Case Details
- Photo URLs:
-
- Missing Since:
- Missing Since 11/11/2002
- Missing From:
- Missing From Huntington, West Virginia
- Classification:
- Classification Endangered Missing
- Gender:
- Female
- Race:
- Race White
- Date of Birth:
- Date of Birth 04/21/1983 (41)
- Age:
- Age 19 years old
- Height and Weight:
- Height and Weight 5’4, 110 pounds
- Clothing/Jewelry Description:
- Clothing/Jewelry Description A fuzzy orange sweater over a tank top, low-cut rider jeans with flared legs, light tan suede mule-type shoes, a heart-shaped gold ring with a diamond set in the center of the heart, and diamond stud earrings. Carrying a leopard-print purse and a lilac-colored cigarette lighter.
- Distinguishing Characteristics:
- Distinguishing Characteristics Caucasian female. Brown hair, hazel eyes. Burns’s nicknames are Sam and Sammy. She has a chicken pox scar on the right side of her forehead, a mole on her neck, and a tattoo of a butterfly on her lower back. Her ears and tongue are pierced.
- Details of Disappearance:
- On November 11, 2002, a young woman named Burns called her mom from Huntington, West Virginia, saying she was heading home to East Hamlin after visiting friends. That was the last anyone heard from her.
Her burgundy 1999 Chevrolet Cavalier (license plate 5X9326, with a tiger sticker on the back) was found burned and abandoned in Wayne County, West Virginia, early the next morning.
Police quickly focused on two suspects, Chadwick Fulks and Branden Basham, who had escaped from jail a week earlier and were on a crime spree. Basham later confessed to being involved in the abduction and murder of another woman, Alice Donovan. Both men were convicted in Donovan’s death and sentenced to death.
Basham also pleaded guilty to murdering Burns, even though her body was never found. He admitted to kidnapping her at gunpoint, using her car, and withdrawing money from ATMs before killing her. He received a life sentence. Fulks’ involvement in Burns’s death is still being determined, though he’s also on death row for Donovan’s murder.
Burns’s family, along with Donovan’s, sued the men and the jail where they escaped from. The lawsuit against the jail was settled.
Burns was a student and part-time worker. Her disappearance is considered a homicide because of the circumstances surrounding her last known contact and the discovery of her burned car. She remains missing.
- Agency:
- West Virginia State Police 304-528-5555
- Source Links:
This person was missing Missing Since 11/11/2002