Oklahoma cold case gets renewed attention after TikTok user’s search for her parents

An Oklahoma cold case has received renewed attention after an Ohio woman turned to TikTok in search of answers about her missing parents.

The Oklahoma State Bureau of Investigation (OSBI) on April 12 identified the remains of Brian Burr, 23, and Rachel Burr, 21.

Their bodies were discovered 28 years ago in “a wooded area near U.S. Highway 69 in Pittsburg County, Oklahoma,” on April 9, 1995.

“We are still trying to get any information that they may have missed. The case isn’t solved. We’ve got as much information as we can get from known friends and family. If there’s anyone out there who knew my mother, Rachel Ann Burr, and my father, Brian Eugene Burr, and has any information, even if you think it’s inconsequential, it will help,” Dallas Burr, the couple’s daughter, said in a TikTok post last week.

Burr thought her parents were missing for 30 years after they disappeared when she was 3 years old and she never heard from them again, according to KTLA.

“I’ve been looking for them for most of my adult life but there’s not a lot of resources when all you have is a name and a birthday,” she told the outlet.

Burr began posting videos to TikTok about two years ago to ask others for help finding her long-lost parents.

In 2021, OSBI sent a specimen from one of the victim’s bodies to CeCe Moore’s Parabon Nano Labs for forensic genetic genealogical testing. 

In September 2022, “it was reported the persons were likely to be Brian and Rachel Burr of Texas,” OSBI said in a press release.

At that point, OSBI officials traveled to Texas and Oklahoma to collect DNA samples from Brian and Rachel Burr’s relatives, ultimately leading to their positive identification less than a year later.

“They died when they were hardly in their 20s, so they really didn’t have time to develop into people yet,” she told KTLA. “All I knew was their names and that my mom really liked to play the saxophone.”

In a January TikTok post, Burr said her DNA matched that of her mother and father.

The Oklahoma Office of the Chief Medical Examiner reported their cause of death as gunshot wounds and their manner of death as homicide. Investigators are still working to identify any suspects in their deaths.

Authorities are asking anyone with information about the case to contact OSBI at 800-522-8017 or email [email protected].