Chester Turner - Crimes

Crimes

Turner has been convicted of 11 murders that occurred in Los Angeles between 1987 and 1998. The first nine of these murders took place in a four-block-wide corridor that ran on either side of Figueroa Street between Gage Avenue and 108th Street:

• Diane Johnson, 21, found partially nude and strangled in March 1987 in a roadway construction area west of the Harbor Freeway.
• Annette Ernest, 26, found lying on a shoulder of a road in October 1987, partially nude and strangled.
• Anita Fishman, 31, strangled and left partially nude outside a garage in an alley off Figueroa Street in January 1989.
• Regina Washington, 27, also found partially nude and strangled inside a garage off Figueroa Street in September 1989. Washington was six months pregnant. The death of the fetus, referred to as Baby Washington, was attributed to the strangulation of the mother, and it was ruled a homicide.
• Andrea Tripplett, 29, strangled, found partially nude behind a vacant building on Figueroa Street in April 1993.
• Desarae Jones, 29, found strangled next to a vacant residence in May 1993.
• Natalie Price, 31, found partially nude and strangled next to a vacant residence in February 1995.
• Mildred Beasley, 45, found partially nude and strangled; she was left amongst the bushes alongside the 110 Fwy in November 1996.

The last two murders occurred outside of this corridor in Los Angeles County:

• Paula Vance, 24, found in the business, Olympia Tool, in Azusa in February 1998.
• Brenda Bries, 39, found strangled in a portable toilet near Little Tokyo in April 1998.

The Vance murder was witnessed by a bystander at a neighboring trailer park. Turner was jailed seven times from 1995 to 2002, six for nonviolent offenses and once for an assault charge on an officer and cruelty to an animal on April 9, 1997. In March 2002 Turner sexually assaulted a 47-year-old woman for approximately two hours and threatened to kill her if she told the police. He was convicted and sentenced to eight years at a California state prison. Turner was required to give a DNA sample to California’s Combined DNA Index System (CODIS). In September 2003, based on that sample, Turner was identified as a match for DNA recovered from Vance and Beasley. Detectives then began a careful examination of Turner’s background. Nine of the 11 unsolved murders were matched to Turner using DNA evidence.