Violence In The Valley-Burnside Murder (Melissa Sandberg)

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:10):
Now the Violence in the Valley podcast with retired Parkersburg
Chief of Police Bob Newall and others, brought to you
by Interesting Insurance three Generations of Insurance Excellence.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
So they were talking to Melissa Sainberg, a cold case
investigator who was in Parkersburg a couple of years ago
working on the Judy Patty case when she was with
the American Military University. And now she has her own
podcast called Dog with a Bone and it's working independently
on some cold cases, and she's here today to talk

(00:45):
about a very interesting case that occurred it's still unsolved
in Marriageville, Ohio, on December eleventh, nineteen ninety three, when
a young man by the name of John Burnside, who
was known by everybody is Bernie, was murdered. Melissa, I'll
go ahead and lets you get started on what had happen,

(01:06):
and we'll talk about some of the motives here in
just a few minutes. But how'd you get involved in
this case?

Speaker 3 (01:13):
Yeah, Hi, Bob, So I got involved in Bernie's case
probably in February. And the reason I got involved was
because when I was looking for a case for my
first season of Dog with a Bone, I saw that
in Marysville, Ohio, an individual named John Burnside was murdered
on December eleventh, nineteen ninety three, and initially his manner

(01:37):
of death was a suicide, but then later changed to
a homicide. And so my question was, well, how does
that happen? And you know, what were the circumstances surrounding
the change in the manner of death. And given how
much I love Parkersburg and the people in Parkersburg from
working on the Judy Petty case, I wanted to stay
close to Parkersburg. So I went ahead, traveled to Marysville, Ohio,

(02:01):
which is where Bernie lived, and started investigating possible.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
Mode of upfront in this conversation, Bernie was somewhat of
a small time cocaine dealer back in the day. And
I say back of the day because in nineteen ninety three,
of course, that was toward the end of the powder
cocaine era, because you know, crack came along after that
and everything else followed. But anyhow, back then, that's he

(02:29):
was dealing just a little bit to his friends and
close acquaintances.

Speaker 3 (02:34):
Yes, yeah, so Bernie was he come to find out.
In the beginning, you know, everyone kept telling me. He
was not at some big drug king pan you know.
He just sold coke to his close friends. And if
he didn't know you, he didn't sell to you. He
wasn't somebody who was out, you know, flaunting it and
selling it. And as the investigation continues, I discovered that

(02:55):
Bernie actually played a little bit bigger role in the
drug scene Marysville at that time. Was he had two
other friends that they worked at the Honda manufacturing plant
and they were kind of the frontmen for the cocaine.
So Bernie would put up five thousand dollars get a
free ounce of coke and the benefits of that. But

(03:16):
other than that, he wasn't. His hands weren't in it,
other than fronting the money and then getting an ounce
back and then selling of course to his close friends.

Speaker 2 (03:24):
Yeah, in the incident that really kind of instigated probably
the murder, was a burglary that occurred at his house
earlier in the day.

Speaker 3 (03:34):
In that correct, that is correct. So what we have
is Bernie was out at the bar with his friend
like any other Friday night, and he came home and
found that his house had been broken into, and Bernie
had kept his coke and his cash and collectible coins
in a six hundred pounds safe in his bedroom. And

(03:55):
what they realized is someone tried to steal the safe.
So Bernie called the hops because his house had been
broken into, because his friend encouraged him to call, and
when the cops showed up, they actually found his safe
around the side of his house. So what happened was,
whoever tried to steal the safe in this wheelbarrow, because
you know, the safe was six hundred pounds, it actually

(04:18):
got stuck in the mud and and then it tipped over.
And so whoever tried to steal the safe were unable,
unsuccessful because when they came back to try to get
it with additional help, the cops were already on scene
at that time.

Speaker 2 (04:32):
And at the same time, of course the police were
there looking into this, they also would have discovered that
Bernie was into the cocaine business.

Speaker 3 (04:43):
Yes, you are absolutely correct. So they had called in
an officer who has been investigating Bernie or knew of
Bernie for some time and his involvement in this you know,
drug scene within Marysville, of fronting this money through the Hondas,
so he was well, you know, and they just have
never they were never able to get him for the

(05:04):
drug trafficking, and of course.

Speaker 2 (05:05):
The fear might have been at the time that when
all this was unfolding, that and typically happens in these
cases is the police would use Bernie then to go
ahead and prosecute other people, particularly the people he was
getting the cocaine from, or the supplier so to speak.
But in this case, or really what enough time for
the supplier to have known that this was going on

(05:27):
or come in and murder Bernie.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
Yes, yeah, So what ended up happening is the cops
did not arrest Bernie that night. And according to them,
they said that in this safe, because you know, the
safe was still there, it wasn't open, they didn't get
anything out of it because it fell and sunk. They
were going to take it back to their house. So
according to police reports, there was twenty three grams of
cocaine cash in the safe collectible coins, and they were

(05:54):
going to finish the investigation the next day. They're going
to get a grand indictment, they said. And they didn't
feel like Bernie was a flight risk. He had a
good job at Honda. He wasn't going anywhere, and so
according to them, you know, they left, and then you know,
the next day, Bernie is found in his bedroom with
a plastic bag duck taped around his head. The issue

(06:18):
is is that his friends left him with the cops
and they came back in less than you know, fifteen minutes,
and Bernie was no longer answering the door, and the
cops were gone. So you're talking a very small window
of an opportunity for someone to kill Bernie. But I
think it goes back to that this was originally ruled
a suicide. I don't know if we mentioned that earlier, Bob,

(06:39):
but Bernie's murder or death I should say, was originally
ruled a suicide by Marysville Corner, and then it was
deemed a homicide a week later after the funeral home
director saw Bernie and his extensive bruising on his face,
and so the family went ahead and paid for a

(07:00):
private autopsy because one was not done originally, and discovered
that Bernie had brain bleeds in four different parts of
his brain. So he had, you know, been knocked unconscious,
is what the autopsy revealed, and then someone put a
bag over his head.

Speaker 2 (07:17):
Was somebody finally actually prosecuted for the Burgler at Lesa
that part of it was solved.

Speaker 3 (07:22):
It was what happened was the family wanted to see
some kind of justice happen, and there was conversations about
two individuals who broke into the safe, and so what
they did was one of the individuals wrote out a
confession that they broke into the safe. Another individual was
charged with it but found not guilty due to just

(07:44):
changing up people's stories. And then the jury was a
jury trial, so they let him off. But if you
listen to the podcast, I interview people who were president
who went back to get the safe, who confessed that
they actually did try to steal the safe. So yes,
they were brought to trial but found that guilty. However,

(08:07):
I believe that the people did try to steal.

Speaker 2 (08:11):
The safe, and unfortunately neither case was investigated very thoroughly
at a time, so a week later even than the
probably some of the evidence was you know, may have
been gone or tampered with, or who knows what may
have happened in the meantime. I was unfortunate twist in
this case.

Speaker 3 (08:28):
Yes, it was unfortunately not fully investigated. You know, right
after the next day the family went in to talk
to the officer who was in charge of the investigation,
who was there that night, and he told the family
to go on and go into the Bernie's house and
start taking everything out, so they destroyed the crime scene.
He said, go ahead and take everything out because people

(08:49):
might come back and try to want to steal stuff. Unfortunately,
so there's just a lot of wrongdoings here.

Speaker 2 (08:57):
I know, he was in a little bit of a
concer versus a couple of coworkers. But they did they
ever discover who the supplier of the cocaine to Marysville was.
I mean, obviously it would have come from outside since
you know, since it originally comes from another country to
begin with.

Speaker 3 (09:14):
Yeah, you know, it's interesting. Nothing really has been done
in Bernie's case in thirty years. There hasn't been any movement,
any investigation. It kind of just stopped. It never really started,
you know, even once it was deemed a homicide. There
are people I spoke to who said that, you know,
things were not being done or they were big giving

(09:37):
statements and the officer would stop a recording and then
started again and then stop it. When you're talking about
the drugs. Bernie kept a black book that's really important
to this case where he would put in there people
that he sold coke to again close friends, so that
he would make sure, you know, if they said that
I'll pay you next time. He kept records of everything,

(09:58):
and people also borrowed my from him, and so this
black book was also kept in Bernie safe, but it
was missing. It was never logged into evidence, and was
never returned to the family.

Speaker 2 (10:09):
So no one has an idea how much money was
owed to him. And if there was a for example,
large amount, which would be a motive, you know, if
you owed somebody large amount of money and you're not
gonna be able to come up with it would be
certainly a motive for murder. But that they don't know
what those amounts were or who may have voted him,
is it accurate?

Speaker 3 (10:31):
Yeah, I mean I believe. Well, the cops took the
safe right back to the police station and it wasn't open,
so the black book had to be in there, but
it was never logged into evidence, and it's actually in
one of the photos I posted, So for anyone who
wants to follow the podcast on Dog with a Bone,
I post a photo of the safe and what I
believe is the black book sitting right on top of

(10:52):
the safe, and that was never logged in nor returned
to the family. So we know Bernie kept it in
the safe. So where is it, who has it and
why was it never logged in?

Speaker 2 (11:03):
So the picture is it taken that night by the police? Yes? Okay,
So if anybody has information, who would they contact on this?
Who's the prime agency working on this case this time?

Speaker 3 (11:17):
So the prime agency right now, the Ohio Bureau of
Criminal Investigation, is working hand in hand with me, and
I am providing everything that I have found through my
investigation to the agent who is reviewing Bernie's case. The
reason BCI is involved is because we have a conflict
of interest. You know, we have a wrong manner of
death issued, we have evidence not being handled appropriately, we

(11:41):
have you know, the potential we're looking at an officer involved.
The currently the going to be the sheriff as of
I think today in Union County is actually the step
son of the chief of police back in Marysville at
this time. So given all of these things, b CI
is looking at it. So people can call myself, They

(12:03):
can message me on Dog with a Bone Facebook page,
You can call BCI or Union County. There is a
Jeff Styers is a lieutenant with Union County and he
was the one I originally reached out to. So there's
plenty of ways that if you have information or you
have someone that I can speak to regarding the investigation,
please reach out. I'll just mention real quick. So you

(12:26):
can find Dog with a Bone podcast on Spotify, Apple, iHeart,
wherever you listen. It is a weekly podcast because it's
an ongoing, active investigation. So right now I just released
episode eight and episodes drop every Thursday, so you can
find on any of those platforms and also on Facebook.
Like I mentioned, you can actually see these photos. I

(12:48):
show the photos of the safe outside. You can see
where I circle the black book. You can see the
drugs that were taken that night from the safe according
to the police. All of that's available, So come on
over and help dig.

Speaker 2 (13:02):
Well. We appreciate your work on this case and other cases,
and good luck with this one.

Speaker 3 (13:07):
Thank you.

Speaker 2 (13:08):
Join us in our next podcast if we discuss more
crimes in the Middle High Valley.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
The Violence in the Valley podcast has been brought to
you by Interstate Insurance three Generations of Insurance Excellence. For
even more details, Get a copy of the book at
amazon dot com.