Police respond, arrest Burnet man in brutal sexual assault

Burnet police arrested a local man Tuesday for sexually assaulting a woman at her apartment while her two small children were inside the home.

Danny Cude, 55, was arrested for aggravated sexual assault and aggravated kidnapping. According to Burnet Police Chief Paul Nelson, he allegedly made entry into an apartment in the 800 block of Dixie, where the female victim was alone with her kids.

Cude allegedly sexually assaulted the woman multiple times while putting a knife to her throat and threatened to kill her and her children.

When police arrived, the victim and the children answered the front door of the apartment with Cude standing behind them with the weapon. Burnet officers, with assistance from the Texas Rangers, were able to negotiate with Cude to surrender himself and he was arrested without further incident. He was also charged with misdemeanor marijuana possession.

“I am very proud of the officers on this call; they were able to keep the crime scene secured and gather important information on the case for investigators,” Nelson said.

This is not the first time Cude has been arrested for a sex crime by Burnet police. On Oct. 12, 1998, Cude was arrested by BPD officers for attempted sexual assault of a 25-year-old woman in Llano County.

He was sentenced to seven years in prison for that crime and required to register as a sex offender. His ending registration date was projected to be Jan. 15 this year and Texas Department of Public Safety had listed him as a “low-risk offender.”

Cude did not register as a sex offender until January 15, 2016, when he was released from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. He had been convicted July 28, 2015, for failure to register and had been sentenced to six months in a state jail facility.

His rap sheet also includes multiple prior arrests for driving while intoxicated dating back nearly 30 years and evading arrest charges.