ABBOT, Maine — The father of the single mother of two who was shot to death at her Parkman home in June does not believe the man accused of taking her life survived more than two months on the run without help.
“It is more than quite apparent by the condition that he went into the jail that somebody was helping him,” Vance Ginn said Wednesday, while standing near a memorial garden in his backyard that was planted in his daughter’s honor. Ginn called a press conference to ask that anyone who helped Robert Burton, who is charged with murder in the death of Stephanie Ginn Gebo, surrender to authorities.
“He didn’t even have dirty fingernails, and he was supposed to be out in the woods for 68 days. I don’t believe it,” Ginn said later of Burton, 38, whose head and face were clean-shaven in the mugshot released shortly after he turned himself in and was arrested last week.
Police started looking for Burton on June 5, after Ginn’s granddaughter entered her mother’s bedroom and found Ginn Gebo, 37, on the floor with bullet wounds in her back. Burton and Ginn Gebo broke up May 31 after a two-year relationship, and his backpack and jacket were found by investigators outside her open first-floor bedroom window, according to the six-page affidavit filed by state police Detective Thomas Pickering of the Major Crimes Unit North.
Ginn Gebo was so afraid of Burton that she changed the locks on her doors and was sleeping with a gun, the affidavit states.
The manhunt, which involved several law enforcement agencies from in and outside Maine, including the FBI, is the longest in Maine history and the most expensive, Col. Robert Williams, chief of the Maine State Police said Tuesday. Williams estimated the cost to state police at around $500,000.
Williams said investigators have been focusing on the homicide investigation but will look into whether Burton was assisted, which is a felony crime.
“We have the same questions: Where was he, and what was he doing?” the state police chief said.
Burton turned himself in at the Piscataquis County Jail in Dover-Foxcroft on Aug. 11.
Ginn said it is his belief Burton started receiving help after he was spotted by a home surveillance camera on July 6 on a road in Guilford, and the person or persons who helped him kept Burton inside out of the sun and bugs.
“I’m asking for whoever did it. I know it’s a big ask, to turn themselves in,” Ginn said in his plea.
He chose Wednesday to issue the request because “it’s Stephanie’s birthday. She would have been 38 today.” Ginn added that he doesn’t plan to make any more public statements until Burton goes to court.
“Our community needs peace and we need full closure on this,” the grieving father said. “Right now we only have half.”