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LaJoya McCoy was last spotted on June 9, 2015, and found strangled to death by her ex-boyfriend Jose Roberto Turner in her car a week later a mile away from her apartment. The West Olive Avenue resident, McCoy, and her ex-boyfriend Turner were parents to two children.
Jose Turner and LaJoya McCoy started seeing each other in the 2000s. Even though the couple had broken up before their marriage, Turner and McCoy continued to bring up their children through a partnership that fell through around April 2013. Ever since Jose Turner had been reportedly stalking LaJoya and plotting her murder.
The Dateline NBC episode titled The Dead of Night covers the murder of LaJoya McCoy and Jose Roberto Turner's subsequent conviction. The synopsis reads:
"As detectives investigate the sudden disappearance of LaJoya McCoy, a mother of two, from her apartment, her friends and family reveal LaJoya feared that she was being stalked."
Who is Jose Roberto Turner? Details explored
Jose Roberto Turner was an aspiring actor and screenwriter who met LaJoya McCoy when she was 20 years of age. The two started seeing each other and parented two children for over a decade before the partnership turned abusive.
Two years before LaJoya McCoy's death in her silver Toyota, she sought refuge at her Uncle David Clark and Aunt Alicia Clark's door in the middle of the night. Half-naked and frantic, McCoy had escaped an alleged choking attempt by Jose Turner during an argument, leaping over a "large cast iron fence" to reach safety.
McCoy and Turner broke up in 2013 - an incident which prompted Turner to turn to stalking. LaJoya's family spoke about her concern for her safety when she would find her car's tires slashed and the documents in her apartment missing.
LaJoya's association with other men angered Jose Turner and he wrote about his desire to kill her in his journal, as revealed in court documents.
Why was Jose Turner arrested?
LaJoya McCoy's blanket-covered body was recovered from her abandoned car on the 200 block of West Cypress Avenue, according to the San Gabriel Valley Tribune. Her autopsy reports came back the next day stating strangulation as the cause of her death as evident from the ligature marks around her neck.
McCoy was reported missing on June 15, 2015. While her family and friends went around looking for her, the investigators did not receive much cooperation from Turner which prompted them to suspect his involvement. The third welfare check was conducted by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department at McCoy's West Olive Avenue apartment and the scene revealed itself to be bloody and grisly.
The court documents revealed Jose Turner's DNA to match the bloodstain on Mccoy's bedroom wall and light switch cover in her bathroom. The authorities also found his DNA under LaJoya's fingernails and inside her car. A note inside McCoy's car stating her suspicions about Jose Roberto Turner and the other related strange occurrences of her slashed tires tied Turner to the case.
Where is Jose Turner now?
According to NBC Los Angeles, Jose Roberto Turner was arrested on August 27, 2015. He was convicted of first-degree murder for killing LaJoya McCoy, 31, of Monrovia on June 19, 2017.
Turner was sentenced to 26 years in prison and is presently incarcerated at the North Kern State Prison in Los Angeles according to the California Department of Corrections.
