RENO, Nevada (AP) – A federal jury in Reno has found a 36-year-old man guilty of murdering his pregnant girlfriend while his children watched on a tribal reservation.
Man Convicted of murdering pregnant girlfriend on Pyramid Lake Indian Reservation
The reservation is located in Nixon, Washoe County. Shortly after midnight on December 15, 2020, officers received a call from a 15-year-old girl saying her mother had been assaulted, according to the Pyramid Lake Police Department. Court documents and evidence presented at the trial showed that the victim`s boyfriend stabbed the victim and killed the couple’s unborn child.
Michael Burciaga confessed to murder when he returned to the scene hours after being injured
He will be sentenced to life in prison when the verdict is announced on September 25. Burciaga was found guilty of first-degree murder in a U.S. District Court on Thursday for violating the Fetal Protection Act in Indian Country and for domestic violence by a repeat offender. Prosecutors say he stabbed his girlfriend multiple times with at least two knives at her home in Nixon, northeast of Reno in December 2020. “I already know what happened and what I did,” said Burciaga who returned home while the Pyramid Lake Tribal Police investigated.