Third Suspect in Shevawn Geoghegan Killing Faces Arraignment

By Anne La Jeunesse

Arraignment of the third suspect in the killing of a 14-year-old Santa Monica girl strangled in the basement of an abandoned mental health clinic has been set for August 13.

Jimmy Ronald Turner, who was arrested last week in Birmingham, Ala. using the name Dennis Ronald Scott, was escorted back to Southern California last week by Santa Monica police, who had been searching for him since the Feb. 24, 1998 murder of Shevawn Geohegan.

Turner, 23, is being held without bail in Los Angeles County Jail until his arraignment on a murder charge, said Deputy District Attorney Alan Jackson.

Turner was captured in an eclectic area of Birmingham by police acting on a tip from viewers of the Fox television program "America's Most Wanted," becoming the 574th suspect captured after their crimes were chronicled by the program.

Two other people, a man witnesses said was a Satan worshipper and a 17-year-old runaway girl from Texas, have already been convicted in Shevawn's killing.

Glen "Ballis" Mason, 23, was convicted earlier this month of first degree murder after a jury trial and faces life in prison without the possibility of parole. Elizabeth Ann Mangham later pleaded no contest to a reduced charge of voluntary manslaughter and will serve 11 years in state prison.

Turner, who was known as "Linus," among Santa Monica's underworld population of runaways, homeless, drifters and local kids who hung out at the popular Third Street Promenade, was painted in Mason's trial by defense attorney Marc Lewinstein as the true killer.

However, acquaintances of both men say that Turner was a follower of Mason who would not have killed without his consent.

Mason "was the leader. Linus was the follower," Jackson said in closing arguments in the Mason trial. "Would he have allowed Linus to take control in that room? No way."

Shevawn was strangled in a basement room of a former Los Angeles County mental health clinic located at 1525 Euclid. Like many other buildings in Santa Monica rendered uninhabitable after the 1994 Northridge earthquake, the building had been taken over by a loose community of criminals and runaways who squatted there, seeking shelter.

The buildings had no utilities and the squatters slept on makeshift beds and used toilets overflowing with waste, according to authorities.