The Southside Slayer

The Police Zero in on Chester Turner

Chester was a serial killer and rapist who roamed the southside of Los Angeles, raping and murdering sex workers for years.

It was only after he attacked an acquaintance from the neighborhood, that Chester got caught.  For some reason, Chester let this woman live and she eventually went to the police to report the rape.  Immediately after he was identified,  the police arrested Chester. 

Being that he was already a convicted felon, Chester had to submit his DNA to California’s CODIS system.

The police tested unsolved murder cases and solved murder cases against his DNA.    The results were stunning.  His DNA matched evidence found in dozens of murders.  Even more shocking, the DNA led to the exoneration of 28-year-old David Allen Jones.  David Jones was a mentally disabled janitor living in southside LA.  Years earlier, he admitted doing drugs with three women who later ended up murdered: Tammie Christmas, Mary Edwards, and Debra Williams.

• Tammie Christmas, found strangled in September 1992 at the 97th Street Elementary School.
• Debra Williams, 32, found lying at the bottom of a stairwell that led to a campus boiler room in November 1992.
• Mary Edwards, 42, found inside a carport next to the 97th Street Elementary School in December 1992.

The next year, a jury found David Jones guilty of those three murders. All of those crimes occurred in the same manner, location, and time-frame as the murders committed by Chester Turner.  On a hunch, the police followed tested the evidence in those cases.  When compared to Chester’s DNA, they were a match.

Chester Turner’s Murder Spree

Listen to this Online-Only episode to hear more about the killer dubbed “The Southside Slayer” due to Chester’s favorite hunting ground: being his own neighborhood.