A convicted sex offender who gave a San Diego State student drugs, then dumped her body in the ocean when she overdosed is sentenced.
John Burgess pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter and concealment of an accidental death earlier this month. He admitted he gave drugs to Donna Jou, 19, who he met through Craiglist in 2007.
On Monday, Burgess was sentenced to five years in prison.
Jou, a San Diego State University pre-med student, was home for the summer from San Diego State University in 2007 when she placed a Craigslist ad offering to help kids with math problems. It was answered by Burgess, a convicted sex criminal out on parole, who arranged for a date with her.
Jou was last heard from as she frantically sent a text from Burgess' house in West Los Angeles, saying she had locked herself in a bathroom and was afraid.
Her disappearance was covered extensively in Los Angeles and San Diego, and suspicion centered on Burgess when it became known that he had cleaned out his rental house and dumped belongings, including his "Sinjin" personalized license plate, in a garbage bin behind a nearby convenience market.
Burgess fled to Florida and was jailed there on minor charges, then imprisoned in California for violating his conditions for release from prison. Despite exhortations from Allred, he kept mum more than a year as Jou's parents went on local television to express their personal agony at not knowing where their daughter had gone.
This spring, Burgess finally confessed that he had injected an overdose of heroin and cocaine called a "speedball" into Jou. After she overdosed, he said he panicked and dumped her body into the Pacific Ocean.
