Report: Turner and Kennison will not face death penalty

LAS VEGAS, NV. UPDATE JULY 6, 2022, at 10:21 a.m.-- The boyfriend of a former Playboy model changed their plea to guilty in the alleged murder of a Community Hospital of the Monterey Peninsula doctor, according to court documents.

Jon Logan Kennison, the boyfriend of Kelsey Turner, pleaded guilty to all charges in the murder of Dr. Thomas Burchard of Salinas.

Police say that Turner and Burchard knew each other for around 2 years, and he had been paying for most of her bills.

Burchard traveled to Las Vegas in March of 2019 and told her he would no longer pay for her bills. Burchard then got into an argument that lead to the doctor's murder, allege police.

Turner and Kennison are accused of beating the psychiatrist to death with a baseball bat, then putting his body in the trunk of Turner’s Mercedes, according to police. Turner's car was found a few days later in the desert road outside Las Vegas.

Turner’s next hearing is scheduled July 5, 2022.

Kennison’s sentencing hearing is set forr July 26, 2022.

Report: Turner and Kennison will not face death penalty

Original Story posted on July 3, 2019.

Prosecutors will not seek the death penalty for a former model and her boyfriend accused of killing of a 71-year-old Monterey psychiatrist in Las Vegas.

The Las Vegas Review-Journal reports prosecutors met with defense lawyers Friday before deciding against seeking capital punishment against Kelsey Nichole Turner and Jon Logan Kennison.

Both have pleaded not guilty in the March death of Dr. Thomas Burchard, who lived in Salinas and practiced in Monterey.

Police say Burchard had an intimate relationship with Turner and rented a Las Vegas home where Turner, Kennison, and a housemate, Diana Pena, lived.

Burchard's bludgeoned body was found March 7 in the trunk of Turner's car in the desert outside Las Vegas.

Pena has pleaded guilty to accessory to murder and implicated Turner and Kennison in Burchard's death.