Man accused of threatening to kill Lawrence County store clerk who refused his marriage proposal
LAWRENCE COUNTY, Tenn. (WKRN) — Tension filled a Lawrence County store Wednesday morning after an armed man asked a teenage store clerk to marry him. When she turned him down, he allegedly made serious threats.
The 911 call came in on Wednesday, May 1 from frightened clerks at the Bonnertown Store near the Alabama state line in the southern part of Lawrence County.
Members of the Loretto Police Department were first on the scene and took Dustin Brian Burgett into custody without incident.
Body camera footage from Lawrence County deputies shows the scene and the 26-year-old Alabama man in cuffs on the pavement.
While deputies searched Burgett, you can hear him say, “The wedding band’s in my chest pocket there. I don’t mean no wrong.”
According to Lawrence County Sheriff John Myers, the suspect came into the store on Tuesday, April 30 and bought some items. Then, Burgett reportedly returned early Wednesday morning and asked the 19-year-old store clerk to marry him.
“She proceeds to tell this guy, ‘Hey look, I’ve got a boyfriend and I’ve got a family and I’m not interested,'” Myers said.
While the young clerk and her female coworker were sitting outside, Burgett drove back in his flatbed truck, got out, and approached the women. According to Myers, Burgett had his hand behind his back.
“He gets out of his truck and he’s got one of his hands behind his back. That automatically puts the clerks on alert. Behind his back is a bouquet of flowers, and he asks this girl again to marry him and she tells him again, ‘No. I mean, I’ve got a family, I’ve got a boyfriend, I’m not interested,'” the sheriff explained. “That’s when he pulls a knife from the front of his overalls and makes a statement to the store clerks that if he doesn’t get married today by somebody, somebody’s going to die, as he’s looking and pointing this knife at this 19-year-old store clerk.”
Frightened and shock, the women ran back into the store and locked themselves in the bathroom, calling 911.
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Once deputies secured the scene, they found more than $3,600 in cash and a loaded shotgun in the suspect’s truck. They also discovered wedding rings in a small box and a bouquet of red roses.
On the body cam video, Burgett talked incessantly about his back operation that forced the deputies to lay him on his stomach. He also spoke about his mother and her ailing health, as well as smashing his cell phone.
“This is what God wants me to do. If He wants me dead, He’ll take me, I guess,” Burgett said.
Inside the store, Lawrence County investigators talked to the crying 19-year-old, who said she has seen Burgett a few times, but she had no idea who he was.
“He was talking crazy, saying that his mom was dying and that he had to take her to the hospital and that he needed to marry somebody,” she recalled.
The clerks said when the 19-year-old rejected the suspect, Burgett made a threat: “He had flowers behind his back. If he didn’t get married, somebody was going to die. And he whipped out a knife.”
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While waiting on first responders to arrive to look at Burgett’s back — which he claimed was filled with metal from an operation — a deputy had this exchange with the suspect about why he smashed his own cell phone:
Deputy: “You take the hammer to your phone, man?”
Burgett: “Yeah, I don’t need it anymore.”
Deputy: “Why’s that?”
Burgett: “If I want to call on somebody, I holler. The people I want to call are passed away.”
Within a few minutes, Burgett’s friend arrived. He told deputies he was on his way to work, but an upset Burgett called him and asked him to take the day off to help him. The friend said that Burgett never mentioned anything about getting married, only that his mother was in poor health.
“This is like out of his character, for real,” the friend told deputies.
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Burgett told authorities he asked his buddy to come over to be the best man in the wedding.
“What wedding you talking about?” a deputy asked.
“I was going to ask the girl to marry me,” Burgett said, referring to the 19-year-old in the store. “I don’t think that’s the right thing to do. Maybe she doesn’t want to.”
In the end, Burgett was charged with two counts of aggravated assault.
He posted his bond of $40,000, but he was ordered to have no contact with the store or the two store clerks or risk being arrested immediately.
The sheriff told News 2 that Lawrence County officials couldn’t find any priors for Burgett.
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