Courtney Coco, a 19-year-old resident of Alexandria, Louisiana, was last seen alive at about 4:30 a.m. on October 2, 2004. Two days later, her body was found in an abandoned building on Farm to Market Road 1406 near Interstate 10 in Winnie, Texas. The Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeal described the body as partly unclothed and decomposed. Investigators found no witness with firsthand knowledge of how Coco died, and the medical evidence concerning the cause and manner of death later became a disputed issue at trial.
The investigation produced numerous leads but became a cold case. According to the appellate opinion, police arrested David Anthony Burns about fifteen years after the body was found; Burns had been engaged to Coco's sister in 2004. Alexandria police announced his arrest on April 13, 2021, after a Rapides Parish grand jury indicted him on a second-degree murder charge. The prosecution's eventual case relied on circumstantial evidence, including a witness identification connecting Burns to the location where Coco was found and testimony that he had made incriminating statements years after her death. Burns disputed that evidence and argued that the state had not proved either homicide or his responsibility for Coco's death.
Burns's jury trial began in Rapides Parish in October 2022. On October 31, after about ninety minutes of deliberation, the jury unanimously found him guilty of second-degree murder. KALB reported that the district court denied defense motions for acquittal or a new trial. On November 29, Judge Mary Doggett imposed the mandatory sentence of life imprisonment at hard labor without parole, probation, or suspension of sentence.
Burns appealed, arguing that the evidence was insufficient. On December 6, 2023, the Louisiana Third Circuit Court of Appeal affirmed both the conviction and sentence. The court held that, when the evidence was viewed under the governing sufficiency standard, a rational juror could find the elements of second-degree murder proved beyond a reasonable doubt. The solved classification reflects that affirmed conviction, while the confidence note preserves the documented dispute over the medical and circumstantial evidence. The coordinates below identify Winnie generally, not the abandoned building or any private property.
