[chris]

Clifford R. Burns pleaded guilty to second degree murder and was sentenced to 23 years to life in state prison for fatally stabbing his estranged wife, Patricia Burns, 42, at her Lake Luzerne, New York, home on December 24, 2013.

Patricia Burns lived with her daughters on Lake Avenue in Lake Luzerne, a small town in Warren County in upstate New York. She had been married to Burns for about 15 years and had left him years earlier. By December 2013, they were estranged, and Burns, then in his mid to late forties, was living downstate of her in the Capital Region, variously reported as Niskayuna, Schenectady and Troy. Her older daughter from another relationship, Megan Jenkins, 22, and two of the couple's teenage daughters were at the house that day. The minors were not named.

Burns arrived dressed in camouflage and carrying a hunting knife. He forced his way inside and repeatedly stabbed Patricia Burns in the torso as she prepared Christmas Eve dinner. Jenkins suffered serious injuries when she was stabbed in the arm while trying to intervene. One teenage daughter witnessed the attack, and a 911 call was made from the home. Patricia Burns was pronounced dead after being taken to hospital. Burns left immediately, and the knife was not recovered.

Within an hour, Burns surrendered to Warren County authorities in Queensbury. County investigators questioned him for more than five hours that night. He did not deny going to the house, but spent most of the interview recounting grievances against his estranged wife, her former boyfriend and others. At times shouting and swearing, he blamed them for what he had done rather than accepting responsibility. When investigators told him his wife had died, he showed brief distress before returning to the same complaints. His statements later undercut defenses his lawyers might have raised.

Burns was charged with second degree murder and arraigned. An assistant public defender entered a not guilty plea on his behalf, and he was later indicted on five counts. In April 2014, reported as April 17, he pleaded guilty in Warren County Court to one count of second degree murder in satisfaction of the full indictment. He waived his right to appeal and accepted a fixed sentence of 23 years to life.

Before sentencing, Burns asserted his innocence and asked to withdraw the plea. Warren County Judge John J. Hall found that it had been entered voluntarily and refused. On September 5, 2014, Hall imposed the agreed sentence, making Burns eligible for parole in 2036, and issued a 31-year order of protection barring contact with his children.

Burns appealed despite the waiver, arguing that prosecutors had coerced his plea by arranging a meeting with his teenage daughters, who urged him to plead guilty, and that the judge had coached him through the allocution. The Appellate Division, Third Department, heard arguments in October 2015 and unanimously affirmed the conviction on November 19, 2015. It found the arguments without merit and the record clear that Burns had been advised of his rights and pleaded freely. There was no trial, and the conviction rests on his guilty plea. He remains in New York state custody.

The video is a police interview-room recording running about 313 minutes and presented in three parts. It shows the interview itself, without narration or a presenter.

[chris]

Part 2 of 3 of the recording described above.

[chris]

Part 3 of 3 of the recording described above.

[chris]

"Christmas with Cliff" is a narrated JCS analysis built on the interview-room footage above. It runs about 32 minutes.

[Itsokaybutnotokay]

This guy acts and sounds just like my estranged father