Devotion to mother sparks court fight

The day Dorleen Burklund pumped eight bullets into her estranged husband, their only child was outside the family's home in upper Bucks County.

Gabriel Burklund heard the shots. The young adult watched as his mother left the nine-room house, walked to her car in the circular driveway, grabbed a box of .38-caliber bullets, and went back in, court records say.

Then, as his father lay dead in a second-floor bedroom, he waited outside with his mother for the police she had summoned.

"I shot him," Dorleen Burklund announced, directing police to a revolver in the kitchen and the body upstairs.

Nine months after the Oct. 3 death of United Airlines pilot Michael Burklund, his 19-year-old son remains in Dorleen Burklund's corner as she awaits trial, accused of first-degree murder.

"I do care about her," he testified at a June 24 court hearing.

His devotion has touched off an unusual legal fight over his quest to spend part of his father's life insurance benefits on his mother's defense. The clash has further divided a fractured family, invoked a little-used law called the Slayer's Act, and, for the time being, saddled county taxpayers with the cost of defending a murder suspect who co-owns a home appraised at $415,000.

"It's very complicated," said Kevin Handy, Gabriel Burklund's attorney, who said he expected to take the matter to federal court.

On June 17, a Bucks County judge denied Handy's request that Michael Burklund's $149,000 life insurance payout go immediately to his son. Gabriel Burklund had planned to use about $50,000 of it to hire a lawyer for his mother.

Lawyers for Dean Burklund - the victim's brother, Gabriel Burklund's uncle, and executor of the estate - objected, saying that would violate the Pennsylvania Slayer's Act. The law prohibits anyone who illegally kills another person from benefiting financially from the slaying.

Dorleen Burklund, the policy's primary beneficiary, would be denied the money if convicted. She was willing to sign away any claim to it before her trial, clearing the way for her son, as second beneficiary, to collect.

The logic was clear.

Dorleen Burklund had less than $30,000 in liquid assets, far short of the $50,000 up-front fee private defense lawyers were demanding.

But the Bucks County Public Defender's Office wanted no part of the case, saying Burklund was not indigent, just house-poor.

At an April 20 hearing before Judge Jeffrey Finley, who is handling the homicide case, Handy proposed a solution.

"Ms. Burklund would disclaim the policy, we'd get it paid out to the son, and the son would use part of the policy proceeds to pay for defense counsel," Handy said. He had already enlisted defense lawyer Brian Fishman.

That sounded fine to Finley, who gave Handy 30 days to make it happen.

But it did not sit well with First Assistant District Attorney Michelle Henry, who is prosecuting Dorleen Burklund. She called Dean Burklund in Michigan to tell him what was afoot, and his attorneys soon went to Orphans Court to block the plan.

"Dean Burklund agreed that his late brother would not want the insurance policy on his life to pay for defense fees for the person who killed him," their petition said.

The Slayer's Act aside, Gabriel Burklund may have been manipulated, they added.

"We . . . think there's something behind the scenes that this young man's arms are being twisted by his mother so she can get private counsel," attorney Peter Hileman argued May 24 in Orphans Court. "We don't think that's in his best interest, so that's why we're here. We have no problem with him getting the money eventually."

But the son, a community college student who lives alone in his parents' house on 10 acres in Springfield Township and hopes to transfer to Pennsylvania State University, said that was not so.

He testified that he felt close to his mother, wanted to help her, and saw the insurance money as "a simple fix to an issue that was putting an insane amount of emotional stress on the both of us."

Michael and Dorleen Burklund had been slogging through a contentious divorce for two years. For much of that time, Dorleen Burklund had lived in the Bethlehem, Pa., area with her son while Michael Burklund remained in the house.

She had recently moved back in, and her husband was staying with neighbors. He was packing a suitcase for a business trip when killed.

"My mother and I, we had issues, of course, with my father," Gabriel Burklund testified. When Handy asked whether domestic violence had been a factor, Hileman objected, and the son was not allowed to answer.

Michael Burklund, 46, had told friends his wife was mentally ill, obsessed with the notion that neighbors were spying and eavesdropping on her. Dorleen Burklund, 50, had posted rambling online accusations that her husband had fathered an out-of-wedlock child.

Without giving specifics, Gabriel Burklund testified that his mother "is someone who I did fight so hard to try to help and try to get away from my father."

The family divide is clear in an odd, yearning addition Michael Burklund made to his will on Sept. 17, two weeks before he was killed.

Gabriel Burklund would receive his full inheritance, the amendment said, only if he "contacts my family and seeks a relationship with them" within 10 years of Michael Burklund's death.

Handy contended that the insurance benefits were separate from the estate and subject to federal regulations, not the oversight of Orphans Court.

But on June 17, Bucks County Judge C. Theodore Fritsch refused to immediately release the insurance money.

The same day, Finley ordered the public defender to represent Dorleen Burklund, saying, "I have no alternative."

Finley ordered a lien placed on Dorleen Burklund's assets. He told the Public Defender's Office to keep track of its hours and expenses so it might someday be reimbursed.

Handy called it "pretty outrageous" that Henry, the prosecutor, "stuck her nose into the case and basically is trying to deny Dorleen Burklund her right to select the counsel of her choosing."

District Attorney David Heckler said Henry had done nothing improper.

Gabriel Burklund's interests "have to be protected at some point, and his uncle, as the executor, is doing that," Heckler said. "To the extent that we advised the uncle, good on us."