S1: E14 – The Disappearance of Danny Burroughs, Part 1

High school sweethearts. Danny and Loretta reunited decades later and picked up right where they left off.

She had a question on dan our whole life, and then eventually they got back together.

And of course if it had worked out, we wouldn't be talking today.

He left her for a waitress in Florida, and we were all.

In shock, fall in shock.

Danny had a way of just found something wrong with everybody.

But there's plenty more to this story.

Danny just disappears in thin air.

The whole thing just didn't feel right and made everyone question what they knew about Loretta and Danny. I was definitely not expecting to find what we found. Today. We're in May's Landy, New Jersey, for Part one of the Disappearance of Danny Burroughs. My name is Sloane Glass and this is American Homicide. And warning that this episode contains

It's kind of a fun time, easy, not a lot of crime.

Chris Gagan grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia.

Front doors were left open all the time a lot of the neighborhood. They'd sit out on the front step the kids would play, so it was nice.

That was back in an era when kids played outside until the street lights came on.

We used to go ice skating or dancing all the time because they had these little dances in the Catholic churches. We formed a Beatles group because we were into the Beatles all the time, so we had like a club. It was a very simple life.

One of her neighborhood friends was a girl named Loretta.

Loretta lived so close and there was a candy store cross set, so a lot of times we would take a walk down there and sometimes the boys would be there.

Danny Burrows was one of those boys. Danny was a year older and he was popular with the girls in the neighborhood.

He was really cute, like nice eyes, and Loretta really had a thing for Danny, like she was, you know, infatuated with them, maybe even more so than infatuated, but I know she really liked him.

Loretta and Danny dated in high school, but like most young love stories, it was short lived. The two split up after graduation and went their separate.

Ways, Danny moved to New Jersey mays Landing.

Danny lived in mays Landing, a quiet community of about two thousand people, which sits about fifteen minutes from the bright lights, bustling clubs, and numerous casinos of Atlantic City. It's also about an hour from Philadelphia.

He lived down by the shore and then he met someone else. Danny met a girl who eventually married and they had two children.

Loretta also got married, divorced, and then married a second time, but her husband passed away in nineteen ninety three. Fast forward to the mid nineties, Loretta was a widow and Danny was divorced. Loretta had a career in nursing. She took care of the elderly. When the past of these former high school lovers crossed it again, they started dating.

She was very happy to be back with him.

By that point, they were both in their late forties, but they picked up right where they left off.

She always one of them, and she got them, and she got them.

When the two got back together, it was big news for Ruth and to Vanni, who also grew up with Loretta and Danny.

Loretta liked Danny from the time she was little. This was her lifelong dream and it finally happened, and I thought, you know, he's got it made. He's got somebody who totally adores them.

Leretta moved into Danny's vintage three bedroom, three bathroom house in May's Landing and in nineteen ninety seven she finally became missus Danny Burrows. Now, considering their history, it was the kind of news you'd certainly expect everyone to know about.

That's the thing. We never heard anything about being married. I never knew they got married. It was odd, that's the one to get married.

I had no idea, but quietly getting married kind of fit Danny's under the radar personality. He was a guy who liked to spend hours working in his shed. He owned just about every tool he could get his hands on and loved to fix things cars, boats, motorcycles. Danny worked on them all. Danny was also happy behind a set of drugs. This is actual audio of him performing.

He was in his own band for a little while. We used to have a pool party and he would bring the band and they play, and he used to laugh in that way he danced. He couldn't stop laughing.

The name left a big impact.

On your life. His laugh, his manners, he was just not a forgettable person.

While Danny spent his time working on cars and flying his expensive model airplanes, Loretta was more of a people person. She was a caregiver and worked at a nursing home. Her patients and their families adored her, and after work, it was all about family.

She was the doating grandmother. She did everything with the grandkids and her daughter. They were very close.

Loretta's daughter, Nicole, and her grandchildren were the light of Loretta's life. She would do anything for them. As for Danny, he had a son and a daughter, but they rarely saw him. Being a father was a role Danny struggled with. Loretta urged Danny to spend more time with his kids, but by then Danny's kids were all grown up and living in Florida. In fact, Florida played into a long running argument between Danny and Loretta.

Danny wanted to move to Florida, didn't like the cold, and Loretta was unhappy about it.

She told me she did not want to go to Florida because her family's here and her daughter and her poor grandchildren, they were all here. Loretta needed family. She loved her family.

But Danny kept telling his friends that he and Loretta were retiring to Florida, and this was usually met with Loretta standing behind him shaking her head.

No.

It became a joke among their friends.

I'm sure she was really upset and dug her hills in and says, you know, I'm not going to go. She had a couple grandchildren at home, and you know, I don't blame her. I won't want to leave either.

The battle over Florida cooled off during the summer of two thousand and seven, when Danny had surgery on his rotator cuff. It was a slow and painful recovery process for Danny, but even with his arm in a sling, there was Danny outside working in his yard.

It was out maw on the lawn and the neighbor laughed, like, what are you doing mowing the law? Your arms and a sling. It was ain't all about stuff like that.

That was around the time Loretta took a weekend trip with her daughter and grandchildren. But when she returned, she said she found Danny with another woman.

There was a yellow hummer pulling out of her driveway and there was a woman driving it and he was in the passenger seat.

Ed Dwyer was a neighbor who consoled a devastated Loretta.

She was just crying uncontrollably, and I asked her what was wrong, and she said that her husband had left her for a waitress that they ran across in Florida when they were down there.

So not only did Danny get his wish to move to Florida, but according to Loretta, he was going with a waitress he met during their last visit together to the Sunshine State.

She said he kept wanting to go back to this same restaurant. They ate lobster every day, and she said how much the lobster can you eat?

But apparently it wasn't the lobster that Danny was craving. It was the young blonde waitress with the yellow hummer.

And this was the woman that drove up from Florida to pick him up and bring him back to Florida.

Wat thing about Danny When he sets his mind on something, that's what he does. So he wanted to go.

Danny had a way of just he found something wrong with everybody, you know, but it would eventually be never his fault and he had to move on.

But still it was hard to understand because Danny not only left behind his wife, but also his truck, motorcycle and shed loaded with his expensive tools and model airplanes. In fact, Danny didn't take his cell phone or even his toothbrush.

His keys were left in the house, so you know, why would he just leave his keys?

The only thing Danny did take was money. Loretta said. Danny cleaned out their safe before leaving.

Maybe he drops off the face of the air for a reason. Who knows, I don't know. He wasn't you know the most predictable person.

His friends and family wondered, was Danny having some sort of midlife crisis or leading a double life.

This whole thing just didn't feel right. He was close to his neighbors, even his own brother. You would have told it, brother, they were close. I had my suspicions something.

Something, Everything Danny and Loretta's friends and family thought they knew about the couple was about to change. When you think about romance, you might not think of New Jersey.

People get the impression of New Jersey. They see it on TV as sopranos. North Jersey cities and smog and down here. It's not like that.

Detective Franks Allick spent his whole life working and living in South Jersey.

There's small towns, there's farms, there's woods. To me, South Jersey is a small community part of the state, you know, where everybody knows each other, and you know, it's more beautiful than people think. We have the beaches, you know, we have the forests, we have the pine lands, and we had the Philly sports teams, which we've adopted.

Detective Shanlick was investigating the disappearance of sixty one year old Danny Burroughs.

Danny was just just kind of like your basic all around guy who could fix anything and you know, was very handy.

Danny and his wife, Loretta, were high school sweethearts.

Everybody knew Loretta. She was in the auxiliary of the local fire department. She was friendly with her grandkids, and you know her neighbors. People knew Loretta and people knew Daniel. Daniel was really well known in the community, and.

As we said, the two reconnected some twenty years later.

She had a crush on Daniel her whole life. They had split up for a period of time and then eventually they got back together.

Danny and Loretta married in nineteen ninety seven and lived in the quiet South Jersey town of May's Landing. But right around there ten year anniversary, Danny disappeared.

He had left with the girl and went to Florida and the Yell Hummer and that was all we had.

Okay, So husband leaves wife and runs off with the younger woman. It's not exactly something unheard of, but it's where Danny went that played into this story.

Daniel for years had talked about moving to Florida, and Loretta had been putting her foot down. She did not want to leave. She said, you want to stay around her grandkids. Daniel kind of put that off going to Florida because Loretta was not okay with it.

Danny's ex wife and children in Florida told the police they also hadn't heard anything from him, but they weren't exactly surprised to hear he went missing because Danny had missed most of his children's lives. But Danny did keep in touch with his brother Ray.

He always would be in contact with his brother Ray almost every other week, and he would go and visit play in a band that they had created even stay overnight sometimes, so phone and personal contact was regular between both of them.

Nearly a month after Danny went missing, Ray still hadn't heard a word from his brother.

Ray said it was completely out of the ordinary.

So Ray went to the police and filed a missing person's report. This put Danny into a database known as the National Crime Information Center.

That way, if Danna burshap up anywhere's in the country, he would show up as a missing person.

Ray also told detectives he was upset Loretta didn't report Danny missing, but think about it, why would she Danny left her for another woman? She was not expecting to hear from him.

Ray hated Loretta. I think that Ray felt that she kind of liked was putting a stop to whatever Daniel wanted to do. Daniel had a dream of going to Florida after retirement, and you know, she put a stop to anything he wanted to do, much like Danny.

Ray had known Loretta since they were kids, and he felt Loretta knew more than she was saying.

Ray said it was completely out of the ordinary. There's nothing that he would have suspected or that would lend him to believe that Daniel would have left without telling him at least him and most of all, Danie would have never left with another woman without him knowing.

Yeah, brothers share those sorts of things, so Ray didn't buy Loretta's story that he left her for another woman.

Daniel Burrows went missing in August of two thousand and seven. Were estimating the date to be around August fifth to August seventh.

Now keep in mind that Danny was recovering from shoulder surgery and his arm was in a sling. Just a day or two before Danny went missing, Ray had an unusual call with him.

Ray called him and said his words were slurred, he was acting very unusual, which she attributed to the pay medication he was given. Ray did ask Daniel what medication it was, and Dana replied, whatever she gives me, referring to Loretta.

A week or so later, Ray called to check in on Danny, but Loretta answered the phone and shared the news Danny had left her for some waitress from Florida.

Ray was very suspicious at this point, so he drove down to Me's landing from his home in Pennsylvania and met with Lorette at the house. When he pulled in. He said. Loretta looked completely startled, and she also had her niece there, which she ushered into the house very quickly. As Ray was going around the property, he noticed things of Daniel that were missing, lot of airplanes, some equipment

Ray may have been angry seen his brother's things being sold off, but it's not unusual after a relationship bends to clean house or to be startled by seeing your ex's brother or peer at your front steps unannounced. Ed Dwyer was Loretta's neighbor.

She sold its packup truck the back home. She sold all of those aeroplanes, said now I'm talking great big airplanes that you would take out in a few and fly him. And she sold every one of them.

But Loretta was hurt. She was grieving and said she wanted to turn the page on Danny.

She got to the point where if he was gonna live his life in Florida, she was getting rid of all his things that made him happy. It's just a hard thing to go through because I've got through myself, and I think she felt lonely.

Sure, she felt lonely, and frankly, she felt like a fool.

Loretta was talking to her friends and other people that she worked with, and she would tell her friends that Danie would come back with the girl to be spiteful to the house.

There were also a couple calls from a private phone number.

She had said Daniel had called her shortly after he left with the other woman and he had called the house.

Loretta said Danny told her he was doing just fine and then moving to Florida was really what he wanted. He also said to give his brother Ray any of his belongings that he left behind. Loretta said she was so hurt and told Danny not to contact her anymore.

The detectives repeatedly visited the house and did fill ups with Loretta. They looked around the house, they looked around the property. They did say anything suspicious.

And Loretta cooperated and answered the detective's questions, but that changed when they explained that it was protocol to perform a polygraph test on her.

At that point, she obtained a lawyer and stopped speaking with us, and once the Loretta lawyered up. You know that made her investigation ten times harder.

A few months later, a neighbor noticed a black tarp and something fishy in Loretta's backyard.

So the neighbor had reported the smell by her back shed. There were mothballs by the back shed. When the officers had responded, they didn't have anything, and she had claimed that there was a dead animal that she had discarded that was back there.

I'd imagine police thought that was suspicious, but with no smell and a plausible explanation, there was nothing to do. By then, Loretta had distanced herself from her old life with Danny.

She sold the house and got all the proceeds from that sold all's property, which wasn't cheap property, including a boat, model, airplanes, tools, and construction equipment.

After Loretta moved, the police got permission from the new owners to search the house.

We scanned the property with an X ray machine to see if there's any irregularities in the ground where a body might be. We bought in canine dogs to detect any type of smell related to a body. We did throw searches of the property for anything such as blood or evidence of any sort we came up with nothing. There was absolutely no evidence that we could find.

A year and a half after Danny left, Loretta filed for divorce, claiming abandonment with no hopes for reconciliation.

She had no contact with him, no way to contact them, and she was granted divorce based on that information.

So you're probably wondering, how do you divorce someone who's technically missing. Well, all Loretta had to do was simply put a notice in the local newspaper and serve him at his last known address, which was the house he lived in with Loretta. And when the court date arrived, Danny never showed up and Loretta was granted a divorce.

I've actually handled miss in person cases for most of my career and involves hundreds of cases, and I've never seen anyone get a divorce after someone want missing, especially when that person was not found at that point.

In addition, Loretta had completely shut out her now ex brother in law.

Ray, So Ray was very very upset at times, and you know understandable. You know, his brother's missing and he's upset.

Ray was so frustrated that he started his own investigation.

When it's your family, you want to do everything you can and do whatever it takes to find that person. So Ray did create a couple websites with Dan those information and information on the case.

Ray even created a Facebook page to gather leads and share updates on his brother's case.

He wrote, the story of my brother's disappearance is something you'd see on TV unsolved mysteries or cold case files, except now it's happening to me.

Raymie no secret that he believed Loretta knew more than she admitted.

Out of nowhere.

His now ex wife told everybody that he ran off with another woman. He left without any of his belonging. Nothing I say bs to her story and many many lies.

She never even called to tell me.

I found out several days later when I called my brother's home.

With Loretta not talking, Detectives turned to an unlikely source for help. Danny Burrows was last seen in the summer of two thousand and seven. His wife, Loretta, said he left her for a waitress in Florida, and then the police got involved when Danny's brother Ray reported him missing. Here's Detective Frank Shalick.

So basically, at a missing person's case, we always start where the person went missing from, and obviously that would be the home where Loretta Andiando lived, so a search of the property didn't reveal anything. Every couple months during the investigation, we would do a universal check throughout the country if he had done anything financially, if he had done anything with his name on it, you know, try to buy a home or try to buy a car.

Even Danny's children hadn't heard from him.

It just didn't make.

Sense, sort of questioning every blonde waitress in Florida. The police followed their basic protocols for a missing adult, but Danny's brother, Ray wanted the police to do more.

Ray wanted everything done possible. But we tried to explain to Ray, is that, you know, at this point, there's there's a certain way that we have to follow, Like we just can't go in and search a house without a search warrant. We can't speak to Loretta because she has a lawyer. I understand where Ray's coming from, But the problem is there was no evidence that he didn't leave and go away with another woman and just didn't

If there was more to Danny's disappearance, Detective Shallick knew they were racing the clock.

I've handled plenty of cases that a couple months, a couple of years, but this was this was the longest one, and that did make it difficult because as time goes by, you know, the case was slipping away and we had to find a way to end this.

So detectives turned to an unlikely person for help, Loretta's daughter, Nicole. But just like Danny's children, Nicole wasn't at all surprised Danny skipped town.

She did believe that Daniel might have left and went with another woman.

Nicole explained that for years, Loretta believed Danny would leave her because he had an affair once.

Before, so she knew that there was a possibility that he could have left.

Not only did she think it was possible, but Nicole said the two had a pattern of this behavior.

Because it happened in the past where you know, they had split up and gotten back together. So in her mind, you know, it wasn't unfathomable that that could happen.

A few weeks before Danny went missing, Loretta actually told Nicole that Danny was leaving her and moving to Florida. So Nicole went to the store and bought Danny a greeting card. Inside she wrote good luck on your new life. Danny read the card and asked, what is this for? He said he wasn't moving anywhere. Nicole was caught in the middle and wondered who was telling the truth?

You know, it put her in to her position. She loved her mother, she loved her stepdad.

If you remember, Loretta joined Nicole and her family on a weekend getaway right around the time Danny went missing. It was a trip that Loretta planned and paid for, but according to Nicole, Loretta arrived late. Nicole said she called her mom more than forty times that morning, but Loretta never answered. When Loretta finally showed up, she was crying and she said she had had an argument with Danny.

And I think she became suspicious at that point.

Six years after Danny's disappearance, a lot has changed. Loretta had divorced him, sold his things in their house in May's Landing. In fact, she moved two different times. That's when the to County Cold case unit started digging in the months before he went missing, Danny named Loretta his power of attorney, meaning Loretta could make financial and medical decisions on Danny's behalf.

We went to the attorney who created the power attorney for Loretta, and when we spoke with her, she was able to go into her computer and see that the power of attorney was created on June twelfth, two thousand and seven. According to the timestamp, the notorized date on the power of Attorney was June tenth, two days before was even created.

In other words, the power of attorney document was created fraudulently.

Well, it was definitely a red flag that it was done in June and that he went missing shortly thereafter in August, and speak with Ray, it just wasn't something he would do.

The notary claimed Danny wasn't there when the document was notarized, which raised his suspicion, and Ray believe Danny's signature looked to be forged.

And he was adamant that that wasn't a snager on the power attorney. So it turned out to be a big red flag for us.

This allowed Detective Shalick to get two search warrants, one for Loretta's current home in Ventnor, New Jersey, and a second for Loretta's sister's house, where Loretta had also been staying.

Our goal was to locate a copy of the power attorney so we could compare signatures and the original information on the original paper.

This is insane. It's been six years since Danny went missing.

On May seventeenth, twenty thirteen, Investigator Lynn Doherty and I went to conduct a search warrant on the home where Loretta was currently staying at her sister's house.

We had warrants for both houses, so we were executing the warrants at both houses simultaneously.

Sergeant Lynn Doherty joined Detective Shalick when they knocked on the door of Loretta's sister's house in a last ditch attempt to locate anything about Danny's disappearance.

So this at this point was going to tell us either what happened to Daniel, or was going to leave the case unanswered and opened. If we found nothing in the search warrant, then there's a possibility we may never find out what happened to Daniel. It was a typical morning in New Jersey. It was cool out, the weather was clear, so.

When we pull up, we knock on the front door.

The Writa's sister came to the door first, and Loretta's right behind her.

She's in a nightgown. It's early in the morning. She's not expecting us there.

And the minute we saw Loretta, her face just dropped.

And we came in and she had to get dressed. So I went into a room with her and there was no furniture, no bed, no anything.

She just had a small.

Suitcase and we sat her down and we explained that we had a search warrant for the residence.

And the first question she asked us is are you searching my house in Ventnor.

We told her yes. She was just like and just the life just drained right out of her.

Loretta was very why she simply said, are you Detective Shallock? And I said yes, and she says, I want to talk to you. So at that point, all our phones lit up on a table.

Those incoming phone calls were from detectives who were at Loretta's house in Ventnor City, New Jersey.

I got a phone call, was my sergeant.

It was a phone call that changed everything.

I never imagined that she was going to tell us what she told us.

I'm swung Glass. We'll get to that phone call and uncover the truth about Danny in part two of the Disappearance of Danny Burroughs. That's next time on American Homicide. You can contact the American Homicide team by emailing us at American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. That's American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. American Homicide is hosted and written by me Sloan Glass and is a production of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in