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CHESTER D. TURNER is no stranger to murder or the punishment that comes with it.
He squeezed the life out of more than a dozen women during a decade of terror, and two juries decided he should die for his crimes.
So it was merely a formality yesterday that Turner, already on death row for 10 murders, was given four more death sentences for what a prosecutor called the city’s most prolific serial killing.
Turner, 47, looked straight at Judge Robert Perry as he handed down the penalty for the string of inner-city killings during the crack cocaine epidemic.
As Turner was led from court, he cursed at the prosecution and said, “I’ll be back.”
Turner is one of at least three men blamed for a series of killings once thought to be the work of a solo killer dubbed the “Southside Slayer.”
More than 100 women in South Los Angeles were killed during the violent era when highly addictive crack made people desperate enough to turn to prostitution to support their habit or led to other crimes.
Turner was convicted of 14 of those slayings, plus the killing of a pregnant victim’s foetus, from 1987 and 1998, making him the city’s most prolific killer, prosecutor Robert Grace said.
Family members of the victims were relieved the case was closed. They joked and laughed as they rode the courthouse elevator with prosecutors after the brief hearing.
“It’s judgment day,” said Gwendolyn Cameron, whose sister Cynthia Johnson was a victim in the most recent case. “He got what he had coming. The sooner they execute him, the better we’ll all be. He’s a menace to society.”
Turner was serving time for rape when genetic evidence connected him to 10 killings in South Los Angeles. The victims had been sexually assaulted and strangled. Their bodies were dumped in alleys, a burned-out garage and a portable toilet.
Most of the women were believed to have worked as prostitutes, some were crack users and some were just snatched off the streets.
A grainy surveillance tape played at his first trial showed the 6’3″, 260-pound Turner in the act of killing Paula Vance, whose body was found at a vacant office building in February 1998.
Turner was convicted and sentenced in 2007 to death in those 10 cases, plus an additional term of 15 years-to-life for the death of the viable foetus.
Evidence emerged later that linked him to the killings of Elandra Bunn, 33, in June 1987; Deborah Williams, 28, in November 1992; Mary Edwards, 42, in December 1992; and Cynthia Annette Johnson, 30, in February 1997. All were choked to death, mostly by hand.
Another man, David Allen Jones, served 11 years for three of those killings.
Jones, a former janitor with the mental capacity of an 8-year-old, was freed after DNA evidence pointed to Turner and prosecutors determined Jones’ confessions were coerced by police.
Defence lawyers acknowledged that Turner had sex with women in exchange for drugs, but they argued he wasn’t a killer.
“He denies to this day that he killed anybody,” defence lawyer Kieran Patrick Brown said.
After the death sentences were delivered Friday, Turner asked the judge why prosecutors had insisted on capital punishment after they once offered him the chance of life in prison without parole for the four murders. The judge didn’t answer.
Outside court, Deputy District Attorney Beth Silverman explained that prosecutors had offered the plea deal before trial, but Turner rejected it.
“He’s never taken responsibility for any of these crimes. So what are we going to do, give him four freebies? Those are four lives,” Silverman said. “He’s a remorseless animal.”
Whether Turner is ever executed is another question.
There are 745 inmates on death row at San Quentin State Prison. More than 160 have been sentenced to die since executions were put on hold in 2006 because of court challenges over the lethal injection method.
Turner has been sentenced to die twice since then.
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The terminator you ain’t.
Terminated you will be..
If he was in Ireland he would get community service ……
No no a suspended sentence
Yeah. Why does every serious crime in Ireland get like 8 years with 6 years suspended. They should just say what it is… 1 year with good behaviour. 2 years if you attack the prison officers while you’re inside.
A bullet straight between the eyes… Two minutes after he leaves the court. Never mind WASTING 100′s of thousands on banging them up for year’s.
Handcuff in a cell and let the relatives in .
Its easy to say that in this case. Every case is not so simple
Seems like a nice fella ….
Looks can be very deceiving! Like me. I might look like an egg but I’m hard as a rock…
That headline sent a shiver down my spine before I read the article!
I Thought some northsider from Finglas or Coolock had broken through the security checkpoints on the Liffey & was on a rampage on this side of the city where the decent folk live! ..phew!
Yeah he’s not the worst
You were told as a chicken not to stay in the hot water too long Paperboy ..and did you listen? :- No – you and your hard boiled brains …..
We note the value placed on the unborn child in the case; that he got ’15 to life’ for that murder.
Note the term “viable”, meaning that it could have been delivered and survived.
If a woman miscarries after 24 weeks the baby is given a birth and death very as it has passed the point of viability. It doesn’t get either if it is miscarried any sooner.
I understand the need for revenge however I would much prefer if he rotted in a cell for the rest of his life. He could also be studied by criminal psychologists who might gain a greater insight into how criminals work. Jeffrey Dahmer and John Wayne Gacey could have provided invaluable research that could have maybe been used to help catch offenders and saved lives in the future but now we will never know.
And these ones too:
Mark Goudeau “The Baseline Killer” (Eight women and a man in 2005-2006)
Coral Eugene Watts (11 women in Texas & 1 in Michigan)
Matthew Emanuel Macon (Murdered and Raped 5 White Women in Lansing)
Chester Turner (L.A.s most prolific killer 12 women killed.)
Ray Joseph Dandridge and his uncle, Ricky Gevon Gray (Richmond, VA.–Murdered 7 people in 7 days, including an entire family.)
Wayne Williams (33 many of them children!, Atlanta, GA)
Maurice Byrd (killed 20 + in St. Louis)
Maury Travis (17 and rising, St. Louis and possibly also Atlanta)
Eddie Lee Mosley (killed 25 to 30 women, south Florida)
One has to wonder why Dahmer and Gacey are more known and have more airtime?
@Ciara. Don’t forget:
George Bush (countless men, woman and children)
@David
And Obama who has surpassed Bush’s atrocities all at the behest of their masters in Wall st and the US federal reserve.
The fecking yanks, the moral compass for humanity eh?
Murdering, raping and butchering before and after them.
Saves the state money if he is executed, sooner the better
“I’ll be back.”
Unless you mean back in a court room for other bad shit you did, I can safely say, you definitely won’t be.
An Arnie fan?..
I hope this beast has one of those botched executions that have been happening in the States this year. And I hope he survives the first attempt, because then he’ll know what he has to look forward to again.
There’s positivity for you. A real optimist. Unfortunately Mr. Turner once the needles are put into you the only place you’re going is to Hell.
Just burn him at a stake, end of it, cut the money train for lawyers too that see $$$$$ in keeping him alive for as long as possible, with zero regard for victims families.
I wonder would the do gooders feel he should not be executed??
TBH if I were facing the prospect of spending the rest of my life in an 8′*6′ cell I’d request the death penalty.Why put the guy out of his misery. He is going to die anyway sooner or later.I really don’t understand why people think death is the ultimate punishment. We all die in the end.
Most people who oppose capital punishment oppose it because innocent people get executed.
Cases look simple in the 2paragraph summary in the paper but when you’re on the jury and see the nitty gritty its often far more grey.
I don’t reckon he should be executed. I reckon he should be punished. Death isn’t a punishment, when you die you die – death is too good for him.
I’d prefer to see him suffer – a lifetime in solitary with only his memories to haunt him. Let his life slip away in the slowest way possible. Let him be acutely aware of it.
There are some things far worse than death.
I don’t think he should be executed. I think they should lock him up and throw away the key. Let him live the rest of his life (and may it be a very, very long one) knowing that he will never been free again. And that’s not because I’m a do-gooder, it’s because death, even in a botched execution, comes far too quickly murders and rapists like this man.
Dont waste time and money, execute this monster now
Makes Larry Murphy look like an upstanding decent citizen.
No it doesn’t. Makes them both look despicable.
I wasn’t actually serious. However, If i had to choose one of them as a roomie, it would be Larry Murphy hands down.
*cellmate
American cities are human cess pits.
Evil
It’s interesting to see how and why the crack epidemic started in the first place!
Did he kill the rostas girl lol
Your some gowl you Declan boy.
Oh Declan, you intellect you
Half wits like you should not be allowed to publish your stupidity.
Jeez, just imagine if he does come back….de smell, de maggots, de big scary skeleton head on him!!! He’d be even more vile de second time around!!!
In the words of Bruce Willis Geronimo motherf@cker..
What an epic fail
He said it in Die Hard as he threw the explosives down the shaft!
He’s a big unit maybe the injection won’t kill him
I wonder will he serve the four death sentences concurrently?
Feel like listening to johnny cash after reading this article…san quentin you’ve been living hell to me…
If I were the president of Nicuragua I’d be onto the Pope right now and see if he could do anything about preventing this guy from coming back !
have your say