Courtney Lockhart was sentenced to death and remains on Alabama Death Row for the murder of Lauren Burk. According to court documents Courtney Lockhart was in the middle of a crime spree where he attacked several women that would end with the murder of Lauren Burk. Courtney Lockhart would force her into a vehicle, where she robbed and told to strip naked. Lockhart would drive around with the Auburn University Student for some time until Lauren attempted to escape and she would be shot by Lockhart and would later die from her injuries. Courtney Lockhart would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Courtney Lockhart 2021 Information
| Inmate: | LOCKHART, COURTNEY LARRELL |
| AIS: | 0000z776 |
| Institution: | HOLMAN DEATH ROW |
Courtney Lockhart More News
ee County Circuit Court Judge Jacob Walker denied Courtney Lockhart’s post-conviction challenge to his conviction for the capital murder of an Auburn University student Friday, Attorney General Steve Marshall announced.
Lockhart, 35, was convicted in November 2010 for the kidnapping and murder of Auburn University freshman Lauren Burk in 2008. He was sentenced to death.
“Courtney Lockhart viciously and senselessly struck down an innocent young woman. Even as he was terrorizing Lauren Burk, she responded with kindness which was met with brutality,” Marshall said. “We later learned that several other women came close to the same fate at his hands in the days before and after he killed Ms. Burk.
“Her murder shocked and saddened the people of Lee County and of Alabama, and we are determined that this defendant will not escape justice for his horrendous crime.”
The Lee County District Attorney’s Office prosecuted the case and obtained the guilty verdict. Walker overrode the jury’s recommendation to sentence Lockhart to life without parole in 2011, and he ultimately sentenced him to death by lethal injection.
Lockhart filed a Rule 32 petition in September 2015, challenging his death sentence.
Lockhart’s Rule 32 petition hearing first began in December 2018 in Walker’s courtroom at the Lee County Justice Center in Opelika, but was continued in February 2019.
Lockhart is represented by attorneys through the Equal Justice Initiative at no charge. The Attorney General’s Capital Litigation Division handled the case at a post-conviction evidentiary hearing.
The replies to the hearing from Lockhart’s attorneys, as well as state prosecutors, were all submitted to the court by August 2019.
Burk was found by a young Auburn couple traveling on Alabama Highway 147 at about 9 p.m. on March 4, 2008, according to previous reports. She was naked, except for a pair of socks.
Burk was shot in the left shoulder, the bullet passing through both of her lungs and exiting through her upper right arm.
She left her boyfriend’s Auburn University dorm earlier that night to go to the campus library to study with a friend. Burk was supposed to meet her boyfriend there at 8:30 p.m.
While walking to her vehicle, Lockhart accosted her, pointed a gun at her and ordered her into her car. He then forced her to undress so she wouldn’t “do anything or make any crazy moves,” Lockhart said in a previous report.
He then drove for about 30 minutes. Burk listened to him talk about how bad he felt his life was, and she offered to help him find a job, according to Lockhart
After the shooting, Lockhart bought gas with Burk’s debit card. He returned Burk’s car to the university parking lot where he doused it with gas, set it on fire and left in his own vehicle.
Lockhart left with her iPod, $46, her credit card and his gun. He left her clothes, the remaining cash and her digital camera to burn.
He then went on to use her debit card in Georgia to purchase more fuel and buy other things. Lockhart later threw the debit card out the window on his return to Alabama.
Along the way, Lockhart robbed a woman at gunpoint on March 5, 2008 in a LaGrange, Ga., nursing home parking lot. He then robbed a woman who was with her young son at a Sam’s Club parking lot on March 6, 2008, in Columbus, Ga., according to a news release from Marshall.
The next day, in a Walmart parking lot in Newnan, Ga., Lockhart is believed to have hit a 72-year-old woman in the head and forced her into her car, but abandoned her car and fled the area in his vehicle, reports said.
Later on March 7, 2008, sped through a construction zone in Alabama and was pulled over by Phenix City police. The officer wrote Lockhart two tickets but dispatch told the officers that investigators wanted to speak to Lockhart, reports said.
Lockhart sped way within the transaction of event. Four police officers followed him. The chase later ended in a foot pursuit. Lockhart was taken into custody in a wooded area.
Officers recovered Burk’s stolen iPhone, spent shell casing, Gatorade bottles and green T-shirt with flecks of blood in Lockhart’s car, said reports.
Investigators also discovered that Lockhart had robbed at least two women at gunpoint in Smiths Station and Phenix City in the days prior to the murder of Burk, the release said.