behind their house in May's Landing,
but she eventually dug up Danny's remains and put them
into storage containers. If you remember, neighbors of Loretta complained
of a smell on her property. To this day, they
continue to wonder if Danny's body was under that tarp
(10:27):
in her backyard.
Speaker 6 (10:28):
I've never heard of anyone ever murring someone and keeping
the body. And not only keeping the body, she transported
it to her second house and then transported to our
third house, so it completely blew us away.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Detective Frank Shallick arrested the sixty one year old grandmother
and charged her with murder, and.
Speaker 6 (10:48):
Then investigator Lynn Doherty and I went to Nichole's house
and sat down with her and explained to everything that
had happened.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Nicole is Loretta's daughter.
Speaker 6 (10:59):
She just couldn't believe it, you know, and Nicole I
just lost her stepfather, you know, it was confirmation that
and Nicole just lost her mother. Her mother was not
going to go away to prison, probably for the rest
of her life. It was very hard for her.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Nicole had plenty to process, including the fact that her
children spent many nights at Loretta's home.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
Daniel's body was stored in the bedroom of her third home,
which her grandkids would use. I mean, she murdered someone,
it's disturbing, but to put the body in the closet
where her grandkids were sleeping. I just can't fathom what
she was thinking, Like, I don't know, just it bothers me.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Well, no one imagined the years of wondering what happened
to Danny Burrow's would end like this.
Speaker 8 (11:50):
She kept them in the cart for seven years. I
don't know what the I can't even get into ahead
like that.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I can't ruth Antovanny not only grew up with Danny,
but she went to prom with him.
Speaker 8 (12:05):
How in the world, how do you make a decision
to do that. It's sad, very sad.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
It was very sad, especially for Danny's brother, Ray, who
had spent years trying to get anyone to listen when
he said something here is not right. My brother would
not disappear, And he was right. His brother was closer
to him than he ever expected. His intuition told him
(12:39):
Loretta was behind it, and her duplicity hit a dark
dark side. Loretta Borough spent six years portraying herself as
a scorned wife. She told everyone that her husband Danny
(13:02):
left her for a young blonde in Florida. The reality
was Loretta murdered Danny.
Speaker 9 (13:10):
Not only did she kill her husband, Okay, I see
that occasionally, but that she then chopped him up and
put him in a toat. But no, we don't stop there.
She moved him from location to location.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Damon G.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Teyner was the Atlantic County prosecutor whose jaw dropped when
he read about the case.
Speaker 9 (13:32):
You can't make this up. If you made it up,
it would really be a bad horror film.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Loretta moved Danny his dead body two other times and
was in the process of moving a third time.
Speaker 9 (13:47):
So what mindset is there that when the moving vans
show up to move you from one destination to another,
that you say, hey, don't forget my body over there.
It's unheard of. And her grandkids are coming to that home,
they're visiting there, and she has something in there as
(14:10):
bizarre as the remains of her late husband, Like, what
is that all about? But the reality is is that
if Danny burrows remains were not in that home or
had never been found. This is a case that doesn't
go to trial. It's probably not even charged.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
This is a crime Loretta could have gotten away with.
It had been six years and up until now, there
was no evidence that Danny was more than a missing person.
There's no rationalizing what Loretta did. But could she have
been in chalk? Was Danny really this violent man and
(14:51):
she was responding in self defense?
Speaker 6 (14:54):
Well?
Speaker 1 (14:54):
The trial brought out those answers. In March twenty fifteen,
the case went to trial and prosecutor said Loretta Burrow's
motive was much darker and meaningless.
Speaker 9 (15:06):
Loretta had a gambling problem. She was addicted to gambling,
and I believe that she wanted to stay in the
area not for the purpose of being close to her
children and grandchildren, but for the purpose of feeding her addiction.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
And no matter where Loretta lived in New Jersey, she
was always a short car ride away from the numerous
casinos in Atlantic City. Back in two thousand and six,
for example, those casinos took in over five billion dollars
from the busloads of gamblers who played slot machines and
table games, and Loretta was one of those gamblers.
Speaker 9 (15:43):
Loretta Burrows was greedy. She would do anything to feed
that addiction, and that includes murder.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Prosecutor Seth Leevy learned Loretta's gambling addiction dated back to
the nineteen nineties. That's when she got in trouble with
one of her employers.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
She over the course of time as a bookkeeper, was
slowly embezzling money from the company she worked for.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
According to court records, Loretta stole four hundred and seventy
thousand dollars, and in nineteen ninety six, she was sentenced
to fifteen months in federal prison. Her lawyer at the
time blamed it on Loretta's gambling addiction.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
That kind of crime takes patients, it takes devotion to
the crime, it takes knowledge, and so now you're looking
at somebody in a different lens.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
As the trial began, two questions loomed. Would Loretta take
a plea deal and would she testify on her own
behalf Judge Mike Donio presided over the trial.
Speaker 10 (16:46):
I didn't think she would enter a guilty plea because
I think she figured that, you know, if I'm going
to spend most of my life, for all my life
in jail, I might as well take the shot, even
though I know it's a long long shot.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
The voice you were hearing here is Judge Mike Donio.
I've covered a lot of cases. Rarely does the judge
speak to reporters. It doesn't matter if the case is closed.
It's just not something they often do. And as the
trial started, Loretta got a big win. Judge Donio throughout
Loretta's confession to the police, it's incredible to get his
(17:25):
perspective as to why.
Speaker 10 (17:27):
She had a lawyer early on when they were talking
to her, and then when they did interview her one time,
the lawyer was not present and there was a little
issue there. So I ruled that certain of those statements
that she made would not be admissible.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Without Loretta's confession, prosecutor said, Levy had to change his strategy.
Here's Prosecutor Levy.
Speaker 5 (17:52):
She comes off as very nice, old, loving, grandmotherly woman,
and her story is this big ogre of a man
and came after me to kill me, and I stabbed
him in self defense. That thought and that juxtaposition kind
of drove my entire creation of the prosecution. She's one
of the few that I would say is the closest
(18:14):
thing or or potentially to a psychopath that I've ever met.
What I mean when I say that is you get
what's on the outside. You get smiles, you get a
sweet voice, somebody wants to hug and help. And you
know she was an elder care nurse for years, just
taking care of other people, always taking care of other people.
And when you look at this case, you could see
(18:35):
through that mask and it's almost if at night she
would unzip the grandmother costume step out into her real persona.
So you know, we came up with this strategy of
how to unmask her, of how to show the jury
she is not who she says she is.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Here's Judge Mike Donil again.
Speaker 10 (18:55):
The prosecutor said that this was like the Little Red
Riding Hood, and like all these old folk tales, there's
a lesson to be learned as a moral to the story,
and the moral is not everyone or everything is as
it seems.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
But no fairy tale contains the amount of graphic testimony
and evidence.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
This case featured.
Speaker 10 (19:16):
Showing the jury bones torso that was found in a
box in the defendant's house.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
There was also photographic evidence of Danny's decomposing body that
was so disturbing that Judge Donio ruled prosecutors could only
show it in black and white photos.
Speaker 10 (19:38):
I remember it was hard on the Jews, and when
the photographs were presented with the bones, especially the women
on the jury were like taken back and you could
see that they were like visibly like wow.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
If you think it was tough on the jury, imagine
what it was like for Danny's brother Ray. Judge Don'
remembers Ray in the courtroom.
Speaker 10 (20:02):
His emotions would get the best of him. There was
a couple times where I had to admonish him because
he would come to court and hold up not in
front of the jury, but when we would have motions.
He would hold up pictures of Missus Burrows with a
knife in her hand and things like that, and he
would blurt things out, and a couple times I had
(20:23):
to have a little talk with him. Let's let the
system do its work and let's let justice prevail. You
could possibly cause a mistrial. You could cause a problem,
and that you don't want that, we don't want that.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Loretta's court appointed public defender claimed it didn't make sense
for Loretta to murder her high school sweetheart for what
amounted to a few thousand dollars.
Speaker 10 (20:48):
The defense attorney who was representing her basically was heart
being on the fact that there was no weapon.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
He claimed there was no way to know who killed Danny,
did it, or even why they did it. He added
that a cigarette butt was recovered with Danny's remains, that
cigarette butt contained DNA, but that DNA did not belong
to Loretta.
Speaker 10 (21:14):
He did what many defense lawyers do. You just keep
raising issues and then in a summation he harped about
reasonable doubt.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Loretta's lawyer pointed to Danny's toxicology report that showed drugs
in his body, including amphetamines. The defense suggested that maybe
Danny was smoking meth and it could have been a
heart attack or even natural causes that killed Danny, but
prosecutors at Levy reminded the jury that Danny was recovering
from surgery when he died, and Loretta was the one
(21:45):
administering Danny's pain medication. He stared at Loretta and said,
you don't overdose on meth and then cut yourself up.
Speaker 5 (21:53):
We took a part the story one at a time.
If she says I did this because of this, we
proved it wasn't so he told another lie. We proved
that lie wasn't so.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Loretta Burrows never took the witness stand. But and this
was notable to me. Her range of facial expressions were
on full display.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
During the trial.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
I don't think I've ever encountered somebody who had so
clearly two different ways of looking and giving off a feeling.
You could just see it. The smile would drop, the
eyes would drop, from going up into a smile to
just cold.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
It was something that even stood out to Judge Donio.
Speaker 10 (22:31):
There were times when she would appear in court and
she would be the quintessential grandmother and you'd look at
her and think, there's no way that a woman like
this could do something like this. But then when the
evidence started to come in about the notorization about the
(22:52):
bogus divorce, telling the neighbor that he left with a
young woman and a hummer, And when you start putting
all that together, now you see the jecho and high
you go from you know, being like the grandmother to
this devious woman that was capable of this deceit and
these lies and ultimately the ultimate crime murder.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
What a scary thing to witness in a person that
seems so innocent.
Speaker 5 (23:23):
This may appear to be a grandmother and may do
things that are like a grandmother, but she is a
cold bloody killer, and we have the proof in these
two tumberware containers. The jury agreed and they convicted her.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
And it took just two hours for the jury to
convict Loretta Burroughs of murder and third degree hindering apprehension.
Now it was up to Judge Donio to sentence Loretta,
and that hearing would leave everyone in the courtroom in tears.
(23:57):
Judge Michael Donio presided over the trial of Loretta Burroughs.
Speaker 10 (24:01):
It was one of the three most difficult or toughest
cases that I did.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Loretta's sentencing hearing took place in April twenty fifteen. A
month earlier, a jury convicted Loretta of murdering her husband,
Danny and hindering apprehension.
Speaker 10 (24:19):
We don't sentence that day. Usually it's four to five
weeks later and a pre sentence report gets prepared. I
get the police reports, prior record and things of that nature,
and I review all that and then put a sentence together.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Judge Doni.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
I also heard from Danny's friends and family who submitted
victim impact statements.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Some of them were in court that.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Day to share their statements, but it wasn't easy to
hear over the sounds of Loretta's sobbing.
Speaker 10 (24:49):
She just sat there and cried.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
One statement came from a twelve year old neighbor of
Loretta's who used to spend the night in the same
bedroom where the Loretta was keeping Danny's body. Over Loretta's tears,
her letter was read to the court.
Speaker 11 (25:07):
My dad told me that Loretta had been arrested for
killing Danny. I was sad, but then the sadness turned
into madness, knowing that she made me sleep in her
bedroom with a dead body in the closet.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Then came a man named Gary who played in Danny's band.
He explained how Loretta used to cook dinner for the
band and always insisted on making Danny's plate.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
And after every dinner we go back to the rehearsal room,
he would get behind his drum kit and double over
in pain, and we.
Speaker 12 (25:38):
Kept saying to something wrong.
Speaker 13 (25:39):
He oh, I'll be all right.
Speaker 10 (25:40):
And this went on every practice, and we knew Me
and my bassfiyer knew there was something wrong.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
He believed that Loretta was poisoning Danny.
Speaker 12 (25:52):
I just have nightmares every day.
Speaker 10 (25:55):
He was my brother.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
He was like closer in my brother than me.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
I'm sorry, but I'll never get over this.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
For six years, those closest to Danny didn't know whether
he was missing or dead. You can hear that emotion
in the courtroom. Loretta faced thirty years to life, and
something about that stuck with Danny's brother Ray.
Speaker 12 (26:29):
January two thousand and six, and just nineteen months prior
to my brother being murdered, New Jersey abolished a death penalty.
It is of my opinion.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
She also researched that Ray placed a picture of Danny
on the table in front of him and spent more
than twenty minutes eulogizing his brother and condemning Loretta.
Speaker 12 (26:51):
Last time I stood on my brother's property was the
day I followed the mister persons report Labor Day weekend
of two thousand and seven. Because the murderer had changed
the keep had entrance code, I couldn't even get into
my brother's home. I believe that if I had, this
(27:12):
investigation may not have taken as long, because I believe
I would have found my brother's remains inside myself. On
May seventeenth, twenty thirteen, approximately at eight thirty am, I
received the calls stating, Ray, we found your brother. Instantly,
(27:34):
I felt as if a large part of my flesh
was ripped from my body. At that instant, I was
taken back to day one, when I realized Danny had
gone missing. I finally found out what the horrors that
monster did to my brother and.
Speaker 14 (27:50):
How she allowed his body to rot for several.
Speaker 12 (27:52):
Years in containers, which caused me to drop to the
ground and sob like a child, thinking of my poor
brother mutilated and decomposing, while for many years the murderer
was enjoying life. Again, I was taken back to August
two thousand and seven and the several times I visited
(28:13):
my brother's home listening to the monsters made up stories,
repeated lies into my face, telling me he called while
all along, my.
Speaker 14 (28:24):
Brother's dismembered, disembowed, rotting body may have very well been
in the next room or just below the kitchen in
the basement freezer, Your honor, how do I shut that off?
Speaker 12 (28:41):
After many years of mental torture and pain, I haven't
been able to turn off. I came to the realization
that I needed to reach out for help or I
was going to give up on living.
Speaker 10 (28:54):
I believe that the only.
Speaker 12 (28:56):
Thing that kept me going was the need to fight
for my brother's justice, because I knew Dan would have
done the same for his little brother. Just trying to
make it through each day is very difficult because of
the horrors my brother adored, and how my mind is
tortured with those images. I don't look forward to tomorrow,
(29:18):
and since I can't simply turn it off, it has
become a form of endless mental torture. What she did
to my brother. Horror movies and nightmares are made from.
And I am living in both your honor. I am
not above begging, and after all I have endured the
(29:40):
pass seven plus years, begging is about all the fight
I have left. The letter was found guilty and now
she deserves punishment for her actions. This in humane, premeditated
murder demands the maximum sentence. Anything less would not justice,
(30:01):
let an injustice to a good man that was brually
and holistically taken away from his family and friends.
Speaker 8 (30:11):
I thank you for the to me.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Ray spent every day as a spectator, sitting in the
front row of the courtroom. After finishing his statement to
the court, he needed help as he returned to his
familiar seat.
Speaker 10 (30:28):
He was distraught. He was distraught, and rightly so. He
was very close to his brother.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Judge Donio then turned to Loretta, who addressed the court
for the first time. You're about to hear Loretta's voice.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I'm stand before you today.
Speaker 13 (30:46):
You were hunter to accept responsibility for some horrific actions
and choices that have brought me in your courtroom today.
Speaker 12 (30:56):
I had the.
Speaker 15 (30:56):
State applied a different charge, I would have never taken.
Speaker 16 (30:59):
It to her and put the families and myself in
the courts through extensive heartache and expenses that were in
curve by taking it to trial.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Had the state charged Loretta with aggravated manslaughter, she claimed
she would have pled guilty. That charge came with a
ten to thirty year sentence, So you can see why
the state wouldn't offered that deal.
Speaker 15 (31:24):
If there's such a thing as two people loving one
another too much, making the relationship toxic and difficult demands,
then I truly believe that Danny and myself were guilty
of this.
Speaker 13 (31:39):
I don't believe in closure or honor I don't believe
I'll love her sleep right again, but I do believe
in Philippias four thirteen that all things can happen through
Christ too strengths.
Speaker 16 (31:50):
And said, I pray today that everyone will continue.
Speaker 17 (31:58):
To try to heal from this horrific, horrific situation. I
pray that my sentence will give them some type of peace.
No one knows what goes on behind closed.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Doors or honor.
Speaker 13 (32:14):
I pray that I'll be able to help people who
were mentally and physically abused. I'm sorry for my crime,
and I'm ready to accept the responsibility.
Speaker 10 (32:27):
My God, all this because you didn't want to go
to Florida. Wait till you see now where you're.
Speaker 7 (32:33):
Going to go.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Judge Donio clearly had heard enough.
Speaker 10 (32:42):
I gave her a sentence of fifty five years, with
three years for the hindering running concurrent. That means together
for a case like this, justice is punishment, severe punishment,
and making sure that it never would happen again by
(33:04):
this person.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Loretta Burrows will not be eligible for parole until she
is one hundred and ten years old.
Speaker 10 (33:13):
Missus Burrows will spend the rest of her life in prison,
so to that extent, justice was served.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Next time on American Homicide, a couple's night out in
Atlantic City ends with a carjacking gone wrong, but investigators
believe there's more to the story. I'm Slunge Glass. Join
me for Murder on the Parkway. That's next time on
American Homicide. You can contact the American Homicide team by
(33:54):
emailing us at American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com.
That's a American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. American
Homicide is hosted and written by me Sloan Glass and
is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass
Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is
(34:15):
executive produced by Nancy Glass and Todd Gans. The series
is also written and produced by Todd Gans, with additional
writing by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our associate producer
is Kristin Melcurie. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and
Jessica Crimecheck. Audio editing, mixing and mastering by Nico Aarruca.
(34:37):
American Homicide theme song was composed by Oliver Baines of
Noisier Music Library provided by my Music. Follow American Homicide
on Apple Podcasts and please rate and review American Homicide.
Your five star review goes a long way towards helping
others find this show. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit
(34:58):
the iHeartRadio app, app podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
When Danny Burrows disappeared from his home in May's Landy,
New Jersey, his wife, Loretta, said he ran off with
another woman, a waitress who worked at a restaurant Danny
and Loretta used to go to when they were on
vacation down south.
Speaker 2 (00:15):
But not everyone bought Loretta's story.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
There was a lot of rumors and deceptions surrounding Daniel's disappearance.
Speaker 1 (00:23):
Six years later, detectives executed simultaneous sirch warrants, one on
Loretta's New Jersey home and the other at Loretta's sister's house,
where Loretta had been staying. Investigators never imagined what they'd find.
Speaker 3 (00:38):
When we entered the house, we were all shocked. I
think it was the last thing we expected.
Speaker 4 (00:44):
Honestly, she was.
Speaker 5 (00:46):
An elder care nurse for years, just taking care of
other people, and when you look at this case, you
could see through that mask.
Speaker 1 (00:55):
We're in South Jersey today for the conclusion of the
disappearance of Danny Burroughs. I'm Sloan Glass and this is
American homicide and just a warning that what you're about
to hear is graphic.
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Please take care while listening.
Speaker 1 (01:10):
By May of twenty thirteen, Danny Burrows had been missing
for nearly six years. The case had gone cold until
prosecutors received a tip that Loretta Burroughs had forged some
legal documents. This sparked a search warrant of the two
residences where Loretta had been staying, her home and her sisters.
Speaker 3 (01:32):
We were of the understanding that it was for insurance
for all documents with the capacity that could find possible
items of evidentiary value related to a homicide or at disappearance.
Speaker 1 (01:44):
So as Loretta Burrows was being questioned at her sister's house,
another team led by Sergeant Caroline MacDonald was searching Loretta's
home in Ventnor City, New Jersey.
Speaker 3 (01:55):
Loretta Burrough's house was impeccably clean. When I entered, it
smelled very fresh. Generally speaking, it was as if she
was expecting visitors.
Speaker 1 (02:07):
Her beachy two bedroom, two back Duplaque sat a couple
blocks from the Atlantic Ocean and just minutes from the
many casinos and nightlife of Atlantic City.
Speaker 3 (02:17):
At that time I was conducting the search, I was
the one photographing. My primary area of concern was her bedroom.
Speaker 2 (02:24):
That's where I started.
Speaker 3 (02:28):
What particularly stood out to me in Loretta's bedroom was
the organizational aspect of her closets. She had every pair
of shoes that she owned in their own little tupperware
cases stacked on top of each other on the top
of her closet.
Speaker 1 (02:45):
Sergeant MacDonald had the camera and her team had a
system in place.
Speaker 3 (02:50):
Every time an item of potential evidence area value is
located within the residence, whoever's searching that area will call
your name so you can photograph it as it exists.
Speaker 1 (03:01):
While she was in Loretta's bedroom, the lieutenant in the
guest bedroom called her name.
Speaker 3 (03:05):
In my mind, I'm thinking, okay, he found something of interest.
So when I walked into the bedroom, it had bunk beds,
some kids items in there, and we were made to
understand that that is the room that when her grandsons
came over they would sleep.
Speaker 1 (03:20):
And standing in front of the closet was the lieutenant.
He had a puzzled look on his face.
Speaker 3 (03:25):
When you opened the first set of closets, there wasn't
anything of particular interest in there. It was kind of empty.
When you got to the second closet and you pulled
open the doors and there were a lot of clothing
items in there.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Mixed in with Loretta's clothing and Christmas decorations.
Speaker 2 (03:40):
Was something odd.
Speaker 3 (03:42):
There was a stacked object and it had blankets draped
over it and clothing items draped over it, things on
top of it, appearing to cover up whatever the object was.
He called my attention to it because he found it
to be strange. They were the only items in the
house that appeared to be concealed in a strange way.
(04:04):
As we started to remove the coverings around the tupware containers,
there were plastic bags, garbage bags.
Speaker 1 (04:13):
In fact, there were nine layers of black plastic garbage bags.
Speaker 3 (04:18):
As we dug deeper into it, we were finding little
air freshener beads that were melting and coming apart. We
were finding dryer sheets that had sense to them.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
You probably know where this is going.
Speaker 1 (04:32):
Even with all of those air fresheners, Sergeant MacDonald noticed
a smell she described as decomposition.
Speaker 3 (04:40):
As it became stronger and stronger and started to fill
the room, we stopped. I called the Medical Examiner's office,
and as I was hanging up the phone with them,
another sergeant who was present, he was coming into the
room to let me know that Sergeant Doherty was interviewing
Loretta Burrows and that we were going to find Daniel's
(05:02):
body inside the house.
Speaker 1 (05:06):
You may remember from the last episode another team of
detectives was questioning Loretta at her sister's house.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
It was almost simultaneously that the discovery happened, as well
as the phone call.
Speaker 1 (05:18):
As the team photographed the many plastic bags, dryer sheets,
and air freshener beads. Loretta Burrow sat with Detective Shallick
and Sergeant Lynn Doherty.
Speaker 6 (05:29):
She simply said, oh, you, Detective Shallock, and I said yes,
And she says, I want to talk to your Mirandezer.
And at that point she tells us everything that happened
Rightad said that they had gotten into an argument.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
She told the police the argument she had with Danny
happened in August of two thousand and seven.
Speaker 6 (05:46):
Daniel pushed her on the bed, and once that happened,
she got a knife from the kitchen and repeated stabbed
Daniel and killed him.
Speaker 4 (05:56):
She said she stabbed him.
Speaker 7 (05:58):
She said he was in the bathroom and he fell
into the bathtub, and that she left the body in
the bathtub.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Loretta said she killed Danny, but it was in self defense.
Speaker 7 (06:09):
Everything that she told us, was about her being the victim.
Speaker 1 (06:13):
Keep in mind, Danny was recovering from shoulder surgery at
the time and his arm was in a sling.
Speaker 7 (06:20):
That doesn't mean he couldn't throw her on the bed,
but the way the house was set up, She then
ran down the loft, down the steps, through the living room,
into the kitchen to grab a knife, and then back
through the kitchen, through the living room, up the steps,
through the bedroom, and into the bathroom to protect herself
(06:43):
from the.
Speaker 4 (06:43):
Person that was upstairs. The whole time, it didn't add up.
Speaker 1 (06:48):
So the picture that Loretta's painting would mean that she
got into her car and drove to a theme park
in Pennsylvania for a vacation with her daughter and of
Cole and her grandchildren.
Speaker 2 (06:59):
All well, her husband was still in the bathtub.
Speaker 1 (07:03):
And if you remember from the last episode, Loretta told
Nicole that Danny called her during that trip.
Speaker 7 (07:10):
When we said, why would you tell Nicole that you're
calling Danny and having conversations with him, and she said, oh,
I was calling him to see.
Speaker 4 (07:17):
If he picked up.
Speaker 7 (07:19):
But you just said you knew he was dead. She's like, oh, yeah,
I just like was hoping. I mean nothing she said
made sense.
Speaker 1 (07:27):
That's when investigators began to connect the dots.
Speaker 7 (07:31):
She's telling people that he's calling her from Florida, and
he's clearly not. So she was laying foundations for people
to not be suspicious of him disappearing the whole time.
You know, why are you going to report Hi missing?
I told you I talked to him.
Speaker 4 (07:48):
He's not missing. He's in Florida.
Speaker 1 (07:50):
You know what investigators were getting at is that Loretta
had a clear plan over the last half decade. She's
spun a tangled web of lies to cover the fact
that she stabbed and killed her husband.
Speaker 7 (08:02):
I asked her in the interview, Okay, so you stabbed him, right,
you're saying that there was this fight and you stabbed him.
Did you ever think to call nine one one, Like,
even in the heat of passion, if if you're mad
at somebody and you stab them, which is still like
a terrible, horrible thing, what do you do? You call
nine one and try and get the medical attention. And
(08:26):
then she said something to the effect of and he's
still with me, right, Danny's still with me? Something like that.
I'm like, keep like a vile blood around her neck?
On a necklace, Like, what kind of crazy thing is
she talking about? That he's still with me. I never
imagined that she was going to tell us what she
(08:46):
told us. And then she said, I just put him
in a rubber made container.
Speaker 1 (08:51):
That's the same plastic container the police found hidden in
Loretta's guest closet.
Speaker 7 (08:56):
We asked her, like, how did you put his body
into rubber bean container? Shaguard just like pushed it in,
And we specifically asked her if she had cut up
his body or anything, and she said no, But then
later the autopsy report showed that there were cut marks
on the bones.
Speaker 4 (09:16):
And then she tells us that she.
Speaker 7 (09:20):
Had to put like transition into another container, which is
the one we found him in, and that his head
fell off, so she put that in a separate container,
and she claimed to take the body out of the
closet and talk to it.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
So just to be clear, Loretta says she killed the
man she loved since they were kids, and she loved
him so much that she stuffed his dead body into
big plastic containers and then talked to the body.
Speaker 7 (09:55):
Six seven years, she's been traveling around with this body,
keeping it.
Speaker 4 (10:01):
It's like something you watch on TV.
Speaker 1 (10:04):
At first, Loretta said she kept Danny's body in a
container out in the yard behind their house in May's Landing,
but she eventually dug up Danny's remains and put them
into storage containers. If you remember, neighbors of Loretta complained
of a smell on her property. To this day, they
continue to wonder if Danny's body was under that tarp
(10:27):
in her backyard.
Speaker 6 (10:28):
I've never heard of anyone ever murring someone and keeping
the body. And not only keeping the body, she transported
it to her second house and then transported to our
third house, so it completely blew us away.
Speaker 1 (10:43):
Detective Frank Shallick arrested the sixty one year old grandmother
and charged her with murder, and.
Speaker 6 (10:48):
Then investigator Lynn Doherty and I went to Nichole's house
and sat down with her and explained to everything that
had happened.
Speaker 2 (10:57):
Nicole is Loretta's daughter.
Speaker 6 (10:59):
She just couldn't believe it, you know, and Nicole I
just lost her stepfather, you know, it was confirmation that
and Nicole just lost her mother. Her mother was not
going to go away to prison, probably for the rest
of her life. It was very hard for her.
Speaker 1 (11:14):
Nicole had plenty to process, including the fact that her
children spent many nights at Loretta's home.
Speaker 6 (11:22):
Daniel's body was stored in the bedroom of her third home,
which her grandkids would use. I mean, she murdered someone,
it's disturbing, but to put the body in the closet
where her grandkids were sleeping. I just can't fathom what
she was thinking, Like, I don't know, just it bothers me.
Speaker 1 (11:42):
Well, no one imagined the years of wondering what happened
to Danny Burrow's would end like this.
Speaker 8 (11:50):
She kept them in the cart for seven years. I
don't know what the I can't even get into ahead
like that.
Speaker 1 (11:59):
I can't ruth Antovanny not only grew up with Danny,
but she went to prom with him.
Speaker 8 (12:05):
How in the world, how do you make a decision
to do that. It's sad, very sad.
Speaker 1 (12:19):
It was very sad, especially for Danny's brother, Ray, who
had spent years trying to get anyone to listen when
he said something here is not right. My brother would
not disappear, And he was right. His brother was closer
to him than he ever expected. His intuition told him
(12:39):
Loretta was behind it, and her duplicity hit a dark
dark side. Loretta Borough spent six years portraying herself as
a scorned wife. She told everyone that her husband Danny
(13:02):
left her for a young blonde in Florida. The reality
was Loretta murdered Danny.
Speaker 9 (13:10):
Not only did she kill her husband, Okay, I see
that occasionally, but that she then chopped him up and
put him in a toat. But no, we don't stop there.
She moved him from location to location.
Speaker 2 (13:25):
Damon G.
Speaker 1 (13:26):
Teyner was the Atlantic County prosecutor whose jaw dropped when
he read about the case.
Speaker 9 (13:32):
You can't make this up. If you made it up,
it would really be a bad horror film.
Speaker 1 (13:38):
Loretta moved Danny his dead body two other times and
was in the process of moving a third time.
Speaker 9 (13:47):
So what mindset is there that when the moving vans
show up to move you from one destination to another,
that you say, hey, don't forget my body over there.
It's unheard of. And her grandkids are coming to that home,
they're visiting there, and she has something in there as
(14:10):
bizarre as the remains of her late husband, Like, what
is that all about? But the reality is is that
if Danny burrows remains were not in that home or
had never been found. This is a case that doesn't
go to trial. It's probably not even charged.
Speaker 1 (14:30):
This is a crime Loretta could have gotten away with.
It had been six years and up until now, there
was no evidence that Danny was more than a missing person.
There's no rationalizing what Loretta did. But could she have
been in chalk? Was Danny really this violent man and
(14:51):
she was responding in self defense?
Speaker 6 (14:54):
Well?
Speaker 1 (14:54):
The trial brought out those answers. In March twenty fifteen,
the case went to trial and prosecutor said Loretta Burrow's
motive was much darker and meaningless.
Speaker 9 (15:06):
Loretta had a gambling problem. She was addicted to gambling,
and I believe that she wanted to stay in the
area not for the purpose of being close to her
children and grandchildren, but for the purpose of feeding her addiction.
Speaker 1 (15:20):
And no matter where Loretta lived in New Jersey, she
was always a short car ride away from the numerous
casinos in Atlantic City. Back in two thousand and six,
for example, those casinos took in over five billion dollars
from the busloads of gamblers who played slot machines and
table games, and Loretta was one of those gamblers.
Speaker 9 (15:43):
Loretta Burrows was greedy. She would do anything to feed
that addiction, and that includes murder.
Speaker 1 (15:51):
Prosecutor Seth Leevy learned Loretta's gambling addiction dated back to
the nineteen nineties. That's when she got in trouble with
one of her employers.
Speaker 5 (16:01):
She over the course of time as a bookkeeper, was
slowly embezzling money from the company she worked for.
Speaker 1 (16:07):
According to court records, Loretta stole four hundred and seventy
thousand dollars, and in nineteen ninety six, she was sentenced
to fifteen months in federal prison. Her lawyer at the
time blamed it on Loretta's gambling addiction.
Speaker 5 (16:24):
That kind of crime takes patients, it takes devotion to
the crime, it takes knowledge, and so now you're looking
at somebody in a different lens.
Speaker 1 (16:34):
As the trial began, two questions loomed. Would Loretta take
a plea deal and would she testify on her own
behalf Judge Mike Donio presided over the trial.
Speaker 10 (16:46):
I didn't think she would enter a guilty plea because
I think she figured that, you know, if I'm going
to spend most of my life, for all my life
in jail, I might as well take the shot, even
though I know it's a long long shot.
Speaker 1 (17:01):
The voice you were hearing here is Judge Mike Donio.
I've covered a lot of cases. Rarely does the judge
speak to reporters. It doesn't matter if the case is closed.
It's just not something they often do. And as the
trial started, Loretta got a big win. Judge Donio throughout
Loretta's confession to the police, it's incredible to get his
(17:25):
perspective as to why.
Speaker 10 (17:27):
She had a lawyer early on when they were talking
to her, and then when they did interview her one time,
the lawyer was not present and there was a little
issue there. So I ruled that certain of those statements
that she made would not be admissible.
Speaker 1 (17:45):
Without Loretta's confession, prosecutor said, Levy had to change his strategy.
Here's Prosecutor Levy.
Speaker 5 (17:52):
She comes off as very nice, old, loving, grandmotherly woman,
and her story is this big ogre of a man
and came after me to kill me, and I stabbed
him in self defense. That thought and that juxtaposition kind
of drove my entire creation of the prosecution. She's one
of the few that I would say is the closest
(18:14):
thing or or potentially to a psychopath that I've ever met.
What I mean when I say that is you get
what's on the outside. You get smiles, you get a
sweet voice, somebody wants to hug and help. And you
know she was an elder care nurse for years, just
taking care of other people, always taking care of other people.
And when you look at this case, you could see
(18:35):
through that mask and it's almost if at night she
would unzip the grandmother costume step out into her real persona.
So you know, we came up with this strategy of
how to unmask her, of how to show the jury
she is not who she says she is.
Speaker 2 (18:53):
Here's Judge Mike Donil again.
Speaker 10 (18:55):
The prosecutor said that this was like the Little Red
Riding Hood, and like all these old folk tales, there's
a lesson to be learned as a moral to the story,
and the moral is not everyone or everything is as
it seems.
Speaker 1 (19:10):
But no fairy tale contains the amount of graphic testimony
and evidence.
Speaker 2 (19:14):
This case featured.
Speaker 10 (19:16):
Showing the jury bones torso that was found in a
box in the defendant's house.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
There was also photographic evidence of Danny's decomposing body that
was so disturbing that Judge Donio ruled prosecutors could only
show it in black and white photos.
Speaker 10 (19:38):
I remember it was hard on the Jews, and when
the photographs were presented with the bones, especially the women
on the jury were like taken back and you could
see that they were like visibly like wow.
Speaker 1 (19:53):
If you think it was tough on the jury, imagine
what it was like for Danny's brother Ray. Judge Don'
remembers Ray in the courtroom.
Speaker 10 (20:02):
His emotions would get the best of him. There was
a couple times where I had to admonish him because
he would come to court and hold up not in
front of the jury, but when we would have motions.
He would hold up pictures of Missus Burrows with a
knife in her hand and things like that, and he
would blurt things out, and a couple times I had
(20:23):
to have a little talk with him. Let's let the
system do its work and let's let justice prevail. You
could possibly cause a mistrial. You could cause a problem,
and that you don't want that, we don't want that.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
Loretta's court appointed public defender claimed it didn't make sense
for Loretta to murder her high school sweetheart for what
amounted to a few thousand dollars.
Speaker 10 (20:48):
The defense attorney who was representing her basically was heart
being on the fact that there was no weapon.
Speaker 1 (20:55):
He claimed there was no way to know who killed Danny,
did it, or even why they did it. He added
that a cigarette butt was recovered with Danny's remains, that
cigarette butt contained DNA, but that DNA did not belong
to Loretta.
Speaker 10 (21:14):
He did what many defense lawyers do. You just keep
raising issues and then in a summation he harped about
reasonable doubt.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Loretta's lawyer pointed to Danny's toxicology report that showed drugs
in his body, including amphetamines. The defense suggested that maybe
Danny was smoking meth and it could have been a
heart attack or even natural causes that killed Danny, but
prosecutors at Levy reminded the jury that Danny was recovering
from surgery when he died, and Loretta was the one
(21:45):
administering Danny's pain medication. He stared at Loretta and said,
you don't overdose on meth and then cut yourself up.
Speaker 5 (21:53):
We took a part the story one at a time.
If she says I did this because of this, we
proved it wasn't so he told another lie. We proved
that lie wasn't so.
Speaker 1 (22:02):
Loretta Burrows never took the witness stand. But and this
was notable to me. Her range of facial expressions were
on full display.
Speaker 2 (22:11):
During the trial.
Speaker 5 (22:13):
I don't think I've ever encountered somebody who had so
clearly two different ways of looking and giving off a feeling.
You could just see it. The smile would drop, the
eyes would drop, from going up into a smile to
just cold.
Speaker 2 (22:28):
It was something that even stood out to Judge Donio.
Speaker 10 (22:31):
There were times when she would appear in court and
she would be the quintessential grandmother and you'd look at
her and think, there's no way that a woman like
this could do something like this. But then when the
evidence started to come in about the notorization about the
(22:52):
bogus divorce, telling the neighbor that he left with a
young woman and a hummer, And when you start putting
all that together, now you see the jecho and high
you go from you know, being like the grandmother to
this devious woman that was capable of this deceit and
these lies and ultimately the ultimate crime murder.
Speaker 1 (23:18):
What a scary thing to witness in a person that
seems so innocent.
Speaker 5 (23:23):
This may appear to be a grandmother and may do
things that are like a grandmother, but she is a
cold bloody killer, and we have the proof in these
two tumberware containers. The jury agreed and they convicted her.
Speaker 1 (23:34):
And it took just two hours for the jury to
convict Loretta Burroughs of murder and third degree hindering apprehension.
Now it was up to Judge Donio to sentence Loretta,
and that hearing would leave everyone in the courtroom in tears.
(23:57):
Judge Michael Donio presided over the trial of Loretta Burroughs.
Speaker 10 (24:01):
It was one of the three most difficult or toughest
cases that I did.
Speaker 1 (24:07):
Loretta's sentencing hearing took place in April twenty fifteen. A
month earlier, a jury convicted Loretta of murdering her husband,
Danny and hindering apprehension.
Speaker 10 (24:19):
We don't sentence that day. Usually it's four to five
weeks later and a pre sentence report gets prepared. I
get the police reports, prior record and things of that nature,
and I review all that and then put a sentence together.
Speaker 2 (24:35):
Judge Doni.
Speaker 1 (24:36):
I also heard from Danny's friends and family who submitted
victim impact statements.
Speaker 2 (24:41):
Some of them were in court that.
Speaker 1 (24:43):
Day to share their statements, but it wasn't easy to
hear over the sounds of Loretta's sobbing.
Speaker 10 (24:49):
She just sat there and cried.
Speaker 1 (24:51):
One statement came from a twelve year old neighbor of
Loretta's who used to spend the night in the same
bedroom where the Loretta was keeping Danny's body. Over Loretta's tears,
her letter was read to the court.
Speaker 11 (25:07):
My dad told me that Loretta had been arrested for
killing Danny. I was sad, but then the sadness turned
into madness, knowing that she made me sleep in her
bedroom with a dead body in the closet.
Speaker 1 (25:19):
Then came a man named Gary who played in Danny's band.
He explained how Loretta used to cook dinner for the
band and always insisted on making Danny's plate.
Speaker 5 (25:30):
And after every dinner we go back to the rehearsal room,
he would get behind his drum kit and double over
in pain, and we.
Speaker 12 (25:38):
Kept saying to something wrong.
Speaker 13 (25:39):
He oh, I'll be all right.
Speaker 10 (25:40):
And this went on every practice, and we knew Me
and my bassfiyer knew there was something wrong.
Speaker 1 (25:47):
He believed that Loretta was poisoning Danny.
Speaker 12 (25:52):
I just have nightmares every day.
Speaker 10 (25:55):
He was my brother.
Speaker 2 (25:56):
He was like closer in my brother than me.
Speaker 5 (26:01):
I'm sorry, but I'll never get over this.
Speaker 1 (26:10):
For six years, those closest to Danny didn't know whether
he was missing or dead. You can hear that emotion
in the courtroom. Loretta faced thirty years to life, and
something about that stuck with Danny's brother Ray.
Speaker 12 (26:29):
January two thousand and six, and just nineteen months prior
to my brother being murdered, New Jersey abolished a death penalty.
It is of my opinion.
Speaker 1 (26:40):
She also researched that Ray placed a picture of Danny
on the table in front of him and spent more
than twenty minutes eulogizing his brother and condemning Loretta.
Speaker 12 (26:51):
Last time I stood on my brother's property was the
day I followed the mister persons report Labor Day weekend
of two thousand and seven. Because the murderer had changed
the keep had entrance code, I couldn't even get into
my brother's home. I believe that if I had, this
(27:12):
investigation may not have taken as long, because I believe
I would have found my brother's remains inside myself. On
May seventeenth, twenty thirteen, approximately at eight thirty am, I
received the calls stating, Ray, we found your brother. Instantly,
(27:34):
I felt as if a large part of my flesh
was ripped from my body. At that instant, I was
taken back to day one, when I realized Danny had
gone missing. I finally found out what the horrors that
monster did to my brother and.
Speaker 14 (27:50):
How she allowed his body to rot for several.
Speaker 12 (27:52):
Years in containers, which caused me to drop to the
ground and sob like a child, thinking of my poor
brother mutilated and decomposing, while for many years the murderer
was enjoying life. Again, I was taken back to August
two thousand and seven and the several times I visited
(28:13):
my brother's home listening to the monsters made up stories,
repeated lies into my face, telling me he called while
all along, my.
Speaker 14 (28:24):
Brother's dismembered, disembowed, rotting body may have very well been
in the next room or just below the kitchen in
the basement freezer, Your honor, how do I shut that off?
Speaker 12 (28:41):
After many years of mental torture and pain, I haven't
been able to turn off. I came to the realization
that I needed to reach out for help or I
was going to give up on living.
Speaker 10 (28:54):
I believe that the only.
Speaker 12 (28:56):
Thing that kept me going was the need to fight
for my brother's justice, because I knew Dan would have
done the same for his little brother. Just trying to
make it through each day is very difficult because of
the horrors my brother adored, and how my mind is
tortured with those images. I don't look forward to tomorrow,
(29:18):
and since I can't simply turn it off, it has
become a form of endless mental torture. What she did
to my brother. Horror movies and nightmares are made from.
And I am living in both your honor. I am
not above begging, and after all I have endured the
(29:40):
pass seven plus years, begging is about all the fight
I have left. The letter was found guilty and now
she deserves punishment for her actions. This in humane, premeditated
murder demands the maximum sentence. Anything less would not justice,
(30:01):
let an injustice to a good man that was brually
and holistically taken away from his family and friends.
Speaker 8 (30:11):
I thank you for the to me.
Speaker 1 (30:16):
Ray spent every day as a spectator, sitting in the
front row of the courtroom. After finishing his statement to
the court, he needed help as he returned to his
familiar seat.
Speaker 10 (30:28):
He was distraught. He was distraught, and rightly so. He
was very close to his brother.
Speaker 1 (30:35):
Judge Donio then turned to Loretta, who addressed the court
for the first time. You're about to hear Loretta's voice.
Speaker 2 (30:44):
I'm stand before you today.
Speaker 13 (30:46):
You were hunter to accept responsibility for some horrific actions
and choices that have brought me in your courtroom today.
Speaker 12 (30:56):
I had the.
Speaker 15 (30:56):
State applied a different charge, I would have never taken.
Speaker 16 (30:59):
It to her and put the families and myself in
the courts through extensive heartache and expenses that were in
curve by taking it to trial.
Speaker 1 (31:11):
Had the state charged Loretta with aggravated manslaughter, she claimed
she would have pled guilty. That charge came with a
ten to thirty year sentence, So you can see why
the state wouldn't offered that deal.
Speaker 15 (31:24):
If there's such a thing as two people loving one
another too much, making the relationship toxic and difficult demands,
then I truly believe that Danny and myself were guilty
of this.
Speaker 13 (31:39):
I don't believe in closure or honor I don't believe
I'll love her sleep right again, but I do believe
in Philippias four thirteen that all things can happen through
Christ too strengths.
Speaker 16 (31:50):
And said, I pray today that everyone will continue.
Speaker 17 (31:58):
To try to heal from this horrific, horrific situation. I
pray that my sentence will give them some type of peace.
No one knows what goes on behind closed.
Speaker 2 (32:12):
Doors or honor.
Speaker 13 (32:14):
I pray that I'll be able to help people who
were mentally and physically abused. I'm sorry for my crime,
and I'm ready to accept the responsibility.
Speaker 10 (32:27):
My God, all this because you didn't want to go
to Florida. Wait till you see now where you're.
Speaker 7 (32:33):
Going to go.
Speaker 2 (32:38):
Judge Donio clearly had heard enough.
Speaker 10 (32:42):
I gave her a sentence of fifty five years, with
three years for the hindering running concurrent. That means together
for a case like this, justice is punishment, severe punishment,
and making sure that it never would happen again by
(33:04):
this person.
Speaker 1 (33:06):
Loretta Burrows will not be eligible for parole until she
is one hundred and ten years old.
Speaker 10 (33:13):
Missus Burrows will spend the rest of her life in prison,
so to that extent, justice was served.
Speaker 1 (33:27):
Next time on American Homicide, a couple's night out in
Atlantic City ends with a carjacking gone wrong, but investigators
believe there's more to the story. I'm Slunge Glass. Join
me for Murder on the Parkway. That's next time on
American Homicide. You can contact the American Homicide team by
(33:54):
emailing us at American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com.
That's a American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. American
Homicide is hosted and written by me Sloan Glass and
is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass
Entertainment Group, in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is
(34:15):
executive produced by Nancy Glass and Todd Gans. The series
is also written and produced by Todd Gans, with additional
writing by Ben Fetterman and Andrea Gunning. Our associate producer
is Kristin Melcurie. Our iHeart team is Ali Perry and
Jessica Crimecheck. Audio editing, mixing and mastering by Nico Aarruca.
(34:37):
American Homicide theme song was composed by Oliver Baines of
Noisier Music Library provided by my Music. Follow American Homicide
on Apple Podcasts and please rate and review American Homicide.
Your five star review goes a long way towards helping
others find this show. For more podcasts from iHeart, visit
(34:58):
the iHeartRadio app, app podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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