American Homicide - S1: E15 – The Disappearance of Danny Burroughs, Part 2

Episode Date: January 30, 2025

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.  Reach out to the American Homicide team by emailing us: [e-mail]. See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

He was a Boy Scout leader, a husband, a father. But he was leading a double life. He was a monster, hiding in plain sight. Journey inside the mind of one of history's most notorious killers, BTK. Through the voices of the people who know him best. Listen to Monster BTK on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Consider this is a daily news podcast and lately the news is about a big question.

How much can one guy change? They want change. What will change look like for energy? Drill, baby drill. Schools? Take the Department of Education. Close it. Healthcare?

Better and less expensive. Follow coverage of a changing country. Promises made, promises kept. We're gonna keep our promises. On Consider This from NPR. Listen on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey listeners, I'm Lauren Bright-Pacheco,

host of the Murder on Songbird Road podcast, and I'm excited to share this riveting story with you. I'm also excited to tell you that you can now get access to all episodes of Murder on Songbird Road, 100% ad-free, and one week early through the iHeart True Crime Plus subscription, available exclusively on Apple podcasts. Plus, you'll get access to other chart-topping true crime shows you love, like Betrayal, The Girlfriends, Paper Ghosts, Murder Homes, Unrestorable, The Godmother, and more.

So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search for iHeartTrueCrimePlus, and subscribe today. When Danny Burroughs disappeared from his home in Mayslandy, 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. But not everyone bought Loretta's story.

There was a lot of rumors and deceptions surrounding Daniel's disappearance. Six years later, detectives executed simultaneous search 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. When we entered the house, we were all shocked. I think it was the last thing we expected, honestly. She was 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. We're in South Jersey today for the conclusion of the disappearance of Danny Burroughs. I'm Sloane Glass and this is American Homicide. And just a warning that what you're about to hear is graphic. Please take care while listening. By May of 2013, Danny Burroughs 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 sister's. We were of the understanding that it was for insurance for all documents with the capacity that we could find possible items of evidentiary value related to a homicide or a disappearance. So as Loretta Burroughs was being questioned at her sister's house, another team, led by Sergeant Caroline McDonald, was searching Loretta's home in Ventnor City, New Jersey.

Loretta Burroughs' house was impeccably clean. When I entered it, it smelled very fresh. Generally speaking, it was as if she was expecting visitors. Her beachy two-bedroom, two-bath duplex sat a couple blocks from the Atlantic Ocean and just minutes from the many casinos and nightlife of Atlantic City. At that time, I was conducting the search. I was the one photographing. My primary area of concern was her bedroom. That's where I started. 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. Sergeant McDonald had the camera and her team had a system in place. Every time an item of potential evidence or value is located within the residence, whoever is searching that area will call your name so you can photograph it as it exists. While she was in Loretta's bedroom, the lieutenant in the guest bedroom called her name. 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. And standing in front of the closet was the lieutenant. He had a puzzled look on his face. When you open 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.

Mixed in with Loretta's clothing and Christmas decorations was something odd. There was a stacked object and it had blankets draped over it, 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. As we started to remove the coverings around the Tupperware containers, there were plastic bags, garbage bags. In fact, there were nine layers of black plastic garbage bags. 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 were melting and coming apart. We were finding dryer sheets that had scents to them. You probably know where this is going. Even with all of those air fresheners, Sergeant McDonald noticed a smell she described as decomposition. 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 Burroughs and that we were going to find Daniel's body inside the house. You may remember from the last episode, another team of detectives was questioning Loretta at her sister's house. It was almost simultaneously that the discovery happened as well as the phone call. As the team photographed the many plastic bags, dryer sheets and air freshener beads, Loretta Burrow sat with Detective Shalick and Sergeant Lynn Doherty. She simply said, are you Detective Shalick? And I said, yes.

And she says, I want to talk to you. We're Mirandizer. And at that point, she tells us everything that happened. Redhead said that they had gotten into an argument. She told the police the argument she had with Danny happened in August of 2007. Daniel pushed her on the bed and once that happened she got a knife from the kitchen and repeatedly stabbed Daniel and killed him. She said she stabbed him, she said it was in the bathroom and he fell into the bathtub and that she left the body in the bathtub.

Loretta said she killed Danny, but it was in self-defense. Everything that she told us was about her being the victim. Keep in mind, Danny was recovering from shoulder surgery at the time, and his arm was in a sling. 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 from the person that was upstairs the whole time. It didn't add up. So the picture that Loretta is painting would mean that she got into her car and drove to a theme park in Pennsylvania for a vacation with her daughter Nicole

and her grandchildren, all while her husband was still in the bathtub. And if you remember from the last episode, Loretta told Nicole that Danny called her during that trip. 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 if he picked up. 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.

That's when investigators began to connect the dots. 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. Why are you going to report him missing? I told you I talked to him. He's not missing. He's in Florida, you know. What investigators were getting at is that Loretta had a clear plan over the last half decade.

She spun a tangled web of lies to cover the fact that she stabbed and killed her husband. I asked her in the interview, okay, so you stabbed him, right? You're saying that there was this fight and you her husband. 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 911? Like even in the heat of passion,

if you're mad at somebody and you stabbed them, which is still like a terrible, horrible thing, what do you do? You call 911 and try and get the medical attention. And then she said something to the effect of, and he's still with me. Danny's still with me, something like that. I'm like, does she keep a vial of blood around her neck on a necklace? 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 told us. And then she said, I just put him in a rubber made container. That's the same plastic container the police found hidden in Loretta's guest closet. We asked her, like, how did you put his body into a rubber made container? And she was like, I just 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.

And then she tells us that she had to put him like transition into another container, 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. 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. Six, seven years, she's been traveling around with this body, keeping it.

It's like something you watch on TV. 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 in her backyard. I've never heard of anyone ever murdering someone and keeping the body. And not only keeping the body, she transported it to her second house and then transported it to her third house. So it completely blew us away.

Detective Frank Schalek arrested the 61-year-old grandmother and charged her with murder. And then investigator Lynn Doherty and I went to Nicole's house and sat down with her and explained to her everything that had happened. Nicole is Loretta's daughter. She just couldn't believe it. You know, Nicole had just lost her stepfather.

You know, it was confirmation of that. And Nicole just lost her mother. Her mother was now gonna go away to prison probably for the rest of her life. It was very hard for her. Nicole had plenty to process, including the fact that her children spent many nights at Loretta's home.

Daniel's body was stored in the bedroom of her third home, which her grandkids would use. I mean, she murdered someone. It'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 grandkids were sleeping, I just can't fathom what she was thinking. Like, I don't know.

It bothers me. Well, no one imagined the years of wondering what happened to Danny Burroughs would end like this. She kept him in the closet for seven years. I don't know what the, I can't even get into a head like that. I can't. Ruth Antovani not only grew up with Danny, but she went to prom with him. How in the world? How do you make a decision to do that? It's sad. Very sad. 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 Loretta was behind it. And her duplicity hit a dark, dark side.

He was a Boy Scout leader, a church deacon, a husband, a father. He went to a local church. He was going to the grocery store with us. He was the guy next door. But he was leading a double life. He was certainly a peeping Tom, looking through the windows, looking at people, fantasizing about what he could do. He then began entering the houses. He could get into their home, take something, and get out and not be caught. He felt very powerful. He was a monster, hiding in plain sight.

Someone killed four members of a family. It just didn't happen here. Journey inside the mind of one of history's most notorious killers, BTK, through the voices of the people who know him best. Listen to Monster BTK on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Consider this is a daily news podcast

and lately the news is about a big question. How much can one guy change? They want change. What will change look like for energy? Drill, baby drill. Schools? Take the department of Education, close it. Health care?

Better and less expensive. Follow coverage of a changing country. Promises made, promises kept. We're going to keep our promises. On Consider This from NPR. Listen on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts. To have a murder as gruesome as Jake Beasley's doesn't happen very often down here.

In Marion, Illinois, an 11-year-old girl brutally stabbed to death, her father's longtime live-in girlfriend maintaining innocence but charged with her murder. I am confident that Julie Beth Lee is guilty. This case, the more I learned about it, the more I'm scratching my head. Something's not right. I'm Lauren Bright-Pacheco. Murder on Songbird Road dives into the conviction of a mother of four who remains behind bars and the investigation that put her there.

I have not seen this level of corruption anywhere. It's sickening. If you stab somebody that many times, you have blood splatter. Where's the change? Close. She found out she was pregnant in jail. She wasn't treated like she was an innocent human being at all. Which is just horrific. Nobody has gotten justice yet.

And that's what I wish people would understand. Listen to Murder on Songbird Road on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Loretta Burroughs spent six years portraying herself as a scorned wife. She told everyone that her husband Danny left her for a young blonde in Florida. The reality was Loretta murdered Danny. Not only did she kill her husband, okay, I see that occasionally, but that she then chopped him up and put him in a tote. But no, we don't stop there. She moved him from location to location. Damon G. Tyner was the Atlanta County prosecutor whose jaw dropped when he read about the case.

You can't make this up. If you made it up, it would really be a bad horror film. Loretta moved Danny, his dead body, two other times and was in the process of moving a third time. 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 bizarre as the remains of her late husband. Like, what is that all about? But the reality is, is that if Danny Burroughs' 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. 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 shock? Was Danny really this violent man and she was responding in self-defense?

Well, the trial brought out those answers. In March 2015, the case went to trial and prosecutors said Loretta Burrough's motive was much darker and meaningless. 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. And no matter where Loretta lived in New Jersey, she was always a short car ride away from the numerous casinos in Atlantic City. casinos in Atlantic City. Back in 2006, for example, those casinos took in over $5 billion from the busloads of gamblers who played slot machines and table games. And Loretta was one of those gamblers. Loretta Barles was greedy.

She would do anything to feed that addiction. And that includes murder. Prosecutor Seth Levy learned Loretta's gambling addiction dated back to the 1990s. That's when she got in trouble with one of her employers. She, over the course of time as a bookkeeper, was slowly embezzling money from the company she worked for. According to court records, Loretta stole $470,000. And in 1996, she was sentenced to 15 months in federal prison. Her lawyer at the time blamed it on Loretta's gambling addiction.

That kind of crime takes patience. It takes devotion to the crime. It takes knowledge. And so now you're looking at somebody in a different lens. 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.

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 or all my life in jail, I might as well take the shot even though I know it's a long shot. The voice you are 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 threw out Loretta's confession to the police. It's incredible to get his perspective as to why. 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. Without Loretta's confession, prosecutor Seth Levy had to change his strategy. Here's prosecutor Levy.

She comes off as very nice, old, loving, grandmotherly woman. And her story is this big ogre of a man 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. juxtaposition kind of drove my entire creation of the prosecution. She's one of the few that I would say is the closest thing 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 who 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, always taking care of other people. And when you look at this case, you could see through that mask. And it's almost if at night, she would unzip the grandmother costume, step out into her real persona. So, 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.

Here's Judge Mike Donio again. 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. But no fairy tale contains the amount of graphic testimony and evidence this case featured. Showing the jury bones, torso, that was found in a box

in the defendant's house. 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. I remember it was hard on the jurors. 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.

If you think it was tough on the jury, imagine what it was like for Danny's brother, Ray. Judge Donio remembers Ray in the courtroom. His emotions would get the best of him. There was a couple of 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 Mrs. Burroughs

with a knife in her hand and things like that, and he would blurt things out. And a couple times, I had 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 you don't want that, we don't want that. 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. The defense attorney who was representing her basically was harping on the fact that there was no weapon. He claimed there was no way to know who killed Danny, when they 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. He did what many defense lawyers do.

You just keep raising issues and then in a summation he harped about reasonable doubt. 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 administering Danny's pain medication. He stared at Loretta and said,

"...you don't overdose on meth and then cut yourself up. We took apart her story one at a time. If she says I did this because of this, we proved it wasn't so. She told another lie, we proved that lie wasn't so. Loretta Burroughs never took the witness stand, but this was notable to me. Her range of facial expressions were on full display during the trial. 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. It was something that even stood out to Judge Donio. 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 notarization, about the bogus divorce, telling the neighbor that he left with a young woman and a hummer. When you start putting all that together, now you see the Jekyll and Hyde. You go from being like the grandmother to this devious woman that was capable of this deceit and these lies and ultimately the ultimate crime, murder. What a scary thing to witness

in a person that seems so innocent. This may appear to be a grandmother. It may do things that are like a grandmother, but she is a cold-blooded killer. And we have the proof in these two Tupperware containers. The jury agreed, and they convicted her. 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. would leave everyone in the courtroom in tears. He was a Boy Scout leader, a church deacon, a husband, a father. He went to a local church. He was going to the grocery store with us. He was the guy next door. But he was leading a double life. He was certainly a peeping Tom, looking

through the windows, looking at people, fantasizing about what he could do. He then began entering the houses. He could get into their home, take something and get out and not be caught. He felt very powerful. He was a monster hiding in plain sight. Someone killed four members of a family. It just didn't happen here. Journey inside the mind of one of history's most notorious killers, BTK, through the voices of the people who know him best. Listen to Monster BTK on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,

or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Consider this is a daily news podcast and lately the news is about a big question. How much can one guy change? They want change. What will change look like for energy? Drill, baby drill. Schools?

Take the Department of Education, close it. Healthcare? Better and less expensive. Follow coverage of a changing country. Promises made, promises kept. We're going to keep our promises. On Consider This from NPR. Listen on the iHeart radio app or wherever you get your podcasts.

Beautiful young women full of life and dreams, murdered or vanished, without a trace. Their families left with nothing but heartbreak, questions and memories. I'm Nancy Grace. This week on Crime Stories, we uncover the truth behind these unsolved cases. We work to bring justice and answers to grieving families. Please don't miss Crime Stories with Nancy Grace.

Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Judge Michael Donio presided over the trial of Loretta Burroughs. It was one of the three most difficult or toughest cases that I did. Loretta's sentencing hearing took place in April 2015. A month earlier, a jury convicted Loretta of murdering her husband, Danny, and hindering apprehension. 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. Judge Donio also heard from Danny's friends and family who submitted victim impact statements. Some of them were in court that day to share their statements, but it wasn't easy to hear over the sounds of Loretta's sobbing. She just sat there and cried. One statement came from a 12-year-old neighbor of Loretta's who used to spend the night in the same bedroom where Loretta was keeping Danny's body. Over Loretta's tears, her letter was read to the court. 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 a bedroom with a dead body in the closet. 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. 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 kept saying, there's something wrong. He'd go, I'll be all right.

This went on every practice. And we knew, me and my bass player knew there was something wrong. He believed that Loretta was poisoning Danny. I just have nightmares every day. He was my brother. He was like closer than my brother to me. And I just, I'm sorry, but I'll never get over this.

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 30 years to life, and something about that stuck with Danny's brother, Ray. January 2006, and just 19 months prior to my brother being murdered, New Jersey abolished the death penalty. It is of my opinion she also researched that. Ray placed a picture of Danny on the table in front of him and spent more than 20 minutes eulogizing his brother and condemning Loretta. Last time I stood on my brother's property was the day I filed the missing persons report

Labor Day weekend of 2007. Because the murderer had changed the keypad entrance code, I couldn't even get into my brother's home. I believe that if I had, this investigation may not have taken as long because I believe I would have found my brother's remains inside myself. On May 17th, 2013, approximately at 8.30 a.m., I received a call stating, Ray, we found your brother. Instantly, 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 how she allowed his body to rot for several 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 2007 and the several times I visited my brother's home, listening to the monster's made up stories, repeated lies, and to my face telling me he called. While all along, my brother's dismembered, disemboweled, 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?

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. I believe that the only 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 endured and how my mind is tortured with those images, I don't look forward to tomorrow.

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. 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 past seven plus years, begging is about all the fight I have left. Loretta was found guilty, and now she deserves punishment for her actions.

This inhumane premeditated murder demands a maximum sentence. Anything less would not be justice but an injustice to a good man that was brutally and horrifically taken away from his family and friends. I thank you for listening to me. 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. He was distraught.

He was distraught, and rightly so. He was very close to his familiar seat. He was distraught. He was distraught, and rightly so. He was very close to his brother. Judge Donio then turned to Loretta, who addressed the court for the first time. You're about to hear Loretta's voice. I stand before you today, your honor, to accept responsibility for some horrific actions and choices that have brought me in your courtroom today. Had the state applied a different charge, I would

have never taken it to your courtroom, Your Honor, and put the families and myself in the courts through extensive heartache and expenses that were incurred by taking it to trial. Had the state charged Loretta with aggravated manslaughter, she claimed she would have pled guilty. That charge came with a 10 to 30 year sentence, so you can see why the state wouldn't offer that deal. If there's such a thing as two people loving one another too much, making the relationship toxic and difficult demands that I truly believe that Danny and myself were guilty of this. I don't believe in closure, Your Honor.

I don't believe I'll ever sleep right again, but I do believe in Philippians 4 13, that all things can happen through Christ who strengthens them. I pray today that everyone will continue to try to heal from this horrific situation. I pray that my sentence will give them some type of peace. No one knows what goes on behind closed doors, Your Honor. I pray that I'll be able to help people who are mentally and physically abused. I'm sorry for my crime and I'm ready to accept the responsibility. My God, all this because you didn't want to go to Florida? Wait till you see now where you're going to go.

Judge Donio clearly had heard enough. I gave her a sentence of 55 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 this person. Loretta Burroughs will not be eligible for parole until she is 110 years old. Mrs. Burroughs will spend the rest of her life in prison. So to that extent, justice was served.

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 Sloane Glass. Join me for Murder on the Parkway. That's next time on American Homicide. You can contact the American Homicide team by emailing us at americanhomicidepod.gmail.com. That's americanhomicidepod.gmail.com. American Homicide is hosted and written by me, Sloane Glass, and is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group in partnership with iHeart Podcasts.

The show is 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 Kristen Malkuri. Our iHeart team is Allie Perry and Jessica Kreincheck. Audio editing, mixing and mastering by Nico Oruka. American Homicide's theme song was composed by Oliver Baines of Noiser. Music library provided by MyMusic.

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 the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. He was a Boy Scout leader, a husband, a father, but he was leading a double life. He was a monster, hiding in plain sight. Journey inside the mind of one of history's most notorious killers, BTK, through the voices of the people who know him best.

Listen to Monster BTK on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. Consider this is a daily news podcast and lately the news is about a big question. How much can one guy change? They want change. What will change look like for energy? Drill, baby drill. Schools?

Take the Department of Education, close it. Health care? Better and less expensive. Follow coverage of a changing country. Promises made, promises kept. We're going to keep our promises. On Consider This from NPR. Listen on the iHeart Radio app

or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey listeners, I'm Lauren Breypacheco, host of the Murder on Songbird Road podcast. And I'm excited to share this riveting story with you. I'm also excited to tell you that you can now get access to all episodes of Murder on Songbird Road, 100% ad free and one week early through the iHeart True Crime Plus subscription,

available exclusively on Apple Podcasts. Plus, you'll get access to other chart-topping true crime shows you love, like Betrayal, The Girlfriends, Paper Ghosts, Murder Homes, Unrestorable, The Godmother, and more. So don't wait. Head to Apple Podcasts, search for iHeart True Crime Plus, and subscribe today.