After 11 years of waiting, family says goodbye to son

HOBART — Patty Burroughs finally got to say goodbye to her deceased son, Steven, during a memorial service Tuesday in Hobart. The memorial ended an agonizing 11-year wait.

"This means a lot,” Patty Burroughs said as she patted tears from her cheeks. "This should have happened a long time ago.”

Steven Royce Burroughs, 18, disappeared from the family's small farmhouse outside Roosevelt on March 17, 1996, prompting the family to file a missing-person report.

In time, the Kiowa County sheriff's office picked up the case before handing it off to the Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation.

Patty Burroughs said a skull and two leg bones were discovered protruding from a shallow pond a quarter-mile from the family's home in late 2003. The remains were delivered to the state medical examiner's office in February 2004. That office sent samples to the University of North Texas for mitochondrial DNA testing, OSBI spokeswoman Jessica Brown said.

Two years passed before the results of the DNA test were released, confirming the remains were those of Steven Burroughs. No cause of death could ever be determined.

Today, the case remains an open investigation.

"I have no doubt he was murdered,” Patty Burroughs said. "We just haven't received much help. We even hired a private investigator, and it was only because of him we were able to get Steven's remains released back to us last week.”

A small gathering of close friends and family attended the memorial service at the Hobart United Methodist Church to pay tribute to Steven Burroughs, who planned to attend the University of Oklahoma in the fall of 1996. The Rev. Dennis Yates of Roosevelt presided over the service, reading a passage from the prophet Isaiah and playing "Amazing Grace” on his guitar.

"At last, he's home,” said Jessica Schroeder, who was 11 at the time of her brother's disappearance. Schroeder, now 22, recently became a mother with the birth of a girl.

"Now,” Schroeder added, "we won't have to wonder where he is any more.”

Contributing: Staff Writers Ken Raymond and Michael Kimball