Bail Halved for Man Charged With Killing His Wife

Murder suspect John Burrus’ bail was cut in half Wednesday, from $1 million to $500,000, but his defense attorney said Burrus--accused of killing his estranged, 75-year-old wife last year--still isn’t expected to get out of jail.

Burrus, meanwhile, is doing poorly in the County Jail in downtown San Diego, where he is being held because of his age, attorney Herb Weston said.

Burrus was hospitalized briefly last week for a possible heart attack that was determined to be chest pains caused by stress, Weston said. Burrus takes nitroglycerin pills for his heart condition, Weston said.

Weston said that Burrus’ “biggest complaint is that he’s freezing in jail. When I see him, he has towels wrapped around him, trying to keep warm.”

Burrus is 69. Previously, his age was published as 70, based on a Sheriff’s Department report when he was arrested in Anchorage last month, where he maintains a summer residence and owns an apartment building.

Vista Municipal Judge David Ryan was asked by Weston to reduce Burrus’ bail to $100,000, but Ryan agreed only to cut it to $500,000.

The bail reduction, Ryan said, was based on a court review of what ties he had to the community and the fact that he owns an apartment building in Oceanside.

But Ryan wouldn’t reduce the bail further because of the prosecutor’s arguments that Burrus was a flight risk, given that he has driver’s licenses in California, Alaska, Missouri and Oregon and the possibility that he also has licenses in New Mexico and Nevada.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Garrett Randall said after Wednesday’s hearing that he wasn’t surprised by the bail reduction, but not pleased by it either.

“I think he is a serious flight risk, that if he makes bail, he would leave the jurisdiction,” Randall said. “And anybody we charge with murder is obviously a danger to our community” if released from jail.

Randall told the judge he was worried that Burrus could hide from prosecutors because “he essentially has financial resources spread out over the country.”

But Weston countered that his client has driver’s licenses and bank accounts based on where he has lived in past years, or where he has relatives, and that there was nothing extraordinary about them.

Burrus, a former reporter for the San Diego Union and two smaller North County newspapers before that, is charged with the murder of his wife just nine days before the couple was to begin a divorce trial over the division of their assets. Prosecutors say that the more than $500,000 in contested property was the motive for the killing.

Sheriff’s homicide investigators allege that Burrus struck his wife on the head with a blunt object in the bedroom of her Oceanside apartment June 27, 1990, then put her body in her car and drove it over the side of a steep embankment along County Highway S-22 as it winds down the Montezuma Grade approaching Borrego Springs.

He reported to police that same day that his wife failed to meet him as scheduled at their Salton City apartment.

The next day, her family members found her body.

John Burrus was questioned by authorities, then made his annual summer trip to Anchorage, where he was arrested.