ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, December 31, 1996 TAG: 9612310107
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
DATELINE: PULASKI
SOURCE: LISA K. GARCIA STAFF WRITER
THE PARENTS OF FIVE grown children were remembered as quiet, respected members of their Pulaski community.
A medical examiner said Monday the gunshots that killed a Pulaski County couple late Saturday point to a case of murder-suicide.
Dr. William Massello, assistant deputy chief medical examiner for Western Virginia, said Betty Burgess, 59, and her estranged husband, Douglas Burgess, 62, died of gunshot wounds to the head.
He said the wounds were "consistent with a murder-suicide." Betty Burgess had gunshot wounds from two weapons. Massello would not say how many wounds she suffered.
An investigator with the Pulaski County Sheriff's Office said evidence indicates Douglas Burgess used a .22-caliber handgun to shoot at his wife from inside the Alum Spring Road home the couple shared before they separated.
Sgt. A.R. Webb said Douglas Burgess fired the handgun five or six times through a basement window and struck his wife before he went outside the home with a .41-caliber Magnum revolver.
Betty Burgess died after being shot in the back of the head with the Magnum revolver, Webb said. He said evidence showed she was on the ground when she was shot.
Police also found her 62-year-old husband dead in the front yard. He died from a single gunshot wound to his head from the same revolver, which police found in his hand.
The couple had separated several months ago. Douglas Burgess, a contractor, was living in the brick home. Betty Burgess, owner of Burgess Realty on East Main Street, was living in an apartment, Webb said.
Dee Dee Edwards, the couple's daughter, lived down the road from her father and worked with her mother as a licensed agent. She said the family, which includes five grown children, did not want to comment.
People who knew the couple expressed surprise over what had happened.
Nick Glenn, of Glenn Insurance Agency Inc., said Betty Burgess had rented the office space next to his business for at least a decade.
"They were good people, and we were really shocked," Glenn said.
Wayne McGlothlin, a real estate agent with Century 21 in Pulaski, said Betty Burgess had been a licensed agent for more than 20 years.
"She was very easygoing, easy to work with and well-liked among the agents," McGlothlin said. "It was a tragedy, what happened."
A woman who asked that her name not be used said she knew the couple since grade school.
She said Betty Burgess had "a bubbly personality" and described Douglas Burgess as a "quiet and laid-back person who never seemed to get upset."
"They were never people who lived the wild, reckless life; they were family people," the woman said.
A funeral for the couple will be held at 11 a.m. Thursday at New River Valley Baptist Church. Graveside services will follow in Draper's Valley Presbyterian Church Cemetery. The family will receive friends from 6 to 8 p.m. at Stevens Funeral Home.
LENGTH: Medium: 62 lines KEYWORDS: FATALITYby CNB