Late that Saturday afternoon, her bloodied corpse was discovered dumped in high weeds in a far corner of a Charlestown playground. Soon after, though, according to at least one witness, the couple left the scene together, "like friends."īut family and friends never saw Terry Burhoe alive again. In the back seat of a car, he allegedly put a knife to the girl's throat and threatened to kill her because she had refused sex with him. The encounter proved volatile, as Burhoe resisted Durham's advances, according to later police accounts. In the heat of a summer night, and as the time in the courtyard spread into the early morning hours of Saturday, July 11, Durham decided to hit on Terry Burhoe. The shop owner had chased Durham, and the young man faced armed robbery charges. He had burglarized a suburban home and then robbed a local doughnut shop, using a knife he liked, called a "007" switchblade. Durham, meanwhile, was already on a felonious career track. Burhoe came from another project across town, and in the months leading up to July 10 she had taken to climbing out of the top-floor bedroom window of her apartment - the rebellious uncoiling that comes to a girl who is trying her hardest to act older than she is. The only action for Durham and Terry Burhoe and their friends was on the gritty streets and in the tiny outdoor courtyards of the Bunker Hill housing development, a sprawling, low-slung project made up of squat brick buildings.
But celluloid escape was beyond the tight confines of Charlestown and, on this night, beyond the reach of these homebound Townies. At theaters in nearby Somerville, Harrison Ford was captivating audiences in Raiders of the Lost Ark, and Roger Moore was coolly posing as James Bond in For Your Eyes Only. Her brown hair, cut in a shag, framed her pretty face. Burhoe came to the courtyard wearing Sassoon blue jeans, a short-sleeved shirt with purple and white stripes, and her Dr. Durham tried staying cool by wearing loose T-shirts and gym shorts and sneakers. The weather was hot, the latest in a string of rainless, 90-degree days. In were rockers like Pat Benatar, whose Precious Time was fast becoming one of the year's top-selling albums. By this night, July 10, 1981, disco was out. Burhoe was known to love music and, as a preteen, had discoed in her living room.
Drinking, smoking pot, music blaring, and young Townies idling in and around parked cars. It was another weekend night, which meant another party. The two teens - Terry Burhoe was only 14 and in eighth grade - were hanging out in a courtyard of a neighborhood housing project. ON A LANGUID SUMMER NIGHT IN CHARLESTOWN, an 18-year-old troublemaker named Patrick John Durham set his stare on blue-eyed Mary Theresa Burhoe.
0 kommentar(er)
