Loading summary
Narrator
A psychiatrist's murder sparks an investigation in the Las Vegas desert.
Detective
This looks like somebody's grandfather here. We knew right away that it was a different type of murder.
Narrator
When evidence points to a Playboy model, investigators delve into a world of fame, money, and manipulation.
Friend of Kelsey Turner
The places that she would be out with me at are literally the number one nightclubs in all of Hollywood.
Reporter/Investigator
She goes by the nickname Bad Barbie. She ends up on the covers of a couple of magazines.
Narrator
As the strange case unfolds, the surprises never stop.
Diana Pena
She told me he was like her sugar daddy.
Judy Earp
I initially had estimated expenses at about 300,000. I said, you know, this is bad. You need to get out of this.
Diana Pena
She had control over him. He was just a meal ticket.
Narrator
But more suspects emerge.
Detective
We found a bat with his name on it. This is a slam dunk.
Detective Jaeger
We discovered her boyfriend had recently completed a prison term here in Nevada.
Diana Pena
He had a gun that was covered in blood. She was kicking him, hitting him, screaming at him. He told me that he hopes that they don't kill me too.
Narrator
Las Vegas, Nevada is internationally known for its gambling and nightlife.
Friend of Kelsey Turner
Las Vegas is a place where you can, you know, come and let loose. It ends up sticking with people and it ends up carrying them to another place.
Narrator
But on March 7, 2019, it seems one visitor's stay has taken a turn for the worse when police receive an unsettling call.
Detective
We had a citizen out four wheeling in his new pickup and he sees a Mercedes Benz, a little two door coupe, where no little two wheel drive coupe should be. He thought the car was stolen.
Narrator
When patrolmen arrive at the scene, the collar is gone, but the car is right where they said it would be.
Detective
They were going to do an inventory of the car and just have it towed out of there. They open up the doors. There was a lot of blood spatter evidence within the car.
Detective Jaeger
The blood was found primarily in the backseat behind the driver's seat and on the headliner.
Narrator
The officers immediately, immediately call for backup and check the rest of the vehicle.
Detective Jaeger
And when they opened up the trunk, there was a bunch of bedding. When they were able to part some of the bedding, they came across what appeared to be a human arm. They made notification to the homicide section and that's how my partner and I became aware of the call. My partner, Detective Ryan Jaeger, and I drove out to eastern Clark County.
Detective
We carefully documented everything that's in the car. And then we towed the whole car with the body in it back to the csa, our crime lab. Once it was in our garage where it was a more controlled environment, we removed the body. I remember looking at it. It was just kind of like, this looks like somebody's grandfather here. He was wearing, like, a sweater vest with a bow tie. This didn't look like a guy who would make bad life choices to put him in a situation where someone would kill him.
Narrator
Investigators leave the body for the medical examiner to assess, and they conduct a more thorough search of the car.
Detective
In the trunk of the car, I found a credit card with the name of Thomas Burchard on it. We ran that name, and it came up as a missing person. The report gave a description, white male adult in his 70s, and it matched very closely the person we had in the trunk.
Narrator
However, when police run the car's plates, they discover it does not belong to Thomas Burchard.
Detective Jaeger
The name that was associated with the registered owner from San Francisco was an Asian name, and his build was much smaller. The San Francisco police department attempted to go and make contact, but their registered owner was out of the country at the time.
Narrator
While questions surrounding the vehicle multiply, detectives try to get to the bottom of who Thomas Burchard is.
Detective Jaeger
I was able to conduct a records check and learned that Thomas Burchard had been recently reported missing by Judy Earp. So I instructed some fellow homicide detectives to reach out to her and have casual conversations with her without giving away that this might have become a homicide investigation.
Detective
Judy said that he missed a flight, so Judy filed the missing persons report. So her concern was something must have happened to him because he would always come home.
Narrator
Thomas Burchard was a man who always seemed destined to make a difference in the world.
Judy Earp
He was born in Boston in 1948. His father taught at Harvard, and his mother was a librarian, so he was surrounded with academia. He went to medical school at UVA University of Virginia in Charlottesville for child psychiatry. And after that, he did several, you know, residencies at Mass General, Cincinnati, Children's Hospital, ucla. He loved children. And for the longest time, Tom was the only child psychiatrist in Monterey County.
Narrator
Some people called him Santa because of his large white beard. And like Santa, Thomas was extremely generous.
Detective Jaeger
His former patients talk about what an incredible human being he was and how he assisted them through some very difficult times in their lives.
Judy Earp
Over the years, I believe Tom has helped hundreds of people.
Narrator
Due to his generous nature, Thomas developed close relationships with all of his patients. But by the time he was in his early 50s, he still didn't have a family to call his own. That changed in 2002 when he met Judy Earp. A single mother whose own marriage had recently ended.
Judy Earp
We met here in Las Vegas with a group while everybody else was out gambling. We were just kind of left to ourselves. And we talked and chatted, went to shows, and just hit it off for about a year. We dated. It was kind of long distance. And eventually we moved in together. My three youngest children. He was, you know, the father figure in their life.
Narrator
Eventually, they got engaged, and over the course of the next 17 years, Thomas and Judy built a life together in Salinas, California. But they often returned to the city where they first met.
Judy Earp
We would come to Las Vegas every year for medical conferences.
Narrator
In 2019, at the age of 71, Thomas was still seeing patients. But his health forced him to start planning for retirement.
Judy Earp
The last 18 months of his life, he started having problems. I highly suspect that he's in the early stages of Alzheimer's or some form. Form of dementia. During this time, Tom went on a trip to Las Vegas. It was a very spur of the moment thing. He booked a flight on Friday and to return on Monday. He didn't come home on the airplane then. I knew something was. Something terrible had happened. When I initially reported Tom missing, I told him maybe he's got lost or something.
Narrator
Las Vegas police begin their investigation by contacting Thomas partner Judy. Judy says Thomas went to Vegas to visit a friend named Kelsey Turner.
Judy Earp
He was well known in the community for helping. He had received a text from Kelsey Turner that she was very sick. He went to her house to talk to her. The next day, I get a text from him, which is Saturday, and he says, I look forward to coming home. See you on Monday, okay? But I don't hear from him.
Narrator
Judy goes on to tell police that Thomas has been missing for almost a week.
Detective Jaeger
She had requested what is known as a welfare check, that patrol officers go to Kelsey Turner's home. They knock. There is no answer. There's mail piled at the door. And as a detective, what it suggested to us is that the residence has now been suddenly vacated and we cannot account for Kelsey Turner living or dead. So it's imperative in this investigation that we find her to determine if she is, in fact, still alive because somebody that she's closely connected to is deceased.
Narrator
Coming up, detectives find a crucial piece of evidence.
Detective
There was a baseball bat, and on the baseball bat, written in marker, was a name.
Detective Jaeger
We were able to determine it was her boyfriend.
Narrator
And Thomas's partner believes she knows why he was killed.
Detective
She's trying to use whatever she can to keep his money coming.
Narrator
Investigators have found what they believe is Dr. Thomas Burchard's body in the trunk of a car. And the following morning, they attend an autopsy to confirm.
Detective Jaeger
Through fingerprints, they were able to confirm that in fact the body of the deceased was Thomas Bouchard. The medical examiner decided that the cause of death was blunt force trauma.
Narrator
Closer inspection of the Mercedes provides clues to how the murder occurred.
Detective
You could see defects in the headliner where you could tell something was being swung and it was hitting the ceiling of the car. In the trunk of the car was probably one of the most complete body disposal kits that I've stumbled across in my career. There was leather gloves, there was rags, there was garbage bags full of cleaning products.
Detective Jaeger
There was potential DNA evidence. There were latent prints.
Detective
There was a baseball bat. And on the baseball bat, written in marker, was a name, Greg Haggio.
Narrator
Now that they have more information and Thomas is officially identified, detectives call Judy to break the news.
Judy Earp
I received a phone call. It was Detective Jaeger, and he told me that they'd found Tom. I asked him, well, can I talk to him? Is he okay? And he said, no, they had. He was deceased. And at that time, you know, my world crashed in.
Detective Jaeger
By virtue of her alibi, we were able to determine that Judy had nothing to do with with the murder of Thomas Bouchard.
Judy Earp
Detective Jaeger told me that he'd been found in the trunk of a Mercedes.
Narrator
After learning this detail from detectives, Judy reveals valuable insight.
Reporter/Investigator
Judy tells investigators that the Mercedes found in the middle of the desert belongs to Kelsey Turner.
Judy Earp
I suspect that she's involved in this somehow. So I told him everything about Tom's history with Kelsey Turner.
Narrator
Judy says Thomas met Turner two years ago. She was a 25 year old single mother who was struggling financially.
Reporter/Investigator
He starts helping her out with her finances and helping her out with rent.
Narrator
According to Judy, Turner quickly became a problem.
Judy Earp
He did this for so many people and a few of them took advantage, but nothing to the extent of this. It was always, oh, I need money for medicine for my son or this or that. I initially had estimated just what I had known from rent and car and some of the credit card expenses at about 300,000. But when I actually delved into to the records, I stopped counting at about $750,000. I told Tom, I said, you know, this is bad. You need to get out of this. He said, okay, I will tell her.
Detective
He wanted to move her out of state to kind of quell the waters a little bit, to keep everything, the friction down between Judy and her. So he rented a house in Las Vegas.
Narrator
Judy says when she found out about the new arrangement, she convinced Thomas to cut Turner off for good. That was the purpose of his trip when he left for Vegas on March 1st.
Judy Earp
The next day, I get a text from him. I have effectively resolved the situation here, and I'm looking forward to returning home on Monday.
Narrator
But on Sunday, Judy got a strange message from him.
Judy Earp
I received this text saying he wanted to send me money. And I'm thinking, this is fishy. The language, the grammar was not his. I think she's stolen his phone and is trying to get my information. And so I texted back, I said, you need to call me. I don't believe this is you. And after that, the phone went dead.
Narrator
Now Judy is convinced Kelsey Turner had something to do with Thomas death. Based on the circumstances of his visit, investigators are starting to share that suspicion. After Judy's interview, investigators get in touch with the registered owner of the Mercedes in San Francisco.
Detective Jaeger
He explained that he turned over the lease of the vehicle to Kelsey Turner, and that transfer process was facilitated by Thomas Burchard. And according to Ms. Erb, Thomas had traveled last minute to Las Vegas for the sole purpose of cutting her off. So that's when the focus began to narrow on Kelsey Turner. Through local records checks, we found an incident that was about a month before the murder that involved Ms. Turner and an individual by the name of Greg Haggio.
Detective
We're able to determine that Greg Haggio was a boyfriend of Kelsey Turner.
Detective Jaeger
If he is the boyfriend at the time and this individual is coming to visit his girlfriend, you can see that we have the potential for even a love triangle that went terribly awry.
Detective
I had a rest warrant ready to go. I'm like, dude, we found a bat with his name on it with blood on it. Come on. This is a slam dunk.
Detective Jaeger
We speak with Greg, and it appeared that Greg and Kelsey broke up.
Detective
Greg Hagio wasn't happy with the kind of life that Kelsey was leading with the partying, and so he left, and he left all of his belongings in Kelsey's house. We looked at historical phone locations on him. He was actually working as a deckhand on a fishing boat when the murder happened. So we were able to rule Greg Haggio out of the equation.
Narrator
Since Kelsey Turner is the only connection left to track down, investigators obtain a search warrant for her home in Las Vegas.
Detective Jaeger
Some uniformed patrol officers showed up and were able to make entry through an unlocked door. They determined that the house was unoccupied. We could establish very quickly that was our crime scene.
Reporter/Investigator
Police find blood Stains. They find blue and white towels that match the towels that were found inside the car in the desert. They find a door that was almost off of its hinges, completely broken. There's also a smell of cleaning products and some sort of attempt of a cleanup inside the home.
Narrator
Despite all the evidence in the home pointing to foul play, investigators still can't find Kelsey Turner.
Detective Jaeger
We would have fully expected her to have reached out to law enforcement because Thomas's role in her life is so important. But there's no effort, no effort whatsoever for Kelsey Turner to make contact with law enforcement. None. It's not like she's involved or she's dead. It's more like she's likely involved, and we have to find her.
Narrator
The evidence in Kelsey Turner's home suggests Dr. Thomas Burchard might have been killed there. So detectives contact the landlord of the property to see if they know where she is.
Reporter/Investigator
When police talk to the landlord, they confirm that Thomas Burchard had been paying the rent there and that Kelsey Turner lived inside the home.
Narrator
Police discover Kelsey had two roommates, A woman named Diana Pena and a man named John Kennison. Uncertain of their connection to Kelsey, investigators take a closer look at the roommates.
Detective
So once we determine everybody that's staying at the house, that's when we start investigating to get good phone numbers for them.
Narrator
While waiting for cell information, investigators also put out a bolo alert for all three. They then track down Turner's loved ones to learn more about her.
Reporter/Investigator
So as police are talking with acquaintances, friends, and family members of Kelsey Turner, they learned that Kelsey comes from Arkansas, had divorced parents, and kind of grew up with a little bit of a rough upbringing. People always said she did not seem like the type of woman who would stay in Arkansas. They knew she had big dreams. She wanted to be in front of a camera.
Narrator
Turner married and had two children. But when the relationship ended, she took the children and moved to California to pursue her dreams.
Detective Jaeger
Kelsey Turner was an aspiring model. She had a very involved social media platform that she was utilizing to move her modeling career forward.
Reporter/Investigator
She ends up on the covers of a couple of magazines, including Playboy, Italia, and Maxim. But a lot of her work is through Instagram. She has hundreds of thousands of followers. She goes by the nickname Bad Barbie and really kind of leans into that Persona.
Narrator
According to Kelsey's friends, she was doing more than just modeling.
Friend of Kelsey Turner
I'm a celebrity dj, and I first met Kelsey when she started coming out with other girls that were in our Hollywood. Kids circle. The places that she would be out with me. At are literally the number one nightclubs in all of Hollywood. Most of the girls that would come out with me were there to find, you know, someone else that could help them get to another level. Kelsey seems like another needy LA girl, you know, that's just trying to find someone to latch onto. That's just all it seemed to me.
Narrator
And it seems Kelsey eventually found what she was looking for.
Reporter/Investigator
About a year after that Playboy appearance is when she starts reaching out to Dr. Thomas Burchard for help with finances.
Detective
Bechard was kind of her sugar daddy, paying for the residents, paying for the car, paying for car insurance.
Detective Jaeger
I believe that Thomas Bouchard and Kelsey Turner had some kind of a physical relationship. But, you know, a lot of people were able to keep that to themselves.
Narrator
Even without confirmation on the exact nature of their relationship, it's clear to investigators Kelsey leaned on Thomas.
Reporter/Investigator
It appears that after Playboy Italia, she didn't really have any big publications or any great gigs in modeling. Thomas says, hey, you know, I'll pay you to move to Las Vegas. Thinking that it would be a better
Detective Jaeger
spot for her, they determined that it might be best for her to relocate to Las Vegas to help advance her modeling career in this city.
Narrator
Kelsey's daughter stayed in California with family, and her son joined her in Vegas. Friends confirm she was sharing the house Burchard provided with her friend Diana Pena and new boyfriend, John Kennison.
Detective Jaeger
When we looked into the background of John Logan Kenison, we discovered that he had recently completed a prison term here in Nevada for drug related offenses. Now we have other names of people that are intimately connected to the home. We need to be able to get a hook into them and have an opportunity to interview them and figure out what's going on.
Narrator
In March 2019, the search for Thomas Burchard's killer continues as detectives subpoena the data of Kelsey Turner and her roommates, hoping to build a timeline.
Detective Jaeger
Thomas arrived in Las Vegas on March 1st during the evening hours. His body's found the seventh, and it's apparent by March 4th, something happened when he didn't return home to California. So the first through the fourth are very, very important dates as it relates to devices being at or near the Puritan address.
Detective
We have Diana Pena, Kelsey Turner, and then John Kennison we know are all living in the house. We get good phone numbers for them. We do a location history on those phone numbers. Everybody was at the house late night hours of March 3rd into early morning hours of March 4th, and then Diana Pena, John Kennison, Kelsey Turner, they All leave the house.
Detective Jaeger
Based on the phone records, their phones all appeared to be shut off around the same time and ended in the area of the Rio Hotel.
Narrator
Detectives contact the Rio Hotel, hoping the three might be there.
Detective
We find out that Diana Pena had rented a room at the Rio and they just abruptly left and left all of their items. Upon learning that information, we generated a search warrant to go into the storage room at the Rio to search for what items that were left.
Reporter/Investigator
They found personal items of Diana Pena, some prescription drugs, and a black notebook belonging to Thomas Burchard. They also found the ID of Kelsey Turner.
Narrator
Inside what appears to be Thomas notebook, they find his account of how desperate Kelsey had been to maintain his financial support.
Judy Earp
She was threatening him, accusing him of child pornography. Totally unfounded and absolutely untrue. But if you can imagine a man that his whole life has been a children's psychiatrist, how devastating just those accusations would be.
Detective Jaeger
I had submitted Thomas Burchard's phone to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department. Internet crimes against children. They found no evidence of child pornography on the device. So Kelsey Turner's allegation was completely unfounded. But if that information were to be released to the public, it would be incredibly damaging to Thomas reputation.
Detective
Being attractive and providing companionship to Burchard is paying for her house, it's paying for her car, and she doesn't want to get off the gravy train. She's trying to use whatever she can to keep his money coming.
Reporter/Investigator
Because police were able to find that connection of the car to Kelsey Turner, the home with bloodstains inside and the towels matching the home and the car, and a black notebook from Thomas Burchard inside that hotel room that gives them the green light for an arrest warrant.
Detective Jaeger
The search for Ms. Turner was turned over to a criminal apprehension team. It took them about a week, but they were able to identify her living out in California at a residence that belonged to one of Kelsey's friends. When she was apprehended, she was in the company of John Logan Kennison. We did not have a warrant for Kenison at that particular time, so they had to let him go.
Narrator
Turner refuses to speak with investigators, but on April 4, they receive new evidence that implicates both of her roommates in the murder as well.
Reporter/Investigator
The fingerprints that were gathered from the vehicle had been analyzed and came back belonging to Diana Pena and John Kennison.
Detective
With that, we established probable cause to get an arrest warrant for Diana and Kennison.
Detective Jaeger
Both of them were charged with murder with use of a deadly weapon.
Narrator
But A week later, Diana turns herself in. And in hopes of a deal, she agrees to. To tell her story. From the beginning.
Diana Pena
I met Kelsey from a friend of a friend, and then she asked me to move in not too long after that. I think she. She was very new to Vegas, so Dr. Burchard financed quite a bit of her expenses. She told me that he was like her sugar daddy. She would call him, message him, send him videos, and he would send her money. He was just a meal ticket. She called him her whale.
Narrator
Coming up, Diana's interview provides shocking insight.
Diana Pena
There were messages about taking her son
Narrator
away from her, and possible motives are revealed.
Diana Pena
He told me they were going to kill him and that he hopes that they don't kill me, too.
Narrator
On April 13, 2019, detectives sit down with Diana Pena, who says when Dr. Thomas Burchard showed up in Vegas on March 1, Kelsey Turner knew he was there to end their arrangement.
Diana Pena
Kelsey had told me probably about a month before he had come out that he was talking about cutting her off, but he was having a hard time actually doing it. She kind of had control over him. And Dr. Burchard said that Kelsey needed a lot of help. He said that he loved Kelsey, but she needs to get her life together, stuff like that.
Narrator
According to Pena, it led to heated arguments between the two, which she experienced firsthand the day after Thomas arrived.
Diana Pena
The next morning, I went to work. Kelsey messaged me, and she's like, can you please come home early? I'm upset. And she said she would come pick me up. I got in the car. I was in the backseat. Kelsey was in the front seat. Dr. Burchard was driving. So Kelsey took Dr. Bouchard's phone and was trying to do the GPS. And while she was on his phone, she kind of looked through his messages and seen messages between him and her mother about taking her son away from her.
Narrator
Pena says the decision caused Turner to snap.
Diana Pena
She was kicking him, hitting him, screaming at him. Eventually, we did make it back to the house. Dr. Burchard went up to the room that he was staying in and just shut the door.
Narrator
Fearing the situation might escalate, Pena asked a friend to take Kelsey's child, who was at the home, to a hotel. Hours later, her intuition proved correct.
Diana Pena
After he went upstairs, Kelsey would randomly go up there and start screaming at him. And then Kenison would go up there and start screaming at him. And then I would tell them to go downstairs and calm down. Eventually, she yelled at Kenison to knock Dr. Burchard out, and Kenison ran upstairs, broke down the door. I'm not sure where the bat came from, but I knew he had a bat. You could hear it at that point. I ran upstairs into the room, and I just kind of tried to get Kennison to get off of Burchard. I told Dr. Bouchard to stay on the floor because his left eye was, like, filled with blood. He said he needed to go to the hospital and offered to say that he had been mugged. I helped him downstairs, kind of helped him clean up.
Narrator
Pena says early the next morning, Turner and Kenison eventually agreed to take Thomas to the emergency room.
Diana Pena
I helped him into the backseat of Kelsey's car. Dr. Burchard said he wanted his coat. So Kelsey and Kenison went back into the house. That's when he told me they were going to kill him and that he hopes that they don't kill me, too. I just told him, that's not going to happen. They're taking you to the hospital. Why would they kill you? And then Kelsey came back into the garage, and she told me to go into the house and clean. So I went back into the house, and I was cleaning. I started hearing Kelsey screaming again. She was calling Kenison a bitch and. And to knock Dr. Burchard. So I came running down the stairs and told her to stop.
Narrator
But Pena says she was too late.
Diana Pena
Kenison had a gun that was covered in blood. Kelsey told me that that was what he used to beat the doctor's face. I was like, is everything okay? And she's like, he's dead. I was pretty scared and just not sure what to do.
Narrator
Terrified that Thomas was right and she might be next, Pena went with Turner and Kenison to a hotel to hide out.
Diana Pena
Kenison left with the car with the body in there to drive her car somewhere and do something with it. We sat in the hotel room for days. Kelsey was constantly googling, turning on the news, and she had seen on the news that the car had been discovered. They just knew that, you know, it's Kelsey's car, it's her sugar daddy in the trunk. Like, Kelsey was freaking out knowing. It's very easy to connect those dots.
Narrator
Diana Pena says the plan was for all of them to flee the state, but she decided to turn herself in.
Detective
After the interview, she was booked into Clark County Detention center on her warrant.
Diana Pena
When they put me in a jail cell, that's probably when I felt the most safe, because who's going to break into a jail to hurt somebody?
Detective Jaeger
She confirmed a lot of things that we already knew and opened her Eyes on a lot of other things.
Diana Pena
I assumed I would have to testify at some point. I was there, so it was the right thing to do.
Narrator
It's been a month since Dr. Thomas Burchard was found murdered. And Las Vegas police have two of their three suspects in custody.
Reporter/Investigator
Kelsey Turner has acquired legal representation. Diana Pena went to police to help them piece together exactly what happened. But the other man who's involved here, John Kenison, is still out on the loose.
Detective
We established through fingerprints on the bat, probable cause for Kenison. So based on that, we had an arrest warrant. The Katz team was looking for him using his phone.
Detective Jaeger
They determined that John, in fact, returned from California to Las Vegas, went back to his mom's house, and that's where the authorities were, were able to locate and apprehend him.
Narrator
Like Turner, Tennison refuses to talk. But Pena agrees to plead guilty to being an accessory and testify against the other two.
Diana Pena
I was sentenced to three years of probation and a felony accessory.
Judy Earp
I don't harbor any ill feelings towards her. I wish she had called 911. But I do understand that she was very frightened and probably in shock. And I believe Kelsey Turner probably was using her just like she used everybody.
Narrator
In May 2018, three years after Dr. Thomas Burchard's murder, Kenison decides to plead guilty as well.
Detective Jaeger
Logan is accepting full responsibility for his actions. He knows that he committed a terrible crime, and he is remorseful for that.
Reporter/Investigator
The total sentence, the aggregate sentence, will be 18 to 45 years in the Nevada Department of Corrections.
Narrator
Later that year, Kelsey Turner makes a deal of her own.
Reporter/Investigator
Do you understand you're being charged with second degree murder?
Diana Pena
Yes, ma'.
Judy Earp
Am.
Reporter/Investigator
How do you plead to that charge?
Narrator
Guilty pursuant to Alford or not guilty?
Diana Pena
Guilty, pursuant to Alfred.
Detective
To explain an Alford plea, you're not confessing to it. You're just acknowledging that the state has enough evidence to convict you of it.
Judy Earp
Ms. Turner.
Reporter/Investigator
And according to the laws of the state of Nevada, you. You're hereby judged guilty of second degree murder, a felony. You're hereby sentenced to 10 to 25 years in the Nevada Department of Corrections.
Judy Earp
In the initial court hearings, she's smiling and laughing and posing for the cameras. Even if she was not guilty, somebody that you knew was murdered, that's just evil. Just evil. I never realized such evil existed in this world until this happened. Physically, it has been very difficult for me. The emotional turmoil I have experienced was and is literally gut wrenching.
Reporter/Investigator
No matter what Dr. Burchard's motivations were for trying to help a single mom in need. It's just terrible that someone who had helped so many people in his life and seemed to only try to help people in his life ended up paying the ultimate price for it.
Judy Earp
I think Kelsey Turner is a danger to society. Honestly, I don't think she should ever get out of prison.
Host: Oxygen
Episode Date: May 17, 2026
Episode Theme: The murder of Dr. Thomas Burchard, a respected psychiatrist, and the unraveling of his complicated relationship with model Kelsey Turner. The episode explores the investigation, the suspects, and the tragic consequences of manipulation, financial dependence, and betrayal.
This episode examines the shocking murder of Dr. Thomas Burchard, whose body was found in the trunk of a car abandoned in the Las Vegas desert. Investigators soon focus on Kelsey Turner, a Playboy model with whom Burchard had a financial and possibly romantic relationship. The story delves into issues of trust, manipulation, and the dark interplay between money and loyalty, culminating in a high-profile criminal case with multiple suspects.
Unusual Crime Scene ([00:11]–[04:49])
Autopsy and Evidence ([11:49])
This episode is an intricate portrait of a grisly murder, unraveling the layers of generosity, dependence, and ruthlessness that led to the end of Dr. Thomas Burchard’s life. Through interviews, investigative detail, and courtroom developments, the chilling case exemplifies the consequences of misplaced trust and the manipulative power of desperation.
Memorable Ending Reflection:
“No matter what Dr. Burchard's motivations were for trying to help a single mom in need. It's just terrible that someone who had helped so many people in his life and seemed to only try to help people in his life ended up paying the ultimate price for it.” – Reporter/Investigator ([41:20])