| News & Record Clatchy-Tribune Regional News SAVE MONEY ON TRAVEL DEALS Jul. 8--REIDSVILLE -- Bill Warren tried to see the good in Patrick Tracy Burris. Burris would lie about the smallest of things and make you believe him, said Warren, who is his great uncle. But he was a hard worker and got along well with the other employees in Warren's construction business. Warren said he tried to help Burris when he was in trouble "because I really needed him, and he was a good worker." Police say Burris, 41, killed five people in Gaffney, S.C., before police in Gastonia shot and killed him Monday while investigating a burglary complaint. Burris was no stranger to law enforcement in Rockingham County, where he had convictions that include blackmail, common law robbery, larceny, forgery and breaking and entering. He had been released from prison for two months when South Carolina authorities say he went on a killing spree. But Warren said he never saw anything in Burris' character to make him think he'd commit a crime as serious as murder. Burris was born in Maryland and also lived in Florida, but came to Rockingham County to work for Warren when he was 18 years old, Warren said. He got along well with others, and Warren said he never knew him to carry a gun or drink heavily. The closest Burris ever came to violence was when he competed in Roughman boxing contests, Warren said. "He got with the wrong crowd, I guess." But authorities in Rockingham County remember an entirely different person. Reidsville police Lt. Ken Hanks was watching the news Monday night when he suddenly found himself taken back more than a decade. "As soon as I saw it on the news, I recalled the name", he said. In 1993, Hanks was doing undercover drug work on Pennsylvania Avenue when Burris opened fire nearby with a rifle. It turned out that Burris had just been robbed by drug dealers in the area, Hanks said. Hanks followed Burris' truck out to near N.C. 158, where he stopped him. "His vehicle was just full of guns and ammunition", Hanks said. That arrest -- Burris was charged with firing a gun within city limits -- was one in a long string that spans three decades. Hanks said he was not shocked to see what Burris has been linked to in South Carolina. "It would probably surprise me if some people I put in jail many times did something like that. With Patrick, it doesn't", he said. "I would classify Patrick as a person who had the capacity to be violent, right from my first encounter with him." Burris used his hulking size -- officers described him as standing 6-foot-8 and weighing 240 pounds after a 2001 arrest -- to intimidate. "He was a very big guy", said Rockingham Sheriff Sam Page, who encountered Burris in 1996 while an officer with the Eden Police Department. "That's the kind of guy you don't forget because he was just such a massive fellow. "I think I probably pegged him as a bully", Page said. "He never came across the right guy who would take him down a notch." In the 1996 case, Page said Burris extorted money from an elderly man, using his size to force the man into giving him money to buy drugs. The case fell apart, though, when the victim refused to testify, and the county's then-district attorney dismissed it, Page said. "I think he was just scared", Page said of the victim. Burris spent much of his adult life in and out of prison. His last conviction in October 2001 for a string of break-ins, coupled with his already long record, earned him a 10-year sentence. Warren said Burris called him while in prison. He never wanted to go back, he told Warren, and he was getting his life together. Burris called him the day he was released and spoke of plans to get a job in Gastonia, Warren said. After his April 29 release, Burris was to be on post-release supervision for nine months. When he failed to show up for a meeting with his parole officer, correction officials swore out a warrant against him for violating his release conditions, said Mike Stater, a spokesman for the N.C. Department of Correction. "Some people go to prison and come out changed", Page said. "Some people never change and only learn to be more violent. That seems to be the case here." Contact Jonnelle Davis at 627-4881, Ext. 126, or jonnelle.davis@news-record.com Contact Jason Hardin at 373-7021 or jason.hardin@news-record.com
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