Woman murdered boyfriend with antifreeze

A former emergency dispatch operator was convicted today of murdering her boyfriend by poisoning him with antifreeze.

Lynn Turner could face a death sentence for the 2001 killing of Randy Thompson, a firefighter and the father of her two children. The same jury that convicted Turner will return to court on Monday to decide whether to impose that sentence.

She is already serving a life sentence for the 1995 death of her husband, Glenn Turner, a Cobb County police officer. The murder charge in Thompson’s death was filed after that 2004 conviction.

After the verdict was announced, members of both Thompson’s and Turner’s family began to weep.

Turner did not look back as she was led out of the courtroom.

Turner, who had maintained her innocence in both cases, did not testify in either trial.

After the verdict was announced, defence attorney Jimmy Berry said: “You know when you’ve got one conviction already it’s really tough to convince a jury she had nothing to do with the second (death.)”

In closing arguments yesterday, District Attorney Penny Penn said the motive in both cases was Turner’s greed for the victims’ life insurance money.

Lawyers for Turner, 38, rested their case earlier after a defence toxicologist testified that while one of the victims showed signs of antifreeze poisoning the other did not, casting doubt on the prosecution theory that the deaths were similar.

Defence lawyers have argued there was no direct evidence proving murder.

Police did not launch a criminal investigation of the deaths until a few months after Thompson died.

Prosecutors said tests on their bodies showed they were poisoned with ethylene glycol, a sweet but odourless chemical in antifreeze. During Turner’s 2004 trial they suggested it could have been placed in foods such as Jell-O.

Penn said during her closing argument that even though no one saw her do it, Turner was the last person with both men before they became ill and was the last person to give them anything to eat or drink.

Defence lawyer Vic Reynolds said the prosecution’s evidence adds up to character assassination, not murder. “They can predict. They can assume, but that isn’t the law,” Reynolds said.