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‘None of this had to happen’: A woman lost her life in Chesapeake, and a repeat abuser is behind bars

Sammi Jo Burkhart, who was killed in Chesapeake at age 37, was recalled by her aunt as a free spirit, a “hippy chick” who hated wearing shoes and loved a Bud Light.

From the parking lot of the Red Roof Inn, a witness could see Sammi Jo Burkhart screaming.

When police arrived, Burkhart was standing at a motel room door, visibly shaking, an officer wrote in court documents.

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She told them her ex-boyfriend, Mark Harley O’Leary, grabbed her arm and pulled her into the room as she tried to leave, court documents say. She grabbed the door frame but couldn’t hold on. After the argument, O’Leary fled in his car, police said.

It was about 11 p.m. on Nov. 14. Virginia Beach police arrested O’Leary a few hours later and charged him with misdemeanor assault.

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He wasn’t locked up long. According to the Virginia Beach Sheriff’s Office, a magistrate released O’Leary on bond Dec. 29.

Five weeks later, the 37-year-old Burkhart was dead.

O’Leary now sits in a different jail, this time in Chesapeake, charged with first-degree murder, breaking and entering, abduction and numerous gun counts in her death. Burkhart’s family believes the criminal justice system failed her. More could — and should — have been done to protect her, relatives said.

Documents filed in courthouses across Hampton Roads show O’Leary had a history of harming and threatening women. And the 40-year-old had repeated run-ins with the law that escalated in the months leading to Burkhart’s death.

O’Leary’s public defender in the murder case, Erik Mussoni, declined to comment. From jail, O’Leary also declined an interview request.

Just days before Burkhart was killed, another woman with whom O’Leary had been involved — the mother of his children — took out numerous felony charges against him in Norfolk, accusing him of assault, abduction, and breaking and entering while armed with a weapon, records show. He’d been convicted of threatening her before.

If O’Leary hadn’t been let out on bond in Virginia Beach, or if Norfolk police had captured him on the new charges, Burkhart’s family wonders if she’d still be alive. Brea Hawk, Burkhart’s aunt, said there needs to be accountability, perhaps a change in the law, to protect women like her niece.

“He should have never been let out,” Hawk said. “… None of this had to happen.

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“I don’t want her to die for nothing. Something has to change.”

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‘Never saw any good’

Burkhart and O’Leary’s relationship was fraught from the start, Hawk said: “I never saw any good in it.”

The two dated on and off beginning in April last year, and Hawk said O’Leary was “extremely possessive right away.”

She said Burkhart always wanted to believe the best of people, even when they weren’t deserving.

Burkhart was a free spirit, a “hippy chick” who hated wearing shoes and loved a Bud Light, Hawk said. She had a thing for garden gnomes, and she and her cousin would move them around people’s yards as a prank. Burkhart painted one in all colors of the rainbow and gifted it to Hawk last year, the last time they saw each other.

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She had a vivacious personality. A lot of people knew her.

“She never really had it easy, but she always kept that smile on her face,” Hawk said.

Hawk, related to Burkhart through marriage, also is O’Leary’s aunt by blood. Burkhart and O’Leary were not related to each other.

Mark O'Leary (Chesapeake Sheriff's Office)

O’Leary’s felony record dates back at least seven years.

In June 2014, he pleaded guilty to threatening to bomb or burn and was sentenced to serve three weeks behind bars and complete anger management. O’Leary told the mother of his children that she “needed to watch her back” and that he was “going to set the house on fire and kill everyone,” prosecutors wrote in a summary of their evidence filed in Norfolk Circuit Court.

A month later, he was sentenced to serve 1½ years in a different Norfolk case, convicted of burglary and grand larceny for breaking into a man’s house and stealing cash and a television, records show.

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In 2017, a Norfolk judge sent him to prison once more.

Early one morning in February 2016, a woman who was in a relationship with O’Leary had just arrived home from work when he grabbed her from behind and dragged her into the back seat of her car, prosecutors wrote in court documents. The woman lived in the home with her mother; O’Leary was living there, too.

O’Leary locked the car doors and assaulted her, punching her in the head and ribs. When she tried to push him off, he hit harder and told her to shut up, prosecutors wrote.

He put his hands around her neck and squeezed for “like 10 seconds,” until she couldn’t catch a breath and her vision began to fade, according to her account as later cited by prosecutors. She screamed for her mother to call police, and O’Leary jumped behind the wheel, tried to pull the woman into the front seat by her hair and started driving fast.

A block or two away, he stopped and told her to get out, prosecutors wrote. He took off with her purse and cash.

In an agreement with prosecutors, O’Leary pleaded guilty to abduction, strangulation and assault and battery of a family member. Prosecutors dropped charges of attempted rape and robbery.

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A judge sentenced O’Leary to 11 years with seven suspended and ordered that he have no contact with the victim, complete a “batterer’s intervention program” and be on supervised probation for three years.

O’Leary remained imprisoned until March 10 last year.

He moved in with a relative and met and started dating Burkhart soon after.

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New charges and threatening texts

Seven months after he got out of prison, O’Leary was in trouble again.

In October, he was charged in Chesapeake with unlawful dissemination of an image and contributing to the delinquency of a minor, both misdemeanors. Court documents filed in Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court show O’Leary was arrested on the charges Nov. 11.

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The alleged assault on Burkhart at the Red Roof Inn happened three days later.

Hawk said Burkhart had tried to break off the relationship several times. After the incident at the motel, she had cut off communication with him.

“She basically was just hiding. … She was afraid for her life,” Hawk said.

One month after O’Leary was released from the Virginia Beach jail on the charge of assaulting Burkhart, the mother of his children took out the new felony charges in Norfolk. A magistrate also issued an emergency protective order barring O’Leary from contacting or going near her, Norfolk Juvenile and Domestic Relations District Court records show.

Five days later, shortly before 3:30 p.m. on Feb. 3, Chesapeake police were called to a house in the 1600 block of Chesapeake Avenue in South Norfolk.

Burkhart had been shot multiple times. Crews rushed her to a hospital, where an emergency room doctor pronounced her dead, police wrote in a search warrant affidavit filed in court.

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A man told a police detective that O’Leary held him and Burkhart hostage in an upstairs apartment for several hours, police wrote in the affidavit. Burkhart tried to escape, and O’Leary shot her before fleeing, the man told police.

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The man said O’Leary sent Burkhart threatening text messages, including a photo of a handgun, police wrote in the court document.

Hawk said the man was an ex-boyfriend of Burkhart’s and had been taking care of her dog.

Police found O’Leary in Norfolk two days after her death. He’s being held in the Chesapeake city jail — this time, on no bond. A court date is scheduled for late April.

“She was a beautiful child, a beautiful soul, a beautiful person,” Hawk said of her niece. “I just don’t understand … how he’s been let out, and then he continues to do the same thing.”

“I wish that this could have been different for Sammi Jo.”

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Staff writer Jane Harper contributed to this report.

Margaret Matray, 757-222-5216, margaret.matray@pilotonline.com


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