Chester Turner

Chester Dewayne Turner (born November 5, 1966) is an American serial killer and sex offender who was sentenced to death for sexually assaulting and murdering fourteen women and an unborn baby in Los Angeles between 1987 and 1998.

Turner spent much of his adult life homeless prior to his capture.

He spent some time in prison for unrelated crimes during his murder spree.

Turner was born on November 5, 1966, in Warren, Arkansas.

He moved to Los Angeles with his mother when he was five years old after his parents separated.

He attended public schools in Los Angeles and attended Locke High School until dropping out.

Working for Domino's Pizza as a cook and delivery person as a young man, he lived with his mother until she moved to Utah.

After that, he moved around to different homeless shelters and missions.

Turner was jailed multiple times in the 1980s and 1990s for theft and drug possession, first from 1987 to 1989, then 1989 to 1992, and from 1993 to 1995.

Her body was found on March 9, 1987, by two passing motorists in a roadway construction area west of the Harbor.

She had been raped, strangled, and stripped of her clothes.

In June 1987, the body of 33-year-old Elandra Joyce Bunn was found nude laying in a pile of trash.

Her body had been discovered by 11-year-old Alvin McThomas.

An autopsy showed that Bunn sustained battered and bloody eyes, abrasions and lacerations on her head and neck, and bruises on her neck and torso.

On October 29, 1987, the body of 26-year-old Louisiana native Annette Ernest was found lying on a shoulder of a road, partially nude and strangled.

She was the daughter of Mildred White, who was friends with Jerri Johnson Tripplett, mother of Turner's fifth victim Andrea Tripplett.

No other murders that are linked to Turner occurred in 1988.

In January 1989, the partially nude body of 31-year-old Anita Fishman Breier was discovered outside a garage in an alley off Figueroa Street.

Her nephew described her as "upbeat, happy".

Her sister, Suzanne, was trying to help her through her struggle with addiction.

On September 23, 1989, the partially nude and strangled body of 27-year-old Regina Nadine Washington was found inside a garage off Figueroa Street.

Washington was six months pregnant, and the death of the fetus, referred to as "Baby Washington", was attributed to the mother's strangulation and was ruled a homicide.

In 1992, Turner began dating Felicia Collier, with whom he had one child.

Turner has fathered a total of four children with separate women, several of whom were raised by his mother after his arrest.

On November 16, 1992, the seventh known victim, 32-year-old Debra Williams, was found dead in the 400 block of West 98th Street in Vermont Vista.

A month later, on December 16, the body of 41-year-old Mary Edwards was found on the 9700 block of South Figueroa Street in Vermont Vista.

In April 1993, the strangled and partially nude body of 29-year-old Andrea Tripplett was discovered behind a vacant building on Figueroa Street.

Although she was 5 1⁄2 months pregnant, at the time, California law did not consider the fetus viable, so Turner was not charged with its murder.

A month later, on May 16, the body of 29-year-old Desarae Ellemae Jones was also found strangled and partially nude in a backyard.

Her brother Frank described her as "smart, outgoing, and funny" and stated that before succumbing to her addiction, she worked at a rest home for the elderly.

In 1995, he was arrested (and later convicted) for car theft.

He was then jailed for assault on an officer and cruelty to an animal on April 9, 1997.

In 2002, Turner was sentenced to eight years in prison for raping a woman earlier that year.

While incarcerated, DNA analysis implicated Turner in numerous unsolved murders and rapes.

He was sentenced to death in July 2007 for ten murders, and sentenced to death again in June 2014 for an additional four murders.

He was also found guilty of the death of the unborn child of one of his victims.

Prosecutors have called Turner "one of the most prolific serial killers in the city's history".

Before Turner's identification, the killer was nicknamed "The Southside Slayer", a name also used for several other serial killers active in Los Angeles around the same time as Turner.

DNA evidence has linked Turner to the murders of fourteen women, most of which occurred in a four-block-wide corridor that ran on either side of Figueroa Street between Gage Avenue and 108th Street and several outside this corridor in Los Angeles County.

Turner's first confirmed murder victim was 21-year-old Diane Johnson.