Amanda Turner at her sentencing hearing (WCPO/YouTube).
A Kentucky family will be spending this Christmas — and many more to come — within the confines of the Department of Corrections.
The case involving the 2023 murder of 23-year-old Seth Burns came to a resolution with four family members sentenced to prison and a fifth to probation. On Monday, the family matriarch, 40-year-old Amanda Turner, was sentenced to 12 1/2 years in prison. She joins her sons Jackie Turner (30 years behind bars) who fired the fatal shot and Xxavion Turner (three years) who instigated the incident, along with her daughters Keavier Turner (18 months) and Lakera Hughes (five years probation) for rioting, in being convicted in the case.
Amanda Turner pleaded guilty to facilitation of murder, rioting, unlawful transaction with a minor and illegally permitting a minor to possess a gun. Jackie Turner, now 18, was a minor at the time of the shooting.
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“I feel like you and your family acted with complete disregard and malice for any human life,” Barbara Burns, the victim’s mother, said at Amanda Turner’s sentencing, according to the Cincinnati Enquirer.
She also had some choice words after the hearing.
“I don’t know what kind of mother takes their kids to go shoot someone else’s child. It makes no sense to me,” she told reporters. “I think they all deserved at least 30 years for what they did.”
As Law&Crime previously reported, Kenton County Commonwealth’s Attorney Rob Sanders told the Enquirer that the posts that started the conflict related to “insults about children and parenting skills, or lack thereof.” The dispute was between Xxavion Turner, 21, and his ex-girlfriend, who was then reportedly dating Burns.
According to criminal complaints obtained by Law&Crime, Amanda Turner drove her two sons, whom she knew were carrying guns, and two daughters to a home so they could fight Xxavion Turner’s ex-girlfriend and other people on Aug. 25, 2023. Xxavion Turner sent his ex-girlfriend a picture of a Google map showing they were en route and ready to fight. When they arrived, Xxavion Turner allegedly fired a shot in the air and toward Burns. His younger brother also shot Burns, which was believed to be the fatal wound.
Amanda Turner then drove her sons away from the scene to “avoid police detection,” the complaint said. Witnesses rushed Burns to a nearby fire station and he was airlifted to a hospital where he later died.
Amanda Turner pleaded guilty in September while Jackie Turner pleaded guilty to murder in July.
During a September hearing, she admitted to driving her sons to what she called a “girl fight,” the Enquirer reported. She also said she encouraged the fight in text messages. Part of the incident was reportedly caught on a neighbor’s Ring camera, which showed the Turner family, along with Xxavion Turner’s current girlfriend, all streaming out of a vehicle and walking up to the home.
Burns’ family has said that he had nothing to do with the confrontation.
“My son literally was an innocent victim in this,” his father Michael Burns said, according to Cincinnati ABC affiliate WCPO. “He didn’t know this man, he didn’t know anybody in that family. He happened to be in the car with his girlfriend when she got the call that they were on their way.”
Kenton County Circuit Judge Kathleen Lape said the whole ordeal was senseless.
“It was dumb,” said Lape, WCPO reported. “This is absolutely dumb.”
