In the quiet farming community of Hills, Iowa, a tragic story unfolded on a cold December day in 1985. Emily Burr, a 64-year-old woman, was in her farmhouse kitchen, reportedly baking cookies, when her life was abruptly ended. Her death marked the beginning of a violent rampage carried out by her husband of 40 years, 63-year-old Dale Burr. Overwhelmed by severe financial troubles and the prospect of losing his farm, Dale made a devastating series of choices that would shatter the peace of his
family and the local community.
After killing his wife, Dale Burr left their Lone Tree farm and drove his pickup truck to the Hills Bank & Trust. There, he shot and killed the bank's president, John Hughes. His violence did not end there. Burr then proceeded to the farm of Richard Goody, with whom he had been involved in a land dispute, and shot him as well. The string of brutal acts was fueled by a sense of desperation over his mounting debts and the fear of losing everything he had worked for his entire life.
The tragic events reached their conclusion when law enforcement located Dale Burr. As a sheriff's deputy closed in on his pickup truck on a gravel road near his farm, Dale took his own life with the same shotgun he had used on his victims. He left behind a note expressing his sorrow and his inability to cope with his problems any longer. In the end, Dale and Emily Burr were buried side by side in a cemetery near the farm that had been the source of both their livelihood and, ultimately, their tragic end. The incident left the small town of Hills in a state of shock, a stark and violent manifestation of the larger farm crisis that was gripping the nation at the time.
