Article published March 16, 2001
Deshler man, family attempt to reconstruct mysterious 9-day void
Rob Burner and his sister, Julie Setzer, describe the search for answers in the disappearance of their father, Richard.
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THE BLADE/ANDY MORRISON
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BY ERICA BLAKE and STEVE MURPHY
BLADE STAFF WRITERS
DESHLER - Nobody knows where Richard Burner was for the last nine days - not even Richard Burner.
While friends and family searched and prayed for the 64-year-old barber, Mr. Burner was apparently on a cross-country drive, finding his way to Salina, Kan., about 1,000 miles west of this Henry County village.
But the Deshler man was not able to share much about his trip that ended Wednesday night, when he was spotted at a Van Wert Wal-Mart.
Mr. Burner was undergoing tests at St. Vincent Mercy Medical Center in Toledo yesterday while his family tried to piece together what happened. Doctors told his family that Mr. Burner appeared to have suffered from amnesia.
"We said to him, `Dick, you were in Kansas,' and he said, `Why would anyone go to Kansas?'" said his wife of 44 years, Alice.
Mr. Burner disappeared March 5, setting off a search that spread out all over the region. Fliers also were scattered in Van Wert County, almost 50 miles southwest of his hometown.
Van Wert police were tipped off to Mr. Burner's whereabouts after his car was recognized by a Van Wert woman who had seen the fliers at Lock Sixteen Catering, Inc., where she works.
Family members had theorized that Mr. Burner accidentally hit his head while picking up hay for his horses and suffered some kind of head trauma.
They suspected he then got in his car and drove off.
Only his toupee, gloves, and some bloodied paper towels were found in the barn.
Neurology experts said cases like Mr. Burner's are difficult to diagnose.
Mieke Verfaellie, director of the Memory Disorders Research Center for the VA Boston Healthcare System, said someone who experiences such an extended loss of memory normally can't handle tasks such as driving and obtaining food and shelter, as Mr. Burner did during his nine-day trek.
"A head injury can lead to mental disorder, but it's unusual for someone to have that kind of selective memory loss," she said.
Doctors who examined Mr. Burner were not available for comment yesterday.
Mr. Burner did not want to be interviewed about his trip. But his family said Mr. Burner remembers driving and that he had bought three things at a flea market along the way.
He had no recollection of where he went or why.
The Burners acknowledged that too many unanswered questions remain, and they vowed to one day retrace his steps.
But although last week is nothing more than a blur for Mr. Burner, family members said they have dismissed any thoughts that the disappearance was intentional.
"If he had a girlfriend, he would have taken his hair," Mrs. Burner joked. "He looks younger with it."
Mr. Burner's son, Rob, said he found in his father's car a new sleeping bag, a pair of bungee cords, empty cartons of chocolate milk, an empty can of Spam, and half a loaf of bread.
The only clue, he said, was a receipt for gasoline, a cup of coffee, and two quarts of oil from the Flying J Travel Plaza in Salina, Kan. Reports that receipts were found from Nevada and Arizona are not true, he said.
"I wish the car could talk," Rob said.
Dr. John McSweeny, a professor of psychiatry and neurology at the Medical College of Ohio, said Mr. Burner's memory lapse could have been caused by early-stage Alzheimer's disease or amnesia triggered by a head injury.
While amnesia can be caused by a temporary disruption of blood blow to the brain, such cases tend to last "for a day or so, not nine days," he said.
If it's amnesia, it's more likely that Mr. Burner's fall fueled psychological distress that caused the memory loss, Dr. McSweeny said. One such disorder is a dissociative fugue, in which a person loses awareness of his identity, he said.
"These things may follow a relatively minor trauma in which they've bumped their head but haven't necessarily lost consciousness," Dr. McSweeny said. "These people tend to be less confused as they go about their day-to-day events, so this thing can persist over several days."
Such dissociative disorders "usually do get better with treatment," he added.
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