BY the time he stood trial in 1976 for three of the five 1972/'73 murders he participated in, Buck Burrows' mind was not so much conflicted as it was in a state of out-and-out civil war.

Nowhere were the contradictory forces battling in Burrows' soul more in evidence than in his lengthy written confession to the Government House double-murder when he took responsibility for shooting both Governor Sir Richard Sharples and his Aide-de-Camp Captain Hugh Sayers.

Contrived, second-hand Black Panther propaganda advocating revolution (propaganda spoon-fed to a largely uncomprehending Burrows by his Black Beret Cadre handlers and never properly digested by him) is interspersed with Biblical passages. Equal parts valedictory and apology, the document provides the clearest overview of the killer's tormented mind to emerge from his trials.

There are elements of pathetic self-adulation in the document. For instance, Burrows describes himself as "former Commander-in-Chief of All Anti-Colonialist Forces in Bermuda", a title the Berets bestowed on him ? despite the fact he led what was, in fact, a one-man guerrilla army. He goes on to say the assassination of Sharples resulted from his "direct orders" and "inspired efforts" when it is known the killing was, in fact, planned and directed by the Berets with Burrows playing the secondary role of triggerman.

But the delusional grandiosity is offset by lengthy passages of self-abasement and references to the Biblical commandment against murder.

And while Burrows described the Government House killings in vivid and melodramatic terms, his earlier confession to the Duckett killing ? in marked contrast ? is unembroidered to the point of terseness. Burrows, it is believed, never recovered from the psychological trauma the Berets knew would occur when they primed him to kill the man who had become the most important mentor and role model in his lonely, fatherless life.

The Police Commissioner, 42 years old when Burrows quite literally shot him in the back, had both befriended petty criminal Burrows and found him work at Police Headquarters and his own home, "Bleak House". But his Beret overseers played on the Prospect handyman's psychological vulnerabilities, convincing Burrows that Duckett had, in fact, abandoned him to thuggish officers who in 1971 almost certainly framed him for a series of break-ins he had not committed.

It was while he was jailed for these crimes that fate intervened in Burrows' life in the form of Black Beret Cadre members also serving time at Casemates.

Recognising Burrows' access to both Duckett and Police Headquarters could provide them with an operative uniquely placed to penetrate the enemy camp, the Berets employed crude manipulation techniques that were the norm in the militant counter-culture underground in the late '60s and early '70s to effectively brainwash the young janitor.

Bombarding him with Black Power and Cuban revolutionary propaganda and playing on his fragile ego (styling him as the of a non-existent Bermudian revolution), by the time Burrows was released from Casemates in 1972 and returned to Prospect full-time he was convinced he was walking with destiny.

His love for Duckett had been perverted ? at least in part ? into hate in the lead-up to the September 9, 1972 murder. The Police Commissioner, in Burrows' tormented mind, was now both a beloved father figure and the hated embodiment of colonial authority.

When Burrows shot Duckett in the back on the night of September 9, 1972 the murder was as much as symbolic act of parricide as it was the assassination of a major public figure.

Spraying the kitchen of "Bleak House" with .22 shots in an attempt to also kill Duckett's wife, Jane, and 17-year-old daughter Marcia, it seems likely Burrows' mental equilibrium never properly recovered from this attack on what amounted to his extended family.

At least some of the camaraderie he enjoyed with the Police officers he had lived and worked with at Prospect survived the Berets' indoctrination and the ensuing murderous crime spree. Despite the fact he had the blood of five men on his hands, Police officers unconsciously served as character witnesses for Burrows throughout his trial for the "Bleak House" and Government House killings.

At one point Superintendent John Joseph Sheehy, who headed the investigation into the Duckett murder, told the court in passing that Burrows was "very fond" of the auxiliary cycle he kept at Prospect when he lived there in 1972 and 1973, painting it often. He added: "It was very fast." At this point, Burrows smiled at Supt. Sheehy from the dock.

Supt. Sheehy said he had found Burrows civil and courteous at all times. He had never mentioned any hostility towards Mr. Duckett either before or after that murder ("Mr. Duckett was always very good to me and I liked him quite a bit," Burrows had told Detective Sergeant Edward Bailey on September 12, 1972 during a routine interview with people known to have access to "Bleak House"; it was perhaps the only truthful remark in his entire statement).

Since his arrest, said Supt. Sheehy, Burrows had become a devout Christian and grown increasingly thoughtful and inward-looking. In repeated interviews about the murders, he would either smile shyly or not respond at all to questions.

Having committed the ultimate betrayal of a man who had become both his protector and surrogate father, the Berets believed there could never be any coming back for Burrows from his role as their once-removed hitman.

They were only partly correct.

For Burrows abandoned his pose as an urban guerrilla soon after his arrest.

Once back in Casemates, Burrows filled the void that had been at the centre of his life from the time his mother died when he was 11 (he never knew his father) with Christianity. He embraced religion with the same zealous enthusiasm he had displayed for the Berets' revolutionary posturing soon after being jailed in January, 1974 for the series of post-assassination armed robberies and random shootings that terrorised the community in the summer and fall of 1973.

Burrows' had been an ongoing search for stability and meaning in a largely directionless life. His remorse over the murders combined with Christianity's promise of salvation led him to the ultimate father figure, God.

He had shouted "Viva Fidel!" and other pro-Castro slogans when led from the Supreme Court after being sentenced to 25 years in prison by Chief Justice John Summerfield. At his 1976 trial, by way of contrast, Burrows said nothing and the revolutionary dogma contained in the Government House letter was heavily diluted by Christian bromides.

Burrows abandoned the Berets shortly after they had effectively abandoned him. He was left to his own erratic devices following the Government House murders when the rump of the subversive organisation completely collapsed.

The half-dozen or so remaining Beret ringleaders ? all that remained in 1973 of a movement that at its zenith boasted more than 200 full-time members ? scattered under increasingly intense police scrutiny. The audacious assassinations of colonial symbols had seemed to bear out the threats the Berets had been making against the Bermuda Establishment for the preceding three years ? threats they had been too cowardly to carry out before recruiting pliable dupes like Burrows and his sociopathic associate Larry Tacklyn.

Members of the Black Beret Cadre were believed to be either directly or indirectly involved in what was to become a 13-month killing and crime spree before George Duckett's body had even arrived at the King Edward VII Memorial Hospital morgue on September, 1972.

OUNDED in 1969 by John Hilton Bassett and modelled along the lines of the American Black Panther Party, as revolutionaries the Black Beret Cadre made for excellent propagandists.

Initial enthusiasm for the Black Beret Cadre among Bermuda's counter-culture youth (and tacit support from middle-class black Bermudians who believed the Progressive Labour Party was too cautious and too ineffective to properly represent its interests) quickly evaporated when it became clear the organisation was more focused on extremist rhetoric than practical plans of action.

Most active members simply drifted away from youthful rebellion into adult responsibilities and full-time employment. Other Berets, more interested in pursuing a cultural agenda aimed at raising black consciousness and self-awareness, had been shocked into abandoning the movement because of the hardcore leadership's dedication to uncompromisingly violent dogma.

The leadership was mesmerised by the ongoing Black Power revolt in the US, a movement dedicated to "the complete tearing down and obliteration of white civilisation" in the words of Black Panther founder Stokely Carmichael. It also subscribed to what was then called Third World Socialism. Martinique-born, Algerian-based revolutionary Frantz Fanon, an apostle of armed confrontation, was the fiery philosopher of that anti-colonial movement, his words frequently approvingly cited in the short-lived Beret newsletter: "Colonialism is not a thinking machine nor a body endowed with reasoning faculties. It is violence in its natural state and will only yield when confronted with greater violence . . ."

In 1971, for instance, a Police intelligence report on Beret activities, cited support for an out-and-out guerrilla campaign to destabilise the island among the inner circle.

"Female Beret Pink (pseudonym) suggested the Berets begin a campaign of burning down Bermuda's hotels. This would frighten tourists from the island and cause economic hardship," reads the report, forwarded to the Foreign & Commonwealth Office by then Governor Lord Martonmere. "She said unless the Berets adopted such hardline tactics it would take 300 years to achieve its objectives. A guerrilla campaign, however, would put the Bermudian 'system' out of business in a few months.

"The Berets would then be in a position to dictate terms."

Beret leaders had been among the first interviewed by police following the murder of Duckett.

Bassett, then 26 years old and an electrician for Universal Electric, was visited at a Prospect job site by Police Constable Patrick Hamlett on September 11, 1972.

"I approached Basset, introduced myself . . . then said to him: 'Mr. Basset, we are making inquiries surrounding the death of the late Commissioner of Police, Mr. Duckett," recorded PC Hamlett in his report of the interview. Basset, voice larded with sarcasm, replied: "Yeah, I heard all about it on the radio and I am deeply grieved."

Basset refused to answer any questions police asked about the Commissioner's murder. However, he did give officers permission to search his Woodlands Road home after being told they were looking for the murder weapon.

1973 Basset left the island, never to return, after being linked to the theft of Bermuda Regiment weapons. Twenty-four obsolete rifles due to go to the old Bermuda Technical Institute for decommissioning had been stolen before they reached the school's workshops. And a Bren gun, part of another consignment of surplus Warwick Camp arms ? due to be taken out to sea and dumped 14 miles offshore ? was also stolen, Police later discovering the weapon wrapped in sacking and partially hidden in a hedge where it had been due to be collected by a Beret member.

Also in 1973, Ottiwell Simmons, Jr., Basset's lieutenant (who, Sir Edwin Leather pointed out, "Tacklyn and Burrows have been known to express the greatest admiration, even hero worship, for . . .") fled Bermuda disguised as a Black Muslim woman and using a borrowed passport after hitting a Policeman who had found a shotgun shell at his home.

With the two key ringleaders gone, the Berets were defunct as a formal organisation.

Burrows drifted away from politically-inspired mayhem into armed robberies and terroristic shotgun attacks on homes he selected at random. He also launched a night-time assault on a barracks at Police Headquarters, blasting away with a pump-action shotgun and a revolver and only narrowly missing an officer resting on his bed in the Single Men's Quarters.

On July 15, 1973 PC Garville Murrell was lying on his bed in the barracks reading when he heard a series of loud explosions from outside. Someone had opened fire on the building with a shotgun and a revolver. The police officer dropped to the floor and stayed there until the barrage of gunfire subsided. When he got up he discovered holes in his window screen and two bullet fragments on the floor ("I don't expect you to admit to that (attack)," said Chief Inspector Clive Donald in an interview with Burrows conducted shortly after his arrest in October, 1973. "You would be embarrassed. You lived next door to those policemen. What did they do to you?" Burrows did not respond).

Burrows was named as the principal gunman in the 1972/'73 murder and robbery spree to Police by drug baron Bobbie Greene in July, 1973. A former Black Beret financier who occasionally used militants from that organisation as foot soldiers, Greene's underground empire had been brought to a near-standstill by the Police crackdown resulting from Burrows' increasingly trigger-happy ways. Greene's motives in naming Burrows to Police were certainly more selfish than they were altruistic.

Nevertheless, he and other underworld informants provided crucial information that helped Police eventually piece together the complex case that led to a heavily-armed Burrows' apprehension in October, 1973 ("Would you have shot us?" Burrows was asked after being ambushed by officers on Parson's Road. "I don't know," responded Burrows).

Remarkably, Burrows had continued to live and work at Police Headquarters until September, 1973 and it wasn't until December of that year ? two months after his arrest ? that detectives searched his old quarters and found evidence linking him to the Duckett murder in the form of wire-cutters used to cut the "Bleak House" telephone wires and the microphone cable on the Commissioner's car radio.

Y the time his trial began in June, 1976 Police had compiled compelling circumstantial cases against Burrows for the "Bleak House" and Government House murders. But, as Puisne Judge Dr. Earle Seaton reminded the jury during his summing up, they had remained circumstantial cases until Burrows provided his unprompted written confessions.

After submitting his five-page account of the Government House killings to prosecutor John Marriage, QC the jury had requested a hand-writing sample from Burrows. The accused happily obliged, writing in full view of the jury the short note: "I, Erskine Durrant Burrows, do willingly submit this writing example to the court for comparison purposes for the jury. Signed, Erskine Burrows." The note was given to the jury before Dr. Seaton began his summary of the evidence against Burrows, who refused to speak in his own defence, cross-examine prosecution witnesses or call any of his own.

"If you had to weigh this case up on circumstantial evidence before June 13 (when Burrows provided his first confession to the "Bleak House" murder), I would consider that you could hesitate," the Puisne Judge told the jurors. "The evidence would have had to be weighed up very carefully but now you have the confessions."

Referring to the two letters in which Burrows admitted to the three murders, Dr. Seaton said the notes were written voluntarily ? otherwise he would never have allowed them to be entered into evidence or read out to the jury.

Addressing the prosecution case against Burrows for the "Bleak House" murder first, Dr. Seaton said: "I questioned Mrs. (Jane) Duckett and many of the witnesses. I was testing the atmosphere and relationship between members of the family because it had been a close-up shooting and one could not exclude, without testing and questioning, the possibility of it's having been an inside job.

"But, according to the witnesses, they had an unexceptional evening. When it was over, Mr. and Mrs. Duckett carried the tray with supper dishes from the lounge into the kitchen. On the way to the kitchen, as they went through the passageway, which has a window, they noticed that the security light outside the kitchen door was out. They had put a new bulb in only a few days before. Mr. Duckett said he would replace it.

"Though Mrs. Duckett suggested that he wait until morning, he insisted on doing it immediately, so Mrs. Duckett fetched a new one from the store area.

"When he leaned out the door, stretching up to replace it, Mrs. Duckett heard a pop. She looked around and saw her husband fall to the floor, where he lay silent and bleeding from the mouth as the inner door shut. Later she heard more popping sounds and Marcia said, 'Oh! My chest'.

". . . Mrs. Duckett said that after she heard the pops she tried to assist her husband and Marcia tried to assist. They tried to call for help but the telephone was not working. Then Mrs. Duckett tried to use the Commissioner's car radio and found that a wire had been cut. At Marcia's suggestion, she went by her own car to Police Headquarters." Dr. Seaton reminded the jury Mrs. Duckett had identified Burrows as a regular visitor to "Bleak House", one who knew the lay-outs of the house and property as well as the late Commissioner's habits and idiosyncrasies: "You will recall that Mrs. Duckett recognised the accused in the dock and said he had worked at 'Bleak House' on odd days over a period of months." The judge said jurors should also bear in mind the shotgun attack on "Bleak House" (since renamed Tyne Bay House) that occurred exactly one year after the Duckett murder.

"The jury might ask themselves what on earth the anniversary shooting had to do with the Commissioner's death a year earlier," he said. "It might help if they concluded there was a striking similarity between the two, and also with the shooting at the Police barracks . . . You must try and see whether you see a pattern of similarity that makes you think it is almost as if a person left his signature at each place.

"You must make up your minds first of all whether you can conclude that the accused did the shooting at the barracks and at Tyne Bay House. The evidence is that the same shotgun was fired at the two places which was found on the accused at the time of his arrest." After reviewing further ballistics and forensics evidence that linked Burrows to the .22 revolver used to kill George Duckett, Dr. Seaton turned to the Government House murders.

"You have heard of the desperate struggle that went on to save the Governor's life," he said.

Summing up the forensic evidence given by Scotland Yard's senior scientific officer Brian Arnold, the judge said three bullets been recovered from Government House ? one from Captain Sayers' body, one embedded in a tree and a third found lodged in the lawn.

Mr. Arnold, said the judge, determined all three .38 Special bullets had been fired by the same gun which had six right-hand grooves in the barrel, an extremely uncommon pattern of rifling.

judge said Crown Counsel John Marriage, QC in his opening speech claimed the gun which fired the bullets was a .38 revolver which was later dumped at sea by Burrows' associate M.W. Jackson and never found. Testimony provided by Jackson and underworld gun dealers who later purchased the weapon from Burrows only to have him retrieve it when he became alarmed forensics tests would link it to the Government House slayings if Police ever seized it all seemed to corroborate the prosecutor's claim the gun was indeed a .38.

But in his confession, Dr. Seaton pointed out, Burrows stated categorically that the weapon had been a .357 calibre Magnum revolver.

"Mr. Arnold told us in court . . . that the weapon which fired these bullets might have either been a .38 or a .357," said the judge, pointing out .38 Special ammunition could be used in either type of firearm. "He did not say what type of weapon it was, but that the the bullets had been fired by a gun with six right-hand barrel grooves.

"It seems that, because of the .38 ammunition, the Bermuda Police arrived at the conclusion that it was a .38 gun", adding some of the "not very bright" criminals officers depended on to describe the weapon Burrows later sold and reclaimed would probably have had difficulty differentiating between a ".38 and a .98". Turning to Burrows' confession to the Government House murders, Dr. Seaton said an accused man in custody might admit to a crime for a number of reasons. He might feel the evidence against him was overwhelming or he might want to get the crimes off his chest because his conscience was troubling him.

He might even feel remorse at having committed a sin and want to do penance by providing a confession.

The judge said jurors could act on both confession letters if they thought they were provided voluntarily and the contents were true. But ordinary practice was to require corroboration to a confession based on the facts of a case ? which was why the case had not been stopped when the letters had been sent to Mr. Marriage.

The prosecution case, said Dr. Seaton, was built around circumstantial evidence linking Burrows to the three murders, some witness testimony and the two confessions.

The Government House letter, in particular, contained details of the murders police had apparently not known but which the jury might think someone who had taken part in the killings would be privy to. For example, said Dr. Seaton, Burrows had said he reconnoitred the Government House property a week before the shootings of Sir Richard Sharples and Captain Hugh Sayers.

"I remind you that the accused does not have to say anything or give any evidence," said Dr. Seaton. "If he does produce evidence, you may take it into consideration. If you think he has produced evidence in the form of a letter that was voluntarily made and was true, you have to take this into account together with the prosecution evidence.

"It is up to you whether you should give these letters any weight and value. But you should ask yourselves why you should not do so."

The jury retired to consider its verdict on the afternoon of Tuesday, July 6, 1973.

The seven-woman, five-man jury deliberated for three hours and returned majority guilty verdicts of nine-to-three against Burrows on all four counts against him:

Conspiring with others not before the court between January 1, 1970 and July 9, 1973 in Pembroke Parish and elsewhere within and without these islands to murder high officials of Her Majesty's Government for Bermuda.

Murdering George Duckett on September 9, 1972 in Devonshire Parish.

Murdering Sir Richard Sharples on March 10, 1973 in Pembroke Parish along with others not before the court.

Murdering Captain Hugh Sayers on March 19, 1973 in Pembroke Parish along with others not before the court.

Dr. Seaton asked Burrows if he had anything to say before sentence was passed.

Burrows, who was clutching a Bible, remained silent.

The judge then said: "Mr. Burrows the sentence is that you suffer death according to the law. Take him away."

Burrows, displaying no signs of emotion, was escorted by Police officers from the crowded and hushed Supreme Court and returned to Casemates.