Featured Image Credit: @kelseyturnerofficial / Instagram / Las Vegas Metro Police Department
Topics: Crime
Aisha Nozari
Topics: Crime
A former Playboy model could face up to 25 years behind bars after a 71-year-old man was found dead in the boot of her car.
Kelsey Turner, 29, reached a plea deal this week following her 2019 arrest on murder and conspiracy to commit murder charges.
Turner’s charges were related to the 2019 death of psychiatrist Thomas Burchard, who was helping to pay Turner’s bills, according to police.
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Law and Crime reports that shortly before his death, Burchard was covering rent on Turner’s Las Vegas apartment, but after he ‘abruptly’ stopped supplying funds, Turner, her two kids and her mum were kicked out of the $3,200-a-month home.
Turner and Burchard are thought to have known each other for quite some time, and the latter ‘even had a relationship with the model for years’ according to reports.
The psychiatrist was discovered bludgeoned to death in the boot of Turner's Mercedes Benz.
According to ABC, Burchard had travelled to Las Vegas to tell Turner that he would no longer be paying her rent.
He died of blunt force trauma to the head and the car he was in was found abandoned on a desert road.
On Wednesday, Turner entered a plea agreement in Clark County District Court.
She pleaded guilty to second-degree murder, but all other charges stacked against her will be dismissed upon her sentencing in January 2023.
Turner’s deal is known as an Alford plea, meaning she’s able to plead guilty but maintain her innocence, issuing an understanding that if she had faced a jury, she’d have been convicted based on prosecutors’ evidence.
She’s been detained at the Clark County Detention Center while awaiting trial and has previously pleaded not guilty to her initial charges.
Turner will face between 10 and 25 years in prison when she’s sentenced on 10 January.
Two accomplices accused in Burchard's murder have also taken plea deals, with Jon Kennison - Turner’s co-defendant and former boyfriend - having pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and conspiracy to commit murder.
Back in July, Kennison was sentenced to between 18 and 25 years in prison.
Diana Pena, another co-defendant and Turner and Kennison’s former roommate, pleaded guilty to accessory to commit murder in 2019. Pena has not yet been sentenced.