What happens if michelle died

Don and Kenneth were not a match, but the results showed Jerry Burns was an exact match. For Denlinger the message was clear. Matt Denlinger : I was definitely speechless. I'm almost speechless today thinking about it. It turns out that Parabon sketch of the suspect was very similar to a young Jerry Burns.

But Burns wasn't an obvious suspect. Matt Denlinger : We are not finding any No connection to that car. Even more baffling, Jerry Burns' resume was the opposite of a cold-blooded killer. He had no criminal record and was even a respected businessman with a wife and three kids.

Denlinger picked a particular day to interview Burns at his business: December 19, -- exactly 39 years to the day after Michelle was murdered.

Matt Denlinger : I wanted to rattle him. I wanted to bring that up during the interview and see if that would do anything to him. On the ride back to Cedar Rapids, a camera was rolling again -- this time in the police car, and Denlinger believes Jerry offered something revealing. Matt Denlinger : Well, he said a few things … about blocking stuff out -- traumatic events. Jamie Yuccas : You're a homicide detective. Your gut tells you something. What does your gut say?

Matt Denlinger : My gut told me the second he refused to deny it or give me a plausible explanation that we had the right guy. For Michelle's sister Janelle, news of the DNA match and the arrest signaled hope and a day she and her husband John thought would never come. Janelle Stonebraker : We were just whooping and hollering, and we were just talking and talking. We were just so excited. But for the Burns family it all came as a complete shock.

Jerry's daughter Jennifer and his brother Don couldn't believe the man they know and love could ever be capable of such a gruesome act. Donald Burns : He couldn't have done it. There was just no way. He was always there for his family. Leon Spies : Circumstances just made it highly improbable from our perspective.

First of all, there was no connection between Jerry and Michelle Martinko. Leon Spies is Jerry Burns' attorney. He believes his client's demeanor during the police interview wasn't out of the ordinary. Leon Spies : I challenge anybody to predict how any person is going to react, let alone react to being caught out of the blue with an investigator trying to attribute them to a horrible, horrible crime.

In February of , Michelle Martinko's accused killer went on trial more than four decades after her murder. Due to the buzz surrounding the case in Cedar Rapids, the judge granted a venue change to Davenport, Iowa, an hour away. Nick Maybanks : There's a lot of eyes on this case. And the generation who lived through the horror and suspicion. Several of Michelle's friends were called to testify, including Michelle's ex-boyfriend and once prime suspect Andy Seidel, who says he and Michelle were on good terms the last time they saw each other.

Mike Wyrick : This trial was hard on me. From the start, the prosecution faced a number of hurdles. The case and the evidence were decades old. Nick Maybanks : Try to take 40 years of investigation and condense it into a story.

Jamie Yuccas : What's that like for you? You have a suspect who has no criminal background that we're aware of, and this heinous crime that looks extremely personal. You have no story. Nick Maybanks : I don't. And after he was interviewed, we didn't have much of a story, either. Well, how is he supposed to know from 40 years ago?

You know, I can't remember what I did last week every day. Nick Maybanks : We've got the science; we got the guy. There's only 8 billion people or so in the world.

Leon Spies : There's lots of misconceptions about DNA … It's not the silver bullet that law enforcement often portrays it to be. As the state's case wound down, Prosecutor Nick Maybanks had one last card to play. He called a new witness, Michael Allison, a drug offender who had become friendly with Jerry Burns in jail. Allison said Jerry later made another comment while they were playing cards that disturbed him so much, he volunteered to testify.

In his defense case, Leon Spies calls only one witness-- Dr. Michael Spence, a molecular biologist. He says while there is no doubt the DNA in Michelle's car belonged to Jerry Burns, how it got there was another matter. Spence, a plausible explanation, that the DNA of Jerry could have come about by a transfer? Leon Spies : Every time you come into contact with something, you're shedding DNA, you're leaving a biological trail of yourself.

Leon Spies : She was in a shopping mall before she was killed, a shopping mall that the Burns family had used … she sat down with a friend at a food court -- a food court that Jerry Burns and his family may have sat at. Jerry's brother Don Burns believes there could be an innocent explanation.

Don Burns : He worked in the dealership that sold Buick cars. Matt Denlinger : My question for them would be, did the dress go to the dealership too? We know how it happened and we know who did it. And he tells jurors to consider how unlikely it is that a man like Jerry could commit a crime like this. LEON SPIES: The state's scenario here is that Jerry Burns, a married man with two young children at home, leaves, drives to Cedar Rapids, Iowa, in the night, leaving his wife and children behind, armed with a knife, armed with rubber gloves, goes to Westdale Mall on the chance that he's gonna encounter Michelle Martinko, decides to kill her … and then leaves and drives back home Splattered with blood … presumably with a knife wound in his hand … that's the scenario the government wants you to believe.

Janelle Stonebraker : I was not thinking slam dunk … all it takes is one juror to have a hung jury. John Stonebraker : I said — "we have a verdict! Janelle Stonebraker : We almost couldn't breathe … it was just amazing, it was fabulous. Janelle Stonebraker : We were aware of how quiet it was on Jerry's side and that there was no reaction. Don Burns : I'd say I was stunned. The verdict came back so fast. I don't know if the jury took time to look at the facts.

Matt Denlinger : Extreme relief … the weight of the world was off my shoulders now. Harvey Denlinger, the investigator who was there at the beginning of the case 40 years earlier, saw his son help end it. Matt Denlinger : I really am proud to get an answer while he can still appreciate it.

Matt Denlinger : Yeah, alright — [tears up] -- we're gonna take a break. Finally, there was an answer to the question that had haunted Cedar Rapids for so long.

But there is a lingering question: was Michelle Martinko Jerry's only victim? In his interview with Denlinger, Burns randomly mentioned the name of Jodi Huisentruit. She was a blonde anchor kidnapped near her car in a parking lot in and never found. She worked in Mason City, Iowa, two hours from where burns lived —though there is no evidence he knew her. Jamie Yuccas : Do you suspect that Jerry Burns was involved in other crimes? Matt Denlinge r: I don't know the answer to that … my gut tells me there's probably something else out there.

Mason City Police will not disclose whether they are investigating Burns in the Huisentruit disappearance and his DNA is not connected to any other cases. But in Michelle Martinko's case, she played a unique role in revealing her killer.

Janelle Stonebraker : She fought so hard that she caused the murderer to cut himself, he left his DNA … and so Michelle helped solve her own murder. Four decades after Michelle's death, her friends, family and generations of investigators gather to celebrate her memory. In , he was beaten to death.

According to Favel, Tina loved school and did well there. She loved children and would often play games with them. She loved to jump on a trampoline. Favel said Tina was a person with a big heart. The two had reunited following the death of Tina's father. Knowing Duck had a history of working in the sex trade and struggled with alcoholism, Favel placed a call to her case workers to make sure it was safe for Tina to visit with her mother.

Favel got the green light and let Tina and her sister, Sarah, visit her mother. It was a good visit, said Favel. But when it was time for Tina to write a victim impact statement about the death of her father, Favel said Tina started to slowly drift away. Patty O'Connell believes her daughter's boyfriend, St.

Bill Anderson, a well-known forensic pathologist based in Orlando. Anderson has worked in medical examiner's offices across the country. He said he found blunt-force trauma fractured her mandible -- her jawbone -- incapacitating her before she was shot. You have nothing. Totally new; never been brought to light.

Wright has also donated his services to help the O'Connell family find even more of what he calls ignored evidence, including crime-scene photos showing a bloody shirt and a gun holster -- both inside the house -- along with a black medical glove found on her boyfriend's car.

Wright said all those items could also help reopen the case. The findings give renewed hope for O'Connell's mother, who says her determination to find out what really happened is fueled by her granddaughter, who was just 4-years-old when Michelle died.

Johns County Sheriff's Office has acknowledged mistakes were made the night Michelle O'Connell was found dead, but has stood by the outcome of the investigation that found the cause of death was suicide. Rick Scott appointed a special prosecutor to review the case.

Lauren Schenone, Scott's deputy press secretary, released the following statement to News4Jax:. Governor Scott sympathizes with Ms.