712 Digital Group - top

Man gets life with no parole in 1979 murder of Iowa woman

News

August 7th, 2020 by Ric Hanson

CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (AP) — An Iowa man has been sentenced to life in prison with no chance of parole in the 1979 murder of an 18-year-old high school student. Jerry Burns was arrested in Dec. 19 2018, 39 years to the day after Michelle Martinko was found dead in her parents’ car outside a shopping mall in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. She had been stabbed to death. Burns was convicted of first-degree murder in February and was sentenced on Friday. Cedar Rapids police have said they arrested Burns after DNA taken from a restaurant straw he had used matched DNA from the crime scene.