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Main: Michael Burham in court for his sentencing hearing on March 2 (WGRZ). Inset: Authorities arresting Burham in South Carolina in May 2023 (Berkeley County Sheriff’s Office).
A man from New York, aged 37, is set to spend the remainder of his life incarcerated after being convicted of murdering a mother of three, weeks after she accused him of rape.
This week, Chautauqua County Judge David Foley sentenced Michael Charles Burham to 25 years to life in prison for the murder of Kala Hodgkin in 2023, officials reported.
The sentencing followed Burham’s decision in January to plead guilty to first-degree murder, just a week before his trial was set to begin with jury selection.
“Over two and a half years since Kala was savagely killed in her own home while her children slept, not a day has passed without us thinking of her and her family,” stated District Attorney Jason Schmidt following Burham’s plea. “We were preparing for the trial next week, eager to finally see justice served for these despicable acts. Whether through trial or plea, Mr. Burham’s reckoning was inevitable, and we now anticipate his transfer to state prison, where he will hopefully reflect for the rest of his life on the devastation he caused—taking the life of an innocent mother, shattering a family, and traumatizing Kala’s surviving children.”
According to Law&Crime, on March 13, 2023, Burham forcibly entered Hodgkin’s residence on William Street in Jamestown, New York, where she and her three children, aged 8, 11, and 14, were asleep.
At the time of the murder, a warrant had been issued for Burham’s arrest in connection with raping Hodgkin, but he had not yet been taken into custody.
After a warrant was issued for his arrest in Hodgkin’s murder, Burham on May 20, 2023, kidnapped an elderly couple in Warren County, Pennsylvania, at gunpoint, and drove their car to Charleston, South Carolina. Law enforcement authorities were able to locate the couple unharmed and took Burham into custody a few days later after a homeowner spotted him prowling around in their backyard.
However, while being detained at the Warren County Prison in Pennsylvania, Burham on July 6, 2023, used a rope made from several bedsheets tied together to escape the facility. He remained on the lam for 10 days until a couple’s dog alerted them to a man in their backyard who turned out to be Burham.
He pleaded guilty in that case to kidnapping, recklessly endangering another person, terroristic threats, theft and burglary.
A Pennsylvania judge sentenced Burham to 25 to 50 years in a state prison for the kidnapping, which he is currently serving. When he finishes that sentence, Burham will be transferred to New York to continue serving his sentence for Hodgkin’s murder.
Despite the kidnapping and murder sentences running concurrently, Schmidt said he did not see how Burham “would ever be paroled” after pleading to first-degree murder.
“The extensive amount of harm that has been caused that will last this family forever, and it probably will go on to the next generation, children that are still suffering because of the trauma they experienced inside that home,” the DA said. “It’s just overcoming for all of us with emotion that somebody could exact that level of harm against a family for reasons that still boggle the mind.”