Burrus Pleads Not Guilty in Death of Wife, 75 : Murder trial: Move to reduce $1-million bail is denied by judge. Defendant, who had driver’s licenses in four states, was considered a flight risk.

John Burrus pleaded not guilty Monday to the murder of his 75-year-old estranged wife of 30 years.

His bail was maintained at $1 million after the judge was told that Burrus had driver’s licenses in four states--including one with a different name.

Burrus, 70, is accused of bludgeoning Grace Burrus to death in her Oceanside apartment and then putting her body in her car and dumping it over the side of county Highway S-22 near Borrego Springs to make it look as if she had died in a traffic accident.

She died June 27, 1990, nine days before the couple were to begin a trial over their bitterly contested divorce and the division of more than $500,000 in property.

Because Burrus possessed concurrent driver’s licenses from four states, he was considered a flight risk by Vista Municipal Judge David Ryan, who ordered that bail remain at $1 million.

Burrus’ preliminary hearing was scheduled to begin Dec. 17.

Burrus’ attorney, Herb Weston, asked for a bail review hearing for Wednesday after he was unsuccessful Monday in getting his client’s bail reduced to $100,000. Weston said that, because Burrus owns property in Oceanside and Salton City in Imperial County, he has “ties” to the area that would keep him in the area for trial.

But Deputy Dist. Atty. Garrett Randall said the higher bail was appropriate because Burrus has driver’s licenses for California, Oregon, Missouri and Alaska--and that, in Alaska, he had a second driver’s license under the name James Ramus Fuller.

In several of his driver’s license pictures, Burrus is shown with a full-flowing white beard; in others, he is clean-shaven. To have gotten the multiple licenses, Randall said, Burrus would have had to claim he had no driver’s license in another state.

Burrus apparently got the driver’s license in Alaska with the name Fuller after showing authorities there a birth certificate with that name, Randall said.

The prosecutor later said he was “not really sure” why Burrus had multiple licenses.

Weston conceded outside the courtroom that he had not known that Burrus had driver’s licenses in Oregon and Missouri--but said it was not uncommon for people to have more than one license. In his client’s case, he said, another identity had been used in Alaska “because he wanted to get a different driving record for cheaper car insurance. He has too many tickets (in California), for speeding.”

Weston said of his client’s not-guilty plea: “He’s innocent, and he’s going to see it all the way through. He’s not guilty. He didn’t do it. And he’s not going to plea (bargain) to anything--not that the district attorney has offered anything.”

Weston argued before the judge that, if Burrus had wanted to evade authorities, he would not have left investigators in San Diego with his address and phone number in Anchorage, where he spends his summer months and where he was arrested Oct. 22, outside an apartment building he owns.

“If he was going to avoid prosecution, he would have fought extradition,” Weston told the judge.

The district attorney’s office has not decided whether to seek special circumstances, an option that could lead to the death penalty because of allegations that Burrus killed for financial gain.

Grace Burrus’ death was initially considered a traffic fatality after her body was found about 100 feet below a view turnout on S-22 as it approaches Borrego Springs down Montezuma Grade. Her car came to a rest further down the embankment.

Her body was found a day after her death by relatives after John Burrus told Oceanside police that she failed to meet him at their Salton City home.

But evidence led authorities to consider foul play. She was partly dressed, as if someone else had tried to put on her blouse and slacks, and the injuries her body sustained at the crash site, including broken ribs, did not bleed, indicating she was dead before the fall.

At her Oceanside apartment, investigators found her bedroom walls spattered with blood, and the passenger seat of her car was saturated with blood, suggesting that her body was placed there and driven to the crash scene.

Investigators never found the murder weapon.