True Crime with Rachel Shannon
SAVAGE: Her Sugar Daddy Cut her off, so she MURDERED Him: The BRUTAL Killing of Thomas Burchard
Sat, 19 Apr 2025
Thomas Burchard and Kelsey Turner had a transactional relationship that was working for some time. However, when Thomas threatened to cut Kelsey off, she became enraged, and things took a devastating turn for the worst. What are your thoughts on this case? Let's discuss in the comments. Thank you guys for watching, hope to see you next time! Go watch my other episodes on Spotify: The Disturbing Case of Stephanie ParzeShe Tried to Warn Them About her Son, Then he was MURDERED. THE CASE OF GUNNAR SCHUMACHER7 Year old’s Strange Death Reveals Mom’s DISGUSTING Secret: Did She Starve her for Attention?!
Chapter 1: What is the nature of Kelsey Turner's relationship with Thomas Burchard?
I don't know about you, but I, along with many of my friends, often joke about wanting to find a sugar daddy to pay for all my stuff and send me on nice vacations and all of that. But obviously, most of us are joking. I know I am. I enjoy being an independent lady who doesn't rely on a single person to fund my life.
However, there are still so many women out there whose lives are completely funded by older men who like to provide a life of luxury to younger women. Sometimes there is a sexual relationship. Sometimes it's a fully transactional relationship. Sometimes there may even be a real connection between the two. If you're in any of these situations, more power to you.
But with Kelsey Turner, she fully sunk her claws in and wouldn't let go until she got everything she possibly could out of her sugar daddy. And when he threatened to cut her off, things took a devastating turn for the worst. This is the tragic case of Thomas Burchard.
Chapter 2: Who was Thomas Burchard and what was his background?
71-year-old Thomas Burchard was originally from Boston, Massachusetts before he and his family moved to Virginia, where his father started to work as the dean of Virginia Tech's College of Architecture and Urban Studies. Thomas was always known to be very motivated and driven, and that was clear in his career choice.
Thomas went to medical school to become a doctor, and while in school, he realized that he wanted to become a child psychiatrist. He ended up doing some of his residencies at some of the top colleges in the country, such as Cincinnati Children's Hospital, UCLA, and the Community Hospital of Monterey Peninsula in California,
where he would ultimately end up working and where he spent 40 years of his career. Thomas never went on to have children of his own, but he was known to love children. He was passionate about his job as a child psychiatrist and he was good at it too. He was a part of the Los Angeles' Magic Castle, which is a club of pro-level magicians and illusionists.
Thomas took his skills to work, impressing the children he worked with with magic tricks and illusions. Back in the early 2000s, Thomas met a woman named Judy Earp, who was 12 years younger than him and had four children of her own. Both Thomas and Judy previously had been married, but of course they were single when they met.
The two met through mutual friends while they were on a trip to Vegas together. These two were the only people in the group who didn't drink or gamble, so the two ended up spending a lot of time hanging out by the pool together, having conversations and just enjoying each other's company. That is how the two got to know each other.
After meeting and starting a relationship, Judy moved to Salinas, California into Thomas's home in the country to live with him. There, they shared the home with three of Judy's children. They raised goats together, horses, mini pigs, donkeys, and chickens. They were living a simple life while Thomas worked as a doctor and Judy worked as a real estate agent.
According to Judy, Thomas was one of the most generous men that you could meet. He had a lot of money, but he hardly ever spent any money on himself. He was always buying things for her and her children and even spending money to help out many of his patients anytime they were in need. Particularly, Thomas had a soft side for helping women who were down on their luck.
Homeless women or women on the verge of homelessness, drug addicts or sex workers. He wanted to help these women turn their lives around and make something of themselves. That leads me to introducing 25-year-old Kelsey Turner. Kelsey Turner was born in Norfolk, Virginia before her family moved to Jonesboro, Arkansas where she grew up. Kelsey went on to attend Arkansas State University.
However, during that time, Kelsey was recognized for her natural beauty and her ability to pose for the camera. So she started modeling for lingerie and swimsuit shots for different racy magazines. While doing this work, Kelsey moved away from her hometown in Arkansas and moved to California, where the opportunities were more plentiful.
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Chapter 3: How did Kelsey Turner meet Thomas Burchard?
Either way, from how Judy understood the situation, when Thomas met Kelsey, he was under the impression that Kelsey was the single mother of two children, she had nowhere to live, and she couldn't qualify for a lease to rent a house. Because of that, Thomas offered to sign a lease for her to live in a house in Salinas, California with her mother and children.
But he ended up paying for her rent altogether, which cost him $3,200 a month. After that, this progressed into him helping her buy a BMW by signing the loan for the car. But once again, he ended up paying for the entire car by himself. It was said that through all of the different women that Thomas had financially supported throughout his life, none of them had a hold on him like Kelsey did.
He was constantly sending her money and no matter what Kelsey did, it seemed like Thomas was addicted to her attention. She would message him all of the time asking for money for rent, prescription, drugs, and things like that. She would message him and be like, where are you? I need money for this right now. You better get over here. If you want my love, you better get over here.
Over the course of them knowing each other for about a year and a half, he spent a total of $500,000 on her. The way that this relationship progressed was something that Judy was not happy with. She knew all about Kelsey, but she did not like him spending all of that money on her. In fact, Judy referred to Kelsey as a white trash whore.
Judy was pretty much always encouraging Thomas to cut Kelsey off, and after some time, after realizing how Kelsey was treating him, He was leaning towards the idea of stopping his payments to Kelsey. When Kelsey caught wind of Thomas possibly trying to cut her off, Kelsey started to get pissed.
She knew that it was mostly Judy who was behind the idea and she started to say that Judy was on her shit list and if she ever got her evicted, that she'd kill her. Then that turned into threats against Thomas himself. According to what Judy would later tell police, Kelsey started to threaten Thomas that she would go to the police with accusations that could ruin his career working with children.
According to Judy, Kelsey made allegations that he was inappropriate towards children. However, these allegations were completely unfounded and Nothing of the sort was ever found in his phone or records or anything like that. So it really just seemed like an empty threat made by Kelsey to hopefully get him so afraid that he would continue paying her rent and her car payments.
and it seemed to work for at least a while because no matter how baseless these threats seemed thomas didn't feel comfortable going to the police which i can totally understand if you know that you're not guilty of something but you are afraid that you know maybe kelsey told some people to go forward with false stories or maybe kelsey's gonna claim that she saw something that she didn't actually see it can be hard for him to dismantle any false allegations without any proof
And I can see why he wouldn't want to go to the police with fear that he may be going to jail for something that he genuinely did not do. By the end of 2018, almost two years into knowing Thomas, he finally kicked Kelsey out of the house that she was renting in California and took away her BMW. After that, Kelsey decided to move to Las Vegas, Nevada with her then four-year-old son.
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Chapter 4: What led to the breakdown of Kelsey and Thomas's relationship?
This next part comes from one of Kelsey's roommates, Jeremy. On the evening of March 2nd, it was said that Jeremy's girlfriend, a woman named Chelsea, who was also a beautiful young blonde woman, showed up to the house drunk. When she got there, she struck up a conversation with Thomas, which apparently Kelsey was not happy about.
Then Thomas offered to take Chelsea to the store, driving Kelsey's car, which was a blue Mercedes. This made Kelsey even more upset. Once they left, Kelsey and her boyfriend John burst into Jeremy's room and started screaming at him, saying that Chelsea was trying to take Thomas away from her and demanding that Jeremy go get Chelsea and bring Thomas back.
But by the time Jeremy went outside, Chelsea and Thomas had already left. But when Jeremy tried going back inside, apparently John stopped Jeremy from getting back in the house, shoving him back outside and then punching him in the face.
According to Jeremy, John started making some vague threats towards him, saying things like, you better find out where they were going or something bad is going to happen to you and things like that. At the time, Jeremy didn't take it seriously.
It seems to me that maybe John was the type of person who flew off the handle frequently and said things like that often because this was such a small thing that he was punching someone in the face over. So it seems like maybe that was just in his character.
By the time Thomas and Chelsea got back to the house, Jeremy had been waiting for her outside, and the two of them left in a taxi, and according to them, they did not return back to the house for four days. Now, like I said, Judy had been staying in contact with Thomas while he was in Vegas. However, after March 2nd, she hadn't heard anything from him.
By that day, Thomas had expressed to duty how excited he was to return back to California and be done with this whole ordeal. His flight back home was scheduled for March 4th. but that day came and went and he never returned home. Around that time, Judy also started receiving text messages from Thomas' phone, but the way they sounded did not sound like Thomas.
These were messages that were trying to get information on her bank accounts, but he should have already known that information, so Judy was very suspicious. She tried calling him multiple times, but each time, the call was always going to voicemail. Now, according to Judy, Thomas had been struggling with dementia in the weeks before his death.
Getting lost in grocery store parking lots, getting lost in crowds, and forgetting things that he normally would never forget. So Judy was worried that Thomas forgot his flight or that maybe something happened to him. She wondered if maybe he got lost somewhere. Given that this was somewhere he was unfamiliar with, it would be pretty dangerous for him if he got lost.
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Chapter 5: What were Kelsey Turner's threats against Thomas Burchard?
By March 5th, police went to Kelsey's home to do a welfare check, but they didn't get an answer at the door and they couldn't gain entry, so they left for the time being. By the following day, March 6th, Jeremy returned back to the house to get some of his belongings. But when he got there, he couldn't enter the house because it was locked.
At that point, he sat outside of the house waiting for a bit to try and figure out how he was gonna get inside. But while there, police showed back up to conduct another welfare check for Thomas. When speaking with police, Jeremy did confirm that Thomas was at the house in the previous days. But at the time, Jeremy had no idea where everyone was or what could have happened.
Once again, police had no way of entering the home at that time, so they left. After speaking with police, Jeremy contacted Kelsey and asked to get the garage opener from John so he could get inside. He went and got the garage opener and made access into the home.
At that point, he noticed that there was a strong smell of cleaning supplies and noticed right away that the entire home had been cleaned. That was very unusual because he said that the house was usually pretty dirty and no one really cleaned around the place. He then went upstairs and noticed that one of the doors to the bedrooms was broken.
Jeremy contacted Kelsey again, asking her if she could fix the door because he assumed that it was her who did it and it was her son's room. And she replied saying that he could use Thomas's credit card to buy a new door. This really weirded Jeremy out saying that he wasn't about to use someone else's credit card information to start buying things. That made him way too uncomfortable.
At that time, Jeremy was convinced that something weird was going on. It was very strange to him that everyone had cleaned the house so well and then everyone just left and were not coming back. Days passed without much happening in the case with Judy still not hearing from Thomas and Jeremy having no idea where anyone in that house went.
However, by March 7th, 911 received a call to report a suspicious vehicle abandoned on a dirt road about two miles off the highway, about 20 miles northeast of the Las Vegas strip. This vehicle turned out to be Kelsey's 2017 Mercedes-Benz. When they got there, the car's two front windows were rolled down.
In the front passenger seat of the car, they saw that there were several pairs of latex gloves and there were burn marks throughout the front seat, which suggested to police that there was a small fire in the car. They also noticed stains that appeared to be bloodstains on the driver's seat headrest as well as in the back seat.
Because the windows were down, officers gained access pretty easily and they were able to turn the car on and open the trunk. Upon opening the trunk, they found a pile of clothing and blankets, but from that there was a foul odor emanating. So they moved the blankets and under the pile, they found a human body. And next to the body, there was a baseball bat.
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Chapter 6: How did the police become involved in Thomas's disappearance?
She said that she's seen people knock each other out before, so it shouldn't be that hard. So why can't John just
buck up and knock Thomas out she was basically instigating him and egging him on calling him all sorts of names trying to get him to just go and hit Thomas some more Deanna then heard as John headed into the garage so Deanna ran downstairs to try to stop whatever was about to happen she told Kelsey to stop but just as she was doing so Kelsey ran into the garage to see what was happening
Kelsey then came back into the house and told Deanna that it was too late. Deanna asked Kelsey what she meant and that is when John came back into the house from the garage now covered in blood and holding a gun. John had blood all over his hands and arms and blood splattered all over his face. it was clear that John had just beaten Thomas with this gun.
This was a fact that was confirmed by the medical examiner, stating that whatever killed Thomas was small and cylindrical, similar to the barrel of a gun. Once Deanna saw that, she started panicking and crying, so Kelsey told her to get started cleaning. So, that's what she did. She said at that point, she didn't know what else to do.
And I can see how she was in a state of extreme stress and shock. And after seeing the level of violence that these people are capable of, I probably would have done whatever they said in that moment too. Either way, It was most likely at that time that John put Thomas's body in the trunk of the car and left him there while they figured out what to do.
That night, after witnessing the murder of this 71-year-old man, Deanna stayed at her boyfriend's house along with Kelsey's four-year-old son. The following day, Kelsey and Deanna returned back to the house to continue cleaning. Once again, as I stated before, that is when they started staying at different hotels and got that cleaning crew to clean up the house.
At this time, Kelsey told Deanna that the cover story that they would tell for why Thomas was gone was that he returned back to California with some random men that they didn't know, but allowed Kelsey to continue using his bank information to pay for the hotels and pretty much anything else they needed.
It also appears that they used Thomas' phone for a few days, once again texting Judy to try to get more bank info out of her, but she knew that it was not Thomas, so she didn't give that information up. Then, once Kelsey and everyone found out about the police poking around the house once again,
Kelsey drove her car with Thomas's body in the trunk and then left the car abandoned on the side of a dirt road. Some of the evidence, like I said from before, like the gloves and the cleaning supplies, were also in that car. And then, as we heard from before, there was evidence of a fire in the front passenger seat.
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Chapter 7: What evidence was found related to Thomas Burchard's death?
Overall, no matter what you think about Thomas, he obviously didn't deserve this. Kelsey told her friends that he wasn't a sugar daddy, but it kind of seemed like that was the situation here. But even if this was a situation where he was romantically interested in Kelsey or if he just liked sending her money and spending time with her, it genuinely does not matter.
She is a full-grown adult who is clearly taking advantage of him, especially when he started to show signs of dementia. And for whatever reason, he continued to fall for her BS. And it's just devastating. My heart breaks for Thomas' loved ones, the patients he helped, and everyone else who knew and loved him. His life is gone so brutally because of someone who fell into a rage for God knows why.
Because at this point, we really don't even know why Thomas was killed. We know that an argument happened. We know that John and Kelsey were angry. But Kelsey was the one making threats and spewing accusations. While according to Deanna, Thomas was just trying to calm things down. To me, if there were messages about trying to get Kelsey's kids away from her, that could explain the rage.
I think she could have been looking for something to be angry about because she was afraid that Thomas was about to cut her off. I could also see if John was enjoying the life that Thomas financially provided and the threat of that being taken away sent them both into a rage. I guess that makes sense.
But with cases like this, of course, the level of violence that people escalate to makes no sense and it is always awkward.
heartbreaking but that is all of the information that i have for today's video and now i want to hear what you all think about this wild ride of a case what do you think kelsey actually found on that phone and why do you think she got mad or do you think she was just looking for a reason to be mad because she was afraid of him cutting her off financially Why do you think John was so upset?
Why do you think Deanna went along with all of it? Do you think she really feared for her life? Also, what do you think of Kelsey's Alford plea? What do you think of what Judy has been saying about the entire thing? Let me know any and all thoughts that you have in the comments below.
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