The Burns Murder: A Chilling Tale from Fort Smith

Good morning, goblins and ghouls, and welcome to my Haunted Life podcast. I'm your host, Angela Hartshorn, and this week we have a spooky snippet. I found this really insane freaking story out of Fort Smith when I was doing the Fort Smith Museum of History and the National Historic Site, which is coming up next week. So I wanted to share this with with you. It's a bit brutal. Heads up. This newspaper article I found is a bit graphic. Murder, decapitation, that kind of thing.

Before I get into it, I just want to remind everyone that you can still register for the It's Coming virtual premiere. I am so excited. I have my tickets to New York. I can talk all about it now. I've been going through the little video clips that Tanya has sent me from the Witch Daily show, the one that I'm like, been invited out to help her with this. I'm so excited. And honestly, these clips, you guys. I will be sharing them over the next little bit, so keep an eye out for that. But yeah, like, this poor family and this... I have not seen the movie yet. I want to see the whole thing so much.

So if you haven't been following on the Facebook group, I got invited out to help do this Q&A virtual premiere with my friend Tonya from the Witch Daily show of It's Coming, which is this documentary about a family who's basically plagued with demons. Demons. And from the clips, it looks like how they tried to go and get cleansing and how the family is dealing with it, especially the children. Anytime there's demonic activity in children, it's always so heart-wrenching.

So if you haven't registered yet, make sure you do so. So you'll be able to ask questions and some of them might actually be said to the family. They might appear on the podcast because both me and Tonya will be recording it. So there will be that possibility. So yeah, definitely make sure you register. All the links are in on the Facebook page, but I'll also include them in the actual show notes for this one too. So there's no missing it. Yeah, make sure you do that. I guess that's my one housekeeping. I know we don't usually do housekeeping on spooky snippets, but I want to make sure as many of you can get involved as possible.

To Register https://watch.eventive.org/itscoming/play/66db9f8c027ae8004737b5ca?goal=0_c654843617-c3fc2dd596-112882581&mc_cid=c3fc2dd596&mc_eid=e02b1171cc

To support the podcast go to https://patreon.com/MyHauntedLifePodcast 

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Good morning, goblins and ghouls, and welcome to my Haunted Life podcast.
I'm your host, Angela Hartshorn, and this week we have a spooky snippet.
I found this really insane freaking story out of Fort Smith when I was doing
the Fort Smith Museum of History and the National Historic Site,

(00:24):
which is coming up next week.
So I wanted to share this with with you.
It's a bit brutal. Heads up. This newspaper article I found is a bit graphic.
Murder, decapitation, that kind of thing.
Music.

(00:50):
Hello, my spooky babes, and welcome to a spooky snippet day.
So this is going to be a quick, easy, not overly written and edited podcast for you today.
For those who aren't familiar with it, usually it's a small story that I find

(01:12):
while researching the bigger story that is either,
another ghost story, something weird and odd, true crime, that sort of thing. It all kind of depends.
And I have a doozy for you today. Before I get into it, I just want to remind

(01:34):
everyone that you can still register for the It's Coming virtual premiere.
I am so excited. I have my tickets to New York. I can talk all about it now.
I've been going through the little video clips that Tanya has sent me from the Witch Daily show,

(01:59):
the one that I'm like, been invited out to help her with this. I'm so excited.
And honestly, these clips, you guys.
I will be sharing them over the next little bit, so keep an eye out for that.
But yeah, like, this poor family and this...

(02:24):
I have not seen the movie yet.
I want to see the whole thing so much.
So if you haven't been following on the Facebook group,
I got invited out to help do this Q&A virtual premiere with my friend Tanya

(02:47):
from the Witch Daily show of It's Coming,
which is this documentary about a family who's basically plagued with demons.
Demons. And from the clips, it looks like how they tried to go and get cleansing

(03:09):
and how the family is dealing with it, especially the children.
Anytime there's demonic activity in children, it's always so heart-wrenching.
So if you haven't registered yet, make sure you do so. So you'll be able to
ask questions and some of them might actually be said to the family.

(03:35):
They might appear on the podcast because both me and Tanya will be recording it.
So there will be that possibility.
So yeah, definitely make sure you register. All the links are in on the Facebook
page, but I'll also include them in the actual show notes for this one too.

(03:56):
So there's no missing it.
Yeah, make sure you do that. I guess that's my one housekeeping.
I know we don't usually do housekeeping on spooky snippets, but I want to make
sure as many of you can get involved as possible.
Okay, so now here is our extra creepy be.

(04:21):
Little snippet about the Burns murder.
On the morning of Monday, January 27th, 1958, the mutilated and severed head
of Edna Burns was found in a vestibule at Immaculate Conception Church.

(04:47):
North 13th Street and Garrison Avenue.
The story that quickly emerged that day and in the days that followed would
be burned into the collective memory of the city and into the individual memories
of the people of the city who lived through those days.

(05:08):
It is a story of mental mental illness, delusion, and matricide.
Sometime between 8 a.m. and 1 p.m.
That Monday, Bobby Joe Burns, the son of Jesse and Edna Burns,
drugged his mother and decapitated her in the kitchen of the family's home at 2203 South L Street.

(05:35):
At least twice before, Bobby Joe Burns, 28,
had been committed to a mental institution for paranoid schizophrenia and was
given to abusing narcotics,
according to Southwest American News Stories from the time.

(05:59):
After his capture in the area west of Moffitt on Tuesday, Day,
he would claim to police that his mother had consented and that he was enacting
an Aztec sacrifice ritual.
According to the American, he explained
to police that human anatomy and geographical anatomy are related.

(06:25):
The ritual included removal of an eye, part of the nose, and part of the tongue.
Bobby Joe Burns also referred police to verses in Revelations 29.11.
He carried his mom's head to the church wrapped in a sheet, then walked over.

(06:50):
The Garrison Avenue Bridge, into eastern Oklahoma, sleeping in a cold farm field that Monday night.
Burns' confession to the police was done while munching candy bars and drinking sodas.
During the questioning, his brother delivered two packages of cigarettes to

(07:12):
him and left after saying, Joe, we don't blame you for what happened.
Edna Burns had secured the release of her son from the state mental institution
about a year prior to the murder.
Other members of the family had tried to persuade Edna Burns to return Bobby Joe to the hospital.

(07:37):
Following his capture, Circuit Court Judge Paul Wolfe immediately committed
Bobby Joe Burns to the state hospital for 30 days of observation.
Despite later asking that he be charged with murder and executed,
he would later rescind that request and ask to be released.

(07:59):
Burns would remain in the mental hospital for the rest of his life.
Although solid confirmation of his death, there many decades later hasn't been
obtained, it is believed he died in the state hospital sometime in the 1980s.
The luridness and shocking nature of the murder has ensured that it is still talked about today.

(08:26):
And this article comes from fortsmithhistory.org.
So there you go. There's your spooky story for the day.
And honestly, the ritual sacrifice nature, the idea that,

(08:46):
how did he put it, the human anatomy and geographical anatomy are related,
that's a plot of some cult movie.
Be. There has to be. That has to be used somewhere.
If anybody knows, let me know. I want to know.
There has to be something else to that.

(09:07):
Or it's just, you know, paranoid schizophrenia.
Who knows? But if anybody knows anything more about that, let me know.
And there you have it. There's your spooky snippet.
Come back next week for more Fort Smith stories. That's going to be our last Fort Smith episode.

(09:28):
And yeah, stay spooky, my friends.