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Victim's sister, killer battle again over parole
By Dennis J. Willard Beacon Journal Columbus Bureau
Published on Sunday, Nov 25, 2007
On a late March evening 25 years ago, with winter reluctantly ceding to the initial strains of spring, Sandy Burger fled in fear from the three-story home on Harvard Avenue in Barberton that she shared with Mark Headley, before he caught and dragged her back into the house.
Headley was a weightlifter with an intimidating presence. Burger was a 22-year-old wisp of a woman who weighed 90 pounds and stood 5 feet, 21/2 inches tall.
In the unknown length of time left in her life, Headley beat Burger to death.
Records of the investigation show that when an emergency rescue squad went to the house the next morning, Burger's lifeless body was propped on a mattress and box spring in an upstairs bedroom, where the walls were dotted with ''grapefruit-size holes.''
She had large amounts of blood in her stomach.
She died from internal bleeding and wounds to her liver from the pummeling, and her rectum was torn.
Headley was charged with aggravated murder, a first-degree felony, but he agreed to plead guilty to a lesser charge in exchange for a reduced sentence of 15 years to life.
Seven weeks ago, a two-person panel for the Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction decided Headley should be paroled, and a release date was set for Dec. 4.
In the Oct. 4 decision, an Ohio Parole Board member and hearing officer noted Headley's conduct in prison had improved, he had participated in five mental health and substance abuse programs in 2001-04, and no
new adverse information had come forward since his parole was last denied in November 2004.
There were two minor infractions in 2006, when Headley went to the chow hall before he was called and he failed to report when he was given a pass to move within the prison.
The hearing panel considered this and noted that Headley ''has served comparable time to comparable other murder cases and otherwise appears suitable for release.''
Cynthia B. Mausser, the Parole Board chairwoman, said she could not comment about Headley's case.
In general, a hearing panel looks at an inmate's record, the crime committed, time served, behavior behind bars, whether an inmate is considered a threat or ready to assimilate into society, and any other factors needed to make a decision, Mausser said.
Parole to be revisited
Headley was going to be a free man in December, but by law, the Office of Victim Services within the correction department was required to notify members of Sandy Burger's family.
And when Burger's younger sister, Teresa Burger White, heard the news, she immediately went to work to keep Headley behind bars.
Burger White petitioned the full Ohio Parole Board to stop the process, and the board has agreed to hold a public hearing on Dec. 19.
On that day, interested parties from both sides will address the board, which will listen, recess and return with a decision to either uphold the hearing panel's recommendation or keep Headley behind bars.
JoEllen Lyons, a correction department spokeswoman, said contact by the public with victim services office is private, but 360 people have signed a petition to keep Headley behind bars, while he has received one letter of support.
The last time Headley came up for parole, a petition containing 616 signatures in opposition was filed, without any letters of support, Lyons said.
Headley declined a request to be interviewed for this article.
Sandy Burger and Headley were together only a few months before her family started noticing bruises.
Once, when she was sporting a black eye, she told her family that she had been hit by another woman in a bar fight, but she later admitted that Headley beat her.
''She tried to keep it from our mother. She was a young, single mom,'' Burger White said. At the time of her death, she had a 3-year-old daughter, Lucresia, who is now grown and married with children of her own.
At some point, Sandy Burger decided to end the relationship and planned an escape.
Night of March 22
On March 22, 1982, she left work early as a waitress at the Tea House Inn to move her possessions from the Harvard Avenue house to her mother's before Headley returned from his job as a Barberton bus driver.
After moving, the sisters went to Teresa's house for dinner.
When Headley came home and saw Sandy Burger's possessions were gone, he went looking and found her at Teresa's.
Sandy Burger told her sister she would be right back.
It was about 7 p.m. — the last time Teresa Burger White saw her sister alive.
''I've spent a lot of time praying about that night, trying not to be too hard on myself,'' she said.
Burger White called Headley's house about two hours later and asked to speak to Sandy. Headley gave her the same answer he would give Connie Burger, their mother, when she called around 11 p.m: Sandy was asleep and he couldn't wake her to come to the phone.
According to police reports, Headley started making calls of his own.
He called a friend, Louis ''Frank'' Matheny, around 1 a.m on March 23 and told him Sandy Burger would not wake up.
At 5:30 a.m., Headley called Matheny again and said she was still not awake.
Matheny dressed and went to the house. He couldn't find a pulse so he called paramedics.
The emergency medical team arrived around 7:10 a.m. and found Sandy Burger in a second-floor bedroom.
Investigators determined she had been moved after she was killed. Her cuts and bruises had been cleaned, and there were just a few traces of blood on the sweater and none on the blue denim skirt she was wearing.
Evidence of brutal attack
The rest of the house was a mess. Walls were damaged and furniture broken. Dried blood was on the wood floor in the downstairs dining room. In another room upstairs, investigators found wet towels spotted with blood, and in the nearby bathroom, toilet paper was damp and wadded in the sink.
As they moved through the home, investigators came across a blood-splattered quilt on the couch, and a bloody towel lay close by, near a telephone.
Sandy Burger was taken to the emergency room at Barberton Citizens Hospital and pronounced dead on arrival.
Teresa Burger White went to the hospital and met with Don Burroughs, an investigator for the Summit County coronor.
According to police reports, Burroughs later told the Barberton police chief that when Burger White left the hospital, she was screaming, ''That son of a bitch will get off because he's a cop's brother.''
Headley's brother was on the Barberton squad. His father was a well-known attorney in the community who had served in the Ohio House and Senate in the '70s.
At first, Headley denied killing Sandy Burger, although he admitted slapping her around.
Burger White said her mother didn't want to face a trial and thought it was best to agree to a plea bargain for Headley.
But the family did not understand the pain this would continue to inflict every time Headley came up for parole, Burger White said.
Troubled prison history
Headley's time in prison has not been stellar.
Including a brief stay at the Columbus Correctional Facility, the system's reception center, Headley has been transferred 15 times to different prisons in 25 years.
Lyons, the correction department spokeswoman, said she could not comment about his disciplinary record, but prison guidelines call for moving an inmate to an institution with higher security after a disciplinary problem.
At least four times, Headley was transferred to a prison with higher security.
In 1990, he was transferred to the Southern Ohio Correctional Facility in Lucasville for more than six months.
Two years later, he was sent back to Lucasville.
According to prison incident reports, Headley was in trouble in the early '90s for possessing marijuana, fighting with inmates, sending money to an inmate's relative, having a visitor show up with Valium and unauthorized gang activities.
In September 1998, he was transferred from the Level 1 and 2 Allen Correctional Institution to a medium-security facility, the Warren Correctional Institution.
Two months earlier, he was busted for marijuana, and prison officials discovered he was hiding a razor, a lighter and coffee in an electrical box that he had taken apart in his cell, according to state prison incident reports.
Less than a year later, he was in trouble again.
In June 1999, according to prison records, Headley was caught with marijuana once more and was charged with threatening other inmates with serious physical harm for not paying what they owed him for drugs.
Headley also was caught wearing a ''patch'' representing an unauthorized prison group.
Lyons said she is not permitted to provide details about gang activities among inmates.
''An unauthorized inmate group would be what we consider a security threat group,'' Lyons said.
Headley was transferred back to Lucasville for his third tour in the Scioto County prison.
On a number of occasions, Headley was placed in solitary confinement for days at a time.
In 1991, 1996, 2001, 2002 and 2004, Headley was eligible for parole, but the state denied his request each time.
In October 2001, when he came up for parole, he was labeled a ''serious threat to the institution.''
After being denied parole in 2001, Headley completed five mental health and substance abuse programs, in which his participation was rated ''good,'' one step below the highest mark of ''excellent.'' He has also enrolled in college and vocational training courses. In the '90s, he went to Bible classes.
But he did not participate in a recommended program titled Cage Your Rage, a fact that Teresa Burger White finds troubling.
Continuing to fight
Burger White said that because there was no trial, many details of her sister's murder were never made public, but she has pored over every record she could find in the past 25 years.
She also has watched the calendar, noting when Headley was eligible for a parole hearing, and then fought his release.
''I'm on a first-name basis with victim services in Columbus. I know the next step,'' Burger White said. ''I'm always trying to be ahead of the game.''
She said she could understand the prison system releasing Headley when he is 70 years old, has little time left to live and no longer poses a danger to anyone.
''He's 54 years old. He got 15 to life and he's been in there for 25 years,'' she said. ''He's still young, and he could come out and have a great life, walking the streets, seeing his family. We don't get my sister back.''
And she believes he is still a monster, capable of harming others, including members of the Burger family.
''I just die daily thinking this guy is going to be out walking the streets,'' she said. ''I'm frightened for myself and my family. I know he knows I've been out here keeping him in there.''
Dennis J. Willard can be reached at 614-224-1613 or dwillard@thebeaconjournal.com.
On a late March evening 25 years ago, with winter reluctantly ceding to the initial strains of spring, Sandy Burger fled in fear from the three-story home on Harvard Avenue in Barberton that she shared with Mark Headley, before he caught and dragged her back into the house.
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