3rd Arrest Made in Leisure World Killing
A third suspect has been arrested in the strangulation slaying earlier this year of a 66-year-old Leisure World resident, police reported Sunday.
The weekend arrest came in the homicide of Thomas D. Turner, who was found dead Feb. 27 inside his Leisure World apartment. Investigators determined that Turner, a retired landscape architect and World War II veteran, had been strangled.
The slaying inside the gated, guarded community shocked many of the 9,000 residents of Leisure World.
The newly arrested suspect in the case is Duane Stanley Mesaeh,, 27, a transient, police said Sunday. Mesaeh was picked up by Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies in West Hollywood on Saturday and turned over to Seal Beach officers, who took him to the Orange County Jail on suspicion of homicide.
Seal Beach police said Sunday that they had no details that could be immediately released on Mesaeh’s arrest or the case against him. Police, however, confirmed that Mesaeh is the third suspect involved in the Turner case.
Two suspects were arrested in Long Beach on the night of Feb. 27, after Turner’s body was found that day.
Those suspects--Javier G. Gonzales, 20, and Carlos V. Martinez, 37--were arrested after Long Beach police spotted one of them driving Turner’s Ford Thunderbird. Police have not offered a possible motive in the killing.
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