PATRICK TRACY BURRIS Some questions are easy to answer.

One year and one day after the first of five killings terrorized Cherokee County, however, perhaps the most important question — the lingering question of “why” — remains out of reach.

Sunday marked the first anniversary of a chilling killing spree that began June 27, 2009, when a smooth-talking mountain of a man later learned to be Patrick Tracy Burris dropped by the home of local farmer Kline Cash, apparently under the pretense of buying hay.

For reasons that continue to defy explanation, the murder of Cash would be followed by the murder of four others — and the first anniversary of their deaths will be marked in coming days on July 1, July 2 and July 4. on July 1, July 2 and July 4.

Questions of what, when and who have answers, even if they make no sense.

While time heals wounds, the gaping ones caused by Burris are far from closed despite the passage of a year. Gaffney Police Chief Rick Turner still gets stopped on the street and asked about the incidents and he answers questions when he can.

Anyone who lived in Cherokee County between June 27 and July 6, 2009 knew this wanted poster well. After Patrick Tracy Burris was shot and killed during a confrontation with police in Gaston County, N.C., on July 6, 2009, this wanted poster outside a Gaffney convenience store received some handwritten updates. (Ledger file photo / JOE L. HUGHES II) Though his officers aren’t working the case at the moment, the investigation isn’t necessarily closed.

“We still look back at it and still go through it,” Turner said.

He and others would love nothing more than to be able to provide answers for the local families most impacted. He’s realistic, though.

“Those answers have never really come,” Turner conceded, “and as I said (a year ago) possibly never will.”

“Why,” though, remains a question worth asking.

While shocking and tragic, the June 27, 2009, death of Kline Cash inside his home on Battleground Road never gave anyone a hint about what was to follow.

On July 1, 2009, investigators were called to the Buck Shoals Road home of a beloved retired educator, 83-year-old Hazel Keaton Linder, where both Linder and her 50- year-old daughter Gena Linder Parker, also a teacher, were found shot and killed.

As of the morning of July 2, all three killings had occurred in the jurisdiction of the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office and during a chilling press conference held the morning of July 2, investigators announced that all three killings were linked and that the killer seemed to be targeting women.

Just a few hours later, however, an already upside-down world would start spinning seemingly out of control.

Up until about 7 p.m. on July 2, the Gaffney City Police Department was serving the massive and growing manhunt for a killer in a support role. The killings hadn’t occurred within the city’s jurisdiction but whatever resources the city could offer were at the disposal of the massive and growing task force assembled to find the person responsible.

In the early evening hours of July 2, Turner was shopping with his family when he received a cell phone call he will never forget.

Investigators already knew at that point that the killer they were looking for fit the definition of a “serial killer.” While they considered the possibility the spree had not ended, Turner acknowledged praying that it had.

The message he received by cell phone, however, didn’t answer his prayer.

“He hit the city.”

Turner said he kissed his wife and family and left his shopping cart in the aisle of a local store so he could race to the Tyler Home Center on East Frederick Street, where city businessman Stephen Hyland Tyler and his 15-year-old daughter Abby were found shot.

Stephen Tyler had died at the scene. Abby Tyler died two days later at Spartanburg Regional Medical Center.

As hundreds of police officers scoured the roadways and tracked hundreds of leads, residents were informed to stay inside, to be cautious and to not open doors for strangers.

Businesses that never before locked their doors did so to protect their employees.

People who never before armed themselves did just that.

Door-to-door salesmen were advised to stay away from Cherokee County, a prudent move for their own safety, while stranded motorists were advised to wait for police instead of asking strangers for help.

The nightmare that made Gaffney the focus of the world last year ended in the early morning hours of July 6, 2009, inside a vacant home in Gaston County, N.C.

Gaston County Police were dispatched on a report called in by a neighbor regarding suspicious activity at a home on Dallas - Spencer Mountain Road. There, police found Burris and two others, Mark and Sharon Stamey.

During the encounter, Burris, who had an outstanding arrest warrant for a parole violation in North Carolina, pulled a gun on the Gaston County officers and opened fire, striking one in the leg.

The officers responded the way they were trained to respond.

One of their bullets amazingly disabled the gun in Burris’ hand. Other bullets would kill him.

And with his death came the loss of answers.

“I wish we could have got him to answer some of these questions, so we could have given the families some answers,” Chief Turner said. “But, on the other hand, the way it ended kept the families from having to go through a long, drawnout trial. It would have kept it stirred up for them. And the way it ended gave them some closure, that he would never do it (kill) again.”

Besides, investigators say, there were never any guarantees Burris would have provided answers if he had been taken alive.

One year and one day after the first of the five killings, investigators say there is no doubt Burris was the man responsible for them.

Out of all the people he targeted, though, Burris’ visit to the Tyler Home Center perhaps is the most perplexing. The business was located just a few blocks from both the Cherokee County Sheriff’s Office and the Gaffney Police Department — and was within blocks of perhaps the greatest assembly of law enforcement officers the county has ever seen.

Was it a taunt?

“Without being able to ask him it would be speculation,” Turner said.

Whatever the case, the Tyler Home Center was not the only place Burris apparently looked at on July 2.

About two hours before he entered the Tyler business, Turner said, Burris apparently went into another nearby business to scope it out. Investigators did not receive this “credible” information until after the shootings inside the Tyler Home Center were discovered,

Turner won’t name the other business.

Practically everyone involved in the investigation was a veteran law enforcement officer. But even so, this was a type of incident that few, if any, had ever experienced before.

“I don’t know if it’s a way of venting or emotional survival,” Turner said, “but we talk with each other about it.”

Including the more than 40-year-old case of the “The Gaffney Strangler” in the mix, he added, “Who would have ever thought a small community like Cherokee County would have two serial killers. To have two, you wouldn’t have predicted that.”