Man’s Remains Found in Wife’s Storage Unit : Crime: When Darlene Bourk failed to pay the rent for the locker, its contents were sold. Stored with the wedding photos was her husband’s body.

For several months, Darlene Bourk failed to make the payments on her self-storage unit in Upland. When she discovered that the manager had auctioned off the half-dozen boxes, she frantically tried to contact the buyer.

Bourk expressed no interest in the box that contained her wedding photos, storage employees said. She did not care about the box with the pair of champagne glasses and wedding cake knife. She wanted only one particular wedding box, a box, as it turned out, that contained the body of the groom.

Before she could reclaim the box, the new owner discovered the corpse, and Bourk, 31, was arrested on suspicion of murder.

She has pleaded not guilty, the San Bernardino County district attorney’s office said Thursday.

Robert Bourk, who disappeared Dec. 22, 1996, would probably still be listed as missing if his wife had not fallen three months behind in her $25 monthly payments to Stor-King.

After a woman bought the contents of the unit, Bourk pleaded with Stor-King employees and left two notes on the storage unit, saying she would “give anything” to get the box back, said Susie Gonzalez, manager of the facility.

“All she wanted was that one box,” Gonzales said. “She said it belonged to her husband and she wanted it for her kids, for sentimental reasons. It was real important to her. She didn’t care about the other boxes, but she seemed really broken up about that one box.”

Bourk’s insistence piqued the interest of Stor-King employees and the woman who bought the six boxes for $20.

“The woman and her son were going to take the stuff to their house and go through it there,” Gonzalez said. “But because of the way Bourk acted, we were all real curious. So the son opened it here, right on the spot.”

Gonzales said a terrible odor emanated from the box, and everyone knew something was “terribly wrong.”

“The smell was awful,” she said. “My assistant manager didn’t even have to open the entire box. She immediately called police. We’re all still in shock.”

The wardrobe box was wrapped in heavy plastic sheeting and the decomposed body was enveloped in blankets and two tarpaulins and packed in sand.

Police arrested Bourk on Sept. 15, and she was arraigned Tuesday, said Upland police Lt. Ed Gray.

Bourk lived with the couple’s three young children in San Dimas, he said.

“I still can’t believe it because the woman seemed like such a nice, upstanding person,” Gonzalez said. “She was very petite and attractive and always very polite.”

The couple had been having marital problems at the time Robert Bourk, 27, disappeared, Gray said.

“When we received the initial missing person’s report, we looked into it,” Gray said. “But apparently it wasn’t unusual for this guy to drop out of sight for awhile.

“At the time he disappeared, they had been drawing up divorce papers. There were some restraining orders filed on both sides, although they were still living together.”

Maria Blackburn, the woman who purchased the boxes, planned to use the contents to stock a thrift store she is opening in Los Angeles. Police confiscated most of the contents and booked them as evidence. Blackburn was allowed to keep a few items, including wedding pictures of a smiling groom.

“He looks like a nice, handsome man,” Blackburn said.

She plans to mail them to Bourk’s mother.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.