A male prostitute who murdered a beloved Detroit neurosurgeon sickeningly smirked, smiled and waved in court as he was sentenced to up to 60 years in prison.
Desmond Burks, 35, pleaded guilty to the second-degree murder of Dr. Devon Hoover, who was found wrapped in a carpet dumped inside a crawl space in his Denver mansion, naked apart from one black sock — and with two bullets in the back of his head.
Burks — who also admitted the manslaughter of a 67-year-old grandfather in a road rage attack — stole at least $95,000 from the doctor, and started calling himself “Big Money Des” as he went on shopping sprees just an hour after the brutal murder, according to a court report by the Detroit Free Press.
The double killer rolled his eyes at his sentencing when one of Hoover’s sisters, Lila Graber, told the judge that her brother’s murder “turned everything upside down.”
He then smirked, smiled, waved, picked his cuticles and threw peace signs — while calling himself a “people person” and denying being gay, despite numerous men testifying about paying him for sex.
“Just because I took the plea, don’t mean I did it,” he said of the deal that helped him escape mandatory life without parole on the initial charge of first-degree murder.
“I’m not a murderer. I’m not a killer. … I’m not gay, like the prosecutor wants me to be,” he claimed.
“I love sports. I’m a people person,” he said with a curious smile, video by WDIV-TV shows. “I’m tired of people saying that I’m some gay killer or a gay person and a gang member in the same breath.”
He separately apologized for killing another man, Reda Saleh, 67, in an April 2023 road rage attack, saying he “didn’t intentionally do it.”
“It was a slap… can’t bring it back,” he said dismissively, having pleaded guilty to manslaughter.
Sentencing Judge Paul Cusick showed no mercy for his sob stories, however, sentencing Bruks to 35- to 60-years in prison for the neurosurgeon’s murder and 10 to 15 years to be served concurrently for the road rage attack.
“Quite frankly, you are a murderer, sir,” the judge told him.
Burks had been in a longtime “intimate relationship” with the man who would eventually kill him, often paying for sex, the trial was told.
The killer started transferring money within minutes of the crime, and used the surgeon’s stolen money to buy diamond earrings and a pendant at a mall within the hour.
The doctor’s sisters had offered his killer a Bible in court, just for him to smirk at them as they delivered powerful impact statements.
“One of the heaviest burdens is knowing the devastating blow it was to our 85-year-old father to lose his only son in such a violent, senseless way,” one of Hoover’s sisters, Lila Graber, told the court.
The sister called the lengthy sentence, which will likely see her brother’s killer locked up for most if not all of his life, a “fitting consequence.”
A stepdaughter of Saleh, the other man he killed, had told the court that “the man who meant everything to us” had deserved to live to see his grandchildren grow up, according to the Free Press.