Crimes jolt N.H. tourist town

Not this year.

As the tourist season officially opened this weekend, visitors and returning summer residents found the town awash in talk of a killing - a school nurse brutally stabbed - and the drug bust of a town official.

Here on the wooded shores of Lake Winnipesaukee, the year-round population of 6,500 has been rocked by the unsolved slaying of Stacey Burns, 41, a native of Natick, Mass., and a mother of five, whose children found her stabbed body in her bedroom on Mother's Day morning.

Two weeks after the killing, the first in Wolfeboro in almost 30 years, investigators have named no suspects and made no arrests. State Police spent six days sifting through evidence inside the victim's big, buttercup yellow, Federal-style home on tree-canopied North Main Street, and have interviewed more than 50 people, but have given no hint of when they might make an arrest.

"The community has been turned upside-down," Town Clerk Pat Waterman said. "It's something we never thought we would see."

Wolfeboro, 85 miles north of Boston, bills itself as "America's Oldest Summer Resort" and draws a seasonal parade of moneyed, high-profile guests. Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney owns a home there; French President Nicolas Sarkozy visited in 2007. Talk around town typically turns to taxes or big-money real estate transactions.

But townspeople were feeling unsettled even before the shock of the stabbing. In April, news broke that a former Wolfeboro police commissioner who is now an overseer of the town's voter list had been arrested and charged with drug trafficking after State Police in Illinois stopped him in March for speeding and allegedly found 900 pounds of marijuana in his truck. A longtime resident active in local affairs, James Lowry told police he was returning from a ski trip.

Lowry's arrest seemed sure to be the big news of the year. But then, weeks later, came the savage killing, committed in the victim's home while two of her five children and several of their friends were present. Police, who responded to a 911 call from the house that morning, have been tight-lipped about the details.

The death of Burns hit the small town hard. A graduate of Natick High School, North Adams State College, and the Framingham State College graduate program in nursing, she was described by friends as warm and bubbly. At Carpenter Elementary School, where she worked as the school nurse, students and parents adored her.

"Kids went to her office for a cough drop even when they didn't have a cough," said Wendy Hutchinson, a local store owner. "She had a way of making them feel better, and not just in the physical sense."

The Burns children - a 15-year-old boy, 12- and 9-year-old girls, and 7-year-old twins - attend three different schools in town, adding to the widespread sense of loss.

The town clerk, whose office is next to the Carpenter school, said Burns had waved to her every morning as she headed into work, her twins in tow, a pink Vera Bradley bag on her arm.

Dave Belleau, who lives next door, said Burns was an ideal neighbor, constantly tending her lawn and worrying that her children were too noisy. The busy mom and her minivan were a familiar sight on Main Street, en route to lacrosse or music lessons with her children. "We look out now, and that scene is not there, and it's so sad," said Belleau.

Behind the scenes was a deeply troubled marriage, described in court papers filed by Burns in her recent divorce. Married for 17 years to Edward J. Burns Jr., 47, a merchant marine and the father of her five children, Stacey Burns sought to end the marriage because of her husband's drinking, abuse, anger, and threats, according to documents in Ossipee family court.

While home from long trips at sea, Edward Burns berated her constantly, Stacey Burns alleged, for the way she cooked and the way she dressed, for failing to supervise the children's homework and for serving them "sugared cereal." He forced himself on his wife sexually, she said, and woke her at 4 one morning in July 2007 to threaten her with "death before divorce."

"This is a man that is angry," Stacey Burns wrote in a statement to police, "and will hurt me if he is not forced to stay away."

Edward Burns responded with an accusation of his own: that his wife had carried on an adulterous affair, destroying their marriage and placing their children at risk, according to court papers.

Stacey Burns sought and received a restraining order, but her husband objected and a judge dismissed it in November because the couple had had routine contact around their children without incident. Their divorce was granted in December, but Edward Burns was appealing the financial terms of the settlement.

On the morning their mother was found dead, the three youngest children were with their father, investigators said. Edward Burns, who lives in Winchester, in western New Hampshire, has custody of all five children since his former wife's death. He did not respond to a request for comment. Relatives of Stacey Burns who live in Natick also did not return a call from a reporter.

Investigators are not saying whether they have a suspect. But New Hampshire Senior Assistant Attorney General Jeffery A. Strelzin offered the town reassurance, saying that the information gleaned so far does not suggest the public should feel threatened.

Still, with police saying little, rumors have run rampant, and the wait for an arrest is taking a toll.

"I tell you, I don't sleep well at night," said Paulette Muller, who lives in the neighborhood. "If I saw an arrest, I'd feel more comfortable in my own home."