Parents of Conway murder victim talk to News13

By Jody Barr
WBTW News 13 Reporter
Published: July 4, 2008

It took state, local, and federal authorities more than a week to track down a Conway teen charged with killing 29-year-old, Monica Burroughs, a mother of four in the driveway of her Conway apartment complex.

Investigators said Brittany Alexis Johnson shot and killed Burroughs after the two spent months feuding over a man.

Burroughs’ parents, Ervin and Martha Burroughs, told News13 on Friday that their daughter was dating Frederick Pyatt for the past four years.

The Burroughs said Pyatt and Johnson started a relationship, but Pyatt refused to cut off his relationship with Burroughs.

Investigators think that’s what led up to the murder on June 24th that killed Burroughs.

“It’s not nothing no harder than that. I mean, because I look at my babies in the daytime and the first thing they say; mom this-you know, they’re still talking about their mom and I have to come out and tell them, say baby your mom is gone, me and grandma got to be your mom and dad now,” Ervin Burroughs said.

Ervin and his wife, Martha now know first-hand the harsh pain parents who lose children way too soon live with everyday.

“You just can’t ever get over. It’s a pain; that’s something you’ll ever get over in your life. It’s hard when you raise a child up to be an adult and you got to go through the death of a child; a worst death, I’ll put it at that by somebody just coming up and taking a life for something dumb,” the Burroughs told News13.

That somebody Conway police said is Johnson who spent more than a week on the run after police named her as a suspect in the killing.

The US Marshals’ Fugitive Task Force arrested Johnson Wednesday at an apartment in Hartsville after an anonymous tip was called in to authorities.

That tip came from someone who saw a News13 report on the search for Johnson that aired Tuesday.

Ervin said the hardest part is trying to pull his daughter’s children through, especially the one who watched his mother’s murder, “He can’t sleep at night. He wakes up and he says I want to sleep with you and my grandma and he says I’m scared and I’ll say scared of what? He says why would somebody give this lady that gun to shoot my mom with,” Ervin said.

Prosecutors continue their work to answer that question, while two grandparents try everyday to make sense of a tragedy for four young children. 

Johnson remains jailed at the J. Reuben Long Detention Center awaiting a bond hearing on the murder charges.

Investigators continue to investigate how Johnson got from Conway to Hartsville and said more charges could come against others who may be involved in helping Johnson evade capture.

You can count on News13 to continue to update this story as it develops.