A series of obscene sexual crimes has landed a Biloxi man a life sentence in state prison.
36-year-old Christopher Carmel Burdine was first arrested on January 4, 2023, at St. Martin High School in Jackson County. A group of high school students notified police that he was driving around the area and masturbating in front of young girls.
When law enforcement arrived at the scene, they were told that, on multiple occasions, he pulled up to female students and lured them to his vehicle to ask for directions to the school. When the girls approached his car, Burdine was seen masturbating “in plain view.”
Officers confiscated and searched Burdine’s phone after his arrest, finding multiple videos where he had filmed unsuspecting women while they were using public restrooms. According to Jackson County officials, two of the videos were filmed at a gas station on Tucker Road.
During the sentencing hearing Wednesday, Burdine’s two prior aggravated assault convictions in Harrison County were brought forth, qualifying him to be sentenced under the “life habitual” statute.
The statute says that any offender convicted of at least two prior felonies, with at least one being a crime of violence and having served at least a year on those convictions, is eligible for a life sentence without parole on any new felony committed.
“Christopher Burdine is the epitome of the ‘stranger danger’ that we warn our children about,” District Attorney Angel Myers McIlrath, who prosecuted Burdine’s case alongside Assistant District Attorney Bill Barrett, said. “He is a sexual predator, and we are all safer because of the life sentence imposed by Judge Jackson. Again, I want to thank the Jackson County Sheriff’s Office for their outstanding investigation.”
Judge Kathy King Jackson sentenced Burdine to life in prison without the possibility of parole or early release in the custody of the Mississippi Department of Corrections on two counts of filming a person in violation of their privacy and three counts of indecent exposure.
