A serial killer already on Death Row for killing 10 women and an unborn child was found guilty Thursday of four additional murders, the Los Angeles County District Attorney’s Office said.
Jurors deliberated for less than day before finding 47-year-old Chester Dewayne Turner guilty of four counts of first-degree murder.
- Updates: Download the NBCLA News App
The jury also found the special circumstance allegations of multiple murders and prior murder convictions to be true, making Turner eligible for the death penalty once again.
The penalty phase of the trial is expected to begin Friday in an LA courtroom.
Turner, a former pizza delivery man, was convicted and sentenced to death in 2007 for murders that stretched from 1987 until 1998.
Like the previous 10 victims, the four women in the pending case were found strangled to death in South Los Angeles.
U.S. & World
News from around the country and around the globe
Authorities say Turner was one of at least three serial killers who stalked Los Angeles-area women during a crack cocaine epidemic in the 1980s and 1990s that led some women into prostitution to support their drug habits.
The attacks were dubbed the "Southside Slayer" killings before authorities concluded more than one attacker was involved.
Two years ago, Michael Hughes was sentenced to death for strangling a 15-year-old girl and two women. He previously got life for four killings.
Former mechanic Lonnie Franklin Jr. has pleaded not guilty to 10 so-called "Grim Sleeper" killings and the attempted murder of another woman that took place between 1985 and 2007. The victims were strangled or shot and dumped in alleys near his South Los Angeles home.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
