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It took a year to find her body.
By Leah Scher — Written on Aug 11, 2019
Brittany Burfield has been missing since June of last year. She vanished from her Houston apartment on Ilona Lane on June 25, 2018, which was later found ransacked. The culprit has been identified as Alex Haggerty, who was arrested three weeks after her disappearance. In October of 2018, a grand jury finally indicted him for murder.
Who is Brittany Burfield, and what happened to her?
1. Brittany Burfield was the CEO of Expecting Excellence, LCC, a business that helps coach people toward success.
It’s a company for which Burfield’s mother, Tricia, is a chief counselor. The company’s website describes trauma coaching, biofeedback, and life coaching among its specializations. Burfield also used to work as a client administrator for The Valentine Group, an inpatient scheduler for St. Luke’s Hospital, and an implementation specialist for Texas Children’s Hospital. She studied technical theater and stage management production at Stephens College and is originally from Springfield, Missouri.
2. Her body's remains were found in a Houston Third Ward manhole after her killer told police where he'd dumped her.
Burfield was last seen when she stopped by her mother's home in Sugar Land on June 25. Her car was later found at a gas station in the Westchase District of southwest Houston near the apartment complex where she lived alone. Alex Haggerty, the man charged with her murder, led Houston activist Quanell X to the site of her body’s remains.“His main concern with me was he wanted to get this off his chest,” Quanell X told KHOU. “They removed a manhole cover and they dropped her body down a manhole and put the steel iron cover back over it.”
3. Haggerty was charged with murder before Burfield's remains were even found.
Less than a month after Burfield, 37, was reported missing last summer, Haggerty was charged with murder in connection with her death even though investigators hadn’t yet found her body. Police said that clothing and other items belonging to Burfield were found at the property where Haggerty was living in Houston’s Third Ward. One of his family members told FOX 26 he had been living in a tent on the family's property after he was released from prison. At the time of Burfield’s disappearance, Texas EquuSearch volunteers spent several days searching for her body. “I'm positive when we were searching out here we walked over that manhole probably several times,” EquuSearch's Tim Miller said. “Of all the places, right in the middle of the street in a residential area is the last place anyone would have thought.'
4. Burfield's mother said she met Haggerty not long before her daughter went missing.
She said Haggerty actually went by his middle name, Jerome. “I met him through Brittany. She tried to help him. Brittany is a sucker for the underdog,” her mother said. “She always has been. She’s always tried to help the underdog. And he was a friend of a friend of hers, and she tried to help him out, and it got her in trouble.” Investigators said Burfield was trying to help Haggerty get his life back on track. She gave him and his girlfriend a place to stay for a little while.“She found out he had been in prison for fifteen years and had just gotten out, and she quickly became fearful of him," said Tricia. "It was a bad situation.” After about three weeks, Burfield asked the two to leave and they went to live with family in the Third Ward.
5. Officials say Haggerty admitted to killing Burfield to his family and friends.
Reportedly, he told them how he drugged, suffocated, shot and possibly even stabbed her. Later, though, he denied the graphic details when he was questioned by the authorities. According to ABC13, several of his friends and family members said Haggerty had described different methods of killing her to different people. Haggerty denied ever saying he killed her.
6. Burfield's family is just grateful to finally know where Brittany's body was.
“I needed her body for Haggerty's trial,” Tricia said. “My son has really struggled with closure. Me, I know where she's at, she's in heaven with the lord. But the kids — they've really struggled with it. They really needed her body." Tricia actually wanted to thank Haggerty for at least providing them the closure they so desperately needed. “Their lives never ever will be the same but at least they'll have a little spot now with a headstone where they can take flowers and visit and can try to put their lives back together,” Miller said.
Leah Scher is an ENFP and recent graduate of Brandeis University. She's an alumna of the Kenyon Review Young Writer's Workshop the Iowa Young Writers' Studio. She's passionate about Judaism, poetry, film, satire, astrology, spirituality, and sexual health.