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Here's What Happened

A True Crime Memoir

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canalpointe

Questions

by Heather Burnett

“Are we having fun yet?” daddy used to ask his boat passengers as they raced across Lake Hamilton, balancing a mixed drink in one hand to avoid a spill as the boat hopped the wakes. I heard this question a lot growing up because it […]

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Hello

by Heather Burnett

There was a time when you could call a person on their land line phone, and it would just ring and ring and ring all day as long as there wasn’t an answering machine or person to pick up the call on the other end. […]

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Drive

by Heather Burnett

Lake Hamilton’s choppy waves slapped across the sides of the Act’n Up Ag’n as it hustled its way from Margarita Bay a little after 5:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 19, 1992. At 5:22 p.m., dad’s guest, Sandra Locke, borrowed his brick cell phone in a […]

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Sunday

by Heather Burnett

It happens every year in the middle of the summer. Tomato plants bloom, the cicadas come out and the days are so hot you have to mentally prepare yourself with a pep talk for the walk across an asphalt parking lot to your car. When […]

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Keys

by Heather Burnett

Carefully, the young, blonde Sandra Locke laid out the story for Det. Ronnie Smith of the Little Rock Police Department. An advertising account executive for a Little Rock television station, Sandra said daddy called her over to where he and his friends were sitting at […]

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Saturday

by Heather Burnett

In May 1971 on my parents’ one-year anniversary, daddy brought home the traditional gift: paper. They lived in a small, rented apartment in Hot Springs, daddy’s hometown, and dad gave his wife loan papers to co-sign for their first boat. Surprise! Before buying a house, […]

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Bedsheets

by Heather Burnett

Those were probably three interesting hours daddy and his estranged wife, Scharmel, spent together “discussing the divorce” on early Saturday, July 18, 1992. It appears daddy called her brother just after the sunrise to inform him about his sister being in bed with another man […]

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Sunrise

by Heather Burnett

The Friday night of the divorce party, daddy drove all over Little Rock in his black 1990 Cadillac Fleetwood, as if “In the Air Tonight” played on a looped soundtrack in the distance. Review of witness statements put dad working at his liquor store in […]

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Photos

by Heather Burnett

A 4” x 4” headshot in a wooden frame sits on a bookshelf in my office. The photo of me at 18 years old stares back, grinning with excitement about the future and eager to matriculate to higher education at the University of Arkansas in […]

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Tape

by Heather Burnett

“This is Jim Blanscet. It’s Friday, July 17,” Jim’s recording began on the cassette. Earlier that evening, Jim played investigator and scoped out the cars parked at a party at dad’s house on Canal Pointe. He then met daddy at his liquor store at 1500 […]

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Police

by Heather Burnett

Det. Joe Oberle of the Little Rock Police Department arrived at 2014 Canal Pointe at around 6:10 p.m. on Tuesday, July 21, 1992. The patrol officers had secured the scene of the stucco house with the red tile roof, keeping everyone out of the upstairs […]

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