Manslaughter leads to 11-year sentence in 2017 slaying
Judge imposes maximum penalty on repeat offender
In the summer of 2017, detectives interviewed 42-year-old Lawrence Chavez Jr. about the death of a man who was found fatally shot in a Valencia County irrigation ditch.
The belief that Chavez was cooperating with authorities set off a string of events that ended with his being shot and killed in front of his father in his South Valley home.
In July, Victor Turner, now 29, pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in Chavez’s death.
Last week, as a repeat offender, he was sentenced to the maximum 11 years in prison. Chavez’s younger sister, his father and his father’s fiancee attended the hearing and spoke of their loved one through tears. Turner’s aunt also attended, to ask for him to be allowed to seek treatment for substance abuse.
“There was some truth to the fact that there was this outstanding investigation, that Mr. Chavez had been interviewed, but he wasn’t really cooperating or anything in that case,” prosecutor David Waymire told the court at the sentencing hearing. “As virtually all homicide cases that we get are, it was essentially unwarranted and meaningless in terms of the death that occurred here.”
The day after Chavez was killed, deputies arrested Angelina Weaver and a man who was thought to have been at the scene. But prosecutors quickly dismissed the charges against that man, saying he had been misidentified. Turner was arrested two months later. Weaver’s case was dismissed in April 2018 after court deadlines passed and the case was still under investigation.
Waymire said that the initial misidentification of a suspect plagued the case and that because deputies were not able to identify the second man, prosecutors struck a plea deal on manslaughter charges.
“We had to factor that into the strength of the case,” he said.
Chavez’s attorney, Chandler Blair, said drugs were key to the case and asked for leniency for his client.
“A lot of this is skewed by drug use,” he said. “Mr. Turner has had a serious drug problem for a number of years, and we all know that skews your perception.”
In the end, Judge Brett Loveless imposed the maximum sentence.
He said that in the years leading up to Chavez’s death he had seen Turner in court repeatedly on lesser crimes and probation violations.
“Unfortunately, here we are where someone was murdered,” Loveless said. “It is the court’s view that maximum sentencing is appropriate. Quite frankly, given the circumstances, it appears you did get a benefit by virtue of plea agreement in light of what happened.”