Let me give you my version of what happened: I don’t believe any of those four kids killed John Pius Jr. I don’t believe Burke was involved. I have a pretty good idea who did it, but that is another story.
Those kids, or most of them were accomplished burglars, the oldest being 17. Ask them today and they will probably deny it. One of those kids told me he was a burglar, and added that Burke was the leader of the gang. He added, Burke was so good at planning the jobs they were never caught. The kid say they did anywhere from 50-100 burglaries. He did so many he could bring me back to the neighborhood and still remember some of the houses and stores he robbed.
The kids peddled drugs. My source said Burke peddled drugs as early as Junior High School.
Most of these kids were bad kids. Don’t know who was good and who was bad, but many of them were bad. So when the time came to pin in on someone…..what the heck put it on the kids because they deserve to go to jail for something.
Two kids ‘confessed’ within weeks. One kid’s confession was taped. Nothing happened. When Tankleff ‘confessed’ they locked him up. These kids they took a pass on.
What I believe happens is Burke does a burglary with another group of kids and gets caught. One of those kids that lived up the block from him is one of the new witnesses in the case. That fellow, a Danny C would go on to commit more crimes and has recently gone to jail and has since been released. Danny and Jimmy are old pals going back in the days.
Jimmy and Danny give a lot of testimony just short of saying the kids confessed to them. They would say: 1. we went to the funeral with our Grateful Dead jackets on. 2. We were laughing at the funeral. 3. When asked why they did it, one kid said what would you do if you were drunk and some kid saw you steal a mini-bike. 4. How are you dealing with the cops? Ans: too much time has gone by and the pigs will never catch us. 5. I was there but didn’t hit the kid, all I did was place his bike against the tree. FALSE! Because when Pius was found the bike was NOT against the tree, it was buried under the leaves. All Burke knew and his criminal pals in the DA office is when the cops got to the body the bike was against the tree and that is what the crime scene photos showed.
IMO, those kids didn’t kill Pius, someone else did and for a different reason.