SALT LAKE CITY — A serial killer sitting on death row in California has been charged with the 1998 murder of a Salt Lake City woman.
An aggravated murder charge was filed Friday against Chester Turner by Salt Lake County District Attorney Sim Gill.
Turner is currently imprisoned in California after being convicted in April 2007 of murdering 10 women in Los Angeles between 1987 and 1998. He was then convicted of four additional murders in 2014 and sentenced to death a second time.
At the time of the second conviction, Turner was described by prosecutors as the most prolific serial killer in Los Angeles history, according to the Los Angeles Daily News.
The Utah charge relates to the death of Itisha Camp, a woman found dead behind a Salt Lake City business at 165 East 600 South by three juveniles on Sept. 24, 1998. Camp, who was in her 20s, was determined to have died by strangulation from a scarf found tied around her neck. DNA discovered on the scarf and Camp's pants and back matched Turner's.
The evidence collected was not run through a database in 2013, but not a national version until recently, which then matched it to Turner.
"The DNA profile had been identified in 2013 and it was uploaded, but somebody just did not check the right box and it did not get uploaded to the national database." explained Gill.
At the time of the Utah murder, Turner was on parole in California and had fled to Salt Lake City.
“It must have been profoundly difficult for Ms. Camp’s family and loved ones over the last 25 years, not knowing if the suspect in her murder was still out in the public. We hope the filing of this charge brings some relief to Ms. Camp’s loved ones and our entire community, knowing that the defendant is already behind bars,” said Gill.
Although Gill would like to prosecute Turner in Utah to bring closure for the community, he is unsure of what that timeline could look like.
