ST. LOUIS — A St. Louis man was sentenced to 16 years after he admitted to fatally shooting a man and hiding the body in the trunk of his car.
Matthew Mancini, 27, pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and evidence tampering in connection with the shooting death of 29-year-old Mark Burnett Jr. in 2018.
According to a press release from the 22nd Judicial Circuit Court of Missouri, Mancini told police he thought Burnett was stealing from him, so he made Burnett kneel on the ground and struck Burnett in the head with a gun. He told police the gun went off while he was striking Burnett, resulting in the deadly shot being fired.
In December of 2018, police were serving a search warrant at Mancini's home on Louisiana Avenue. Police said while searching the home, they found Burnett's body wrapped in plastic in the trunk of Mancini's car. They also said Mancini tried to clean up the crime scene to conceal what had happened.
Burnett's parents appeared in court on Thursday to provide an impact statement.
“It never gets better,” said Burnett’s mother Patricia Burnett. “You just learn to manage it.”
Mancini apologized to the Burnett family and said he "never meant to hurt Mark."
Prosecutors and Mancini agreed to a plea deal that included a 16-year prison sentence for second-degree murder and a concurrent four-year sentence for tampering with physical evidence. Circuit Judge Scott Millikan accepted the agreement and delivered the sentence Thursday.
In exchange for his guilty plea, prosecutors dismissed one count of armed criminal action.
