Months after Louisiana authorities found the body of a missing Black teen dismembered in a river, the man accused of killing her was taken into custody.
When the suspect, 29-year-old Anthony Pierce Holland, was arrested on Tuesday, April 23, he allegedly confessed to the homicide of 19-year-old Sheryl Turner of New Iberia, a local newspaper reported. Turner was last seen on New Year’s Eve, and authorities say when she left her home abruptly, she told her family she would reach out to them at a later time.
“She sent messages to her sister stating that she had met someone in the Ouachita Parish area and was going to move up there for a while,” Catahoula Sheriff Toney Edwards said in a news release, per KATC. “Sheryl then sent a message to a family friend in New Iberia stating that she had made it to West Monroe and would talk to him soon.”
Her twin sister, Sherry, was consistently on social media calling for the community’s help to find her. In late January, a hunter notified the sheriff’s office of a body in the Ouachita River, where deputies found a torso from an unknown female, the official said. It was later revealed to be Turner a month later.
“I’ll never understand why someone could do that to a person…but what I do know is whoever did it will be where they should be and justice will be served!!!!” Sherry said in a Facebook post on Feb. 25. “I mean look at her, Sheryl didn’t deserve to go like that! It’s gone forever be LongLiveSheryl.”
An investigation by the Catahoula Sheriff and West Monroe Police Department led to Holland’s arrest. According to KATC, citing an affidavit, Holland and Turner initially started their relationship online via TextNow, an app that provides free phone service using Wi-Fi. He ended up picking her up and bringing her to his home in Ouachita Parish, which is nearly 200 miles away, on Jan. 1.
The affidavit claims he admitted to killing her while having sex, which led him to dismember her body in his apartment, per the outlet. He placed the parts in bags and discarded them in the river. The autopsy report shows that Turner was broken and she was sexually assaulted.
Holland was charged with second-degree murder and is being held without bond, according to a statement by the West Monroe Police Department.
“Justice has been served,” Sherry wrote in a Facebook post, adding “
Turner’s death is eerily similar to that of 19-year-old Sade Robinson in Wisconsin. She was reported missing after she went on a first date with a man later identified by law enforcement as 33-year-old Maxwell Anderson. Her car, which had been set ablaze, was found in an alley. In addition, some of her body parts were recovered at a beach by Lake Michigan.
Anderson was charged with mutilation of a corpse, arson and first degree intentional homicide. He pleaded not guilty.
