A Playboy model killed her children’s psychologist in 2019 because he didn’t want to be her sugar daddy anymore, a key witness in the case has said.
Kelsey Turner, who went by the Instagram name, Badd Barbie, killed 71-year-old Dr. Thomas Burchard after he had spent over $300,000 on her lavish lifestyle, a Las Vegas court heard at the time.
“He didn’t want to be her golden goose anymore. He was going to take it all away,” Turner’s roommate, Diana Nicole Peña, told ABC‘s 20/20 in an interview broadcast on Friday night.
Kelsey Turner’s mug shot. The Playboy model was sentenced in 2023 to 10 to 25 years for assisting in the murder of Dr. Thomas Burchard.
Las Vegas Police Department
In addition, Turner was concerned that Burchard might have her children taken away.
Turner modeled for Playboy and Maxim and had a large following on Instagram. In January, 2023, she was sentenced to 10 to 25 years for the death of Burchard.
He was found in the trunk of her Mercedes-Benz at Lake Mead near Las Vegas in March, 2019.
Turner, 31, and her boyfriend, Jon Logan Kennison, 32, beat the doctor to death before hurriedly hiding his body and fleeing to California.
Kennison pleaded guilty to murder and was sentenced to 18 to 45 years imprisonment.
Newsweek sought email comment from Turner’s attorney on Monday.
Peña, a former roommate of Turner and Kennison, was initially charged with murder, but later pleaded guilty to one charge of accessory to murder. She was sentenced to three years’ probation.
In the ABC interview, she recalled the night that Burchard was murdered.
“I’d never been so scared in my life. It’s just like real terror. And then, I just kind of went numb. I just turned around and started washing dishes, because that was the only thing I could do to calm down,” she said.
Turner had been concerned that Burchard would work to have her children taken away.
“She saw some stuff that she didn’t like,” Peña told ABC. “Messages between her mom and Dr. Burchard … talking about maybe taking away her children.”
She later saw Kennison attack the doctor and felt that Turner was encouraging the violence,
“I just started screaming at them to stop and calm down,” Peña recalled. Burchard was still alive and told her: “You know, they’re going to kill me.”
Kennison later beat him to death with a gun while Turner encouraged him. Peña turned herself in to police after initially fleeing with the model and Kennison to California.
According to the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department, Burchard paid the rent on a home Turner shared with her mother in Salinas, California, and later paid the rent on the house she shared with Kennison and Peña in Las Vegas.
According to an arrest warrant application for Turner written by Nevada police officer, Matthew Dosch, a suspicious car was reported in the Lake Mead area on March 7, 2019.
Officers could detect a foul smell inside. They found the body of an older man in the trun, who was later determined to have died from blows to the head. He also had several defensive wounds to his arms.
When Dosch went to Turner’s house, the landlord told him that Burchard paid the rent. The officer wrote that, inside the house, he found cleaning supplies and evidence of a cleanup in the garage.
In an online interview with Playboy, Turner described herself as “impulsive,” adding: “I love emotions and fun, I live my life fully aware that it is the only one I have.”
