Only days after one Delaware County love triangle resulted in murder, another murderous triangle was discovered in the suburban county outside of Philadelphia.
Forty-two-year-old Sean Burton, the owner of a car-stereo and alarm shop in Morton, was arrested June 21 after police pulled him over with the dead body of James Stropas in the passenger seat of the victim’s Jeep Cherokee.
Police stopped Burton, who lives in Newark, Del., only minutes after witnesses reported a stabbing in the parking lot of the Olde Sproul Shopping Village on Baltimore Pike in Springfield 10:50 a.m. that Monday.
The victim, 32-year-old Stropas, was an Army sergeant from Norristown who returned from his second tour in Iraq not long ago, according to police. Stropas had been dating Burton’s estranged wife, authorities say. Burton and his wife were in the process of divorcing, reports the Daily News.
After more than a week of investigation, police say this was no crime of passion, but a premeditated murder -- to a disturbing extent.
A search warrant uncovered a laptop and a wireless Internet card that allowed Burton to track Stropas through a GPS device that had been attached to the veteran’s Jeep, police say. Burton had accessed the GPS information just 10 minutes before Stropas was stabbed in the parking lot, according to authorities.
Further evidence of premeditation was the shovel, gloves, gasoline, change of clothes and other tools found in Burton’s van, police say. All of the seats in Burton’s van were covered in plastic. Police say these are indications Burton was planning to at least bury, if not also dismember, Stropas’ body.
Burton is being held without bail on first-degree murder charges at the George W. Hill Correctional Facility.
