AN unvarying routine can be an invitation to murder for a public figure. Governor Sir Richard Sharples' almost nightly habit of taking his dog, the spirited Great Dane Horsa, for walks around the grounds of Government House almost certainly led to his murder late on the evening of March 10, 1973.Police investigations revealed militant elements in the Black Beret Cadre had been reconnoitring the isolated, 40-acre Pembroke property for years prior to the double-killing of Sir Richard and his Aide-de-Camp Hugh Sayers. Only a combination of cowardice and incompetence rather than any lack of opportunity on the Berets' part had prevented an earlier tragedy.

But then, in the words of Sir Richard's successor Sir Edwin Leather, "the small group of Black Beret ringleaders still surreptitiously meeting together . . . suddenly realised that fate had put a new weapon in their hands in the form of these easily impressed and not very bright young criminals (Erskine Durrant 'Buck' Burrows and Larry Winfield Tacklyn). They played on them, influenced them, almost certainly inspired some of the violent acts that followed, and very probably planned them.

At least two members of the Black Berets were on hand to watch the Governor and his ADC being shot down in cold blood by one of the pair of petty criminals they had indoctrinated with their Black Power militancy and counter-culture rhetoric, brainwashed into believing they were the vanguard for a Bermudian revolution that would never come.

Just weeks prior to his murder Sir Richard had been accompanied on his evening walk by heir to the throne Prince Charles, then an officer in the Royal Navy who dined at Government House when his ship HMS Minerva made a port call in Hamilton. This may well have been the same evening Burrows made his own scouting mission to Government House which, even in the aftermath of Police Commissioner George Duckett's September 1972 killing, was only lightly guarded.

When Burrows stood trial in Supreme Court for the murders of Duckett, Sharples and Sayers in June 1976 prosecutor John Marriage, QC emphasised that Sir Richard's innocuous dog-walking habit most likely cost him and his ADC their lives.

"Sir Richard and Lady (Pamela) Sharples had a dinner party: guests started to arrive about 7 o'clock and they all had dinner," the prosecutor told the jury in his summary of the crown's case against Burrows. "The (police) officer on duty had a book in which he recorded comings and goings. At six minutes past 10 he made a patrol around the house for 15 minutes. Everything seemed to be in order and there was no one round about. He went back to his point of duty.

"At 11.20 p.m. Sir Richard showed his guests out. At 11.45 p.m., after the guests had gone, he did something he did every night: he took his Great Dane, Horsa, out for a walk. Any of us, whether we are the Governor of Bermuda or anyone else, gets into some sort of routine and this was a part of his routine.

"Sometimes it is nice to have a routine but sometimes it is extremely dangerous. Because if anyone wants to do you mischief or attack you, (he) knows where you will be at any particular time.

"A few minutes later, out of the house came Captain Sayers — he was the ADC, or the Governor's right-hand man — and followed the Governor out. The Governor walked around, outside the house, giving the dog a walk."

Captain Sayers, Mr. Marriage said, could only have just left the house when the killers concealed in the shadows struck — Government House security officer Police Constable Frank Deallie hadn't even had time to write the 23-year-old ADC's name in the log when gunshots rang out.

"(PC) Deallie never put the report in that book because as he was about to enter the fact he heard three shots — one shot, a short pause, then two shots, one after the other.

"He was not at once immediately concerned about it but very soon afterwards he heard somebody crying out 'Help me!' So he pushed the alarm button by his side and went outside. He found Sir Richard Sharples crawling along towards the front door. Sir Richard Sharples had been shot twice with a .38 from a distance of some 14 feet. He also saw the dog stumbling about on the left of some steps. Sir Richard had blood bubbling from his throat.

"Again the officer raised the alarm but by that time Sir Richard had died, beside one of the cannons outside the house.

"A search was made and no living person was found in the vicinity.

"Sir Richard was taken to hospital but was already dead. Captain Sayers died with both hands in his pockets. That makes it look as if this comparatively young man, a trained soldier who had on him in the course of his duty a revolver, was the first to die. He too was shot from a comparatively short distance. Meantime the killers had escaped."MR. Marriage called particular attention to the fact the Crown did not believe Burrows was the lone gunman at Government House on the night of March 10, 1973. He reminded the jury that as far as the double-killings were concerned, the young Police Headquarters janitor-turned-remote-control killer had been charged not just with murder but also with conspiracy to murder — and as many as four individuals had been in the Black Beret-choreographed hit team."The person or people — and we say it was people — who killed the Governor, his ADC and the dog made good their escape and various people in the area heard and saw people running away," said the prosecutor.

"It is for you to decide whether the people running away were people involved in the killing. There certainly was more than one — or more than two if you accept the evidence of Mrs. Armstrong, who lives next door to the Brown Derby on North Shore.

"She had been out that evening with her daughter. When they got back, because the daughter had something wrong with her foot, she had to bathe her daughter's foot and it made a towel very wet. She went outside to hang out her towel on the clothes-line so it would dry overnight. She was (outside) when she heard some bangs coming from the general direction of Government House. These were the shots that killed, you may think, the Governor, his ADC and the dog. She went into the house.

"Between 11.30 and midnight she was talking on the telephone when she heard two or perhaps more people run through the yard behind her house as if they were going down onto the shore (beyond her property). Her evidence will be that she heard two people at least run through the yard behind her house.

"Then we have the evidence of Miss Hart, who lives on a path that lies between Government Gate and Marsh Folly . . . She was in bed when she heard 'some pops' coming from the general area of Government House and very soon after that she heard two or three people running down the path from the general direction of Government Gate down to Marsh Folly.

"Also in bed in the same house was Mr. William Francis and he heard, he thought, four or five pops. He heard more than one person run past the same house at a very fast speed."IN a nearby house on Marsh Folly Road, said Mr. Marriage, occupants Raymond Bascome and Avis Daniels, who lived in a separate apartment, both heard running footsteps. "Raymond Bascome was not in his house; he had been there in the course of the evening with a young woman, Barbara Francis, who has since got married and is now Mrs. Blaine," said the prosecutor. "They were just about to leave to go to the Pembroke Hamilton Club in Reid Street. Raymond Bascome was getting out the motor scooter on which they were going to go and Barbara Blaine was standing in Marsh Folly as well. You will hear that there are lights in Marsh Folly Road, so it is possible to see people.

"Both Raymond Bascome and Barbara Blaine saw two young men run down the pathway, coming from the general direction of Government Gate towards Marsh Folly. Barbara Blaine was within five to seven feet of the first man who passed her. He ran down into the old railway line, then turned left. She did not get a particularly good look at him but she got a good look at the second man and may be able to describe him to you.

"So it appears that one or two people ran onto North Shore Road by Mrs. Armstrong's house and that two, as seen by Mrs. Blaine and Mr. Bascome, ran across Marsh Folly to the railway line. It would appear that there were perhaps four people involved in the shooting at Government House because it seems most unlikely that the two who ran past Mrs. Armstrong's house would be the same who ran across Marsh Folly."

Mr. Marriage said eyewitness testimony would be heard by the jury that linked two of the alleged killers directly to the Government House conspiracy — Burrows and criminal colleague Larry Tacklyn, another Beret-recruited strong-arm man (tried separately from Burrows on the Government House charges, Tacklyn was referred to only as "The Lodger" during his co-accuser's trial).

"It is difficult to tell from the evidence, but whether it was March 10 or a day or two before, M.W. Jackson, who lives at Harris Bay, had at that time a Lodger who lived in the basement," said Mr. Marriage. "His name doesn't matter, we will just call him The Lodger.

"He went down this evening to the basement in the early evening to see whether The Lodger wanted something to eat. When he got to his room he knocked on the door and heard a noise inside as if people were moving about quickly — as two people may do when they are doing something they don't want you to see. It was a hustling noise.

"Then The Lodger said, 'Come in'. When he went in, Mr. Jackson saw his Lodger with somebody he has no recollection of having seen before. It was Mr. Burrows.

"The Lodger said, 'Close the door quick', so Mr. Jackson did. Then The Lodger said — and Mr. Burrows was there throughout the conversation — 'We are planning a mission'. He got up and under him — he was almost sitting on it — was a black revolver, .38 calibre . . . The Lodger tells him: 'This is a .38' and introduces his friend Burrows to Mr. Jackson with these words: 'This is my man Buck, the guy that took care of Duckett'.

"Imagine a friend of yours introducing you and saying something about you that is untrue and is also fairly damaging, suggesting that you have been responsible for some crime you had nothing to do with — you would not allow someone to say this and leave it unchallenged. Burrows said absolutely nothing when it was being said that he was the man who 'took care' of Duckett."

Mr. Marriage said not only did Buck Burrows not challenge his friend's audacious statement, at that moment he pulled out a .22 handgun hidden under the bed he was sitting on and brandished it at Mr. Jackson.

"The Lodger could see it and Mr. Jackson could and it is Mr. Jackson' belief — you may accept it or not — that the .22 revolver was the one I (showed) you, the one that killed the Commissioner . . . Then The Lodger said: 'We are going to take care of the man on the hill' — it may well be that this means the Governor — 'and all those devils'. Again Burrows said nothing.

". . . Mr. Jackson said, 'You must be crazy' but The Lodger said, 'We've got to do what we must do'."

Mr. Marriage said Mr. Jackson saw his Lodger early the following morning and confronted him about the threatening boasts he had made the previous evening.

"Having regard to what his lodger had told him, how 'We are going to look after the man on the hill' — and as Mr. Jackson and everyone else in Bermuda and perhaps the entire world knew of the murders — Jackson told his Lodger to leave, he didn't want to have him there involving him in this," said the prosecutor. "The Lodger did leave and never returned to Mr. Jackson's house."

But this was not the end of Mr. Jackson's unanticipated involvement in the bloody saga.

"(All three Government House shots) were fired from the same .38 revolver just as all the bullets fired at the Duckett house were fired from the same .22 revolver," said Mr. Marriage. "So it appears that only one gun was actually used on both occasions.

"This .38 has never been recovered but some weeks after the shooting at Government House Mr. Jackson found a brown package on the drainpipes at his home. He had been having visits from Burrows. He certainly did not put it there himself. It contained, when opened, two revolvers.

"One was a .22. Forget about that; it is not ours (the one used in the Duckett shooting). But the other was a .38. And it is Mr. Jackson's belief that that .38, which was found in the package some weeks after the murders of the Governor and Captain Sayers, was the same one as his Lodger had shown him, in the presence of Burrows, either that night or a night or two before the Governor was murdered. He decided to get rid of it, so he got in a boat and threw the .38 overboard, keeping (just) one .38 round of ammunition."

"Burrows made a number of visits to Mr. Jackson and seemed to get to know him quite well. He was seen to visit Mr. Jackson on a number of occasions by a neighbour . . . If Burrows had wanted to leave the .38 at Mr. Jackson's house, so Mr. Jackson would not know who left it there, he would have been in a position to do so . . ."

Mr. Marriage said witnesses would testify that Burrows had sold the .38 to Court Street criminals — then made a determined effort to reclaim the gun after having been told by his Beret handlers that if it fell into the hands of Police forensics evidence would conclusively link the weapon to the Government House killings.

"(The man who purchased the .38) was threatened that something very unpleasant might happen to him and others round him unless he handed the gun back," said the prosecutor. "In the end he did. Somebody wanted that .38 badly. That person, you may think on the evidence, was Burrows.

"That was at the time Burrows had become a fairly frequent visitor to Mr. Jackson's house at Harris Bay . . . It is the submission of the Crown that having got the gun back (Burrows) took it secretly and hid it by the drainpipes of Jackson's house. Jackson found it and believed it was the gun he had seen in The Lodger's hands just before the killings. He took it out in the boat and threw it in the deep water off Castle Point."MR. Marriage said that as in the case of the Duckett murder, Burrows was interviewed by Police soon after the Government House shootings so he could give an account of his movements. What the prosecutor did not tell the jury is that Burrows had been questioned by Police after the Commissioner's murder for purposes of elimination only: Duckett's friend and part-time handyman, Burrows was a fixture at "Bleak House". When his fingerprints were found throughout the house, Police believed he was above suspicion and wanted to clear him from their inquiries so they could focus on more realistic suspects. He had kept both his trusty job at Prospect and apartment in the building housing the Officers' Mess throughout the investigation into the Duckett killing, having free access to the offices of the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner — and their files on the lacklustre progress of the probe. He also knew that on the evening of March 10, 1973 only a skeleton Police presence would be on duty — it was the night of the Police Ball at the recently opened Southampton Princess Hotel and most of the Force would be in attendance, drinking, carousing and relaxing.

Burrows had not been considered a likely suspect following the Sharples-Sayers double-murder. But he was nonetheless interviewed, along with hundreds of others, on the orders of Scotland Yard Murder Squad detectives Bill Wright and Basil Haddrell — seconded to the Bermuda Police and heading up the investigations — because he had occasionally worked at Government House.

Wright and Haddrell wanted all known criminals familiarity with the house and its grounds to be meticulously vetted. Burrows, who had spent two-thirds of his life in institutions or jail, fit this broad profile.

Burrows, said Mr. Marriage, made "quite a long statement" about his movements on the night of the murders in which he denied any involvement in the shootings.

He said he left his room at Prospect Police Headquarters at about 9 p.m. to visit his friend G. Wilkinson, a career criminal who had been released from Casemates the previous year and now cared for the animals at Eve's Farm — the property immediately adjacent to "Bleak House".

Wilkinson had come to the attention of Police in the early days of the Duckett murder probe.

Burnt clothing was found in his backyard oil-drum incinerator and other items were scattered throughout the property — clothing subsequently found to be permeated with paint flecks from the recently-painted floor mats of the Commissioner's car, its radio sabotaged on the night of the murder (it later transpired Burrows had painted the mats in his capacity as Duckett's handyman).

During the course of several lengthy Police interrogations Wilkinson had not been able to adequately explain either why the clothes had been burned or why they contained traces of paint from the car. It now seems almost certain Burrows hid out at Eve's Farm after murdering Duckett and it was his clothes that been set on fire in a failed attempt to dispose of potential evidence.

When Burrows said he stayed at Wilkinson's home on the night of the Government House murders, he was clearly unaware that Scotland Yard's Bill Wright had initially considered Wilkinson a plausible suspect in the Duckett killing ("Wilkinson leads a primitive life tending to animals on land adjoing 'Bleak House'," said Mr. Wright in a memorandum on the Duckett murder submitted to then Bermuda Police Commissioner L.M. Clark in March, 1973.

"Wilkinson has been questioned on numerous occasions but no sensible interview can be conducted with him. He is an extremely vicious character who just refuses to co-operate . . ."). BY using Wilkinson as an alibi, Burrows had inadvertently brought himself under serious suspicion for the first time in both the Duckett and Government House killings — suspicions later confirmed when drug dealer Bobbie Greene confidentially named the Prospect janitor and Tacklyn as key players in the 1972/'73 tragedies in secret meetings with Scotland Yard's Basil Haddrell.Burrows told Police on the night of the Government House shootings he got to Eve's Farm by way of Prospect Road and the old railway trail, arriving at about 9.30 p.m. only to discover Wilkinson was out.

"The door was not locked and I opened it and went in," Burrows said in his initial statement to Police. "I turned the lights on and the radio. I then read a (Harold Robbins') book called The Adventurers — can't remember what the story was about — and then lay on Wilkinson's bed and fell asleep.

"Wilkinson arrived home about midnight and told me he had been down his mate's house watching TV. We spoke for a while about things in general. I asked if it was all right if I rested at his place and he said it was. So I spent the night there. I never spent the night there before: there was no particular reason for me wanting to spend the night — I just didn't want to go home."

Since home for Burrows was Police Headquarters, said Mr. Marriage, it was perhaps understandable why Burrows — in the hours after he had participated in the Government House murders — did not want to be in his apartment at Prospect as the largest and most intensive manhunt in Bermudian history began to get under way.

Continued next week