JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – In the early hours of May 9, 2019, Velvet Burns was stabbed 39 times while she slept on the bed she shared with her husband, Jerry Burns.
Despite the brutal attack, Velvet Burns, 44, fought for her life — managing to crawl across the bed to pick up the phone to call for help.
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But she died before she made the call.
Jerry Burns wasn’t home at the time of the attack. He had left around 3 a.m. to complete an electrical job in Tallahassee. But, according to prosecutors, he was the mastermind behind the “atrocious, cruel, bloody scene,” and the trip to the Panhandle was just another part of the plan to have his wife killed.
According to prosecutor Alan Mizrahi, Jerry Burns agreed to pay $50,000 to his mistress, Amanda Love, to hire someone to murder his wife. That someone happened to be Love’s longtime on-again, off-again partner, Stephen Hand.
Mizrahi said when Jerry Burns left for Tallahassee, he made sure Love and Hand had easy access to their home on Jacksonville’s Westside.
The padlock that kept the home’s gate locked from the inside of their yard was unlocked and the gate was open, prosecutors said. The back door of the home was also left open, and a deadbolt was locked in place so the door couldn’t close.
But why would Jerry Burns want to have his wife killed?
“Because divorce was too darn expensive,” Mizrahi said in court Wednesday.
Plus, he intended to marry Love to become “a wonderful father to all of her children,” Mizrahi said.
What Jerry Burns didn’t know is that Love was still in a relationship with Hand, with whom she shared three of her five children and had been in a “rocky” relationship with for about 13 years.
“He was unaware that I was present the whole time,” Hand testified.
Love and Hand, who were unemployed, both testified they saw the affair with Jerry Burns as a financial opportunity to get drugs and care for their children.
Love and Hand took the stand this week to testify against Jerry Burns who is now on trial facing a first-degree murder charge in the stabbing death of his wife.
While the trial is about murder, the surrounding details go far beyond that — revealing a complex web of sex, drugs and deceit.
An affair, a promise to marry and a plot to kill
Jerry and Velvet Burns got married in March 1994 and had two children together, both of whom were raised in Jacksonville.
“The one thing you’ll hear about Jerry Burns is that he did anything and everything for his kids,” Defense Attorney Michael Bossen said.
Jerry Burns had his own electrical company and while he was described as “a true family man,” Bossen said it was also known that he was not a faithful husband.
After 25 years of marriage, “their relationship became more like roommates,” Bossen said.
Jerry Burns had multiple affairs throughout the years, some of which Velvet Burns knew about, according to Bossen. In 2017, she began looking for lawyers for a potential divorce.
But the years went by and the couple remained married.
Then, sometime in 2018, one of Jerry Burns’ girlfriends introduced him to another woman named Amanda Love.
“She used to say that he had money, he owned his own business, that he was married, he had kids,” Love testified Thursday.
Love was interested in Jerry Burns right off the bat — but not in a romantic way.
“[The girlfriend] was using him for money, that was her sugar daddy,” Love said.
That’s when Love realized a relationship with Jerry Burns could be a good financial opportunity.
“We just started talking, and I started using him for money,” Love said.
The affair began in the fall of 2018, and as the relationship progressed, Burns’ desire to divorce his wife grew even more.
“The two had talked about marriage, moving in together,” Mizrahi said.
During her testimony, Love made it clear she never loved Jerry Burns and saw their relationship more as “sexual favors” in exchange for money.
In the meantime, Jerry Burns went to lawyers to move forward with the divorce, but quickly found out it was going to be “an expensive ordeal.”
So, instead of divorce, Jerry Burns thought paying his mistress to get his wife killed was the best way out of that marriage, Mizrahi said.
“I was kind of shocked. He asked me if I knew anybody that would commit murder for money, and I told him I didn’t know nobody at the top of my head, and he asked me to see if I could find anybody,” Love said.
Jerry Burns paid Love $30,000, she said. But that money was gone in a matter of weeks, and Velvet Burns was still alive.
It turns out Love shared that money with her partner Stephen Hand, who was aware of Love’s affair with Jerry Burns.
“A lot of drugs, rental cars, new clothes, food, shoes, whatever the kids wanted out to eat, motel rooms, beach houses,” Love said in court.
When he didn’t get the outcome he wanted, Love testified that Jerry Burns called and agreed to pay her an extra $20,000 once the job was “done.”
“He told me he didn’t care if she was shot, stabbed, raped, or whatever, as long as she was dead,” Love said.
Love and Hand decided they would murder Velvet Burns.
But this time, Jerry Burns gave Love a specific date he wanted it done: May 9, 2019.
The murder
Around 3 a.m. of May 9, 2019, Jerry Burns left his home and picked up his son, who worked with him, and another employee to complete an electrical job in Tallahassee.
“On this particular day, they woke up an hour early. They stopped at a rest stop on the way to Tallahassee to take a nap in the company van to make sure they were out of town. They do a job that takes about 15 minutes, an electrical pole,” Mizrahi said.
After making sure Jerry Burns was not home anymore, Love said she and Hand went into the home — straight into the bedroom.
Both of them had knives in their hands, according to Love.
“He walks to the side of the bed, standing behind Mrs. Burns. I was at the foot of the bed. He looked at me. I looked at him. I made the motion of just ‘slit her throat and be done,’” Love said.
Love said Velvet Burns sat up and “started freaking out.” Then, Hand began to stab her.
“She ended up on the floor between the bed and the dresser, and he was continuously stabbing her. He turned around and looked at me, and I just stood there staring at him,” Love testified. “He snatched the knife out of my hand, was stabbing her with both knives, told me that he was doing this for me,” Love said.
(Note: Hand has testified that Love was also involved in the stabbing. However, Love has never admitted to it and said that is not in her recollection of events.)
Love said after Velvet Burns was stabbed, she leaned over to grab Velvet Burns’ cellphone to call 911, but Hand “snatched” it out of her hand and told her they needed to get out of the house.
“We drive and I pull over away from the house for us to change out of our bloody clothes and to clean up,” Love said.
In the meantime, Jerry Burns called friends and family “all day” that day, investigators said.
“He is calling to ask about Velvet, saying he is worried about her, so concerned about the whereabouts of her wife,” Mizrahi said.
After cleaning the car and changing into new clothes, Love said she met Jerry Burns at a convenience store in Lake City, and the two kissed. The kiss was captured on surveillance video.
“With the taste of the lipstick on his lips, he calls 911. Crying, saying ‘Where’s Velvet?’” Mizrahi said.
The evidence
All three — Jerry Burns, Love and Hand — were arrested and charged with Velvet Burns’ murder.
While Jerry Burns did not stab Velvet Burns, Mizrahi said he “created the opportunity” for hand and Love to get it done.
“Amanda Love and Stephen Hand did what they were paid to do,” Mizrahi said.
Apart from Love’s and Hand’s testimony, prosecutors are using DNA evidence, phone calls, text messages and surveillance footage to make their case against Jerry Burns.
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A black hat found on the house’s porch was also a key piece of evidence.
“[The hat] has the DNA of both Amanda Love and Stephen Hand. She used it during the stabbing,” Mizrahi said.
Hand pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison in 2022.
Love pleaded guilty to second-degree murder two months after Velvet Burns’ death and was sentenced to 40 years in prison and an additional 30 years for conspiracy to commit murder in April of this year.
Since the trial began on Wednesday, the jury has also heard the testimony of two of Love’s daughters, her mother, a police detective, and more.
Meanwhile, the defense argued that while Jerry Burns was “guilty” of not being a faithful husband, that does not make him guilty of murdering his wife.
“This defendant never stabbed Velvet Burns,” Bossen said.
Bossen also said Love has lied repeatedly during the course of this case, and that she and Hand her husband “decided to take things in the wrong hands.”
“The problem with Amanda Love is that she is a liar,” Bossen said during opening statements Wednesday.
Jerry Burns’ trial is expected to resume on Friday.
In addition to first-degree murder, he is also charged with conspiracy to commit murder and solicitation to commit a capital felony.