Did COVID-19 Misinformation Play A Role In This Howard County Couple’s Murders?

ELLICOTT CITY, Md. (WJZ) — Court records suggest aesculapian misinformation mightiness person been the motive down past week’s treble execution successful Howard County.

Jeffrey Burnham of Cumberland is charged successful the murders of his member and sister-in-law, Brian and Kelly Robinette, who were recovered changeable to decease Sept. 30 wrong the couple’s Ellicott City home.

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According to Howard County police, Burnham traveled to his relatives’ location aft sidesplitting different individual, 83-year-old Rebecca Reynolds, successful Allegany County.

Charging documents obtained by WJZ amusement Burnham’s parent told investigators her lad had expressed a tendency to face his brother, a pharmacist, about administering COVID-19 vaccines.

“He wanted to face Brian astir the authorities poisoning radical with COVID vaccines,” Burnham’s parent told police. “He repeatedly stated, ‘Brian knows something!'”

The Robinettes’ murders could person been prevented, according to Anjali Kataria, main enforcement serviceman for Mytonomy, a Bethesda-based aesculapian acquisition company.

“There are close sources of accusation and we weren’t capable to get them to this individual,” Kataria told WJZ. “It’s a existent tragedy.”

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She said the astir effectual mode to stamp retired aesculapian misinformation is to steer radical distant from unverified accusation recovered online and toward existent aesculapian authorities: doctors and nationalist wellness experts.

While immoderate broadside effects person been reported among vaccine recipients, those instances person been rare, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which deems the shots some “safe and effective.”

“It’s a staggering information due to the fact that the subject down the vaccine is truthful good,” Kataria said. “We cognize that it works.”

A time aft the Robinettes were recovered dead, Burnham was taken into custody successful West Virginia, wherever helium was recovered with the couple’s Corvette. Police said a weapon was recovered from the car.

The 46-year-old was extradited to Maryland this week, wherever helium faces first-degree execution charges successful the deaths of the Robinettes and Reynolds.

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He’s being held without bond astatine the Allegany County Detention Center.

Paul Gessler