Landlord Killings: Convicted Tenant Apologizes at Sentencing

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: Mr. Burke, you have an opportunity to make a statement to the court. That's an opportunity that you have, that you can tell me anything you want me to hear or consider. That's your opportunity. You don't have to speak. I'm not going to hold it against you if you choose not to speak. But if you want to make a statement, this is your opportunity to tell me anything you'd like me to know, would you like to make a statement? Yeah, go ahead. And if you could just tilt that up just because I want people to be able to hear you. Okay. It's hard to [00:00:43] Speaker 2: know what to say in a situation like this. I know that I have mental health issues, according to the expert likely brought about by several severe head injuries as a child. One time I got really nervous about cutting a tree down. I was cutting a tree down on my own. And I knew how to do it. It's very simple. But I ended up doing it backwards and the tree fell against the building. And I think this is an example of how my brain sort of shuts off under periods of high stress. Not obviously my brain completely shutting down, but my ability to function be compromised. Also, obviously have very different points of view with other people here on what exactly happened, who exactly DeVito and Karen didn't really know Karen very well. I got to know DeVito very, very well. And my experience is very different from other people's. I'll just give you one example. I told them a story about how past landlord tried to get me arrested by calling the police and lying to them. I had everything on video. So they weren't successful in doing that. DeVito offered at one point later, offered to help me kill that guy. People don't understand narcissists understand narcissism, let alone covert malignant narcissism. And people can be very different from what people think they're like. Ted Bundy, for example, all his co-workers and family thought he was a great guy. They couldn't believe that he was the guy who did what they did, did what he did. Likewise, the women that got into his vehicle thought he was a nice, charming guy. Over 100 women, I guess. But I didn't really know Karen very well. I thought I heard her talking to someone about tracking my daughter down, but it could have been a delusion. I don't know. I don't know what the truth is. So all I can really say is that That I'm sorry that I did what I did in the sense that if it was wrong, I am sorry. I do know that I was really completely out of my mind. In my normal state, I'm completely incapable of doing acts like that. I was stressed to a point that most people, I think, never experienced after the death of my daughter and the arson. There's a lot more that I could say, but it's really, I think, sort of pointless. The things I did were horrendous and unthinkable. It's hard to believe that I did. I don't have anything else to say. [00:04:29] Speaker 1: Thank you, Mr. Burke. I don't have anything further, Your Honor. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Juneau, you had mentioned the possibility the state might ask for an opportunity for rebuttal. I don't have any questions for the state specifically, but did the state want to make any additional arguments? No, Your Honor. Thank you, Bill. All right. You're welcome. All right. So, Mr. Burke, Ms. Norton, Mr. Tuneheim, Ms. McMullin, Detective Hunt. I appreciate, and I've said this throughout, that I thought this trial, while I know it took a long time, I think it was 20 days of trial. I just am appreciative that I thought both sides did exemplary work from their perspectives, and I appreciate that. So, you can say one more thing. [00:05:30] Speaker 2: I wanted to talk about the prosecutor's expert and their evaluation of the prosecutor had a very short evaluation with me, and she talked about things during trial that she never discussed with me. One example is my inventions. She said that I was delusional because I thought I had a valuable invention, but she never discussed with me whether I actually thought that invention was likely to work even. Never talked to me about it at all. And there's other examples like that, and I feel like I didn't get a fair shake basically from that evaluation. On the, as far as the invention goes, on my high temperature heat invention, I don't think that it's a high likelihood that it will work. It's very likely that my invention won't work. I don't have a patent. I don't have a working prototype. That's true, but she never discussed those things with me, so I never got the opportunity to say that. I have other inventions that I have thought of while you're in jail. One of them is a solar invention. I do think that would be very successful. But again, I don't think having an idea that I think is really good, that I think will work, makes me delusional. You know, you can have a good idea and think it'll work, you know, especially if you're an engineer and have the qualifications to evaluate that invention. And especially if it's a simple invention, that doesn't make you delusional. And I think that was like her only example, really, that she could come up with of me really being delusional. Also, I, yeah, I don't need to say anything else. [00:07:52] Speaker 1: All right. Thank you, Mr. Mark. [00:07:53] Speaker 2: Thank you. [00:07:56] Speaker 1: So I want to address all of the questions.