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Friday, January 03, 2003

By Tom Gibb, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

HOLLIDAYSBURG, Pa. -- Not that America needed one, but the episode had all the ingredients for another cheesy, made-for-television flick.

A law-fearing mother of two finds out that her husband of 14 years has absconded to Massachusetts to take up with a woman he met on the Internet. Vacillating between distraught and livid, the wronged wife earmarks $2,000 -- her income tax refund -- to have a hit man rub out her husband's concubine and return with the woman's head as proof of service rendered.

Finally, the jilted wife scuttles her own plot and brings down the law on herself by taking a mental health counselor's advice and notifying police before anybody gets hurt.

But the tale likely won't be milked for a television movie. It wants for one critical ingredient: a real ending.

The state Supreme Court now has refused to hear Blair County District Attorney David Gorman's bid to resurrect the case from lower court rulings that, while the 1999 case idled amid delays and appeals, defendant Carolyn Burke of Altoona was denied her right to a speedy trial.

The high court decision last week closes the case, meaning that Burke, 35, won't face charges of conspiracy and solicitation to commit homicide, county public defender Donald Speice said yesterday.

For Gorman, who was not available for comment yesterday, it is the second of two related cases to wriggle off the hook. Last year, he dropped a case against Susan Chaplin, Burke's friend and accused co-conspirator, after time expired for a speedy trial.

That left the Supreme Court to decide whether to hear Gorman's argument for reviving the case against Burke -- the appeal the high court has now refused to hear.

Speice wouldn't say how he planned to defend Burke had the case gone to trial.

"My client probably was clinically depressed, not really thinking clearly or acting rationally," he said.

And while the Supreme Court let her go home free, it didn't write Burke a happy ending.

"Clearly, my client is not happy," Speice said. "Her husband is living in Massachusetts with another woman."