Strange Sad Story of Dr. Donna Anderson
Maggie
Fear, paranoia engulfed Dr. Donna Anderson before 13-year-old son slain
Howie Padilla and Chris Graves
Published Mar 3, 2002
In the 48 hours before her 13-year-old son's fatal stabbing, the usually
cheerful and brilliant Dr. Donna Anderson spoke in frantic, fearful bursts
mixed with whispers about betrayal.
She started a 2,000-mile trek from Shoreview to California, but she drove only
450 miles before leaving her crammed red Toyota Corolla in Kansas City and
flying to San Francisco. Anderson left behind the house she shared with her
son, a lunch date with her mother and perplexed neighbors.
California investigators have been in the Twin Cities area to gather clues
about Anderson, her son, Stephen Burns, and the days leading to his death.
The obstetrician is now charged with killing Stephen on Feb. 24 in Burlingame,
Calif., where he was visiting his father and grandparents.
The picture that is emerging of Anderson, 48 -- described as an academically
gifted woman who once studied with anthropologist Jane Goodall in Tanzania --
is of a woman who has grown increasingly paranoid.
Anderson's neighbor Betsy Dickman became concerned while talking with her just
before she left their upper-middle-class Shoreview neighborhood on Feb. 22. "I
asked her if she was OK," Dickman said, recalling that Friday.
"No, I don't think so," Anderson responded, seeming tired and nervous.
"Something very bad has happened."
Someone, she whispered to her neighbor, had betrayed her. Someone very close.
"It's a classic case of paranoia," said Chief Inspector Mike Dirickson of the
district attorney's office in San Mateo County. "It's like there was an
ever-enlarging circle of conspiracy."
Another glimpse into that came Wednesday in an impromptu court hearing in San
Mateo, when Anderson told a judge that she believed a relative involved in
child pornography was funding her defense.
In another hearing Friday, she said she wanted to plead guilty to charges of
killing her son and attempting to kill her former husband, Frank Burns. But the
judge ordered Anderson to undergo two psychological exams to determine whether
she is competent for trial and able to assist her lawyer in her defense.
Even before Friday, Anderson's attorney, Jeff Boyarsky, said he planned to have
a psychological evaluation done. "They are pretty standard in cases like this,"
he said.
Authorities said that on the morning of Feb. 24, Anderson walked into an
Albertson's grocery store in Burlingame, bought a 7-inch kitchen knife and half
a cantaloupe, then went to Burns' home. She had a short but amicable
conversation with her ex-husband and went into a back bedroom, where Stephen
was on the phone talking to his cousin, authorities said.
The boy was stabbed more than a dozen times.
"He was dead or dying" when his father ran to the bedroom, said Burlingame
police Cmdr. Bradley Floyd.
Burns restrained Anderson and was stabbed in the leg, police said. She has been
described as calm and lucid when police arrested her.
Seeking answers in the case, Dirickson and Inspector Ivan Grosshauser searched
Anderson's house in Shoreview and took documents Friday. Earlier in the week,
they found Anderson's car at the Kansas City International Airport, but it
hasn't yet been searched. Investigators plan to search her computer, which is
in the car.
Dirickson and Grosshauser said they were no closer to answering what prompted
the killing.
"What we need to do now is to go back to California and put all of the pieces
of the puzzle together," Dirickson said. "This is just one piece."
Mother and son
Among the pieces the investigators sought to develop in Minnesota is the
relationship between Stephen and Anderson.
Neighbors have described her as a doting mother who took pride in her son's
accomplishments. But Dirickson and Grosshauser said their interviews with those
close to the mother and son paint a slightly different picture.
"The story is the same no matter whom we talk to," Dirickson said. "If you knew
her for a short period of time, you thought she was wonderful. If you really
got to know her though, you could see that something was wrong."
He described a hurried mother with little time for her son, a seventh-grader at
the Blake School in Hopkins.
"She went to work often when it wasn't necessary and she kept him so occupied
that he didn't have time to miss her," Dirickson said.
Stephen played the French horn, baseball and basketball and spent a lot of time
studying to do well at the academically challenging school.
"She had a lot of demands for him, but it seems like he met them," Dirickson
said.
Stephen had seen a counselor nine times in the past two years, Dirickson said.
He said investigators had interviewed the counselor, but declined to say what
that revealed.
Grew up in St. Paul
Anderson grew up in St. Paul, where Dale Warland, a former neighbor, remembers
her as the kind of teenager every parent would love to call their own, and said
she was "driven to excel."
"She was extremely bright; a dear, sweet person," he said. "She was one of
those that you knew would do great things," he said. "Her parents were
extremely proud of her."
A 1982 graduate of George Washington University School of Medicine, Anderson
wrote that her medical schooling was paid for by the National Health Services
Corps. To fulfill an obligation to that corps, she said, she worked in Jackson,
Miss., for four years.
She moved to California, where she practiced medicine. She and Frank Burns were
married in 1988. The following year, Stephen was born. But in 1993, the couple
divorced and a custody battle ensued.
After she and Stephen returned to Minnesota in 1999, she worked at Regions
Hospital and at HealthPartners. She resigned from both posts in early January.
Although the resignation has been termed voluntary, some coworkers indicated
Saturday to Dirickson and Grosshauser that she was asked to leave.
The Minnesota ties
Other investigators have talked with Stephen's nanny of more than five years,
who hurriedly left Minnesota for Texas a week ago. Investigators also have
interviewed Burns and his relatives to piece together the days before Stephen's
slaying.
Investigators confirmed that Anderson and her son flew to San Francisco six
days before his death and that she later returned to Minnesota.
The owner of a shipping service described Anderson as distraught when she
arrived there on Feb. 22 to send seven boxes of Stephen's belongings to
California. She told Kevin Reich, the owner of a Mail Boxes Etc. in North Oaks:
"We have to get out of here. I have to go."
The neighbor, Betsy Dickman, described Anderson similarly. "It was the first
time I had ever seen Donna look anything but happy and full of smiles," she
said of the conversation she had with Anderson that afternoon.
There had been no warning that Anderson, Stephen or nanny Mary Lou Staight
would be leaving until Dickman returned home from work. Her kids ran up,
telling her that Anderson said she and Stephen were moving. Anderson had
dropped Stephen's French horn at Dickman's house, asking that the family return
it to a Roseville music store.
When Dickman saw Anderson backing out of the driveway, she approached the car.
"Donna what are you doing?" Dickman asked. "The kids said you are leaving."
"Something has happened," Anderson replied. "I have to leave right away.
Something very bad has happened."
As the 10-minute conversation went on, Dickman's thoughts turned to Stephen's
safety.
"Donna, where is Stephen?" she asked. "Is Stephen OK?"
"He is out of the state," Anderson said. "He is not coming back. We are never
coming back."
An hour later, Anderson and the nanny returned home, tried to pack more things
into Anderson's car and left. The nanny left the Twin Cities later that
weekend.
Investigators say that Anderson made it to Kansas City before she parked her
car at the airport Saturday, bought a plane ticket and boarded a plane.
"I think she just got tired of driving," Dirickson said.
On the following Sunday afternoon, Dickman saw an unfamiliar car in Anderson's
driveway. It was Dorothy Anderson, who showed up at her daughter's home in
hopes of keeping a 2 p.m. lunch date, Dickman said.
"The mom wasn't surprised she didn't keep the lunch date because Donna had
called her from Iowa," Dickman said. "She said Donna was driving out to
California."
The women in Shoreview had no idea that as they spoke in Donna Anderson's home,
she was in custody in Burlingame in her son's slaying.
Dorothy Anderson couldn't be reached Saturday. But the doctor's sister-in-law,
Deborah Anderson, said the family didn't know what led to Stephen's killing.
"This is a tragedy," she said. "A tragedy of losing two people."
-- Howie Padilla is at hpad...@startribune.com .-- Chris Graves is at
cgr...@startribune.com .
Maggie
"Human beings, who are almost unique in having the ability to learn from the
experience of others, are also remarkable for their apparent disinclination to
do so."--Douglas Adams.
jan_49
"Maggie" <maggi...@aol.comSPAMBLOC> wrote in message
news:20020304185259...@mb-fc.aol.com...
DedNdogYrs
Dogs & children first.
jan_49
"DedNdogYrs" <dednd...@aol.com> wrote in message
news:20020305082547...@mb-cl.aol.com...
> I wonder why these schizophrenic women always pick their children as
victims.
Because they are extensions of them.