Los Angeles Police Department detectives have arrested a 52-year-old man on suspicion of murder hours after Michelle Avan, a banking executive and grandmother, was found dead Thursday morning inside her home in Reseda.
Anthony Duwayne Turner was booked late Thursday by detectives assigned to the Robbery Homicide Division and was being held at the Van Nuys jail in lieu of $2 million bail, according to jail records, which also described Turner's occupation as a "banker."
Multiple law enforcement sources told NBC4's I-Team Turner had a personal relationship with Avan and she had recently considered obtaining a restraining order against him. Turner was detained near his home in Westchester.
An LAPD spokesman had no additional information on the case or the arrest Friday.
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Avan was discovered unresponsive by family members around 7 a.m. Thursday. She was pronounced dead at the scene and detectives said she appeared to have "suffered trauma to her face."
Avan had two children and one grandchild.
In June, the LA Sentinel newspaper profiled her in her new role a senior vice president of human resources at the financial firm Merrill Lynch.
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"As one of the highest ranking, most recognized women in banking, she would always find a way to lift people up," retired banking executive Darrell Brown told NBC4's Beverly White.
"Pull them up, push them up, particularly in African American communities," he said. "Overlooked, deprived - she had a passion to make sure she was a foundation and a launching pad."
