Investigators used the blood samples to develop a partial male DNA profile. Allison, who's being . It showed that she was a distant relative of the person whose DNA was found at the crime scene a second cousin once removed. And I went 'bingo'.". Jerry Burns' mugshot and a family photo of Michelle Martinko. Yet they had a DNA match linking the Manchester man to the Cedar Rapids teenager, slain in 1979 outside the Westdale Mall. (Rebecca F. Miller/The Gazette), Jeff Holst, an investigator with the Cedar Rapids Police Department, looks at a report he made which was entered into evidence as he testifies during the continuation of a suppression hearing for evidence in the case of Jerry Burns of Manchester at the Linn County Courthouse in Cedar Rapids on Thursday, Jan. 16, 2020. Suspect in Martinko murder not suspected in wife's death or cousin's disappearance, Bobcats and beyond are wearing orange to support Benton Communitys Tatum Schroeder, UIHC library offers resources for and about people with disabilities. Jerry Burns . Holst said he didn't, but department officials and First Assistant Linn County Attorney Nick Maybanks did consult an expert who specialized in sex offender assessment and treatment to explain what this evidence indicates in this case. [9] Martinko was found inside collapsed over the passenger seat and stabbed to death. 2. Offender records are public information pursuant to Section 904.601 (1)Iowa Code (1999). She claimed to have seen two cars in the lot, one of which was Martinko's, and a man standing next to the open driver's side door of Martinko's car. [8][9] She attended Cedar Rapids Kennedy High School, where she was an above average student and well regarded by school officials. Jerry Burns. "[2] When asked if he had killed someone that night in 1979, Burns repeatedly told investigators, "Test the DNA". Despite being known as a professional, Burns arrest got people talking about his family. Jerry Lynn Burns is accused of the 1979 cold case murder of Michelle Martinko in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She will be remembered as a wonderful mother and wife, loving to spend time with her granddaughter . Burns told the investigator about 25 times to test him, Denlinger said. v. Jerry Lynn Burns. Things that make it difficult. Parabon made predictions for "ancestry, eye color, hair color, skin color, freckling, and face shape," police said, and the department released the composite images to the public in May 2017. 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. Investigators say Martinko was murdered on December 19th, 1979 and her body found the next day in a family car in the Westdale Mall parking lot. Burns' wife, Patricia . Jerry Burns, of Manchester, is led into a courtroom at the Scott County Courthouse in Davenport for closing arguments in his murder trial in February 2020. Jerry Lynn Burns. Months before his February . Allison also recounted a time when Burns tried to tear down a cellmate's bunk bed because he was snoring too loudly. This evidence was inadmissible at trial but was the subject of a public suppression hearing. The medical examiner later determined that she died between 8 p.m. and 10 p.m. She had not been robbed or sexually assaulted, and defensive wounds were found on her hands, indicating she fought back. 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. She had been stabbed 21 times in the face, neck, and chest. Now, the solving of another long-cold casea young blonde woman murdered in Cedar Rapids, Iowa, two hours away may shed new light on Huisentruit's disappearance and presumed murder. This allows police to create a much larger family tree than databases like CODIs. He began working with Parabon NanoLabs, now a leading company helping police solve crimes through genetic tracing. Detectives considered charging the Commissioner with failure to pass along the information to police, but no charges were pursued. [1][5][6], Michelle Marie Martinko (October 6, 1961 December 19, 1979) was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. DAVENPORT, Iowa (KWWL) - State prosecutors called a former cellmate of Jerry Burns in his murder trial, which continued Tuesday in Scott County. Iowan law mandates a life sentence without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder. After reading about the Golden State Killer case in 2018, in which serial killer Joseph James DeAngelo was finally caught through a long trail of DNA, Denlinger had an epiphany: perhaps he could use that same new technique to solve the Martinko case. ), Press J to jump to the feed. [35] On May 29, 2020, Burns' attorneys filed a motion asking for a new trial, claiming his constitutional and state rights were violated and that the court made a mistake in overruling the request for evidence to be suppressed. Jerry Burns Wife: Who Is He Married To? Accountability doled out to suspects. Viewers also wondered if there was a connection to the disappearance of Burns' cousin, Brian Burns. [9] After the event, she asked her friend and twirling squad teammate if she wanted to join her on a shopping trip to the Westdale Mall, which had recently opened, and where Martinko worked. [2], Martinko's father, Albert, died in 1995. The company also produced approximations of how the man would have aged in the years since the crime. Hernando . Denlinger then told him he had a search warrant for his DNA. 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. Burns argues the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress where the warrantless extraction of his DNA profile violated his rights under the Fourth Amendment of the United States Constitution and article I . Homerline, a soft-spoken woman who enjoyed teaching Sunday School, did everything possible to avoid attention. On August 7, 2020, Burns was sentenced to life in prison without parole. Burns said when presented with the rendering. He was born in Hundred, WV on April 24, 1930, a son of the late Robert Lee and Rebecca Taylor Merriner. Denlinger had found the needle in the haystack. The family of the man suspected of murdering Michelle Martinko 39 years ago said the arrest came "as a complete shock.". At the department, Burns sked for a lawyer. Jerry's hobbies included working on vehicles, hunting, fishing, racing cars, gardening, and working in the yard. Jerry Lynn Burns was convicted of first-degree murder for the 1979 murder 18-year-old Michelle Martinko thanks to DNA he left on a straw after drinking a soda. Denlinger told him authorities would come back to talk to him after they got the results of the DNA test. [11] As the investigation dwindled, a $10,000 reward was offered for information that would lead police to the killer. Kayla Lemieux, the transgender high school teacher in Canada, has been put on paid leave after pictures emerged of her dressed as a man proving she does not wear the prosthetics all the time. During this time, according to the testimony, he made a reference to 'blacking out but didn't explain it. But then Denlinger's supervisor, who had been listening to the recorded interview from across the street with other officers, sent Denlinger text message telling him to arrest Burns. He had followed them and secretly recovered their DNA. A Manchester man convicted of first-degree murder has announced he has hired a new attorney who will seek to exonerate him of the crime, a private investigator has told the Manchester Press . In fact, his father Harvey, now 85, had been one of the original officers on the case 40 years earlier. When the detectives first investigated this case, they thought of the homicide as being personal in nature - based on the 10 stab wounds . or. The judge ordered a $5 million cash bond, and Burns is set to return to court for a preliminary hearing on Dec. 28. Her case went cold for decades until DNA testing finally brought her family some peace and put her murderer behind bars. Burns maintained that he did not know Martinko and was not there when she died, although an investigator later testified that Burns did not specifically deny killing Martinko. Could Jerry Burns have committed murders other than Michelle Martinko's? A spot of blood on the dress had a full male DNA profile and was consistent with the male DNA profile found on the gear shift. The woman communicated her information to the daughter of the secretary of the Public Safety Commissioner and believed that it would be passed on to police if it was important. 28, 2021 7:50 am611d ago, Trish Mehaffey Crime and Courts Mar. Burns originally refuted every charge of involvement in this crime during interrogation by claiming he was unable to provide the authorities with a "plausible explanation" for why his DNA was found at the crime site. They then started to locate all the people that they had originally interviewed in the investigation and collected DNA samples from over 100 different people. You will begin to receive our Daily Courts & Public Safety updates. When Burns disposed of the straw, the investigator collected it and tested it for DNA. After her parents reported her missing at 2 a.m., police discovered the teen's body in her vehicle about four hours later. In October 2018, an investigator was able to snag a straw used by one of the three brothers, Jerry Lynn Burns, and tested it against the sample, getting a match. During this difficult time and as the justice system runs its course we ask that our privacy be respected.. Pat was a member of St. Mary's Catholic Church, and enjoyed quilting, collecting teddy bears, gardening and farming with her husband. "I asked Jerry, 'Did you do the crime?' Thirty-nine years to the day after she was killed, a suspect was charged thanks to DNA and genetic genealogy. 'As far as I know, I wasn't there.. Derek Chauvin's ex-wife . [2], On December 19, 2018, exactly 39 years after Martinko's murder, Burns was arrested and charged with first-degree murder. Works at Target Distribution Center. After the arrest this week of Jerry Burns in the 1979 killing of 18-year-old Michelle Martinko, an Iowa city is left shocked, saddened, and skeptical. At the time of her death, police had found Martinko stabbed to death in her car in a local mall parking lot. Burns was born in Manchester, Iowa in 1953 and graduated from West Delaware High School in 1972. Police interviewed numerous people, and several were cleared of suspicion through use of a polygraph. / CBS News. 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 . What began to turn the case around was the emergence of DNA as a forensic tool for crime fighting in the late 1990s. Through his research, he discovered that a woman named Brandy Jennings had uploaded her DNA to a website service to trace her own family history. Feb. 1, 2019 | The Des Moines Register. And the crucial link is a man named Jerry Burns. "It looks personal, it's a lot of stab wounds, it's overkill," said lead Detective Matt Denlinger of the Cedar Rapids Police Department. The case got nationwide media attention but has remained an unsolved mystery for more than 25 years. In a press conference during which the new image was shared, a former classmate of Martinko exclaimed that the face looked like another one of their classmates, but that classmate had been investigated and was cleared based on a DNA swab several years before. [11], In the mid-1980s, Martinko's father filed a lawsuit against the owners of the Westdale Mall and claimed negligence in not providing "reasonable security" on the night of the murder. 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. JERRY M. LYNN "Bear" Crown Point, Indiana Jerry M. "Bear" Lynn, age 59, of Crown Point, IN passed away on April 4, 2010. Michelle Martinko, 18, was stabbed to death in a mall parking lot in Dec. 1979. But the software he used allowed him to review history and activity only to January 2018. This narrowed down the possible suspects to three brothers - Ken, Don, and Jerry Burns. Jerry Lynn Burns will be in prison for the rest of his days. 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. 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