With killer about to go free, mother can't forget

Fourteen years have passed since the stabbing death of Adriana Whiteside, 4, and for her mother, Angela McCormick, that's meant anniversaries to observe, some good, some bad and "everything in between."

Wednesday's is altogether different, however. Aside from being the anniversary of Adriana's death, it marks the killer's release from prison -- and McCormick wants everyone to know it.

"To see him released quietly, and to move on with his life, sickens me," she said.

Randy Burgess was a 14-year-old Wisconsin runaway with a deeply dysfunctional family life and a history of inhalant abuse when he stabbed Whiteside twice in the chest on March 11, 1995, and then tossed her on the bathroom floor of her father's St. Paul apartment.

He stabbed the girl -- a bubbly, always smiling "chatty Cathy," according to her mother -- in part because he wanted "to see what it felt like" to kill, Burgess told police.

Wednesday, at age 28, he leaves Lino Lakes prison after having served the standard two-thirds of a 21-year sentence for intentional second-degree murder.

Against the wishes of prosecutors, who argued for a 40-year sentence, Ramsey County District Judge Roland Faricy opted in 1995 to "go with hope" that Burgess' life could be rehabilitated, he said then. The judge said he was concerned, too, about the conduct of the little girl's father, from whom McCormick had separated.

While in prison, Burgess has taken part in "educational programming," and held several work assignments that included janitorial duties, construction work, food service and clerking positions, according to Shari Burt, communications director for the state Department of Corrections.

Whether the teen killer sees himself as a changed man is unknown, however: He's declined all interview requests as he prepares for release, including seven years of supervised probation.

Every mother's question

On the night she died, Adriana Whiteside was in the Rice Street apartment where her father, Ben Whiteside, lived with his girlfriend and the couple's 6-month-old girl. There, too, was Burgess, the girlfriend's cousin, on the run after having skipped school and being unsuccessfully discharged from foster-home and boys-ranch placements, court records show.

That night, when McCormick called to wish her daughter good night and to tell her she loved her, she first spoke briefly with Burgess, mistaking him for Whiteside's brother.

It wasn't until after the frantic calls telling her to get to Regions Hospital, after the look on her own mother's face that told her Adriana was dead, and after an elevator ride with a chaplain to view the girl's body in which she heard for the first time, "we believe that someone did this to her," that McCormick knew of Randy Burgess.

Records show that Burgess had placed the girl on the living room couch, put a rag in her mouth and stabbed her in the chest with a pocketknife.

McCormick said she had "every mother's question: 'Why?' "

In an interview with police, Burgess spoke of wanting to know what it felt like to kill. But by the time he was sentenced, he also was claiming he had been forced by Ben Whiteside to sell marijuana. Burgess alleged that Whiteside had screamed at him that night because of a deal gone bad and that he'd told Burgess, who was unable to read and write, that he was stupid.

Despite interviews with Whiteside, police could not corroborate the story, according to reports at the time.

After the sentencing, McCormick said, she never again heard from Ben Whiteside, or from his family.

She was pleased, then, she said Friday, to learn that the other girl in the apartment that night, then 6 months old, had recently signed an online petition aimed at keeping Burgess in prison. Beneath her name, the girl added she would always remember "my sis."

The petition, at www.thepetitionsite.com, was signed by more than 760 people. The petition originators had mistakenly assumed there would be a parole hearing.

Wednesday, McCormick, at home on maternity leave, will be surrounded by friends. They will lead a short memorial service for Adriana to keep her mother's mind off Burgess. It could be a struggle, McCormick acknowledged. But then, she added, a mother never forgets a child.

Anthony Lonetree • 612-673-4109