Mountain State Mysteries contains adult content that may not be suitable for all audiences.
Listener discretion is advised.
I'm your host Mark Covey.
And I'm Courtney.
And this is Mountain State Mysteries.
The case we have for you today has to be one of the craziest cases we've ever covered.
It's about a 19 year old woman that goes missing after telling her mom she was visiting
a friend.
This is the case of Samantha Burns.
Samantha Burns was born on April 23, 1983.
To Candy and John Burns, Samantha grew up in Hamelin, West Virginia.
She went to Guyant Valley High School in Birchland, West Virginia.
In 2001, 18 year old Samantha graduated from Guyant Valley High and went to attend Marshall
University in Huntington, West Virginia, which is only 45 minutes away from where she grew
up.
When Samantha wasn't in school, she worked at JCPenney's inside the Huntington Mall
in Barborsville, West Virginia.
On November 11, 2002, Samantha went to work as usual.
She was wearing an orange sweater over a tank top, flared jeans, and mule shoes, and carried
a leopard print purse.
She had diamond earrings and a heart shaped gold ring with a diamond in the center of
it.
Samantha saw Tammy Atkins actually came into the store that day to buy some clothes for
Samantha's cousin and to say hi around 6.30pm that evening.
She confirmed that Samantha was there and everything was going well with her.
At 9.46pm, Samantha called her mom Candy to tell her that she had been with some friends
or that she planned on visiting some at the Marshall University Courtyard Apartments.
Which one it is, I'm not too sure because I've seen both in different articles, which
in one of them it said that she decided on staying at a friend's place in Huntington.
After this call, she never made it home.
When her parents hadn't heard from her, they reported her missing.
Her family found out that the call she made when she called her mom was at the last time
her phone was used and it was turned off at 3.30am, which was on Tuesday, November 12.
It's actually found Samantha's 1999 Chevrolet Cavalier in flames.
They were able to confirm it was hers from the Tiger bumper sticker and the license plate.
5x9326.
Samantha's car was found in a desolate area about a 20 minute drive west of the mall where
she was last seen near the intersection of German Ridge Road and Haney Branch Road.
So this left everyone wondering what happened to her in the 20 minute drive.
When police looked in and around the car, there was no sign of Samantha, which in theory
is a good idea because it meant that she wasn't in the car when it was on fire.
But it confused police and her family because they had no idea where she was.
Sadly, there isn't much more that we would find on Samantha during our research or really
where the investigation went from there.
So as it appears that after leaving work or her friend's apartment, she had been followed
to her car or she was abducted as she was getting in her car.
Just a few days after she went missing on November 17 and the 20th, the two men believed
to be responsible for her disappearance and possible murder were arrested.
Their involvement in Samantha's disappearance was only part of their two week crime spree
that went on in multiple states across the United States.
What we're going to tell you now is the timeline of their crimes leading up to Samantha's disappearance.
25 year old Chad, 25 year old Chad Fox and 19 year old Brandon Basham were cellmates
in jail in Madisonville, Kentucky.
They didn't know each other before becoming cellmates, but they became close and I mean
close enough to become conspirators during the time they were in the cell together.
Chad was originally from Huntington, West Virginia, which he already had an extensive
criminal history there.
He had met and married a woman in Kentucky named Veronica who had a three and a half
year old son named Miles.
From my research, he took care of the family the only way he knew how and that was through
theft.
He had a history of violence against women and multiple of his past partners, including
Veronica actually came forward after his arrest, claiming that he had been violent and aggressive
towards them, even sexually assaulting them.
Two months before Samantha went missing on August 25, 2002, Chad stole a credit card
and drove to Walmart.
He told Veronica to go inside and use a stolen card to purchase a necklace, but instead she
went inside and contacted the police, claiming that Chad was in the parking lot with a gun
and that she was afraid he was going to kill her.
While searching Chad's car, police found multiple stolen credit cards and the gun that Veronica
told them about.
Chad and Veronica were arrested and Veronica son Miles was placed in foster care.
Chad was charged with robbery, 12 counts of credit card fraud and after spending two months
in prison, the Kentucky State Police also charged him with first degree child abuse
for his poor treatment of Miles.
His cellmate Brandon was a native of Kentucky.
He had a significantly less serious rap sheet and was serving time for a felony forgery
charge for forged checks when they were both in the cell together.
On November 4, 2002, around 6.30pm, Brandon asked a correctional officer if he and Chad
could be admitted to the recreational area of the Hopkins County Detention Center.
After they were outside for a little bit, the correctional officer became distracted
while administering nightly medications to other inmates.
When she went outside to bring Brandon and Chad in at 8pm, they were gone.
The only evidence of them even being outside was a rope that had been made out of old blankets
and sheets.
By November 5, the two had made it on foot about 10 miles to Henson, Kentucky.
Chad fell back into his old habits and immediately committed an armed robbery, this time with
the help of Brandon.
Brandon approached the home of a man named James Hawkins, claiming his car had been
broken down and asking to use a phone.
James said yes, likely just wanting to help someone in need, and observed him making two
phone calls.
James even offered to drive him to a local convenience store, which Brandon took him
up on.
Once the two were in James' pickup truck, Chad jumped in the truck as well, pulling
a knife on James and ordered him to drive around so the three eventually reached southern
Indiana where Brandon and Chad tied James to a tree and left him for dead.
After abandoning James and stealing his truck, Brandon and Chad drove to Portage, Indiana,
which is five hours away from the border of Kentucky.
After driving there, they ditched the truck and went to the nearby home of a friend named
Tina, who was living with a roommate named Andrea.
Oddly enough, Tina had actually been a correctional officer at a jail which Chad served time for
in the past, and for some reason they kept in touch.
So Tina drove Chad and Brandon to a motel with her roommate Andrea, before them spent
two nights together there.
So despite her previous career, she was helping these two commit more crimes.
Chad actually asked Tina if she knew where he could obtain a gun.
She remembered that a friend of hers named Robert owned multiple guns and he kept them
in his home in Michigan City, Indiana.
So they all went there together and Tina and Andrea got Robert away from his home while
Brandon and Chad broke in and stole multiple guns, along with some jewelry and a checkbook.
After this robbery, the four of them drove an hour and a half inland and just north
of the Indiana border to Sturges, Michigan, where they got another motel room.
So Brandon and Andrea spent the night there while Chad and Tina drove to nearby Goshen,
Indiana, to meet up with Chad's brother Ronnie, who is said to have lived in the area.
Chad, Tina, and Ronnie smoked meth and marijuana together and went back to Sturges to retrieve
Brandon and Andrea the following day.
But they found Brandon hunched on the floor holding a gun.
After Brandon saw police officers knock on the motel room doors, he became convinced
that the police were catching up with him and he had repetitively threatened to shoot
one of them.
They were able to talk Brandon down and they all left the motel to stay with Chad's brother
Ronnie.
On November 10, 2002, the four left the area for Ohio, where they used bad checks to purchase
items and then returned them for cash.
They went to a nearby Walmart where Chad stole a purse and a cell phone from a car in the
parking lot.
On November 11, 2002, they drove to Canova, West Virginia, which is just 15 minutes away
from Huntington.
They checked into another motel.
Tina would tell the FBI that Brandon and Chad left the girls in the motel and they went
to go smoke meth and steal purses from cars at the nearby mall, which would be the mall
Samantha worked at.
She said they didn't return until the early hours of November 12.
Brandon and Chad headed to the Huntington Mall and split up, both looking for cars to
break into.
The next time that Brandon actually saw Chad, he was driving Samantha's burgundy Chevrolet
Cavalier with her live in the front seat.
Chad and Brandon would switch places and Chad drove the van belonging to Tina following
Brandon while he drove Samantha's car.
So Brandon and Chad drove to the nearby Foodland grocery store and left Tina's van there before
driving to different ATMs, forcing Samantha to pull out cash for them.
Chad then drove Samantha's car back to Foodland to get the van.
And Brandon said that he wanted to find a place to assault Samantha.
According to Chad's testimony, the man drove to a secluded area near the Ohio River.
He said that he watched Brandon get out of the car with Samantha and disappear for about
20 minutes.
When he returned alone, Brandon told Chad that he wanted to purchase gas to pour on Samantha's
car to set it on fire in order to remove fingerprints.
After burning and abandoning Samantha's car, Brandon and Chad returned to their motel covered
in mud.
So later on November 12, Brandon, Chad, Tina, and Andrea moved to a different motel this
time in Little River, South Carolina, which it said Chad lived there for a while so he
was familiar with the area.
Tina said she remembered Brandon repeatedly asking her if she wanted to go swimming in
the Ohio River, which she had no idea what he meant by that.
Tina and Andrea later pointed out that they observed mud in the van along with a box of
candy for a Marshall University fundraiser.
The two also found Samantha's ID in the van, which in all honesty is huge.
Apparently Tina and Andrea were unaware what happened to Samantha.
Brandon actually started wearing a heart-shaped diamond ring strung on a necklace claiming
that he stole it from a car.
And like I said earlier, Samantha had a heart-shaped ring with a diamond in it.
The four nights in Little River was uneventful compared to the rest of the trip.
They smoke and drink together in the hotel room.
On November 14, they headed to nearby Myrtle Beach, South Carolina.
In hopes of stealing more guns, they left the girls in the motel room and broke into
the home of Sam Jordan.
As Brandon and Chad were leaving the house, Sam's father, Carl Jordan, drove by so Chad,
who was driving away, started to ram Carl's car with Tina's van.
While Brandon ran from the house and fired his gun to scare Carl off, he hit a nearby
greenhouse while shooting the gun.
So Carl drove away, but Brandon and Chad followed him, still firing shots but now at Carl's
car.
The two then abandoned Tina's car and stole a white pickup truck.
At 2.37 pm, Walmart surveillance footage showed a 44-year-old Alice Donovan driving her blue
BMW into the parking lot, closely followed by Brandon and Chad.
Alice was a mom of two daughters and had been picking up some supplies for Thanksgiving
dinner.
When she parked her BMW, Brandon approached her and Chad circled in the stolen truck.
Chad left the truck in the Walmart parking lot and started to drive Alice's car with
Alice and Brandon in the backseat, basically holding her hostage, just like they did with
Samantha.
Brandon and Chad used Alice's debit card to withdraw money from multiple ATMs and later
that evening they crossed state lines into North Carolina and stopped at a cemetery where
both Brandon and Chad assaulted Alice.
Alice sensed that the two were planning to kill her, so Alice begged Brandon to leave
the gun in the car, but he refused.
Brandon walked Alice away from the car and just like with Samantha, Brandon returned alone.
After this, the two men went back to the hotel to meet Tina and Andrea and informed them that
the police had taken Tina's van and that Brandon and Chad needed to go back to West Virginia
without the women.
Chad would later say that it wasn't until his trip back to West Virginia that Brandon
admitted that he killed both Samantha and Alice.
On November 15, 2002, the men arrived back in Huntington, West Virginia and spent the
next two nights smoking crack cocaine at the house of a friend of Chad's.
This friend would later testify that despite Chad trying to pin the murders on Brandon,
Chad was the ringleader and had controlled what the men did.
It's the opposite of what Chad said.
Two days later, the two were back to their ways and were breaking into cars in a nearby
mall parking lot.
On 7.30pm, Brandon attempted to steal a car from a woman named Deanna Francis with her
and her 15-year-old daughter inside.
Luckily the two were able to escape and Deanna immediately reported this to the police.
A police officer was in the vicinity and was able to catch up and spot Brandon quickly,
so the officer pursued him on foot.
Brandon did elude the officer by hiding behind train cars near the Ohio River, but he was
apprehended by 9pm.
Chad however was still on the run.
That same night, Chad saw a news report that Brandon had been arrested, so this spooked
him.
Knowing he would more than likely be next, the following day Chad was out driving Alice's
BMW.
He decided to go to his brother's house in Goshen, Indiana, but while driving through
Ohio, a state trooper recognized the vehicle as stolen and this started a high-speed chase
reaching up to 130 miles per hour.
However Chad managed to get away from the cop and made it to his brother's house.
With help from his brother and his brother's girlfriend, they were able to get Alice's
car in a barn, hoping the police wouldn't stumble upon him.
However, the police were one step ahead of him.
Knowing that he was more than likely going to his brother's house, police set up surveillance
outside of Ronnie's home.
On November 20th, 2002, after 16 days on the run, Chad was arrested, so while police were
working on apprehending Chad.
Brandon was being questioned by police regarding what he had been doing the last few weeks.
He admitted to a series of crimes in numerous states and even admitted to kidnapping Alice,
but he insisted that she was alive and with Chad.
He even mentioned Samantha Burns telling investigators that Chad got a girl in West
Virginia.
On November 20th, the day after Chad was arrested, the FBI interviewed Brandon for about seven
hours.
This time he said that Chad had actually dropped Brandon back off at a hotel and then driven
off with Alice alive.
Over the next few days, he attempted to aid investigators in finding Alice, who hoped
that Alice was still alive, even drawing out maps of his and Chad's whereabouts.
Investigators were unable to find any trace of Alice.
On November 26th, Brandon finally admitted that Samantha Burns was dead and told investigators
that he and Chad disposed of her body by rolling it down a river embankment.
So police started to search for the bodies of both Samantha and Alice, hoping to reduce
his sentence by aiding them to search.
Brandon, his lawyers and a team of FBI agents and state investigators orchestrated a search
of the area in North Carolina where Brandon claimed they had taken Alice.
At one point during the drive, Brandon said, I never could kill a deer and here I have,
but was cut off by his lawyers before he could finish.
So Brandon led the group to a cemetery where he said he and Chad had assaulted Alice and
even left evidence in the form of her purse strap behind.
He also said that he and Chad had taken her body into the woods nearby and left it covered
but not buried and that it shouldn't be hard to find.
Despite this, investigators were unable to find any signs of Alice.
So when Chad was questioned, he admitted to all the accounts against him, but maintained
he didn't kill Samantha or Alice.
Brandon and Chad were held without bond in the anticipation for a lengthy trial on September
12, 2003, the following year.
The prosecution announced that they would be seeking the death penalty for both men.
Chad's trial began on June 1, 2004 and his legal team attempted to blame Brandon for
the murders of both Samantha and Alice.
The judge disregarded the finger pointing between Brandon and Chad saying, quote, didn't
matter, no sense is going to change what you've done to these people, end quote.
Chad's defense team also attempted to paint Chad as a product of his environment, raised
by an abusive alcoholic parents and a victim of fetal alcoholic spectrum disorder.
His legal team claimed that despite his circumstances, he was incapable of murdering two innocent
women, at least not without the influence of someone else.
On June 30, 2004, after deliberating for just one day, the jury recommended the death penalty
for Chad.
That same year, Brandon was also sentenced to death.
Since then, both men have appealed their convictions numerous times and have been denied every
single time.
Brandon read a statement to Samantha's family in the court saying, quote, I know she had
something I never had.
She had a good family that loved her and cared for her.
I helped Chad take her away.
I wish I could bring her back, but I can't, end quote.
Samantha's parents both made a victim impact statement with Samantha's dad saying, quote,
You took my son's only sibling, you took my wife's best friend, and you took my little
girl, your pure evil.
I hope that what you've done eats away at your mind and soul for the rest of your life,
end quote.
Her mom, Candy said, quote, all of her dreams were taken away from her on those hours of
a cold and I imagine very frightful night.
Samantha would have given you her car and her money, so why did you have to do those
things to her?
She was there by herself.
I feel so hopeless that I couldn't be there to help her, end quote.
Brandon apologized to Samantha's family saying, quote, I wish I could bring her back, but
I can't, end quote, which Candy replied, quote, it's too late now to feel sorry, end quote.
To this day, Samantha's remains have still not been located.
On January 24th, 2009, investigators finally located the remains of Alice Donovan in Horry
County, South Carolina, not the area Brandon had told them, which was North Carolina.
In 2017, an Ohio man named Jimmy started posting on Facebook claiming that he had reason to
believe that Samantha Burns was buried on his property.
Jimmy posted about it numerous times, hoping the police would see it, and alleging that
a family member of his told him that Samantha was buried behind his home on his land.
However, it seems like Jimmy just wanted attention.
In Hamlin, West Virginia, a softball field was named in honor of Samantha, caught the
Samantha Burns Memorial Field.
If you or anyone you know has any information on the whereabouts of the remains of Samantha
Burns, contact the West Virginia State Police at 304-528-5555.
We'll be back next week with a brand new episode.
If you find yourself enjoying Mountain State Mysteries, take a second to follow, rate,
and download the show on your favorite podcast platform.
It helps others find good West Virginia true crime podcasts.
Don't forget to follow us on Instagram, Facebook, and TikTok, all at Mountain State Mysteries.
Do you have a case you want us to cover?
Send us an email at MountainStateMysteries304 at gmail.com.
For show notes, check out our website, MountainStateMysteriesPodcast.com.