Florence Burkard, a 78-year-old White woman, was killed inside her home on Milwaukee’s North Side on August 10, 1979. What began as an attack in her kitchen became an exceptionally violent homicide. Burkard was stabbed 43 times with a pair of scissors, with investigators determining that a wound penetrating her heart was fatal. Her body was ultimately found at the bottom of the basement stairs.
The discovery came when two volunteers from an organization serving elderly residents arrived at Burkard’s home to deliver a hot meal. Instead of finding her waiting for them, they encountered the aftermath of the attack. Contemporary reporting identified Burkard as a native of Sheboygan, while later accounts placed her killing among a series of violent home invasions that were terrorizing Milwaukee residents during the period.
For months, Burkard’s murder remained part of a larger investigation. Police eventually determined that several seemingly separate Milwaukee killings were connected to David Allen Van Dyke. Between July 1979 and April 1980, Van Dyke was responsible for a series of six murders in which victims were attacked inside their residences. Investigators concluded that he sometimes gained entry by asking to use a telephone or bathroom and then attacked occupants with objects found inside their homes. The victims were killed by stabbing or blunt-force attacks, and some of the residences were burglarized afterward. Burkard was identified as the second known victim in that series.
The investigation broke open after Van Dyke was arrested on May 23, 1980, in connection with an attempted burglary. Police compared his fingerprints with evidence connected to the homicide investigation and linked him to the murder series. During subsequent questioning, Van Dyke confessed to the killings, including Burkard’s death. Prosecutors charged him with six counts of first-degree murder, along with attempted murder and armed robbery charges arising from another attack.
Van Dyke went to trial in 1981. A surviving victim from one of his attacks testified against him, providing jurors with a firsthand account of his violence. Van Dyke took the witness stand in his own defense and acknowledged committing numerous burglaries but denied being responsible for the murders. He maintained that police had manufactured his confessions and attempted to distance himself from the killings despite the physical evidence and statements investigators attributed to him. After approximately four and a half hours of deliberations, the jury found him guilty on all charges.
Van Dyke received six life sentences for the murders, along with additional prison time for the other offenses. At the time, the punishment was described as the longest sentence imposed in Wisconsin history. The conviction ultimately gave investigators and Burkard’s family an answer to the question of who had entered her home and carried out the brutal attack that ended her life. Her August 1979 killing, initially one violent crime among several confronting Milwaukee police, was ultimately established as part of Van Dyke’s serial murder spree.
