A suspected killer who broke out of a Pennsylvania jail last week may have killed an upstate New York family’s rescue dog before stealing clothes from their home and then fleeing into the woods.
Michael Burham, 34, who escaped from the Warren County Jail near the New York border Thursday, is now believed to have ransacked a Western New York home and made off with food and clothing while on the run, Fox News reported.
“It’s not a coincidence,” Jamestown homeowner Lauraine Peterson told the outlet. “Our clothes are missing and our dog is killed.”
Cops have also found campsites and stockpiles of supplies in wooded areas around the rural landscape that they believe are linked to Burham, WNEP-TV reported.
Burham was being held on more than two dozen charges, including for a gunpoint kidnapping of an elderly couple, but is also suspected in the May 11 shooting death of Kala Hodgkin in Jamestown — not far from the Peterson home.
Burham was facing charges for allegedly raping Hodgkin at the time.
He was arrested in South Carolina on May 25 and was initially transferred to New York before being sent to Warren County in Pennsylvania on June 19.
Described by authorities as an adept survivalist with military training and extremely dangerous, he escaped from the jail by rappeling down a rope made of bed sheets late Thursday night.
On Friday, the Peterson home, which is less than 20 miles from the jail, was burglarized.
Missing from the house is a blue hooded sweatshirt with the name “Lobbs Automotive” printed on the front and a car logo across the bag, along with a pair of grey sweatpants.
Peterson said she believes her pup, named “Sweetpea,” was killed while going after the escaped inmate.
“If my dog was on him, she’d have chased him across the road,” she said. “I don’t know if she got hit by a car, or did he throw her?”
The US Marshal Service and Warren County Crime Stoppers are offering a combined $9,500 reward.
“If you have the survival skills there’s a lot of opportunity to evade police,” former Pennsylvania prosecutor Matt Mangino told Fox. “I think it’s inevitable that police are going to find him. It just depends [on] how long it’s going to take and what other damage or victims might come about because of this man.