Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: WEDNESDAY, March 20, 1991 TAG: 9103200181
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: VICTORIA RATCLIFF STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
Burnopp, 26, a heavy-equipment operator, was sentenced Tuesday in Roanoke County Circuit Court to 30 years for an abduction and attempted rape on the Blue Ridge Parkway last July 9.
Monday, he was sentenced in Franklin County Circuit Court to 50 years in prison for the roadside rape and sodomy of an 18-year-old woman Aug. 2.
His sentences now total 80 years.
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, 30, of Alexandria, spent 12 days in jail until Burnopp was arrested.
Bailey, reached at his home in Alexandria, said he is angered by his arrest and never has received an apology from Roanoke County authorities.
"It is like they are not willing to admit they made a mistake," said Bailey, a roofer. "I'm talking to my lawyer right now. My business was really hurt. I guarantee I lost a good bit of money just because of this incident itself."
Money was only part of the trauma for Bailey, who faced a possible two life terms plus 40 years.
"It was not only my work. I was about to have a nervous breakdown," he said. "I actually went into shock. I'm still having nightmares over this."
Burnopp, who pleaded guilty to both offenses in January, testified Monday and Tuesday that he was sorry for what he had done.
"I hope and pray she can get on with her life," he said on Tuesday of his Roanoke County victim. "It hurts me, too. There's no excuse for it. I just hope and pray she can go on."
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.
The Franklin County victim told 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 to 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 the woods and tried to rape her. Burnopp beat her and then choked 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 the Roanoke County sentencing.
Staff writer Ron Brown contributed information to this story.
by CNB