My biological father, Robert A. Burns, had a picture of slain Paris Texas Police officer David Roberts hanging in the hallway of his home for years, right up until his own passing. David was his cousin and was killed in the line of duty in 1985. Bob teared up telling me the story of David’s death 37 years later. He had been part of the manhunt for the killer and had witnessed the eventual execution in 1997.
We toured family cemetery and graves and David’s was the 2nd grave that Bob ever took me to. He had so much love and affection for David and still had so much anger over his loss and the circumstances around it. When Bob passed, I inherited his papers that would eventually go to the University of Texas. As part of the preparation for that, I started trying to close looks, doing a lot research about Bob, filling in gaps, and looking for audio and video of Bob and the events of his life. I had heard about the Dateline episode at some point from one of Bob’s other cousins, but couldn’t find a copy anywhere. I contacted NBC and their digital archives only went back to 2004 and not every episode was present.
By chance, I ran across a pile of VHS tapes in Bob’s vacation home about a year after his death and the Dateline NBC: The Last Mile (S6E59 originally airing January 9,1998) was in the pile. I immediately had it digitized and uploaded it here so that it would be available to anyone that might look for the show, to preserve the story, for the Roberts family, and in memory of both David and Bob.
In a final coincidence, the day that Bob’s obituary was published in the Paris, Texas newspaper, on the page directly opposite was a tribute article about David Roberts and the memory of his death.
Bob can be seen in the footage in a few places:
As a pall bearer (second on the right) @ 06:34
With the family during and after the execution @ 38:50 , 40:12 , and 43:00
I appreciate you sharing this video that is aggonizing to watch, yet very enlightening. David’s brother Danny, was one of my 2 best friends I’ve had in my 65 years of life. We were in rookie school and paramedic class together. I was blessed to serve my 28 yr. career with him. Danny was man of great faith, honesty, and integrity. I recently posted on my Gregg Fitzgerald facebook site the 2 tributes to David and Danny found on “find a grave”. I will post this video you shared, as I feel that it most certainly shows the anguish
both families felt, and is enlightening to other brothers and sisters in faith. John 25:13.Although our trials are not insignificant, the video could lead to a great deal of perspective. Thank you for sharing and God bless. Much love, brothers.
Hi Gregg. Thank you. I know how hard all of this was. I would hate for the story to be lost due to time and poor archiving. I wanted to get it out there so that it would have a chance to been seen again. Bob LOVED David. He was 76 when he showed me his grave and told me the story. Tears poured down his cheeks during the telling. There was a picture of David in uniform that hung in his hallway until the day he died.