Missing 19-year-old dismembered and tossed in river by man she met online, police say
The torso of a missing 19-year-old woman was found in a Louisiana river after she went to stay with a man she met online, authorities said.
Anthony Holland Jr., 29, now faces a murder charge, the West Monroe Police department said in an April 24 news release.
Sheryl Turner left home in New Iberia, Louisiana, to stay with Holland, as they were “engaged in a romantic relationship over text message,” police said.
Her family grew worried after she left home on Dec. 31, and they reported her missing, KATC reported. But they said they were dissatisfied with response from local law enforcement.
“Everything died down. It got quiet,” Turner’s father, Michael Turner, told KATC.
Her loved ones took to social media for help.
“If anybody knows the where abouts of my twin sister Sheryl Turner plz by all means text me and let me know,” Sherry Turner wrote on Facebook on Jan 5. “My last time speaking to her was Monday before she packed up and left without telling anybody where she was going.”
Then on Jan. 24, a boater called the Catahoula Parish Sheriff’s Office to report a body floating in the Ouachita River, the sheriff’s office said in a news release.
Through DNA testing, investigators determined the body belonged to Sheryl Turner.
On April 23, investigators searched Holland’s home and found “forensic evidence of a crime of violence,” police said.
Holland told authorities that he killed Turner at his home and dismembered her body before dumping her remains in the river, police said.
“I’ll never understand why someone could do that to a person,” Turner’s sister wrote on Facebook.
In Turner’s obituary, family described her as “a shining light to all who knew her, with a kind and loving personality that radiated through her beautiful smile and touched the hearts of those around her.”
On April 12, the day both twins would have turned 20, Sherry Turner wished her sister happy birthday.
“Until we meet again love you forever and always,” she wrote.
Holland was arrested and booked in jail on a second-degree murder charge the evening of April 23, nearly three months after Turner’s body was found, police said. His attorney information is not available in jail records.
When the West Monroe Police Department announced Holland’s arrest, Sherry Turner said that justice had been served.
West Monroe is in northern Louisiana, about a 190-mile drive northwest from Baton Rouge.
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