THE husband of a woman whose remains were recently identified after she went missing 16 years ago has been named a person of interest in the case, cops say.
Jeana Burrus was never reported missing when she disappeared sometime in 2006. Now, her husband, James Burrus, has been named a person of interest in the case.
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Burrus' remains were found in a shallow grave on February 6, 2007, in Sarasota County, Florida.
But they weren't positively identified as hers until recently.
The case went cold until November 2022 when DNA technology advancement made it possible to identify Burrus' remains.
The Sarasota County Sheriff's Office confirmed to NewsNation that they've spoken to both James and the couple's son, James Jr. about Jeana's disappearance and death.
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“Her husband, it’s our understanding left the state of Florida, went out west to California eventually ended up in Maryland shortly after the time that she was last seen,” Sarasota County Sheriff Kurt Hoffman told the outlet.
Hoffman also said that investigators traveled to Maryland to speak with James but that the man's answers weren't satisfactory.
“They don’t appear to be answers that are rational from a person who was married to somebody and they disappeared," Hoffman said.
"And then he moved out of state and never called authorities to report her missing."
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Investigators have only been able to link two other relatives - an aunt and an uncle - to Jeana.
“Her aunt and uncle were interviewed. They were actually the party that had put their DNA into a familial DNA database that connected us to them, and then eventually to Jeana’s father,” Hoffman said.
"They were living out of state and just assume that she had drifted out of their life and had not contacted them.
"They were not aware that she was missing.”
COLD CASE REOPENED
Burrus' whereabouts weren't questioned by her family, according to the sheriff's office.
In fact, some of her relatives didn't know she had died until recently.
Burrus' uncle, Clare George Wiedmaier, told the Herald-Tribune that his niece stopped contacting him in 2006.
Eventually, though, he was able to reach her husband.
“And we were given a story,” Wiedmaier told the Herald-Tribune.
But Wiedmaier couldn't comment further as the investigation is active.
However, he did say that the same story was given to both Burrus' stepfather and brother.
It was Wiedmaier's wife who then used AncestryDNA in 2022 which provided a match for Burrus, leading investigators to positively identify her remains.
Wiedmaier told the Herald-Tribune that most of Burrus' relatives live in Maryland, where she and James were known to have resided before living in Sarasota.
“We were waiting for her to show up anytime, especially around the birthdays, like she did in the past, knock on our door,” Wiedmaier said.
But it was only recently that Wiedmaier and his wife learned that Burrus died.
“It wasn’t pleasant news,” he told the outlet.
“It was tearful news. Shocking. We refused to believe it.”
THE CASE EVOLVES
When Burrus' remains were found in 2007, she was found in a three-foot hole, the Herald-Tribune reported.
A 14-year-old boy stumbled upon a bone, which his mother, a nurse, realized belonged to a human.
Burrus' decomposing body, as reported by the outlet, was found on its side, with a knee bent up into the air.
She was fully clothed in a shirt and skirt with a leather belt, plus underwear and two pairs of socks, according to the outlet.
But she did not have shoes.
Investigators believe Burrus was carried to the grave for this reason.
"This is not your normal homicide area," crime scene technician Maxine Miller told the Herald-Tribune at the time.
"This is an area that someone has obviously taken great care to obfuscate the fact that there is a body here."
Dr. Russell Vega, a medical examiner, told the Herald-Tribune in 2010 that the body was likely in the grave for seven to 12 months before being found.
Vega also said at the time that the body showed signs of trauma, including skull fractures, leading detectives to deem the case a homicide.
He looked to identify the body back then through dental records and the fact that she had silicone breast implants.
But Vega kept hitting dead ends.
And at the time, DNA technology wasn't advanced enough to identify Burrus, nor were there any existing matches.
Now, 16 years after the remains were first found, police are asking for the public's help in tracking down Burrus' husband and other relatives who might have more information about the case.
Anyone who may have known Burrus or her husband is urged to contact Sarasota County Sheriff’s Office Detective Brian Ng at (941) 861-4900.
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The U.S. Sun has reached out to the Sarasota County Sheriff's Office for additional information.
