Slain Officer’s Widow Gives Birth to Son

The widow of California Highway Patrol Officer Don Burt celebrated a new arrival Tuesday, the couple’s 7-pound, 12-ounce son, just two months after her husband was shot to death in a Fullerton parking lot.

“Physically, I’m doing pretty well,” said Kristin Burt, 28. “But emotionally, it’s tough. It’s very bittersweet. It was hard coming home and not having my husband. He should be here seeing all this. This is what he always wanted, a baby.”

Cameron Don Burt was born at 9:35 a.m. Sunday at Presbyterian Intercommunity Hospital in Whittier, she said.

“He’s wonderful,” she said. “He looks exactly like his dad.”

His 25-year-old father was gunned down on July 13 after what began as a routine traffic stop. A computer check disclosed that the driver had a suspended license, prompting Burt to call for a tow truck and to search the vehicle. As witnesses watched from a nearby restaurant, the driver suddenly pulled a gun and shot Burt seven times.

A suspect, Hung Thanh Mai, 25, was arrested later in Houston and is awaiting trial.

Kristin Burt said she planned to rest at her parents’ home in La Habra for about a week before returning to her home in Anaheim Hills. She is on maternity leave from her job as an environmental health worker for Orange County.

Regarding the new baby, she said, her husband was misguided about only one thing.

“He just had a gut feeling that told him it was a girl,” she said. “He was wrong. I’m sure he would be very proud of his son.”

As will the son be of the father.

“It’s hard to know what to say,” Kristin Burt said, referring to what she will someday tell her son regarding the young officer’s life and death. “But somehow he will know.”