A Ventnor woman was sentenced today for the murder of her husband, after a six-year missing person investigation led to the 2013 discovery of the victim’s remains in the woman’s closet, Atlantic County Prosecutor Jim McClain announced.
Today, Wednesday, April 22, 2015, Atlantic County Superior Court Judge Michael A. Donio sentenced Loretta Doyle Burroughs, 63, of the 300 block of Hampshire Drive, Ventnor, to 55 years in prison for the 2007 stabbing death of her husband, Daniel Burroughs 66, and for concealing evidence of the crime to hinder her own apprehension, by retaining the dismembered parts of Daniel Burroughs’ body in Tupperware containers, discovered by police in a bedroom closet 6 years later.
Daniel Burroughs was reported missing to Hamilton Township Police in September 2007, when the couple lived in the Leipzig Avenue house, in Mays Landing.
Loretta Burroughs moved to a home on the 300 block of Hampshire Avenue in Ventnor. In May 2013 Burroughs was relocating to a residence on West Florida Avenue, in Villas, Cape May County.
On May 17, 2013, a joint investigation by the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crimes Unit, the Hamilton Township Police Department, and the New Jersey State Police, culminated in the execution of two search warrants at the Ventnor and Cape May County homes. Assisting with the searches were the Cape May County Prosecutor’s Office, and the Ventnor City and Lower Township Police Departments. Inside the Ventnor residence the team found decomposing human remains inside several plastic storage containers in a closet. The remains were later positively identified as Daniel Burroughs.
Loretta Burroughs was arrested the same day at the Cape May County residence and charged with murder for the fatal stabbing of her husband. On April 8, 2014, an Atlantic County Grand Jury indicted Burroughs for murder, and for hindering her own apprehension.
On March 17, 2015, after a four (4) day trial before Judge Donio, an Atlantic County jury found Loretta Doyle Burroughs guilty on both criminal counts after 2 hours of deliberation. During the trial, the State presented evidence that Daniel Burroughs had been renovating the Leipzig Avenue home to be sold, intending that he and his wife Loretta retire to Florida.
After Daniel Burroughs’ disappearance, Loretta Doyle Burroughs told friends and family that Daniel had “run off with another woman to Florida.” Loretta Burroughs then left on vacation with her grandchildren, returned and sold off his belongings, sold the house, and divorced Daniel Burroughs 18 months after the murder, to facilitate her gaining access to his portion of the proceeds from the house sale. Burroughs later moved from Mays Landing to the Ventnor home where Daniel Burroughs decomposed remains were recovered in the execution of the search warrant 6 years later.
Before sentencing, six friends and family members of the victim addressed the court, speaking to the kind nature and character of the victim, Daniel Burroughs, the horror of Loretta Burroughs’ crime, and the impact upon their own lives of both the murder and the 6 years of anguish before the body was discovered and the cause of Daniel Burroughs’ disappearance revealed. One speaker read a letter to the court written by her now 12-year-old daughter—a friend of Loretta Burroughs’ grandchild—who now deals with the knowledge that she had slept over at the house years before, with Burroughs “letting her sleep in a room with the dismembered body in the closet.”
Judge Donio sentenced Burroughs to 55 years of incarceration in New Jersey State Prison on the Murder charge, and 3 years of imprisonment on the Hindering Apprehension charge, to be served concurrently. Pursuant to the No Early Release Act (NERA), Burroughs must serve 85% of the sentence for murder—or 46 years and 9 months—before becoming eligible for parole. Burroughs will be 110 years old before she is eligible for parole.