Hi! He was also ordered to pay $150,00 in restitution to Martinkos estate, according to KWWL. This sounds like a serial killer. Denlinger had to consider that Michelle could have been murdered by a stranger. On August 7, 2020, Burns was sentenced to life in prison without parole. A juvenile found carrying a knife was interviewed and ruled out in her murder, as was a shopping center employee who had told police that he enjoyed following women and ogling store mannequins. During the investigation, the police assumed that there were personal motives involved in the murder due to the nature of Martinko's stab wounds. . On Dec. 19, 1979, Michelle Martinko, 18, left a school banquet and drove her family's car to the Westdale Mall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, to buy a winter coat, Cedar Rapids police said. To learn the entire story of Michelle Martinko's murder, watch Dateline: Unforgettable at 10 pm on Oxygen 79. Cedar Rapids police arrested Jerry Lynn Burns, 64, on Wednesday morning and charged him with first-degree murder - 39 years to the day after the killing 18-year-old Michelle Martinko was stabbed . JERRY LYNN BURNS, Defendant-Appellant. And the crucial link is a man named Jerry Burns. The defense also requested the trial be moved out of Linn County based on the amount of attention the case had received over the past four decades, as well as "pervasive and prejudicial pretrial publicity". [2], On October 29, 2018, an investigator observed one of the brothers, Jerry Lynn Burns, drink multiple sodas using a plastic straw. The man charged with killing Michelle Martinko 39 years ago is not a suspect in the death of his wife or disappearance of his cousin, according to investigators. Jerry Burns on Trial AP Jerry Burns of Manchester, Iowa, is led into the courtroom during closing arguments for his trial at the Scott County Courthouse in Davenport, Iowa on Monday, Feb. 24, 2020. [2][16] At 2a.m., since Martinko had still not returned home, her father reported her missing. [2] She did not have many close girlfriends or confidantes, which was speculated to be caused by jealousy from other students over her beauty and stylish clothes[11] or conflict over a boy she had dated. Martinko's father Albert and mother Janet died in 1995 and 1998 respectively. According to Reusse, Burns would generally be a bit more careful with his language during a press conference or whenever there were cameras . [2][3][4] Burns was arrested and, on February 24, 2020, was found guilty of first-degree murder in the death of Martinko. Might be nothing, but Jerry has a cousin who went missing in 2013 and it has become a cold case and Jerry's wife committed suicide in 2008. Jerry Lynn Burns' DNA sample was collected from a plastic straw he drank soda with. Court documents said blood on clothing worn by Martinko and a blood stain on the gear shift of the car, where the teens body was discovered, were analyzed and found to belong to someone else. He would have been around 25-years-old when he killed Michelle Martinko in December of 1979. The police considered the murder personal in nature based on the manner of death, according to Little Village magazine. Want a job? [7] Martinko was the younger of two daughters of Albert F. Martinko and Janet Martinko (ne Zillig). Burns was read his Miranda rights and taken to the police department. The prosecution emphasized the unlikelihood of the DNA evidence matching someone other than the person who left it at the scene. Jeremy Lynn (born June 12, 1963), better known by the ring name Jerry Lynn, is an American retired professional wrestler currently signed with All Elite Wrestling as a producer and coach. Doug Larison to reexamine the file and find what he believed to be the killers DNA in blood found on Martinkos dress that was not her blood. 2020 CBS Interactive Inc. All Rights Reserved. This narrowed down the possible suspects to three brothers - Ken, Don, and Jerry Burns. Burns kept pointing to the swab, he testified, and saying, 'Test it. Burns is accused of killing Cedar Rapids teenager Michelle Martinko in 1979. Creighton Waters said the disgraced legal scion, 54, faced a 'gathering storm' of financial ruin that drove him to kill Maggie and Paul at the family's hunting estate in Moselle, South Carolina . Further the Iowa Department of Corrections assumes no legal liability or . But it was another technique from Parabon -- genetic genealogy -- that led investigators to Burns, CeCe Moore, Parabon's chief genetic genealogist, told ABC News. "Do I look like that?" He was around 25 when he killed Martinko in 1979. Investigators also showed Burns two renderings DNA labs had supplied them of possible suspects; he questioned their likeness to him. When Denlinger reminded Burns that Michelle had been killed in 1979, Burns responded, "It was a big deal. 24/7 coverage of breaking news and live events. Jerry Lynn Burns, 64, was arrested on Wednesday after police said he was linked by DNA from blood found on Michelle Martinko's clothing and elsewhere in the car at the crime scene. At the department, Burns sked for a lawyer. I miss all her singing and her beautiful music. And he said he couldn't talk about it," Michael Allison said, who shared a cell with Burns starting in September 2019. Jerry Burns Wife: Who Is He Married To? Spies, on cross examination, asked if Denlinger had permission from Burns' two brothers and a distant cousin to access their DNA in developing a suspect pool. She was unsure her information would be of any use because she had read that the murder happened between 10p.m. and midnight, and it was 2a.m. when she drove by. [2], Jerry Lynn Burns (born December 23, 1953[13]) was 25 years old when he killed Michelle Martinko in December 1979. Visitation will be held from 5 They wanted to try to get an explanation for why Burns' DNA was found at the crime scene and to get a DNA sample from Burns to confirm the DNA obtained from the drinking straw. [15], On the evening of December 19, 1979, Martinko attended a banquet for the Kennedy Concert Choir at the Sheraton Inn in Cedar Rapids. [39], Last edited on 20 February 2023, at 04:20, "Michelle Martinko's murder 'haunted' the Cedar Rapids community for 40 years. People named Jerry Burns. The case was solved, but there were lingering questions about Jerry Burns. "Murder at the Mall: The Michelle Martinko Case," reported by "48 Hours" contributor Jamie Yuccas, airs on Saturday, August 7 at 9/8c on CBS. Would love your thoughts, please comment. [20], On June 19, 1980, police released a composite sketch of a man believed to have killed Martinko, which they formed from descriptions provided by two witnesses under hypnosis. On February 24, 2020, after three hours of deliberation, the jury found Jerry Lynn Burns guilty of first-degree murder. Burns was arrested on Dec. 19, 2018. [9] The killer left no fingerprints, which led police to believe they had worn gloves. He was sentenced to life on August 7 without the possibility of parole. Sign Up. Burns is accused of murdering Michelle Martinko in 1979. Find your friends on Facebook. (Supreme Court No. Authorities believe Burns stabbed the Kennedy High School senior in the chest and face inside a car parked at Westdale Mall in Cedar Rapids. Authorities arrested 64-year-old Jerry Lynn Burns of Manchester this morning. Add [email protected] your contacts. On December 19, 2018, he was arrested in Manchester, Iowa, on the 39th anniversary of Michelle's death. [28] The defense also requested that evidence pertaining to Burns' cell phone browser history be suppressed. "I talked to myself and didn't know what to do Then you have to pray.". timing. He began working with Parabon NanoLabs, now a leading company helping police solve crimes through genetic tracing. He was born in Hundred, WV on April 24, 1930, a son of the late Robert Lee and Rebecca Taylor Merriner. FILE - In a Thursday, Jan. 16, 2020 file photo, Jerry Burns enters the courtroom during the continuation of a suppression hearing for evidence in the case of Burns of Manchester at the Linn County . [10] Police considered the killing to be "personal in nature" based on the number and location of stab wounds. Family and friends of Jerry Burns are seated in the courtroom at a sentencing hearing for Jerry Lynn Burns at the Linn County Courthouse in Cedar Rapids on Friday, Aug. 7, 2020. "I asked Jerry, 'Did you do the crime?' Burns' wife, Patricia, died by suicide in . Investigators matched DNA found in the car to Jerry Burns and arrested him in 2018. A composite sketch of the suspect was released in June 1980 with the help of two witnesses. "In a genetic genealogy database we can reverse engineer the [suspect's family] tree from their distant" relatives who have submitted DNA, Moore said. See Photos. . An investigator with the Cedar Rapids police department contacted DNA-tested members of two of the branches of the family tree, and eliminated those branches as containing the killer. Pat was a member of St. Mary's Catholic Church, and enjoyed quilting, collecting teddy bears, gardening and farming with her husband. New comments cannot be posted and votes cannot be cast, Science & criminal justice teamed up in 2018 to start cracking cold cases! While these occurrences sounded suspicious, the police didn't believe Burns had anything to do with them. Jerry Lynn Burns (defendant-appellant), which is before the Iowa Supreme Court. Martinko was 18, a senior in high school in 1979, when she was accosted as she was getting into her car on a chilly night in December following a trip to the mall. In 2018, Jerry Lynn Burns was finally arrested and charged with the teen's murder and, although it had been decades after the crime, the once cold case is now a subject of discussion on A&E's Killer Cases. Jerry Burns enters the courtroom in 2020 (Image via We Are Iowa) Burns was born in Manchester, Iowa in 1953 and graduated from West . "We are reviewing the case and at this time have not uncovered any additional information that would implicate Jerry Burns in that disappearance," Sheriff John LeClere told TV9. Martinko, an 18-year-old high school student, was found stabbed to death in her family's car in the parking lot of a local mall, where she had gone to buy a new coat. According to KWWL, at the sentencing, Stonebaker said that Burns stole those 39 years and many more from a sweet smart, talented girl who never got her chance at college, a career, marriage, children and by now, even grandchildren.. Jerry Burns. Thus began the quest to finally nab Martinko's killers. Yet they had a DNA match linking the Manchester man to the Cedar Rapids teenager, slain in 1979 outside the Westdale Mall. The images looked considerably different from the 1980 composite sketch and showed a man with blond hair and blue eyes. During the trials, Burns was found to contradict his own statements. "Burnsie was laying siege to New Orleans," said Lynn. We need somebody from their family to have tested in order to resolve these cases.". The primary evidence police had to go on was blood on Michelle's dress and on the car's gearshift that in 2005 was finally identified as male DNA. A article mentioned that the police found his Internet search history had stuff like 'murder, rape, harm of blonde women'. Jerry Lynn Burns will raise two child. [11][18] In the year after the killing, the number of people interviewed by police reached the hundreds, and up to 30 people were interviewed under hypnosis. His cousin, Brian Burns, went missing on the 19th of December 2013. The similarities were eerie two pretty, young women, both meeting their final fate in parking lots in Iowa, 16 years apart, in cases that went unsolved for decades. The results were entered into the Combined DNA Index System (CODIS), the national DNA database, but no matches were found. Burns made an initial court appearance via video Thursday morning and said he would fill out an application for a court-appointed counsel. Burns, charged with first-degree murder in the cold case stabbing of Martinko, is asking the court to toss out DNA and other evidence because they were obtained without a warrant and represented violations of privacy and other rights. During the trial, he initially denied knowing Martinko but his statements were found to contradict when his defense argued that evidence had been mishandled back in 1979 and that different articles of clothing from the crime scene should not have been stored together in one evidence bag. In 2006, a cold case investigator discovered unidentified blood, presumably belonging to the killer, while he was reviewing case files. The detective, Denlinger, told me that he believes Jerry Burns has been reliving the murder in his fantasies ever since, but they have never been able to tie him to any other homicides. Teen Michelle Martinko was stabbed to death in 1979. [2] That narrowed the suspects down to a set of three brothers, who had grown up in Manchester, Iowa. Staggering snowfall in California mountains leaves residents trapped for days, SpaceX launches new crew on flight to space station, Garland testifies before Senate panel amid ongoing special counsel probes, Colon cancer rates rising in younger age group, study finds, Firefighter dies battling blaze in downtown Buffalo, mayor says, Several hospitalized after Lufthansa flight diverted to Dulles due to turbulence, Explosive found in checked luggage at Pennsylvania airport, feds say, Prosecution wraps its case at Alex Murdaugh murder trial, Top McCarthy aide, House Oversight chair each met with Ashli Babbitt's mother, Sneak peek: Murder at the Mall: The Michelle Martinko Case, Michelle Martinko, left, and Jodi Huisentruit.

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