Salt Lake City, Utah – A man previously convicted as one of Los Angeles’ most prolific serial killers has been charged with another murder, this time for the killing of 22-year-old Itisha Camp in Salt Lake City in the late 1990s. Chester Turner, who is currently on death row in San Quentin Rehabilitation Center for the murders of 14 women in the 1980s and 1990s, has now been linked to Camp’s death.
The Salt Lake County District Attorney, Sim Gill, expressed the difficulty Camp’s family endured over the past 25 years without knowing the identity of the suspect responsible for her murder. The recent filing of an aggravated murder charge against Turner brings some relief to Camp’s loved ones and the community. The case was solved through the diligent efforts of Salt Lake police cold case investigators.
Camp’s body was discovered in a stairwell behind a business south of downtown Salt Lake City in September 1998. She had been strangled with a scarf, with evidence suggesting she may have also been sexually assaulted. Through DNA evidence from the scarf uploaded into CODIS (Combined DNA Index System), authorities were able to track Turner’s involvement in the crime.
Investigators found that Camp had only been in the city for a few weeks before her tragic death. Engaging in sex work in the South State Street area, circumstances surrounding her murder began to unravel as Turner’s presence in Utah was revealed, a violation of his parole from California the same year.
Chester Turner, once a pizza deliveryman, is one of several serial killers who targeted victims in South Los Angeles during the crack-cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s. Initially suspected in multiple killings, Turner was ultimately convicted after DNA tests exonerated others wrongfully accused. The ongoing investigation into Turner’s heinous crimes sheds light on the dark history of violence that plagued the community during that time.