BOONVILLE, Ind. — Shayna Burko received gerbils and left them to starve and rot in their original shipping boxes for almost three months, a Warrick County prosecutor said in court Monday.
She left nearly 40 animals — dogs, turtles and gerbils — in her Newburgh home for months without checking on them, leaving them to starve, die and rot, said Warrick County Deputy Prosecutor Jon Schaefer. As Schaefer spoke, pained gasps could be heard among the nearly three-dozen people who crowded Circuit Judge Greg A. Granger’s courtroom.
And Burko had done it before, being convicted in two previous animal cruelty cases under nearly identical circumstances. She left dogs, cats, snakes and birds in her residence for weeks at a time without caring for them at all. Most died, Schaefer said, and some that survived cannibalized others.
In all, Schaefer said Monday, Burko abused and neglected at least 70 animals over nearly a decade and left many of them to suffer slow, agonizing deaths.
“She basically just leaves them in the house and goes on her way,” Schaefer said in court Monday.
But through it all, the 30-year-old Burko had managed to avoid being sent to prison — until Monday, when Granger delivered justice in the form of a four-year sentence and an order to pay $8,243.24 in restitution to the Warrick County Humane Society.
Some of those who came to Monday’s sentencing hearing are Vanderburgh Humane Society (VHS) volunteers and fosters who had cared for animals who were unfortunate enough to fall into Shayna Burko’s orbit. They sighed with relief or smiled across the courtroom at each other as a deputy put handcuffs on Burko and led her out of the courtroom.
Burko, 30, pleaded “guilty but mentally ill” to three Level 6 felony counts of cruelty to an animal — each count of which is punishable by six to 30 months in prison. She had no plea deal with Warrick County prosecutors, who had said they were not willing to negotiate with her.
Four years is “the maximum aggregate sentence for consecutive sentences on certain Level 6 felony convictions” such as Burko’s, Schaefer explained afterward. It was the most she could get.
Specifically, Granger sentenced Burko to 16 months in prison on each of the three counts she faced and ran the sentences consecutively, adding up to 48 months.
And she could get more on June 9, when Vanderburgh County prosecutors will ask Magistrate Judge Ryan C. Reed to revoke the probation he gave Burko for seven felony-level counts of cruelty to an animal in 2023.
Prosecutors have said whatever prison time Burko gets if Reed ultimately revokes her probation — it could be as much as the full probationary period of two years minus two days “good time” — by law would be added to the four years she received Monday. That would be six years.
Burko’s case had become a flashpoint
Burko’s two previous animal cruelty convictions, the shocking nature of those crimes and the failure of a judge to put her behind bars after her most recent conviction made her case a flashpoint for outrage among animal welfare activists. Monday’s hearing was attended not only by VHS and Warrick County animal welfare activists, but by Evansville Director of Evansville Animal Care & Control Missy Mosby.
Burko’s criminal history with animals started in February 2018 with five counts of cruelty to an animal in Warrick County. A year later, she pleaded guilty to three Class A misdemeanor counts and the other two counts were dismissed.
Burko received a suspended jail sentence and a year of probation, court records show.
Burko’s second conviction for animal cruelty came in 2023, when she pleaded guilty to seven felony-level counts of cruelty to an animal in a case involving malnourished and dismembered animals that were found in her care. The Vanderburgh County Prosecutor’s Office reported officers found “a (dead) German Shepherd in a kennel with bags of dog food next to it, a decapitated dog, a dog missing a paw (but still alive), and a dog limb found in a hallway.”
Prosecutor Diana Moers sought prison time for Burko, noting her prior animal cruelty conviction, violation of bail conditions and “the egregiousness of the crime itself.”
But Magistrate Reed sentenced Burko to two years of probation. Burko was ordered to undergo a mental health evaluation, her sentencing document shows. Reed also ordered her to “not to possess any animals on her own” other than one service animal.
Burko was charged yet again in January 2025 — this time with three counts of cruelty to an animal, a Level 6 felony because of her previous convictions. That’s the case on which she was sentenced Monday.
Burko’s mother, Kimberley Burko, who shared a home with her, was hit with the same charges. Kimberley Burko’s jury trial is set for July 7.
According to a news release at the time from Warrick County Sheriff Mike Wilder, deputies were dispatched to a home in the 7700 block of Maeylyn Court to serve a warrant stemming from an animal cruelty complaint.
There, they reportedly found and eventually removed “approximately 20 dogs, two birds, two turtles, three sugar gliders (gliding possums), one cat, two bearded dragons, one gecko and a tank of beta fish.” They also found a “dead turtle, dead guinea pigs and fish.”
“The ammonia smell inside the home was strong enough to cause a burning sensation to (officers’) eyes, noses and throats,” Wilder wrote.
Relief
Burko’s attorney, Barry Blackard, put forth an array of mitigating factors in court Monday in a vain attempt to spare her an active prison sentence.
Burko had been diagnosed with mental illnesses years earlier, including post-traumatic stress disorder and borderline personality disorder, and had never been properly treated until she found her current healthcare provider, Blackard said. She had hoarding disorder.
“This is really an addiction that Ms. Burko suffers from,” Blackard told Granger.
The defense attorney said Burko had suffered severe trauma that underlay her disordered relationship with living things, including being physically abused as a child and sexually abused by her father.
Burko is gainfully employed and is financially stable at the moment, Blackard said. She is seeing a healthcare provider who is finally treating the root cause of her behavior with animals, and she hasn’t violated animal cruelty laws since she was charged in the current case in January 2025, he said.
Blackard argued that sending Burko to prison would be “an extreme sanction” that would provide only a temporary answer to her issues. He asked Granger to give her time in community correction, electronic home detention or probation with “close monitoring.”
But Schaefer — who has pointed out that a guilty but mentally ill plea entitles Burko to mental health treatment in prison — said prison appears to be the only way to guarantee that Burko won’t again harm animals.
Burko’s repeated violations of the same laws under nearly the same circumstances despite being given second chances with probationary sentences proves it, he said.
Pointing to the roughly 70 animals who have been abused, killed or neglected after falling into Burko’s orbit, Schaefer said these crimes didn’t just hurt Burko. They ended the lives of living things.
“There has to be a way for the court to ensure that more animals will not be abused or neglected,” the prosecutor said.
Likening Burko’s crimes to “torture,” Granger said the mitigators offer by Blackard were simply outweighed by the aggravating factors in her crimes.
After the hearing, the animal welfare activists who had come to Boonville for Burko’s hearing expressed relief that, in their view, she had finally been given a sentence commensurate with her crimes. It wasn’t about vengeance, many of them said, but justice.
Among those in attendance: Randy Lemmons, who said Burko lives immediately behind him in Newburgh.
Lemmons, an animal lover who recently said goodbye to his and his wife’s Yorkie of 17 years, said the justice system had failed the animals who fell victim to Shayna Burko. Until now.
“Look what she did to all these animals,” Lemmons said. “And she kept getting away with it — over and over and over and over.”
This article originally appeared on Evansville Courier & Press: Tri-State serial animal abuser’s crimes elicit gasps in courtroom
Reporting by Thomas B. Langhorne, Evansville Courier & Press / Evansville Courier & Press
USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect
