Latest / The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories / Chester Turner： The Descent Of A Quiet Serial Killer - Serial Killer Documentary

Transcript

Chester Turner： The Descent Of A Quiet Serial Killer - Serial Killer Documentary · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

• 0:12
  Speaker 1: As an unknown killer, Chester Turner was assigned the moniker
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: of the South Side Slayer. In just over a decade,
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Turner killed at least fourteen women and may have murdered
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: many more.
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: Had he not been caught, he absolutely would have continued this.
• 0:32
  Speaker 2: He had a particular victim typology that he pursued. He
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: had an area a geography that he was very familiar
• 0:40
  Speaker 2: with and that he was very experienced in. He would
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: have continued to be a killing machine.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: So what drove Turner to commit such acts of depravity
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: on women who lived in his own community.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: However Chester Turner may have suffered in his own life,
• 0:57
  Speaker 3: it provides no excuse for what he did to these women,
• 1:01
  Speaker 3: murdering them in their most vulnerable positions and impossible circumstances.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Psychological criminologist and former FBI agent doctor Brianna Fox is
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: trying to discover why Chester Turner was able to commit
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: so many crimes unchecked.
• 1:19
  Speaker 4: My work isn't just academic. I've been in the field
• 1:22
  Speaker 4: and sat across from serial killers. I've tried to apply
• 1:25
  Speaker 4: my experiences to work out just how these seemingly normal
• 1:27
  Speaker 4: people become the monsters that they turned out to be.
• 1:31
  Speaker 1: What were the red flags on his descent to murder?
• 1:34
  Speaker 1: And could police have caught the man who would become
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: known as the South Side Slayer earlier.
• 1:39
  Speaker 4: I'm doctor Brianna Fox, and this is the Scent of
• 1:43
  Speaker 4: a serial killer.
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: Doctor Breonna Fox will be using her unrivaled expertise and
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: research to examine the case of Chester Turner, a rapist
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: and serial killer who was killing women in the nineteen
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: eighties and nineties.
• 2:33
  Speaker 4: Chester Turner is a prolific murderer who's an excellent case
• 2:36
  Speaker 4: to study for descent of a serial killer. Alongside my
• 2:40
  Speaker 4: fellow experts, we'll be investigating the red flags which appeared
• 2:44
  Speaker 4: throughout his life. To get an accurate understanding of what
• 2:47
  Speaker 4: these were, we have to start at the beginning. Chester
• 2:53
  Speaker 4: Turner was born in nineteen sixty six in Warren, Arkansas.
• 2:57
  Speaker 5: Chester Turner grew up in Warren, Arkansas. Nice little house,
• 3:03
  Speaker 5: mother and father, lots of domestic violence. Okay, so here's
• 3:08
  Speaker 5: little Chester, five six years old watching dad beat up
• 3:11
  Speaker 5: mom every day. What does this teach him?
• 3:16
  Speaker 6: So, when you're very young and you look at how
• 3:19
  Speaker 6: your father deals with your mother and how he controls
• 3:24
  Speaker 6: his wife through violence and threats, this is the framework
• 3:29
  Speaker 6: you're growing up with as a young child. You see
• 3:33
  Speaker 6: that this for you is what's normal. This is how
• 3:36
  Speaker 6: men treat women.
• 3:37
  Speaker 5: Chester's mother gets the courage to leave the abusive husband.
• 3:41
  Speaker 5: They pack up little Chester, his mom and out to
• 3:46
  Speaker 5: California they go. But where do they go in California?
• 3:50
  Speaker 5: They move into South Central, which is at the time
• 3:55
  Speaker 5: a very violent, very crime ridden area.
• 4:00
  Speaker 6: It's lower economic area, it's south of downtown Los Angeles.
• 4:05
  Speaker 6: It's not a safe place, and you just have to
• 4:07
  Speaker 6: be cautious even when you come up to a red light.
• 4:10
  Speaker 5: So they move to the six hundred block of Century
• 4:13
  Speaker 5: Boulevard in South Central, which within South Central itself.
• 4:19
  Speaker 7: Is beyond tough.
• 4:21
  Speaker 5: Okay, So this kid basically walks out of his home
• 4:25
  Speaker 5: every day into a war zone.
• 4:28
  Speaker 1: Turner's mother was so worried about the crime he was
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: around she sent him back to Arkansas.
• 4:36
  Speaker 7: For a while.
• 4:37
  Speaker 5: Chester moved in with his father, who had remarried. So
• 4:41
  Speaker 5: Chester now has a step mom and step siblings. And
• 4:46
  Speaker 5: according to reports, the step mom beat little Chester and
• 4:52
  Speaker 5: she allowed her kids to beat on him. And here's
• 4:55
  Speaker 5: the thing, Chester was not allowed to fight back.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: Turner moves back to la to live with his mother. However,
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: the disruption to his schooling will only continue.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: Turner had been a pretty poor student and had had
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: a lot of challenges academically growing up.
• 5:16
  Speaker 5: As Chester moves into high school and even in junior high,
• 5:20
  Speaker 5: he's bullied by all of these kids because why because
• 5:24
  Speaker 5: he's not from there?
• 5:25
  Speaker 7: Okay, he's from.
• 5:26
  Speaker 5: Arkansas, and that's immediately noticeable. Okay, And he tries to
• 5:34
  Speaker 5: fight back, but it's just too much, there's too many kids.
• 5:38
  Speaker 5: What does he start doing? Of course, he blends right in.
• 5:42
  Speaker 5: He starts to do drugs. He starts to drink. In
• 5:46
  Speaker 5: a developing adolescent brain, using drugs on a regular basis
• 5:50
  Speaker 5: is going to cause a lot of issues. And if
• 5:54
  Speaker 5: you are, if you are on drugs, then your inhibitions
• 5:59
  Speaker 5: can be low and your risk taking will be elevated.
• 6:03
  Speaker 5: And what does Chester's mother now start doing to him, Well,
• 6:07
  Speaker 5: she starts treating him like he doesn't exist. She locks
• 6:11
  Speaker 5: him out of the house until she gets home, right,
• 6:15
  Speaker 5: she keeps food from him until she feels like feeding him.
• 6:19
  Speaker 7: So what is she doing now?
• 6:21
  Speaker 5: She's abusing him, but she's abusing him psychologically. He's descending
• 6:26
  Speaker 5: down a slippery slope of internalizing all of the pain
• 6:33
  Speaker 5: and the rage he feels.
• 6:37
  Speaker 4: This led Turner to develop several maladaptive coping strategies to
• 6:41
  Speaker 4: deal with the traumatic experiences in his childhood. For instance,
• 6:45
  Speaker 4: he began using drugs heavily as a form of self
• 6:47
  Speaker 4: medication and escapism. He also developed a me versus everyone mentality,
• 6:53
  Speaker 4: which caused him not to identify or empathize with others.
• 7:00
  Speaker 1: As Turner became more involved in drugs and the criminal lifestyle,
• 7:03
  Speaker 1: his situation at home and his relationship with his mother
• 7:06
  Speaker 1: deteriorated further.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: As he got older. They began to have conflicts in
• 7:13
  Speaker 2: the home because of his activities in the community, including
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: drug use and some petty crime. She did have to
• 7:19
  Speaker 2: throw him out of her house, but eventually allowed him
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: to come back in. She stayed there for a few years,
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: just about halfway through his high school, but then she
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: decided that she'd be moving to Utah. This left Turner
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: alone and on his own.
• 7:37
  Speaker 1: After his mother left, Turner dropped out of school when
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: he was fifteen.
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: Before he dropped out, he had acquired a nickname among
• 7:47
  Speaker 3: his classmates as Chester the Molester, for grabbing female students
• 7:53
  Speaker 3: and inflicting his attentions upon them.
• 7:56
  Speaker 5: Chester begins to start groping girls in school, grabbing at them. Okay,
• 8:02
  Speaker 5: and we're talking about a time when it was viewed differently, and.
• 8:07
  Speaker 7: He wasn't reprimanded for it.
• 8:09
  Speaker 5: Really, he has nobody at home and at the time
• 8:14
  Speaker 5: in school, teachers they might notice, but they're not going
• 8:19
  Speaker 5: to say anything.
• 8:20
  Speaker 7: You know, this is South Central.
• 8:22
  Speaker 5: There's a lot of trouble going on in that school
• 8:25
  Speaker 5: and Chester is just one more kid who's causing a
• 8:28
  Speaker 5: lot of mischief. This teaches him one that he can
• 8:33
  Speaker 5: commit crimes, he can do stuff to women, to girls,
• 8:37
  Speaker 5: and get away with it.
• 8:38
  Speaker 6: So you see this proclivity for sexually assaulting even in
• 8:47
  Speaker 6: his early years, and of course this just continues.
• 8:58
  Speaker 5: At sixteen years old, Chester has a growth spurt. He
• 9:02
  Speaker 5: grows into this enormous man who's a child in a
• 9:06
  Speaker 5: man's body now, and what does he do. He starts
• 9:09
  Speaker 5: fighting back, okay, and he stabs a kid, slices him
• 9:13
  Speaker 5: in the stomach.
• 9:15
  Speaker 7: He's sixteen years old, but he doesn't get in trouble
• 9:19
  Speaker 7: for it.
• 9:19
  Speaker 5: So as he's growing older, seventeen eighteen into an adult,
• 9:23
  Speaker 5: Chester gets into an altercation with a police officer and
• 9:27
  Speaker 5: During this altercation, he hurts the police dog, so he
• 9:32
  Speaker 5: gets an animal cruelty charged against them. Now he's fighting
• 9:36
  Speaker 5: with police, right, so this is all escalating.
• 9:40
  Speaker 7: The violence factor is rising here.
• 9:45
  Speaker 4: The tumultuous nature of Turner's childhood, accompanied with the psychological
• 9:49
  Speaker 4: trauma of being victimized by literally every parental figure in
• 9:52
  Speaker 4: his life, likely contributed to his attachment and abandonment issues.
• 9:58
  Speaker 4: Attachment disorder creates a cun tradiction in a person, making
• 10:02
  Speaker 4: them become possessive over their familial relationships, but also rejecting
• 10:06
  Speaker 4: and pushing away families and loved ones. In Turner's case,
• 10:12
  Speaker 4: the fact that his mother abandoned him would have only
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: reinforced his belief that relationships with other people were never going.
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: To be stable.
• 10:20
  Speaker 4: The sexual assault of his female peers earned him the
• 10:23
  Speaker 4: nickname Chester the Molester, and this reflects the internalization of
• 10:27
  Speaker 4: this belief and the fact that there was no retribution
• 10:31
  Speaker 4: for those acts. This enabled them to believe that he
• 10:34
  Speaker 4: could offend with impunity. By this point, Turner's mother has
• 10:44
  Speaker 4: abandoned him and he is living alone in an area
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: of rife with violence and crime, meaning it feels more
• 10:51
  Speaker 4: normalized to engage in antisocial and criminal behavior that he's
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: begun to commit. This eventually led Turner further into the
• 10:59
  Speaker 4: descent of crime and violence in his life.
• 11:04
  Speaker 3: Los Angeles is a place that holds out a lot
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: of promise, but often that promise doesn't get fulfilled, and
• 11:09
  Speaker 3: that was the case with him as well. Found himself,
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: as so many people do, homeless, and gravitated toward downtown
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: Los Angeles, where there are homeless services and homeless shelters.
• 11:24
  Speaker 2: He worked for a while as a cook in a restaurant,
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: but he was unable to maintain an ongoing residence. When
• 11:31
  Speaker 2: his mother moved to Utah, he was known to drift
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: through Los Angeles, mainly staying at homeless shelters in the area.
• 11:38
  Speaker 5: Chester's on the street Now he's an adult. He's selling drugs.
• 11:43
  Speaker 5: He's mixing it up with gang members, sex workers, and
• 11:48
  Speaker 5: he gets into an altercation with some drug dealers one
• 11:53
  Speaker 5: day and one of them takes out a box cutter
• 11:56
  Speaker 5: and slashes him across the face, and the adrenaline Andy
• 12:00
  Speaker 5: is pumping so hard he doesn't even notice that he's
• 12:04
  Speaker 5: been cut. In fact, he's walking home and he thinks
• 12:07
  Speaker 5: he's sweating and he wipes.
• 12:10
  Speaker 7: His face and his blood.
• 12:12
  Speaker 5: Now this causes this scar right across his face that
• 12:17
  Speaker 5: he will carry on into his life.
• 12:21
  Speaker 1: Turner's chaotic lifestyle reflect that the environment he was living in.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: It's the eighties, geographical and neighborhood areas were sharply defined.
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: There was very much a dividing line between communities where
• 12:35
  Speaker 2: we identified that this is a place that is predominantly
• 12:39
  Speaker 2: populated by Black Americans.
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: Los Angeles in those days was in the grip of
• 12:43
  Speaker 3: a crack cocaine epidemic. And nowhere was it felt more
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: viciously than in South Los Angeles among the poor people
• 12:51
  Speaker 3: and the people of color, where this drug was trafficked mercilessly, relentlessly.
• 12:57
  Speaker 6: It was a drug infested area, a lot of drug activity.
• 13:01
  Speaker 6: It really bordered on the South skid Row area. So
• 13:06
  Speaker 6: it was a high crime, high gang, high drug, high
• 13:12
  Speaker 6: violent area.
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: The police were working over time because of the drug wars.
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: Because of the drug problems, you had gang wars accelerating
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: because turf was more valuable, drugs were more valuable. Some
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: of the saddest victims of the crack cocaine epidemic were
• 13:33
  Speaker 3: the young women who prostituted themselves. These young women were
• 13:37
  Speaker 3: so vulnerable because they were so deep in the throes
• 13:40
  Speaker 3: of their addiction that they didn't even bother asking for
• 13:43
  Speaker 3: money for sex. All they wanted was drugs. All they
• 13:45
  Speaker 3: wanted was crack cocaine, and that made them so vulnerable
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: to the worst kind of violence.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: Bodies of women assumed to be sex workers were starting
• 13:54
  Speaker 1: to be found.
• 13:59
  Speaker 2: There were two things that were striking about how his
• 14:01
  Speaker 2: victims were found. They were partially clothed, rarely completely nude,
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: and then left in areas at the side of a street,
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: near the entrance of a doorway, an alley, a road.
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: Not all of the clothes were taken off. It indicates
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: that there was maybe a short amount of time in
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: which the beginning of the crime was started.
• 14:24
  Speaker 6: If you look at the number of homicides that were
• 14:26
  Speaker 6: occurring in Los Angeles in that time frame, say about
• 14:30
  Speaker 6: a fifteen year timeframe eighty five to about ninety eight
• 14:35
  Speaker 6: ninety nine, the minimum number of homicides was about thirteen hundred,
• 14:40
  Speaker 6: which is a huge number, but that rose into in
• 14:43
  Speaker 6: the early nineties to about two thousand homicides a year.
• 14:49
  Speaker 6: That is a huge number of homicides to be handled
• 14:53
  Speaker 6: by an investigating agency.
• 14:55
  Speaker 1: Los Angeles authorities put together an investigation group to try
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: and identify Fine, the person they believed was responsible for
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: most of the killings.
• 15:05
  Speaker 5: The South Side Slayer Task Force was formed by the
• 15:09
  Speaker 5: Los Angeles Police Department and the Sheriff's Department because there
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: were so many unsolved murders of females in South central
• 15:21
  Speaker 5: during this era.
• 15:24
  Speaker 6: At the time, they had about fifty members from both
• 15:29
  Speaker 6: departments working on this task force, you know, and their
• 15:33
  Speaker 6: face with really a very very difficult task because generally
• 15:38
  Speaker 6: you have a very high risk population that's being targeted.
• 15:43
  Speaker 6: Mostly these are outdoor crime scenes, which create lots of
• 15:46
  Speaker 6: problems forensically.
• 15:48
  Speaker 5: But by nineteen eighty seven, it's down to like fifteen
• 15:52
  Speaker 5: to seventeen members because there are zero leads. With all
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: sorts of crime going on, drug dealing, nobody will talk
• 16:01
  Speaker 5: to you, so it makes it very difficult for investigations
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: like this. What you need in this really is a
• 16:10
  Speaker 5: DNA connection, and at that time DNA wasn't a thing.
• 16:17
  Speaker 1: Law enforcement try to find similarities and patterns in the victimology.
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: These bodies just start showing up in South central Los
• 16:26
  Speaker 5: Angeles with the same signature raped murdered, and what can
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: law enforcement do but collect rape kits and forensic evidence,
• 16:39
  Speaker 5: and this stuff just starts to get stored in labs
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: and passed around. But remember this is at a time
• 16:48
  Speaker 5: when you know DNA comparison was in its infancy, so
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: law enforcement was smart enough to know that sooner or
• 16:57
  Speaker 5: later science is going to catch up to this killer.
• 17:02
  Speaker 6: In March nineteen eighty seven, Diane Johnson, aged twenty one,
• 17:07
  Speaker 6: is found strangled, partially nude, sexually assaulted in a construction
• 17:13
  Speaker 6: area off the one ten Freeway. In October nineteen eighty seven,
• 17:18
  Speaker 6: a Nette Ernest was found strangled, sexually assaulted, partially nude
• 17:24
  Speaker 6: on the shoulder of a road. In nineteen eighty nine,
• 17:29
  Speaker 6: Anita Barrera, thirty one years old, was found strangled, sexually assaulted,
• 17:35
  Speaker 6: partially nude outside of a garage off FIGAROA Street. Regina
• 17:41
  Speaker 6: Washington strangled, sexually assaulted, and partially nude in a garage
• 17:47
  Speaker 6: off FIGAROA Street. She was six months pregnant.
• 17:53
  Speaker 1: While police were investigating the bodies of his victims, Turner
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: was coming to their attention for other crimes, including those
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: that were sexually motivated.
• 18:02
  Speaker 5: In his twenties, Chester is living with a girlfriend, Felicia Collier,
• 18:09
  Speaker 5: and he's very violent, of course, towards her like Dad
• 18:14
  Speaker 5: was to mom.
• 18:15
  Speaker 7: That's where he gets that. He beats her.
• 18:18
  Speaker 5: In fact, one night he even rapes her. And she
• 18:20
  Speaker 5: reports one night that he comes into the house late
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: at night and he's got scratches all over him, okay,
• 18:28
  Speaker 5: and he writes it off as you know, I was working,
• 18:32
  Speaker 5: something happened.
• 18:33
  Speaker 7: I got scratches, But that's not what it is.
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: Chester Turner got into an altercation with one of his victims.
• 18:42
  Speaker 3: He was arrested a half dozen times for nonviolent offenses,
• 18:46
  Speaker 3: which could be anything like you know, smoking, sitting on
• 18:50
  Speaker 3: the sidewalk, doing things that homeless people will do in
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: this area of town and which are against the law.
• 18:57
  Speaker 5: As we look at Chester Turner's descent, and this happens
• 19:01
  Speaker 5: with a lot of serial killers. You know, they start
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: to do things without even thinking about it because they
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: can't help themselves. And in this case, in nineteen ninety one,
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: he's arrested for leut conduct. He masturbates in front of
• 19:15
  Speaker 5: a crossing guard. He goes to jail, and within hours
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: of getting out of jail, he exposes himself to somebody else.
• 19:30
  Speaker 4: Dealing drugs and living in a high crime area will
• 19:33
  Speaker 4: just reinforce to him. Then no one will set boundaries
• 19:36
  Speaker 4: that he must live within, and moving frequently throughout the
• 19:40
  Speaker 4: city will only allow him to continue on his crimes
• 19:42
  Speaker 4: free with low risk of detection.
• 19:49
  Speaker 1: Once released from jail, Turner continued to murder unsuspected by police.
• 19:56
  Speaker 6: Andrea Triplett was found partially dude, strangled and sexually assaulted
• 20:03
  Speaker 6: off Figaroa Street. Desiree Jones was found strangled, partially nude,
• 20:09
  Speaker 6: sexually assaulted off Figaroa Street in nineteen ninety five. Natalie Price,
• 20:17
  Speaker 6: thirty one years old, was found partially nude, strangled and
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: sexually assaulted. In November of nineteen ninety six, Mildred Beasley,
• 20:26
  Speaker 6: forty five years old, was found partially nude, strangled, sexually
• 20:31
  Speaker 6: assaulted in a lot off Figaroa Street.
• 20:36
  Speaker 1: Police realized they had a serial killer on their streets.
• 20:39
  Speaker 1: Who's mo O fitted a particular pattern, geographic location and
• 20:43
  Speaker 1: victim type.
• 20:46
  Speaker 5: And here's Chester Turner right in the mix of all
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: of this. And of course the task force doesn't know
• 20:54
  Speaker 5: it's him. Nobody knows it's him. He is stealthily moving
• 21:00
  Speaker 5: about the South Central area murdering at will.
• 21:07
  Speaker 8: All of the victims were African American, with a range
• 21:10
  Speaker 8: of ages between early to mid twenties to early forties.
• 21:18
  Speaker 8: Most of the murders happened along the Figaroa Corridor in
• 21:21
  Speaker 8: Los Angeles or adjacent to the Figaroa Corridor. Strangulation as
• 21:30
  Speaker 8: a cause of death for their victims that it's a
• 21:33
  Speaker 8: very upclose personal type of killing where you're actually looking
• 21:38
  Speaker 8: into somebody's eyes. And the amount of time that it
• 21:41
  Speaker 8: takes to cause death with the constant pressure to cut
• 21:46
  Speaker 8: off all air supply and blood supply to the brain
• 21:50
  Speaker 8: is generally much longer than people would think. It can
• 21:54
  Speaker 8: be several minutes with constant pressure.
• 22:00
  Speaker 6: Looking at strangulation homicides, there are several indesia that you're
• 22:04
  Speaker 6: always looking at or indicators. One is fingernail marks and
• 22:09
  Speaker 6: bruising that occurs on the neck. You see it in
• 22:12
  Speaker 6: the strap muscles of the neck. You also have as
• 22:17
  Speaker 6: you're squeezing the neck, you're essentially what you're doing is
• 22:21
  Speaker 6: you're not really including the breathing process because the trachy
• 22:26
  Speaker 6: is pretty is very solid structure. What you're doing is
• 22:30
  Speaker 6: occluding the carotid arteries with pressure and so you're preventing
• 22:35
  Speaker 6: blood from going to the brain. So blood flows in,
• 22:38
  Speaker 6: but it can't flow out, and then you get what
• 22:41
  Speaker 6: we call particual hemorrhaging. So the pressure, the increased pressure
• 22:45
  Speaker 6: in the brain causes these micro blood vessels, typically in
• 22:51
  Speaker 6: the eyes, the whites of the eyes, or the eyelids,
• 22:54
  Speaker 6: or in the lips, to burst. So seeing particular hemorrhaging
• 22:59
  Speaker 6: is a very very common indicator of some form of strangulation.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Turner continued to sexually assault and murder women with growing carelessness.
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: That gave police clues to his identity.
• 23:16
  Speaker 5: So in February third, nineteen ninety eight, there's a break
• 23:20
  Speaker 5: in these South Central slangs. One of the murders is
• 23:25
  Speaker 5: actually caught on CCTV. A woman, paul A Dvance. She's
• 23:33
  Speaker 5: grabbed by the neck, forced to the ground, brutally.
• 23:37
  Speaker 7: Raped and then murdered. And you can see it on
• 23:40
  Speaker 7: the video.
• 23:41
  Speaker 5: But the problem is it's dark, it's grainy, so you
• 23:44
  Speaker 5: can't make out a face. But the one telltale sign
• 23:47
  Speaker 5: here is that the perpetrator is a huge man, a big,
• 23:52
  Speaker 5: big guy.
• 23:55
  Speaker 8: A very grainy videotape where you couldn't make him out.
• 24:01
  Speaker 8: You could only see that he was a very large man,
• 24:05
  Speaker 8: but you could make out what was happening based on
• 24:08
  Speaker 8: once the crime scene was discovered.
• 24:10
  Speaker 7: He attacked her.
• 24:12
  Speaker 8: He threw her to the ground, he sexually assaulted her,
• 24:17
  Speaker 8: strangled her to death, and walked away.
• 24:21
  Speaker 6: Paul Avance, twenty four years old, was found behind an
• 24:26
  Speaker 6: abandoned business. In April nineteen ninety eight, Brenda Breis, thirty
• 24:34
  Speaker 6: nine years old, was found strangled just outside the area
• 24:38
  Speaker 6: where Turner was operating near Little Tokyo. Her body was
• 24:42
  Speaker 6: found partially nude, sexually assaulted, and strangled in an apportable outhouse.
• 24:50
  Speaker 1: Despite the number of victims, law enforcement have yet to
• 24:53
  Speaker 1: connect any of these murders to Turner.
• 24:58
  Speaker 9: In Chester Turner's case, you've got rape and you've got murder.
• 25:04
  Speaker 9: There's no indicators that he was torturing these women. It
• 25:10
  Speaker 9: just appears that he's killing them after he's done raping them,
• 25:14
  Speaker 9: maybe for the simple reason of just not leaving behind
• 25:18
  Speaker 9: somebody that is a witness to the crime.
• 25:22
  Speaker 3: It was very difficult to solve any of these murders
• 25:24
  Speaker 3: because of the prostitution that was going on.
• 25:28
  Speaker 7: You didn't know who they were with when they were
• 25:30
  Speaker 7: with them.
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: The anonymity of that work to protect themselves from law
• 25:35
  Speaker 3: enforcement was the goal in order not to be arrested
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: as they were working, but that at the same time
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: made them vulnerable and made it that much harder to
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: solve their murders. Sometimes even the families of these young
• 25:48
  Speaker 3: women didn't know where they were or what they were doing.
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: Those victims may have come in contact with a number
• 25:56
  Speaker 2: of people throughout their day. By the time their bodies
• 25:59
  Speaker 2: are found, police are now challenged with narrowing down which
• 26:05
  Speaker 2: one of those numerous people could have been the killer.
• 26:10
  Speaker 4: Turner is increasingly showing a preference for power and control
• 26:14
  Speaker 4: by the types of vulnerable victims that he preys upon
• 26:17
  Speaker 4: and the manner in which he killed them. Strangulation is
• 26:20
  Speaker 4: a very violent and personal way to conduct murder, and
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: that was the way he chose as a way of
• 26:25
  Speaker 4: showing his dominance and taking his anger out on these victims. However,
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: he was still able to evade police entirely. At this time,
• 26:35
  Speaker 4: police were only taking samples of DNA from RESCI suspected
• 26:39
  Speaker 4: of committing aggravated sexual assaults and violent crimes, which Turner
• 26:43
  Speaker 4: has not yet been arrested for. Despite the red flags
• 26:51
  Speaker 4: along Turner's descent. Police only know him in the context
• 26:54
  Speaker 4: of the lesser crimes, which they were not reviewing, and
• 26:57
  Speaker 4: have not yet to suspect him of murder. However, Turner's
• 27:02
  Speaker 4: prolific criminal activities are about to be stopped in their
• 27:05
  Speaker 4: tracks when he commits a crime with a significant change
• 27:09
  Speaker 4: in his mL.
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: Police reach a crucial turning point on March sixteenth, two
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: thousand and two. In the string of unsolved murders.
• 27:21
  Speaker 5: Chester Turner knew a woman named Maria Martinez, and he
• 27:25
  Speaker 5: met Maria at one of the missions, homeless Shelter If
• 27:28
  Speaker 5: you Will, and they knew each other.
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: Maria Martinez was staying in a shelter forty seven years
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: old when Chester Turner asked her for a cigarette and
• 27:36
  Speaker 3: a light.
• 27:37
  Speaker 7: He pulled her behind a dumpster and raped her.
• 27:39
  Speaker 3: Attacked her on an assault that went on for a
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: couple of hours.
• 27:42
  Speaker 5: And instead of like the other women, killing Maria, he
• 27:47
  Speaker 5: allows her to live.
• 27:49
  Speaker 7: Why does he do this. He does this because he.
• 27:52
  Speaker 5: Knows her, and he threatens her if you go to
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: the police, I will come back and I will kill you.
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: But that's his mistake right there, because what does she do?
• 28:03
  Speaker 5: She goes to the police.
• 28:05
  Speaker 6: And she said, look, I did not give him permission
• 28:09
  Speaker 6: to have sex with me. He forced himself on me,
• 28:12
  Speaker 6: he rate me for two hours, and I want to
• 28:16
  Speaker 6: prosecute him. And this was really the beginning of the
• 28:22
  Speaker 6: downfall for Chester Turner.
• 28:26
  Speaker 5: Maria Martinez goes to the hospital, they do a rape
• 28:29
  Speaker 5: kit on her. Okay, so they get evidence and they
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: run the DNA and this links Chester Turner directly to
• 28:39
  Speaker 5: that rape of Maria Martinez. Once they realize it's Chester Turner,
• 28:44
  Speaker 5: they go out looking for him and they know where
• 28:47
  Speaker 5: to look, so they go to this mission that he
• 28:49
  Speaker 5: frequents and there they find him, fully clothed, hiding inside
• 28:55
  Speaker 5: of a shower.
• 28:59
  Speaker 6: Turner was convicted of the rape of Maria Martinez and
• 29:04
  Speaker 6: he was sentenced to eight years in prison. And because
• 29:08
  Speaker 6: they were able to recover the DNA, this started the
• 29:12
  Speaker 6: chain of actually identifying Turner in essentially an eleven year
• 29:18
  Speaker 6: string of sexual murders.
• 29:22
  Speaker 9: Chester Turner was already locked up and they were running
• 29:25
  Speaker 9: his DNA, you know, against unsolved cases where there was
• 29:29
  Speaker 9: DNA evidence. You had homicide investigators das that embraced this technology,
• 29:37
  Speaker 9: and as more data was input into the system from
• 29:42
  Speaker 9: offenders that were locked up. You know, you had cold
• 29:45
  Speaker 9: case units developing that all they would do is try
• 29:49
  Speaker 9: and match up, you know, DNA from their unsolved cases
• 29:53
  Speaker 9: to people that were in the database. And that's when
• 29:57
  Speaker 9: chester Turner was caught.
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: Pop his DNA into CODIS the National Data Bank and
• 30:05
  Speaker 5: look like a It's like a slot machine hitting three
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: sevens because they get one hit after the next. On
• 30:15
  Speaker 5: chester Turner murders and rapes, he begins to be connected
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: to the South Central slangs.
• 30:23
  Speaker 7: He is a serial killer.
• 30:29
  Speaker 5: So one of the first murders he gets connected to
• 30:32
  Speaker 5: is forty five year old Mildred Beasley, who was murdered
• 30:37
  Speaker 5: and left behind.
• 30:39
  Speaker 7: A dumpster in South Central.
• 30:44
  Speaker 5: Then they go to this murder of Paula Vance, which
• 30:49
  Speaker 5: is caught on CCTV, and they match the DNA to
• 30:55
  Speaker 5: chester Turner. And then when they look at chester Turner
• 30:58
  Speaker 5: and they look at this video, it's a perfect match.
• 31:02
  Speaker 7: He's the same sized man.
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: So not only do they have his DNA for that one,
• 31:06
  Speaker 5: but they have him on videotape. Law enforcement begins to
• 31:10
  Speaker 5: focus on a string of murders with the same m O,
• 31:15
  Speaker 5: the same signature.
• 31:18
  Speaker 9: Chester Turner was all over the news. We've got a
• 31:20
  Speaker 9: guy locked up who now we can get justice for
• 31:24
  Speaker 9: these victims that to date had been unsolved.
• 31:29
  Speaker 5: And Chester Turner's DNA is found on eight additional victims
• 31:33
  Speaker 5: of murder between nineteen eighty seven and nineteen eighty eight.
• 31:40
  Speaker 4: Well, it may seem surprising that Turner changed his mo
• 31:44
  Speaker 4: is in fact very common for a serial killer to
• 31:46
  Speaker 4: become so arrogant and so overly confident that he genuinely
• 31:50
  Speaker 4: believed that this woman should fear and respect him so
• 31:53
  Speaker 4: much that he would just let her go once the
• 31:56
  Speaker 4: police understood the severity of his crime. Ann had Turner's
• 32:01
  Speaker 4: there are careful collections of DNA from the bodies of
• 32:03
  Speaker 4: previous crime scenes will now finally identify Chester Turner as
• 32:08
  Speaker 4: the killer.
• 32:12
  Speaker 8: I don't know that a lot of people realize the
• 32:14
  Speaker 8: amount of resources that are required to put these kinds
• 32:18
  Speaker 8: of cases together. I mean, again, you're not just talking
• 32:21
  Speaker 8: about one crime scene, You're talking about multiple crime scenes.
• 32:24
  Speaker 8: That's already one issue. Then you're talking about a cold case,
• 32:27
  Speaker 8: and cold cases have their own set of issues. Being
• 32:30
  Speaker 8: able to find documentation, a complete set of documentation, trying
• 32:35
  Speaker 8: to find chain of custody documentation to follow the evidence
• 32:40
  Speaker 8: from the sexual assault kits that are collected by corner
• 32:44
  Speaker 8: criminalists that are booked into evidence at the coroner's office,
• 32:49
  Speaker 8: and on some of these cases, we've had up to
• 32:51
  Speaker 8: three or four crime labs involved. Then you have to
• 32:54
  Speaker 8: track down the analysts, who many of which no longer
• 32:58
  Speaker 8: work at those crime labs. Then you got to comb
• 33:01
  Speaker 8: through the details of all of these reports, whether it's
• 33:05
  Speaker 8: the crime scene reports or background on your victim or
• 33:09
  Speaker 8: the defendant's criminal history. By digging into their criminal histories,
• 33:15
  Speaker 8: sometimes were able to develop information that will lead to
• 33:20
  Speaker 8: another piece of evidence or connection to the victims to
• 33:23
  Speaker 8: support the DNA.
• 33:26
  Speaker 1: Chester Turner's case finally goes to court in two thousand
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: and seven. Here he displays some unusual behavior for a
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: man facing a possible death sentence.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: People who were there said he acted pretty cocky for
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: someone who was on trial for multiple murders, on trial
• 33:43
  Speaker 3: for his life, and that he laughed and seemed rather
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: at ease with what was going on in the courtroom,
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: and at one point, as he was being moved out
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: of the courtroom, he mouthed something, and some witnesses said
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: that what he did say as he moved his lips
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: was I'll be back, as if facing so many sentences
• 34:02
  Speaker 3: for so many crimes, he even thought that he would
• 34:04
  Speaker 3: have a chance of getting out on the street again.
• 34:08
  Speaker 1: Police and prosecutors have built a strong case against Turner
• 34:12
  Speaker 1: using the DNA evidence and the CCTV tapes.
• 34:17
  Speaker 5: In Chester Turner's trial, what the prosecution did was they
• 34:22
  Speaker 5: used Paula Vance's murder because it was on tape as
• 34:26
  Speaker 5: kind of the blueprint for what Chester Turner was doing
• 34:31
  Speaker 5: to scores of other women.
• 34:34
  Speaker 6: The Paula Vance tape really helps solidify that it's clearly
• 34:39
  Speaker 6: not consensual when you match the mo or modus operendi
• 34:46
  Speaker 6: in the paul Advance case with the other aspects of
• 34:52
  Speaker 6: them in that all of these women are really found
• 34:55
  Speaker 6: in a fairly small geographic area. They're all black females,
• 35:01
  Speaker 6: they're all street people, they're all roughly about the same
• 35:04
  Speaker 6: age that is their peerage members for Turner. They're all strangled,
• 35:11
  Speaker 6: and they're all basically partially clothed. They're all outdoor crime scenes.
• 35:17
  Speaker 6: So when you look at the Paula Van's case, all
• 35:20
  Speaker 6: of these aspects are in play, and they match up
• 35:24
  Speaker 6: with all of the previous homicides.
• 35:30
  Speaker 9: I've been involved in trials with serial killers where they
• 35:33
  Speaker 9: try and say I had sex with her, but it
• 35:34
  Speaker 9: was consensual. It was probably some other guy, you know,
• 35:37
  Speaker 9: she was having sex with, which is what the serial
• 35:39
  Speaker 9: killer capitalizes upon. He knows he's choosing somebody that has
• 35:46
  Speaker 9: issues because of their lifestyle, and it's a way that
• 35:50
  Speaker 9: he opportunistically uses later on to try to diminish his
• 35:54
  Speaker 9: responsibility and you know, cast the blame elsewhere. So the
• 35:58
  Speaker 9: game in this trial is to say, well, it was
• 36:02
  Speaker 9: consensual sex, it was somebody else, because you found evidence
• 36:06
  Speaker 9: that there were other people that had had sex with
• 36:07
  Speaker 9: her as well, you know, using the victim's desperate lifestyle
• 36:12
  Speaker 9: against her to try to clear his own name. When
• 36:15
  Speaker 9: the jury hears, wait a minute, your DNA was not
• 36:19
  Speaker 9: found in just one, two, or three or more, but
• 36:24
  Speaker 9: all these victims you just happen to have the misfortune
• 36:28
  Speaker 9: of having sex with all the same victims that the
• 36:32
  Speaker 9: unidentified subject had sex with. They're not going to believe that.
• 36:36
  Speaker 9: But that's what the strategy typically is, and that's what
• 36:38
  Speaker 9: it was in this case.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: July two thousand and seven. Using the DNA evidence, Chester
• 36:47
  Speaker 1: Turner is convicted and is sentenced to death.
• 36:52
  Speaker 4: Chester. Turner was ultimately convicted and given a death sentence
• 36:56
  Speaker 4: for the murders of ten women and one child. It
• 36:59
  Speaker 4: was his arrogance that finally led him to be connected
• 37:02
  Speaker 4: with the DNA from the other murder victims, but Maria's
• 37:06
  Speaker 4: bravery and coming forward ultimately crack the case.
• 37:21
  Speaker 6: Now, the great thing that they did was they didn't
• 37:23
  Speaker 6: just look at unsolved homicide cases. They looked at all
• 37:27
  Speaker 6: these cases and they go back and they find a guy,
• 37:30
  Speaker 6: David Jones, who'd been arrested for three of these cases.
• 37:34
  Speaker 6: And they go back and look at the cases and
• 37:36
  Speaker 6: they go, well, you know, David Jones was a mentally
• 37:40
  Speaker 6: challenged janitor who lived in the area, who admitted that
• 37:45
  Speaker 6: he had smoked drugs with these various victims of homicide.
• 37:52
  Speaker 6: He had a prior rape conviction. So for the police,
• 37:56
  Speaker 6: this made a lot of sense, and he was convicted
• 37:59
  Speaker 6: on the three homicides, but there wasn't really the forensic
• 38:04
  Speaker 6: DNA evidence. So they went back and they tested these
• 38:07
  Speaker 6: cases and they were like, oh my gosh, the DNA
• 38:11
  Speaker 6: in these cases actually matches Turner. And if you look
• 38:15
  Speaker 6: at the mo in those three in those four homicide cases,
• 38:19
  Speaker 6: it's the same mo that Turner has.
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: Turner is linked to David Allen Jones's murders, and Jones
• 38:29
  Speaker 5: is what he's let out of prison files a wrongful
• 38:35
  Speaker 5: conviction lawsuit against the state. I mean, the guy had
• 38:40
  Speaker 5: been in prison on a separate rape charge that he
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: was convicted of, but he's still awarded seven hundred and
• 38:48
  Speaker 5: fifty thousand dollars for being wrongly convicted.
• 38:58
  Speaker 6: In two thousand and four, with further DNA analysis, Chester
• 39:05
  Speaker 6: Turner is linked to four additional homicides Alandra Bunn, Mary Edwards,
• 39:12
  Speaker 6: Deborah Williams, and Cynthia Johnson.
• 39:17
  Speaker 1: Turner is convicted again and receives a second death sentence
• 39:21
  Speaker 1: in twenty fourteen for the four additional murders, facing life
• 39:26
  Speaker 1: and death behind bars. Turner never admitted to his killings,
• 39:29
  Speaker 1: offering no apology or remorse towards his victims and their families.
• 39:35
  Speaker 8: There could be additional murders, however, unless there is evidence,
• 39:42
  Speaker 8: some type of forensic evidence such as DNA that is
• 39:46
  Speaker 8: uploaded into the DNA database which then would result in
• 39:51
  Speaker 8: case to case hits, we wouldn't know about it. Think
• 39:56
  Speaker 8: at this point, I've been presented a few years ago
• 39:59
  Speaker 8: with one additional murder, and I don't know if the
• 40:03
  Speaker 8: detectives are working to see if they can uncover others
• 40:08
  Speaker 8: that might be also unsolved homicides, but I know of
• 40:12
  Speaker 8: at least one in this case.
• 40:15
  Speaker 1: What were the red flags in Turner's life that should
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: have been picked up as warning signs of what was
• 40:20
  Speaker 1: to come?
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: There are a number of major red flags exhibited in
• 40:26
  Speaker 4: Turner's life to date. He was sexually aggressive towards women
• 40:29
  Speaker 4: from a young age. He had difficulty assimilating the society.
• 40:34
  Speaker 4: He was unable to hold onto a job or settle
• 40:36
  Speaker 4: into a home. He also consistently reoffended from early age
• 40:41
  Speaker 4: through adulthood and displayed a lack of self control throughout
• 40:45
  Speaker 4: his life.
• 40:47
  Speaker 6: This whole dynamic of treating women as property, as something
• 40:54
  Speaker 6: that you can threaten to get what you want had
• 40:57
  Speaker 6: been going on since his mid to early adolescens and
• 41:02
  Speaker 6: just accelerated to his first homicide that were aware of
• 41:06
  Speaker 6: at age twenty or twenty one.
• 41:10
  Speaker 3: However Chester Turner may have suffered in his own life,
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: it provides no excuse for what he did to these women,
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: murdering them in their most vulnerable positions and impossible circumstances.
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: Could police have caught the South Side Slayer earlier.
• 41:31
  Speaker 4: Police were aware of the South Side Slayer and his
• 41:34
  Speaker 4: prolific victim pool and many of his crimes committed against
• 41:37
  Speaker 4: black victims who were given less attention by the police force.
• 41:42
  Speaker 4: Because he was committing his crimes in an area with
• 41:45
  Speaker 4: the transient population and epidemic levels of crime, it was
• 41:49
  Speaker 4: incredibly difficult for the police to stop him. They were
• 41:53
  Speaker 4: aware of Chester Turner as a perpetrator of other sexually
• 41:56
  Speaker 4: motivated crimes and would have been able to tie him
• 41:59
  Speaker 4: into the crimes far sooner if DNA had developed quicker.
• 42:05
  Speaker 6: Chester Turner's early criminal career didn't involve violent crime. Most
• 42:10
  Speaker 6: of it was thefts, auto theft, larcenies, drug crimes, summon
• 42:16
  Speaker 6: decent exposure, parole violations. He starts his violent criminal career
• 42:22
  Speaker 6: of murder in nineteen eighty seven and it continues for
• 42:26
  Speaker 6: eleven years through nineteen ninety eight. But I don't think
• 42:31
  Speaker 6: there's really any red flags that we can find in
• 42:35
  Speaker 6: that early career that would lead police to think when
• 42:40
  Speaker 6: he'd been arrested that this could be their guy.
• 42:45
  Speaker 5: Remember, this is at a time when you know DNA
• 42:49
  Speaker 5: comparison was in its infancy, so law enforcement was smart
• 42:55
  Speaker 5: enough to know that sooner or later, science is going
• 42:57
  Speaker 5: to catch up to this killer, and sure enough it did.
• 43:04
  Speaker 1: With the red flags have brought Turner to the attention
• 43:06
  Speaker 1: of authorities, and would he have been caught earlier if
• 43:09
  Speaker 1: he was perpetrating his crimes now.
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: The behavior he exhibited towards classmates, earning him the nickname
• 43:16
  Speaker 4: Chester the Molester, would now be taken far more seriously.
• 43:21
  Speaker 4: If Turner's DNA was submitted to CODIS when he was
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: arrested for lude behavior in nineteen ninety one. In nineteen
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: ninety two, this would have been able to link him
• 43:30
  Speaker 4: to the crimes much sooner and prevented future murders. However,
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: it was not the law to submit DNA from minor
• 43:38
  Speaker 4: sexual offenses at that time, although it is the law
• 43:41
  Speaker 4: to do so today.
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: One of the things that is significant about Turner is
• 43:49
  Speaker 2: that had he not been caught, he absolutely would have
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: continued this. He had a particular victim typology that he
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: pursued dude, He had an area a geography that he
• 44:04
  Speaker 2: was very familiar with and that he was very experienced in.
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: He would have continued to be a killing machine.
• 44:15
  Speaker 4: It is this lack of empathy and acknowledgment of the
• 44:18
  Speaker 4: fourteen women Turner brutally murdered that leads me to believe
• 44:22
  Speaker 4: the Turner would have continued murdering innocent women having not
• 44:26
  Speaker 4: been caught by learning vulnerable victims with the promise of drugs,
• 44:31
  Speaker 4: carrying out sexual assaults, and then murdering them by strangulation
• 44:35
  Speaker 4: and disregarding bodies as if they were trash all shows
• 44:40
  Speaker 4: a lack of remorse and empathy. This combination is extremely
• 44:44
  Speaker 4: dangerous and likely would have continued had Turner not been
• 44:48
  Speaker 4: incapacitated by arrest.