LAS VEGAS – A woman has been arrested in connection to the death of a doctor who was found in the trunk of a car outside Las Vegas earlier this month.
Kelsey Turner, 25, was arrested March 21 in Stockton, California, according to a release from the Las Vegas Metro Police Department.
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On March 7, Las Vegas police recieved a call about an abandoned vehicle with a broken window on State Route 147 between Las Vegas and Lake Mead. Responding officers said they opened the trunk and found the body of a deceased male, identified as Dr. Thomas Burchard, 71, of Salinas, California.
The Clark County Coroner's office announced on March 15 that Burchard's death had been ruled a homicide. The cause of death was determined to be blunt force injury to the head.
Homicide investigators believe that Turner was involved in Burchard's death. She has been charged with first-degree murder with a deadly weapon and is currently awaiting extradition to Clark County.
The Californian newspaper reports that Burchard worked in behavioral health with the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula.
"He’s a longstanding physician in the community who was very helpful to many of his patients," a hospital spokeswoman told the paper. "It was a sad situation and our hearts go out to his family."
The New York Post reports that Turner worked as a "professional model" and has appeared in Playboy Italia and Maxim.
Kelsey Turner's mother, Samantha, told California news station KSBW that her daughter and Burchard had known each other for years. She said that Burchard had paid rent on a home in Salinas where she lived with Kelsey and Kelsey's children.
A next-door neighbor confirmed to reporters that Kelsey Turner and her family had lived at the home for "about a year" and that "there were calls for police on a few occassions," in addition to parties and disturbances.
An anonymous source told KSBW that Turner moved to Las Vegas after Burchard stopped paying rent on the Salinas home. The source also said that Burchard had been giving Turner and her mother up to four thousand dollars a week.
The source said that the last thing Burchard said to him before leaving on his deadly Las Vegas trip was that "Kelsey is having trouble with her boyfriend out there in Vegas because he's hitting her. He's abusing her and she has no money, no where to go." Burchard reportedly added that he felt partially responsible.
KSBW reports that Turner is in a relationship with Greg Hagio, who was arrested for strangulation and domestic battery in January, according to court documents. Those charges would ultimately be dropped.
Turner has a court date set for April 8 in San Joaquin County.