Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, April 13, 1993 TAG: 9304130155
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
SCHOOL CHIEF'S KILLER REMAINS MYSTERY IN GA.
Almost six months after former Pulaski County Schools Superintendent James Burns was fatally stabbed, his killer is still free.Burns, a progressive and controversial school superintendent in Pulaski County for a year, was fatally stabbed in bed in his home in Columbus, Ga., on Oct. 19. He was found dead at the front door of his historic downtown home.
Burns, 50, was superintendent in Pulaski County during the 1989-90 school year. He left in June 1990 with three years to go on his four-year contract to become superintendent in Muscogee County, Ga.
It appeared the intruder used a key to enter through the front door and went upstairs to where the superintendent and his wife, Stella, were sleeping. Burns was stabbed in the upper middle portion of his back - striking his aorta - with a hunting knife, which was later recovered by police. Burns, fatally wounded, chased the intruder downstairs before collapsing at the door, police said.
"We're not giving up by any means," Maj. John Wood, chief of detectives at Columbus, said last month. "We need a break. We need someone to start talking."
Wood and his detectives have accumulated three large notebook binders of information on Burns' death but have yet to add to it the name of an arrested suspect.
"He has no family here. He was very controversial. More people disliked him than liked him, by far," Wood said.
"I've never worked a murder case that branched out like this one," Wood said earlier in the investigation.
In the months before his death, Burns had been criticized by opponents who said he failed to communicate effectively with other school officials. One School Board member had called for Burns' resignation last summer. A group of parents also had been meeting in an attempt to oust him.
Burns generated similar controversy during his year in Pulaski County. A major crisis - largely unfounded - erupted when word spread that Christ would be removed from Christmas celebrations in the schools. Earlier, Burns had met with principals to inform them of Supreme Court rulings on church-state issues.
When he announced that he was moving to Georgia, Burns said he wanted to be closer to his and his wife's family and their children who live in Florida and Georgia.
Having an unsolved murder on the books for six months is all the more troublesome to Wood because of his department's history of solving or clearing a high percentage of violent crimes.
In 1992, Wood said Columbus had 26 homicides and cleared 92 percent of the cases. The national average for clearing homicide cases is 67 percent, he said.
"The only pressure is what we're putting on ourselves," Wood said.
Georgia Gov. Zell Miller has offered a $2,000 reward in the Burns case. Another $1,000 was added to the fund by an anonymous donor, Wood said, and the mayor's office has opened an account for people to contribute to a reward pool.