MADISON COUNTY, OHIO, Ohio — Nina Allen has been waiting 10 years for answers in her father’s murder.
“It’s been really hard emotionally not having closure, knowing somebody can do this to someone’s loved one with no remorse and go out there and do what they did to my father,” Allen said. On July 13, 2010, Jack Burgoon was leaving his Mount Sterling home to head to work at Allied Fabricating and Welding, where he was president. But he was ambushed with gunfire, collapsing in his own driveway.
“I believe my dad knew his killers,” Allen said. “I believe it’s hatred. They had a vendetta for him, and I don’t know why they would. It was not some stranger off the street, you know. They went there to hurt my father, and that’s what they did.”
Soon, Burgoon’s co-workers were calling, wondering why he was missing a morning meeting. They got no answer.
It was a neighbor who finally spotted Burgoon in his driveway. His daughter, Melissa, who lives nearby, was the first of Burgoon’s surviving three daughters on the scene. Allen soon joined her.
“He was a good man,” Allen said. “I don’t understand why they would have that much hatred to gun him down at his home and take his life. It’s not right. It’s not right.” Investigators found Burgoon’s red pickup truck a few miles away, but they say the killing was not a robbery, and it was not random. Burgoon was definitely targeted. They still are just not sure why.
But they are revealing new information about the case on the 10th anniversary of Burgoon's murder.
Madison County Sheriff’s Lt. Bryan White tells 10TV that investigators do have DNA evidence in the case. That is not something that has been previously revealed to the public.
That evidence is already in CODIS, the Combined DNA Index System, that allows local, state and national forensic laboratories to exchange and compare DNA profiles.
So far, however, there have been no matches, and the case remains unsolved.
“It wouldn’t change that he’s gone, but it would help us know that justice was served, that they’re behind bars, where they need to be for taking someone’s life,” Allen said. “I feel like he’s forgotten. I just want to let them know that he’s not forgotten, that we’re living with this every day, you know, Christmases, just everything. It’s hard. It’s been 10 years, and it’s still hard. It’s still hard.”
Anyone with information about the case is asked to call Central Ohio Crime Stoppers at 614-461-TIPS (8477).