Detectives were eyeing the daughter of a murdered 100-year-old Long Island woman as a person of interest in her slaying – but they also had other potential suspects, a police source said.
Jessie Burke – who reached the century mark on Aug. 7 – was found dead Sunday, shot once in the head inside a million-dollar Sag Harbor home that she shared with her 76-year-old daughter, Jean.
Jean told cops that she last saw her mother alive about noon, and that she arrived home about an hour later to find her shot dead in her recliner.
Cops have ruled out suicide. They have also determined that she was not shot from outside the home. An autopsy completed yesterday found she was shot point-blank, at least once. No murder weapon has been found.
While Suffolk County detectives officially refused to name any suspects in the slaying, a source close to the probe said that Jean is the main focus.
Jean was questioned late Sunday. Cops, meanwhile, combed her home for clues.
“It is a unique crime, that a 100-year-old was shot,” said Lt. Jack Fitzpatrick, who is leading the probe for the Suffolk County Police homicide squad. “We looked for a lot of information from the daughter and other family members. We received information, and we are looking to get more information from them.”
Jean Burke is a former parole officer who retired in the 1980s. In the 1990s, she ran for mayor of Sag Harbor, and she has since been known as a civic gadfly
Sources said detectives would begin to go through financial records today, hoping find some motivation for the crime. Jean Burke owns the home in which she and her mom lived, along with the 8-acre plot of Sag Harbor land on which it sits.