Burrus Denies Killing Wife, Faking Accident : Trial: The 70-year-old testifies about the disagreement that led his wife to file for divorce, saying it did little to change their relationship.

Testifying on his own behalf for the first time, John Robert Burrus on Thursday denied killing his wife of 30 years during divorce proceedings in which she was trying to wrest control of an Oceanside apartment complex.

The 70-year-old former San Diego newspaper reporter told the Vista jury of eight women and four men that, even after his 75-year-old wife, Grace Burrus, filed for divorce in 1987, the two often shared the same bed and went on vacations together.

Burrus is accused of bludgeoning his estranged wife in June, 1990, then faking her death as a traffic accident. Grace Burrus’ body was found June 28 of that year near Borrego Springs. The body was thrown from her car as it went over a cliff near Montezuma Grade.

An autopsy showed that Grace Burrus was not killed in the car but had died hours earlier, and that her extensive head wounds could not have been caused by anything in the car or on the cliff.

The Burruses met in 1957 in Casper, Wyo., where John worked at a bank and Grace had opened an account. Her husband had recently passed away and left her a large and successful lumberyard, which she sold for $500,000.

On Thursday, Burrus testified that he and his wife kept their property distinctly separate, only once filing a joint tax account during their marriage.

They also kept separate bank accounts, and, on several occasions when Burrus borrowed money from his wife for his extensive real estate investments, he repaid her with interest, he testified.

The arrangement worked well until 1987, when Grace Burrus said she wanted control over a four-unit apartment complex in Oceanside that Burrus felt was his property but that his wife believed belonged to her or the two jointly, Burrus testified. Grace Burrus’ blind sister, June Edwards, lived there, and Grace wanted to make sure that, should she die, June would inherit the property and have a place to stay, Burrus said.

“I said it was my sole and separate property, and I’ll decide who lives there,” Burrus testified.

Shortly thereafter, Burrus said, his wife filed for divorce.

But the legal proceedings seemed to have little effect on the way the two interacted, he said. For example, the two went on a vacation to Texas for a Burrus family reunion a year and a half after the divorce was filed, Burrus testified.

“My wife and I slept together the night after she filed the divorce papers,” he said, adding that he still wears his wedding ring.

Burrus also testified to having a heavy drinking problem. His California driver’s license was suspended for driving under the influence of alcohol, but he applied for and received licenses from several other states, including Alaska, Nevada, Oregon, Wyoming and his home state of Missouri.

Burrus also had an alias of James R. Fuller in Alaska that he said he used to evade high automobile insurance rates because of his poor driving record.

When he retakes the witness stand Monday, Burrus is expected to testify about the days before and after his wife’s death.

Burrus has contended that on June 27, 1990, he and his wife were to drive separately from their Oceanside apartment to a property they own in the Salton Sea area. The two were to take different routes, since Burrus preferred the freeway while his wife stuck to rural roads.

It was on a road leading to the Salton Sea that his wife’s body was found.

Burrus returned to Oceanside to look for his wife when she did not show up at the Salton Sea apartments. When he did not find her, June Edwards wanted to file a missing-person’s report with the Oceanside police, but Burrus persuaded her it was unnecessary.

It wasn’t until June 28 that a group of friends and relatives retraced Grace Burrus’ route to the Salton Sea and found her body.