His wife, Melba, heard the blast, discovered the body, and hysterically telephoned for help. Lawmen arrived to investigate, and they found a spent shotgun shell about 13 feet from the body near a corner of the house. The only theory anyone could offer as a motive for the crime was that Burris had prosecuted someone "too hard," because he was well liked by everybody else.
Investigators found a spent twelve-gauge shotgun shell about twelve or thirteen feet from the body near the southeast corner of the house, which was thought to be the spot from where the assassin fired the gun. The ejector markings on the brass casing of the shell were considered an important clue that might help authorities identify the murder weapon.[v] (Insert Images 042 & 043)
A dragnet was launched in the vicinity of the crime, and bloodhounds were brought in, but these efforts yielded no suspects and few clues. The Oklahoma State Crime Bureau soon entered the investigation. Burris's office safe at the county courthouse was opened, but the papers and other items found offered no definite leads as to who might have wanted the prosecutor killed.
The idea that the murder might have been a vengeance killing was more than idle speculation, because Burris had received threats in recent months related to his duties as prosecutor.
The investigation eventually focused on illegal liquor and gambling activities in the Grand Lake resort area that Burris had been trying to clamp down on in the months prior to his death. On the night of June 26, agents seized a pickup in Miami, Oklahoma, that matched the description of one seen in the Burris neighborhood on the night of the murder. Immediately afterward, they raided seven businesses in the Afton area searching for contraband and possible evidence in the murder case. One of the places raided was owned by T. H. Bluejacket, who also owned another night spot that had been blown to bits four nights earlier, and lawmen thought there might be a connection between the explosion and the murder of Burris. The raiding officers confiscated a number of slot machines and other gambling devices and arrested a few suspects but turned up no solid evidence to point them toward Burris's killer
The crime bureau chief said C. E. Dawson, an Afton man known as “the kingpin slot machine operator in the Grand Lake area,” was the owner of the suspect pickup at the time of Burris’s murder. Dawson also owned at least one of the raided nightclubs, but curiously enough, Dawson was not among the men arrested in the sting as possible suspects in the Burris murder
All the men who were arrested in the sting were soon released, and investigators were left floundering for leads in the case. They were still operating under the assumption that the killing was related to gambling and other illegal activities in the Grand Lake region and that it was likely a murder for hire, but they had "no real suspect in the case.” Even the supposed link between the pickup seen at the scene of the crime and the one confiscated in Miami “fizzled” as a lead. In mid-July, the state crime bureau closed the temporary office it had set up in Pryor, the Mayes County seat, shortly after the murder.
A Tulsa newspaper published multiple articles complaining about the lack of progress in the Burris case and questioning why certain angles of investigation had been dropped. Why, for instance, had C. E. Dawson, the "slot machine king" who had been linked to the pickup seen in the Burris neighborhood, not been more vigorously pursued as a suspect?
The case stalled but was a revived in 1953. Dawson was questioned again at that time, but he denied involvement in the Burris murder and was soon released.
Even though investigators with the crime bureau virtually admitted that they knew who had killed Burris, the case gradually went cold for lack of solid evidence, and it officially remains one of Oklahoma's biggest unsolved murder cases, even to this day.
This is a greatly condensed version of the chapter in my M&M in NE OK book.
No comments:
Post a Comment