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January 31, 2012

Wife says she wasn’t held against her will

Rachel Brown rachelbrown@daltoncitizen.com

— A Murray County woman involved in a domestic situation last week is disputing the Murray County Sheriff’s Office’s version of events.

Sarah Kelly Burns said she is the wife of a man facing charges involving locking her inside their Chatsworth home.

Thomas Larry Burns, 25, of 45 Deer Park Drive, Chatsworth, was charged Jan. 24 by the Murray County Sheriff’s Office with obstruction of an officer, terroristic threats and acts, possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, possession of a drug-related object, false imprisonment, reckless conduct and criminal trespass.

The false imprisonment charge stemmed from an incident in which authorities say Burns followed his wife to a neighbor’s house, pulled a gun out of his waist band and began cussing and threatening to kill everyone, Chief Deputy Ray Sitton said. Sitton said Burns’ wife then left the neighbor’s house and followed him back to their home at which point Burns screwed the front door shut, locking the two of them inside.

That’s the part Sarah Burns said isn’t true.

“He did not threaten to kill anybody at the neighbor’s house,” she said. “He did not lock me in the house. He did not hold me against my will.”

She declined to explain what happened that night. She said he did screw the door shut, but she wasn’t in the house when he did it.

“(The sheriff’s deputy) totally just pretty much made that up on his own,” she said. “I mean, I don’t know where he got that from, but it was never said, and I have witnesses that can say I did not say that and that did not happen.”

Sitton said he had not spoken with Burns’ wife and that she had not filed any complaints against the sheriff’s office as of Monday.

“The officers went by what they saw and what her statement was,” Sitton said. “I don’t have any comments other than they went by what she told the officers.”

He said it will be up to the district attorney’s office to decide how to prosecute. Sarah Burns said she plans to ask for charges relating to her being locked inside the house to be dropped at his hearing on Wednesday.

Burns is also accused of being involved in an incident the same day on Holcomb Road in Whitfield County in which he is accused of firing shots at a residence. No one was hit.

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