Troopers nab antiabortion figure sought in sex case
John Burt, accused of assaulting a 15-year-old at a wayward girls' home he runs, had disappeared Thursday.
By Associated Press
Published June 11, 2003
PENSACOLA - An antiabortion activist who had ties to gunmen and bombers who waged deadly violence against clinics here during the past two decades was arrested Tuesday on charges that he molested a resident at the girls' home he owns.
Florida Highway Patrol troopers arrested John Allen Burt, 65, shortly before 1 a.m. after seeing his van at an Interstate 10 rest stop near Chattahoochee, about 170 miles east of Pensacola.
Burt had been missing since Thursday, when he drove away from the home.
Burt is accused of assaulting a 15-year-old resident of Our Father's House, the wayward girls' home he owns in nearby Milton. He is charged with contributing to the delinquency of a minor, lewd or lascivious conduct and three counts of lewd or lascivious molestation. The girl and another resident who is a potential witness have been taken into protective custody by the state.
Santa Rosa County sheriff's spokesman Jerry Henderson said investigators are seeking other potential victims. Burt was returned Tuesday to the county jail in Pensacola. It could not be determined if has an attorney.
A call to Our Father's House seeking comment was not returned Tuesday. When protests and violence made Pensacola the center of the national abortion debate in the 1980s and 1990s, Burt was at the forefront.
He was often accompanied by "Baby Charlie," which he said was a preserved fetus wrapped in a blanket, until it was buried after a funeral service.
"John has been a magnet," said the Rev. Dallas Blanchard, a Methodist minister and sociology professor emeritus at the University of West Florida. "He has attracted national folks to Pensacola, all the significant national players" in the antiabortion movement.
When two couples bombed three Pensacola abortion clinics on Christmas Day 1984, Burt led picket lines supporting the bombers outside the federal courthouse.
Burt spent 141 days in jail for resisting arrest without violence for pushing his way into the clinic and breaking equipment in 1986.
His probation on that charge was revoked two years later when he took a would-be bomber to case a clinic.
In May 1993, Burt follower Michael Griffin fatally shot Dr. David Gunn of Eufaula, Ala., as he arrived at Pensacola Medical Services. Burt was leading a demonstration on the other side of the clinic.
Griffin, a volunteer at Our Father's House, was convicted and sentenced to life in prison. Gunn's children sued Burt, alleging he influenced Griffin. The case was settled in 1996. The terms were not made public but a sign saying "Lot for Sale . . . Estate of David Gunn" appeared on a sliver of land Burt had owned and used to hold demonstrations next to a second clinic, the Ladies Center, which was bombed in 1984.
The Ladies Center was renamed Community Healthcare, and in July 1994 another frequent demonstrator, Paul Hill, killed retired Air Force Lt. Col. James Barrett and Dr. John Britton, of Fernandina Beach, and wounded Barrett's wife with a shotgun as they drove into clinic parking lot. The Barretts were clinic volunteers.
