Michelle Martinko in February of 2020. Now, Burns has hired a famous lawyer to handle his appeal. Kathleen Zellner. Zellner also represented Steven Avery, one of the subjects of the Netflix true crime documentary Making a Murderer . Zellner confirmed to KCRG that she will represent Burns when they appeal his conviction. Her website is quoted as saying that In 23 years, Kathleen Zellner has righted more wrongful prosecutions than any private attorney in America.
KCRG reports that Michelle Martinko was a senior at Kennedy High School in 1979, when she was found stabbed to death inside her car parked near the Westdale Mall. She was last seen by friends who were shopping at the mall. After she failed to come home that night, her parents reported her missing to police. Her body was found just a few hours later.
Officers used same DNA company as Cedar Rapids police in Martinko slaying
Baby April, named for the month in 1992 that her body was found in the Mississippi River in Moline, Ill., is buried in Riverside Cemetery in Moline. On Thursday, an Ohio woman was charged with first-degree murder in the baby’s death. (Barb Ickes/Quad-City Times)
Angela Siebke, 47, of Whitehall, Ohio (Moline, Ill., police Facebook page) / By Tom Loewy, Quad-City Times
MOLINE, Ill. Nearly three decades have passed since a man walking in Moline’s old 17th Street Park found a trash bag containing the body of an infant girl floating along the shores of the Mississippi River.