Drifter eyed in unsolved beach slayings

SAN FRANCISCO (AP) — Two couples fatally shot more than 30 years apart while camping in different countries may have been victims of the same man: a drifter who authorities say was a religious zealot and disapproved of relationships between unmarried couples.

Joseph Henry Burgess, 62, who died in a July 16 shootout with New Mexico sheriff’s deputies, had been wanted in Canada as a suspect in the 1972 murders of two university students on a Vancouver Island beach and may be linked to more killings.

Investigators in Sonoma County, Calif., wanted to talk to him. The fatal shootings of two camp counselors whose bodies were found on a Jenner beach in 2004 bore a striking resemblance to the crime up north.

But Burgess’ nomadic lifestyle had kept his whereabouts a mystery.

He is believed to have spent the past decade burglarizing cabins in New Mexico’s Jemez Mountains, where he was nicknamed the “Cookie Bandit” for purportedly stealing food, boots and other goods. Deputies conducting a stakeout in hopes of catching the Cookie Bandit were confronted by Burgess, leading to a gunbattle that left him and Sgt. Joe Harris dead.

Much remains unknown about Burgess, including how he got to New Mexico from Canada and where exactly he stopped along the way.

Investigators in Canada and California now are looking to New Mexico for information, such as a diary or people with whom Burgess had contact, that could tie him to their cold cases — and possibly others.

“It would appear from the end result of the incident down in New Mexico, he carried on with the same sort of lifestyle,” said Dan Creally, a retired Royal Canadian Mounted Police officer who helped investigate the 1972 slayings on Vancouver Island. “There is good reason to suspect that there could have very well have been other [killings] between ’72 and 2009 that he became involved in.”

Police Lt. Ramon Casaus says investigators also have received calls from law-enforcement agencies as far away as Wisconsin and Seattle to see whether Burgess may have been connected to crimes there.

New Mexico state police say they’re trying to determine how Burgess got the weapon he used during the shootout — a .357 revolver registered to David Eley, a New Mexico resident who was reported missing in 2007 from the same area where Burgess was suspected of breaking into cabins.