Crime Immemorial

At approximately ten twenty-one a.m., deputies and emergency personnel were dispatched to Jack’s residence on Hicks Road, following a report of an unresponsive man. When they arrived, they found Jack lying in his driveway. He was dead.

What might initially have appeared to be a sudden medical emergency quickly became something far more disturbing. Jack had suffered multiple gunshot wounds, and investigators would eventually conclude that he had apparently been ambushed outside his own home as he was preparing to leave for work.

There was another immediate indication that whoever killed him had not simply fired the shots and fled. Jack’s red pickup truck was gone. Contemporary reporting identified it as a 2006 Dodge Dakota quad-cab, dark red in color with a matching bed cap. At the time, it carried Ohio license plate DLK6752.

Police circulated information about the missing truck while deputies worked the crime scene, but they didn’t have to wait long for the vehicle to reappear. At approximately five p.m. on July 13th, a friend of Jack’s family reportedly discovered the Dakota abandoned along Yankeetown-Chenoweth Road, near the Fayette County line, about two miles southwest of Jack Burgoon’s home. Police impounded the Dakota and processed it for evidence. Whatever they recovered from the vehicle did not immediately identify a suspect.

An autopsy was conducted the morning after Jack’s death. Madison County Sheriff Jim Sabin subsequently confirmed that the victim had suffered multiple gunshot wounds, though the precise number of wounds, the caliber of the firearm, and the location of the injuries do not appear to have been publicly released.

From fairly early on in the investigation, the Madison County Sheriff’s Office apparently believed Jack Burgoon had been attacked while leaving home for work. An ambush carries implications very different from a spontaneous confrontation. If the description is accurate, it raises the possibility that the killer may have known the victim, and was familiar enough with Jack’s routine to know when he would be outside.

The investigation continued, but as months turned into years, Jack Burgoon’s case joined the long list of Ohio homicides for which investigators had evidence but no person they could successfully charge.

Then, a decade after the murder, investigators announced something significant. In July 2020, around the tenth anniversary of Jack Burgoon’s death, the Madison County Sheriff’s Office revealed that detectives were examining new DNA evidence connected with the case. The DNA had been submitted to a national database in an attempt to identify a possible match.

Authorities did not publicly identify exactly where the DNA had been recovered, and were similarly cautious about describing whose DNA they believed it might be.

Despite the passage of time, the fundamental mysteries surrounding Jack Burgoon’s murder remain remarkably intact. There is no publicly identified suspect. No motive has been announced. Authorities have not explained why Jack’s truck was taken, or whether anything was stolen from his residence or person. The murder weapon has not been publicly identified.

As of September 2026, Jack Burgoon’s murder remains officially unsolved.