Last modified: Wednesday, December 13, 2006 1:41 AM EST Ex-slay suspect wins lawsuit BY DAVID LINTON SUN CHRONICLE STAFF FOXBORO - Eight years to the month after he was arrested and held in jail for 42 days for the 1998 murder of a local woman in a Walpole park, Edmund Burke has been vindicated by a federal jury who awarded him $400,000 for his wrongful arrest. The 12-member U.S. District Court jury in Boston found unanimously that state Trooper Stephen McDonald violated Burke's constitutional rights when the trooper arrested him in the Dec. 1, 1998, murder of 75-year-old Irene Kennedy of Foxboro. "We're absolutely thrilled for our client. It was a long fight for justice," said Burke's lawyer Robert Sinsheimer of Denner Associates in Boston. Burke also could ask the court to grant him attorney's fees and other legal costs on top of $400,000 awarded by the jury on Monday. During the federal trial, Burke, whose brother John was married to one of Kennedy's daughters, testified the whole ordeal still haunts him to this day and "destroyed my life. "I lost pretty much everything I had," Burke said when reached at home Tuesday night. Burke said his 88-year-old mother had ended up being displaced from his home and ended up in a nursing home, where she died a few months later. His pets were put to sleep or given to others. "The attorneys are going to take most of that and then what is left, the government will go after," Burke said of the award settlement Tuesday night. Although the whole incident still haunts him, Sinsheimer said Burke "feels some measure of vindication" by the jury's verdict. Burke was arrested nine days later at his home while some of his neighbors cheered as police brought him away in custody in view of television cameras. Kennedy was beaten, stabbed and strangled in Walpole's Bird Park after she and her husband Thomas took separate paths walking in the park. In September of this year, an inmate, Martin Guy of Norwood, who was in prison for another murder, was convicted. He was charged after his DNA matched saliva found on the victim. Burke, 56, who lives near the park, claimed in his lawsuit that McDonald already knew DNA evidence excluded him as a suspect at the time he was charged with the murder. "I knew they knew before I was arrested, and it took five years before that came to light," Burke said. He spent 41 days in jail before DNA evidence cleared him, and testified he felt betrayed by police whom he cooperated with during the investigation.. "It appears to me, once they came to my house, they pretty much stopped the investigation of other people," Burke said. "The DNA is the tip of the iceberg. Every piece of evidence in this case was proven to have been lied about, twisted or fabricated." Burke said he has another civil suit pending against the state and police officers in Suffolk Superior Court regarding negligence. "I was a private guy and this ruined my life. I really want to fade back into the woodwork," Burke said. DAVID LINTON can be reached at 508-236-0428 or at dlinton@thesunchronicle.com.