Arrest made in La. cold case murder of teen girl

OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 12:40 PM PT – Wednesday, April 14, 2021

Authorities made an arrest and charged a suspect in a cold case murder of a teen girl. On Tuesday, the Alexandria Police Department in Louisiana arrested 43-year-old David Anthony Burns in connection to the death of 19-year-old Courtney Coco.

Burns is now facing a charge of second-degree murder.

David Anthony Burns of Boyce, #Louisiana, is charged in the 2004 murder of college student Courtney Coco. Interest in the case was renewed when it was featured on a true-crime podcast in 2019: https://t.co/HvSQILWmYy@HeavySan #crime pic.twitter.com/B1mwcSmLPF

— Erin Laviola (@ErinLaviola) April 14, 2021

Coco went missing in 2004 and her murder remained unsolved, despite her body being found in an abandoned building nearly 200 miles away from her home and just weeks after her disappearance.

Meanwhile, the recent arrest is being seen as a victory by officials who had worked on the case for years.

“First, I want to compliment the Alexandria Police Department and all of my people at the DA’s Office,” Rapides Parish District Attorney Phillip Terrel said. “This has been a very difficult case, it has been a tough case, it’s an old case that the APD and sheriff’s office have both worked very hard to bring to its appropriate conclusion.”

Officials said more details are to come and that their main priority, currently, is to not compromise the integrity of the case.

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