ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Monday, December 30, 1996 TAG: 9612300052
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: LESLIE TAYLOR STAFF WRITER
A man and his estranged wife were found shot to death in the front yard of their Pulaski County home late Saturday.
Douglas D. Burgess and Betty D. Burgess, of Alum Spring Road, had both been shot in the head with a .41-caliber Magnum revolver, according to the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office. Douglas Burgess, 62, was clutching a .41-caliber Magnum when sheriff's deputies, responding to a 911 call, found his body.
Pulaski County Sheriff Ralph E. Dobbins said the sheriff's office did not want to speculate about the incident until the medical examiner's office in Roanoke could be contacted. Dobbins said he was not ready to declare the deaths a murder-suicide.
Betty Burgess, 59, had been shot in the back of her head. Dobbins said his office was waiting for a medical examiner to determine from what point Douglas Burgess had been shot.
Sheriff's deputies also found a smaller caliber handgun at the Burgess home. Betty Burgess may also have been wounded by that handgun, according to the sheriff's office.
The couple had been separated for some time, according to the sheriff's office. Douglas Burgess was still living at the home.
Muriel Comer, who lived next door to the Burgesses, said she heard gunshots coming from the couple's home Saturday night between 9 and 9:30.
"I thought it was a truck backfiring," she said. "I never dreamed it was what it was."
The couple lived in a rural community in a section of Pulaski County north of the town of Pulaski.
"They grew up out here, spent all their lives in this community," Comer said. "The majority of [the community] was related to Betty in some respect."
Betty Burgess was a well-known realtor and Douglas Burgess a contractor, said another neighbor, who asked not to be identified. Douglas Burgess built her kitchen, she said.
The Burgesses belonged to a Methodist church near their home. Betty Burgess sang in the church choir, the neighbor said.
"Our young ones went to school together," the neighbor said. "They had five children, just like me - four daughters and one son, like I did."
The neighbor said she passed the Burgess house Saturday night about 11, on her way home from visiting her daughter, and saw rescue crew and law enforcement vehicles out front.
"It's a hurting thing," she said. "You don't expect things like that, not when it's in your own neighborhood.
"It's sad. I feel so bad for the young ones."
The sheriff's office is conducting an investigation.
LENGTH: Medium: 55 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB