Mother's sorrow

Woman returns for trial of man accused

in 2005 killing of her daughter, grandson

September 29, 2006

By MARY AMES/Frontiersman

PALMER - Connie Burns remembered two very different phone calls she received in Georgia this past year, one brought her great joy and the other unimaginable pain. The calls were about 10 months apart.

When her 26-year-old daughter, Brandie, found out she was pregnant, she called her mother in Georgia, wanting to tell her first, even before she told the baby's father.

&#8220She said she hadn't even told Chris yet,” Connie Burns said. &#8220I said, ‘It's a miracle child,' because she had cervical cancer and supposedly couldn't have kids.”

The women were in high spirits on the phone, Connie Burns said. Brandie had called earlier to say she was sick, throwing up so much at work that her co-workers were getting a little peeved, she said. So Brandie went to the doctor and found out she was three weeks pregnant.

&#8220She said, ‘Momma, I'm going to have a boy,'” Burns said.

Brandie gave birth to Ashton Burns on Sept. 3, 2005, with Connie by her side.

&#8220I watched him being born,” she said. &#8220I said, ‘Heaven has been sent to my child.'”

Brandie gave her surname to Ashton because his father, Christopher Kevan, was reluctant to claim the 7-pound baby.

On Oct. 27, when Connie Burns had been back in Georgia from Alaska for about a month, she got a 3 a.m. call from Georgia State Troopers. They asked her if she had a daughter named Brandie and a grandson named Ashton. Connie Burns answered yes to both questions, thinking she would hear something wonderful about her next of kin.

&#8220I was so happy,” Connie Burns said. &#8220Then they told me they had been murdered. I don't remember too much after that. I feel like I woke up in May.”

Connie Burns traveled from Georgia to Palmer this week for Kevan's trial, the man charged with snuffing the life out of Brandie and Ashton with his bare hands. She brought photos to keep her company.

Brandie smiles down from pictures taped to the wall in Connie's room at the Valley Hotel, grows up and becomes a mother in the pictures. Some photos show a cherubic Ashton for the 7 weeks he lived, and there are photos from their funeral, the day they were buried in the same casket in Georgia.

&#8220They are together forever and will never have to be alone again,” she said.

Like everyone else who speaks about Brandie Burns, her mother described her as a bubbly, loving upbeat person.

&#8220There's not a picture I don't have where she's not smiling,” she said. &#8220She never met a stranger.”

Connie Burns said Ashton was a sweet baby, and she had to tell Brandie to let him cry.

&#8220I told her it would strengthen his lungs,” she said. &#8220Then one day she let him cry and she said, ‘Is that good enough for you, Momma?'”

Brandie described the man charged with her murder as &#8220nice, lots of fun,” Connie Burns said. &#8220She said, ‘Momma, he loves me.'”

Connie Burns said when she met Kevan, she told him to take care of her daughter. But when Brandie was eight-and-a-half months pregnant, she fled Kevan's abuse by going to her mother's home in Georgia.

&#8220That was the first I knew,” Connie Burns said of her daughter's fear and pain. &#8220But he called and called and talked her into coming back.”

Brandie Burns, the tiny blond woman who drove heavy equipment, hung steel and created flower arrangements for a living, returned to Alaska to have her baby boy, hoping to make her relationship with Kevan work, Connie Burns said.

&#8220She promised if she stayed with him, I would still see Ashton on every holiday,” she said. &#8220This year, I didn't get anything for Mother's Day. But I bought her roses.”

Contact Mary Ames at

352-2284 or mary.ames@

|frontiersman.com.