Shooter gets hefty sentence

Christopher Robert Burnor, 44, pleaded no contest last week in Lamoille County Superior Court to attempted manslaughter. It was a reduction in severity from first-degree attempted murder, the original charge.

Burnor was sentenced to serve between nine-and-a-half and 50 years in prison, with credit given for the time he’s spent in jail since being arrested on Sept. 24, 2014.

Lamoille County State’s Attorney Todd Shove said even if Burnor is released after serving his minimum sentence — in the spring of 2023, when Burnor would be nearing 50 years old — the Department of Corrections will have eyes on him for the next half-century. Shove said local prosecutors and the court won’t have to get involved.

“If he violates, the Department of Corrections just throws him back in jail,” Shove said. “No guarantees, but one would hope that, as Mr. Burnor ages, he might mellow out.”

It remains to be seen how lenient the corrections department will be with Burnor. During the four and a half years he spent in jail awaiting trial on the Cumberland Farms shooting, Burnor was arrested five times for assaulting prison officers.

The shooting

Burnor shot Thomas Zapantis in the abdomen and hand just after noon on Sept. 24, 2014, after the two got into an argument in the Cumberland Farms parking lot.

According to a police affidavit, “Burnor said that he became so enraged that everything went ‘red’ like ‘a tunnel,’” and he told police he grabbed his pistol and shot at Zapantis. Burnor said he pointed the gun low to avoid any vital organs.

After he was shot, Zapantis ran across the street to Rite-Aid, where employees applied pressure to his wounds until emergency crews arrived, police said. Two witnesses told police Burnor drove off “casually … like nothing happened.”

The incident, which happened shortly after noon, sent area schools into lockdown as Burnor drove away, setting off a nine-hour manhunt.

Burnor has been on the other side of the equation, as the victim of violence. In 2012, Burnor was beaten with a police baton while sleeping with his then-girlfriend, who was the assailant’s ex-girlfriend.

Burnor told police he had a traumatic brain injury because of the beating. According to the affidavit, Burnor said that, ever since that injury, “his tolerance for being disrespected has diminished and he goes into a rage much more quickly than he used to.”

Trouble in prison

That rage was on display several times while Burnor sat in jail, awaiting trial.

At his sentencing May 6, Burnor was also convicted of five counts of assaulting corrections officers in two jails.

While housed in the Northwest State Correctional Facility in St. Albans, Burnor assaulted guards three different times — Dec. 29, 2014, June 16, 2015, and July 22, 2015.

After Burnor was moved to Northern State Correctional Facility in Newport, he assaulted two guards there, on June 21, 2016, and Nov. 10, 2017.

The 2017 assault was the most severe: Burnor punched a guard in the face twice, knocking him into a juice cart and onto the ground, where he kicked the guard in the face at least twice, according to police affidavits. The guard missed several days of work with his injuries.

Burnor has a rap sheet going back to 1992, when he was a teenager, and was previously convicted of assaulting a corrections officer while serving a 2007 domestic assault conviction in the Northeast Correctional Facility in St. Johnsbury.

Shove said these assaults are “part of the motivation for the state wanting to have such a long period of supervision” over Burnor.

The victim

Burnor’s victim, Thomas Zapantis, spoke with the Stowe Reporter in 2014 shortly after his release from the hospital, complaining he’d been denied painkillers from Stowe Family Practice.

“It felt like someone had nested a 20-pound bowling ball into my belly, and I knew there was something seriously wrong,” he said of being shot. “There was no white tunnel of light or anything. It just got really, really fuzzy.”

Zapantis said one bullet hit his hand, and another struck his pancreas, liver, spleen and his bowels. Surgeons at UVM Medical Center removed about a foot of his intestines.

Zapantis is also no stranger to law enforcement. Before being shot, he’d served time for his third DUI arrest, and shortly after was jailed after assaulting his probation officer.

In 2016, he was arrested for heroin possession in Morrisville. Zapantis had been staying in the Sunset Motor Inn and a housekeeper was stuck in the leg by an uncapped hypodermic needle poking through a trash bag she was taking out.

While searching his hotel room, police found 20 new and used needles, a tourniquet, a spoon with burnt residue in it, and about 20 used wax-paper envelopes.

Zapantis is currently serving jail time out of state, but was prepared to come to Vermont and testify if the case had gone to trial later this month, Shove said, and was cooperative. He said Zapantis’s checkered record didn’t play a factor in his status as a gunshot victim.

“He may not be a choirboy, but he is a victim and he does have rights,” Shove said.

The case

The case provided many hurdles for prosecutors, judges and defense attorneys, part of the reason it took more than four years to reach a conclusion.

For one, Burnor wasn’t a model prisoner — five prison assault convictions.

Second, he wasn’t a typical defendant. He dismissed his first two lawyers, including courtroom force David Sleigh, and represented himself much of the time.

Burnor’s court filings were handwritten on legal pads, white pages for the first year or so and then yellow. The handwriting is meticulous as he asks for dismissals and time extensions.

Eventually, he agreed to be represented by Robert Sussman, who helped shepherd the case to an end.

On the prosecution side, Shove’s predecessor, Paul Finnerty, had done most of the legwork. The shooting took place less than two months before Finnerty was elected as state’s attorney.

Shove said Finnerty had arranged a plea agreement “that was supposed to take place on Day 3 I was in office, so I pumped the brakes on that.”

Foiled name change

One of the strange chapters in the case came in 2017, when Burnor petitioned the court to change his name legally to Loki, after the trickster Norse god who had the ability to change his appearance.

Burnor’s petition said he wanted to change his name for religious reasons, choosing Odinism, what he claimed is the “Norsemen religion.” The full name he asked for was Loki Razor.

Burnor’s request was not granted. The state opposed the change, citing a 2007 case in the Orleans County court denied Byron Martin’s request to legally change his name to “Lord Byron.”

The judge said he was reluctant to authorize a change that might confuse the man’s identity “for law enforcement and public safety purposes.” He also noted that petitioners are free to call themselves whatever they want among friends and family.

Shove said he knew Burnor tried to change his name, but it wasn’t a factor in the criminal case.

“I am still referring to him as Chris Burnor, and when I say his name, he turns,” Shove said.