Ex-escapee Michael Burham gets sentence meant to keep him incarcerated for decades
WARREN, Pa. — Michael C. Burham has received a sentence that is designed to keep the 35-year-old former prison escapee incarcerated for much of his life.
Burham, who used bedsheets to climb out of the Warren County Prison in July, has been sentenced to up to 50 years and 4 months in state prison for his guilty pleas to escape and to kidnapping charges related to the incident that landed him in the Warren County Prison to begin with.
"The defendant used all possible means to escape the consequences of his actions," Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry said in a statement following Burham's sentencing hearing in Warren County Common Pleas Court on Friday.
"Today, thanks to hard work and collaboration between our office and the Pennsylvania State Police, the Warren County District Attorney’s Office and the City of Warren Police Department, Michael Burham will be held accountable for his many crimes."
What is Michael Burham's total sentence?
Warren County Judge Gregory J. Hammond sentenced Burham to a total of a minimum of 25 years and two months to a maximum of 50 years and four months. Burham will not be eligible for parole until he serves the minimum sentence, when he will be about 60. If he is never paroled, he will be about 85 when he finishes serving the maximum sentence and is released.
In the kidnapping case, Hammond ordered Burham to serve 21 years and eight months to 43 years and four months, according to the Attorney General's Office. Hammond gave Burham another 3½ to seven years in the escape case.
The Attorney General's Office prosecuted Burham in the escape case after the Warren County District Attorney's Office stepped aside because of the district attorney's membership on the board that oversees the Warren County Prison. The Warren County District Attorney's Office prosecuted him in the kidnapping case.
Burham, who has lived in Warren County and nearby Chautauqua County, New York, escaped from the Warren County Prison on July 6. He climbed onto exercise equipment in the open-air prison exercise yard, got onto the roof and rappelled to the street using bedsheets knotted together.
He went on the run in rural Warren County and became a figure of national interest as he evaded the Pennsylvania State Police until troopers caught him in Conewango Township, about 6 miles northwest of the city of Warren, on July 15. A barking dog signaled his presence to a couple who alerted authorities, leading to his capture.
How were Burham's kidnapping and escape cases related?
The kidnapping case against Burham started in the spring of 2023, when was on the run from questioning in a homicide in Jamestown, in Chautauqua County.
Police accused Burham of burglarizing the home of a Sheffield, Warren County, couple, 89 and 68 years old, on May 20 and stealing their SUV.
The couple was found unhurt in a cemetery in North Charleston, South Carolina, on May 22. The two told police that Burham kidnapped them at gunpoint at their house in Sheffield and forced them to drive to South Carolina with him in their SUV.
Two days later, the FBI and other law enforcement agencies arrested Burham without incident in South Carolina. Burham was eventually sent to Warren County Prison on June 19 and ordered held on $1 million bond.
Using the bedsheets, he escaped less than a month later.
His escape led officials in Warren County to undertake a number of improvements at the prison.
Burham pleaded guilty in the kidnapping and escape cases in November. The Pennsylvania Attorney General's Office said he is still under investigation in the homicide case in New York.
Contact Ed Palattella at epalattella@timesnews.com. Follow him on X @ETNpalattella.
This article originally appeared on Erie Times-News: Ex-escapee Burham sentenced to long term for kidnapping, prison break
