PRESS RELEASE

The Chester County District Attorney’s Office announces the arrests of Laquanta Chapman, age 29, Coatesville, and Bryan Byrd, age 19, of Newark, New Jersey. These arrests are a result of a 7 month joint investigation by the Coatesville City Police Department and the Chester County Detectives Office.

Both defendants are charged with criminal homicide, aggravated assault, possession of instruments of a crime, abuse of corpse, criminal conspiracy, and related offenses, concerning the disappearance and murder of Aaron Turner, age 16, of 40 Chester Ave., Coatesville, PA.

On Thursday, October 30, 2008, the Coatesville City Police Department, received a missing persons report from Turner’s mother, who reported that her son, Aaron Turner disappeared while walking to the CYWA in Coatesville.

On November 15, 2008, police executed search warrants at 35 Chester Avenue, Coatesville, which was where Chapman resided and where his nephew Bryan Byrd was visiting. This residence is near by Aaron Turner’s house. Besides finding numerous firearms and drugs in the house, police also uncovered trash bags containing bloody clothing. In a trash bag there were also the severed remains of a dog. There were also 2 chainsaws that investigators believed had the smell of a decomposing human body.

Chapman and Byrd were both charged on November 16, 2008 with multiple counts of firearm and drug violations. Chapman was also charged with Animal Cruelty charges. They are awaiting trial on those charges,

Chapman was interviewed and stated that the blood on the clothing came from a dog he had chopped up with the chainsaws. He also claimed that Aaron Turner had never been in his house.

Extensive DNA tests were run on the items found in Chapman’s house and Aaron Turner’s DNA was found in several locations in the basement of 35 Chester Avenue. Turner’s DNA was also found on a bloody jacket that had a bullet hole in it as well as a copper bullet fragment still attached. Turner’s DNA was also on both chainsaws in the form of blood and human tissue. Furthermore, 2 items of clothing, sneakers and a tee shirt, had Turner’s DNA on the outside and a mixture of Chapman and Turner’s DNA on the inside which leads investigators to believe that Chapman was wearing that clothing while using the chainsaws on Turner’s body. 

In a statement to police, Byrd stated that Chapman walked Turner down to the basement of 35 Chester Avenue at gunpoint. Chapman asked Byrd to go upstairs and turn up the music as loud as possible. Byrd turned up the music and when he went back downstairs he watched Chapman and an unknown third party shoot and kill Aaron Turner. Chapman then, with Byrd’s help, used 2 chainsaws to dismember Turner’s body. They then placed Turner in garbage bags and put his remains out in the trash to be collected.

For several months, through inclement weather, police extensively searched landfills where garbage was brought, in search for Aaron Turner. His body was never recovered.

The Chief Medical Examiner of Delaware, Doctor Richard T. Callery has examined this evidence and concluded that Aaron Turner is dead and the manner of his death is homicide.