Sebastian Burns

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Sebastian Burns is a convicted killer of three people in the US state of Washington. He is currently serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. His case was featured on a 2-hour edition of "48 Hours Mystery" which first aired in 2005 and was replayed again in 2006. His case is noteworthy for several reasons.

His first public defender, Theresa Olson, was caught having sex with Mr. Burns in a jailhouse meeting room while he was preparing his defense for the triple homicide charge. She was pulled from the case as a result, and subsequently resigned from the defenders office altogether and was given a one year suspension of her law license. At the time, this event made national news given its sensational nature.

The case is also noteworthy since the court allowed in as evidence a taped confession that Mr. Burns made to an undercover Canadian law enforcement agent posing as a member of organized crime, while both of them were in Canada. The admission of this evidence was protested on several grounds including constitutional ones, but ultimately was allowed and has since held up on preliminary appeals. Mr. Burns was convicted of beating 3 family members to death with a baseball bat in a premeditated crime that he was alleged to have planned and executed with his friend, Atif Rafay, who was the son and brother of the victims (making him the last surviving member of the immediate family) and was also convicted of the crime. Mr Rafay received the same sentence of life without the possibility of parole that Mr. Burns received for the aggravated murder of the Rafay family, despite the fact that Mr. Burns is purported to have carried out all three of the killings by himself.

The case has been the subject of repeated criticism due to the admission into evidence of the confession given to undercover Canadian law enforcement. The criticism has come not only from friends and family of Mr. Burns but also from many in the legal and law enforcement fields.