Suspect in strangulations draws attention from Mississippi, federal authorities

The Metropolitan Police Department's investigation into Nathan Burkett, accused of multiple strangulations in Las Vegas, has opened eyes in Mississippi and may have caught the attention of the FBI, the Las Vegas Review-Journal learned Thursday.

Burkett was extradited Tuesday from Picayune, Miss., where he has roots, to the Clark County Detention Center. Las Vegas police accuse Burkett of slaying two valley women, the first in 1978.

"The fact that he's been taken off the streets is a great value to us," said District Attorney Hal Kittrell of the 15th Circuit Court District in Mississippi. "We are going to have to go back ... to see if he was a suspect in cold cases here."

Kittrell's comments are not the only indication inquiries into Burkett's criminal history have spread past Silver State lines.

A law enforcement source also said Thursday that Las Vegas police have contacted the FBI to further investigate the 65-year-old Burkett.

"We have notified the FBI in case they want to look at similar cases based on where he's lived or traveled," said the source, who asked not to be named.

Marcus Martin, a spokesman with Las Vegas police, declined to comment because of the ongoing investigation.

Burkett is scheduled to appear in court today.

Kittrell said Mississippi authorities are investigating Burkett in connection with an unsolved 1980 slaying. Kittrell said there were indications the killing matched Burkett's acts in other deaths, but he didn't have more details about the case.

Kittrell said Burkett was not "on their radar" before Las Vegas police arrested him July 18 with assistance from Picayune police and an agent with the Mississippi Bureau of Investigation.

Kittrell said police found Burkett in a shed behind his sister's home, in Carriere, Miss., which is about five miles from Picayune.

Burkett has a record in Mississippi.

According to a court document obtained Thursday, he faced capital murder charges in Pearl River County, Miss., in the early 1980s.

On Aug. 10, 1983, Burkett was found guilty of manslaughter and sentenced to 20 years in prison. Records show Burkett was scheduled to be released in 1992.

Details of the case were not available, but a prosecutor in Kittrell's office said the victim in the case was Burkett's mother, who was burned to death.

In Las Vegas, Burkett is accused in multiple slayings.

Police said they have forensic evidence linking Burkett to the killings of 22-year-old Barbara Ann Cox on April 22, 1978, and 27-year-old Tina Gayle Mitchell on Feb. 20, 1994.

In 2003, Burkett was convicted of voluntary manslaughter for the 2002 death of a 41-year-old woman in Las Vegas, Valetter Jean Bousley. He served six years in prison in that case.

Las Vegas police believe the killing spree began in 1978, when Cox was found dead in a parking lot outside apartments at 211 W. Bonanza Road.

Cox was found nude, raped and with strangulation marks on her neck, according to Burkett's arrest report, which cites the notes from the original homicide investigators.

Police interviewed the woman who found Cox's body. The woman was in the area because she was driving Burkett home from the Aladdin hotel-casino, where he then worked.

She told detectives that she and Burkett discussed reporting the death. But Burkett got out of the car and walked into his upstairs apartment at 211 W. Bonanza. The woman then flagged down an officer.

There is no indication that detectives believed Burkett was a suspect, according to the reports. Investigators took vaginal samples from Cox, and the case was suspended when no new leads surfaced. DNA would not start to be used in forensics until the late 1980s.

Five years after her death, Burkett was sentenced to 20 years in prison for manslaughter in Mississippi.

Police think his move back to Las Vegas is connected to the slaying of Mitchell in February 1994.

Mitchell's body was found behind a house on H Street near Washington Avenue, lying facedown and covered with towels. Medical examiners ruled she had been strangled.

Burkett's name didn't surface in the investigation into Mitchell's death, according to his arrest report. Detectives obtained samples from Mitchell that would yield DNA, but the case went cold.

Two months after Mitchell's body was found, the body of Alethea Maria Williams of Los Angeles was discovered in the same location. Williams, too, was strangled, authorities said.

Although Burkett has not been named as a suspect in Williams' death, his arrest report shows that detectives recently questioned him about the case.

Burkett would serve time a decade later after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the death of local hotel maid Bousley. She was found strangled in September 2002, outside a church on F Street near Monroe Avenue.

The case was unsolved until March 2003, when a jail inmate said he saw Bousley go around the church with Burkett. Ten minutes later, the inmate saw Burkett walk away from the church, alone.

Police charged Burkett with murder, but he pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter.

When he started his six-year prison stint, officials took a sample of DNA. That sample was registered with a national database and linked him to the deaths of Cox and Mitchell when cold-case detectives submitted evidence from their deaths into the system in 2010.

The bodies of the women Burkett is accused of slaying were all found in West Las Vegas, generally bordered by Carey Avenue on the north, Bonanza Road on the south, Interstate 15 on the east and Rancho Drive on the west.

Las Vegas police said during a news conference earlier in the week that they are investigating Burkett in other cold-case slayings. They didn't provide further details.

Police called Burkett a "serial killer."

Meanwhile, Kittrell said although they are dusting off files to old cases in the Magnolia State, he is optimistic Las Vegas police and prosecutors will put Burkett away forever.

"My hope is that, in Las Vegas, they do what they do and make sure he doesn't hit the streets again."

Contact reporter Antonio Planas at aplanas@review
journal.com or 702-383-4638.