'Wooded Rapist' sentenced to 32 years

NASHVILLE, July 2 (UPI) -- A man known as the Wooded Rapist, sentenced to 32 years for raping a Nashville woman, faces more trials for allegedly raping more than a dozen other women.

Robert Jason Burdick, 39 -- the former owner of a technology company and once a technician for alarm system companies -- showed no outward reaction to the sentence handed down Wednesday by Davidson County Criminal Court Judge Seth Norman, The (Nashville) Tennessean reported.

His lawyer, John Herbison, said Burdick, who did not take the stand in his own defense, would likely appeal both the conviction and the sentence length, the newspaper reported.

"Our argument is there is not a factual basis (for the longer sentence)," Herbison said.

Burdick faces an effective life sentence if convicted on additional charges of burglary, sexual assault, rape and kidnapping in other cases, the newspaper said. He is charged with raping more than a dozen other women across Middle Tennessee over 14 years.

When he broke into the then 61-year-old Nashville woman's home in 2007, he did it exceptionally cleanly, prosecutors said. However, he got caught April 28, 2008, on a rainy night, in an affluent Nashville suburb, after a dog started barking and a woman saw him in a driveway wearing a ski mask.

She called police, who later made a traffic stop on Burdick in the neighborhood. He told a police officer he was going to a party, raising the officer's suspicion, police said.

A DNA swab proved he was the man they had been seeking for years.

A woman who alleges Burdick raped her in 1994 was at his sentencing, The Tennessean said. She will be the next Nashville woman to take the stand against him, in October.