Investigators matched DNA found in the car to Jerry Burns and arrested him in 2018. [32] Prosecutors also played a video of a police interview of Burns, in which he denied being at the crime scene on the night of Martinko's murder, and could not explain how his DNA had been found at the scene. family - he had 3 kids - tough to sneak away for 4 hours when you have kids unless he was on a business trip. Could Jerry Burns have committed murders other than Michelle Martinko's? He would have been around 25-years-old when he killed Michelle Martinko in December of 1979. Subscribe to the Public Safety newsletter. Hernando . Be the first one to comment on this story. Jerry Lynn Burns was arrested in the 1979 killing of Michelle Martinko. The hearing will continue in Linn County District Court, though a date has not been set. On April 5, 1975, Pat was united in marriage to Jerry Lynn Burns at St. Mary's Catholic Church, Manchester. We need somebody from their family to have tested in order to resolve these cases.". 1, 2021 3:52 pm608d ago, Caleb McCullough Health Care and Medicine Jun. "Well, I kind of think you do a little bit," Denlinger responded in the video interview. Like all the cases I cover, Michelles was solved using forensic genealogy, which led police to Jerry Lynn Burns. Around 4 a.m., Martinko was found inside her familys Buick Electra. Jerry Lynn Burns, 64, was arrested Wednesday and . The sketch looked like a man in his 20s, weighing 165-175 pounds, and standing at around 6 feet. [1][5][6], Michelle Marie Martinko (October 6, 1961 December 19, 1979) was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. "Do I look like that?" At 4a.m., police found the Martinko family's tan and green 1972 Buick Electra in the northeast corner of the mall parking lot by a JCPenney. He was sentenced to life imprisonment and is currently being held at the Anamosa State Penitentiary. At the time of arrest, Burns had his own power-coating company called Advanced Coating Concepts. Jerry Burns . Court is scheduled to begin at 2:30 p.m.. Police sent the blood samples to CODIS the nationwide data base of DNA collected from arrested offenders but didn't get a hit. This technology helped the FBI arrest notorious serial killer, serial rapist, and burglar Joseph James DeAngelo (nicknamed Golden State Killer) in 2018. But Denlinger did get consent from Janice Burns, Burns' first cousin, and collected her DNA for testing, he said. (Supreme Court No. CEDAR RAPIDS - Police investigators couldn't find evidence that Jerry Burns and Michelle Martinko knew each other. Your login session has expired. Jerry Burns' mugshot and a family photo of Michelle Martinko. 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 . 19, 2018. I like that it's just the facts and case without anyone trying (poorly) to be a comedian or talk about their own personal nonsense lol. Pat was a member of St. Mary's Catholic Church, and enjoyed quilting, collecting teddy bears, gardening and farming with her husband. Just before his arrest, Burns, unsolicited, mentioned the name of missing Iowa anchor Jodi Huisentruit as he was being questioned about the Martinko case. Jerry A. Burns, age 69, of Bryan, Texas went home to be with the Lord on Thursday, September 29, 2022 at 10:56 p.m. Subsequently he interviewed Jerry Burns, who denied knowing or ever meeting Michelle Martinko. Iowan law mandates a life sentence without the possibility of parole for first-degree murder. 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. What we know about Jerry Burns and the woman he's accused of killing 40 years earlier Dec 19, 2019/ updated Feb 17, 2020 Four decades ago, 18-year-old Michelle Marie Martinko was found stabbed to death in the family's car in the parking lot of a Cedar Rapids mall. Mail, proper postage prepaid, addressed to Jerry L. Burns, No. Log In. Jerry Burns. There is no known DNA evidence tying Burns to the Huisentruit case and no evidence that he knew Jodi Huisentruit. [30] The doctor who performed Martinko's autopsy and investigators in the original case, all now retired, took the stand to testify to how the investigation was conducted, and to Martinko's cause of death. The company also produced approximations of how the man would have aged in the years since the crime. A struggle followed in which Michelle was stabbed and sliced by a knife almost 30 times in a horrific murder that police initially believed had to be a crime of passion. 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. They also played a later recording, after Burns' arrest, in which Burns questioned whether he could have blocked out the memory of committing the crime.[30]. The prosecution emphasized the unlikelihood of the DNA evidence matching someone other than the person who left it at the scene. 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. In recent years, authorities began taking a closer look at a man named Jerry Burns, who was arrested and convicted in the 1979 abduction and murder of 18-year-old Michelle Martinko. He also wished the Burns family well, saying they now have to pick up the pieces of their lives just like the Martinko family did. To learn more about the murder of Michelle Martinko, watch Dateline: Unforgettable on December 22, at 10:00 pm on Oxygen 79. People around him considered him to be a professional but everything fizzled out shortly after. Daryl F. Gates' Police Quest: SWAT, a group of 41 people. Denlinger had to consider that Michelle could have been murdered by a stranger. The DNA was uploaded to the law enforcement database called Combined DNA Index System, or CODIS, but investigators never found a match, police said. Over 40 years ago, teenager Michelle Martinko was stabbed to death outside a mall in Cedar Rapids . He was convicted of first-degree murder and received the mandatory life sentence without the possibility of parole. Like all the cases I cover, Michelle's was solved using forensic genealogy, which led police to Jerry Lynn Burns. Although the tip did not lead to any suspects, the investigator discovered what he believed to be the killer's blood while he was reviewing the case files. Investigators had reviewed Burns' 2018 internet searches and found that he regularly visited websites showing blonde women being raped, stabbed, and strangled, and which depicted sexual intercourse with murder victims. She was a beautiful singer, and I miss all this. Jerry Lynn Burns will raise two . Her death was ruled a suicide. The charge against Jerry comes as a complete shock to us and we are doing our best to carry on with our lives, the family said in the statement on Saturday. Martinko's father Albert and mother Janet died in 1995 and 1998 respectively. Updated on: August 4, 2021 / 2:29 PM When Burns, of Manchester, Iowa, was questioned, he "denied committing the offense but could offer no plausible explanation why his DNA would be found at the crime scene," police said. 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. And he said he couldn't talk about it," Michael Allison said, who shared a cell with Burns starting in September 2019. The detective on the case, Matt Denlinger, gave me some interesting details. Authorities arrested 64-year-old Jerry Lynn Burns of Manchester this morning. It goes beyond the simple news reporting of case solved using genetic genealogy. The podcast explores who these perpetrators are, possible motives and features interviews with investigators who are willing to talk because the cases have already been resolved in court. 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. Get browser notifications for breaking news, live events, and exclusive reporting. According to the investigator, "Burns showed almost no emotion during the interview, even when he was eventually told he was being arrested. It wasn't until decades after the killing that investigators began to link the emotions of a motive with the science of DNA. This revealed everything, and Burns was ultimately declared guilty of first-degree murder. He was arrested Wednesday on the exact day Martinko was last seen alive. 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. The sample was put into a national computer database and was used to clear more than 70 of Martinkos acquaintances, according to NBC News. physical distance - it was a 2 hour drive to and from mason city to cedar rapids. They . The defense team for . He said Burns had no memory of being at the crime scene. [23] Out of more than 80 potential suspects that had been identified over the years, more than 60 people were tested and cleared of suspicion. Turn on desktop notifications for breaking stories about interest? [24], In 2018, the DNA phenotyping company took the data they had collected the year before and entered it into GEDmatch, a public genealogy website that has been used by law enforcement to solve other cold cases, most famously that of the Golden State Killer. 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. Burns pleaded not guilty in 2019 and when his trial was supposed to begin in October of that year, his defense team requested additional time to review fresh pieces of evidence and gather witnesses. Lighthouse: The Dark Being, a group of 43 people. 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. [11] They described a white man in his late teens or early 20s, around six feet tall and weighing 165175 pounds, with brown eyes and curly brown hair. On December 20, 2018, a district judge set his bond at $5 million. Jerry Lynn Burns, 64, of Manchester, was arrested and charged with first-degree murder on Wednesday, nearly 40 years after the brutal murder of 18-year-old Michelle Martinko in the parking lot of . Sexual Assault of Unnamed Victim (12) . Jerry Burns may be a hitched man, having a . (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. Denlinger interviewed Burns at his business. "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. [16] Another rumor emerged that a second stabbing had happened in the following days and that police were keeping it secret, which police denied. Convicted murderer Jerry Burns, 66, is scheduled to be sentenced Friday in the 1979 murder of Michelle Martinko, 18. Jerry Burns stands with his lawyer Leon Spies (right) during a recess in the continuation of a suppression hearing for evidence in the case of Burns of Manchester at the Linn County Courthouse in . 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. This narrowed down the possible suspects to three brothers - Ken, Don, and Jerry Burns. JERRY M. LYNN "Bear" Crown Point, Indiana Jerry M. 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