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When Loretta Doyle Burroughs moved, she took her husband with her — packed in containers, according to criminal charges filed Friday.

Burroughs, 61, was arrested at her new home on West Florida Avenue in the Villas section of Lower Township after investigators found the remains of the husband she reported missing six years ago inside a closet in the Ventnor home she was leaving.

“I knew it from Day 1,” Bob Valiante said as he stood across the street from the Mays Landing home where she allegedly stabbed her husband to death in August 2007.

He never believed the story Burroughs gave about her husband leaving her. She said he got into a yellow Hummer with Florida tags and another woman inside.

But no one listened to Valiante when he kept telling police his friend didn't just take off, leaving behind all of his most prized possessions — including a new truck, boat and tens of thousands of dollars worth of tools.

The disappearance apparently remained a missing person case until a family member came to the newly created Cold Case Unit of the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office this past February, according to information given in court Friday.

While it wasn’t revealed what new evidence was provided, more interviews were done and more information was gathered, Assistant Prosecutor Seth Levy told the judge during Loretta Burroughs initial appearance. Then, an interview with the defendant provided more.

The information led Friday to two teams — including investigators from the State Police, Atlantic and Cape May County prosecutor’s offices and the Hamilton Township, Ventnor and Lower Township police departments — serving search warrants at the Ventnor and Villas homes.

Inside a closet at the Ventnor home on the 300 block of Hampshire Drive, remains were found and positively identified as belonging to Daniel Burroughs. An autopsy is pending.

Loretta Burroughs reportedly lived in at least one other home between moving from Mays Landing and then to Ventnor.

On Friday evening, investigators were inside the home and on the expansive property where the couple lived on Leipzig Avenue in Mays Landing.

“They kicked me out and said it’s a crime scene,” said Ron Roberts, who lives across the street. “That's when I said, ‘It was a crime scene six years ago.’”

Right after Daniel Burroughs’ disappearance, everything was sold, Roberts said. “It was a fire sale.”

Valiante said that when Loretta Burroughs asked him if he wanted anything, he said he wouldn't buy his friend’s things and have to explain it when Danny got back.

“He’s not coming back,” he said she replied.

That, Valiante said, is when he knew Danny’s wife had killed him.

“I didn't know how she did it, but I knew she did it,” he said.

Crying, sighing loudly and still in her street clothes, Loretta Burroughs had her first court appearance Friday afternoon on the charges of murder and a weapons offense.

She answered, “No, sir,” both when Superior Court Judge Kyran Connor asked if she needed an attorney and if she was going to hire one. He said he would make sure she got a form to apply for a public defender, just in case.

Court records show she had a public defender when she pleaded guilty to a fourth-degree charge of theft by unlawful taking in 1996.

The year before, she was charged with bank fraud and was ordered to repay $10,000 in restitution, according to court records. But her probation was ended in 2003, without the balance paid.

During her 15-month sentence served in West Virginia, her husband would visit her and sneak her the foods she wanted taped to his leg, Valiante said.

Dan and Loretta were supposed to move to Florida in 2007, his friends said. But Loretta didn't want to go.

Then, one day in August 2007, she said her husband had left her.

Valiante said he knew that wasn’t true. His friend would never have left all of his belongings. And, he didn’t have a girlfriend.

“Men tell each other those things,” Valiante's wife, Joyce, said Friday.

On Aug. 6, 2007, Roberts said he saw Dan Burroughs for the last time. He was on his riding mower, his arm in a sling from recent shoulder surgery.

A week later, Loretta would report him missing.

“She had seven days to do what she had to do,” Valiante said.

Both Valiante and Roberts said they smelled death at the house. There were moth balls on the ground and Loretta said a woodchuck died.

Roberts was helping her clean up when he saw a black tarp on a dirt mound.

“I'll take care of that,” Loretta told him.

She also had a back injury around that time.

“I was putting everything together,” Valiante said.

He said the police wouldn't listen.

“You told them,” friend George Ausby said Friday as he watched investigators’ cars come and go across the street. “He kept going down to the police station, telling them.”

At 8 a.m. Friday, Valiante and his son, Robert Jr., were heading to breakfast when Burroughs’ brother called, sobbing and incoherent.

Finally, he was able to tell them: “They found my brother.”

He then said he was in separate containers in Loretta’s closet, and she had been arrested.

Valiante said he was glad to finally have vindication in the death of the man who had been his best friend since the two met in 1973, when they lived a block apart in Egg Harbor Township.

“I called him Uncle Danny,” said Robert Valiante Jr., 40. “We used to go boating and fishing. He did everything.”

None of the men believed Loretta Burroughs’ tears in court.

“I’ve seen both sides,” Robert Valiante Jr. said.

“I think she's a sociopath,” his father said. “She’d bake you cookies then slice your throat while you were eating them.”

Loretta Burroughs’ bail is set at $2 million cash, which also accounts for a financial case in which about a half-million dollars is “unaccounted for,” Levy said.

Valiante said he believes that case is really why the warrants were served Friday morning and that the investigators “accidentally” found the body.

Contact Lynda Cohen:

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LCohen@pressofac.com

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Jay Rivera sees green every time a car or truck covered in yellow pollen pulls into the Sparklin’ Kleen Car Wash in Vineland.

Pollen season translates to extra business for the Main Road car wash, and Rivera, its assistant manager, just points to the lines of vehicles waiting for a good scrubbing.

“Just take a look,” he said with a big smile.

But not everybody is as happy as Rivera. Researchers say this is New Jersey’s worst recorded pollen season. The state is covered in fine yellow grains of pollen, and people with allergies are suffering more than ever from, at this point, tree pollen.

The pollen season was at its worst May 6 and 7, when the count exceeded 11,000 in a state where the count might reach 6,000 in another bad year, said Leonard Bielory, a visiting professor at Rutgers University’s Center for Environmental Prediction and past director of the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey’s Asthma and Allergy Research Center.

“I’ve never seen pollen counts that high,” Bielory said.

A pollen count is the number of grains of pollen collected during a 24-hour period in a cubic meter of air.

Hurricane Sandy deposited more than enough rain to help produce a severe pollen season, Bielory said. That rain, coupled with longer hours of sunlight and eventual warming temperatures, created a pollen season that arrived late, but with a significant punch, he said.

While the pollen count in the state will likely not reach 11,000 again this year, New Jersey residents still have a few more weeks before they are rid of the problem, he said.

Friday’s pollen count was 554, according to data compiled from around the state.

Bielory said that count should start to climb in the next two to three days, although the problem will not be related to trees — grass and weeds will help push the pollen count up to perhaps 2,000.

That change, he said, also will bring new problems for allergy sufferers: While tree pollen causes people to sneeze and have runny noses, the pollen from grass and weeds causes problems with watery eyes.

Bradley Bisk, a physician who works out of AtlantiCare’s urgent care centers, said allergy patients started rolling in once the region went through a “sudden warm burst.”

“This year, it seems to be worse,” he said.

Patients are suffering from symptoms that include runny noses, scratchy throats, sinus infections and fevers, Bisk said. A number of those patients opted to visit an urgent care center, because their symptoms were too much for over-the-counter medications to handle.

Bisk said it is hard to determine whether the symptoms are worse for members of a particular age group.

He said the pollen-related problems do seem to be a little less severe on the coast — something that falls in line with what he called an old seashore marketing tool.

“Years ago, (people) used to go to the shore to avoid allergies,” he said.

Some still do.

On Friday, Vineland residents Paul and Marie Johnson were sitting in their pollen-covered pickup truck, waiting their turn for a wash at Sparklin’ Kleen. The couple said they bring their truck to the car wash about once a week.

But the bigger problem involves Paul Johnson’s allergies, which he said are worse than ever despite taking medication. Paul Johnson said he and his wife wound up fleeing to Atlantic City on Thursday for an overnight stay just to get away from the pollen in and around their home.

“It was a little better,” Paul Johnson said.

Marie Johnson said she is constantly cleaning to remove the pollen from inside their home. She said she finally just closed the windows and turned on the air-conditioning.

Dalva Karpinski said her Vineland-based Absolutely Maid Clean business is getting additional calls from allergy sufferers who want their homes cleaned of pollen.

Karpinski said those jobs are more difficult than regular cleaning jobs. They usually require more time and special cleaning techniques to make sure all of the pollen is removed, she said.

“You have to be a lot more detail-oriented,” she said. “Pollen is a tough thing to clean.”

Meanwhile, while Rivera enjoys the extra business at his car wash, he also knows how some of his customers are suffering.

Rivera said he has pollen-related allergies and takes medication to help cope with the symptoms. Some other car wash employees also have allergy problems, but they all work through the symptoms, he said.

“We do what we have to do,” he said.

Contact Thomas Barlas:

609-226-9197

TBarlas@pressofac.com

VENTNOR — Richard Battaglia worked for months to slowly make repairs to his Wissahickon Avenue home, which was damaged during Hurricane Sandy.

But money was tight. Federal aid he’d received had been spent, and Battaglia, 58, just couldn’t afford to finish the job.

But by tonight, most of the work to replace flooring, walls and even appliances will be finished, done by a crew from a new TV show called “Honey Do,” along with workers from Discovery Communications and Habitat for Humanity.

Battaglia, a casino worker who has lived in the area all his life, said the entire event has seemed like a dream. He shook hands Friday with Gov. Chris Christie, he was interviewed for coming television shows and, even better, he will be able to move back home soon.

“This restored my faith in humanity. ... It’s like, wow, people are beautiful,” Battaglia said as he stood watching a camera crew shoot promotional clips. “When everybody is gone, I’m gonna go, ‘Did that just happen? Did I have TV stars here?’ Luckily, I took pictures of it.”

Discovery partnered with Habitat to rebuild 10 Sandy-damaged houses in Ventnor as part of Habitat for Humanity of Atlantic County’s blitz build in Ventnor. The Maryland-based media company, which owns cable networks including TLC and Animal Planet, partnered with Habitat for Humanity to bring 125 of its workers, including stars from several shows, to Ventnor for a three-day project rebuilding 10 houses in the city.

Next week, ShopRite will give Habitat $75,000 toward the rebuilding effort.

One Dorset Avenue house, owned by Miguel Guzman and Renee Testa, was repaired by a team from the show “Cake Boss” for a special episode that will run in August. Testa, Guzman and their daughter, Bella Guzman, have been out of their Ventnor Heights home since the storm, which sent up to 3 feet of water inside.

The family lived for four months in a motel room on the Black Horse Pike and now is living in a Federal Emergency Management Agency trailer in Egg Harbor Township, Miguel Guzman said. While they had gutted the house within a month of the storm, they struggled to find money for repairs and to replace all of their belongings.

Bella and the family had several moments with Christie as he toured their house and wrote a message on a piece of drywall.

Having such a celebrity-filled event to put their house back together was “a blessing,” Guzman said. “It’s a surprise. To have the governor actually come to our house to see what’s going on is very unexpected.”

Christie, who arrived in Ventnor via helicopter from a campaign stop in Burlington County, spoke at a brief event along with the star of “Cake Boss,” Buddy Valastro.

“All the folks that are here today, you’re making such a great impact on all these families and their hopes to get their lives back to normal again,” Christie said.

The building event, which began Thursday, is the first for Ventnor since Sandy struck Oct. 29. Habitat for Humanity of Atlantic County began searching for residents to participate in the program in April. The organization has about five families waiting but not enough money so far to accomplish the construction work they think will be needed, board Chairman Rick Ricciardi said.

Another major problem, Ricciardi said, was finding families who are willing to allow Habitat for Humanity and other volunteer groups to help with rebuilding.

“I think there’s a degree of skepticism (residents) have for people who say they are here to help you,” he said.

Ricciardi said he hopes the rebuilding projects will change that sentiment.

Contact Sarah Watson:

609-272-7216

SWatson@pressofac.com

Follow @acpresssarah on Twitter

Fairness for women in New Jersey is still a serious battle in the 21st century and having a woman's voice in the governor's seat would be an important victory, Democratic gubernatorial challenger Barbara Buono said Friday in Atlantic City.

Women are still making 78 cents to every dollar made by men, the state senator from Middlesex County told more than 150 people during the annual Democratic State Committee Conference at Bally's Casino.

"Today in Trenton, we have a governor who's said that he doesn't see why women need a message specific to them," Buono said about Republican incumbent Chris Christie.

Buono said the loss of about $7.5 million in funding for women's health centers under Christie's administration, along with the veto of a bill that would close the wage gap, negatively affect working women and their families.

"As a working mother of six, as a woman who's used Planned Parenthood as a primary care provider, as someone who believes wholeheartedly that the state of New Jersey cannot move forward if we continue to leave our women behind, I will, as your governor, do everything in my power to lift up New Jersey's women and ensure that all of our residents can compete in the 21st century global economy," Buono said.

New Jersey Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver, D-Essex, Passaic, another speaker at the conference, said working families and low-income families are suffering under Christie. As an example, she cited the fight over the Christie administration's efforts to seize for the state $140 million set aside for municipalities to use on affordable housing.

Oliver said the attempts by the governor, who is "comfortably sitting in a statehouse," to "grab millions and millions of dollars" when families are struggling to pay rent is an obvious reason not to re-elect him.

"Women from every sphere can mobilize and get Barbara elected in November," Oliver said.

Buono said that during her time in the Legislature, she has made the rights of our women a "top priority - because we know that what benefits New Jersey's women isn't just good for us - it's good for our families, for our communities and for the state of New Jersey."

In a phone interview later Friday, Buono said the state's high unemployment rate and high number of residents migrating out-of-sate is a trend that needs to be reversed.

"New Jersey doesn't invest in higher education" and as a result students want to leave the state, she said, adding that public education overall needs more funding.

The Democrat said higher property taxes under Christie also contribute to a higher move-out rate. Buono recalled her own childhood, growing up through the recession of 1975. She said she couldn't find a job and was on food stamps, but eventually was able to find work.

"What we had back then was hope and if you worked hard enough life could be better," Buono said.

Regarding the casino industry, Buono said waiting to see the effects of Internet gambling and trying to find innovative ways to increase the revenue stream from Atlantic City's casinos are important for the state.

Contact Anjalee Khemlani:

609-272-7247

akhemlani@pressofac.com

Follow Anjalee Khemlani on Twitter @AnjKhem

Like everything else in Cape May County, the amount of materials recycled every day increases dramatically during the summer, from 50 tons in the off-season to 200 tons of paper, plastic, glass and metal daily.

This will be the first summer that the county's millions of visitors can throw all those materials in one container after the the county government converted to a single-stream collection and processing system in April, making it much easier for out-of-towners to recycle.

"That was the driving force in us going to single-stream," said Linda Crumbock, recycling coordinator for the county.

The numbers so far have been promising. Crumbock said that they processed 360 more tons of material in April than they did in April last year, when the county was still using a dual-stream system. She said that could be due to a number of factors, but they still viewed it as encouraging.

At the minimum, the county expects a 10 percent boost in their collection of materials. Other counties that switched to single-stream recycling, such as Atlantic and Ocean counties, noticed even larger increases in collections afterward.

During a regular week, the facility runs for seven hours a day, five days a week. In the summer, it runs six days a week, for nine or 10 hours a day. It only runs at two speeds: the normal rate, and a slower pace on days when it rains because the material is heavier and sticks together.

On Friday, Crumbock and other officials gave tours of the newly retrofitted recycling facility in Woodbine. The nearly $4 million in upgrades there allow for people to not only mix many materials in one curbside container but also recycle a wider range of materials.

"It definitely makes it so much easier for people," said Woodbine Mayor Bill Pikolycky.

About 60 other government and waste management officials attended to see the machinery in action. As they stood in an enclosed hallway overlooking the interior, a front-end loader lifted tons of recyclables and dumped them on a conveyor belt to start their processing.

Like going through a mechanical obstacle course, the paper, plastic, metal, glass and assorted nonrecyclables would be sorted by hand, shaken through filters, broken by rotating discs, sucked up by magnets and studied by infrared cameras.

At the end, it would be baled and shipped away to Georgia, Canada, China and elsewhere to be reprocessed into new cans, bottles, paper and even clothing.

"It's pretty neat, right?" said Crumbock.

Downstairs, Plant Manager Jimmy Yezzo led another tour through the inside, showing different areas where materials are sorted by hand.

"This is where they pull out Christmas lights, extension cords, anything that could get tangled," he said as workers with hard hats, ear plugs and dust masks surveyed the waste.

In another area, Yezzo stood next to a conveyor belt as an array of materials quickly went by - soda bottles, birthday cards, chewing tobacco containers, tomato sauce cans and pages from The Press of Atlantic City.

One of the most common mistakes people make that they see at the facility is putting all these materials into plastic bags, which workers have to rip apart with their hands. The only material that should be put in a clear, plastic bag is shredded paper, Crumbock said.

"Imagine if everyone put shredded paper in loose," she said. "It would be snowing in here every day."

Another, more serious problem they have encountered in the past has been people putting used syringes into water bottles and then recycling them. There were other, obviously nonrecyclable materials littering the tipping floor on Friday, like an old basketball.

Anything that isn't recyclable is called contamination and can ultimately reduce the value of the material as it is resold to manufacturers. Since some of that profit is eventually returned to the municipalities where the materials came from, it would seem to be in a property owner's best interest to only recycle the right materials.

When the county had its dual-stream system, that meant even more problems with separating materials, especially since many of the visitors to the county come from places that already have single-stream at home.

"That was the number one comment that I got in my outreach," Crumbock said.

Contact Lee Procida:

609-463-6712

LProcida@pressofac.com

Follow Lee Procida on Twitter @ACPressLee

Stuart Griffin moved his family to Atlantic City from Cincinnati two weeks before October's Hurricane Sandy.

"That was our welcome-to-Atlantic City moment," he said.

During the storm the home his family rented near the bay became damaged and Griffin said he has yet to find an adequate replacement for himself, his wife and their three children. They currently live in a rental in Brigantine but will have to move out when the summer season begins.

"It's been horrible," he said. "When you finally find a place it's a weekly rental or only for the summer."

With so many housing units damaged during Sandy it has been difficult for local residents to find housing in the area. The state Department of Community Affairs held a fair Friday at the Convention Center with 65 landlords and real estate agents to inform residents of various openings in the region.

Greg Vida, acting DCA director, said more than 300 people attended the fair, including 75 who were in line by 1 a.m. - four hours before the event began.

Many Sandy victims lost their vehicles so it is difficult for them to go to many different locations. The fair also had representatives from FEMA and the state Housing and Mortgage Finance Agency to help people apply for Section 8 housing vouchers and programs to help people purchase homes.

Kathi Luczynski, property manager for Best of Life Park senior housing complex in front of the Taj Mahal, said an issue for Sandy victims is that many of them took a hit on their credit score. They had to spend more money to replace items they lost and may have lost their jobs, she said.

The complex is working with these applicants to verify their credit standing before Sandy and be more accommodating so they can be accepted into the complex, she said.

The amount of vacant rentals is so small that some residents are looking toward Camden and Burlington counties, Vida said.

Regina Mattison, a property manager for The Tamerlanes in Sicklerville, Winslow Township, Camden County, said her complex took in more than a dozen applications at the fair Friday. The facility has bus service to Atlantic City and Philadelphia and advertises that it's a half hour from the resort via the Atlantic City Expressway.

"I'm happy to be able to do this and help victims of Sandy," she said. "I didn't know what to expect when I came here, but it feels good."

Atlantic City resident Vera Clark has had to live with her grandmother in Pleasantville since the storm and said the lack of jobs in the area has had her contemplating a move away from the region.

"I need to move out of the area," she said. "There are more jobs, better transportation, and it's safer for my (three) kids."

Contact Joel Landau:

609-272-7215

jlandau@pressofac.com

Follow Joel Landau on Twitter @landaupressofac