Family Pained as Witness Describes CHP Officer’s Killing

The last seconds of California Highway Patrol Officer Don Burt’s life were detailed in court Friday, leaving a dozen friends and relatives of the slain rookie officer reeling in fresh grief.

Witness Berniece Sarthou said she had watched helplessly from her parked car last summer as Burt crumbled to the ground in a burst of gunfire. He landed on his side in the brightly lit Fullerton parking lot, curled in a fetal position, and then rolled over, writhing on the asphalt.

“He flailed on his back,” said Sarthou, squeezing her eyes shut. “And he let out the loudest, most agonizing cry I ever heard in my life.”

Then he was delivered a seventh, and final, shot to the head.

Sarthou’s three-hour testimony dominated the first day of a preliminary hearing in Orange County Municipal Court, where a judge will determine whether Hung Thanh Mai should stand trial on a murder charge that carries a potential death penalty.

Burt, 25, was shot July 13 after pulling over a white BMW for a traffic violation. The driver took off in Burt’s CHP cruiser and abandoned it, lights still whirling, at a Ford dealership seven miles away, near an apartment building where Mai lived.

A wallet containing Mai’s identification was found under the BMW’s front seat, Fullerton Det. Doug Kennedy said.

Investigators also found two footprints, one on a bloodied CHP citation book at the crime scene and a second on the bumper of a car near the abandoned cruiser. Witnesses said an Asian male had leaped over the car as he ran down Lincoln Avenue, away from the dealership.

The prints were left by someone wearing a size 8, Kmart-brand tennis shoe, “consistent” with the blood-splattered pair detectives seized from Mai when he was arrested in Houston four days after the shooting, Kennedy said.

Mai’s attorney, Dennis O’Connell, challenged the credibility of the evidence and hinted that the defense strategy will be to show that police had trouble telling possible Asian suspects apart. He pointed out that police detectives arrested another Asian man within hours of the shooting, only to clear him of any involvement two days later. O’Connell also said Kennedy’s descriptions of Asian males he interviewed for the case sounded the same. When the detective compared Mai’s photograph to that of his friend, O’Connell asked: “Was it easy to determine the difference between these two men?”

“No, I wouldn’t say it was easy to do that,” Kennedy said.

But Sarthou, a heart patient who cried through much of her testimony and passed O’Connell’s impromptu eye exam from the witness stand, swore Mai was the killer.

“His hair is different, but that’s him,” she said, directing a shaky finger at the shackled defendant. Mai dropped his chin to his chest. “He’s here.”

Burt’s family, including his wife, Kristin, who was seven months pregnant at the time of his death, watched the hearing through tears and clutched hands in their front-row seats.

“This begins a whole new step in the grieving process,” said Don Burt Sr., a retired CHP sergeant. “We will never get over the loss of our son.”