Speaker 1: High school sweethearts. Danny and Loretta reunited decades later and
Speaker 1: picked up right where they left off.
Speaker 2: She had a question on dan our whole life, and
Speaker 2: then eventually they got back together.
Speaker 1: And of course if it had worked out, we wouldn't
Speaker 1: be talking today.
Speaker 2: He left her for a waitress in Florida, and we
Speaker 2: were all.
Speaker 3: In shock, fall in shock.
Speaker 4: Danny had a way of just found something wrong with everybody.
Speaker 1: But there's plenty more to this story.
Speaker 2: Danny just disappears in thin air.
Speaker 1: The whole thing just didn't feel right and made everyone
Speaker 1: question what they knew about Loretta and Danny. I was
Speaker 1: definitely not expecting to find what we found. Today. We're
Speaker 1: in May's Landy, New Jersey, for Part one of the
Speaker 1: Disappearance of Danny Burroughs. My name is Sloane Glass and
Speaker 1: this is American Homicide. And warning that this episode contains
Speaker 1: graphic content. Please take care while listening. The generation known
Speaker 1: as the Baby Boomers came of age during the nineteen sixties,
Speaker 1: and for most of them, it happened in suburban America.
Speaker 5: It's kind of a fun time, easy, not a lot
Speaker 5: of crime.
Speaker 1: Chris Gagan grew up in the suburbs of Philadelphia.
Speaker 5: Front doors were left open all the time a lot
Speaker 5: of the neighborhood. They'd sit out on the front step
Speaker 5: the kids would play, so it was nice.
Speaker 1: That was back in an era when kids played outside
Speaker 1: until the street lights came on.
Speaker 5: We used to go ice skating or dancing all the
Speaker 5: time because they had these little dances in the Catholic churches.
Speaker 5: We formed a Beatles group because we were into the
Speaker 5: Beatles all the time, so we had like a club.
Speaker 5: It was a very simple life.
Speaker 1: One of her neighborhood friends was a girl named Loretta.
Speaker 5: Loretta lived so close and there was a candy store
Speaker 5: cross set, so a lot of times we would take
Speaker 5: a walk down there and sometimes the boys would be there.
Speaker 1: Danny Burrows was one of those boys. Danny was a
Speaker 1: year older and he was popular with the girls in
Speaker 1: the neighborhood.
Speaker 5: He was really cute, like nice eyes, and Loretta really
Speaker 5: had a thing for Danny, like she was, you know,
Speaker 5: infatuated with them, maybe even more so than infatuated, but
Speaker 5: I know she really liked him.
Speaker 1: Loretta and Danny dated in high school, but like most
Speaker 1: young love stories, it was short lived. The two split
Speaker 1: up after graduation and went their separate.
Speaker 5: Ways, Danny moved to New Jersey mays Landing.
Speaker 1: Danny lived in mays Landing, a quiet community of about
Speaker 1: two thousand people, which sits about fifteen minutes from the
Speaker 1: bright lights, bustling clubs, and numerous casinos of Atlantic City.
Speaker 1: It's also about an hour from Philadelphia.
Speaker 5: He lived down by the shore and then he met
Speaker 5: someone else. Danny met a girl who eventually married and
Speaker 5: they had two children.
Speaker 1: Loretta also got married, divorced, and then married a second time,
Speaker 1: but her husband passed away in nineteen ninety three. Fast
Speaker 1: forward to the mid nineties, Loretta was a widow and
Speaker 1: Danny was divorced. Loretta had a career in nursing. She
Speaker 1: took care of the elderly. When the past of these
Speaker 1: former high school lovers crossed it again, they started dating.
Speaker 5: She was very happy to be back with him.
Speaker 1: By that point, they were both in their late forties,
Speaker 1: but they picked up right where they left off.
Speaker 5: She always one of them, and she got them, and
Speaker 5: she got them.
Speaker 1: When the two got back together, it was big news
Speaker 1: for Ruth and to Vanni, who also grew up with
Speaker 1: Loretta and Danny.
Speaker 4: Loretta liked Danny from the time she was little. This
Speaker 4: was her lifelong dream and it finally happened, and I thought,
Speaker 4: you know, he's got it made. He's got somebody who
Speaker 4: totally adores them.
Speaker 1: Leretta moved into Danny's vintage three bedroom, three bathroom house
Speaker 1: in May's Landing and in nineteen ninety seven she finally
Speaker 1: became missus Danny Burrows. Now, considering their history, it was
Speaker 1: the kind of news you'd certainly expect everyone to know about.
Speaker 4: That's the thing. We never heard anything about being married.
Speaker 4: I never knew they got married. It was odd, that's
Speaker 4: the one to get married.
Speaker 1: I had no idea, but quietly getting married kind of
Speaker 1: fit Danny's under the radar personality. He was a guy
Speaker 1: who liked to spend hours working in his shed. He
Speaker 1: owned just about every tool he could get his hands
Speaker 1: on and loved to fix things cars, boats, motorcycles. Danny
Speaker 1: worked on them all. Danny was also happy behind a
Speaker 1: set of drugs. This is actual audio of him performing.
Speaker 4: He was in his own band for a little while.
Speaker 4: We used to have a pool party and he would
Speaker 4: bring the band and they play, and he used to
Speaker 4: laugh in that way he danced. He couldn't stop laughing.
Speaker 1: The name left a big impact.
Speaker 4: On your life. His laugh, his manners, he was just
Speaker 4: not a forgettable person.
Speaker 1: While Danny spent his time working on cars and flying
Speaker 1: his expensive model airplanes, Loretta was more of a people person.
Speaker 1: She was a caregiver and worked at a nursing home.
Speaker 1: Her patients and their families adored her, and after work,
Speaker 1: it was all about family.
Speaker 4: She was the doating grandmother. She did everything with the
Speaker 4: grandkids and her daughter. They were very close.
Speaker 1: Loretta's daughter, Nicole, and her grandchildren were the light of
Speaker 1: Loretta's life. She would do anything for them. As for Danny,
Speaker 1: he had a son and a daughter, but they rarely
Speaker 1: saw him. Being a father was a role Danny struggled with.
Speaker 1: Loretta urged Danny to spend more time with his kids,
Speaker 1: but by then Danny's kids were all grown up and
Speaker 1: living in Florida. In fact, Florida played into a long
Speaker 1: running argument between Danny and Loretta.
Speaker 5: Danny wanted to move to Florida, didn't like the cold,
Speaker 5: and Loretta was unhappy about it.
Speaker 4: She told me she did not want to go to
Speaker 4: Florida because her family's here and her daughter and her
Speaker 4: poor grandchildren, they were all here. Loretta needed family. She
Speaker 4: loved her family.
Speaker 1: But Danny kept telling his friends that he and Loretta
Speaker 1: were retiring to Florida, and this was usually met with
Speaker 1: Loretta standing behind him shaking her head.
Speaker 6: No.
Speaker 1: It became a joke among their friends.
Speaker 5: I'm sure she was really upset and dug her hills
Speaker 5: in and says, you know, I'm not going to go.
Speaker 5: She had a couple grandchildren at home, and you know,
Speaker 5: I don't blame her. I won't want to leave either.
Speaker 1: The battle over Florida cooled off during the summer of
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven, when Danny had surgery on his
Speaker 1: rotator cuff. It was a slow and painful recovery process
Speaker 1: for Danny, but even with his arm in a sling,
Speaker 1: there was Danny outside working in his yard.
Speaker 5: It was out maw on the lawn and the neighbor laughed, like,
Speaker 5: what are you doing mowing the law? Your arms and
Speaker 5: a sling. It was ain't all about stuff like that.
Speaker 1: That was around the time Loretta took a weekend trip
Speaker 1: with her daughter and grandchildren. But when she returned, she
Speaker 1: said she found Danny with another woman.
Speaker 6: There was a yellow hummer pulling out of her driveway
Speaker 6: and there was a woman driving it and he was
Speaker 6: in the passenger seat.
Speaker 1: Ed Dwyer was a neighbor who consoled a devastated Loretta.
Speaker 6: She was just crying uncontrollably, and I asked her what
Speaker 6: was wrong, and she said that her husband had left
Speaker 6: her for a waitress that they ran across in Florida
Speaker 6: when they were down there.
Speaker 1: So not only did Danny get his wish to move
Speaker 1: to Florida, but according to Loretta, he was going with
Speaker 1: a waitress he met during their last visit together to
Speaker 1: the Sunshine State.
Speaker 6: She said he kept wanting to go back to this
Speaker 6: same restaurant. They ate lobster every day, and she said
Speaker 6: how much the lobster can you eat?
Speaker 1: But apparently it wasn't the lobster that Danny was craving.
Speaker 1: It was the young blonde waitress with the yellow hummer.
Speaker 6: And this was the woman that drove up from Florida
Speaker 6: to pick him up and bring him back to Florida.
Speaker 5: Wat thing about Danny When he sets his mind on something,
Speaker 5: that's what he does. So he wanted to go.
Speaker 4: Danny had a way of just he found something wrong
Speaker 4: with everybody, you know, but it would eventually be never
Speaker 4: his fault and he had to move on.
Speaker 1: But still it was hard to understand because Danny not
Speaker 1: only left behind his wife, but also his truck, motorcycle
Speaker 1: and shed loaded with his expensive tools and model airplanes.
Speaker 1: In fact, Danny didn't take his cell phone or even
Speaker 1: his toothbrush.
Speaker 5: His keys were left in the house, so you know,
Speaker 5: why would he just leave his keys?
Speaker 1: The only thing Danny did take was money. Loretta said.
Speaker 1: Danny cleaned out their safe before leaving.
Speaker 4: Maybe he drops off the face of the air for
Speaker 4: a reason. Who knows, I don't know. He wasn't you
Speaker 4: know the most predictable person.
Speaker 1: His friends and family wondered, was Danny having some sort
Speaker 1: of midlife crisis or leading a double life.
Speaker 4: This whole thing just didn't feel right. He was close
Speaker 4: to his neighbors, even his own brother. You would have
Speaker 4: told it, brother, they were close. I had my suspicions something.
Speaker 1: Something, Everything Danny and Loretta's friends and family thought they
Speaker 1: knew about the couple was about to change. When you
Speaker 1: think about romance, you might not think of New Jersey.
Speaker 2: People get the impression of New Jersey. They see it
Speaker 2: on TV as sopranos. North Jersey cities and smog and
Speaker 2: down here. It's not like that.
Speaker 1: Detective Franks Allick spent his whole life working and living
Speaker 1: in South Jersey.
Speaker 2: There's small towns, there's farms, there's woods. To me, South
Speaker 2: Jersey is a small community part of the state, you know,
Speaker 2: where everybody knows each other, and you know, it's more
Speaker 2: beautiful than people think. We have the beaches, you know,
Speaker 2: we have the forests, we have the pine lands, and
Speaker 2: we had the Philly sports teams, which we've adopted.
Speaker 1: Detective Shanlick was investigating the disappearance of sixty one year
Speaker 1: old Danny Burroughs.
Speaker 2: Danny was just just kind of like your basic all
Speaker 2: around guy who could fix anything and you know, was
Speaker 2: very handy.
Speaker 1: Danny and his wife, Loretta, were high school sweethearts.
Speaker 2: Everybody knew Loretta. She was in the auxiliary of the
Speaker 2: local fire department. She was friendly with her grandkids, and
Speaker 2: you know her neighbors. People knew Loretta and people knew Daniel.
Speaker 2: Daniel was really well known in the community, and.
Speaker 1: As we said, the two reconnected some twenty years later.
Speaker 2: She had a crush on Daniel her whole life. They
Speaker 2: had split up for a period of time and then
Speaker 2: eventually they got back together.
Speaker 1: Danny and Loretta married in nineteen ninety seven and lived
Speaker 1: in the quiet South Jersey town of May's Landing. But
Speaker 1: right around there ten year anniversary, Danny disappeared.
Speaker 2: He had left with the girl and went to Florida
Speaker 2: and the Yell Hummer and that was all we had.
Speaker 1: Okay, So husband leaves wife and runs off with the
Speaker 1: younger woman. It's not exactly something unheard of, but it's
Speaker 1: where Danny went that played into this story.
Speaker 2: Daniel for years had talked about moving to Florida, and
Speaker 2: Loretta had been putting her foot down. She did not
Speaker 2: want to leave. She said, you want to stay around
Speaker 2: her grandkids. Daniel kind of put that off going to
Speaker 2: Florida because Loretta was not okay with it.
Speaker 1: Danny's ex wife and children in Florida told the police
Speaker 1: they also hadn't heard anything from him, but they weren't
Speaker 1: exactly surprised to hear he went missing because Danny had
Speaker 1: missed most of his children's lives. But Danny did keep
Speaker 1: in touch with his brother Ray.
Speaker 2: He always would be in contact with his brother Ray
Speaker 2: almost every other week, and he would go and visit
Speaker 2: play in a band that they had created even stay
Speaker 2: overnight sometimes, so phone and personal contact was regular between
Speaker 2: both of them.
Speaker 1: Nearly a month after Danny went missing, Ray still hadn't
Speaker 1: heard a word from his brother.
Speaker 2: Ray said it was completely out of the ordinary.
Speaker 1: So Ray went to the police and filed a missing
Speaker 1: person's report. This put Danny into a database known as
Speaker 1: the National Crime Information Center.
Speaker 2: That way, if Danna burshap up anywhere's in the country,
Speaker 2: he would show up as a missing person.
Speaker 1: Ray also told detectives he was upset Loretta didn't report
Speaker 1: Danny missing, but think about it, why would she Danny
Speaker 1: left her for another woman? She was not expecting to
Speaker 1: hear from him.
Speaker 2: Ray hated Loretta. I think that Ray felt that she
Speaker 2: kind of liked was putting a stop to whatever Daniel
Speaker 2: wanted to do. Daniel had a dream of going to
Speaker 2: Florida after retirement, and you know, she put a stop
Speaker 2: to anything he wanted to do, much like Danny.
Speaker 1: Ray had known Loretta since they were kids, and he
Speaker 1: felt Loretta knew more than she was saying.
Speaker 2: Ray said it was completely out of the ordinary. There's
Speaker 2: nothing that he would have suspected or that would lend
Speaker 2: him to believe that Daniel would have left without telling
Speaker 2: him at least him and most of all, Danie would
Speaker 2: have never left with another woman without him knowing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, brothers share those sorts of things, so Ray didn't
Speaker 1: buy Loretta's story that he left her for another woman.
Speaker 2: Daniel Burrows went missing in August of two thousand and seven.
Speaker 2: Were estimating the date to be around August fifth to
Speaker 2: August seventh.
Speaker 1: Now keep in mind that Danny was recovering from shoulder
Speaker 1: surgery and his arm was in a sling. Just a
Speaker 1: day or two before Danny went missing, Ray had an
Speaker 1: unusual call with him.
Speaker 2: Ray called him and said his words were slurred, he
Speaker 2: was acting very unusual, which she attributed to the pay
Speaker 2: medication he was given. Ray did ask Daniel what medication
Speaker 2: it was, and Dana replied, whatever she gives me, referring
Speaker 2: to Loretta.
Speaker 1: A week or so later, Ray called to check in
Speaker 1: on Danny, but Loretta answered the phone and shared the
Speaker 1: news Danny had left her for some waitress from Florida.
Speaker 2: Ray was very suspicious at this point, so he drove
Speaker 2: down to Me's landing from his home in Pennsylvania and
Speaker 2: met with Lorette at the house. When he pulled in.
Speaker 2: He said. Loretta looked completely startled, and she also had
Speaker 2: her niece there, which she ushered into the house very quickly.
Speaker 2: As Ray was going around the property, he noticed things
Speaker 2: of Daniel that were missing, lot of airplanes, some equipment
Speaker 2: and tools. As he talked to Loretta, Loretta was doing
Speaker 2: a itemized list of all the property, and it appeared
Speaker 2: that she was going to sell to someone.
Speaker 1: Ray may have been angry seen his brother's things being
Speaker 1: sold off, but it's not unusual after a relationship bends
Speaker 1: to clean house or to be startled by seeing your
Speaker 1: ex's brother or peer at your front steps unannounced. Ed
Speaker 1: Dwyer was Loretta's neighbor.
Speaker 6: She sold its packup truck the back home. She sold
Speaker 6: all of those aeroplanes, said now I'm talking great big
Speaker 6: airplanes that you would take out in a few and
Speaker 6: fly him. And she sold every one of them.
Speaker 1: But Loretta was hurt. She was grieving and said she
Speaker 1: wanted to turn the page on Danny.
Speaker 6: She got to the point where if he was gonna
Speaker 6: live his life in Florida, she was getting rid of
Speaker 6: all his things that made him happy. It's just a
Speaker 6: hard thing to go through because I've got through myself,
Speaker 6: and I think she felt lonely.
Speaker 1: Sure, she felt lonely, and frankly, she felt like a fool.
Speaker 2: Loretta was talking to her friends and other people that
Speaker 2: she worked with, and she would tell her friends that
Speaker 2: Danie would come back with the girl to be spiteful
Speaker 2: to the house.
Speaker 1: There were also a couple calls from a private phone number.
Speaker 2: She had said Daniel had called her shortly after he
Speaker 2: left with the other woman and he had called the house.
Speaker 1: Loretta said Danny told her he was doing just fine
Speaker 1: and then moving to Florida was really what he wanted.
Speaker 1: He also said to give his brother Ray any of
Speaker 1: his belongings that he left behind. Loretta said she was
Speaker 1: so hurt and told Danny not to contact her anymore.
Speaker 2: The detectives repeatedly visited the house and did fill ups
Speaker 2: with Loretta. They looked around the house, they looked around
Speaker 2: the property. They did say anything suspicious.
Speaker 1: And Loretta cooperated and answered the detective's questions, but that
Speaker 1: changed when they explained that it was protocol to perform
Speaker 1: a polygraph test on her.
Speaker 2: At that point, she obtained a lawyer and stopped speaking
Speaker 2: with us, and once the Loretta lawyered up. You know
Speaker 2: that made her investigation ten times harder.
Speaker 1: A few months later, a neighbor noticed a black tarp
Speaker 1: and something fishy in Loretta's backyard.
Speaker 2: So the neighbor had reported the smell by her back shed.
Speaker 2: There were mothballs by the back shed. When the officers
Speaker 2: had responded, they didn't have anything, and she had claimed
Speaker 2: that there was a dead animal that she had discarded
Speaker 2: that was back there.
Speaker 1: I'd imagine police thought that was suspicious, but with no
Speaker 1: smell and a plausible explanation, there was nothing to do.
Speaker 1: By then, Loretta had distanced herself from her old life
Speaker 1: with Danny.
Speaker 2: She sold the house and got all the proceeds from
Speaker 2: that sold all's property, which wasn't cheap property, including a boat, model, airplanes, tools,
Speaker 2: and construction equipment.
Speaker 1: After Loretta moved, the police got permission from the new
Speaker 1: owners to search the house.
Speaker 2: We scanned the property with an X ray machine to
Speaker 2: see if there's any irregularities in the ground where a
Speaker 2: body might be. We bought in canine dogs to detect
Speaker 2: any type of smell related to a body. We did
Speaker 2: throw searches of the property for anything such as blood
Speaker 2: or evidence of any sort we came up with nothing.
Speaker 2: There was absolutely no evidence that we could find.
Speaker 1: A year and a half after Danny left, Loretta filed
Speaker 1: for divorce, claiming abandonment with no hopes for reconciliation.
Speaker 2: She had no contact with him, no way to contact them,
Speaker 2: and she was granted divorce based on that information.
Speaker 1: So you're probably wondering, how do you divorce someone who's
Speaker 1: technically missing. Well, all Loretta had to do was simply
Speaker 1: put a notice in the local newspaper and serve him
Speaker 1: at his last known address, which was the house he
Speaker 1: lived in with Loretta. And when the court date arrived,
Speaker 1: Danny never showed up and Loretta was granted a divorce.
Speaker 2: I've actually handled miss in person cases for most of
Speaker 2: my career and involves hundreds of cases, and I've never
Speaker 2: seen anyone get a divorce after someone want missing, especially
Speaker 2: when that person was not found at that point.
Speaker 1: In addition, Loretta had completely shut out her now ex
Speaker 1: brother in law.
Speaker 2: Ray, So Ray was very very upset at times, and
Speaker 2: you know understandable. You know, his brother's missing and he's upset.
Speaker 1: Ray was so frustrated that he started his own investigation.
Speaker 2: When it's your family, you want to do everything you
Speaker 2: can and do whatever it takes to find that person.
Speaker 2: So Ray did create a couple websites with Dan those
Speaker 2: information and information on the case.
Speaker 1: Ray even created a Facebook page to gather leads and
Speaker 1: share updates on his brother's case.
Speaker 7: He wrote, the story of my brother's disappearance is something
Speaker 7: you'd see on TV unsolved mysteries or cold case files,
Speaker 7: except now it's happening to me.
Speaker 1: Raymie no secret that he believed Loretta knew more than
Speaker 1: she admitted.
Speaker 2: Out of nowhere.
Speaker 8: His now ex wife told everybody that he ran off
Speaker 8: with another woman. He left without any of his belonging.
Speaker 8: Nothing I say bs to her story and many many lies.
Speaker 2: She never even called to tell me.
Speaker 8: I found out several days later when I called my
Speaker 8: brother's home.
Speaker 1: With Loretta not talking, Detectives turned to an unlikely source
Speaker 1: for help. Danny Burrows was last seen in the summer
Speaker 1: of two thousand and seven. His wife, Loretta, said he
Speaker 1: left her for a waitress in Florida, and then the
Speaker 1: police got involved when Danny's brother Ray reported him missing.
Speaker 1: Here's Detective Frank Shalick.
Speaker 2: So basically, at a missing person's case, we always start
Speaker 2: where the person went missing from, and obviously that would
Speaker 2: be the home where Loretta Andiando lived, so a search
Speaker 2: of the property didn't reveal anything. Every couple months during
Speaker 2: the investigation, we would do a universal check throughout the
Speaker 2: country if he had done anything financially, if he had
Speaker 2: done anything with his name on it, you know, try
Speaker 2: to buy a home or try to buy a car.
Speaker 2: So we would do that on a couple month basis,
Speaker 2: and nothing would ever show up.
Speaker 1: Even Danny's children hadn't heard from him.
Speaker 2: It just didn't make.
Speaker 1: Sense, sort of questioning every blonde waitress in Florida. The
Speaker 1: police followed their basic protocols for a missing adult, but
Speaker 1: Danny's brother, Ray wanted the police to do more.
Speaker 2: Ray wanted everything done possible. But we tried to explain
Speaker 2: to Ray, is that, you know, at this point, there's
Speaker 2: there's a certain way that we have to follow, Like
Speaker 2: we just can't go in and search a house without
Speaker 2: a search warrant. We can't speak to Loretta because she
Speaker 2: has a lawyer. I understand where Ray's coming from, But
Speaker 2: the problem is there was no evidence that he didn't
Speaker 2: leave and go away with another woman and just didn't
Speaker 2: want to be found. There's people this country that that
Speaker 2: do that all the time.
Speaker 1: If there was more to Danny's disappearance, Detective Shallick knew
Speaker 1: they were racing the clock.
Speaker 2: I've handled plenty of cases that a couple months, a
Speaker 2: couple of years, but this was this was the longest one,
Speaker 2: and that did make it difficult because as time goes by,
Speaker 2: you know, the case was slipping away and we had
Speaker 2: to find a way to end this.
Speaker 1: So detectives turned to an unlikely person for help, Loretta's daughter, Nicole.
Speaker 1: But just like Danny's children, Nicole wasn't at all surprised
Speaker 1: Danny skipped town.
Speaker 2: She did believe that Daniel might have left and went
Speaker 2: with another woman.
Speaker 1: Nicole explained that for years, Loretta believed Danny would leave
Speaker 1: her because he had an affair once.
Speaker 2: Before, so she knew that there was a possibility that
Speaker 2: he could have left.
Speaker 1: Not only did she think it was possible, but Nicole
Speaker 1: said the two had a pattern of this behavior.
Speaker 2: Because it happened in the past where you know, they
Speaker 2: had split up and gotten back together. So in her mind,
Speaker 2: you know, it wasn't unfathomable that that could happen.
Speaker 1: A few weeks before Danny went missing, Loretta actually told
Speaker 1: Nicole that Danny was leaving her and moving to Florida.
Speaker 1: So Nicole went to the store and bought Danny a
Speaker 1: greeting card. Inside she wrote good luck on your new life.
Speaker 1: Danny read the card and asked, what is this for?
Speaker 1: He said he wasn't moving anywhere. Nicole was caught in
Speaker 1: the middle and wondered who was telling the truth?
Speaker 2: You know, it put her in to her position. She
Speaker 2: loved her mother, she loved her stepdad.
Speaker 1: If you remember, Loretta joined Nicole and her family on
Speaker 1: a weekend getaway right around the time Danny went missing.
Speaker 1: It was a trip that Loretta planned and paid for,
Speaker 1: but according to Nicole, Loretta arrived late. Nicole said she
Speaker 1: called her mom more than forty times that morning, but
Speaker 1: Loretta never answered. When Loretta finally showed up, she was
Speaker 1: crying and she said she had had an argument with Danny.
Speaker 2: And I think she became suspicious at that point.
Speaker 1: Six years after Danny's disappearance, a lot has changed. Loretta
Speaker 1: had divorced him, sold his things in their house in
Speaker 1: May's Landing. In fact, she moved two different times. That's
Speaker 1: when the to County Cold case unit started digging in
Speaker 1: the months before he went missing, Danny named Loretta his
Speaker 1: power of attorney, meaning Loretta could make financial and medical
Speaker 1: decisions on Danny's behalf.
Speaker 2: We went to the attorney who created the power attorney
Speaker 2: for Loretta, and when we spoke with her, she was
Speaker 2: able to go into her computer and see that the
Speaker 2: power of attorney was created on June twelfth, two thousand
Speaker 2: and seven. According to the timestamp, the notorized date on
Speaker 2: the power of Attorney was June tenth, two days before
Speaker 2: was even created.
Speaker 1: In other words, the power of attorney document was created fraudulently.
Speaker 2: Well, it was definitely a red flag that it was
Speaker 2: done in June and that he went missing shortly thereafter
Speaker 2: in August, and speak with Ray, it just wasn't something
Speaker 2: he would do.
Speaker 1: The notary claimed Danny wasn't there when the document was notarized,
Speaker 1: which raised his suspicion, and Ray believe Danny's signature looked
Speaker 1: to be forged.
Speaker 2: And he was adamant that that wasn't a snager on
Speaker 2: the power attorney. So it turned out to be a
Speaker 2: big red flag for us.
Speaker 1: This allowed Detective Shalick to get two search warrants, one
Speaker 1: for Loretta's current home in Ventnor, New Jersey, and a
Speaker 1: second for Loretta's sister's house, where Loretta had also been staying.
Speaker 2: Our goal was to locate a copy of the power
Speaker 2: attorney so we could compare signatures and the original information
Speaker 2: on the original paper.
Speaker 1: This is insane. It's been six years since Danny went missing.
Speaker 2: On May seventeenth, twenty thirteen, Investigator Lynn Doherty and I
Speaker 2: went to conduct a search warrant on the home where
Speaker 2: Loretta was currently staying at her sister's house.
Speaker 9: We had warrants for both houses, so we were executing
Speaker 9: the warrants at both houses simultaneously.
Speaker 1: Sergeant Lynn Doherty joined Detective Shalick when they knocked on
Speaker 1: the door of Loretta's sister's house in a last ditch
Speaker 1: attempt to locate anything about Danny's disappearance.
Speaker 2: So this at this point was going to tell us
Speaker 2: either what happened to Daniel, or was going to leave
Speaker 2: the case unanswered and opened. If we found nothing in
Speaker 2: the search warrant, then there's a possibility we may never
Speaker 2: find out what happened to Daniel. It was a typical
Speaker 2: morning in New Jersey. It was cool out, the weather
Speaker 2: was clear, so.
Speaker 3: When we pull up, we knock on the front door.
Speaker 2: The Writa's sister came to the door first, and Loretta's
Speaker 2: right behind her.
Speaker 3: She's in a nightgown. It's early in the morning. She's
Speaker 3: not expecting us there.
Speaker 2: And the minute we saw Loretta, her face just dropped.
Speaker 9: And we came in and she had to get dressed.
Speaker 9: So I went into a room with her and there
Speaker 9: was no furniture, no bed, no anything.
Speaker 3: She just had a small.
Speaker 9: Suitcase and we sat her down and we explained that
Speaker 9: we had a search warrant for the residence.
Speaker 2: And the first question she asked us is are you
Speaker 2: searching my house in Ventnor.
Speaker 3: We told her yes. She was just like and just
Speaker 3: the life just drained right out of her.
Speaker 2: Loretta was very why she simply said, are you Detective Shallock?
Speaker 2: And I said yes, and she says, I want to
Speaker 2: talk to you. So at that point, all our phones
Speaker 2: lit up on a table.
Speaker 1: Those incoming phone calls were from detectives who were at
Speaker 1: Loretta's house in Ventnor City, New Jersey.
Speaker 3: I got a phone call, was my sergeant.
Speaker 1: It was a phone call that changed everything.
Speaker 3: I never imagined that she was going to tell us
Speaker 3: what she told us.
Speaker 1: I'm swung Glass. We'll get to that phone call and
Speaker 1: uncover the truth about Danny in part two of the
Speaker 1: Disappearance of Danny Burroughs. That's next time on American Homicide.
Speaker 1: You can contact the American Homicide team by emailing us
Speaker 1: at American Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. That's American
Speaker 1: Homicide Pod at gmail dot com. American Homicide is hosted
Speaker 1: and written by me Sloan Glass and is a production
Speaker 1: of Glass Podcasts, a division of Glass Entertainment Group, in
Speaker 1: partnership with iHeart Podcasts. The show is executive produced by
Speaker 1: Nancy Glass and Todd Gams. The series is also written
Speaker 1: and produced by Todd Gams, with additional writing by Ben
Speaker 1: Fetterman and Andrea Gunny. Our associate producer is Kristin Melcurie.
Speaker 1: Our iheartep is Ali Perry and Jessica Crimecheck. Audio editing,
Speaker 1: mixing and mastering by Nico Aarrupa. Voice acting in this
Speaker 1: episode from Trey Morgan. American Homicide's theme song was composed
Speaker 1: by Oliver Bains of Neiser Music Library, provided by my Music.
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