At the end of the day, after John Cary was found guilty of killing his girlfriend, Juanita Burnley, the question, as always, was: Why?

Her weeping father, John Burnley, broke down on the witness stand, asking.

And Juanita Burnley's 9-year-old could get only one or two words out before collapsing with stomach-wrenching sobs, trying to tell the jury what her death meant to him.

"There was nothing my daughter could have done, Mr. Cary, for you to have shot her in the back of the head, for you to shoot her like a dog and step over her body like it was a piece of trash and then go and have sex with another woman," her father said.

The jury had just found Cary guilty of second-degree murder.

Juanita Burnley died from a single shot to the back of her head after an argument with Cary in the apartment he shared with her.

Richmond Detective William Brereton made the case after hours of patient questioning broke an alibi Cary and four friends had concocted the night Burnley died in November.

The jury recommended that Cary serve a 25-year sentence, with an additional three years for using a firearm in the homicide and five additional years for possessing a firearm after an earlier felony conviction.
Contact David Ress at (804) 649-6051 or dress@timesdispatch.com.