Brian Burns being walked from the Saline County courthouse in April of this year.

Alleged to have tried it from jail

SALINE CO. – A preliminary hearing is coming up for the second set of very serious felonies charged against a local former doctor, sitting in jail awaiting trial for allegedly murdering his wife.

Aside from a hearing date finally set two months after the charges were announced, the only other significant thing about Brian T. Burns’ legal woes that’s developed since then is the hiring of Franklin County attorney Bryan Drew as his defense attorney to represent him.

Saline County was stunned when, on September 28, it was announced that Burns had allegedly committed a set of crimes while sitting behind bars at the Saline County Detention Center: Three counts of Aggravated Kidnaping, two of them Class 1 felonies, one of them a Class X felony.

Authorities allege that the three counts were committed on September 13.

Court documents showed very little about the background of the case against Burns, who is facing two Class M First Degree Murder charges and one Class 3 felony Concealment of a Homicidal Death in the death of his estranged wife, Carla, back on March 8 of this year.

Held on a million-dollar bond since about a week later, Burns has had time to sit and stew over his fate, and apparently, the best he could come up with was a plan to have some dufus kidnap Saline County prosecutor Mike Henshaw for a thousand dollars.

The ‘dufus’ was county detective David Blazier; Burns was alleged to have committed these offenses over the phone from the jail.

How he knew to contact Blazier (who no doubt was posing as someone else) remains unsaid in the court documents.

Also unsaid was what it was Burns allegedly wanted to happen to Henshaw once he was kidnapped for a thousand dollars; apparently, Burns hadn’t thought that detail out very thoroughly.

The first count of Aggravated Kidnapping is Solicitation, wherein it’s alleged that Burns, with the intent that the offense of aggravated kidnapping be committed, requested Blazier to commit the offense.

The second count of Aggravated Kidnapping is Conspiracy, wherein it’s alleged that Burns, with the intent that the offense of aggravated kidnapping be committed, agreed with Blazier to the commission of that offense and performed an act in furtherance of that agreement, in that he made a telephone call to Blazier agreeing to pay him a thousand dollars to kidnap Henshaw.

The third count of Aggravated Kidnapping is one of Attempt, wherein it’s alleged that Burns made the call to Blazier stating he (Burns) would pay Blazier a thousand dollars to kidnap Henshaw.

This craziness was announced on Sept. 28.

Court paperwork shows the matter was delayed as long as it was because Drew was “out of the state on a long-standing scheduled trip” (more commonly known as a vacation.)

In Drew’s absence, the office of the prosecutor moved for an appointment of a special prosecutor, and that appointment went to Matt Goetten of the appellate prosecutor’s office on Oct. 19.

Burns dumped Adam Lawler of Marion as his attorney to hire Drew, whose reputation as a defense attorney is, unfortunately, more sizzle than steak. His losing streak for those hiring him is bigger than his winning streak, and his winning streak has only been facilitated by the presence of “special agent” Rick White screwing up the case for the state.

That’s not the situation here; the case is being handled mostly locally with a little help from the state police, but apparently not Rick White, since he was on leave when Burns was charged, White having been indicted for Perjury in Richland County.

Burns is next in court with his new attorney Nov. 22.