Daughter angered to learn her mom’s killer lived on the lam
LONDON, Ky. (AP) – A woman whose mother was killed decades ago says she was angry to learn that the Georgia man convicted of the crime went into hiding in Kentucky for nearly 40 years and is still alive.
Billy Burchfield was arrested last month in London, Kentucky, where he had lived since escaping a Georgia prison in 1979. He had been serving a sentence for voluntary manslaughter in the death of Vera Sue Burchfield.
The victim’s daughter, Janice Smith, told WTVC-TV in Chattanooga that before the shooting, her mother planned to make Burchfield leave. She says Burchfield shot her mother in their house.
She says when she found out he was still alive, “Oh, I got mad.”
Burchfield had been living under an assumed name. Police are extraditing him back to Georgia.
