Ronald Burbach

Ronald James Burbach (1924–1955). A name on a New York identity card dated 1955, found in the wallet of one of the clockwork marionettes shot in the night-floors hallway (Session 6). Kip's Session 7 research resolves him into a real decorated veteran, murdered in 1955 — see Carter and Burbach Records.

Biography

Volunteered for the Marines 1944 at 20. Spent a year-plus staging for the planned invasion of Japan on Itik Atoll. Returned 1946 as corporal.
Reactivated with the 1st Marine Division for Korea; landed at Incheon (1950), was injured, sent home to convalesce.
Arrested 1 JUN 1953 for breaking and entering the American Museum of Natural History. Admitted nothing; jailed a week, then ordered released by NYPD Commissioner Francis W.H. Adams — sole reason: "decorated veteran." Charges dropped.
Murdered 9 SEP 1955 alongside Eric K. Carter at an unnamed NYC hotel — faces skinned off, beside gas masks and shotguns. Person of interest: Virgil Griffith.

A Real Man on a Puppet

The ID rode in a **constructed body** — gears and red tissue in a 1930s suit — and the man himself was **really murdered in 1955**, then rebuilt as a marionette that re-enacts his own killing in the night floors. The **1953 museum break-in** — and the police commissioner personally springing him — is unexplained; cf. the case's museum/occult-object motif (The Museum, R. Pickman). Cf. Eric K. Carter (killed with him), Michael Witwer, and The Phone Nook Names.