I received comments regarding the Burchfield case that I have not posted before but have decided to do so now with additional information I found:
Q1: “In the picture, the officer wore his weapon at high-rise, cross-draw, on his left, making it available to either hand and away from his passengers. Do we know if the gun in was still holstered with flap snapped when he was found?”
A1: I don’t have the complete answer yet only that “Burchfield’s gun was still holstered.”
Q2: “The murder weapon could be easily concealed so I doubt he knew his passenger was a suspect. Any traces of a passenger or just the man seen by McVay?”
A2: I agree that Burchfield did not suspect his passenger to be an armed suspect. Still waiting for the answer on the rest of the question.
Q3: “Those old tube-type radios required the ignition “on” – do we know if it was on? Where were his car keys?”
A3: Still awaiting the answer here from the police department.
What is clear, is that despite Burchfield’s case being 57 years old, the department has not given up looking for his murderer. I command them for that!
The killer most likely was a youngster at that time. Maybe between late teens or early twenties. That means that this person could still be alive today.
Fifty-seven years is a long time to keep a secret quiet. There is a good chance that this person may have told someone what he did when he was young.
Maybe he told this story around a camp fire when the darkness hid his facial features and emotions, maybe he spoke about it during a college initiation to impress the older students or, maybe he was bragging in a bar to impress girls. Maybe you know someone who becomes a recluse around Thanksgiving time or becomes depressed around November, year after year, or someone with a dark yearly routine. Maybe you have been at a Thanksgiving party where someone’s thanks included a cryptic message that begged for forgiveness and you never understood why.
If you remember any weird bravado stories from someone who was young around 1975 and who is now near his mid- or late 70s, please contact me.