"A pizza deliveryman was sentenced to death Tuesday for murdering 10 women and a fetus during the 1980s and '90s in Los Angeles neighborhoods plagued by a crack cocaine epidemic," according to the Associated Press.If all goes well, Chester Turner, 40, will be executed soon.
Apparently all of his victims were "women of color."
* Back in September 1989, he strangled Regina Washington, 27, with an electrical cord behind a vacant house. She was 6 1/2 months pregnant.
* He killed 29-year-old Andrea Tripplett, when she was five months pregnant, in 1993.
The article has a sorrowful quote from their relatives.
In all, he killed Paula Vance, 38; Annette Ernest, 26; Anita Fishman, 31; Regina Washington, 27; Mildred Beasley, 45; Andrea Tripplett, 29; Desarae Jones, 29; Natalie Price, 31; Brenda Bries, 31; and one unidentified woman who appeared to be in her 20s.
By the way, I mentioned the other day that I support the widespread use of DNA testing when someone may face prison time or the death penalty. In this case, Turner is suspected of four other killings. He was charged with 10 killings because his sperm was found on the bodies of the victims.
According to the article: "David Allen Jones, a mentally disabled janitor, was convicted of three of them but was freed after DNA evidence cleared him, prosecutors said. Jones, 44, was released in 2004 after 11 years in prison and was awarded $720,000 in compensation."
Turner does have a lawyer. His defended his client in at least 2 different ways:
1) Turner's attorney, John Tyre, told reporters after the preliminary hearing that the DNA evidence did not prove his client murdered the women, most of whom were prostitutes killed in or near downtown Los Angeles. "If it is his DNA, then it indicates he had sex with these women sometime prior to them dying," Tyre said.
2) California spends a lot of money to put someone to death," Tyre said. "That money would be better served educating people (about crime) so things like this could be prevented."
CJL