William Joseph Burns

• DOC Number: 1170677. ((“Offender Locator.” Virginia Department of Corrections 11 Oct. 2010. <http://www.vadoc.state.va.us/offenders/locator/index.cfm>.))
• Inmate Number: 282267. ((“Offender Locator.” Virginia Department of Corrections 11 Oct. 2010. <http://www.vadoc.state.va.us/offenders/locator/index.cfm>.))
• Venue: Shenandoah County. ((Burns v. Commonwealth, 261 Va. 307, 541 S.E.2d 872 (2001).))
• Victim: Tersey Elizabeth Cooley. ((Burns v. Commonwealth, 261 Va. 307, 313, 541 S.E.2d 872, 877 (2001).))
• Crimes:
  • Capital murder (murder in the commission of rape and/or forcible sodomy). ((Burns v. Commonwealth, 261 Va. 307, 313, 541 S.E.2d 872, 877 (2001).))
  • Statutory burglary. ((Burns v. Commonwealth, 261 Va. 307, 313, 541 S.E.2d 872, 877 (2001).))
  • Rape. ((Burns v. Commonwealth, 261 Va. 307, 313, 541 S.E.2d 872, 877 (2001).))
  • Forcible sodomy. ((Burns v. Commonwealth, 261 Va. 307, 313, 541 S.E.2d 872, 877 (2001).))
• Current Location: Sussex I State Prison. ((“Offender Locator.” Virginia Department of Corrections 11 Oct. 2010. <http://www.vadoc.state.va.us/offenders/locator/index.cfm>.))
• Status: Circuit Court granting of summary judgment in proceeding to determine mental retardation reversed and remanded for further proceedings. ((Burns v. Commonwealth, 279 Va. 243, 688 S.E.2d 263 (2010).))
• As of: January 15, 2010. ((Burns v. Commonwealth, 279 Va. 243, 688 S.E.2d 263 (2010).))

Summary of crime:

From Burns v. Commonwealth [emphasis mine throughout]:

During the day on September 20, 1998, [William Joseph] Burns was drinking heavily at his trailer in Baker, West Virginia. He resided there with his wife, Penny Marlene Cooley Burns, and her two sons. Apparently some home repairs were not going well, and Burns became increasingly angry with his wife. Because Burns had previously assaulted and battered Penny on several occasions when he was drinking, she became concerned for her safety and decided to leave their residence. She had left Burns once before when he was drinking. On that occasion, Penny went to her mother’s house in Edinburg, Virginia, and stayed there a few days before returning home.³

³ Penny’s mother was Tersey Elizabeth Cooley, the victim in this case.

When Penny left her home on September 20th, she did not go to her mother’s home. Instead, she took a circuitous route unfamiliar to Burns to the home of her friends, Amanda and Leonard Funkhouser.⁴ On the way to their house, Penny stopped several times to telephone her mother. Penny wanted her mother to know that Penny had left Burns and would be staying at the Funkhousers’ house. Penny also wanted to warn her mother not to let Burns into Cooley’s home if he came there.⁵ However, Penny was never able to reach her mother, even after she arrived at the Funkhousers’ residence.

⁴ The Funkhousers lived in Fort Valley, Virginia, which is about a 45-minute drive from Cooley’s house in Edinburg.

⁵ According to Penny, when she left Burns the first time, he threatened to kill her or her mother if she ever left him again.

Around midnight, Burns showed up at the Funkhousers’ house and asked Penny to go home with him. She refused. Burns then left but returned about an hour later. He remained outside the Funkhousers’ home in his car until the next morning. When the Funkhousers left for work that morning, they did not want to leave Penny alone in their home. So, Leonard took Penny to work with him. At Leonard’s suggestion, Penny then went on a commercial truck run to Ohio and Pennsylvania with a friend of Leonard’s. While in Pennsylvania, Penny learned about her mother’s murder during a telephone conversation with Penny’s son.

Around noon on September 21, 1998, Penny’s sister, Linda Yvonne Heres, went to the home of her 73-year old mother. When Linda arrived at Cooley’s home, she discovered that the screen on the kitchen door had been pushed in, and she later realized that a window pane in the kitchen door had been broken. After Linda entered the house, she yelled for her mother but heard no response. Linda then proceeded into her mother’s bedroom and found her mother’s unclothed, dead body lying on the floor.⁶ Cooley’s face was partially covered by a mattress that had been pulled from the bed, and her lower dentures were lying on the floor about four feet from her jaw. The bedroom was in disarray, and the bedclothes were scattered around the room.

⁶ Cooley had on only a bra when Linda found her body.

Frances Patricia Field, Assistant Chief Medical Examiner for the Northern Virginia District Medical Examiner’s Office, performed an autopsy on Cooley’s body. Dr. Field reported that Cooley had “multiple injuries about the head,” including abrasions and bruises on the right forehead; beside the right eyebrow; on the white part of the eyeball; on the right and left jaw lines; on the neck; and on the right cheek, chin, and mouth. Cooley also had large bruises on her upper chest and lower neck. Cooley’s inner lips were likewise bruised, and Dr. Field testified that the injuries to Cooley’s gums and lips were consistent with her dentures having been in place at the time of the assault. Finally, Cooley sustained 24 fractures to her ribs.

Dr. Field determined that the cause of death was “blunt force trauma to [Cooley’s] chest, with rupture of the heart” and compression of the neck. There was also a tearing of Cooley’s pericardium, causing blood to spill out of the heart into the chest cavity. Dr. Field opined that a broken rib probably had punctured the heart, although direct force applied to the chest might have ruptured the heart. Because bleeding is rapid when the heart is ruptured, Dr. Field concluded that death occurred within two to three minutes after Cooley’s heart ruptured.

After Linda found her mother’s body, she called “911.” Soon thereafter, the police and rescue squad arrived at the scene. Larry W. Green, Sheriff of Shenandoah County, subsequently decided to set up a “traffic-canvassing detail” to ascertain if any drivers had traveled through the area where Cooley’s house was located between approximately 7:00 p.m. on September 20th and 11:30 a.m. on September 21st. As Sheriff Green was moving a flare on the roadway south of the Cooley residence, a vehicle approached him. Sheriff Green testified that he “was in the center of the road, walking with the flare, and, of course, that stopped the car, and [he] approached the driver’s side.” Burns was operating that vehicle. After Burns stopped and before Sheriff Green could say anything, Burns asked, “What’s going on? That’s my mother-in-law’s house.” Upon realizing that Burns was a relative of the decedent, Sheriff Green asked him to speak with Garlan Gochenour, a lieutenant with the Shenandoah County Sheriff’s Office, who would explain what had happened.

Burns then walked over to a nearby police cruiser and got into the right front seat as Gochenour got into the left front seat. Gochenour informed Burns about Cooley’s death and then advised Burns of his Miranda rights. Burns told Gochenour that he had not been in the victim’s house within the last five days or within the last year. However, Burns admitted that he had driven by Cooley’s home on September 21st between 1:00 a.m. and 1:30 a.m., but insisted that he had merely turned around in the driveway and then proceeded to the Funkhouser residence.

Upon realizing that Burns had been at the crime scene during the approximate time when the murder occurred, Gochenour asked Burns to go to the sheriff’s department to be fingerprinted. Burns agreed and drove his own vehicle to the sheriff’s department, where he later was fingerprinted. While at the sheriff’s office, Gochenour again advised Burns of his Miranda rights, and during subsequent questioning, Burns stated that he had been at a gas station near Cooley’s residence at approximately 2:52 a.m. and again at approximately 6:35 a.m. on September 21st. In fact, Burns subsequently produced receipts for items that he had purchased at the station, and explained that he kept the receipts because he was on probation and needed to account for every place that he went. Gochenour also talked with Burns about a Physical Evidence Recovery Kit (PERK Kit), and Burns agreed to go to the hospital so that samples of his hair and bodily fluids could be obtained for the PERK Kit. Gochenour and John Thomas, an investigator with the Shenandoah County Sheriff’s Office, accompanied Burns to the hospital, where the samples were taken.

On September 26th, Burns returned to the sheriff’s office. After advising Burns of his Miranda rights, Gochenour interviewed him again. This time, Burns admitted that he was in the victim’s home on the night of the murder. Burns stated that, when he entered the house, he encountered a black male who had already murdered Cooley. According to Burns, he killed that man and disposed of the body because Burns did not want his wife to find out that a black man had raped and murdered her mother. Burns further stated that, in order to advance his cover-up, he cleaned Cooley’s vaginal area with soap and water, masturbated, digitally inserted his semen into Cooley’s vagina, and “smeared it on the bed.” However, Burns specifically denied inserting his semen into the victim’s anus. At the conclusion of this interview, Burns was arrested.

At Burns’ request, Gochenour again spoke with him on September 27th. After Gochenour informed Burns of his Miranda rights, Burns admitted that he had not encountered an unidentified black man at Cooley’s house on the night of her murder. Instead, Burns admitted that he broke into Cooley’s house by putting his hand through the screen and then breaking a window pane in the door. However, Burns insisted that Cooley was already dead when he broke in. Burns stated that, because he thought his wife, Penny, had murdered her mother, he decided that he wanted “the crime to lead to [him].” So, he masturbated and digitally inserted his semen into the victim.

Karolyn Leclaire Tontarski, a forensic scientist employed by the Commonwealth of Virginia Department of Criminal Justice Services Division of Forensic Science, analyzed the physical evidence collected from Burns, Cooley, and the crime scene. Tontarski reported the presence of spermatozoa on vaginal and anal smears taken from the victim. Based upon DNA typing results, Tontarski testified that the sperm fraction found in the vaginal swab was 1.6 million times more likely to have come from Burns than from any other randomly chosen Caucasian individual, 100 million times more likely in the Black population, and 18 million times more likely in the Hispanic population. According to Tontarski, the sperm fraction in the anal swab was 8.7 million times more likely to have originated from Burns than from any other randomly selected Caucasian individual, 540 million times more likely in the Black population, and 86 million times more likely in the Hispanic population. Tontarski also found sperm cells on a sheet and pillowcase recovered from the bedroom where Cooley’s body was discovered, on Cooley’s lower denture found on the floor of the bedroom, on a washcloth found under Cooley’s left thigh, and on several items recovered from Cooley’s bathroom. ((Burns v. Commonwealth, 261 Va. 307, 314-317, 541 S.E.2d 872, 878-880 (2001).))