A fatal domestic dispute unfolded in a Waycross home on Bay Street in May 2016. James Jimmie Burke, 68, was found dead inside a locked room from multiple gunshot wounds after emergency crews responded to a 911 call. The call was initially reported by his wife Sonia Burke, 58, for difficulty breathing, but police later said Jimmie placed the call himself. Sonia was arrested at the scene as the primary suspect and charged with murder, possession of a firearm during the commission of a crime, and aggravated assault; she was taken to a hospital afterward for a possible overdose.

Burke had a notable public history: he served in the Florida House of Representatives and on the Miami-Dade County Commission before a federal bribery conviction in the late 1990s and a subsequent prison term. After his release he returned to Waycross and married Sonia in 2014; this was his seventh marriage. Are there readers who knew the Burkes or witnessed events in Waycross that May who can share information?