By Michael Swanger

Desolation hovers in the air at Brian Ashby’s bare bones apartment. It’s been five weeks since his girlfriend of 11 years, Terri Burgess, was shot and killed by his landlord and next-door neighbor, Shasta Bell, and signs of his depression are everywhere. Devastated by her death, he’s started smoking again, he hasn’t eaten much and due to recurring nightmares he’s slept even less. But there’s hope — he’s showering again and talking to people.

Seated at a kitchen table with newspaper clippings of Burgess’ murder strewn about, the 38-year-old Des Moines man hangs his head and averts his eyes to hide his tears as he talks about how much he loved Burgess. After all of the trials and tribulations the couple endured — homelessness, prison, poverty, drugs and alcohol abuse — he blames himself for not being home the night she was murdered, wondering if he might have been able to save her life.

“I was always there for her,” he cries. “She cried out to me that night and told me something was wrong. I know it.”
Holed up in his apartment for the past month, Ashby has replayed in his mind over and over again the events that occurred in the early hours of March 17. That’s when officers were dispatched to 621 28th St., apartment No. 3, at approximately 3:27 a.m. after receiving a call from Bell, 44, notifying police that she had shot an apparent intruder. Ashby, who was visiting a friend that night, heard about a man being shot at his building later that morning on television. When he returned to ask Bell what happened, that’s when he learned Burgess had been killed.

“I told my cousin at about 4 a.m. that day that I had a bad feeling that something was wrong; ‘Terri’s in trouble,’” Ashby says. “Something told me to come home. When I got there, Shasta wouldn’t even open the door to talk to me.”

There are two external wooden stair cases on the building’s east side, including one that leads to Bell’s second-floor apartment and another that connects to Ashby’s neighboring apartment, No. 4. A report filed by Detective Judy Stanley said the victim was found on the top landing of the wooden fire escape leading to Bell’s apartment wearing dark colored clothing and a dark colored stocking hat. The victim was positioned in a slouched position with a pair of scissors in an ungloved hand and a black glove held in the other hand with a cloth bag at her side. A fire extinguisher from inside the building was also found on the landing. Though it was not included in the initial report, Sgt. Todd Dykstra tells Cityview the screen to Bell’s window was cut.

Stanley’s report stated that the victim appeared to have “significant trauma to the left cheek area on their face.” There was “one suspected shotgun blast hole in the window that leads into the bedroom of apartment No. 3.” There were also “areas of suspected blood and tissue on the top few steps of the staircase and a larger area of suspected blood pooling on the ground below the top landing of the staircase.”

Bell told police that she sleeps with a shotgun under her mattress and that she fired one shot at the person on her fire escape because she thought she appeared to be trying to break through her shaded window. Afterwards, she called 911, but said she did not look out the window after firing her gun, fearing the intruder might still be there.

Police investigators and Polk County Attorney John Sarcone say the shooting was a clear case of self-defense. After interviewing Bell and Ashby later that morning — and upon further review of evidence, two days before an autopsy was performed — Sarcone decided not to press charges against Bell. The attorney and police said Burgess, whose last known address was 709 17th St., should not have been on Bell’s fire escape in the middle of the night and that the building’s landlord acted within the law.

“I don’t think we’ve had an open and shut case like this that I can remember,” Sgt. Dykstra says.

Sarcone told The Des Moines Register that “several factors were considered before authorities decided that no charges would be filed against Bell: the time of day; the fact that the fire escape does not lead to a door; and the scissors and fire extinguisher found outside the window.” Sarcone also said “I feel badly for the family of the woman who died. It’s a terrible situation. But you have to come back to the question: What is she doing up there?”

According to Iowa law, “A person is justified in the use of reasonable force when he or she believes that such force is necessary to defend himself or herself or another from unlawful force.” Reasonable force is defined as “necessary to prevent an injury or loss. It can include deadly force if it is reasonable to believe that such force is necessary to avoid injury or risk to one’s life or safety.”

Whether or not Bell’s life was in danger, only Bell knows. She refused to comment for this story, so no one may ever know what was going through her head when she fired her shotgun through her bedroom window. But Ashby and Burgess’ sister, Sharon Perry, doubt that Burgess was trying to rob Bell’s apartment. In addition to that, they say Bell and Burgess knew one another and that Burgess, who had a habit of knocking on people’s doors and windows late at night, always yelled her name when calling on friends and family late at night.

“Terri never robbed anyone,” Ashby says. “Police say she had burglary tools, but to me burglary tools are bolt cutters, a hammer or a screw driver, not scissors. Terri used to borrow my scissors to carry for protection.

“I don’t care what nobody says, I knew this woman. We were homeless together, slept in cars together and ate meals at shelters together, but we never robbed anyone.”

Ashby thinks that Burgess might have tried to contact Bell so she would let her in his apartment since she no longer had a key.

“She was coming to see me,” he says. “If I wasn’t home yet, she would knock on Shasta’s door or window to see if Shasta would let her in. I believe she was there to ask for her assistance.”

Perry told The Des Moines Register that she thought authorities should file manslaughter charges against Bell.

“You cannot shoot someone who is making noise outside your window,” she was quoted as saying. Burgess “was not a violent person, and she was not breaking into that apartment. … She was intoxicated and was trying to get in her apartment. But she couldn’t get in. I’m sure that’s why she was at that window. She was trying to get inside just to lay down.

“She did not have an arm or leg inside,” she added. “Terri was 100 pounds soaking wet. She wouldn’t know burglar tools from bubble gum. She couldn’t get into Brian’s apartment, because she didn’t have a key. She knows this woman who shot her.”

Ashby admits Burgess had no business being on Bell’s fire escape because she had no idea how Bell would react. But he’s not convinced that Bell’s life was in danger and that it was unnecessary for her to use deadly force.

“I don’t want to put Shasta in a bad light,” he says. “But there was nothing in there of value and I don’t believe she was in danger. I listened to the 911 tapes and Shasta’s voice is flat, monotone. She wasn’t scared. That’s why I still have my doubts.

“I always liked Shasta and Terri respected her. But I know Shasta has a hot temper and she doesn’t like to be bothered. I think Terri died because of a temper tantrum. If I’m wrong, I’ll say it. But the question of whether or not she knew it was Terri has been floating in my head.”

Ashby moved into Bell’s building last October and said Burgess visited him every day and met Bell a number of times. The couple had shared a residence at 709 17th St. for about seven years, but had recently separated, forcing Burgess to stay with family, friends and, sometimes, Ashby.

“She wasn’t quite homeless, but she didn’t have a place of her own,” Ashby says. “She was in the process of getting her life together.”

Ashby says the couple separated amicably, but remained close friends.

“We started having problems,” he says. “I got Section 8 housing and she wasn’t supposed to be living with me. Then she started drinking and I told her I wasn’t going to watch her drink. It bothered me because she wasn’t going to get any better and I wanted to see Terri do the best she could do for herself. I told her we should go our separate ways but remain friends, which we did.”

Ashby and Burgess began dating in 1996 and endured tough times. Ashby served three years in prison from 1997 to 2000 for selling crack cocaine. Unemployed and living on disability checks, he has had difficulty finding work and sees a therapist to help him work through mental health issues.

The Register reported that Burgess “was arrested for prostitution in 1993 and 1998, and domestic assault causing injury in 2002” … and that she “was hospitalized in 1994 after falling from a moving semi truck on Interstate Highway 235. She was later found wandering the interstate dazed and bloody.”

Burgess, 46, was born and raised in St. Louis and moved to Des Moines to attend college, but Perry told The Register that her sister “fell in with the wrong group of people when she came here.” Burgess is survived by five children and two grandchildren. Ashby says authorities took her children away from her because of her drug use, but that “she loved them kids to death.” One of her daughters, Taeisha Burgess of Des Moines, agreed to speak to Cityview about her mother, but failed to meet a scheduled interview and did not return several phone calls.

“The Register talked negative about Terri,” Ashby says. “And the police didn’t ask who she was. They tried to make her look like a prostitute, like she was a crazy person. It seems nobody wanted to know what I had to say or who the real Terri was.

“I blame her family, too, because I’m the one who had to deal with her problems. Maybe if they would have given me some help to help her, maybe she wouldn’t have been on those back steps.”

Due to the evidence that supports Bell’s actions and his lack of resources to obtain a lawyer, Ashby knows he stands little chance of having the case reopened. Still, that doesn’t prevent him from protecting Burgess’ legacy and continuing to ask questions.

“Nothing I do is going to bring her back. That’s the hardest part to swallow,” he says. “Some people have told me to be careful, that I might find out something I didn’t want to know. But I still have a lot of questions that need to be answered and I don’t buy that it was self-defense.

“I used to have people knock on my window when I sold drugs, and that’s a dangerous occupation, but I never had to shoot anybody. So what was [Bell] scared of? She was scared of something, but it wasn’t Terri.”

Dykstra says cases of self-defense are difficult to refute because people react differently to different situations.
“The county attorney and investigators believe [Bell] acted in self-defense because she feared for her life,” he says. “That’s why she took the action she did. That’s why there were no charges.

“Everyone has a different opinion about what they would do if they were in a similar situation. But we can only go with what [Bell] told us. It’s a very tragic ordeal for everyone involved.”

Ashby says the effects of the shooting continue to haunt him, noting that friends and family are afraid to visit him because “they worry they might get shot.” He says Bell recently asked him to move out even though his lease doesn’t expire until November. Ashby says she told him, “I don’t like the people you hang around with” and that a lot of people are “tense and scared.” But he says he has no intention of moving even though “I didn’t like the look in her eyes and I don’t like living next door to the woman who shot my girlfriend.”

Despite any potential tension with Bell, Ashby says he is content living at his apartment where memories of Burgess are everywhere. He looks across the kitchen and points out a heart-shaped mirror hanging on the wall that Burgess gave him. The only photo he has of Burgess is her newspaper obituary — he gave his photos of Burgess to her family to use for her funeral, which he did not attend. Still, not a day goes by that he doesn’t think about her.

“I see people walk down the street and think it’s her,” he says. “I see things that remind me of her and sometimes crying overcomes me and I’m sorry I ever brought her around here. I wish I could trade places with her and she was here.”

But those painful memories eventually subside and Ashby remembers the good times they shared. That’s the way he wants others to remember Burgess, too.

“The only thing I have left to protect is her memory, and I’m going to do that.” CV

(Editor’s note: Brian Ashby submitted a letter to The Des Moines Register in an effort to clear Terri Burgess’ name. The Register refused to publish it. Here it is in its entirety.)

Not an opinion, a fact

Regarding the article concerning the female burglar Terri Burgess, first I want all readers to know that when reporters get and refer to police information in news articles they only get the first page of the report so the information you get is only partially available.

Second, what does a person’s past have to do with today especially when the past is as irrelevant as to how they allege a person is connected to a crime.

I know Terri Burgess better than anyone. I have shared every day with her for 98 percent of the last 11 years. Terri is no burglar, no prostitute, and especially no violent person. She has only tried to find a place where she fits in. She befriended everyone, and always spoke to strangers, too. She put trust in people most wouldn’t. She always tried to be helpful to everyone. She loved her kids. She really missed her mother who died when she was only 13. She lost herself in a world most of you know nothing about. You never will either.

You sit and pass judgment on someone you don’t know based on past actions and situations, which always have to do with emotions, environment and circumstance. What you read in the paper about Terri was an outright lie. She was portrayed as a criminal, which she definitely was not.

I love Terri Burgess. Forever and ever. I’ll never want anything again in life. Nothing. I only want her back. I wish I was with her. I lost my best friend. She always put others before herself.

I’ve been asking myself “How can someone detail anyone’s life or personality if they don’t know them?” Her life was a hell of a lot more than police reports and arrest records.

Terri Burgess was the other half of me. I’m all alone now.

She didn’t deserve this. She ran from trouble. She feared violence, police, weapons and anyone her instincts told her not to trust.

She knocked on a lot of doors and windows late at night over the years. Would you like to know why? She felt she could trust those people and that those people knew her and trusted her. She was harmless. Every other door and window she knocked on was always the same way. “Knock, knock.” “Who is it?” “It’s Terri” (loud). Nobody ever shot at her.

I’m really sad right now. I’ve tried my best to protect her from everything and everyone, including herself. Do you hear me world?!

She was no threat to no one. She was the most beautiful person in the world even when I was mad at her. She could do no wrong in my eyes. The world lost the most beautiful person in it for nothing. The world is a dark and cold place for me. I miss her so much I can’t stand it.
Terri, don’t be afraid. I’ll be with you again. Goodbye my love. I’ll be there.

Brian Ashby
Des Moines

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