January 1, Playboy Model Pleads Guilty to Grisly Crime

Published

2 years ago

November 14, 2022

Photo: CherryX per Wikimedia Commons. Licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/legalcode

A former Playboy model has entered a guilty plea for her role in the 2019 killing of a 71-year-old child psychiatrist.

In 2019, Kelsey Turner, her then-boyfriend, Jon Logan Kennison, and her roommate, Diana Nicole Pena, were arrested in connection with the murder of Dr. Thomas Burchard after his body was found in the trunk of an abandoned car in a desert area east of Las Vegas.

An autopsy determined that Burchard’s death was a homicide by blunt force trauma to the head.

Turner, 29, entered an Alford plea to the charge of second-degree murder — meaning that she entered a guilty plea but maintains her innocence. She previously pled not guilty to the charges before quietly reaching a plea deal. Turner now faces up to 25 years in prison.

Authorities say that Burchard traveled from California to Turner’s residence in Las Vegas to end their two-year relationship and tell her that he wouldn’t be funding her lifestyle anymore. Burchard had been paying Turner’s bills during that time, giving the ex-Playboy model at least $300,000.

Turner’s former roommate, Pena, who pleaded guilty to accessory to murder in June 2019, testified to a grand jury that she saw Kennison swing a baseball bat at Burchard inside a Las Vegas home after Turner became upset about images and messages she found on the victim’s phone.

Pena also testified that Turner and Kennison initially planned to take Burchard to the hospital after he was struck with the bat, but eventually Turner told Kennison to “knock Thomas out.” Pena said she later saw Kennison covered in blood.

In June 2022, Kennison pleaded guilty to second-degree murder and was sentenced to between 18 and 45 years in prison.

Turner’s sentencing is set for Jan. 10, 2023.