Although Burton later retracted his confession, claiming he admitted to the crime under duress and had an intellectual disability, he was found guilty of murder and sentenced to death in 1998.
[1] On the evening of July 29, 1997, in Houston, Texas, a female jogger was abducted and later found murdered the day after her disappearance.
[2] The man was eventually identified, and ten days after the murder, 27-year-old Arthur Lee Burton – a cement finisher married with four children – was brought in for questioning by the police.
[2][7] On October 31, 1997, a Harris County jury indicted Arthur Burton for the murder of Nancy Adleman.
However, in his defence, Burton claimed that he did not give his confession voluntarily, as the police investigators physically abused and coerced him into admitting to the crime, although prosecutors and the police rebutted that Burton had provided details that only the real killer would know, which showed that he was indeed guilty of the murder of Adleman.
[14] On May 19, 2004, through an unpublished decision, the Texas Court of Criminal Appeals upheld the murder conviction and death sentence of Burton.
[18][19] On June 9, 2014, the U.S. Supreme Court refused to hear Burton's appeal and confirmed his death sentence and murder conviction.
[22][23] In response, the prosecution argued that Burton had not raised these claims in any of his previous appeals and a report by a medical expert representing the Harris County District Attorney's Office revealed that Burton's writing and reading abilities were "fall generally at or higher than the average U.S. citizen", which was inconsistent with the symptoms of people who were intellectually disabled.
[26][27] On that same day, 54-year-old Arthur Lee Burton was put to death via lethal injection at the Huntsville Unit.
[31] In his final words before his execution, Burton apologized to the people he hurt with his actions, including the family members of Adleman, and also said, "Bird is going home.
Sarah stated that while she would not witness Burton's execution or celebrate it, she wanted closure and hoped to continue remembering her mother in fond memory, and she also held a "gratitude and forgiveness ceremony" in memory of Adleman at a local river ahead of the execution of Burton.