Killer gets 198 years

Dec. 22, 2006

By MARY AMES

Frontiersman

PALMER - A man who strangled his lover and their 7-week-old son remained silent when the judge handed down Alaska's maximum sentence.

Christopher A. Kevan, 25, received the sentence requested by the state on Wednesday: 99 years for the murder of Brandie Burns, 26, and 99 years for the murder of Ashton Burns on Oct. 25, 2005.

&#8220This was the worst that happened in the Valley at one man's hands,” said Richard Payne, assistant district attorney. &#8220My sentence request is for Mr. Kevan to die in jail. He should be allowed parole on the same day Brandie and Ashton Burns are released from the grave.”

Lee deGrazia, Kevan's public defender, asked for two separate recesses during sentencing so she could have time to discuss matters with Kevan. DeGrazia took Kevan's case after a trial that stretched for nearly three weeks and ended with a guilty verdict Oct. 10. The jury deliberated about two hours.

Although no testimony was offered about Kevan's mental health, deGrazia asked the court to consider Kevan as young and troubled, with serious untreated substance-abuse issues and depression. DeGrazia didn't ask for a specific amount of time for Kevan's sentence, but made a general request.

&#8220Nobody can say he can't be rehabilitated,” deGrazia said. &#8220His sentence should allow some hope of coming back into society.”

Connie Burns, the mother and grandmother of the victims, who lives in Georgia, said she cries every day.

&#8220This man deserves to spend a day in pain for every tear I cried,” Burns said.

&#8220What kind of man murders my babies and sleeps with them and calls his dad to come and see what he did?”

Pam Singleton, Burns' friend, spoke about the late-night call she received, &#8220from my best friend screaming.” Singleton, who lives in Wasilla, flew to Georgia immediately, she said, to help Burns get through the week of pain and funerals.

&#8220I still have images of the marks on Brandie's neck,” she said. &#8220My husband and myself are lifelong Alaskans, and we never want to see this man walk free again.”

Ron Dempsey, an advocate with Victims for Justice, read a letter from Sandy Webster, a friend of Brandie's who sat through the trial, but couldn't return to Alaska again from her home in Texas for sentencing.

Webster said she cried many tears and spent many sleepless nights over her friend's murder.

&#8220She loved him to death,” Webster wrote. &#8220Please lock him up and throw away the key. The world will be safer. I hope he suffers every day and lives to be an old, old man - while wishing he were dead.”

There is probably no way any sentence can erase the pain victims feel, Superior Court Judge Beverly Cutler said.

&#8220That's an artificial assumption,” Judge Cutler said. &#8220This was an extremely heinous crime, and Mr. Kevan didn't display any positive remorse.”

The judge asked why men and women want such different things in a relationship.

&#8220How could Brandie be so happy, with such a cute baby, and he didn't want them, or want them to have it,” Cutler said. &#8220This was so far off the map it cries out for severe sanctions. You can't just kill people you want out of your face.”

The judge said that while nothing can bring back the dead, others could learn from what happened, and others may get out of a bad relationship.

&#8220You can't take other peoples' lives,” she said.

Contact Mary Ames at 352-2284 or mary.ames@frontiersman.com.