Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, March 19, 1991 TAG: 9103190524
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: EVENING
SOURCE: VICTORIA RATCLIFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
The 26-year-old heavy-equipment operator from Franklin County was sentenced Monday in Franklin County Circuit Court to 50 years in prison for the Aug. 2 rape and was sentenced today in Roanoke County Circuit Court to 30 years for the July 9 abduction and attempted rape on the Blue Ridge Parkway.
Before Burnopp's arrest in August, another man had been arrested for the Roanoke County offense. After the similar attack occurred in Franklin County, authorities realized they had jailed the wrong man in a case of mistaken identity.
The other man, Kenneth E. Bailey, a 30-year-old Alexandria roofer, spent 12 days in jail until Burnopp was arrested. He was arrested after victims identified him in a photographic lineup. Not only did he look strikingly similar to Burnopp, but Burnopp's car was registered to an uncle named Kenneth A. Bailey.
Burnopp, who pleaded guilty to both offenses in January, testified today and Monday that he was sorry for what he'd done.
"I hope and pray she can get on with her life," he said today of his Roanoke County victim. "It hurts me too. There's no excuse for it. I just hope and pray she can go on."
Defense witnesses in both cases testified that Burnopp had a terrible background, was beaten severely as a child and was facing extreme marital and financial difficulties when the offenses occurred.
Isaac Van Patton, director of the Roanoke area Sex Offender Program, testified that Burnopp was a "retaliatory-type rapist" who acts impulsively out of anger.
He said that Burnopp's physical and emotional abuse during childhood, his use of alcohol and drugs, and severe marital and financial stresses led up to that anger.
Circuit Judge B.A. Davis III sentenced Burnopp to 45 years for rape and five years for sodomy in the Franklin County case.
Circuit Judge Kenneth Trabue sentenced him to 10 years for attempted rape and 20 years for abduction in the Roanoke County case.
According to the Franklin County woman's statements to police, she was driving south on U.S. 220 when a man in a car behind her kept flashing his headlights. Believing she had car trouble, she pulled over onto the side of the road where the man dragged her into the woods and raped her.
The Roanoke woman told police Burnopp stopped her the same way on the parkway and dragged her into a wooded area and attempted to rape her. In that case, he beat her and then strangled her until she was unconscious and left her in the woods.
"There is no justification for what this lady went through," Trabue told Burnopp at sentencing today.
by CNB