Ted and Ann - The Mystery of a Missing Child and Her Neighbor Ted Bundy by Rebecca Morris

Author:Rebecca Morris [Morris, Rebecca]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Crime Rant Classics
Published: 2011-11-22T05:00:00+00:00

10

Life Without Ann

“ADOPTED GIRL HELPS to Fill Aching Void,” said the headline in The Tacoma News Tribune. In the summer of 1963, two years after Ann disappeared, the Burrs adopted a baby girl. Bev probably contacted the newspapers herself. It seemed like a happy ending, or as close to one as the Burrs would have. But Bev also had another reason for publicizing the adoption.

In newspaper photographs, Bev and the children (Julie, now nine; Greg, seven; and Mary, now five), show off the new baby. She was blonde and brown-eyed, and the article said that the baby’s…“cries, laughter, and hiccups are a welcome addition to the household.”

As The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported on July 18, 1963: “No one can ever take the place of Ann Marie in our hearts,” said Mrs. Donald Burr yesterday, as she presented publicly for the first time the new baby girl she and her husband recently adopted. The new baby, Laura Gayle, about seven months, woke up smiling. She seemed pure sunshine in the house at 3009 N. 14th St., Tacoma, where for nearly two years now there have been heavy mists of sadness and worry.”

When a reporter noticed that there were only pictures of Julie, Greg, and Mary on the walls, Bev, “suppressing a sob,” went to another room and brought out Ann’s picture, explaining:

“I had to take it down and put it in the other room because I just couldn’t take it any more looking at the four of them together.”

The story went on to explain how Bev felt that adopting a baby “perhaps would help the whole family.” She and Don had applied to an agency, and then one day, received a phone call.

“We didn’t know if it was a boy or a girl until we went down and got her,” Mrs. Burr recalled yesterday. “When we got there they said, ‘Oh, does it make any difference if it’s a boy or a girl?’ and we said, ‘No,’ and when they said ‘It’s a girl,’ I think I was glad.

“Each day we pray for little Ann, but there is always an emptiness as there was that first night, as though there will be no answer this time. Not like other prayers, when one feels God is listening.”

For Bev, sharing news of the adoption was another opportunity to try and find Ann.

“In our hearts, we wish the whole world could stop just a moment and look next door to see if Ann is there.” Bev was quoted as calling Laura “a perfect baby.” She would grow up to be the least-troubled of Bev’s children.

Just after Bev and Don adopted Laura, the nation’s most famous Catholic visited Tacoma. It was the last stop on John Kennedy’s cross-country tour “to save America’s heritage.” Kennedy delivered “a short, impassioned address” on preserving natural resources to 25,000 people crowded into Cheney Stadium (where searchers had looked for Ann’s body two years before when it was a construction site). Bev—who was still trying to decide if her Catholic faith was a solace or not—followed the president’s visit closely.

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