By GAIL LOWE
WAKEFIELD — The Burbine story seems to have no end.
“It’s really a shame,” said Richard Peledge, 5 Second Ave. this morning.
Peledge was referring to the yard sale in his neighborhood that went horribly wrong yesterday when people learned that proceeds from the sale would go to former occupant Marian Burbine.
Burbine and her husband John, a man convicted of sexual crimes against 13 children between 2012 and 2012, once lived at 9 Second Ave. where the sale was held.
At one time the couple operated the unlicensed Waterfall Education Center on Lincoln Street.
John Burbine died at age 50 at Massachusetts General Hospital following a suicide attempt in March 2014 while incarcerated at Middlesex County Jail.
At about noon yesterday, police were called to the home, now in foreclosure, when it was learned that proceeds from the yard sale would go to Marian Burbine. Patrol Officer Gerald Holleran shut it down, said police.
Apparently, Evangeline Brown, a friend of Marian Burbine, has had liberal access to the Burbine home and she was asked to hold a yard sale yesterday to raise money for Marian.
Brown apparently posted a notice about the yard sale using a different address on Second Avenue but when people arrived they were able to see items outside the Burbine home, which sits at the end of the cul-de-sac.
“She had car seats, plates and John Burbine’s shirts out there,” said Peledge. “When people who had bought things learned that the money would benefit her, they came back for a refund.”
Peledge said that “it’s a sad story that just won’t go away,” adding that the Burbines were “a little strange.”
“They kept to themselves,” he said.
The Burbine name made news when the couple were first investigated and later convicted of sexual crimes against the 13 children, one as young as eight days old and another as old as 42 months.
Then Middlesex District Attorney Gerry Leone said at the time, “I have never seen a case this bad.”
Leone reported that child victims lived in Stoneham, Medford, Newton, Reading, Melrose, Woburn and Waltham.
Combined, John and Marian Burbine were indicted on more than 100 charges, including 17 counts of indecent assault and battery on a child, 12 counts of posing a child in a stye of nudity, 11 counts of posing a child in sexual conduct, 13 counts of child pornography, two counts of dissemination of material harmful to a minor and one count of operating an unlicensed day care program. Marian Burbine was charged with six counts of reckless endangerment of a child and two charges of operating an unlicensed day care business.
On release from her five-year prison sentence, Marian Burbine will be placed on 10 years of probation.
