An ex-Playboy model who was charged with murdering a California professor has just been sentenced to over a decade in prison.
Kelsey Turner, 29, chose to take a plea deal for the brutal 2019 killing of psychiatrist Dr. Thomas Burchard, with a judge in Clark County, Nevada sentencing her to 10 to 25 years in prison.
The Las Vegas Review-Journal detailed the case, revealing how Turner - a model who had appeared in both Maxim and Playboy Italia - was in a "transactional" and intimate relationship with the professor, before he was murdered and shoved into Turner's car in March 2019.
According to the journal, Burchard was set to meet his longtime partner Judy Earp following a flight from Los Vegas, however, he never made it onto the airplane. "I knew that no matter what, he would not just leave his patients without making arrangements," Earp had stated, describing how Burchard had always treated his patients with care.
As it turns out, he had been beaten to death and his body had been stuffed in the back of Turner's blue Mercedes C300 before the vehicle was abandoned in the desert close to Lake Mead National Recreation Area in southwestern Nevada.
The New York Post reported that Turner had taken a plea known as an Alford plea - which is a guilty plea while maintaining innocence - to second-degree murder in November 2022.
Prosecutors on the case had detailed how Turner had gotten her boyfriend to beat and kill Burchard when he came to Vegas to visit Turner and end their two-year relationship. He had been financially supporting Turner, even paying rent for the home she lived in with her young child.
KNTV then explained how the 71-year-old had been shoved into the Mercedes after being killed, which was subsequently deserted.
"There's certainly room for a lot of salacious speculation as to what the nature of the relationship was," Chief Deputy District Attorney Pamela Weckerly stated during the sentencing hearing this week. "I think the facts of this case demonstrate though that with regards to Ms. Turner, that this was a transactional relationship, to whatever extent," she added.
Turner's defense lawyer stated that the sentence at least gave the model a chance to rebuild her life in the future, saying: "I do wholeheartedly disagree with the state's recitation of the facts. I am, however, glad that Kelsey will have a chance at rebuilding her life moving forward. I am also grateful for the closure for all parties."
