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Sheriff Carter Burke

Sheriff Carter Burke is the haggard sheriff of Dahlonega, Georgia, who brings the task force into the missing-persons case in The Things in Appalachia, follows the team into the Spud Hut mines and ends the recorded arc hugging a tree.
Type NPC
Aliases Sheriff Burke; Burke; the sheriff; Dahlonega sheriff; Auraria sheriff
Affiliation Dahlonega Sheriff's Department
Status Alive, shaken, holding gold (as of Appalachia 09)
First appearance Appalachia 01
Played by Andre

Description

Burke is a haggard older Black man with thinning hair and severe IBS. His office walls are hung with animal heads and guns. He answers his phone with "Dahlonega sheriff's station. This is Sheriff Burke speaking." He is cooperative and wants to be kept informed, and grows more frustrated and overwhelmed as the disappearances pile up. He calls Andrew "Detective Howard" at first and "son" later (Appalachia 01, Appalachia 04, Appalachia 08).

Andre names him in Appalachia 01, 02, 04 and 09. In Appalachia 03 and 06 to 08 he is only "the sheriff", but he is plainly the same man.

History

The Things in Appalachia

In Appalachia 01 the front-desk woman fetches him from the restroom, where he has been for about twenty minutes with IBS. He treats Andrew as the team's lead. He explains that the manhunt for the missing boy found little, that he suspects coyotes, a bear or a wandering stranger, and that he thinks Willow Greengrass left the cult. He copies the case file names for them: Willow, her sister Primenthol Greengrass, the missing boy Gene Cartwright and the witness Edward Nick. He dismisses the recent Bigfoot sightings as pranks and says he would "take the Bigfoot stuff over the gold stuff": he finds the town's gold-rush tourism grim, since slaves dug the tunnels and the Trail of Tears followed. He points out through the bars of the evidence locker the only evidence in Willow's case, a bag of peaches (see Bag of Peaches).

By phone in Appalachia 02 he asks whether the shoe is "red with a white sole", confirms that it matches Gene's, admits his deputies should have looked up, apologizes for the volunteers who trampled the scene, and asks to see the shoe once forensics is done.

In Appalachia 03 the sheriff is brisk and worried, loading squad cars for the search for Frederick, a German boy who vanished from a tour of the Consolidated Gold Mine. He makes Kurt, who has spelunking experience, responsible for the safety of the searchers, briefs the team on mine hazards, takes the left fork himself and mutters about "too many people going missing". His face darkens when Andrew suggests a cult. See Consolidated Gold Mine.

In Appalachia 04 he calls Howard in for a "man-to-man" at the Dahlonega Sheriff's Station. He has five missing people in two days, and the FBI arrived before it was even clear there were two. He has asked the state police for help and asks the team to call them too (see Georgia State Police). "If we were a beach town, I would close the beach," he says. Kurt suggests a curfew and a "truth-adjacent" cover story about a fatal tick-borne disease, and Burke says Kurt's "agency boy" attitude "scans". He names the bodybuilder Walter Sellers as the strongest man in town, clears the break room for a speakerphone call between Frederick's mother and an FBI translator, and tells the team, "Just don't affect my tourism". Monica Cartwright reveals that he dismissed her Chewbacca sighting because she was drunk.

In Appalachia 06 he walks into the hotel with Frotter Comstock and lectures Andrew for calling the dead man "capped": "Son, a man is dead," even if he is dressed in a Chewbacca costume (see Troy Cleaver).

In Appalachia 07 he calls the team out to the Spud Hut truck crash and walks them through the evidence at the Freeway Crash Site: the cab with eight gunshots and no body, and bags of "Potatoes" that spill dirt or hold a whole octopus. He suggests a chat with the Spud Hut people, and relays word from a state police friend that the Secret Service had tipped them off about surveillance equipment.

In Appalachia 08 he leads the way to Spud Hut Corporate, swears Andrew in as a deputy, and dresses him in the spare uniform of an absent deputy, String Bean. He coaxes the receptionist Charlene into opening the door. In the ape-man fight he screams continuously and dives through the "break room" door when the Claymore appears (see The Break Room (code 441)).

In Appalachia 09 he opens the episode screaming shrilly in the middle of the party, and then hyperventilates. He demands to know why the FBI showed up before anything was wrong, with spying on presidential candidates, ape-men and explosions all at once, and he takes the team for the Men in Black. Dick Baxter uses his Grifter move to steer the conversation. Dante has him face the back of Kurt's head to keep him calm. He is told to keep watch, shoots badly (a 6), and takes some of the gold, saying "we're gonna figure out the legality of this later" (see Gold Bars). The recorded arc ends with the sheriff hugging a tree and swaying gently.

Unrecorded session

His role in the finale, Appalachia 10, is unrecorded and is not mentioned in Walkers 01.

Memorable quotes

Quote

"I will take the Bigfoot stuff over the gold stuff." Andre (as Sheriff Burke) (Appalachia 01)

Quote

"If we were a beach town, I would close the beach." Andre (as Sheriff Burke) (Appalachia 04)

Quote

"Son, a man is dead." Andre (as Sheriff Burke) (Appalachia 06)

Trivia

  • Dante remarked at the table that the IBS gag made "the real Monster of the Week" judging other people's boundaries (Appalachia 02).
  • The sheriff's full name, Carter Burke, is first spoken in the cold open of Appalachia 09.

Appearances