{"id":128060,"date":"2026-03-03T05:31:18","date_gmt":"2026-03-03T05:31:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/128060\/"},"modified":"2026-03-03T05:31:18","modified_gmt":"2026-03-03T05:31:18","slug":"man-who-escaped-from-pennsylvania-jail-sentenced-for-murder-of-jamestown-woman","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/128060\/","title":{"rendered":"Man who escaped from Pennsylvania jail sentenced for murder of Jamestown woman"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>MAYVILLE, N.Y. (WKBW) \u2014 Michael Burham, <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wkbw.com\/chautauqua-county\/man-who-kidnapped-couple-and-escaped-from-pennsylvania-prison-pleads-guilty-to-murder-of-jamestown-woman\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in January<\/a>, has been sentenced to 25 years to life in prison for the death of Kala Hodgkin.<\/p>\n<p>The District Attorney\u2019s office said Burham shot and killed Hodgkin inside her home on May 11, 2023. Burham was charged with raping Hodgkin and there was a warrant out for his arrest when he broke into her Jamestown house and shot her six times, killing her.<\/p>\n<p>            <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/1772515878_509_.jpeg\" alt=\"KALA.jpg\"  width=\"1280\" height=\"720\"\/><\/p>\n<p>WKBW<\/p>\n<p>        Kala Hodgkin was murdered in her Jamestown home.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors say Burham lit two fires to distract police and led authorities on a manhunt. He kidnapped a Pennsylvania couple and forced them to drive him to South Carolina. The couple was located alive in a cemetery and told law enforcement they were kidnapped at gunpoint from their home in Sheffield, Pennsylvania.<\/p>\n<p>WATCH: Man\u00a0who escaped from Pennsylvania jail sentenced to 25 years to life for murder of Jamestown woman<\/p>\n<p>Man who escaped from Pennsylvania jail sentenced to 25 years to life for murder of Jamestown woman<\/p>\n<p>Burham was later taken into custody in connection with the kidnapping and was being held in Warren County Prison to face charges.<\/p>\n<p>Then, in July 2023, Burham escaped the prison. Officials said they believed he used exercise equipment to get onto the metal-gated roof of the prison and tied bed sheets to climb down from the roof to the ground.<\/p>\n<p>Pennsylvania State Police took Burham back into custody on July 15, 2023, nine days after he escaped from the prison.<\/p>\n<p>The Pennsylvania Office of Attorney General announced in January 2024 that Burham was sentenced to 3 1\/2 years to 7 years in prison for his escape from Warren County Prison and sentenced to 21 years and 8 months to 43 years and 4 months in the kidnapping case.<\/p>\n<p>He was <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.wkbw.com\/news\/local-news\/michael-burham-sentenced-in-connection-to-kidnapping-and-escape-from-warren-county-prison\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">ordered to serve an aggregate sentence of 25 years and 2 months to 50 years and 4 months<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Chautauqua County District Attorney Jason Schmidt gave a detailed account of Burham&#8217;s actions to the judge. He said he wanted to ensure that the totality of the harm Burham caused was on the record.<\/p>\n<p>He said he wanted to make sure that Burham never gets parole and dies in prison.<\/p>\n<p>Michael Burham sentenced in connection to kidnapping and escape from Warren County Prison<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MAYVILLE, N.Y. (WKBW) \u2014 Michael Burham, who pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in January, has been sentenced to&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":128061,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":{"0":"post-128060","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-pennsylvania","8":"tag-pennsylvania","9":"tag-pennsylvania-headlines","10":"tag-pennsylvania-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128060","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=128060"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/128060\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/128061"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=128060"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=128060"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=128060"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}