A man who was convicted of murdering his girlfriend — a prominent banking executive found dead inside her Reseda home — was sentenced on Friday, Oct. 10, to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Anthony Duwayne Turner, now 57 and himself a former banking executive, was found guilty Aug. 12 of first-degree murder, burglary and forcible rape stemming from the August 2021 killing of Michelle Annette Avan, a senior vice president for Bank of America, just over four years ago. She had two children and one grandchild.
The victim’s family members joined her friends in calling on Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge Larry Paul Fidler to impose the maximum sentence on Turner, who did not speak during the sentencing hearing.
The victim’s daughter, Nyah, called her mother a woman of poise, wisdom and grace, saying that she had been a mentor to many woman and that “her spirit lives on through all of us.”
“We waited patiently for this, almost four years on the dot. The legacy that you are leaving behind is one of disgrace,” she told the defendant.
The victim’s son, Trevon, said the defendant was “stupid” and thought that he was going to “get away with murder.”
The victim’s brother, Patrick Miller, called Turner a “predator” and “the monster who took her from us,” saying that the world will be “safer without him in it.”
Turner’s ex-wife, Anjanette Jones, called him “a danger to women and society, quite frankly.”
Avan was found dead by her son inside her bedroom in the 19300 block of Covello Street, near Tampa Avenue and Saticoy Street, in August 2021.
Prosecutors alleged that Turner beat and strangled the bank executive, while defense attorney Jovan Blacknell countered that what happened to the 48-year-old woman could have been “self-inflicted” by ramming her head into a bathroom counter.
Turner — who testified in his own defense — said he had gone to the woman’s home late Aug. 3, 2021, without calling or texting her to “finalize things, get some closure” and to “finalize the breakup” after a number of previous breakups with her.
Turner said the two initially met in 2015 at an internal networking event and subsequently engaged in an affair while they were each married to other people.
He said the two maintained a “discreet” relationship even after they each divorced their spouses, saying he preferred not to be public about it and that she knew he spent time with other women during holidays.
The defendant, who was captured on her victim’s surveillance video as he emerged from his vehicle, said he used the code she had given him for her security system and disarmed her alarm without turning it back on because he “didn’t expect to be there that long.”
Turner maintained that her bedroom door was “unlocked” and that she greeted him with a hug and kiss while wearing only a pair of panties.
“I wanted to permanently end the relationship,” he said, telling jurors that she became very upset and pleaded with him to give her another chance.
Turner testified that he eventually fell asleep while sitting in a chair as she sat on the edge of the bed, and that she was in the same position when he woke up about 4 a.m. the next morning.
Turner said the woman still seemed upset and tried to block him from leaving, but had no visible injuries to her face the last time he saw her standing on the stairs of her home when he came back inside the house to say goodbye after taking a bag containing his belongings out to his vehicle.
In her closing argument, Deputy District Attorney Cindy Wallace told the downtown Los Angeles jury that “the circumstantial evidence overwhelmingly points to guilt.”
“We know that he did not come there to break up with Michelle. … He came there to do what he’s always done — to beat her … to assert his control over her,” Wallace said, adding that he “ultimately raped and murdered Michelle.”
Wallace told the panel that DNA evidence collected from the woman’s cervix and her right breast indicated that “his DNA was there,” despite Turner’s claim that their last sexual encounter had occurred in late July 2021.
The prosecutor called the defense’s suggestion that the woman may have been so distraught and sad over the breakup that she hit her head over and over on a counter was a “fantastical lie” and didn’t explain how some of her other injuries had occurred.
Turner was charged with murder four days after the woman’s body was discovered, with a grand jury indictment returned against him.