Teen showed no emotion when convicted in triple-murder, could face two life sentences

When Rufus Leonard Burks IV turns 18 on Saturday, he will be sitting in the Muscogee County Jail, and facing the prospect of spending the rest of his life in prison.

The youngest of the three youths charged in the heinous 2016 slayings of a grandmother, her son and granddaughter was found guilty Monday of felony murder, kidnapping, first-degree burglary and two counts of felony auto theft.

His attorney, Jennifer Curry, said he could be sentenced to life on both the felony murder and kidnapping counts.

The jury deliberated around 22½ hours before notifying the court at 3:15 p.m. that it had a partial verdict. Burks had faced 10 counts, but the jury hung on half of them, and Judge Gil McBride declared a mistrial on those charges. That means prosecutors could retry Burks on those counts.

The other charges were three counts of malice or intentional murder and two counts of felony murder.

Burks was on trial in the Jan. 4, 2016, slayings of Gloria Short, 54; her son Caleb Short, 17; and daughter Gianna Lindsey, 10; found brutally beaten in the Shorts’ 3057 Bentley Drive home. Two cars were among the valuables stolen from the residence.

Burks’ indictment shows the felony murder charge on which he was convicted was for Caleb’s death. Codefendant Raheam Gibson, who testified for the prosecution, said Burks helped bind Caleb with tape after another suspect, Jervarceay Tapley, lured Caleb outside his Bentley Drive home.

Burks’ kidnapping charge was based on their taking Caleb by force and holding him against his will. The two auto theft charges were for a GMC Envoy and Volkswagen Beetle the suspects stole.

Three of the charges on which the jury deadlocked alleged Burks’ intentionally killed Gloria Short, Caleb and Gianna, and two accused him of killing the grandmother and granddaughter while committing the felony of aggravated assault.

The verdict indicates some jurors did not find the evidence sufficient to prove Burks participated in the slayings of the grandmother and granddaughter. Curry had argued Burks wasn’t in the Shorts’ home when Tapley killed them.

Tapley has pleaded guilty to three counts of malice murder. Gibson has agreed to plead guilty, but hasn’t yet.

Judge Gil McBride said he will sentence all three at 8:30 a.m. March 23 in a courtroom at Columbus Recorder’s Court on 10th Street, next to the Muscogee County Jail. Like Burks, Tapley faces life in prison. What Gibson will plead to remains to be seen.

About 20 of the Shorts’ friends and family were in the courtroom for the verdict, and were visibly relieved to hear the jury find Burks guilty on one of the murder charges. They declined to comment until the sentencing.

Burks’ mother also was there, and left the courtroom crying. Burks showed no emotion.

Before the verdict was announced, McBride ordered everyone in the courtroom to maintain order, despite the emotional drama. “I understand that it’s been a long three weeks, and much is at stake,” the judge said.

He afterward ordered parts of the case file sealed until Burks exhausts his appeals. The judge said he was sealing the evidence partly because of the “salacious” nature of the brutal slayings, and partly because Burks still could be retried on the counts the jury didn’t agree on.

Curry said she will file an appeal, and try to get Burks a new trial. She had tried to get the trial moved out of Columbus, arguing pretrial publicity was so pervasive her client couldn’t get a fair trial here.

With jurors starting their deliberations at 3:15 on Feb. 13 and reaching a partial verdict at 3:15 p.m. Monday, they spent a full four days weighing evidence in the case.

They also asked McBride a lot of questions about the law, and at one point requested a dictionary so they could look up some of the words in their jury instructions, such as “malignant” and “constitute.” That request was denied.

Anger, passion

The case generated considerable interest and passion. Curry said a worker at her law office got a threatening phone call Friday. The female caller blasted Curry for representing Burks and threatened to hunt the attorney down, Curry said.

Three aspects of the case inflamed the public, the sheer brutality of the murders, the little the suspects gained, and their youth: Burks was only 15; Tapley was 16; and Gibson was 19.

Authorities said it was Tapley, who knew the Shorts well, who instigated the scheme, recruiting Burks and Gibson as accomplices. He also tried to engage a fourth teen, Marcus Dermer, but Dermer did not join the three.

Curry in her closing argument said it was Tapley who had the motive to kill the family in a rage: He once spent his summers with the Shorts, accompanying them on trips to ballgames and to Disney World. He was connected to the Shorts through Gloria Short’s brother, Robert Averett, his grandmother’s boyfriend, because he lived with the couple.

The Shorts treated Tapley as though he was Caleb’s cousin. Tapley last spent time with the Shorts in the summer of 2014, and the family afterward severed ties to him, Curry said.

After that, his anger and resentment toward them grew, the attorney said: “He’s so angry that he’s no longer included in this family.”

That’s what provoked the violent rampage in the Shorts’ 3057 Bentley Drive home the night of Jan. 3, 2016, when Tapley used a 20-pound dumbbell repeatedly to bludgeon the three victims, Curry said.

She cited Gibson’s testimony that Burks that night wore white Adidas sneakers, and Gibson saw no blood on Burks when he and Burks left in the Shorts’ Volkswagen. Burks was neither sweating nor short of breath, like he’d been involved in a struggle, Gibson testified.

Because Gloria Short was found in a pool of blood in the hallway leading to the garage, Burks could not have helped Tapley move the stolen goods to the Volkswagen without getting blood on his shoes, Curry said.

Both sides in their closings recounted testimony from Gibson and from Dermer, the fourth teen Tapley recruited for the scheme. Dermer decided instead to spend the evening with his girlfriend.

The scheme

When all four met the afternoon of Jan. 3, 2016, Tapley told them he wanted to do “a lick,” meaning commit a robbery or theft. They were to meet around 6 p.m. at Arbor Pointe off Benning Drive in south Columbus.

Gibson said that when Dermer didn’t show, the others started toward Bentley Drive, with he and Burks on Burks’ moped and Tapley on a bicycle. Surveillance video showed they traveled up Illges Road to Macon Road and turned east.

They arrived on Bentley Drive some time after 10:30. Gibson said that when they got there, Tapley led them into the backyard, called Caleb’s cellphone and asked Caleb to come to his rear bedroom window, where Tapley told him to go out the front door.

When Caleb came out, Tapley pinned him down and called Burks to help bind him with tape before they dragged him into the backyard. Tapley then came back around and went in the front door, Gibson said.

As he waited outside, Gibson heard no commotion from inside the house, and had no clue what was happening, he said: “I was just standing there confused.”

Eventually Burks called him to the garage, and they left in the Volkswagen. Burks had to drive because Gibson is mentally challenged and unable to. Tapley then went back inside the Shorts’ home, saying he would find more things to steal, Gibson said.

Driving back into town, they tried to call Tapley, but got no answer. They had reached the Wynnton area of midtown when Tapley called back and told them to meet him in Oakland Park off South Lumpkin Road. Having taken the Shorts’ GMC Envoy, Tapley was waiting for them when they got there, Gibson said.

Police later found both vehicles abandoned in Oakland Park.

The crime scene

Around 7:30 a.m. Jan. 4, 2016, nurse Robert Short Sr. came home to find his wife, son and granddaughter bound and beaten to death. Later autopsies showed Gloria Short and Gianna also had cuts and stab wounds – 23 on Gianna, 11 on her grandmother.

“They’ve been tied up and beaten!” Robert Short sobbed on his 8:02 a.m. 911 call. “Who would do this to my family? Who would do this?”

Police found all three victims bound with tape, some of of it duct tape and some blue painter’s tape.

Gloria Short lay in a central hallway, with her granddaughter lying just a few feet away. Beside the girl’s body was a 20-pound dumbbell that bore all three victims’ blood. Caleb was found in a closet off the master bedroom, bludgeoned so badly his teeth were knocked out.

Parts of the house were ransacked, leaving what investigators called a “debris field” around the bodies of Gianna and Gloria Short. In the master bedroom, two of Gloria Short’s purses had been emptied onto the bed.

Among the items taken from the Shorts’ home were cash, coins, a video game console, some games and Caleb’s clothes, particularly the Nike Air Jordans he collected.

The evidence

Prosecutors Al Whitaker and Christopher Williams repeatedly emphasized that Burks wound up with some of that loot, evidence he was a willing participant in the thefts.

Citing Gibson’s testimony that Gibson waited outside the Shorts’ home after Tapley and Burks went inside the night of Jan. 3, 2016, Whitaker argued Burks must have joined in the killing spree, because one man could not have done it alone.

Tapley would have been inside alone for about 20 minutes, after Burks and Gibson left, Whitaker said: He could not have bound the victims in two different rooms, repeatedly bludgeoned them and wrecked the house on his own in so short a time.

Also evidence of Burks’ guilt were the Facebook messages he and Tapley exchanged the next day, after the homicides made the news, Whitaker said. Burks asked Tapley to call, and Tapley answered he could not because he was with his family.

“Look on the news,” Burks messaged him.

“I did,” Tapley replied, adding, “No snitching. No telling anybody what we did.”

“OK,” Burks replied.

This story was originally published February 19, 2018 at 6:53 PM with the headline "Teen showed no emotion when convicted in triple-murder, could face two life sentences."