Ogden truck driver pleads guilty in years-old Clearfield sexual assaults

Mark Douglas Burns | Davis County Sheriff’s Office

FARMINGTON — A long-haul truck driver accused of raping and sexually assaulting several women in Clearfield after breaking into their homes in the middle of the night roughly 20 years ago has pleaded guilty as charged to 17 felonies.

Mark Douglas Burns, 69, admitted in Farmington’s 2nd District Court to eight counts of aggravated sexual assault, six counts of aggravated kidnapping, two counts of aggravated burglary, and one count of aggravated robbery, all first-degree felonies.

His pleas comes as law enforcers in Evanston, Wyoming, have tied him to the 2001 death of Sue Ellen Higgins, 28. Police there have said was killed in her home.

Prosecutors in Utah filed sexual assault charges against a John Doe years ago, but linked them to Burns’ name in September after DNA evidence led them to a relative of the formerly unidentified attacker. The relative told them Burns lived in Ogden and was still working as a long-haul trucker.

Clearfield Police Department

A police sketch of the unidentified man suspected of sexually assaulting multiple women in Utah and Wyoming in the 1990s and 2000s. Mark Douglas Burns was arrested and charged in connection to the attacks on Wednesday, Sept. 25, 2019.

Law enforcers have said they believe he attacked other women in similar ways in Utah and Wyoming throughout the 1990s and early 2000s.

A shackled Burns, wearing a striped Davis County Jail uniform, took prosecutors by surprise in pleading guilty Thursday. They had expected to defend their case against his attorney’s earlier attempt to have it dismissed based on statutes of limitation and other issues.

Authorities have said several of Burns’ victims reported being bound and assaulted repeatedly by an attacker who smelled of alcohol and used a gun or knife. Many lived in apartment buildings where he gained entry through a sliding glass door.

Burns’ attorney Colleen Coebergh left the courtroom without making any comment on Thursday.

This story will be updated.

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