Randy Kermitt Burke, 57, of Sumpter Township is serving two years in the Pugsley Correctional Facility near Traverse City after plea bargaining eight felony charges down to a felony firearm charge in Wayne County 3rd Circuit Court.
His sentence also includes three years of probation for a guilty plea to an assault with a dangerous weapon.
He was sentenced on June 30. His earliest release date is May 22, 2013.
According to Sumpter Police reports, last Dec. 8, Burke shot into the mattress between his daughter and her visiting boyfriend after finding them in bed together after having sex in the family’s Sumpter Township home in the 22100 block of Haggerty Road.
Burke was charged with assault with intent to commit murder, assault, weapon discharge in a building, felon in possession of a weapon (x4) and another weapons charge.
The 34-year-old victim is a truck driver from Wyandotte, who met Burke’s 28-year-old daughter at his work, where she also drove a truck.
At a Jan. 12 session at 34th District Court, Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor Carol Murray told the judge that Burke’s daughter, who lived with her father, is also a victim.
Murray said, according to the Sumpter Township Police report, the victim and Burke’s daughter were naked in bed together when Burke came in naked with a small automatic pistol and wearing only gloves. He allegedly carried a bottle of vodka. A statement by the victim to police said Burke threatened, “I’m going to kill you both and make it look like a suicide.”
He allegedly stated he would then shoot himself, or maybe go to work in Livonia where he is a welder and call police later, saying he found their bodies after he got home from work.
He shot at a spot in the bed between the two and allegedly made the two take a variety of painkilling and sleeping pills at gunpoint using the bottle of vodka to wash them down.
Burke’s attorney Neil Strefling told the judge the daughter said this never took place. Strefling also said that his client was just seven feet from the bed and if he had wanted to kill the man, he would have.
During a district court session, Murray pointed out Burke’s criminal record, with five felonies from 1970 to 1982, including criminal sexual conduct in the first degree, prison escape, armed robbery, and a federal case of fraud.
According to the police investigation reports acquired by the Independent under the Freedom of Information Act, police confiscated from the Burke home two .22 caliber rifles, a .22 caliber pistol, a .380 caliber pistol, two 12-gauge shotguns, and ammunition.
Officer Phil Jablonski, interviewed the victim after the man came into the Sumpter police station at 4:49 a.m. on Dec. 8 to report the incident that he said occurred a few hours earlier. Before the investigation was over, eight Sumpter officers had assisted in the case.
The man told police that his girlfriend begged her father not to kill them and then Burke made them gag up the pills he had forced them to take. The man said Burke blamed his daughter for making him behave like this.
The victim also said Burke threatened him that if he went to the police, he would get out in 3 to 7 years and when he gets out he would find him and kill him. Burke said he would come up behind the boyfriend and hit him on the head, the victim told police.
Burke let the victim leave after his daughter begged to let him go, but said he hadn’t decided what to do with his daughter, the victim said.
The victim said he went to his friend’s house first because his friend was an EMT and could check him out for an overdose. Then he drove to his sister’s house and decided to go to Sumpter police (after first contacting Wyandotte and Belleville police) because he was concerned with his girlfriend’s well-being. He told police he tried to call her, but the call went directly to voice mail.
Officers Jablonski and Patrick Byrne went to the residence to check on the well-being of the daughter and they saw the father and daughter leaving in a vehicle and made a traffic stop.
Burke later told police he was taking some cans to Meijer’s to cash in so he could buy cigarettes for his daughter.
The daughter told police that she and her boyfriend were taking pills and drinking vodka after having sex and her father ordered the boyfriend to leave and that angered the boyfriend and that is why he made up the story. She said her father never had a gun and there was no shooting.
When requested, she took police to her bedroom and they found a bed stripped of covers which were lying at the foot of the bed.
Jablonski reported there was a small round hole in the upper third of the mattress and the daughter said it was old and had been there for years. Jablonski lifted the mattress and found the hole went all the way through the mattress, through a piece of plywood beneath the mattress, and through the box spring underneath, with a bullet fragment in the box spring and a hole in the carpet.
The sheet had a hole that matched the location.
The officers report they also found two pistols partially hidden in a bale of hay in an out building along with blue latex gloves. In Burke’s statement he said he used gloves in an outbuilding when he was skinning raccoons.
During the search of the premises under the warrant, Officer John Toth found a letter from the daughter to her father, speaking of what they were doing as wrong and that they have to stop. Officer Toth sought an amendment to the search warrant to include the letter. The amendment was approved by the prosecutor but denied by Judge Brian Oakley, who signed the original search warrant.
In a taped interview with Burke, Officer Toth asked Burke about the bullet hole and Burke said the hole in the bed was old and it came from him shooting mice. He said in the past he had been drinking and shot at the mice in the home so it is normal to find bullet holes.
Toth said he told Burke about the evidence and the statement from the boyfriend that Burke forced his daughter at gunpoint to admit the father and daughter have been having sex since she was a teenager. Burke said that isn’t possible because he is gay.
In another interview, the daughter said her dad found out he was gay in prison. She said she wrote a letter to her dad apologizing for all the trouble she has caused him, but he threw it away. She said she didn’t know about any other letter.
Also part of the statement from the victim was that he was shown pictures of the father and daughter having sex and he confronted her about it that night. He told police that Burke said because the boyfriend knew about it, he would have to kill him.
The daughter insisted none of that was true.