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Ex-cop sentenced in attempted murder-for-hire cuts throat

COLUMBIA, Miss. (AP) - A former Hattiesburg policeman cut his throat outside the prison where he was taken to serve a 60-year sentence for paying a former cellmate to kill his wife and stepdaughter, Pearl River County Sheriff David Allison says .

Averal Dan Burnett Jr. is hospitalized and expected to live, Allison told The Hattiesburg American (http://hatne.ws/1CTkjRg ).

Burnett was sentenced Friday to 30 years each on two counts of attempted capital murder. Prosecutors said he was trying to keep his wife and step-daughter from testifying in a Lamar County case accusing him of sexual crimes.

A Pearl River County jury convicted him in December.

Guards had left the transport van outside the Central Mississippi Regional Correctional Facility in Rankin to secure their weapons before they brought Burnett into the prison, Allison said.

"When they came back, he was slumped over with blood on him, and when they asked him what had happened and what was wrong with him, he said he had cut his throat with a razor blade," the sheriff said.

He said Burnett apparently had kept the razor blade he shaved with in his mouth all day.

"He was searched and given a new set of clothes, so we're just assuming that when he showered and shaved, he put that blade in the gum of his mouth and had it there the whole time," Allison said.

Burnett had spent most of his 22 years in law enforcement with the Hattiesburg Police Department. He was working for the Lamar County Sheriff's Office when he retired in May after less than a year's service.

He was indicted on four counts of fondling, two of sexual battery and one of attempted sexual battery on a female under the age of 18.

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Information from: The Hattiesburg American, http://www.hattiesburgamerican.com

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