00:00:04
[music playing] NARRATOR: In February 1998,
the murder of 41-year-old Paula Vance was captured
on CCTV in downtown
00:00:14
Los Angeles, California. The grainy footage made it
difficult to identify Paula's
00:00:19
killer, but the detectives
watching the murder play out before their eyes
knew they were seeing
00:00:25
a serial killer in action. CLIFF SHEPARD: When
we saw the tape, we both exclaimed
at the same time.
00:00:31
This isn't his first time. But we didn't have
any other murders at that time in that area to
blame on this unknown person.
00:00:39
NARRATOR: It would take another
five years before the killer was unveiled as 37-year-old
Chester Turner, the 6 foot 2,
00:00:47
250 pound murderer had strangled
14 women to death across an 11 year reign of terror.
00:00:55
BOBBY GRACE: I tried to
get the jurors to imagine how long Chester
Turner's hands were
00:00:59
on the throats of these women
and what they went through to see kind of the reflection
of their eyes in his eyes
00:01:08
as he's choking the
life out of them. It's a horrible,
horrible way to die. NARRATOR: DNA would
lead to the downfall
00:01:17
of the prolific killer,
who was sentenced to death for his savage crimes. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He
was ruthless, merciless,
00:01:24
he was a killing machine. He targeted the most
vulnerable people in society and treated them like
nothing more than rubbish,
00:01:31
detritus to be chucked away. NARRATOR: With his reign
of terror finally over, Chester Turner had been
unmasked as one of the world's
00:01:40
most evil killers. [music playing] In April 2007,
40-year-old Chester Turner was found guilty of the murder
of 10 women across Los Angeles
00:02:11
and sentenced to death. A second trial,
seven years later, found him guilty
of another four.
00:02:20
He strangled the lives out
of all 14 of his victims, but he's never spoken
about their deaths.
00:02:26
LAPD Homicide
detective Cliff Shepard worked on the cold case unit
that would eventually uncover
00:02:33
Turner's murderous career. CLIFF SHEPARD: There were just
victims of opportunity for him.
00:02:42
He came across them. They approached them. I think especially in
Paula Vance's case,
00:02:47
we have that on tape. The two of them are talking. They're face to face when
he suddenly attacks her.
00:02:53
Did he do that
with all the women? Probably. But we don't have anybody
surviving to tell us.
00:03:00
NARRATOR: Turner never
confessed to his crimes, even in the face of
overwhelming scientific evidence
00:03:06
against him, which
suggests there could be many more victims out there. Prosecutor Bobby
Grace helped to put
00:03:14
the serial killer behind bars. BOBBY GRACE: There
have been other cases that I've done that have
gotten more media attention,
00:03:24
but no other case that
tugged at my emotions more than this case
beacuse there were so
00:03:29
many stories of the women
who had lost their lives and how it had
affected the victims.
00:03:37
That's something that will
stay with you forever. And you really can't shake it.
00:03:45
NARRATOR: This
killer's story begins on the 5th of November, 1966. Chester Dewayne Turner was
born in Warren, Arkansas.
00:03:55
When he was just four years
old, his parents split up and his mother moved
him to California.
00:04:02
BOBBY GRACE: Chester Turner
had a fairly normal background. He grew up here in
the Los Angeles area,
00:04:09
attended Los Angeles
area schools. Per his mother, he had no
violence in his childhood,
00:04:16
no child abuse. CLIFF SHEPARD: He
had a half brother. Mom owned a house around
Century and Hoover.
00:04:23
Chester grew up in the area,
attended school in the area. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Turner was
known as Chester the molester
00:04:30
at school because he used
to act very inappropriately with his female classmates.
00:04:35
He just used to
go and grab them. So from a very early age, he
feels this sense of entitlement
00:04:39
to do what he wants with
women, to just go and take what he feels entitled to from them.
00:04:48
NARRATOR: Growing up
in south Los Angeles led to a tough
existence for Turner, who, at 6 foot 2 and 250
pounds, was an imposing figure.
00:04:59
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: During
Turner's adult life there was quite a
lot of turbulence.
00:05:04
He moved from job to job. He ended up having
four children. He was in and out of prison.
00:05:10
CLIFF SHEPARD: Chester
started dealing drugs. He admitted to that. There's a scar on the
right side of his face
00:05:15
that he claims some other
young men attacked him to rob him and he put up a fight.
00:05:21
He's a big kid. And they cut him
across his face. NARRATOR: Turner
often found himself
00:05:31
on the wrong side of the law. While on parole for a
minor offense in LA, he headed to Salt
Lake City in Utah,
00:05:39
where his mother now lived. But trouble seemed to
follow him wherever he went. GEOFFREY WANSELL: He
had a violent temper.
00:05:46
A man who-- you didn't know
it, he would never show it-- but was always
somehow on the edge.
00:05:54
And it was not difficult
to get him to ignite. CLIFF SHEPARD: In
Salt Lake City he
00:05:59
had an incident
with another girl that he became involved with. Chester and his wife separated.
00:06:06
The other girl had a little bit
of a relationship with Chester until one night Chester became
angry with her and slapped her.
00:06:15
With that, the woman
who phoned the police. Police responded, found out
Chester was on parole from Los
00:06:22
Angeles, that there was a parole
violation, and arrested him, and sent him back
to Los Angeles.
00:06:31
NARRATOR: Turner
couldn't financially support his children. And when he wasn't in
prison, he would struggle
00:06:37
to find a roof over his head. CLIFF SHEPARD: He's on his own. He's separated from
his wife and kids.
00:06:43
He's separated from his
mom and a half brother. They were in Salt Lake City. So he was now left up to
finding a place to live.
00:06:52
And he ended up in
some Los Angeles missions, downtown Los Angeles. NARRATOR: Turner's misdemeanors
were mainly nonviolent.
00:07:01
Theft and drug related
convictions led to most of his prison stays. But there was, sometimes, a
sexual element to his crimes.
00:07:11
CLIFF SHEPARD: It
appears that one day he was walking
down the street, and there is the area he lived.
00:07:18
And he exposed himself
to people at a bus stop. Police responded. He was arrested.
00:07:25
The jail released him. He went out. He did the same thing
and got arrested again--
00:07:31
twice in a day. You know, I don't know
what's going through his head at that point.
00:07:36
If it was drugs, he's becoming
a sexual deviant, I don't know. NARRATOR: While appearing on
the surface to be a small time
00:07:47
criminal, Chester Turner was to
evolve into one of Los Angeles' most prolific serial killers.
00:07:54
By 1998, he'd raped and
murdered at least 14 women. But the police were
none the wiser.
00:08:04
However, in March 2002 after
encountering 47-year-old Maria Martinez, Turner
would make a mistake
00:08:13
that changed everything. BOBBY GRACE: She was homeless. And she lived in one of the
downtown homeless shelters.
00:08:21
And she was well known to
the security guards and some of the other people who
lived in and around the Skid
00:08:30
Row area of Los Angeles. CLIFF SHEPARD: When
Chester was homeless he was staying in a mission
downtown, apparently
00:08:39
Maria knew who he was. Because he worked security
at the mission's too. One night Maria is walking
around downtown Los
00:08:47
Angeles in the evening
and she saw Chester. Chester called her
to him and asked her
00:08:54
for a cigarette and a light. She was reluctant but
she approached him. And as soon as she did,
it was like a trap.
00:09:04
He grabbed her, picked her up,
pulled her behind a parking lot behind some dumpsters and
sexually assaulted her.
00:09:15
NARRATOR: Unlike his previous
victims, for some reason, Turner let Maria live and
even accompanied her back
00:09:21
to the homeless mission. But Maria wanted to make
an impromptu stop en route. CLIFF SHEPARD: Maria started
walking towards the police
00:09:29
station, Chester next door. They got to the front
of the police station, and he told her, you
don't tell the police
00:09:39
where I will kill you. NARRATOR: Terrified,
Maria, instead, went back to the
mission, while Turner
00:09:46
disappeared into the night. CLIFF SHEPARD:
There she showered and broke down, and told
one of the counselors
00:09:53
what happened to her. The counselor notified police. Police responded,
interviewed her.
00:09:59
We got information
about Chester. They tracked Chester
down at another mission and located him hiding
in the bathroom.
00:10:10
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: This really
trips him up because she's somebody that he knows.
00:10:15
She's someone from
the neighborhood. She can identify him. And I think at
this point in time,
00:10:20
he is feeling
absolutely untouchable. He feels that he can go and do
whatever he wants to this woman
00:10:26
and get away with it. But fortunately,
that wasn't the case. Because he thought,
there's no way that she's
00:10:30
going to report this. That's how arrogant he was. NARRATOR: Turner was
promptly arrested
00:10:39
on the 16th of March, 2002. He was found guilty
of sexual assault and sentenced to
eight years in prison.
00:10:47
While behind bars, his
cheeks were swabbed as part of a new statewide legislation.
00:10:54
BOBBY GRACE: In the state
of California at that time, there was a new law that had
been passed that if you were
00:10:59
convicted of a felony offense-- and a felony is anything that
you can go to state prison
00:11:05
for-- you have to give a DNA sample. And so as part of
his conviction, Chester Turner had
to provide a DNA
00:11:14
sample, which was
then turned over to California's DNA database. So that, actually, is really
the beginning of the story
00:11:24
to this particular case. NARRATOR: The authorities
didn't know it yet, but they had just
imprisoned one of the most
00:11:31
dangerous men in Los Angeles. The DNA evidence collected from
Chester Turner's mouth swab
00:11:37
would soon reveal a
history of murder that would shock the entire city. In March, 2002, 35
year old Chester Turner
00:11:49
had been jailed for the rape
of 47-year-old Maria Martinez in downtown Los Angeles.
00:11:56
Authorities had no
idea they'd actually captured an active serial killer
who'd begun attacking women
00:12:03
over a decade beforehand,
during a turbulent time across the city. CLIFF SHEPARD: In the
early '90s, LA city and LA
00:12:17
county were experiencing
about 1,000 murders each year. I mean, that's
three people a day.
00:12:24
That's a lot of murders. That's a lot of information,
a lot of violent people out there.
00:12:31
At that time, rocking
cocaine was coming into being and rock cocaine was
very popular with people,
00:12:38
with both drug dealers,
gang members, and users. It was easily obtainable
and highly addictive.
00:12:47
BOBBY GRACE: And one of the
major problems with crack cocaine was that
it was mainly sold
00:12:54
on the streets openly, almost
brazenly, in many parts of south Los Angeles. And it contributed to a
lot of other violence,
00:13:05
including robberies,
shootings, other incidents. Because the drug use was
so prevalent at that time.
00:13:19
NARRATOR: Despite the
alarming number of murders, coverage in the media
was next to nothing.
00:13:26
GEOFFREY WANSELL: The truth
must be that many of the victims were rather disregarded.
00:13:30
They were absolutely on the
very fringes of society, homeless or addicted. Some were sex workers-- not all.
00:13:39
But they were
people who were not valued by society, and
certainly not by white society
00:13:47
in Los Angeles at that time. BOBBY GRACE: If this had
happened in Beverly Hills,
00:13:52
if it happened in
west Los Angeles, it would have been national
or international news.
00:13:58
Because it was Black
women in south central, people could ignore it or
chalk it up to the lifestyle
00:14:06
that these women
led that, you know, is a ready-made explanation
as to why they died.
00:14:14
It actually got
little to no coverage in the major media publications
and broadcast news at the time.
00:14:24
GEOFFREY WANSELL:
This is horrifying. But in the background
of Los Angeles, the south side of Los
Angeles at that time,
00:14:31
sadly, it's not uncommon. These people are, or are
regarded, as disposable. They are somehow not
very significant.
00:14:43
That is what makes it
truly horrifying for me. NARRATOR: It was
around this time
00:14:54
that LAPD Homicide
detective Cliff Shepard was concerned at how
quickly the murder rate
00:15:01
had spiraled out of control. CLIFF SHEPARD: I was aware that
we had many unsolved murders
00:15:07
of women in south Los Angeles,
women whose bodies were found in alleyways, abandoned
buildings, and parkways
00:15:16
in the street. That was an epidemic. NARRATOR: One such victim
was 41-year-old Paula Vance.
00:15:24
CLIFF SHEPARD: In
February of '98 I was working central homicide. That's downtown Los Angeles.
00:15:29
My partner, Jay Moberly, and I
were working one morning when we received a
notification of a woman's
00:15:36
body being found behind
the University Club at 6th Street and Hope. That's right near the
main library downtown.
00:15:49
NARRATOR: It was
clear that Paula had been strangled to death. And the downtown CCTV network
had captured her murder.
00:15:57
CLIFF SHEPARD: On that tape,
you could see the deceased and a man walking to the rear
of the building at about 6:00,
00:16:06
6:30 in the evening before. They're having a conversation,
when suddenly the man makes
00:16:13
like a wrestling move,
throws his arm around her, and suddenly he's on top of her.
00:16:18
And he takes her
down to the ground. And for the next 20 minutes,
you can see him assault her.
00:16:25
BOBBY GRACE: And you can see
her, from the camera footage, trying to struggle. And then he's able to put all
of his full weight on her.
00:16:36
He's much bigger than her. I believe that she was
5 foot tall or less. Then you can't see
her move anymore.
00:16:46
And it's apparent that she's-- she's no longer living. He is still attempting what
appears to be a sexual assault.
00:16:58
And then he gets up casually
and leaves her for dead. CLIFF SHEPARD: When
we saw the tape,
00:17:08
both exclaimed at the same time. This isn't his first time. But we didn't have
any other murders
00:17:15
at that time in that area
to blame on this person, that unknown person. NARRATOR: The
footage was shocking,
00:17:22
and the quality of the
images made identifying Paula's killer near impossible. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: The
footage was very grainy.
00:17:30
But it showed her, basically,
being dragged away. This is really, really
chilling footage.
00:17:35
We have got a front row seat to
the murder of this poor woman. CLIFF SHEPARD: You don't get
a great image of the man.
00:17:43
I mean, you can see he's big. You can see that
he's a male Black. Appears to have a shaved head.
00:17:49
He was wearing a unique jacket
that had a design on the back. We were able to
determine that it
00:17:55
was a Buffalo Bills logo that
was on the back of that jacket. So for days, my partner and I
would be out in the evenings
00:18:02
looking for somebody, anybody,
wearing that jacket that sort of fit the man's description.
00:18:07
We got nowhere with that. NARRATOR: Sadly,
Paula Vance became just another number in the
tally of unsolved murders
00:18:17
across Los Angeles. Three years after her death,
an improvement in technology led to a new investigation.
00:18:26
CLIFF SHEPARD: In 2001, Los
Angeles Police Department started a cold case unit. I was able to get into
that along with five
00:18:33
other detectives, because of
the advances in DNA, ballistics, fingerprints, and other things.
00:18:40
We had around 9,000
unsolved murders between 1960 and the present. The thought was that we could
solve many of these cases
00:18:49
by using the technology that
we had, especially with DNA. There was the emphasis.
00:18:55
BOBBY GRACE: Because the
majority of these women were sexually assaulted in
addition to being killed,
00:19:01
the Los Angeles Police
Department, at that time, would do what it's known as
a sexual assault kit, where
00:19:08
forensic analysts would
take samples of places from the crime scene
and, most importantly,
00:19:14
from the victim's
body in an effort to try to get forensic
material that could be used
00:19:21
later to try to
identify the person who was involved in a crime. NARRATOR: Investigators
from the cold case unit
00:19:32
were particularly
interested in a number of unsolved murders,
which had all occurred within a small
radius of each other.
00:19:40
BOBBY GRACE: The murders
were confined to an area that we call the Figueroa
corridor in south Los Angeles.
00:19:47
There's a major street in the
city of Los Angeles called Figueroa Street that stretches
all the way from downtown
00:19:55
Los Angeles up
through the harbor, which is about 30 miles. But that particular area
was also significant
00:20:03
because it cuts
right through what is known as south central LA. That area was the ground 0 for
the crack cocaine epidemic.
00:20:15
CLIFF SHEPARD: A lot
of women are addicted. And they're looking for cocaine. They're using cocaine.
00:20:21
They're easy victims. He would probably approach them,
show them some rock cocaine
00:20:27
and they go, OK, let's go. And then he would kill them. BOBBY GRACE: Even
though you were
00:20:32
able to to get crack
cocaine very openly, most people would
not smoke it right on the open in the
street, where they
00:20:40
could get arrested by police. So it was going to be usually
in some secluded area.
00:20:45
Unfortunately, the
Figueroa corridor created the perfect area where
you could do this kind of thing
00:20:51
and not be easily seen. And so he, for lack
of a better word, he had the perfect hunting
ground and the circumstances
00:21:01
surrounding it to get away
with doing what he was doing. NARRATOR: Detectives
wondered if the murders might
00:21:13
be linked to one perpetrator. But it was a victim from
outside the Figueroa corridor that would provide
the breakthrough in the case.
00:21:21
BOBBY GRACE: The unit,
inexplicably out of the blue, got a DNA hit on
the case of Paula
00:21:28
Vance, which was
the murder that was captured on Closed Circuit TV. CLIFF SHEPARD: So when we were
notified that we had a suspect,
00:21:38
I needed to know who he
was and his background. NARRATOR: The DNA belonged
to a convicted felon--
00:21:47
a man whose sample had
been taken and added to the statewide database
when he was in prison
00:21:52
for sexual assault in 2002-- 35-year-old Chester Turner. Turner's DNA also linked
him to one of the victims
00:22:01
from within the
Figueroa corridor. 45-year-old Mildred Beasley had
been murdered in November 1996,
00:22:09
over a year before Paula Vance. CLIFF SHEPARD: We began
in November, 2001. I think it was finally
in September of 2003
00:22:17
we received an
answer that Chester was a suspect in the
Paula Vance murder and the Mildred Beasley murder.
00:22:26
That started looking at
Chester for other murders. Knowing that he lived
in south Los Angeles,
00:22:32
that we had a lot of
unsolved murders down there, now we had to find
those murders.
00:22:39
NARRATOR: Investigators
found themselves in uncharted territory. They had a murderer who
was already behind bars.
00:22:46
Instead of hunting
the killer, they were hunting for his victims. And it would become
apparent that Chester
00:22:52
Turner was one of
the most prolific killers in Los Angeles history. In September 2003, Chester
Turner had been identified
00:23:04
as the killer of two women-- Paula Vance and Mildred Beasley. The 35-year-old
convict was already
00:23:11
serving time for sexual
assault, and detectives from a cold case unit
were just beginning
00:23:17
to learn about his crimes. CLIFF SHEPARD: With Chester,
because of where he lived,
00:23:29
we focused on south Los Angeles. We came up with
probably about 30 victims in the area
between southeast
00:23:39
division and 77th division. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Turner very deliberately chose his hunting ground
as his own neighborhood.
00:23:47
Because this was the place
where he felt powerful. He felt confident. He knew the streets.
00:23:52
He knew the people who
were on the streets. And by killing on
his own patch, he is
00:23:58
minimizing the risk to himself. There's quite a
lot that he feels in control of in this area.
00:24:04
And he gets away with it
time and time and time again. So he feels very territorial
over this particular area.
00:24:15
NARRATOR: Turner
had begun killing over 16 years previously. In March 1987, he took the life
of 21-year-old Diane Johnson,
00:24:24
with his bare hands. ELIZABETH YARDLEY: Diane
Johnson is the first known victim of Turner.
00:24:30
And she was found
on a construction site around about six
blocks from where she lived.
00:24:35
And there some drag marks
that led to the site where her body had
been deposited.
00:24:40
She'd been strangled. And she was naked
from the waist down. She's just discarded on
this construction site.
00:24:47
And that is quite
revealing in terms of how Turner sees his victims. He's had his fun with them.
00:24:52
He's just going to discard them. It's like a predator
with a carcass. NARRATOR: By
September 1989, Turner
00:25:00
had claimed a fifth victim. The prolific killer murdered
27-year-old Regina Washington
00:25:07
in a garage on Figueroa Street. CLIFF SHEPARD: She had
been strangled, murdered.
00:25:12
But on top of that,
the suspect had tied a TV cable around her neck. And she was suspended off
the ground by a few inches
00:25:22
because of the cable. I'm looking at the photographs
of the crime scene, and this guy--
00:25:28
he's got some real anger. I mean, you sexually
assaulted this woman and you strangled her.
00:25:35
And then you're sending
more message that, you know, you really hated her. Was it just her?
00:25:40
Was it all women? And showing how
violent you can be. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
She was strangled
00:25:46
with an electrical
cord and her body was found in an abandoned premises. Again, we've got this idea
of the victim as just trash
00:25:55
to be discarded. NARRATOR: The post
mortem confirm what detectives could see for
themselves at the crime scene--
00:26:05
Regina Washington was
six months pregnant. CLIFF SHEPARD: When we first
filed charges against Chester
00:26:12
for that murder, we argued
that the fetus was viable and should be counted
as another victim.
00:26:20
We included it with the charges. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
It's wickedness at the highest level--
00:26:27
a pregnant mother trying to
eke out a living, partly trying to get straight for her baby.
00:26:33
It's it's a heartless act,
which marks Turner out as a man of very significant wickedness.
00:26:45
NARRATOR: As Turner's DNA
continued to be discovered on the historic murder
victims, detectives
00:26:51
came up with a potential
modus operandi. It's believed Turner would
lure his vulnerable victims
00:26:57
with a promise of drugs. CLIFF SHEPARD: You
look at the murders that Chester Turner committed,
I mean, they're all-female.
00:27:03
And many of them had been
using cocaine, which makes them extremely vulnerable. They're very easy victims.
00:27:14
Their guard's down. And they have this desire
to just obtain more drugs. And they don't care
how they get it.
00:27:22
So anybody that approaches them,
offering them money or drugs, they will probably go with them.
00:27:28
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
There are a lot of people who found
themselves on LA's Skid Row down on their luck.
00:27:35
They were runaways,
they were throwaways. And I think this kind of area
was very attractive for Turner.
00:27:40
Because it's full of people
who are off the social radar anyway. They are the missing missing.
00:27:46
These are people that you can
attack, that you can kill. And nobody's really going to
care very much about them.
00:27:53
GEOFFREY WANSELL: It's
sometimes hard not to feel sorry for them, to be honest. But Turner didn't
feel like that.
00:27:59
He saw them as his victim pool. They were people
he could prey upon. NARRATOR: Another of
Turner's signatures
00:28:09
was the way in which
he left his victims. BOBBY GRACE: Chester Turner
would rape his victims
00:28:14
and then leave them
partially undressed. So in most cases, the victims
were left with their pants
00:28:22
down. Or if they had a
dress, the dress would be pulled up, which was
a telltale sign that there
00:28:30
was some sexual assault. But he also brazenly left
them in areas where they wouldn't necessarily
be found right away,
00:28:39
but it wasn't-- he wasn't, like,
trying to hide the fact that he was trying to kill these women.
00:28:47
NARRATOR: His eighth victim was
29-year-old Andrea Triplett. Turner murdered
Andrea in April, 1993.
00:28:55
Once again, her body was
discovered on Figueroa Street. She'd been strangled to death.
00:29:01
CLIFF SHEPARD:
Most of his victims were manually strangled. He had one or two of the victims
he used a ligature, article
00:29:09
of clothing or something. But most of them
he used his hands. You're talking to
the guy face to face,
00:29:14
you're having a conversation. Suddenly, he takes you down
and you're on the ground
00:29:19
and he's striking
you and choking you. I don't think anybody
was prepared for that.
00:29:26
BOBBY GRACE: And that
fit right into the size and strength of Chester Turner. Because you could easily
see, because of his size
00:29:35
and strength, that
he could easily strangle someone to death. And that those people
would not be able to fight
00:29:41
back significantly against him. Because he would be able to
physically overpower them
00:29:46
but still have the strength
to strangle someone to death with his bare hands. NARRATOR: In a brazen
display of cold-heartedness,
00:29:59
Turner attended the
wake for Andrea Triplett just days after he'd
squeezed the life out of her.
00:30:06
GEOFFREY WANSELL: Not
a sign in Turner's mind of remorse, guilt.
I mean, it requires
00:30:12
a most disgraceful attitude. One might almost call
it inhuman, to insert yourself into the wake.
00:30:24
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: And
this tells us about quite a sadistic side of him. It's not enough for him
to kill these women.
00:30:29
He's almost got to
go and rub it in, in terms of going and liaising
with their families afterwards.
00:30:35
This guy is really
unsavory, indeed. GEOFFREY WANSELL: But
it's also indicative,
00:30:40
so often is the case,
that serial killers love to revisit their crimes. They like to find out
what they've done.
00:30:47
They like to go back
to the crime scene. They like to take trophies. They like to take
pleasure in it.
00:30:53
And here, Chester Turner
is demonstrating precisely those classic characteristics.
00:30:59
He's inserting himself into
the agony of the family and friends of Andrea Triplett.
00:31:11
NARRATOR: In total, Chester
Turner's DNA linked him to 10 murders between 1987 and 1998.
00:31:19
Detectives interviewed
the killer, but he had no
intention of helping them with their investigation.
00:31:25
CLIFF SHEPARD: He's
handcuffed at a table, and we're talking to him. We're not telling them
everything just yet.
00:31:31
We want to feel him out. And I said, you
know, there's been women who've been murdered.
00:31:36
And your name is coming up. And you could see in
his face, suddenly his jaw started trembling.
00:31:44
So he knows he's
been caught now. And he knows he's in
really deep trouble and what could happen to him.
00:31:54
But then suddenly, it was,
I didn't murder nobody. BOBBY GRACE: Chester
Turner told the police
00:32:01
that he did not kill
any of these women, and that he just had sexual
relations with a lot of women.
00:32:07
And it's just a
coincidence that his DNA was found with 10 women who
ended up strangled to death.
00:32:16
It was just a
tragic coincidence. CLIFF SHEPARD: So at
that point, I figured that we may never get
him to admit to anything,
00:32:24
anything about the murders-- and no matter how much evidence
we tell him that we have,
00:32:29
or even show him that we have. NARRATOR: Investigators
would have to the science do the talking.
00:32:36
It would take five years to
collate all their findings. And a trial date was set
for the spring of 2007.
00:32:43
But Chester Turner wasn't going
to go down without a fight. In April 2007,
40-year-old Chester Turner
00:32:54
was on trial for the
murder of 10 women across Los Angeles, California. DNA had linked the convicted
sex offender to all 10 victims.
00:33:04
It would be the job of
prosecutor, Bobby Grace, to convince a jury that Turner
was undoubtedly a killer,
00:33:11
in spite of his
egotistical demeanor. BOBBY GRACE: Chester Turner
was a fairly smug individual.
00:33:22
He would sit in court
and kind of sneer and laugh, act as if he
would be incredulous at some
00:33:31
of the evidence
that was presented. But he, very
definitely, very cold, very callous individual
throughout the proceedings.
00:33:41
And he did not take
the witness stand. NARRATOR: Five years had
passed since Turner's
00:33:46
original interrogation
by detectives, but his story hadn't
changed one bit. He continued to deny that
he was responsible for any
00:33:55
of the 10 murders. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
Turner's defense in court was that yes, he'd had
sex with all these women.
00:34:01
Well, he couldn't really
argue that he hadn't. Because his DNA was
all over the bodies.
00:34:06
But he'd left them
before they died. They were alive when he left. I mean, beyond belief
by way of a defense.
00:34:14
But put yourself in the seat
of the defense attorney. He's got nothing else. There's nothing else to possibly
explain these dreadful series
00:34:21
of killings. NARRATOR: As well as the
undisputable scientific evidence, Bobby Grace relied
heavily on the CCTV evidence
00:34:35
that captured Turner
murdering 41-year-old Paula Vance in February 1998. BOBBY GRACE: There are
absolutely no witnesses
00:34:44
to any of these murders. And that's why the Paula
Vance case was so important. Because that allowed
me to argue to the jury
00:34:52
that Chester Turner would kill
his victims in the manner that was depicted in the closed
circuit video, but also
00:35:00
was important to
counter any argument that the women wanted to
have sex with Chester Turner.
00:35:07
His gratification seems
to come from violence. And so sex and violence
are synonymous for him.
00:35:19
NARRATOR: If the science
alone wasn't evidence enough of Turner's guilt, Bobby wanted
to make sure the jury could
00:35:26
picture the terrifying ordeal
that each and every woman was put through. BOBBY GRACE: I tried to
get the jurors to imagine
00:35:34
how long Chester
Turner's hands were on the throats of these women
and what they went through,
00:35:40
to see kind of the reflection
of their eyes in his eyes as he's choking the
life out of them.
00:35:47
There's a horrible,
horrible way to die, and then probably the most
personable way that you could
00:35:54
kill somebody is to
strangle them to death and looking them in the
face as you strangle them.
00:36:00
It's just horrifying, but
something that we had to convey to the jury for them to
understand the manner
00:36:08
in which he killed these women. NARRATOR: On the 30th of
April, 2007, after three
00:36:17
days of deliberations,
the jury had reached a unanimous verdict. BOBBY GRACE: As
a juror, you just
00:36:23
have to believe in science. And if you believe
in the science, then there wasn't really
much of a conclusion to draw
00:36:30
but that he was the
person that was guilty. NARRATOR: Chester
Turner was found guilty on 10 counts of murder
and sentenced to death.
00:36:40
An 11th guilty
verdict for the murder of the unborn baby
of Regina Washington was overturned in 2020.
00:36:48
CLIFF SHEPARD: It's
sort of sobering when you're listening
to the verdicts and then to the sentence.
00:36:53
That's what you hear
is, we find him guilty, we sentence him to death. We find him guilty, we
sentence him to death.
00:37:00
It's impressive, when you
have that many victims. NARRATOR: For a
man who'd refused
00:37:08
to talk about the murders and
had remained silent for years, Turner still wanted to
have the final word.
00:37:15
BOBBY GRACE: Chester Turner,
after he was convicted and was being led
away, he turned
00:37:19
around and mouthed something. Some people have said that
he said, I'll be back. That was in reference
to me, I'm not sure.
00:37:29
I tend not to worry
about stuff like that. ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
By saying that, he is suggesting
that he knows more,
00:37:36
that there is more to come,
that there is a next chapter. And I think he enjoys having
that control over people.
00:37:42
He enjoys having that
kind of suspense. And he's created this drama in
the courtroom by saying that.
00:37:51
NARRATOR: With Turner
safely behind bars for the rest of his
life, the cold case unit
00:37:56
continued to try and uncover
more potential victims of the serial killer. CLIFF SHEPARD: When I
was doing my research,
00:38:03
I'm looking at the
unsolved murders that Chester could
be responsible for. So I'm looking for females
who were found strangled
00:38:13
in south Los Angeles
in abandoned locations, out of the view locations. I came across some murders
where an arrest had been made,
00:38:24
and the person was convicted. NARRATOR: David Alan Jones,
an intellectually disabled
00:38:31
janitor, had been questioned
without an attorney, in jail for nine
years, for the murder
00:38:37
of three women who'd
now been linked by DNA to Chester Turner. BOBBY GRACE: Fortunately
for David Alan Jones,
00:38:45
the DNA evidence connecting
Chester Turner exonerated him. And he was released
for being wrongfully
00:38:52
convicted of a murder
that he didn't commit. NARRATOR: Chester Turner had
once claimed, "I'll be back."
00:39:04
And his prophecy
proved to be correct. In June 2014, the
47-year-old killer was found guilty of a
further four murders
00:39:12
and was once again
sentenced to death. BOBBY GRACE: Chester Turner
never took the stand.
00:39:17
He never put himself
in a position where he could be questioned,
even in the first trial
00:39:23
or the second trial, which
strategically would have been a big mistake because then
we could have asked him point
00:39:30
blank, how is it that
you were able to have sex with all these women
and they ended up dead.
00:39:36
ELIZABETH YARDLEY:
Turner is somebody who is never going to talk
about his motive, I think.
00:39:42
That's always something that
he will keep to himself. But to me, it is quite obvious.
00:39:46
He killed these women because
he felt entitled to do so. He felt that he had
the right to end
00:39:53
their lives because he saw them
as people who had no value. He saw them as people
who would not be missed.
00:39:59
And he thought that
this was something he could get away with. NARRATOR: Chester Turner's
never given an explanation
00:40:11
as to why he killed 14 women. The grieving loved
ones of his victims may never get the closure
they so desperately need.
00:40:19
BOBBY GRACE: Many of
these women had daughters. And you know, by the time
this case went to trial,
00:40:25
some of those daughters
had children of their own. So these women who were killed,
they actually had grandchildren
00:40:31
who they had never met. CLIFF SHEPARD: A
murder destroys a lot of people, not just the victim.
00:40:37
Their families, it just leaves-- I keep saying-- it leaves
a big hole in their life
00:40:43
that they can't fill. They'll never be able
to talk with that person again, have
celebrations with them.
00:40:50
That person will
never be able to have a family of their own, so a
lot of destruction that's done.
00:40:59
ELIZABETH YARDLEY: There wasn't
a massive amount of media attention on these cases.
00:41:03
And I think to
understand this, we need to look at the concept
of ideal victimhood.
00:41:08
So sometimes when people
become the victims of murder, we're very quick to empathize
and to sympathize with them,
00:41:14
and to say isn't that terrible
that it happened to them. They are completely innocent.
00:41:18
They they really
didn't see this coming. This is an awful thing. But when other people become
the victims of murder,
00:41:24
we're not quite as sympathetic. And very often, when people
are involved in sex work, when
00:41:29
people have drug
dependency issues, we have a tendency to victim
blame and to say well,
00:41:34
if you wouldn't have
been doing that, you wouldn't have
become a victim. And I think that is
very much the case here.
00:41:39
And I think there's also
a sense in which there is some racism around this case,
because many of the victims
00:41:45
were Black. BOBBY GRACE: I think that this
whole George Floyd moment has kind of really crystallized
kind of what I thought
00:41:53
about the case way
back then, in that Black Lives aren't mattered--
particularly Black women.
00:42:01
The circumstances
surrounding that still exist here in America. And that we haven't really had
the progress that many of us
00:42:13
would have hoped for. And that there's so
much more work to do. NARRATOR: There are still scores
of unsolved murders in and
00:42:21
around the Figueroa corridor. There may be many more
victims of Chester Turner. But the evidence to prove
it no longer exists.
00:42:32
BOBBY GRACE: Many of the sexual
assault kits that were taken from some of these
80 plus women,
00:42:37
they were inadvertently
destroyed by LAPD. And so we know for a fact that
there were several women who
00:42:45
are part of these 80 women
who were strangled to death and sexually assaulted. And that fits the MO
of Chester Turner.
00:42:54
But we'll never be able
to prove whether or not he was the perpetrator,
because we no longer
00:43:00
have the sexual assault kits. NARRATOR: California haven't
executed anyone since 2006,
00:43:10
but Chester Turner
remains on death row. There's no doubt the
killer will remain
00:43:16
locked up for the rest
of his life, whenever or however that comes. GEOFFREY WANSELL:
He was remorseless.
00:43:23
That's what it's
hard to understand. He was a killing machine. He didn't stop. He was driven by lust.
00:43:30
He was driven by
the desire to kill. And that's what
makes him incredibly difficult to understand.
00:43:36
And for most ordinary,
civilized, human beings, he doesn't fit in CLIFF SHEPARD: Look
at the body count
00:43:44
and the number of
years he operated. He has no compassion
for anyone else. It's him.
00:43:50
It's all, you know, narcissism. This is about him. NARRATOR: Chester Turner was a
ruthless and brutal murderer.
00:44:01
He took the lives of 14
women and has never explained what drove him to do it. The fear in his victim's
eyes as his hands
00:44:10
squeezed their lives away will,
hopefully, forever haunt him. He is undoubtedly one of the
world's most evil killers.
00:44:19
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