It was the same story with John Burr's hogs. Although an investment in a mechanical feeder would have paid out in saved costs within a year, feeding was still done by hand. The Burrs would also hold their livestock too long, selling at full weight rather than half-growth, earning more cash but a far lower profit.
The problems, Keith Forbes explains, really began with the death of Vernon Burr seven years ago. "After that, things went downhill fast. Dad was Dale's manager -- if there was a decision, Dad made it. And when Dad couldn't make the decisions anymore, Dale was lost."
The disputed 1982 land purchase that led to the death of Richard Goody was the most dramatic of Burr's mistakes. The 80-acre parcel was considered prime farmland, rich and flat. But the purchase price of $3,750 an acre was the highest in the history of the county, adding $300,000 to the Burr debt. Over the next three years the value of the land would fall drastically, chopping an estimated $150,000 from the Burr net worth. But, more important, the property could never have produced a positive cash flow.Retired loan officer and farmer Melvin Schneider estimates that the annual debt service alone on the land was $312 an acre, at a time when an average corn and bean mix harvest could fetch only $300 an acre.
But Burr had managed to make a bad situation even worse. Goody was a tenant on the land, having farmed it since 1969. His father had farmed it for a decade before that. According to Iowa law, if a tenant is not given legal notice of the termination or expiration of his lease before September 1, his tenancy is assumed for another full year. Burr, who had bought the property in July, hadn't taken appropriate steps to inform the Goodys of his plans to use the land himself. Under standard tenancy agreements, Burr would still have been entitled to half the crop produced by his tenant (or its value) in that final year. But young John Burr, angry at Goody's refusal to leave the land, decided to get his revenge by chisel-plowing the fields, leaving a regular pattern of holes that made it impossible for anyone either to furrow-plow for crops or put out livestock. Goody sued, and was awarded $5,829.60 in damages, plus legal costs.
For Dale Burr it was simply one more bill to pay, one more costly mistake. "Dale was not sharp financially," Forbes says, "and it all just got to him.
"He had always just figured he had plenty of money. It used to be he could walk down the street and buy anything, and all of a sudden he found himself with nothing. People had always looked up to him, and he was too proud to admit he'd have to sell land to get out of trouble. He had a lot of pride that his dad and his granddad were all successful, and he could see that he would be hurting the Burr name bad."
But while his pride may have been hurt, it was unlikely that Burr stood on the brink of financial ruin, as he feared. After the killing, officials at Hills Bank & Trust insisted that no foreclosure "was or is" planned for the Burr property. Indeed, according to senior vice-president Jim Gordon, the bank was expecting to finance Burr's operational needs for the 1986 crop year.
And as for the fateful meeting that loomed so large in Burr's mind, bank officials say that, as far as they know, no appointment had been scheduled.
By the middle of January, things seemed back to normal in Hills. Another Farmbelt murder/suicide, this time in South Dakota, pushed Dale Burr off the front pages, and now only an occasional reporter wanders down Main Street, looking for clues. The sight of a locked bank door makes Iowans nervous these days, so Hills Bank & Trust reopened the day after the shooting -- but this time there is a security guard standing in the lobby.
One evening in December, four white crosses appeared on the lawn leading up to St. Joseph's Catholic Church, the lone church in Hills. Father David Hitch scheduled a candlelight prayer service there, hoping it would be "a time to share concern with the community," but the turnout was thin, and no one has mentioned the crosses since.
But Father Hitch tried again. Late in January, the church organized a benefit breakfast for Marilyn Goody and her two children. Eighteen hundred people turned out at $3 a head for eggs and juice, pancakes and whole hog sausage. But no one wanted to talk about Dale Burr, and no one lingered much. There were chores to attend to, work that had to be done.
Most of them knew there would be a long season of cold ahead. One in every 15 Iowa farmers would be denied credit for this spring's crop, and federal price supports, already pegged below production cost, are likely to be cut even further under the era of Gramm-Rudman. Folks in Hills can't imagine how things could get worse, but they see no reason to hope things will get better.
Out at the Burr family farm, son John has taken the nameplate off the mailbox to discourage the curious. He keeps to himself mostly, spending hour after hour with his hogs. But he does talk regularly with his uncle.
"John told me, 'I'm gonna hold her all," Keith Forbes remembers. "He said, 'I'm gonna fight my damndest." That would not be enough, however. On February 13, John frofeited the contract for the purchase of the Goody land. But even without that obligation, Forbes thinks the odds John Burr can make it are "zero."
It's the same old story. "John is one hell of a chore man; he'll chore till midnight," Forbes says. "But he's never been much with a pencil."
