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Here's What Happened

A True Crime Memoir

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Month: April 2022

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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Party

by Heather Burnett

Oh, my, god. Johnny, look at her fax. It is so big. It looks like one of those…divorce party invites. …. By the middle of that late twentieth century summer, “Baby Got Back” by Sir Mix-a-Lot owned the top Billboard spot. From July 4 to […]

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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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Shot

by Heather Burnett

The fresh knowledge of homicide fed us for a little while as we managed through chaos and one phone line in that little house in North Little Rock. In the beginning, that’s all we knew. We knew Jeff got in the house and found daddy, […]

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Found

by Heather Burnett

WARNING: This post contains graphic details. Among the friends looking for Johnny Burnett, Diane loyally persisted in her search. My brother and I called her Miss Diane. She dated daddy off and on for five years before finally ending things in 1991. Daddy and Diane […]

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