Suspect In Murder Mystery Found Dead

An 83-year-old woman took her own life inside her North Haven house, Southampton Town police said on Monday. The story, however sad, would have gone unreported in local newspapers, but for one thing: She had long been considered a suspect in the murder of her 100-year-old mother eight years ago.

Investigators had questioned Margaret Jean Burke after her mother, Jessie Margaret Burke, was shot to death in the same house in 2008. A former New York City corrections officer, 76 at the time, she was never charged.

On Monday, a family member discovered the younger Ms. Burke’s body on the bathroom floor of her house at 36 Payne Avenue. She had not been heard from since Sunday around noon, Detective Sgt. Lisa Costa said. Town police and the Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance Corps responded at 12:52 p.m. Ms. Burke was pronounced dead on arrival. Detective Costa said she died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound.

The detective did not comment on what kind of firearm was used or whether there was a suicide note left behind. She said the gun that was used in the suicide was not the one used in the mother’s murder. “The possibility was investigated, but they’re not related,” she said yesterday.

Southampton police consulted the county in its investigation this week in the hopes of pursuing “any other opportunities for closing out the murder of Jessie Burke.”

Attempts to reach her family living in the area were unsucessful.

On Monday, neighbors slowed as they drove by the police cars and police tape on the rainy, cold Monday afternoon. “It’s not the first time,” one said to a photographer. Two shooting deaths eight years apart — but the yellow crime scene tape came down a lot quicker this time. The Suffolk County medical examiner office came and went within an hour of his arrival.

It was a stark contrast to the investigation that followed Jessie Burke’s death on Aug. 31, 2008. It was the Sunday before Labor Day, a day many were savoring the last moments of summer. Detectives combed the area for evidence and questioned neighbors, looking for information.

It was the first murder in North Haven’s recorded history, which dates to the 1600s.

Margaret Jean Burke told detectives she had returned home from shopping to find her mother slumped over and bleeding in a recliner, where she had left her doing a crossword puzzle just an hour or so earlier. The centenarian was dead.

Responding officers found the woman had been shot in the head, but there was no gun to be found near her body. It was “the biggest clue” ruling out suicide, Detective Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick, the Suffolk homicide bureau chief, said in an interview at the time. He would not say what type of gun had been used or whether it was found elsewhere.

Southampton Town police, who have jurisdiction over North Haven, called in the county, as they do on murder investigations. The county was very thorough in its investigation, Detective Costa said, conducting numerous search warrants, searches of the area, and even dump searches.

Detectives in the Suffolk Homicide Bureau declined a request for comment yesterday, but the department confirmed that Mrs. Burke’s murder remains an open investigation.

Detective Lt. Fitzpatrick, who retired after 39 years on the force in 2014, had said in 2008 that there were no obvious signs of forced entry and nothing was reported missing from the house. Asked if there was a need for residents in the area to be concerned, he said: “I don’t think there’s somebody breaking into homes of people who are sitting in their chairs.”

Ms. Burke hired a Southampton criminal defense attorney after she was questioned. In an interview she gave The Southampton Press a year later, she admitted that detectives had accused her of a “mercy killing.”

However, Detective Lt. Fitzpatrick told The Star in the days following the murder that despite her turning 100 three weeks earlier, on Aug. 7, Mrs. Burke was living “a semi-independent” life in the house she shared with her daughter. She made her own meals and was able to get around the house. Her mind was sharp, her family said in her obituary. She played bridge with a group in Bridgehampton and often completed The New York Times crossword puzzle.

Daisy, as she was known to friends, had lived on the South Fork, at least part time, since 1925. Though she had been born in New York City, she was raised by her grandparents on a sheep farm in Scotland, after her mother died when she was 4. She returned to the states in 1923, joining her father and stepmother in Southampton, where she would graduate from high school. She became an X-ray technician in Manhattan, where she met James A. Burke.

They lived in Queens after marrying in 1931, and spent summer vacations in Noyac. They raised four children; Margaret Jean was the oldest. 

Mrs. Burke earned a nursing degree after her husband’s death in 1965, and worked as a registered nurse at Southampton Hospital.

Although it was not clear how long the mother and daughter had shared the house on Payne Avenue, tax records show that Margaret Jean Burke had owned the property since March of 1992. On North Haven, an area that has long debated how to handle the deer population, Ms. Burke had been a vociferous opponent of hunting in the 1990s. She ran unsuccessfully for North Haven Village mayor in 1994.

In the days and year following her mother’s death, she denied any involvement in the shooting. “She was adamant that she didn’t do it,” Detective Costa said.

Colin Astarita, whom Ms. Burke hired to represent her, described her at the time as distraught. He said she had been cooperative, submitting to gunpowder residue tests, giving police the clothing she wore that day, and allowing a search of her Toyota sedan. 

After learning of his former client’s suicide, Mr. Astarita said, “It is certainly a tragedy considering the circumstances of her mother’s death.”

The last time he heard from her was a few years ago, he said, when she inquired about the return of a firearm she owned that had been seized during the investigation. “As there is no statute of limitation for homicide, the detectives declined to return her property, which included a .22 caliber rifle, and I haven’t spoken with her since,” he said in a written statement.

Ms. Burke had had a previous brush with the law. In August of 1994, she was arrested and charged with drunken driving after a hit-and-run on Route 114. Bruce Davis, a personal injury lawyer of 1-800-LAWYERS fame, was walking his dog when he was hit and suffered a leg and foot injury.

Rossa Cole, who rents a house a few doors down, said the Burke house was subject to children’s lore. “They call it the scary, haunted house,” he said. His 9-year-old heard some tales from a neighborhood girl who has since moved, though he does not know how much was truth. “They knew something had happened there,” and when they would see Ms. Burke drive by they would hide.

Ms. Burke kept to herself. The house itself is set back in the woods on a nearly three-acre parcel at the end of the street, before a curve in the road. Rarely did Mr. Cole even see other cars parked there. 

As of yesterday, no services were finalized for Ms. Burke. The Yardley and Pino Funeral Home has been entrusted to handle the arrangements.