Dec. 27, 2005 – A little more than two years after Kishma Burnes, a 22-year-old St. Thomas woman attending college in Virginia, was brutally murdered, the man accused of killing her has been convicted.
On Dec. 11, 2003, the Source reported that Burnes, then a junior at Norfolk State University, had been found dead in her apartment. Police ruled the death a homicide after receiving a preliminary medical examiner's report. (See V.I. Student's Death in Virginia Ruled a Homicide).
Three months later, Reginald L. Davis, a registered sex offender, was charged with Burnes' murder. (See Man Charged in St. Thomas Student's Death).
On Dec. 20, a jury found Davis, 37, guilty of murder and abduction with intent to defile, according to a story appearing in The Virginian-Pilot.
The jury recommended two lifetime sentences for the the man, who had previously spent 12 years in jail after being convicted of rape and abduction in Chesapeake, Va. in 1989. Two years after being released on mandatory parole in 2001, Davis was discharged from parole, according to Virginia Corrections Department officials, the story said.
At the time of Burnes' murder, Davis was also a student at Norfolk State, where he worked as an administrative office specialist in the Division of Academic Affairs.
According to numerous published reports at the time the school did not routinely conduct criminal record checks on employees.
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