Leslie Leon Burchart confessed to seven killings in Richmond, Virginia, over six months in 1996, and pleaded guilty. Four of the dead were women of the city's West End. Three were men killed in the west of the city in June and July of that year. He was sentenced to five life terms plus 105 years and died in prison in August 2002.
The case is unusual in how it ended. For years the killings of the women were unsolved. When Burchart was arrested for the deaths of the men, the detectives holding him did not at first know he would also answer for the women. Afterward there was no physical evidence connecting him to those four deaths, and he later said he had not committed them.
Burchart moved between mental hospitals and group homes. In 2000 he was 51, and he was a familiar figure near Richmond's main library, where he sat on a low wall at a busy corner. A retired detective, Louis Quick, said of him: "He was in plain sight."
A woman who met him at a Richmond service center in the early 1990s described a quiet man who wore cotton in his ears, played classical piano and said he liked the voices in his head. She recalled his playing as "soft and smooth."
Over about six months in 1996, four older women of Richmond's West End died. A task force of city and county detectives, state police and FBI agents worked on the cases for almost four years without solving them, and by then the deaths had stopped. In the same months, at least three men died in the west of the city, and a fourth man survived.
The women whose deaths Burchart admitted were Mamie Verlander, Lucille Boyd, Elizabeth Siebert and Jane Foster. One of the men, John Wade Pleasants, died in June 1996. The dates of each death, and the order of the seven, are not on record.
Burchart was wanted in connection with the deaths of the men when he was taken into custody. At that stage nobody knew the man in custody was also connected with the deaths of the women. A detective who was given the cases afterward, Louis Quick, identified three suspects, eliminated two, and built a case that led to a confession.
Burchart told detectives he had killed the four women. He later said he had confessed partly because "at the time, I thought I could be a celebrity killer," and partly because he was tired of being questioned again and again. Detectives maintained that he knew details of the deaths that had not been made public. A detective, Jan McTernan, said of his involvement: "He did it," and added, "Absolutely."
Burchart pleaded guilty to seven killings, four of women and three of men, and to the attack on the fourth man. The court, the date of the pleas and the exact wording of each charge are not on record. His sentence was five life terms plus 105 years. He served it at Sussex I State Prison, in Virginia.
Burchart died in prison in August 2002. He was 52.
The only link between Burchart and the four women was his own account. No physical evidence tied him to those deaths. After pleading guilty he said he had not killed the four women, and shortly before his death he said again that he was not the person responsible. Police and the detectives who worked the cases continued to say that he was responsible.
Detectives also believed he might have killed one more woman and at least one more man. Those deaths were never the subject of a conviction. A former Richmond police sergeant, Ron Reed, alleged that Burchart had also described two further deaths. The police chief of the time said the story was not true. None of these claims is a conviction.
1996: six months of killings in Richmond; four women and three men die; a fourth man survives.
1996 to 2000: a task force works on the cases of the women without solving them.
About 2000: Burchart confesses and pleads guilty; the date and court are not on record.
August 2002: Burchart dies in prison.