Court rejects David Burns' appeal of conviction in Courtney Coco's 2004 murder

David Burns' appeal of his conviction and sentence for the murder of 19-year-old Courtney Coco in 2004 has been rejected.

Burns was convicted of second-degree murder in Coco's death on Oct. 31, 2022, after a Rapides Parish jury deliberated for 90 minutes. He was sentenced to mandatory life in prison the next month, but his appeal alleged there hadn't been enough evidence to convict him or to prove Coco was murdered.

Coco's body was found in a Winnie, Texas, building on Oct. 4, 2004, almost 200 miles from her Alexandria home. The case remained cold until Burns' arrest in April 2021.

A three-judge panel of the 3rd Circuit Court of Appeal on Wednesday issued its opinion that affirmed Burns' conviction and sentence. While Burns argued that there was no evidence to show that Coco was a victim of homicide or that he had murdered her, that argument "fails because we find it was reasonable for the jury to reject his claim," reads the opinion.

The opinion goes over the trial in detail, even calling the testimony of one witness, who said he'd seen Burns at the site where Coco's body was found, "internally contradictory and unreliable."

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But it also recounts the testimonies of those who said Burns told them he'd killed Coco and testimony from Coco's sister, Lace Evans, and her mother, Stephanie Belgard. It states jurors were presented with "contradictory and conflicting testimony and evidence," as they were asked to resolve multiple disputes about the facts surrounding the case.

The state's first witness, Waylon Durison, said he had been Burns' friend for decades and that Burns had talked about killing Coco after Durison mentioned during a casual conversation that he didn't think he ever could kill someone.

Durison testified that Burns told him it wasn't as hard as one would think. He said Burns mentioned Coco by name, describing her as his girlfriend's sister, saying he'd smothered her with a pillow and wrapped her body in a blanket.

"Is it every day you hear someone confess to murder?" Durison was asked by prosecutor Hugo Holland.

"Not every day, no sir," he replied.

Burns' defense attorney, Christopher LaCour, repeatedly tried to poke holes in Durison's testimony, prompting him into an outburst as attorneys were conferring with 9th Judicial District Court Judge Greg Beard.

"He's trying to say I'm lying. I ain't got no damn reason to be lying," said Durison.

The cause of Coco's death also was a point of contention during the trial. Each side presented experts, who disagreed on how the young woman died.

Still, taking all the testimony into consideration, "any rational trier of fact could have found the essential elements of the crime proven beyond a reasonable doubt that David Anthony Burns was guilty of second-degree murder of Courtney Coco," reads the opinion.

Burns, 48, is serving his sentence at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola.

This article originally appeared on Alexandria Town Talk: David Burns' appeal of conviction in Courtney Coco's murder denied