Killer’s mother recounts his history

After half a dozen women had testified, it was another mother’s turn Tuesday to tell how the most prolific serial killer in Los Angeles history had devastated her life.

“Are you the mother of Chester Turner?”

“Yes, I am,” said Audrey Turner, who seemed confused and overwhelmed through 59 minutes of testimony in Los Angeles County Superior Court.

She was called to help spare her son’s life, as jurors considered whether Turner should be executed for the murders of 10 women, mostly prostitutes, in South Los Angeles in the 1980s and ‘90s. He was also convicted of an 11th murder, that of the unborn fetus of one of the women.

Turner’s mother offered no explanation for her son’s behavior. Her responses to defense lawyer Anthony Robusto were mostly monosyllabic.

Asked outside court why jurors should spare her son from the death penalty, Audrey Turner said simply: “Because he’s innocent.”

Anyone trying to understand Turner’s motivation for raping, strangling and killing the women left the courtroom without an answer.

Audrey Turner said her son was a poor student who dropped out of high school, was kicked out of her house for drug and alcohol abuse, then was taken in to recuperate after he had been shot. He was never abused as a child and had no mental problems while growing up, she said.

Turner’s brother, Anthony Vick, 26, said his brother was “just like a dad,” taking care of him when he was young in South-Central Los Angeles. Turner tracked Vick down one day when he had ditched school and told him to go back to class and “not to be like him,” Vick testified.

Audrey Turner’s testimony followed testimony from the mothers of six of Turner’s victims, who spoke emotionally about their slain children.

Courtroom bailiffs gave Audrey Turner five minutes with her son before he was taken back to jail. Mother and son embraced and chatted. She lives in Utah and is raising Turner’s four children. It was the first time they had been together in 10 years.

Turner is a savage predator fixated on violence, dominance and control, from which he derived sexual satisfaction, according to Deputy Dist. Atty. Bobby Grace. If sentenced to die, he will become the 665th person on California’s death row. In the last 30 years, 13 have been executed and 12 committed suicide.

john.spano@latimes.com