It has been 16 years since Patrick Tracy Burris went on a crime spree in Gaffney, South Carolina.
For more than a week in the summer of 2009, serial killer Patrick Tracy Burris terrorized Cherokee County. His crime spree took many back to the late 1960s, when the Gaffney Strangler wreaked havoc on the same community, approximately forty years earlier.
Burris killed five over six days. The nightmare began on June 27, 2009, when a local peach farmer was found murdered in his home. Four days later, on July 1, Burris struck again, when he killed Hazel Linder and her daughter, Gena Linder Parker. The following day, another local man and his daughter were brutally killed in the family’s appliance and furniture store.
On July 6, 2009, police were called to a residence in the small town of Dallas, North Carolina, in Gaston County, approximately 34 miles from Gaffney, for a burglary in progress. Eyewitnesses reported seeing a vehicle in the area that matched the description of the murder suspect’s Ford Explorer outside an abandoned house.
The police questioned Burris, who reportedly gave a fake name, but police were able to identify the man’s true identity quickly and discovered he was wanted for a probation violation. Three officers entered the house to arrest Burris, but an altercation broke out, with a local officer tasing Burris.
Burris pulled out a small handgun and fired the weapon, shooting an officer in he upper thigh. The officers returned fire and fatally wounded Patrick Tracy Burris.
Some online reports suggest that Burris may not have acted alone in the crime spree.
Written By: John G. Clark Jr.