Ann Marie Burr 53:33

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In 2020, in a small California mountain town, five women disappeared. I found out what happened to all of them, except one. A woman known as Dia, whose estate is worth millions of dollars. I'm Lucy Sheriff. Over the past four years, I've spoken with Dia's family and friends, and I've discovered that everyone has a different version of events.

Hear the story on Where's Dear? Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Voices for Justice is a podcast that uses adult language and discusses sensitive and potentially triggering topics, including violence, abuse, and murder.

This podcast may not be appropriate for younger audiences. All parties are innocent until proven guilty in a court of law. Some names have been changed or omitted per their request or for safety purposes. Listener discretion is advised. My name is Sarah Turney and this is Voices for Justice. Today I'm discussing the case of Anne-Marie Burr.

That name may sound familiar to you, especially if you're well-versed in the history of popular serial killers in the United States, specifically Ted Bundy.

For decades, people have speculated that 8-year-old Anne-Marie from Tacoma, Washington may have been Bundy's first kill in 1961, long before the murders he confessed to. But what's fact and what's fiction in relation to Bundy's possible involvement has been greatly misunderstood in Anne-Marie's case. So today, I want to reel it in, consider all possibilities, and focus on what we know. This is the case of Anne-Marie Burr.

As Beverly and Donald Burr are putting their kids to bed at around 8 p.m. on the night of Thursday, August 30th, 1961, a major storm is sweeping through Tacoma, Washington. There were heavy rains, downed trees, and power outages.

When they decide to finally drag themselves to bed around 11pm, they lock down the house like they do every night. They go through their two-story brick home and close all the windows. All except one in the living room. This one stays propped open just a little bit to allow their TV antenna cable to sneak through.

They double lock the front door using the main lock and the internal chain lock. And they say goodnight to their black cocker spaniel Barney, who slept in a porch area between the kitchen and back door before they locked that door as well.

Like I said, there's a major storm happening, so only half their kids sleep through the night. 5-year-old Greg and 7-year-old Julie were sound asleep in their fort in the basement. 3-year-old Mary and 8-year-old Anne-Marie were on the second floor of the home. Mary slept in Anne-Marie's room that night, because poor Mary had an accident on the playground that landed her in a very itchy cast, and at some point during the night she began crying.

So, she and Annemarie decided to go downstairs to wake up their mom for help. Beverly was half asleep, so she doesn't remember exactly what time this happened. But, knowing she can't do much for the itchy cast, she tells the girls it'll be okay and has them go back to their rooms, which they do. Around 5am, Beverly wakes up, checks on Julie and Greg in the basement, who were still sound asleep. She then walks upstairs to check on Mary and Annemarie, and finds Annemarie's bed empty.

Her covers were kind of neatly pulled back, like she slept in the bed but had gotten out for some reason. Beverly doesn't immediately panic and just begins to take a look around the house for her. But then her heart drops when she sees that the window that was kept open for the TV antenna cable was wide open, and the front door was unlocked, unchained, and slightly ajar.

Beverly, still in her bathrobe, runs to her neighbor's homes asking if anyone had seen Anne-Marie. But no one had. Beverly runs back home, wakes up Donald, and they call the police. From here, everything happens really fast. Anne-Marie's sister Julie would later tell local 4 News that she was woken up by the police shining flashlights at her, and that she'll never forget seeing her parents running through the kitchen opening drawers and looking underneath the beds in the house for Anne-Marie.

The kids were soon sent to stay with a neighbor while their house was swept for any clue that might lead investigators to Anne Marie. A command post of sorts was set up in the family's basement, where Beverly waited by the phone in case a ransom was demanded.

While officers combed through the Burr home, Tacoma Police Chief Don Hager ordered a house-to-house search of the neighborhood. They're soon joined by 100 soldiers from nearby Fort Lewis and 50 National Guardsmen from Camp Murray, along with an Army jeep. Donald Burr actually worked at Camp Murray as a warehouseman, so it was really just this huge show of support by what I have to imagine are some of the best people in the state to be looking through this brush of Tacoma.

But Donald Burr and his brother Raleigh also searched the neighborhood as well as a nearby construction site at the University of Puget Sound for Anne-Marie.

This was only two blocks from the Burr home. At this time, seven buildings were under construction and there were a ton of deep holes around the site. While taking a look around, Donald sees a teenager, just kind of looking down and kicking at the dirt, but also watching them. Donald believes he was smirking and walks right up to him. The boy says he doesn't know anything about Anne-Marie.

But Donald says he will never forget this teenager's face. And he urges investigators to go to the construction site, but it just didn't seem like a priority for the Tacoma PD. They were searching, though. By 11pm, they'd covered 75 square blocks. Again, it was an incredible effort, but there was just no trace of Anne-Marie.

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Anne-Marie did have a small feature in the early edition of the Tacoma News Tribune that speculated she may have had amnesia. Now, this doesn't appear to be based on anything other than just conjecture. By the second edition, a much more detailed accounting of the events came out.

The Burrs found it unlikely that Anne-Marie was just lost. They lived in this house for about six years, and she knew the neighborhood well. She was also in the Campfire Girls, where she was taught what to do if she was lost. They also didn't think that she just ran away. By all accounts, Anne-Marie didn't have any issues at home. While she may have been a bit upset because the night before she was told that she couldn't spend the night at a friend's house, she was starting third grade the next week and was really looking forward to it.

Also, both Beverly and Donald grew up in this area. Specifically, Beverly pretty much in this exact area. And they knew that it wasn't picture perfect. This is not the city that I talk about in other episodes where you don't lock your doors at night. Tacoma was pretty much the polar opposite, and was given the title of Kidnap Capital of the West.

Beverly actually remembers when a 10-year-old boy named Charles Mattson was taken just two days after Christmas in 1936. A ransom note asking for $28,000 was left, and his body was found two weeks later. The case remains unsolved. Beverly was only 8 at this time, the same age as Anne-Marie.

She would confess that the moment she knew Anne-Marie was missing, she knew she'd never see her again. In a news interview with Como TV in Seattle, Beverly said, "...probably the worst has happened to our little girl. I just hope they find her." But it wasn't just Beverly or Donald. It seemed clear to the police that the most obvious explanation was some type of home invasion.

Outside the living room, resting against the house, was an overturned bench, and there were footprints outside and on the windowsill, a red thread found snagged on the brick outside the window, and grass on the rug. It seemed obvious that something outside came in.

However, there was something that made investigators question this theory. Alongside the window was a table with these like really nice, delicate figurines on it, and not a single one was out of place. Now, investigators can't say for sure that Anne-Marie or taking any of the kids was the goal of whoever did this, but they were able to quickly rule out robbery because nothing other than Anne-Marie was missing.

By the end of that first day, the Tacoma police only received one tip, and it was a terrifying one. Neighbors called to report seeing a little girl close to Anne Marie's age screaming in a blue and white car with California plates. They do track down the driver, and he says there was no little girl with him, and what they must have heard was his radio.

Now, there's not a lot of information out there about this particular tip, so we don't know really why the Tacoma PD took this explanation as good enough, but it seems that they did. The search for Anne Marie continued for days. The bench found outside the window was taken to police headquarters, and it was determined that the footprint on it was quite small, either the size of a teenager or a small man. A partial palm print was also eventually recovered.

Finally, four days after Ann Marie goes missing, the Tacoma PD listens to Donald's pleas to search the construction site at the University of Puget Sound. But it was too late. All the open holes, the deep ditches where Donald feared Ann Marie may be, were filled in. And not even just filled in, there were newly laid roads already being driven over.

Despite what seems to be a clear miss by the Tacoma PD, the search efforts for Anne Marie were the most extensive in the department's history at that time. A command post was created, and over 60 officers from the Tacoma PD worked to find her. In 1961, that was 25% of the entire department.

Crews from Tacoma's Public Works Department searched in sewers. Divers searched Commencement Bay. All known sex offenders were also questioned. Over 1,500 people were questioned in the first 12 days, and approximately 200 polygraph tests were administered. Of course, the Burr family was extensively questioned and checked out as well. Beverly reports that she and Donald heard the family dog, Barney, barking that night.

They also explained that they thought they'd heard someone in their yard a few nights prior. And neighbors reported it peeping Tom in the neighborhood as well, but couldn't provide a description. Police tried to speak with three-year-old Mary, but unfortunately she was just too young to communicate what, if anything, she saw. Despite being extremely cooperative with police, there were still rumors swirling that Donald and Beverly may have done something awful to Annemarie.

And these rumors seem to have really gotten to the Burrs, because they actually go down to the Tacoma PD and ask to be polygraphed. Their hope is to quell the rumors that they were withholding information. And they passed. There were also a few characters around the neighborhood that the police wanted to look into, including a man who apparently sunbathed nude in his backyard and got regular visits from neighborhood children because he gave them candy.

Apparently, there was nothing there. There was also a man noticed in the neighborhood shortly before who was going door-to-door selling cookware but didn't have any cookware with him. This was apparently another dead end. Then they looked into another Donald Burr in Tacoma who was much wealthier and going through a pretty nasty divorce. Police wondered if maybe this was a case of mistaken identity. They took Anne-Marie when they meant to take the other Donald Burr's daughter.

But none of these leads panned out. This didn't mean that they didn't have anything, though. Early on, police identified two main persons of interest. The first was a teenage boy who lived in the neighborhood.

While these older articles, mostly from the 60s and 70s, describe him as flirting with Anne-Marie, without more detail about these interactions, I find it hard to put a label on. But flirting does seem a little inappropriate given that Anne-Marie was only 8. So take that for what you will.

It's also hard to decipher the exact age of this teenager because there is contradictory reporting out there, but it seems like he's between 15 and 17 years old. Either way, not only was this boy on the radar of police, he was also on Beverly's radar. A few days after Anne-Marie went missing, Beverly went to this boy's house, but no one was home. However, she noticed that the door was unlocked, so she went inside to take a look around.

She is breaking the law, I know, but she was desperate. All she did was go inside and take a look around for Anne-Marie or any sign of Anne-Marie, but nothing was found. This boy was eventually given two polygraph tests. He failed the first one and passed the second. But with no evidence tying him to Anne-Marie's disappearance, he was let go and never charged.

According to a 2020 HistoryLink essay written by author and journalist Rebecca Morris, who spent a lot of time with the Burr family looking into Anne-Marie's case, the second person of interest was Anne-Marie's cousin, who would later become a child predator. But like the teenage neighbor, no connection was ever made. These were all just theories, which seemed to be all they really had at this point.

There was almost no evidence in or around the house. No ransom demand, no motive, and no Anne Marie. This episode of Voices for Justice is sponsored by Quince. I can't believe that we are rolling into fall, but we are, which means it's time to refresh your wardrobe. And luckily, Quince offers timeless and high-quality pieces that will not blow your budget.

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So a pretty sizable and tempting reward. But by October, the reward still sat. And as the beginning of hunting season in the area commenced, the Burrs pled with local hunters to please be on the lookout for Anne Marie. Two days later, they get a lead, but not from a hunter. A man in Tacoma reaches out and says, "'I know where Anne Marie is. She's alive and out of the state. I'll tell you where for $200.'"

Which has to be one of the lowest ransoms I've ever seen in my time covering cases on this podcast. Even for the 1960s. And the Burrs and police see this too. Donald Burr plays along. He says, sure, let's meet up, I'll give you the $200 and you can tell me where Anne Marie is. But this man was not met by Donald. Instead, when he pulled up, he was greeted by two Tacoma PD detectives and was promptly arrested for the hoax.

Just four days after that, 31-year-old serial killer Hugh Morris was picked up by police in Minnesota and brought back to Spokane, Washington to discuss the murder of 9-year-old Camp Fire Girl Candy Rogers. She was killed selling candy door-to-door in 1959. Morris was a self-proclaimed, quote, "'rape slayer,' end quote, of three women."

Now, Morse apparently began sobbing to the police and FBI that killing became a habit for him. But in the end, no connection to Candy Rogers or Anne-Marie was ever made. I think it's worth noting that Candy Rogers' case was solved 62 years after the fact through DNA technology, and Morse was not the perpetrator. It was a man named John Hoff, who was never a suspect until the year it was solved. Just a little mini-segment of hope here, I guess.

By June 1962, Detective Captain Robert J. Drost had Anne Marie's 500-plus page file above his desk. He'd read it four times over, and was still working on putting together the pieces of the puzzle. The reward for information leading to Anne Marie was now up to $5,000, or about $50,000 in today's money, but it remained unclaimed.

That same month, the Burrs put out a request for local newspapers to run Anne-Marie's picture. This is something they did regularly for years, and oftentimes it actually worked. Her picture was featured again, and it led to a tip. The operator of a cafe in Canada says that she was seen with two women and a man, but like many of the other leads in this case, it just didn't go anywhere.

About a year later, by September 1963, there were still two detectives dedicated to working Anne Marie's case full-time, and they were speaking with her parents at least once a week. Not only that, things were still pretty active. They told the Tacoma News Tribune that there were still interrogations happening right that moment, but Lieutenant Russell Richardson didn't sugarcoat it. He said very bluntly that they weren't any closer to finding Anne Marie than they were two years ago when she first went missing.

By 1964, the Tacoma police ranked Ann Marie's case as the most baffling in the last 50 years. This is despite it being one of the most persistent manhunts in Tacoma history. 14,000 flyers had been distributed, about 6,000 manhours were put in, and they were still getting calls about the case almost every single day.

By the winter of 1964, an auto parts salesman kidnapped a 10-year-old girl from Tacoma. Luckily, she did live and he dropped her off a few days later. So of course, they want to go investigate and see if he had anything to do with Anne Marie's disappearance. But when he was confronted by the FBI, he shot himself, leaving many to wonder if maybe this is the man who took Anne Marie. But again, no definitive link was ever made.

Anne-Marie was still on everyone's mind. In 1965, a man remodeling his basement only five blocks away from the Burr family home found bones. He called the police. The bones were tested, and they were only animal bones.

After this, the Burrs wrote a letter to the Tacoma News Tribune that read, quote, Our Anne-Marie Burr, 8 years old, was kidnapped August 31st, 1961. A $5,000 reward is still offered for information leading to her body or the identity of her abductor. It was a black night and raining hard. We wonder if the wind was screaming with her screams. We wonder if a group of drunken crazed boys took her or a mad sadist.

Night comes, and with it the fear, the listening, the horror again and again. Only prayer can lessen the pain as we whisper, Dear God, be with Anne-Marie. Please help us and other parents like us to be strong. The child pays for the crime in the hours of unbelievable terror. Parents pay every day they live.

The criminal? We want him to be rehabilitated and paroled, but not unless there's a job waiting and a friend, and not unless he believes he was created for none purpose alone, to love God and serve him, and this by loving his fellow man. End quote.

At this point, detectives were getting desperate, and really willing to try anything to try to find Anne-Marie. They worked with a man who said that he'd done extensive extrasensory research, and another who believed he'd find Anne-Marie in Puget Sound through a radiation response to her clothing. Lieutenant Richardson told the News Tribune, "...perhaps he was a crackpot, but he was sincere."

In 1965, an inmate in Oklahoma wrote to the Burrs, claiming to have buried Anne-Marie in a field in Oregon after she was taken there by a friend of theirs. Police run with this lead. They fly this man out to Oregon, they dig up the field, but Anne-Marie wasn't there.

Now, people aren't so quick to drop this theory, though. Apparently, between 1961 and 1965, this field changed a lot. So, some say that Amory was buried there and was possibly moved somewhere else. Obviously, this is a lot for the Burrs. And in 1967, they leave their family home, but they do retain the same phone number.

By 1970, the Tacoma News Tribune named Anne-Marie's story as the fourth top story of the entire 1960s. And unfortunately, not a lot happens during this time. In February 1976, Detective Captain Robert A. Drost is featured in an article by Jack Pyle for the Tacoma News Tribune. Drost had actually been retired for 12 years at this point, but says he's still looking for Anne-Marie.

He says he's one of the only officers that believes she might still be alive. He told Pyle, quote, an eight-year-old kid can be brainwashed in a few months by somebody who's nice to her. She's out there somewhere, end quote.

Dross still had Anne-Marie's file, which was now up to a thousand pages. He says he's read it a dozen times, and practically hasn't memorized at this point. He believes that everything points to Anne-Marie being taken by someone she knew, specifically by someone who cherished her. Despite Dross' extreme dedication to the case, it's been over a decade now, and the tips just slowed down.

There were some new tips that she might be in Europe, but like the sightings reported before, they just didn't pan out. But around this same time, news about a serial killer named Ted Bundy was sweeping the nation. And the possible connection to Anne-Marie was something they couldn't ignore. This is Jessica Knoll, host of the new series, Back in Crime.

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Ted Bundy was added to the FBI's top 10 fugitives list on February 10th, 1978. He was arrested five days later when he was stopped by police for speeding. By 1980, Anne Rule's now infamous book, The Stranger Beside Me, about the killer was released. In it, she discussed Anne Marie and the possible connection to Bundy as a teenager.

Though the popular belief is that Bundy committed most of his 30 or so murders from 1974 to 1978, some of his statements leave many wondering if Anne Marie could have been his first kill. See, while Bundy was spending time on Florida's death row, he did a lot of interviews. In 1980 and 1981, he spoke to two journalists and told them a story in the third person about killing a girl in an orchard.

Now, this didn't really catch anyone's attention until Beverly and Donald later read the book that came of these interviews, The Only Living Witness, in 1983. Donald thought back to the teenager at the construction site on the day Anne-Marie went missing. His smirk, his face. He couldn't be sure if it was Ted Bundy, but believed it may have been.

Not only was there an orchard next to the Burr family home, Ted Bundy grew up nearby. He and his mother moved from Philadelphia to Tacoma, Washington in 1950 when he was about four, and he remained in the area until he was a young adult. Now, reporting on exactly how close the Burr family was to Bundy differs greatly. Some reporting says that Bundy lived right around the corner as a kid and spent a lot of time with Anne-Marie before moving a few miles away.

It's been said that Anne-Marie took piano lessons at a home close to Bundy's uncle, or even with his uncle in some reports, that the Burr home was on Bundy's paper route. One neighbor has said that Anne-Marie followed Bundy around like a puppy, and absolutely would have gone with him if he came to the home that night. But Beverly denies all this. She says Anne-Marie did take piano lessons, but not with Bundy's uncle or near his uncle.

She doesn't recall them being on Bundy's paper route or knowing him at all as a child. Beverly was just stating the facts, but that didn't mean that she didn't want to explore this possibility. On May 30th, 1986, she wrote a letter to Bundy in prison.

It read, quote,

The orchard next door was a dark setting for murder. What did you do with the tiny body? God can forgive you.

with all appeals likely to be refused, and soon, there is nothing left for you in this world. There can still be everything good for you in the next. Your life started going wrong somewhere when you were very young. There had to be a lot of bad things happen to make you have your strong feelings of hatred. I came close to ruining my life because of my cruel actions and feeling no sorrow about them. A lot of strange circumstances brought help to me I would not have found myself.

Even though I knew I needed help and my actions were getting out of control, you should have received that same help when you needed it. God can still give the help to you if you can gather together any strength you have left and try to feel a real sorrow inside for the horrors you have brought to so many.

You will face these horrors alone if there is no chance to be with God after you die. You have nothing more to lose in this world. By explaining your sickness, you will feel sorrow and gain everything in the next life, as God promised you and all of us. Please try. There isn't much time.

I am so sorry you did not get help when you first needed it. I have not written until now because the end of your life for you did not seem near until now. Will you write to me regarding Anne-Marie? Beverly Burr, mother of Anne-Marie Burr, end quote. Bundy replied about a week later, saying, quote, Dear Beverly, Thank you for your letter of May 30th.

I can certainly understand you doing everything you can to find your daughter. Unfortunately, you've been misled by what can only be called rumors about me. The best thing I can do for you is to correct these rumors, these falsehoods. First and foremost, I do not know what happened to your daughter, Anne-Marie. I had nothing to do with her disappearance. You said she disappeared August 30th, 1961.

"'At the time, I was a normal 14-year-old boy. "'I did not wander the streets late at night. "'I did not steal cars. "'I had absolutely no desire to harm anyone. "'I was just an average kid. "'For your sake, you really must understand this. "'Again and finally, I did not abduct your daughter. "'I had nothing to do with her disappearance. "'If there is still something you wish to ask me about this, "'please don't hesitate to write again.'

God bless you and be with you. Peace, Ted. End quote.

Nothing in those letters tells me that Beverly Burr actually knew Ted Bundy, but he was obviously a very sick and disgusting human who enjoyed playing games. Later that same year, he told the story of killing a young girl in an orchard again to Dr. Ronald Holmes. Holmes was an associate professor of criminal justice at the University of Louisville. He had a grant to study serial killers. In this interview, Bundy told Holmes that he, quote,

doing the math, that year comes out to 1960, the year before Anne-Marie went missing. But Holmes would go on to claim that Bundy told him directly that the girl he was discussing was Anne-Marie, and that he, quote,

stashed the body of Anne-Marie Burr in a muddy pit, possibly near the University of Puget Sound, end quote. Now, I say claimed here because some people do question the professor's findings as this conversation was never recorded. However, Bundy would also tell Yale psychiatrist and researcher Dr. Dorothy Ottenau-Lewis that when he was, quote, 12, 14, 15, in the summer, something happened.

something I'm not sure what it was. I would fantasize about coming up to some girl sunbathing in the woods, or something innocuous like that. I was beginning to get involved in what they would call, developed a preference for what they would call, autoerotic sexual activity. A portion of my personality was not fully, it began to emerge. By the time I realized how powerful it was, I was in big trouble."

However, in another interview with Washington State investigator Robert Keppel, Bundy again outright denied these claims, saying, quote, No, absolutely not. That's one of the few I wish that people would believe, end quote. He even requested a polygraph test to prove that he didn't kill Anne Marie.

Now, we don't know if Bundy killed her or not. But we do know that even among the most hardiest, craziest criminals, there is still a major stigma around child predators. According to some reports, this is a stigma that even a complete piece of trash like Ted Bundy wanted to be excluded from.

Now, Bundy was executed on January 24th, 1989. Basically, minute-by-minute updates were broadcast across local radio stations and really the nation. Beverly and Donald followed it closely, hoping for a last-minute confession. But it never came.

Anne-Marie's case was stagnant for quite a few years after this. The next major event wasn't until the mid-1990s, when Beverly got a call from a psychiatrist in Tacoma who had a patient who believed she was Anne-Marie. So Beverly baked an apple pie and invited her to the Burr home.

She says that the moment she saw this woman, she knew it wasn't Anne-Marie. But they stayed in touch. Beverly and Donald visited her about five times. And after about two years, their daughter Julie asked them to please get a DNA test just to put it to rest. The woman was not Anne-Marie. But Beverly kept photos of this woman until her death.

In 1999, the Burrs held their first memorial service for Anne-Marie at St. Patrick's Catholic Church. They said they wanted to do this for a very long time, but there always seemed to be something in the way. Some clue, some lead that gave them hope that they wouldn't have to have this service. At the memorial, Julie spoke about her parents. You probably wanted to crawl into bed and bury your head as each day and year passed with no answer.

but instead you gathered strength and provided us with a wonderful childhood. End quote. Donald Burr passed away in 2003, and Beverly in 2008. Before her death, Beverly spent a lot of time with Rebecca Morris, who I mentioned earlier. Morris is one of the primary sources of information about Anne-Marie. I relied heavily on her work because of the time she spent with Beverly Burr.

She says that near the end, Beverly really didn't know what to think about Anne-Marie's disappearance. She went back and forth between Bundy being responsible and the teenage neighbor. But ultimately, she leaned more towards that neighbor. But by this point, she said that she didn't really want to know the details of what happened to Anne-Marie. She was at peace that she was gone. Now, I'm sure she wasn't perfect, none of us are. But Beverly seemed like a pretty cool lady and a rather dedicated mother.

Before she died, she actually wrote her own obituary, saying she didn't want a lot of fuss. It reads, quote, Thank you, God, for letting me live in this beautiful world you created. Thank you for five precious children and dear relatives and friends. End quote.

At the time of her death, she had seven grandchildren and three great-grandchildren. Her daughter Laura, who was adopted after Anne-Marie's disappearance, says her mother was determined and strong, and despite what she'd gone through, never felt like the world was unfair.

In 2011, detectives in Tacoma made one last attempt to connect Ted Bundy to Ann Marie's disappearance. They realized that blood was taken from Bundy when he was arrested in 1978, and began asking around about where the blood was now. Luckily, it had been retained, and a full DNA profile was created for Bundy and put into the FBI's database. This was then tested against several pieces of evidence retained from the Burr home.

This gave Anne-Marie's siblings hope that no matter what the result, at least this piece of the puzzle would finally be laid to rest. But unfortunately, a full DNA profile was never able to be created from the evidence found in the Burr home, and no match to Bundy was ever made. Mark Fulgham from the Tacoma PD told the Tacoma Herald that this was a dead end, but the investigation was not over.

Unfortunately, though, it does seem like there haven't been any major revelations in the case since then. Which brings me right to our call to action. Please share Anne-Marie's case. Her story obviously got a lot of attention due to the popularity of Ted Bundy. But there's still so much misinformation out there about the circumstances surrounding his possible involvement. She deserves so much better than to be a footnote in that monster story.

Please share her picture. Please share her story. While Anne-Marie would be in her 70s now, she has surviving relatives that I'm sure would like some answers to this haunting family mystery. There is always hope. As a reminder...

Ann Marie Burr was 8 years old when she went missing, likely in the early morning hours of August 31st, 1961. She is white, with straight blonde hair and hazel eyes. When she went missing, she was 4'2", weighed approximately 55 pounds, and was barefoot, wearing a light blue floral nightgown that went down to her ankles.

If you have any information about Anne-Marie Burr, please call the Tacoma Police Department at 253-798-4721 or Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-TIPS. But as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.

Voices for Justice is hosted and produced by me, Sarah Turney, and is a Voices for Justice media original. If you love what we do here, please don't forget to follow, rate, and review the show on your podcast player. It's an easy and free way to help us and help more people find these cases in need of justice. Welcome to the Secret After Show. The door is open. The dogs, our emotional support puppies, are in. Let's talk about Anne-Marie's case.

I get really intimidated to cover cases that include serial killers. I'm not going to lie. And that's because I don't know a lot about them. I specifically don't know a ton about Ted Bundy. I know like nothing about Ted Bundy. I had to do a lot of research. But I did, you know, double check my sources and really tried hard to make sure that the information here was correct. Just because I've never been that person where...

I've been interested in serial killers. And there's something I wanted to talk about in reference to that. So I guess first and foremost, I hope that I did it justice. I really tried my hardest and studied very hard. And like I said, double, triple checked my sources, but there is a lot of conflicting information out there about Ted Bundy. My goodness. But when I was researching Anne's case, I

I came across this statement. Well, this... Okay. So basically what happened was there was this like debate when Ted Bundy was about to be executed, I guess. And this probably is like not news to any of you. I feel like so late to learning about Ted Bundy. He's just like trash and I hate everything about him. But...

So there was this debate about whether or not there was any scientific value in keeping Ted Bundy alive to study him, and Donald Burr did chime in. He told the Tacoma News Tribune in an article by Jack Pyle on January 23, 1989, quote,

And I think that this is kind of a hot topic in true crime, and it could just be a family member thing, but I'm on Donald's side. This is something I've talked about for such a long time, and I think being close to...

Someone who I believe is a murderer, being raised by someone I believe is a murderer, who many people believe is a murderer, of possibly more than one person. I get that. Like, growing up with somebody who is a monster, there's, you know, I mean, maybe sometimes, right? I'm sure, I'm sure that there are stories out there where you can point to something and say, this, this is what caused this, and how do we prevent it in the future? I feel like...

That is very rare. In my case, it was like, there's no rhyme or reason sometimes, right? Like, I think it's hard for people to accept that sometimes people just do bad things because they're bad people or they're having a bad day or a bad moment. And that is such an unsatisfying explanation. And I get it. And I understand why that really pushes people away.

to study people like Ted Bundy, to study killers in general. You know, they're looking for patterns. They're looking for something that they can point to and say that. That's what makes them different from me. That's what makes a bad person. This is what makes a good person. Clean cut, end of day, we're done. And I just don't think it works like that. So Donald Burr, rest in peace. I am right there with you.

Now, I could go on about that forever. I am forcing myself to move on. If that is something you want me to talk about in the future, let me know because I would love to. The inner dynamics of true crime and why we do what we do in this genre is something that I will probably never stop talking about. But back to Anne-Marie and this case. Now, one part that really hit me was when these detectives were doing like everything they could. I...

low-key love when detectives um will work with these psychics will work with people who are doing what extensive extrasensory research um and this man who who thought he would find ann marie through radiation responses to her clothing um

Obviously, I think a lot out there is junk science. Body language, polygraphs, I think there's so much junk science in true crime. But what I love is the effort behind it, right? Even Lieutenant Richardson said he was a crackpot, but he was sincere.

There's something I love about that. There's something I love about the police taking a chance and not just shutting them down immediately, like we see in so many cases. And I'm not saying that it's not a waste of resources. I'm not saying that there's a legitimate reason to say yes to every psychic that comes up in a case. I'm not saying that. I think that there's something beautiful in that hope. I guess that's the best way to put it. I think there's something beautiful in that hope.

Speaking of hope, which, gosh, I talk about hope a lot. Beverly keeping the picture of the woman who is not Anne-Marie. Oh my gosh, that shattered my heart. Over the years, she really did become close to this woman. And just the whole, like, she baked an apple pie and said, come right on over. It's so sweet. And I can absolutely understand that.

getting close to that woman and even the desperation to just want her to be aunt Marie, the hesitation on testing, not there wasn't like a definitive hesitation on testing. It just took them a long time. Um, again, there's something beautiful about that hope and something beautiful about Beverly not being upset with this woman and trying to understand her that it seems like she was clearly going through some type of mental health crisis. Um,

Beverly's a badass, and she seems so compassionate and so honest and so raw. Even in that letter to Bundy, where she talks about, you know, having periods of time where she wasn't a great person, there's something so raw and real and honest about that that I just respect. I could go on about Beverly Burr all day and how freaking cool it was that she wrote her own obituary. I mean, again, she just seemed like a really cool lady, and according to her kids, she was, um...

So, yeah, hard case, old case. But I do believe that there's hope for answers. We see these older cases solved all the time. Why not Anne-Marie?

Now, moving on to me, um, not a lot is happening. Actually, the, the, the dogs, um, are both going through their senior wellness exams, which it's like a, like they test their blood, they test their urine, um, just to make sure that everything's okay. Now, Marley came back with a clean bill of health. They were a little concerned about levels in his kidneys. We switched to a new food. We're

popcorn though he um he's okay he's okay they're not too worried but i am they they fear that he might have um the beginning stages of cushing's disease and um they don't know they don't know we are doing further testing um he's on some liver supplements right now

Um, but it's really scary and it really sucks and I hate everything about it. But like I said, they said not to worry, but, um, this is the segment that's what's going on in my life. So it has been filled with worries about my senior dogs who are, um, 11 and 17 and I love them more than probably anything in this world. Um,

And yeah, they are our emotional support dogs. So please send good thoughts. Good thoughts for popcorn. Good thoughts for Marley. I'm probably just being a helicopter mom, but yeah, it's taken up my week.

But you guys, there is always hope. I'm not going to get down. I am going to stay positive. We are manifesting that this is just a fluke and that these liver pills are going to work great for popcorn. The food's going to work great for Marley and they will be fantastic and live forever. So let's go on to our segment of hope.

This was submitted by the amazing Brooke Haynes, our reporter here for the show who cannot help herself. When she sees an article that she thinks is a good fit for the segment of Hope, she sends it my way, and I am so grateful for that. Brooke, I know you are listening. Thank you. I love you. This one comes out of Texas.

Now, a 12-year-old girl that had been missing for over a week in February of this year was found unharmed despite concerns from the Houston PD that she may have been trafficked. You guys probably noticed a little difference here. I started scripting out these segments just a little bit, giving myself some talking points.

because I realized that I felt like I wasn't really giving you guys the full story. I focused on the hope part, and I left you kind of hanging in some areas about what happened to these people. I just get so excited about the hope part that I want to make sure I include the full story. So she was found unharmed. They were scared that she might have been trafficked at first, but that wasn't the case. The way she was found was pretty...

was pretty interesting to me. So she was apparently using a social media app called Tagged. I've never heard of it before, but parents out there, you should probably be aware of it. It's used to meet people, essentially. Now, the app's parent company, The Meet Group, reached out to officials in Texas to offer their assistance, like, unprompted.

Now, while this app, of course, has a privacy policy and all that, and they normally don't give info to police unprompted, they do have a policy that if they suspect that anybody is underage while using the app and possibly being exploited, that they report that to the respective law enforcement agency. Police aren't releasing details about exactly what happened to this girl. They're just saying that she is unharmed, and it makes our segment of hope because she came home.

And also because this amazing policy from the Meek Group. While they may seem and maybe they are some faceless corporation, someone made that policy. Somebody saw her profile. Somebody said something to police. And whomever did that, you are hero or heroes of the day. Thank you. And as always, thank you, I love you, and I'll talk to you next time.