Bucks woman held in killing of estranged husband

The weekend before he was killed, Bucks County airline pilot Michael Burklund traveled to New York to meet, for the first time, about 10 other members of an online support group he had joined.

The group's common thread: spouses or ex-spouses with mental-health issues.

After hearing about Burklund's estranged wife, Dorleen, "I begged him not to return" to his Kintnersville home, Angela Clarkson, an Ohio woman who attended the gathering, said Friday in an interview.

"He didn't really express concerns," added Jeff Bishop, a North Carolina man who also was there. "But he told some stories that had some of us concerned."

At 3 p.m. Oct. 3 - eight days after the New York trip - state police were called to the Burklunds' home on Mink Road in Springfield Township. In the master bedroom upstairs, Michael Burklund, 46, lay face-down on the floor, his body riddled with eight bullet wounds.

Dorleen Burklund sat on the front porch. "I shot him," she volunteered, according to Trooper Edward Theodore, who testified Friday at a preliminary hearing.

She directed Theodore not only to the body, but to a still-loaded Smith & Wesson revolver on the kitchen counter.

That was the extent of the testimony given before Dorleen Burklund, 49, was ordered held for trial on homicide charges.

But her attorney, Michael J. Diamondstein, said afterward, "There certainly is more to this case than meets the eye."

Neither he nor First Assistant District Attorney Michelle Henry would comment on Dorleen Burklund's mental health or the motive for the shooting. But in light of her online postings about her husband's alleged infidelities, District Attorney David W. Heckler has said her mental state would be explored.

She and Michael Burklund, a pilot for United Airlines, had long been separated, Clarkson and Bishop said Friday. But Dorleen Burkland had recently, and unexpectedly, returned to the home.

Henry confirmed that the couple, who married in 1990, were in the midst of a divorce.

They had one son, Gabriel, 18, who was at the house when the shooting occurred. He attended Friday's hearing but did not testify.

The online support group focused on spouses of people with borderline personality disorder, Clarkson said, but members told Burklund that his wife seemed psychotic.

Amid excursions on a river cruise and a trip to a comedy club, they said, Michael Burklund told of his wife accusing him of fathering a child out of wedlock. She also was convinced that neighbors were spying and eavesdropping on her, they said he told them.

Burklund said he had tried to appease his wife by paying a security company $3,000 to sweep the home for listening devices. For all the good it did, Bishop said, "he wished he had burned the money in the fireplace; at least he would have gotten a few BTUs out of it."

More ominously, they said, Dorleen Burklund allegedly had taken a shotgun that her husband kept in his closet for protection.

By the day of the shooting, Clarkson said, Michael Burklund had left the house and was staying temporarily with neighbors. He had apparently returned that afternoon to gather some clothes for an out-of-town flight.

Henry said Burklund appeared to have been packing a suitcase when he was killed.