World's Most Evil Killers - Season 6, Episode 19 - Chester Turner - Full Episode | Forensic Files

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

The story of the cold-blooded serial killer who took the lives of eleven people during a terrifying decade-long murder campaign.

An in-depth look at the lives and crimes of some of the world's most evil killers. New episodes including Lee Ford, Pawel Relowicz, John Shaw, John Allen Muhammad, Derrick Todd Lee and more.

Brief Summary

Chester Turner, a serial killer, murdered 14 women in LA; his capture revealed systemic issues in victim recognition and justice.

Key points

Chester Turner's Capture. In March 2002, Chester Turner was arrested after a sexual assault, leading to his DNA being collected.
The Horrific Murder of Paula Vance. Paula Vance's murder was captured on CCTV, revealing the brutality of her attack.
The Prolific Serial Killer Unveiled. Chester Turner was identified as a serial killer after DNA linked him to multiple murders.
Turner's Callousness. Turner attended the wake of one of his victims, showcasing his cold-heartedness.
Chester Turner Found Guilty. Chester Turner was found guilty on 10 counts of murder and sentenced to death.
The Unsolved Cases. Many unsolved murders remain linked to Turner, with evidence lost over time.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

He was ruthless, merciless, he was a killing machine.

Geoffrey Wansell describes Chester Turner.

1:19WatchAug 10, 2022

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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