It was no later than 9:30 a.m. on the morning of March 7th, 2019, when a police dispatcher working in Clark County, Nevada received a report that something strange had been discovered along a dirt road within the Mojave Desert, a mere twenty miles outside the city limits of Las Vegas. The caller, a father of two, said that he had been driving toward the Lake Mead National Recreation Area with his children when they happened upon a vehicle abandoned just two miles off State Route 147, near mile marker 14. It was a blue Mercedes-Benz C300, and the man had decided to call it in for two reasons: all the car’s windows were rolled down and its driver was nowhere to be found; he was worried that somebody could be wandering the desert in need of assistance. He had no possible way of knowing what was inside the car’s trunk.
A little over an hour later, at around 10:45 AM, patrol officers from the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (LVMPD) arrived at the scene. By now, the caller was long gone, but they were able to locate the vehicle without issue because it was not parked in a secluded area. It seemed that it had gotten stuck while trying to drive off the marked dirt road and deeper into the desert.
At first, the officers had been in no hurry—hence their slow response time—however, upon stepping out into the cool and arid morning sun, they realized that something was seriously amiss: the vehicle’s windows were not rolled down as reported; one was, but the other had been shattered by a rock, which then lay in the car’s front floorboard. On the driver’s seat, console, and glove compartment, red smears that could be blood were spotted. In the passenger’s seat, a pair of discarded latex gloves lay beside what appeared to be the charred remnants of a small fire.
It appeared that someone had attempted to set the car ablaze, but the fire-retardant material had failed to ignite. Leaning further inside to have a closer look, they then also detected the distinct smell of decomposition emanating from somewhere nearby. They knew exactly where to look.
Inside the trunk, wrapped in old clothes, soiled bed linens, and several blue-and-white bath towels, the decomposing body of a 71-year-old man was discovered. His face was a motley palette of unnatural colors: blues and greens and blacks. Cuts, scrapes, and abrasions were seen running haphazardly across his neck and chest, and a portion of his ear was missing. The man had obviously been severely beaten, perhaps even tortured. At this point, the patrol officers backed away and called in the big guns.
Hours later, once photographs of the scene had been taken, boot and tire tracks had been collected, and a warrant had been obtained, the Mercedes was towed to the LVMPD’s Crime Laboratory. Here, the body was removed and sent to the county Medical Examiner’s Office so that a more thorough examination of the car’s interior could be conducted. Inside the cab, the red stains on the seats were confirmed to be blood.
Someone had attempted to scrub them away using cleaning products but had failed miserably. They had also completely missed the blood droplets that officers found spattered up the backside of the driver’s headrest and on the ceiling, as well as the blood smears that were seen running across the rear seats and backrests themselves. Based on the angle of the spatter, authorities theorized that an attack had taken place in the backseat; based on the smears, the victim’s limp body had been dragged outside the car afterwards to be placed inside the trunk.
When they then moved their search there, they found, among the towels that once obscured the body, a bloody vest and set of housekeys. Alongside these was a potential murder weapon: a baseball bat.
As all these discoveries were being made at the Crime Lab, Clark County medical examiner Dr. Lisa Gavin was beginning her examination of the body. Surprising no one, blunt force trauma was determined to be the cause of death, all but confirming the forensic team’s theory. In her report, she stated that the wounds had been inflicted by an unidentified object that displayed a “unique pattern,” and that his nose and one of his cheekbones had been caved in.
She also stated that defensive wounds were present on his hands, wrists, and arms.
Thankfully, it didn’t take long for the police to discover the identity of their hapless victim. Using a small stack of credit cards that were discovered bundled together and stuffed inside his shirt pocket, they ID’ed him as Dr. Thomas Burchard, a renowned child psychologist and someone with whom the LVMPD was intimately familiar; they had been investigating a missing person’s report that had been filed on the doctor’s behalf three days earlier by his longtime girlfriend, Judy Earp.
According to the original report, Dr. Burchard had flown from California to Las Vegas six days before the car’s discovery, on March 1st, to meet with a woman named Kelsey Turner at her home for personal reasons, but he had not been seen or heard from in several days. On March 3rd, the report stated, he had stopped replying to Judy’s text messages. On March 4th, he had missed his return flight.
Obviously, Judy had been very concerned about the doctor, especially considering he was showing early signs of Alzheimer’s.
Since March 4th, officers had been dispatched to Kelsey’s home at 7474 Puritan Ave three separate times—on the 4th, 5th, and 6th—for welfare checks. This is where she lived with her three roommates, Diana Pena, Jon Logan Kennison, and Jeremy Escherich. However, the police had not been able to locate or speak with the doctor during any of these visits, nor had they been able to locate either Kelsey Turner, Diana Pena, or Jon Logan Kennison.
A full mailbox and a package left unattended outside the front door had seemingly confirmed that nobody was home, as had neighbors who had claimed they had not seen Kelsey or anyone else at the home the prior few days. They also said that they had not seen Kelsey’s car, a blue Mercedes-Benz C300, venturing in and out as it normally did. Now, the police knew why.
The only one of the four roommates the police had been able to speak with prior to the car’s discovery was Jeremy Escherich, who they had found sitting outside the home on their third and final visit on March 6th. That day, he claimed to be locked out and said that he had not been inside the home since March 2nd, since Logan Kennison had thrown him out after a heated argument had occurred between Jeremy himself and Kelsey. He claimed to be waiting for one of the other roommates to return home and let him back inside, but so far, nobody had stopped by.
Once it became clear that the police were investigating Dr. Burchard’s disappearance, however, Jeremy found a way to gain access to the home through its garage. Once inside, he allowed the officers to have a look around themselves as well.
According to their report, the authorities had not noticed anything out of the ordinary inside the home, aside from a few scattered cleaning supplies and a bedroom door that appeared to have been broken down. Jeremy could not explain the cleaning supplies, nor could he say for certain what had happened to the door because it had been intact when he was thrown out on the 2nd—although he did theorize that Logan Kennison probably had something to do with it because he was a former gang member with a notoriously violent personality.
At the time of the final welfare check, the police had not been too interested in the details of the domestic dispute between Jeremy Escherich and Logan Kennison and had left the home after confirming that Dr. Burchard was not inside. Less than 24 hours later, however, everything had changed, and that broken door and the cleaning supplies were cast in a much more sinister light.
Now, the police needed to return to 7474 Puritan Ave immediately to have another look around and speak with as many of the roommates as possible. They needed to piece the full story together, but this, it turns out, would be much easier said than done as Kelsey, Logan, and Diana were all still missing.
Where had they gone? Were they on the run? Had they been killed as well? The police were as eager to answer these questions as they were to figure out why a 71-year-old man had flown across state lines to stay inside a rented home filled with 20-year-olds.
The Kind Doctor
To start us off, let’s begin by talking about the man in the trunk. As Judy Earp now explains in television interviews, she and Dr. Thomas Kirk Burchard met one another in the early 2000s while on a trip to Las Vegas with a group of mutual friends.
At that time, she was a bit younger than he was by about 15 years—he was in his late-50s, she was in her 40s—but that didn’t matter. They got along well, she said, because they had so much in common: both were divorced, had similar interests, and felt like fish out of water in Sin City because neither gambled nor drank alcohol. Since that is basically all there is to do there, they instead clung to one another, choosing to fill their time sitting beside the hotel’s pool.
It was while there, sitting and observing the bizarre drunken antics of those around them, that Judy first discovered what she loved so much about Burchard. He was kind, funny, witty, and one of the most intelligent people she had ever met. Needless to say, there was instant chemistry, and they found themselves talking about a great many things during their time together.
Dr. Burchard said that he was born in Boston, Massachusetts on February 16th, 1948, where he had grown up inside the home of his father, Charles Burchard, a Professor of Architecture at Harvard’s Graduate School of Design. His mother’s name was Helen, and he had two siblings, Linda and Peter.
When Thomas was still a child, he moved with his family to Virginia, where his father went on to become the founding dean of Virginia Tech’s College of Architecture and Urban Studies. While living here, Thomas found himself enrolled in Antioch College, where he earned his Bachelor of Science in 1970 before enrolling in Medical School at the University of Virginia. This, he said, was where he had discovered his life’s passion: child psychology.
Even as a young adult with no children of his own, Thomas was excellent with children. He was friendly, approachable, and knew how to effectively communicate with them in a way that didn’t feel forced. It was, he often said, a gift that he felt could be utilized to make a difference in many young people’s lives. And that is exactly what he spent the next four decades of his life doing.
After completing his internship at the Cincinnati Children’s Hospital, his residency at the Sepulveda Veterans Administration Hospital, and his fellowship at the University of California at Los Angeles, he landed a permanent job at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula (CHOMP). This is where, inside a small office filled with candy, toys, puzzles, books, trinkets, and other oddities, he treated children who had been through some of the most traumatic situations imaginable. To put them at ease, he often performed magic tricks, told silly jokes, and displayed a compassionate and caring attitude that endeared him to nearly everyone he met, earning him a reputation as one of the best in his field.
At different times in his life, Burchard served as the Director of Child and Adolescent Outpatient Programs, as the Director of Mental Health for Child and Family Programs, and as a Chairman for the Psychiatry Department. He was also a Member of the American Medical Association, the California Medical Association, and the American Psychiatric Association. More than a mouthful, his resume was certainly padded.
However, beyond his career achievements, Thomas’s personal life was robust as well. As stated, he had been married and divorced, had many friends and hobbies, and was a cinephile who loved to talk about his favorite films. On weekends, he could usually be found at nerdy conventions, dressed in his usual attire: khaki pants, a suit jacket or sweater vest, and a bright bowtie.
Yes, as corny as he was with his magic wands and card tricks, this was the man that Judy Earp fell in love with beside a pool in Las Vegas in the early 2000s. He was everything she had been looking for, and over the next 17 years, as they grew closer and closer, their lives became more and more intertwined. By the 2010s, they were married in practically every way except on paper: they lived together, socialized together, and spent their free time going to the same types of conventions and magic meetups that the doctor had always enjoyed. As they did this, Judy sold homes as a realtor and Burchard continued to see patients well into his older age at CHOMP, where he was then known as the hospital’s year-round Santa Claus.
Of their life together, Judy had almost nothing bad to say about the doctor, except that he was perhaps a bit too naïve. In an interview with ABC’s 20/20, she stated:
“[Thomas] felt that most problems in the world were caused [by] chemical imbalances that medicine could correct or a lack of money… [he] thought that he could save the world with his pen: write a check or write a prescription…”
This mindset had followed Dr. Burchard throughout his career, inspiring him to lead a very generous life, giving to those in need whenever possible. For his young patients whose families could not afford their expensive and very necessary medications, he would go into his own pocket.
If their family could not afford school supplies, he would surprise them during a regular appointment with a new backpack filled with clothes and stationery. If a family was struggling to the point that they were about to be evicted or their electricity was about to be shut off, he would offer them a “loan” for which he would never ask repayment or place an anonymous call to their electric company to pay off their past due balance.
He could not, it seems, turn down anyone in need, and this generosity extended to total strangers as well. When approached by someone on the street, especially vulnerable women—single mothers, prostitutes, and homeless runaways—Dr. Burchard could not help but give, which Judy says allowed some people to take advantage of the doctor, especially in his old age when his body and mind were both beginning to slow down.
By the time he was in his late 60s, Dr. Burchard had begun showing the early signs of Alzheimer’s. He had, on more than one occasion, gotten lost while walking home, and would sometimes get sidetracked while in the middle of a sentence. He was also forced to keep many of his important details, like his online passwords and banking information, written down in a notebook that he kept in his back pocket.
Because of these struggles, Burchard knew that he should retire sooner rather than later, but he continued his practice in order to treat a few patients who refused to see anyone but him. Stopping now, he felt, was like abandoning them, and he simply couldn’t do it. He couldn’t abandon anyone, and Judy believes that it was this shortcoming that allowed people like Kelsey Turner to attach themselves to Dr. Burchard like a leech.
The Badd Barbie
Thomas Burchard and Kelsey Nicole Turner were dissimilar in almost every way imaginable, and although it is not clear exactly when or how the two first met, it is generally reported in the media that their correspondence began online sometime around 2016. At this time, both Dr. Burchard and Kelsey were living in California. Kelsey was in Salinas, where she was then pursuing a career in modeling. Judging by what she posted online, her efforts seemed to be paying off.
As a content creator/influencer, Kelsey was primarily focused on her Instagram page, where, by 2019, she had amassed a sizable following under the name “BaddBarbie.” Here, she had built a brand for herself that revolved around being a care-free, fun-loving party girl, complete with all the typical trappings: platinum blonde hair, bright and bold lipstick, skimpy outfits that revealed ample cleavage, and a playboy bunny tattoo. To really sell it, Kelsey often posted videos of herself dancing inside dimly lit clubs, grinding on strangers, and knocking back shots of clear alcohol.
Most people would refer to Kelsey as an Instagram Model, and that is how the media often refers to her as well; however, she was a real, working model in the traditional sense of the word as well. Starting sometime in the mid-2010s, she had made her way onto mainstream lifestyle and adult magazine covers, including ONETEN, Conceited, Dream Vixens, Maxim, and Playboy Italia.
She had also secured a few small background roles in some very obscure independent films, most notably Wally Got Wasted. IMDB states that the film is like “The Hangover meets Weekend at Bernie’s.” It won Best Feature Film Script at the Pittsburgh Independent Film Festival.
Of this time in her life, Kelsey once stated the following in an interview:
“I think the best way to describe myself is impulsive. I love thrills and fun, living my life fully aware that it’s the only one I’ve got.”
This free-spirit energy and the provocative photographs were definitely what drew eyeballs to her account; however, what her followers at the time didn’t know was that most of the persona described was exactly that: a persona, one that was deliberately manufactured to hide who Kelsey truly was.
When the cameras were off, the real Kelsey was a struggling single mother of two who lived with her own mother because she could not manage to make ends meet. She did modeling gigs as described, but because those gigs were infrequent and often paid very little, she never managed to make it out of the red. She had nice clothes and a flashy car to keep up appearances, but the car was leased and the clothes were drowning her in credit card debt.
Furthermore, while Kelsey liked to pretend that she was flawless and always had been, she had only been living her idealistic lifestyle for a short time. Her childhood and teenage years had been spent much differently, living just outside Jonesboro, Arkansas, where common weekend activities included horseback riding, hunting, and fishing. There, there were no dance clubs—no nightlife of any kind, in fact—and most residents were perfectly fine with this.
Turning in early on a Friday night after a hard week of work was seen as perfectly normal. But, as you can imagine, Kelsey could not stand it and had spent her entire life trying to distance herself from her humble roots.
According to those who knew her as a child, Kelsey was always a self-described “girly-girl,” with much bigger ambitions than Arkansas could ever hope to support. Even back then, she wanted to be a model, and her interests were centered solely around makeup, fashion, and all things glamorous. This had earned her the local nickname “Barbie,” but reading fashion magazines and competing in teen beauty pageants were as close to that lifestyle as she could get—until she reached high school and a new avenue to fame opened via the internet.
Around 2010, when Kelsey was a senior high school student, she started her first Instagram page under the name Arkansassy1993 (Arkansas + Sassy). There, she posted pictures of herself in sundresses and cowboy boots. This earned her a small, dedicated following, but it was still nothing like she was hoping for.
Despite all her effort, she couldn’t find her breakout moment, no matter how high she hiked up her sundress for the camera. It wasn’t until she moved to California—after attending college and giving birth to her two children—that she dropped the cowgirl style and rapidly morphed into the more risqué version of herself. And because she really did have the body to pull it off, this is when magazines like Maxim and Playboy Italia began approaching her.
It was at this point, for the first time in her life, that young Kelsey began to have the opportunity to make it big. However, for whatever reason, no agency seemed interested in giving her a regular contract, and she continued to struggle because of it. As some have speculated, her failure may have been caused by certain character defects.
Some believe that was by far Kelsey’s biggest problem: she was a brat, a brat with a temper and a vicious mean streak who neighbors would overhear shouting terrible things at her mother, calling her a whore, telling her that she hated her. It was the type of thing you would expect from a 15-year-old girl, not a 25-year-old woman. Those same neighbors would also report near-constant banging and thrashing coming from inside the home, leading them to believe that she may have been physically abusive toward her family as well, though there is no way to confirm this.
First, her neighbors said, all would be quiet. Then something would make a crashing sound in the middle of the night and the fireworks would start. This would go on for hours, until Kelsey had exhausted herself, after which time she would often leave the home and be gone for days at a time without checking in on her children. She had a similar reputation among her friends as well, many of whom stated that she was either “sassy” or downright nasty to the people around her, depending on the situation.
She was also, as the world would someday find out, very manipulative.
Starting sometime around 2015, she began messaging men online through her BaddBarbie Instagram account, men who were desperate enough—and wealthy enough—to pay for a tiny fraction of her attention. She would find these men by skimming through the likes on her pictures. Then she would message them privately, build a flirty rapport, and begin dropping hints that she needed money. She would play at their heartstrings, often making it seem like her situation was much worse than it was.
This is, unfortunately, where Dr. Thomas Burchard comes back into our story.
A “Transactional Relationship”
As stated, Dr. Burchard and Kelsey likely met online sometime around 2016, when Kelsey was trying to make it big in the modeling world. And, while it is not clear who reached out to who first, one thing that is clear is that money began flowing from Dr. Burchard’s bank account to Kelsey’s pocket—a lot of money, somewhere in the range of $300,000 to $750,000 in about three years.
For this reason, many news organizations refer to Dr. Burchard as Kelsey’s “sugar daddy,” and claim that the pair had a “transactional relationship,” which heavily implies a sexual component. Their primary evidence for this, other than the obscene amount of money, is the fact that the police would eventually find sexually explicit photographs of Kelsey saved on Dr. Burchard’s phone.
However, before we go any further, it needs to be made clear: there is no direct evidence that the doctor and Kelsey ever had a physical sexual relationship of any kind. As you will see, Dr. Burchard’s sexual attraction toward Kelsey certainly played a part in their relationship, but Judy Earp, the person who is indisputably the most reliable source of information on this topic, claims that the media purposefully played up the “sugar daddy” angle to make the story spicier:
“Some of the media sources (are) absolutely so far off, nowhere near the truth…”
Burchard’s main concern, Judy believes, was always Kelsey’s children.
Even today, many people choose to report solely on the more salacious aspects of the case and ignore the fact that Dr. Burchard was an aging man that Judy claims Kelsey took advantage of. This is how she says it all happened:
Kelsey first presented herself to Dr. Burchard as a woman in need—the exact type he could never turn down—and was always calling or texting him with some sob story to ask for money. At first, her requests were small and almost always revolved around her children. They needed food, medicine, and clothes, but as time went on, her messages became more and more frequent, and the requested amounts became larger and larger.
At one point, Judy says, Dr. Burchard had basically placed Kelsey on an allowance because she was, in his eyes, such a helpless person. He had also leased a new BMW for her so that she could drive herself to and from her modeling gigs.
Now, obviously, the sexually explicit photographs on the doctor’s phone prove there was a bit more to the story than that, but Judy explains these away by stating that Burchard had a secret not many people knew about: he was heavily addicted to pornography and had spent years collecting photos of thousands of women, all of which were stored on his phone and computer. Kelsey was just one of those women, and she wasn’t even the first he had paid money to directly. She was just one in a long line of little “playthings” that the doctor used to occupy his free time.
And, while Judy didn’t necessarily approve of this “hobby,” she turned a blind eye to it because she felt that it was ultimately harmless. She did not feel threatened by Kelsey or the other women in any way. It wasn’t until she discovered how much money Dr.
Burchard had been sending that her feelings on the matter began to change.
The first time Judy realized something was seriously wrong was when she discovered a copy of a signed lease for a home in California inside Burchard’s car. This home was not their home, and she had never seen the address listed anywhere before that day. When she confronted Burchard, he sheepishly admitted that he was renting a home for Kelsey as she could not get approved for one herself; her credit score was too poor.
Knowing that they would be on the hook for any damage done to the home during one of the wild parties Kelsey was famous for, Judy was horrified and urged Burchard to reconsider. But he refused, saying that she needed his help.
Believing that Burchard was once again being terribly naïve, Judy then started digging, and this was when she arrived at the conservative estimate of $300,000, which she would later state was far too low. Burchard, on the other hand, believed it was too high, causing Judy to suspect that Kelsey may have stolen Burchard’s banking information from the notebook in his back pocket to use on purchases he did not approve of. She had bought herself fancy clothes, jewelry, and even plastic surgery using his credit.
From here, Judy became determined to put distance between Burchard and Kelsey, urging him to cut her off immediately. This, Judy states, is when the animosity between her and Kelsey first started, and they would eventually grow to despise one another.
In a text message that would later be obtained by police, Kelsey told Dr. Burchard that Judy was:
“…on the shitlist with me and if she gets me evicted, I’ll kill her.”
Judy saw this text exchange and once again urged Burchard to reconsider, asking him if he really wanted his money going to someone who would make threats like that. This time, her efforts were successful.
Sometime around the end of 2018, Burchard told Kelsey that he would not be paying for her lifestyle anymore; her free ride had officially come to an end. This led to Kelsey being evicted from her California home and losing access to her leased BMW not long after. One of her children was also removed from her custody at this time for unknown reasons.
Kelsey, of course, blamed Judy for all this. She was extraordinarily upset and made her frustrations clear by sending Dr. Burchard another series of threats aimed at Judy’s life. From this point on, Judy would not speak Kelsey’s name, merely referring to her in interviews as “that dangerously insane, white-trash whore.”
Welcome to Fabulous Las Vegas
Now, considering the fact that our story began with the police discovering Dr. Burchard’s body stuffed inside Kelsey Turner’s trunk, it should come as no surprise that the two of them eventually reconnected. However, the way everything transpired is probably not what you are expecting:
Shortly after being cut off, Kelsey turned her ire away from Judy and toward Dr. Burchard himself by sending another series of text messages in which she threatened to submit an anonymous tip to his superiors at CHOMP claiming that he was a pedophile with images of children stored on his phone. To be perfectly clear, the police would later confirm that these pictures did not exist, but Burchard knew that the allegation alone would be enough to permanently damage his reputation and felt that he couldn’t take that chance.
He was still seeing a few of his established patients and didn’t want to be put on leave or forced into retirement while the allegations were being investigated. He also felt that he couldn’t go to the police himself for similar reasons; it would only bring undue attention to the matter. Feeling boxed in and horribly embarrassed, Burchard just wanted the situation to go away, so he did the only thing he could think of: he tried to buy Kelsey off.
Although it is not known how much money Burchard gave Kelsey at this time, he reached back out to her sometime around late 2018 and offered her a simple deal: he would provide her with enough money to get settled in a new city somewhere far away so long as she agreed to cut contact with him afterwards. He would even sign a new lease for her and help her acquire a new car. Kelsey accepted Burchard’s offer and chose Las Vegas as her new home.
Soon, Kelsey left her mother, one of her children, and the state of California behind and moved into the home at 7474 Puritan Ave with her 4-year-old son, the one she retained custody of. Judging by the pictures available online, the house was very nice. It had two stories, a large open living room and kitchen, a three-car garage, and a pool, all of which were billed directly to Dr. Thomas Burchard.
For transportation, Kelsey acquired a vehicle from a Chinese couple named Kwong and Rose. Kwong was in America for business reasons but was scheduled to return to China soon, so he was looking for someone to take over his car payments. With Burchard’s blessing, Kelsey paid him $2,500 and signed an agreement to take over the payments, which were approximately $550/month. This car was the Mercedes-Benz C300 that would be found abandoned in less than 4 months.
And just like that, Kelsey was back inside the doctor’s wallet, and her career was seemingly back on track as well. The reason that Kelsey had chosen Las Vegas was that, although modeling opportunities were much fewer and much less glamorous in the desert, she had secured a job working for a party promoter at various hotels along the Las Vegas Strip. Her new job was to be the “main attraction” that would draw in businessmen and other clients to various parties and charity events.
Oftentimes, her face—and body—were even featured on the posters outside, where she was advertised as a Playboy model. The job, and the attention, suited her well, and it didn’t take long for her to start making friends, three of which would become her roommates: Diana Pena, Jeremy Escherich, and Jon Logan Kennison.
Diana was a bartender at Caesars Palace at The Colosseum, and Jeremy Escherich was… well, there’s actually not much info about him online, so we’ll just say he lived there too. That’s fine because he won’t be playing a very large role in our story. Jon Logan Kennison, on the other hand, will.
According to media articles, Logan was an aspiring musician with former gang affiliations that Kelsey started dating after she arrived in Vegas. The best way to describe their romance was a whirlwind as they reportedly fell in love very fast, getting large tattoos of each other’s names on their arms after just a few weeks of dating.
Inside the new home, Kelsey and Logan shared the upstairs master bedroom, Kelsey’s 4-year-old son had his own room beside them, Diana stayed in the remaining upstairs bedroom, and Jeremy lived downstairs beside the garage. All of them were staying there rent free, and it was at this point that Kelsey could have just taken what she had been given and been happy. But she couldn’t resist the temptation to rub her victory in Judy Earp’s face.
Not long after settling, Kelsey sent Judy a text message saying:
“Thanks for taking the BMW – I look Better in the Benz anyway🖕🏻🖕🏻🖕🏻”
This, reportedly, is when Judy learned that Burchard and Kelsey had reconnected, although when Burchard explained the reasoning behind his actions, she was not upset. They both hoped that, with Kelsey almost 500 miles away, she would be out of their lives for good. She wasn’t.
In late February of 2019, Kelsey reached back out to Dr. Burchard, this time with yet another sob story, the kind that he always fell for: both she and her son were sick, she was completely broke, and they desperately needed money.
According to Judy, Burchard tried to ignore the messages, but his concern for Kelsey’s 4-year-old son once again took precedence. Despite everything she had threatened him with, he couldn’t turn his back on them and agreed to pay three more months of her rent in advance. Yet, for obvious reasons, he didn’t trust everything Kelsey was telling him, so in late February, he booked a flight to Las Vegas, telling Judy:
“She’s such a pervasive liar that I have to see for myself.”
This, he said, was Kelsey’s last chance; if she was partying in Vegas on his dime, he would sever all contact and never speak to her again.
Judy begged Burchard not to go—or to at least take her with him—but he would not listen. He was still too embarrassed about how the situation had played out, about how he had been blackmailed and taken advantage of, and he wanted to fix his own mess.
On March 1st, 2019, Dr. Burchard boarded a plane to Las Vegas alone; this was the last time Judy would ever see him alive.
Putting the Pieces Together
And now, with much more context at our disposal, we return to where our story began, to when Dr. Burchard’s beaten and bruised body was discovered in the desert on the morning of March 7th, 2019. If you recall, Judy had reported the doctor missing on the 4th, after he had missed his flight home, and police had walked through Kelsey’s home on Puritan Ave on the morning of March 6th but found little. However, now that detectives had confirmed foul play, it was time for them to return with a warrant for a full search.
On March 8th, investigators reentered the home alongside a forensics team who discovered much. While most murders typically take place quickly and in a singular room, this entire home appeared to be a crime scene. There were traces of blood inside the upstairs bedroom, on the broken door, in the kitchen, in the garage, and even on the television remote. Like the blood found inside the car, much of it had been poorly cleaned.
To piece together a timeline of what may have happened, they turned to cellphone records. Judy and Dr. Burchard’s showed that, on the first two days of the trip, March 1st and 2nd, they had been in regular contact via text messages and calls, and all had seemed fine; however, on the morning of the 3rd, his attitude had shifted. He had stopped answering his calls and refused to say why. When Judy texted him around lunchtime, this is what was said:
Judy: Why don’t you answer your phone?
Dr. Burchard: I’m out to lunch…
Judy: Why can’t you talk on the phone? Being at lunch has never stopped you from being on the phone before.
Dr. Burchard: I am turning my phone off, I will charge my phone and call you shortly.
Dr. Burchard’s cellphone did not turn back on that day, and Judy spent the remainder of her afternoon and evening begging him to call her back. Yet, he never did. This caused her to suspect that Burchard had not sent those final texts, that he was already dead that morning, and that somebody was merely trying to buy time to cover their tracks. She told the officers her theory, and they agreed.
According to a report issued by the medical examiner’s office, Burchard had died sometime in the early morning hours of March 3rd, meaning everything they suspected aligned perfectly. His cellphone was then discovered a few days later abandoned just off the Las Vegas strip when a homeless man found it, turned it on, and began answering calls from Judy and Burchard’s worried friends.
Kelsey’s cellphone records, on the other hand, showed that her phone was much more active in the days following the murder. Her location data proved that she was in and around the home from March 1st through March 6th. Then, at around 5:20 PM on the final day, she appeared to be leaving her home and did not return. At one point, it registered active in the Lake Mead area, where Burchard’s body would be found the very next day.
On March 7th, once reports of the discovery started hitting the front page, the phone was switched off and never turned back on. Not suspicious at all.
When reinterviewing Jeremy Escherich, the only resident of 7474 Puritan Ave who hadn’t vanished into thin air, the police learned several important facts. First, and most notably, Jeremy’s girlfriend, Chelsea, had spoken to Kelsey after the time the murder had taken place. Chelsea had reached out to her to demand an explanation for the broken upstairs door on March 6th and had received a peculiar response. Normally, Kelsey and Chelsea did not get along, but Kelsey was on her best behavior that day.
She explained that a party had gotten out of control, apologized for the inconvenience, and said that Jeremy and Chelsea could use Dr. Burchard’s credit card information to purchase a new one if they wanted to. The card number was written down inside the home, she said, before assuring Chelsea that Burchard wouldn’t mind. Wisely, Jeremy Escherich did not believe her:
“[I told Chelsea] I’m not using anybody’s information to go purchase anything…”
Obviously, given all this circumstantial evidence, the police felt confident that Kelsey was involved in Dr. Burchard’s murder in some way. However, they didn’t yet know if she had acted alone or if Diana and Logan were involved as well.
Based on the fact that Kelsey was thin and dainty, police found it unlikely that she would have been able to inflict the type of destructive wounds seen on Burchard’s body—nor would she have been able to drag him from the rear seat of the car and place him inside the trunk. For this, the muscles that Logan liked to cringingly flex on Facebook would have come in very handy—but there was another potential suspect as well.
On the baseball bat found inside the trunk, the name Greg Hagio was discovered. Greg was one of Kelsey’s many ex-boyfriends from California, which opened up a whole new line of investigation for them to pursue. Could Logan be a victim as well? Perhaps Greg had killed both of Kelsey’s “lovers” in order to run away with her.
It would have been a twist worthy of M. Night Shyamalan; however, Greg himself put all speculation to bed when he was able to provide an airtight alibi. During his interrogation, he stated that the only crime he had committed was having “a poor choice in women.” From this point on, all eyes would be shifted back to the original three, and that turned out to be a very wise decision considering a new witness was about to be discovered.
While the officers were continuing their search of Kelsey’s home, a white van was seen circling the neighborhood multiple times. When the driver was confronted, he admitted that he was the owner of a cleaning company that had just serviced the inside of Kelsey’s home a few days earlier on March 6th. He said that he was waiting for Kelsey to return because she had stiffed him on the bill. When officers inquired what he had cleaned inside the home, he admitted that he had scrubbed away several red stains that he had been told were spilled wine.
Perhaps this is a good time to add a new rule: “Don’t hire other people to clean up your crime scene, but if you must, don’t skip out on the tab!”
Either way, this statement combined with everything else investigators had discovered was more than enough to secure a warrant for Kelsey’s arrest. On March 15th, 2019, she was charged with first-degree murder with a deadly weapon.
Now, almost overnight, Kelsey found herself with all the fame she could ever want as her story was too tantalizing for the public to ignore. Headlines like “Playboy model charged with murder after psychiatrist found dead in boot of car” went viral both on television and online. This was all made even more alluring by the fact that she was on the run and police couldn’t say for certain whether she was still in the United States or if she had used her connections as an international model to flee the country.
During the manhunt, Judy called into KTNV News to give her thoughts and beg people to come forward with information:
“What she did to Tom, it was not quick, and it was not painless. It was basically torture of an elderly man.”
Thankfully, the search wouldn’t last long as the FBI located and arrested her exactly one week later, on March 21st. As it turns out, she had not fled the country and had simply been lying low with her son back in California ever since her name hit the front page.
While in custody, Kelsey behaved exactly as one would expect; she denied everything and attempted to weasel her way out of trouble using the only thing she had left: her sex appeal. She flirted with her interrogator, but when he refused to take the bait, she lawyered up.
After this, the police then returned their attention to Diana and Logan. Soon, arrest warrants were issued and both were in custody. Logan was found hiding at his mother’s house in Las Vegas after an extensive FBI search; however, Diana was much easier to locate as she turned herself in. This was a move that would help her—and the police—greatly in the long run.
Real Answers
As it turns out, despite all the evidence investigators had discovered inside the home and car, authorities were still unsure exactly what had happened inside Kelsey’s home on March 3rd, why it had happened, and—most importantly—who was responsible. This was concerning because, without some way to corroborate what the police suspected, prosecutors knew that it would be very difficult to prove any specific charges in court as each person’s defense could easily rely on shifting blame to the other two parties. It was a big risk to prosecute without having any real, concrete answers; however, as is common in situations where there are multiple defendants in a single murder case, one person cracked and agreed to turn state’s witness.
It was Diana, and thanks to the fact that she turned herself in and much of her story was able to be corroborated by evidence, we can state with relative confidence that this is what happened to Dr. Thomas Burchard:
According to Diana, Dr. Burchard’s surprise visit on March 1st sent the entire household spiraling into chaos. As he had suspected, Kelsey had been lying about being sick—but she had also been lying about many other things as well. Apparently, Kelsey did not tell him that she had roommates because she wanted him to believe that only she and her son were living there at his expense.
She also didn’t want him to know that Logan was her boyfriend because, based on what Kelsey told Diana during his visit, the doctor “had a crush” on her, and she was very worried that he would cut her off out of jealousy.
Shifting into damage control mode, Kelsey quickly informed Diana, Jeremy, and Logan that they should all make themselves scarce in order to avoid having to answer any of the doctor’s questions. She also told Diana that, if Burchard did manage to pin her down and ask who Logan was, she should say that his name was “Jay” and that he was her tattoo artist.
Thankfully, Kelsey was able to calm Burchard down by the end of the first day, and that night, the situation inside the home was awkward but relatively tame; however, this fragile peace shattered on the morning of the 2nd when Jeremy returned home with his girlfriend, Chelsea, in tow. If you recall, Kelsey and Chelsea did not get along, and this was because Kelsey was worried that Chelsea planned to steal Burchard away from her by seducing him—and she may have been right.
At one point during that afternoon, Burchard and Chelsea left the home together behind Kelsey’s back to buy groceries, which sent Kelsey into a blind rage. She reportedly “flipped out” and called Dr. Burchard on his cellphone to demand that he return home immediately. After doing as he was instructed, an argument then ensued between Kelsey, Chelsea, Jeremy, Burchard, and Logan on the home’s front lawn.
There was shouting and some threats of physical violence; however, Jeremy and Chelsea left in a huff before things could escalate further. This is why they would not be present inside the home for several days.
After this, things once again settled down, but the mood inside the home was still awkward. Fortunately, Diana said, she didn’t have to deal with it for very long because her shift at Caesars Palace was about to begin. She left Kelsey, Burchard, and her son alone that afternoon and did not see them again until Burchard and Kelsey picked her up at around 2 AM. By then, tensions were beginning to lighten; however, it was during the drive home that their night would truly go off the rails.
Inside the car, Burchard was driving, Kelsey was in the passenger’s seat, and Diana was in the backseat. Neither Diana nor Kelsey was paying attention to where they were going, so Dr. Burchard got turned around and ended up driving them to a section of Vegas that none of them were familiar with. This prompted Kelsey to take Burchard’s phone in order to pull up Google Maps, but as they continued toward home, she also started going through his phone’s history.
While looking through his text messages, she discovered a conversation between Burchard and her mother where Burchard was relaying information about Kelsey’s living situation and making plans to call CPS to have her remaining son removed from her custody. This enraged Kelsey.
As Dr. Burchard continued to drive, Kelsey began screaming at him. She then started throwing punches, kicking at him, and tugging at his clothing as they sped down the road at 60 miles per hour. Diana says she urged Kelsey to stop, but Kelsey was completely engulfed by her own anger.
Burchard was forced to then begin hitting Kelsey back, although his hits were not meant to inflict damage; he was simply trying to keep the car on the road. In this, he succeeded, and they arrived at their destination a short time later.
Inside the home, the fighting continued as Kelsey screamed at Burchard at the top of her lungs. Now, she was once again threatening to call his employer with false allegations, and this caused Burchard to lock himself inside one of the unoccupied upstairs bedrooms. Kelsey banged on the door, ordering him to open it, but he refused.
Fearing for Kelsey’s son’s safety, Diana called a trusted friend to come pick him up, to get him away from the situation, and then tried to keep herself out of it as well. She hoped that, as it had before, the argument would fizzle out on its own; however, things only escalated when Logan got involved at Kelsey’s request.
Armed with the bat bearing Greg Hagio’s name, Logan stormed upstairs and slammed himself against the locked door. It splintered, and Diana says she saw Logan raise the bat high above his head as he entered. She didn’t see it come down on Dr. Burchard’s head, but she heard a struggle and said that, when Logan and Burchard emerged from the bedroom, Burchard had “a big red and purple bruise on his head” and one of his eyes was filled with blood. It was obvious what had happened.
Diana said she then rushed to Logan and removed the bat from his hands. This made Kelsey angry as she was urging Logan to keep hitting him. Dr. Burchard saw this and, believing Diana was on his side, approached her, saying that he needed to go to the hospital to have the wound on his head examined. Seeing that the doctor was dazed, Diana agreed and told Kelsey and Logan the same thing; however, they were reluctant to leave the home.
As Kelsey and Logan debated on what to do, Diana said she helped Burchard clean himself up. Then they both walked into the home’s adjoining garage and slid into the backseat of Kelsey’s Mercedes. As they did, Diana asked Burchard what he would tell the doctors when they arrived at the emergency room. She was worried about being arrested herself, but Dr.
Burchard assured her that he would not say anything that would get anybody—including Kelsey and Logan—in trouble. He would say that he had been mugged by a group of thugs on the strip and nothing more. He then also began begging Diana not to leave him alone with Kelsey because he was convinced that she was going to kill him. Unfortunately, Diana did not believe him; she assured him that he was overreacting.
Around this time, as they sat in the backseat, Kelsey and Logan appeared in the garage with them and ordered Diana and the doctor out of the car and back inside the home. They said that, before they took Burchard to the hospital, they wanted everyone to help clean the house because they still weren’t convinced that Dr. Burchard would keep his mouth shut, and they wanted to make sure there was no blood visible in case the police wanted to have a look around.
Believing that Burchard’s wound wasn’t too serious, Diana agreed. She returned to the upstairs bedroom and began stripping the sheets and wiping down the room as instructed. However, this is when she heard arguing coming from downstairs in the garage, followed by the sounds of a struggle because Burchard did not want to come back inside:
“I was upstairs, but I could hear (Kelsey) yelling, telling (Logan) that he was a bitch, and he needed to knock (Dr. Burchard) out. (Kelsey said) she had seen other people knock people out, (and that) it shouldn’t be a problem.”
Not wanting to see Burchard harmed further, Diana called down to Kelsey and begged them to stop. Then, when the fighting did not cease, she began descending the stairs; however, when she reached the landing, Kelsey emerged from the garage and said that it was “too late.” Diana asked Kelsey what she meant by that, but Kelsey didn’t reply. A moment later, Logan then emerged from the garage, once again holding Greg Hagio’s baseball bat.
It, along with his face, neck, arms, and shirt, were all covered in blood spatter. In his other hand, he held a gun, also covered in blood.
At this point, Diana claims she knew she should have run, but she couldn’t; she was terrified. Kelsey, the roommate that she had known for less than four months, had just ordered the murder of a man that she had known for years because she didn’t trust him to stay quiet. Logan, the man who had physically beaten Burchard to death, had gang connections with people all across the city. Now, they were both staring at her, sizing her up, waiting for her reaction to what she had just witnessed.
In that moment, Diana became convinced that they would not hesitate to kill her if she didn’t cooperate:
“I didn’t know what else to do… I probably would’ve jumped out the window if he asked me to… I was so scared…”
Logan ordered Diana to keep cleaning the home, and that is exactly what she did. She scrubbed the walls, the floor, the garage, and even the car itself, but the blood would not come out. Seeing this, Logan began to panic and said he would take care of the car himself and that everyone needed to leave immediately.
With the gruesome night over, Diana then left the home to go stay with her boyfriend and attempt to calm down. Even then, she said, she was still terrified that Kelsey and Logan were going to hurt her and didn’t want to be alone. She didn’t hear from either of them for two days, until she received a call from Kelsey informing her that the police had stopped by the home for their first welfare check.
At this point, Diana said she met back up with Kelsey and Logan inside a hotel room at the Mandalay Bay Hotel, where they talked about what had happened and what they planned to do next. The cover story that Kelsey had created was one of desperation: Dr. Burchard had left Vegas in the Mercedes with several people from California that they had never met, and he had left his bank information behind in case she needed it. That is how they would explain continuing to spend his money even after he was deceased.
It was a bad plan, but it was all Kelsey and Logan could come up with.
As for how the car ended up in the desert, Diana said that Logan had taken care of it. He had planned to drive it deep into the desert to burn it, but it had gotten stuck and failed to ignite. He also tossed Burchard’s phone at some point.
As Logan did this, Diana and Kelsey returned to the home on Puritan Avenue with new cleaning supplies they had purchased with Dr. Burchard’s credit card. When the stains still would not come out, Kelsey placed a call to the local cleaning service. After they had come and gone, the three of them then met back up and checked into another hotel, the Rio.
They stayed there until Jeremy and Chelsea started asking questions about the door, then they moved across the street to another hotel, and then to yet another the following night.
Somehow, Diana said, it didn’t click that they were on the run for quite some time because she still couldn’t believe that they were all wrapped up in something like this. Everything had happened so fast, and nothing felt real anymore.
At one point, when the weight of what they had done began to set in, she asked Logan if she could go stay with her mother, but he would not allow it because he still suspected that she would go to the police. From this point on, they would be together until the car was discovered. After that, panic set in, and they all turned off their cellphones and parted ways.
Court Dates
With Diana agreeing to assist the prosecution by testifying against Kelsey and Logan before a grand jury, both were formally charged with first-degree murder in June of 2019. However, it is at this point that we must inform you that you may not be happy about what happens next: all three cases were heavily delayed due to Covid-19, and during that delay, Kelsey and Logan’s defense attorneys found enough time to work out some very sweet plea bargains.
First, in 2022, with the help of two public defenders, Darin Imlay and David Lopez-Negrete, Logan made the argument that Kelsey was the primary mastermind behind the murder and that he had simply gotten swept up in the moment. In his sentencing memorandum, Imlay and Lopez-Negrete wrote:
“Logan’s error in judgment was becoming entangled with a master manipulator he could not rebuff… He was also in love with her. Logan’s violence, thus, was a crime of passion. Turner’s frenzy fueled him. Her frenzy and calls for bloodlust sealed Dr. Burchard’s unjustified fate.”
In late 2022, he pled guilty to the reduced charge of second-degree murder and was sentenced to between 18 and 45 years in prison. That means that, with good behavior, he will be eligible for release in 2037, when he will then be around 45 years old.
Understandably, the Las Vegas public, and those who follow cases like this online, were not happy, and they were even less happy when they learned of Kelsey’s plea deal.
In January of 2023, she also entered into a plea agreement for the reduced charge of second-degree murder; although, hers was even better as it was an Alford plea, which allows her to avoid a trial without admitting guilt. She was sentenced to a measly 10 to 25 years in prison, meaning she could be eligible for release as early as 2029.
That is far too soon, and Judy Earp agrees. At Kelsey’s sentencing, she took the stand to air her fears that Kelsey would someday seek revenge against her:
“I never realized such evil existed in this world until this happened… I do not want to spend the rest of my life constantly worrying and always looking over my shoulder, if or when she is granted parole.”
Since Kelsey has already threatened her life multiple times, her fears certainly seem justified; however, her statement changed little in the end.
Today, Kelsey is incarcerated at the Florence McClure Women’s Correctional Center in Las Vegas, where she maintains her innocence and states that she plans to continue her modeling career after her release.
For Diana’s cooperation with investigators, she was charged with being an accessory to murder and given 36 months of probation. At her sentencing, she tearfully and hoarsely apologized to Dr. Burchard, his family and friends, and the public. Her attorney stated that, since her initial arrest, she had moved away from Las Vegas and sought professional help. Like with Kelsey and Logan’s sentences, many believe her punishment should have been much harsher.
Key Takeaways
- Dr. Thomas Burchard, a 71-year-old child psychologist, was found beaten to death in the trunk of a Mercedes-Benz C300 abandoned in the Mojave Desert on March 7, 2019.
- Burchard had financially supported Instagram model Kelsey Turner for years, sending her an estimated $300,000 to $750,000 before cutting her off in late 2018.
- Turner blackmailed Burchard with false pedophilia allegations to extract more money, leading him to rent her a Las Vegas home where she lived with boyfriend Jon Logan Kennison and others.
- Burchard was murdered on March 3, 2019 after Turner discovered he planned to report her living situation to CPS; Kennison beat him to death with a baseball bat while Turner urged him on.
- Turner and Kennison both received reduced sentences through plea bargains—10-25 years and 18-45 years respectively—while roommate Diana Pena received probation for testifying against them.
Dana Ortiz covers prosecutorial mechanics, evidentiary procedure, and how investigations unwind decades after the original case file went cold.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where was Dr. Thomas Burchard’s body discovered?
Dr. Thomas Burchard’s body was discovered on the morning of March 7th, 2019, in the trunk of a blue Mercedes-Benz C300 abandoned along a dirt road in the Mojave Desert, about twenty miles outside Las Vegas, near mile marker 14 on State Route 147.
What was the cause of death determined by the medical examiner?
Dr. Lisa Gavin determined that blunt force trauma was the cause of death. The wounds were inflicted by an unidentified object with a ‘unique pattern,’ and Dr. Burchard’s nose and one cheekbone had been caved in. Defensive wounds were also present on his hands, wrists, and arms.
How much money did Dr. Burchard reportedly give to Kelsey Turner over approximately three years?
According to the article, somewhere in the range of $300,000 to $750,000 flowed from Dr. Burchard’s bank account to Kelsey Turner in about three years.
What was Kelsey Turner’s Instagram persona name and what was her real-life situation?
Kelsey Turner used the Instagram name ‘BaddBarbie’ and cultivated a persona as a care-free, fun-loving party girl. In reality, she was a struggling single mother of two who lived with her own mother because she couldn’t make ends meet, had credit card debt, and drove a leased car.
Why did Dr. Burchard fly to Las Vegas on March 1st, 2019?
Dr. Burchard flew to Las Vegas because Kelsey had contacted him claiming both she and her son were sick, broke, and desperately needed money. He didn’t trust her and told his girlfriend Judy, ‘She’s such a pervasive liar that I have to see for myself.’ He intended this to be her last chance—if she was partying on his dime, he would sever all contact.
What triggered the fatal confrontation on March 3rd, 2019?
According to Diana Pena’s testimony, the confrontation was triggered when Kelsey discovered text messages on Dr. Burchard’s phone showing he had been relaying information about her living situation to her mother and making plans to call CPS to have her remaining son removed from her custody. This enraged Kelsey, who began physically attacking Burchard while he was driving.
Who actually killed Dr. Burchard according to Diana Pena’s testimony?
According to Diana Pena, Jon Logan Kennison killed Dr. Burchard. Logan used a baseball bat bearing Greg Hagio’s name to beat Dr. Burchard to death in the garage after Kelsey urged him to ‘knock him out.’ Diana saw Logan emerge from the garage with the bat, his face, neck, arms, and shirt covered in blood spatter, and a gun also covered in blood.
What were the final sentences for Kelsey Turner, Jon Logan Kennison, and Diana Pena?
Jon Logan Kennison pled guilty to second-degree murder in late 2022 and was sentenced to 18 to 45 years in prison. Kelsey Turner entered an Alford plea for second-degree murder in January 2023 and was sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison, maintaining her innocence. Diana Pena was charged with accessory to murder and received 36 months of probation for her cooperation with investigators.
What was Dr. Burchard’s profession and how was he described by those who knew him?
Dr. Burchard was a renowned child psychologist who worked for decades at the Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula (CHOMP). He was described as kind, funny, witty, intelligent, and exceptionally generous—often paying for patients’ medications, school supplies, and even utility bills out of his own pocket. He was known as the hospital’s year-round Santa Claus and enjoyed magic tricks, conventions, and wearing bowties.
How did the police eventually locate and arrest Kelsey Turner?
Kelsey Turner was charged with first-degree murder on March 15th, 2019, but was on the run. The FBI located and arrested her exactly one week later on March 21st. She had not fled the country but had been lying low with her son back in California ever since her name hit the front page.
Sources
- Original Casual Criminalist video: Kelsey Turner: The Instagram Model Who Became a Murderer
- Hero image source by Visitor7 / openverse, by-sa.
