“He Was Just A Meal Ticket”: Playboy Model Helps Kill “Sugar Daddy” After Threats To Cut Her Off

Kelsey Turner was a struggling 25-year-old single mother when she met renowned child psychologist Dr. Thomas Burchard. Well-known in the community for helping others, he began giving her money for rent and insurance — until Turner started to take advantage of his generosity. When Dr. Burchard told her he was cutting her off, she enlisted her roommates to help her murder him in their home. But Diana Peña had reservations, and tried to help get the psychiatrist to a hospital after he was beaten. That’s when her roommates turned on her, as well.

“That’s when he told me they were going to kill him,” Diana Peña, Kelsey Turner’s roommate, said on Snapped, airing Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen. “And that he hopes they don’t kill me too.”

Dr. Thomas Burchard and his fiancée, Judy Earp, first met in 2002. They settled in Salinas, California, but traveled to Las Vegas frequently for medical conferences. By 2019, the 71-year-old was still seeing patients, but planning for retirement, as Earp suspected he was in the early stages of dementia. He booked a flight to Las Vegas on Friday, March 1, and planned to return on Monday. But when he didn’t, Earp reported him missing.

Meanwhile, a man discovered an abandoned Mercedes Benz out in the Las Vegas desert on March 7, 2019, and called it in to police. They found blood, latex gloves, and a baseball bat — as well as a body wrapped in bedding in the trunk, along with a credit card belonging to Thomas Burchard. The medical examiner determined Burchard was killed by blunt force trauma.

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Earp told police Dr. Burchard had gone to Las Vegas to visit his friend, Kelsey Turner, and had been missing for a week. She also informed officers that the Mercedes belonged to Turner. She explained that Burchard and Turner had a complicated, unusual relationship, that began when he helped her with money to pay for rent.

The aspiring model had been on the covers of Playboy Italia and Maxim and had a large social media presence with hundreds of thousands of Instagram followers, who watched her party in the Hollywood club scene.

“Kelsey seems like another needy L.A. girl, that’s just trying to find someone to latch onto,” Talon Reid, Turner’s friend, said on Snapped. “That’s just all it seemed to me.”

Thomas Burchard. Photo: Oxygen

But after her Playboy cover, her modeling gigs dried up, leaving her struggling to pay for her child.

“Burchard was kind of her sugar daddy,” Reid said. “Paying for the residence. Paying for the car. Paying for her car insurance.”

Earp told police that she’d done the math and believed Dr. Burchard had given Turner at least $750,000. That generosity extended to renting Turner a house in Las Vegas.

“He did this for so many people, and a few of them took advantage, but nothing to the extent of this,” Judy Earp, Burchard’s fiancée, said on Snapped. “It was always, ‘Oh, I need money for medicine for my son’ or this, or that. I told Tom, I said, ‘This is bad, you need to get out of this.’ He said, ‘OK, I will tell her.’”

Earp explained that was the reason behind his trip to Las Vegas to see Turner on March 1, 2019 — a trip Turner likely did not welcome.

“Being attractive and providing companionship to Burchard — it’s paying for her house, it’s paying for her car, and she doesn’t want to get off the gravy train,” said ret. Las Vegas Metro. Police Detective Ryan Jaeger on Snapped. “She’s trying to use whatever she can to keep his money coming.”

Turner and her roommates, Diana Peña and Jon Kennison, were nowhere to be found. When police examined their Las Vegas home, bloodstains were found, and there were attempts to clean the home. Police tracked their phones to try to find their location.

“They all leave the house,” Mitchell Dosch, Las Vegas Metro. Police Detective, said on Snapped. “Based on the phone records, their phones all appeared to be shut off around the same time and ended in the area of the Rio hotel.”

Although they didn’t find the suspects, police found a notebook belonging to Dr. Burchard, that helped shed light on his tumultuous relationship with Turner.

“She was threatening him. Accusing him of child pornography. Totally unfounded and absolutely untrue,” Earp said. “But if you can imagine a man that his whole life has been a children psychologist, how devastating just those accusations would be.”

No evidence of child pornography was ever found on Dr. Burchard’s phone, computer, or devices.

“But if that information were to be released to the public, it would be incredibly damaging to Thomas’ reputation,” Dosch said.

Police finally located all three suspects. When fingerprints in the Mercedes came back as a match for Peña and Kennison, Peña decided to confess everything to police.

Diana Peña told police Kelsey Turner knew Dr. Thomas Burchard was coming to Las Vegas to cut her off and was unhappy about it.

“He was having a hard time actually doing it,” Peña said. “She kinda had control over him. And Dr. Burchard said that Kelsey needed a lot of help. He said that he loved Kelsey. But he didn’t love that she was abusing drugs and alcohol.”

But while they were all in the car during his visit, Turner discovered text messages between Burchard and her mother that discussed taking Turner’s son away from her.

“She was kicking him — hitting him — screaming at him,” Peña said. “Kelsey was really upset. She said that Dr. Burchard had betrayed her.”

According to Peña, Turner ordered her boyfriend and roommate, Jon Kennison, to “knock Dr. Burchard out.” She alleged Kennison broke into Burchard’s room at the house and beat him with a baseball bat. Peña helped to break up the beating and realized Burchard needed to get to a hospital — but she claims Kennison and Turner refused to let him go. The next morning, they relented, and she helped them to put Dr. Burchard in the car. But when she went back inside the house, Peña claimed she heard Turner once again telling Kennison to beat Burchard.

“So, I came running down the stairs and told her to stop … I was like, ‘Is everything OK?’ And she was like, ‘He’s dead,’” Peña said. “I was pretty scared. And just not sure what to do. Kennison had a gun that was covered in blood. Kelsey told me that was what he used to beat the doctor’s face.”

Peña alleged Kennison disposed of the car and body in the Las Vegas desert. She pled guilty to being an accessory to murder, and was sentenced to three years of probation.

“If I could go back and change how I handled the situation, I would,” Peña said. “But I don’t know exactly how I would, because I was scared, but being scared is not really an excuse.”

In May 2022, Kennison pled guilty to murder, and was sentenced to 18 to 45 years in prison.

“No matter what Dr. Burchard’s motivations were for trying to help a single mom in need, it’s just terrible that someone who had helped so many people in his life and seemed to only try to help people in his life, ended up paying the ultimate price for it,” said reporter Kelsey McFarland on Snapped.

Turner also took a plea and was sentenced to 10 to 25 years in prison. She’ll be eligible for parole in March 2029, at the age of 36.

“In the initial court hearings, she’s smiling and laughing and posing for the cameras. Even if she was not guilty, somebody that you knew was murdered, that’s just evil. Just evil,” Earp said. “I think Kelsey Turner is a danger to society. Honestly, I don’t think she should ever get out of prison.”

Watch all-new episodes of Snapped on Sundays at 6/5c on Oxygen, and the next day on Peacock.