Arthur Burton was sentenced to death by the State of Texas for the murder of Nancy Adleman
According to court documents Nancy Adleman was jogging when she was attacked by Arthur Burton. Arthur Brown attempted to sexually assault her before killing her
Arthur Burton would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Arthur Burton was executed on August 7 2024
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Arthur Burton is incarcerated at the Polunsky Unit
Arthur Burton Case
On July 29, 1997, Nancy Adleman left her home shortly after 7:00 p.m. for a short run on her usual route which took her along a bayou near her home. She never returned. The next day, police officers found Mrs. Aldeman’s brutally beaten body in a heavily wooded area near the bayou. She had been strangled with her own shoelace. Because she was naked from the waist down, the police suspected that she had been sexually assaulted.
Witnesses reported having seen a dirty and angry-looking man riding a bicycle along the bayou around the time when Ms. Aldeman had left to go jogging. Using the witnesses’ description, the police released a composite sketch to the public, from which individuals recognized Burton. The police took Burton to the homicide office for questioning. Burton initially denied committing the murder. When the police confronted him with inconsistencies in his story, he confessed.
Burton described how he killed Ms. Aldeman after a failed sexual assault:
About a week and a half ago I was riding my step mom’s bike on the bayou behind my house. I rode around for a while and I seen this woman jogging. She was an older white woman wearing some shorts and some tennis shoes and a top. I think they were blue. I rode up behind her and pushed my bike down the hill into the bayou. I ran up behind her and grabbed her and pulled her in the woods. I threw her down and she started screaming and I choked her with my hands. She went unconscious for a little while. I took her shorts off and her panties and I left them there. She came back to and I got on top of her and I was trying to have sex with her but I got so nervous that I couldn’t do it. Then she started screaming again. She was asking me did I know about God. She said I forgive you. She told me to just leave. She asked me why was I doing it and that I didn’t have to do it and saying that I was a handsome man. I got up and I was fixing to leave. She grabbed my ear and she started screaming and I choked her until she went unconscious again. Then I drug her and we both fell in a hole. I got out and I was leaving and I saw somebody a man walking by himself. I went back and I took a shoestring out of her shoe. I left her shoe on and tied her shoestring around her neck. Then I went and got my bike and I went on…. I rode back down the bayou to the street[.] … It was starting to get dark then. I didn’t tell anybody.
Tr. Vol. 29, State’s Exhibit 2.