CEDAR RAPIDS, Iowa (KCRG) – Jerry Burns, who is serving life in prison for the murder of 18-year-old Michelle Martinko in December of 1979, is once again appealing his murder conviction.
Michelle Martinko was murdered in the parking lot at Cedar Rapids’ Westdale Mall on the night of December 19, 1979. Her body was found early the next morning.
Investigators linked DNA from a straw that Burns had discarded to DNA at the crime scene to connect him to the crime decades later. He was arrested in December 2018 on the anniversary of the Martinko’s death…