Antoine Turner was 19 years old when he died on Sunday, May 25, 2003, in Lancaster, the largest city in the Antelope Valley of northern Los Angeles County. According to the Los Angeles County Medical Examiner-Coroner, he died of stab wounds at 44535 Beech Ave. His death was ruled a homicide, and it is listed as a case of the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department.
The Los Angeles Times Homicide Report recorded his death in a single sentence drawn from coroner's records. It described him as "a 19-year-old black male" who "died Sunday, May 25, after being stabbed in Lancaster." The entry gave a street address on Beech Avenue, but it did not say whether he lived there, whether he was visiting or whether that was simply where he was found. No follow-up story about his death appears to have been published.
Beyond his name, his age and the place where he died, almost nothing about Antoine Turner has been made public.
No obituary, memorial page or family fundraiser could be found for this story, and no news outlet appears to have reported on the death. He surely had family, friends or neighbors who remember who he was, but none of that has entered the public record. Antoine Turner is a fairly common name, and searches for it are crowded with other men, including a Washington, D.C., man convicted in a 2020 killing there and a New Jersey parole officer who died in a traffic crash. None of them can be connected to this death in the Antelope Valley.
Because so little has been released, even the basic circumstances remain unknown to the public. The record does not say whether he was stabbed during a fight or a robbery, attacked by a stranger or by someone he knew, or hurt indoors or on the street. It does not say what time of day he was hurt, whether he died at the scene or later at a hospital, whether anyone saw what happened, or whether investigators ever identified a suspect.
He died on the Sunday of Memorial Day weekend, at 19, an age when many young people are finishing school, starting work or still living at home, though nothing in the record says what his life looked like.
Lancaster sits in the high desert north of the San Gabriel Mountains. It grew in the decades after World War II around aerospace work at nearby Edwards Air Force Base and Air Force Plant 42 in Palmdale, and in the 1990s and 2000s it drew many families from the Los Angeles basin looking for more affordable housing. The city contracts with the Sheriff's Department for police services, so homicides there are investigated by the department's Homicide Bureau.
Hundreds of people are killed in Los Angeles County every year, and a large share of those killings end without an arrest.
No arrest, criminal charge or court case connected to the death of Antoine Turner could be found in news archives or public records. More than 22 years later, there is no public sign that anyone has been held responsible. Anyone who knew a 19-year-old named Antoine Turner in Lancaster or elsewhere in the Antelope Valley, or who lived on or near Beech Avenue in late May 2003, may hold information that could help. Even a small detail, such as a name overheard, a vehicle seen nearby or a conversation remembered, can help detectives move a case forward. Anyone with information can contact the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department Homicide Bureau at 323-890-5500, or leave an anonymous tip with Crime Stoppers at 800-222-TIPS (8477).
