Defendant Convicted in Joint Prosecution of Murders in Sacramento/Yolo Counties
DATE: March 9, 2023
CASE: Trevaun Roman Turney (Case #22FE008983)
PROSECUTORS: Sacramento County Principal Criminal Attorney Allison Dunham & Yolo County Deputy District Attorney Caryn Warren
On March 8, 2023, Trevaun Roman Turney was convicted by a Yolo County jury of the first-degree murder of Maria Aguilera in Sacramento County and the first-degree murder of Colleen Paolinelli. The jury also found true the special circumstance of multiple murders and that Turney has a prior 2013 strike conviction for robbery.
Maria Aguilera was an unhoused woman. On March 9, 2019, Ms. Aguilera was found bludgeoned to death and naked from the waist down inside a canvas wagon in Sacramento. Sacramento homicide detectives pursued leads in the case, but a suspect was not identified. On January 19, 2021, another unhoused woman, Colleen Paolinelli, was found bludgeoned to death and naked from the waist down at a bus stop in West Sacramento in Yolo County. West Sacramento detectives discovered surveillance footage showing an individual stopping at the bus stop on multiple occasions between the time when Ms. Paolinelli was last seen alive and when she was found murdered. It also showed that individual making four striking motions while he was at the bus stop. Although West Sacramento detectives were able to determine a physical description of the individual, a suspect was not identified at that time. On November 16, 2021, Sacramento detectives viewed a West Sacramento Police bulletin seeking to identify Ms. Paolinelli’s murderer with physical descriptors and stills taken from surveillance footage. Sacramento detectives immediately recognized the individual as Trevaun Turney.
On November 24, 2021, Turney was arrested for the murder of Ms. Paolinelli after admitting to West Sacramento detectives that he was the person in the surveillance footage at the scene of Ms. Paolinelli’s murder. That same day, Sacramento detectives collected Turney’s DNA. The Sacramento County District Attorney’s Crime Lab matched Turney’s DNA to DNA found on Aguilera’s body and on the canvas wagon where her body was discovered. Turney was then arrested for the murder of Ms. Aguilera.
Turney faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without the possibility of parole. On March 29, 2023, a sentencing date will be set by the Honorable Peter Williams.
This case was tried in Yolo County in a joint prosecution by the Sacramento County District Attorney’s Office and Yolo County District Attorney’s Office.
