Hide Article Text (OCR)
Burnett cries as daughter testifiesAssociated PressSAN ANTONIO — A Nederland housewife convicted in the 1978 slayings of five people has been depicted by character witnesses as a church-going, compassionate woman who tried to convert fellow prison inmates to Christianity.Linda May Burnett, 35, cried softly Tuesday when her daughter took the stand in an effort to persuade jurors not to send her mother back to death row.The woman has been convicted of capital murder for the death of one of five people abducted, shot at close range and buried in a mass grave.Jurors must decide whether to sentence Mrs. Burnett to death by injection or life imprisonment. She spent almost four years on death row before her first conviction was overturned.Final arguments in the trial's punishment phase were set for this morning, with the jury then to begin deliberations.The bulk of the defense’s testimony in thepunishment phase came from Austin psychiatrist Richard Coons, who attacked a prediction made by a prosecution psychiatrist Monday that Mrs. Burnett almost certainly would commit future violent crimes.Dr. Clay Griffith of Dallas estimated there was a “99 percent probability “Burnett would commit future violent acts, which Coons said “just won’t hold water.”He said he based his conclusion on Burnett’s lack of a previous criminal record, “non-agres-sive” personality and the absence of a pattern of childhood problems.Both doctors acknowledged they had not personally examined Burnett, but instead relied on a hypothetical personality profile.Burnett’s 17-year-old daughter, Debra Kay Miller Landry, broke into ragged sobs after telling jurors, My mother always took care of me.”“She taught me how to color, she taught me my ABCs and she taught me to be kind to people, nomatter what they say or what they did,” said Ms. Landry, who has been adopted by Burnett’s sister.Burnett once shot her second husband, Hubert Miller, in the neck, but only because “he had a butcher knife and was threatening me with It,” Ms. Landry said.Burnett’s mother, Mattie Wilson, said her daughter was “bom nervous, so the doctor said.”“The only trouble I had with her was when she was married and wanted to go out with Joe Dugas,” Wilson said. “I had a fit.”Dugas led investigators to the mass grave on July 9, 1978, and was sentenced to death for the slaying of 3-year-old Jason Phillips of Woodward, Okla. Dugas was killed two months ago during an apparent escape attempt.Burnett also was sentenced to death for Jason’s shotgun slaying, but that conviction was overturned on appeal in December.
Newspaper Details
Port Arthur News
Port Arthur, Texas, US
Wed, Aug 17, 1983
Page 18
Full Page
Clipped by
Jared T.
NA, NA 29 May 2023
Other Publications Near Port Arthur, Texas
Port Arthur Community Post
Port Arthur News Community Post
Port Arthur News
Port Arthur Daily News
