Suspected serial killer pleads guilty in Las Vegas to murders
A suspected serial killer, said to be connected to at least five dead women, pleaded guilty Thursday afternoon in Las Vegas to two counts of second-degree murder.
Authorities have tied Nathan Burkett, 68, to killings in the valley dating back more than 40 years.
“I believe there’s probably more victims than we’ve been able to identify,” Chief Deputy District Attorney Marc DiGiacomo said.
The white-haired defendant was wheeled into court before District Judge Valerie Adair, where he entered a type of guilty plea that required him to admit only that prosecutors had enough evidence to convict him.
Burkett’s murder charges have lingered in the Clark County system for upward of six years, and he had faced the death penalty for much of that time.
When the judge canvassed Burkett to ensure that his plea was voluntary, he said, “Ain’t nobody promise me nothing.”
She then asked if anyone had threatened him.
“Like what?” he replied. “I ain’t been threatened at all.”
One count in Burkett’s deal with prosecutors accounts for the 1994 deaths of two women: 27-year-old Tina Gayle Mitchell and 32-year-old Althea Williams Grier. Another count dates to the 1978 slaying of 22-year-old Barbara Ann Cox.
Authorities said DNA found at the scenes linked him to the killings of Mitchell and Cox, while similarities in the circumstances of Grier’s death led police to finger Burkett.
Burkett has been convicted of killing at least two other people. Records show he served time in prison for manslaughter in Mississippi in the 1980s after his mother was found burned to death.
He also was arrested by Las Vegas police on a murder charge in October 2003 in connection with the death of Valetter Jean Bousley, 41, whose body had been found a year earlier. Burkett was convicted of the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter in Bousley’s death and served six years in prison.
Life to end in prison
Burkett is expected to be sentenced to 10 years to life in prison for Thursday’s plea, and prosecutors expect that he will die behind bars.
Prosecutors recently withdrew their attempt to seek the death penalty against Burkett after learning that he was in the early stages of dementia.
As his case worked its way through the Las Vegas court system, a clinical neuropsychologist determined that Burkett had an IQ of 59.
His IQ was tested at 55 while he was serving time in a Mississippi prison on a manslaughter conviction in the death of his mother.
After his release from prison in Nevada, homicide investigators in August 2012 tracked him down in southern Mississippi, where he had apparently been living out of a garage, according to a court document filed this month.
He told a detective he had lived in Las Vegas in the 1970s, near where Cox’s body was found, but denied any connection to her.
He also denied ever “seeing, knowing or soliciting” Mitchell and Grier, known prostitutes who had frequented the Historic Westside. But authorities had found his DNA inside Cox and Mitchell.
At the time of his 2012 arrest, he told police he had lived across the country, including Las Vegas, Chicago, New Orleans, Memphis, Los Angeles and Mississippi.
When a homicide sergeant asked how many women he had killed, Burkett “laughed and said nothing,” court documents state.
The sergeant persisted and asked if Burkett would reveal the true figure once his cases were adjudicated.
“Burkett said ‘yes’ with a smile on his face,” the documents state.
‘I kill women’
His extradition from Mississippi to Nevada included a layover at Hartsfield-Jackson Atlanta International Airport.
He made “every attempt possible” to engage with women, the document states. “He proved to be a charming and charismatic speaker.”
He walked with a limp because of polio he suffered as a child, but refused assistance until he noticed a “young, black female porter pushing a wheel chair.”
The woman agreed to push Burkett to his gate and asked what he had done. A detective let Burkett answer directly.
“I kill women,” he said, looking back at her.
The porter appeared startled, according to the document, but continued in conversation with Burkett.
“They spoke primarily about the neighborhood she lived in, because he had lived there previously.”
Contact David Ferrara at dferrara@reviewjournal.com or 702-380-1039. Follow @randompoker on Twitter.