Today Is The Day!
By: Tommy “Tj” Sotomayor

https://youtu.be/34wA4sfN-Dg

https://youtu.be/x7hosgr4q7w

As Patricia Burns heaved her ham out of the freezer, she was looking forward to a quiet Christmas.

It was December 22, 2013, and Patricia, 42, was spending the festive season at home with her daughters, Megan, 22, Harley, 16, and Autumn, 14.

The family had been through so much.

Patricia’s marriage to Clifford Burns, who was dad to Harley and Autumn, had been rocky.

The couple met when Patricia was working at a Dunkin’ Donuts drive-through.

Clifford had pulled up and decided there was something he fancied more than a doughnut.

So he asked Patricia for her number.

At first he’d seemed like a great catch – he had his own business, was a keen fisherman, and doted on Megan, her little sister Christalin and brother, Nick.

But after their ’97 wedding, Clifford became violent.

His traumatic past was often cited as the reason behind his abuse – he’d witnessed his father’s violence towards his mother.

So Patricia gave him the benefit of the doubt, taking him back time and time again.

Together they had their two girls, Harley and Autumn.

But Clifford would beat Patricia in front of the children, then turn back into a doting family man.

Tragedy struck

Then, tragedy struck when 15-year-old Christalin died in her sleep of natural causes.

Soon after, Patricia decided to start a new life.

In the video above: Teenager gets life for murdering man with screwdriver

She moved into a new apartment with the kids and began working as a nurse at a hospice, and also got a five-year restraining order against Clifford.

Patricia began another relationship. But this new man also had a temper and was slapped with a restraining order after assaulting her, firing a gun into the ceiling and then having a standoff with police.

Now, all Patricia wanted was a peaceful Christmas.

Autumn texted her dad to wish him Merry Christmas, even though he’d not been in touch for eight months.

His reply, which came as Patricia was defrosting the ham, was chilling.

I have a special gift coming soon, something for everyone to talk about, and it will be hand-delivered on foot, not by car, it read.

Autumn interpreted the message as a threat. Harley and Megan agreed, so they showed the text to their mum.

‘Is he going to come here and kill us?’

‘Is he going to come here and kill us?’ Megan asked.

But Patricia wasn’t concerned.

‘No Megan, he’s mean, he’s evil, but he’s not that evil,’ she said.

Despite her mum’s lack of concern, Autumn tapped back a reply.

Get it together, I know what you think you want to do, and believe me that won’t end well, she wrote in the message. The only reason you feel so bad is because of what happened between your parents.

Christmas Eve

Two days later, on Christmas Eve, Harley went to do some last-minute shopping.

Patricia, Megan and Autumn remained at home, preparing Christmas dinner in the kitchen.

This time, Patricia was preparing a turkey.

Then there was a knock at the door.

On the other side of it was a masked man in army fatigues. He was carrying a large hunting knife.

The man grabbed Patricia and held her against the wall. Then he plunged the knife into her stomach.

‘Megan ran over, grabbing the man and pulling his mask off.’

Megan ran over, grabbing the man and pulling his mask off. It was Clifford.

‘Call the cops!’ Megan screamed to Autumn, who was frozen in terror.

Clifford continued to stab their mum, before turning the knife on Megan, slashing her arm.

Patricia, bleeding profusely, pleaded with her ex to stop.

As Autumn called an ambulance, Megan ran out of the house, but her stepdad followed her.

Approaching her, he ran off when diners at a restaurant nearby came out.

Paramedics arrived, rushing them to the hospital – but Patricia didn’t make it.

The beloved mum died from multiple stab wounds to her stomach and chest.

With Megan’s arm cut through to the bone, surgeons began working to save it.

Meanwhile, Burns was speeding away from police.

Eventually, he gave himself up, pulling into the sheriff’s department car park.

‘I just wanted to see my babies at Christmas,’ he said.

Police interview

But during his police interview, he became more and more aggressive.

‘When you go get married, what do they say?’ he asked. “…Till death do us part,” baby doll.’

Burns, 46, was charged with second-degree murder.

He accepted a plea deal and was sentenced to 23 years to life behind bars.

In the video below: Former teacher sentenced over wife’s murder

At the hearing, his daughters gave emotional victim impact statements.

Harley addressed her dad, saying, ‘What’s a 15-year-old girl supposed to do without her mother? You didn’t think about your own children.’

‘I lost my best friend,’ Autumn told him.

Megan said, ‘What Cliff really took from me that Christmas Eve was my heart.’

The judge barred Burns from ever seeing the girls.

The three sisters told Crime Watch Daily they believed Patricia would be pleased with how they were dealing with their trauma.

‘She would be proud that we didn’t let the situation break us, but we let it make us,’ Megan said.

Clifford’s Children Speak On The History Of Violence!

Claire HughesDec. 26, 2013Updated: Dec. 26, 2013 11:05 p.m.21

Colonie

As her parents see it, Patricia Burns was killed by kindness — her own excessive pattern of it, expressed by repeatedly allowing a husband with a violent history back into her life.

Burns, 42, was stabbed to death in her Lake Luzerne apartment on Christmas Eve.GET A JUMP ON 2022! 6 MONTHS FOR 99¢: Unlimited Digital AccessACT NOW

Burns’ estranged husband, 46-year-old Clifford R. Burns of Niskayuna, has been charged with her murder.

Clifford Burns’ own childhood was marked with domestic violence, according to newspaper reports. His father, James Burns, shot himself in 1984 after abducting Clifford’s mother, Edythe, and shooting a police officer, ending years of domestic disputes at the family’s Niskayuna home.

The details about what happened Tuesday in their daughter’s apartment are hazy and confusing to her mother and step-father, Helen and Gerald Curran of Colonie, but they are certain about one thing: The tragedy could have been prevented.

The family and the courts had long known of the dangerous abuse Clifford Burns could dish out, from beating his wife over a minor infraction to holding a gun to her neck, the Currans said. Patricia and Clifford Burns had been separated on and off for the last five years, and Patricia Burns had an order of protection against her husband, the Currans said.

Helen Curran is angry at the family court judge who didn’t find a way to lock her son-in-law up before this tragedy. But in the end, she said, it wasn’t the system that failed Patricia Burns. It was her daughter’s inability to push her abusive husband away, her refusal to recognize his apologies and excuses as lies.

“She’s a caretaker,” Helen Curran said of her daughter, speaking of her in the present tense, as she did through much of an interview Thursday. “She thinks, ‘I’m gonna fix ’em.’ “

Clifford Burns’ perspective could not be ascertained Thursday. He is in Warren County jail awaiting a court appearance on Jan. 8, according to Marcy Flores of the Warren County Public Defender’s Office. Flores said she could not comment on the pending case.

The couple married 15 years ago, according to the Currans. They lived in Niskayuna on WTRY Road in the same house Clifford grew up in, they said. He gave the impression of being meek and mild-mannered, especially around other men, Gerald Curran said.

But from the beginning of the couple’s marriage, Clifford Burns was prone to rages against his wife, they said.

Patricia Burns’ previous partners battled serious problems, like drug addiction, Helen Curran said. But none had been abusive. Patricia’s father had been an alcoholic, and Curran (then Canavan) said she left him when her four children were “still little” and supported the family by working as a nurse in Stony Point, Rockland County.

The Currans were concerned to learn from their daughter about Clifford Burns’ childhood, they said.

According to newspaper reports, James Burns’ treatment of his wife included shooting her in the chest during an argument in their car in 1981 and threatening her with a loaded pistol months afterward. The couple was estranged when James kidnapped Edythe in 1984 on the day the two were to appear in a divorce court proceeding initiated by Edythe. Before taking Edythe from the home, James Burns left 16-year-old Clifford a note stating his intent to grant power of attorney to the teen.

“Has he ever gotten therapy?” Helen Curran said she asked her daughter about Clifford. The answer was no.

Verbal abuse by Clifford Burns eventually extended to the couple’s five children, including three from previous relationships of Patricia’s, the Currans said.

The family suffered an unthinkable tragedy around Christmas three years ago, when Patricia’s 15-year-old daughter Christalin Canavan died in her sleep on Dec. 27, 2010. The cause was unexplained by autopsy or toxicology.

“I think God took her before she was subject to anything else,” Gerald Curran said Thursday.

On Christmas this year, the Currans had planned to have a casual dinner at Patricia’s apartment.

Patricia’s siblings and their children, who all live outside the Capital Region, planned to gather at the Currans’ home Saturday for the family’s Christmas celebration.

Now they are thinking about Patricia’s funeral instead, but cannot schedule the service until investigators complete a thorough autopsy, Helen Curran said.

Patricia’s 22-year-old daughter, Megan Jenkins, is recovering in Glens Falls Hospital from stabbing injuries to her arm, sustained when she tried to intervene in the conflict at her mother’s apartment on Christmas Eve.

During a conversation on Thursday, Helen Curran repeated again and again why she wanted to share her daughter’s story.

“Something has to be done about domestic abuse,” she said.

Her daughter’s life and death provides a lesson to women, she said, about the dangers of trusting when the evidence says you shouldn’t.

“You have to stand up for your own rights,” Helen Curran said.

Gerald Curran continued, “Be aware of the first signs before you get brainwashed into thinking you’re wrong, and the abuser is right.”