PERRY, Ga. — Testimony began Friday in the trial of a Georgia woman accused of murdering her husband by feeding him antifreeze and suspected of killing her lover six years later the same way.

"This case is about lust, greed and murder," Cobb County District Attorney Patrick Head told jurors during his opening statement Friday morning. "It's about two men and one woman."

Julia Lynn Turner, 36, is charged in the 1995 killing of her husband, Cobb County police officer Maurice Glenn Turner, 32.

Turner, a former 911 operator, is also a suspect in the 2001 antifreeze-poisoning murder of her lover, Forsyth County firefighter Randy Thompson, 31, with whom she had two children. Both men's deaths were initially ruled heart failure, but later changed to homicide when medical examiners found they both had died from poisoning by ethylene glycol, a fatal substance in antifreeze and other industrial products.

Story continues

advertisement

Prosecutors described Turner as a woman who wooed her husband with expensive gifts, committed an adulterous affair soon after the two were married in 1993, and then murdered him for his insurance money in 1995.

"The conduct of the defendant was not that of a grieving widow," Head said, pointing to the fact that four days after Glenn's funeral she had moved in with Randy Thompson.

In his opening statements, defense attorney Vic Reynolds told jurors that the charges against his client were based on innuendo, rumors and gossip.

Defense attorney Vic Reynolds gives his opening statement.

"Nearly 35 friends and co-workers of Glenn and Lynn Turner have been interviewed and none of those interviews have provided evidence," Reynolds told jurors, pointing to the fact that it was Lynn who brought Glenn to the emergency room to get him medical assistance when he first fell ill.

Before his death in March 1995, Glenn Turner was admitted to the emergency room complaining of flu-like symptoms, but he was released after receiving an IV of fluids and anti-vomiting medication. Lynn found him dead in his bed the next day, but no foul play was detected, so no further investigation was done beyond an autopsy.

Six years later, Thompson died shortly after visiting the emergency room with the same symptoms. His death was also initially ruled heart failure, but when a Georgia Bureau of Investigation medical examiner found calcium oxalate crystals — the telltale sign of ethylene glycol poisoning — in Thompson's kidney tissues, authorities exhumed Glenn's body and found that he had also died from ethylene glycol.

Because of the similarities of the deaths, the court ruled that jurors may hear evidence about Thompson's death and his relationship with Lynn, even though she has not been charged in his murder.

Turner, dressed in a long blue dress and short-sleeved blue jacket, listened intently during opening statements, sometimes taking notes or whispering to her attorneys.

Signal 63: Officer down

The prosecution's first witness, a businessman and close friend of Glenn Turner, told jurors that during the couple's courtship, Lynn gave Glenn many expensive gifts, including snakeskin boots and matching snakeskin belt, World Series tickets to see the Atlanta Braves and several bottles of expensive liquor.

But when the two were married, his wife's spending caused the couple such financial distress that Glenn Turner took a second job for $7 an hour at a Chevron station, Donald Cawthon testified. It was there in February 1995 Cawthon last saw his friend.

During that meeting, Cawthon said Glenn confided to him that he and Lynn had not had sex for the past year and had slept in separate beds since six months after the honeymoon. At the time of the discussion, Lynn was reportedly out of town, attending a race in Daytona with her new boyfriend, Randy Thompson.

Glenn Turner was initially thought to have died of natural causes.

Cawthon said that Glenn Turner told him, "When she gets home tonight, we're going to work it out. I want to work my marriage out. I love her, but I can only take so much."

A few days later, Cawthon said he called Glenn after hearing he'd visited the emergency room. "I said to him, 'Hey Fat Boy, what'd you do? Eat too many doughnuts?'" Cawthon testified. "Fat Boy" was an affectionate nickname for the 6-foot-3-inch officer, whose weight sometimes climbed to 240 pounds.

Glenn told him that he thought he had the flu but when his nose started bleeding he went for treatment and was feeling better.

But the next day, Cawthon got a signal "63" on his pager, indicating "officer down." After the funeral, Cawton said he never saw Lynn Turner again.

'She was very cold'

Jurors also heard from 911 operator Cynthia McGhee, who once worked with Lynn Turner and had met Glenn Turner because he would often come by the station to bring the operators meals. "She basically ignored Glenn," McGhee said of Lynn. "She was very cold toward him. I never saw any type of intimacy, a hug or kiss or 'Hi, how are you.'"

McGhee said that one day at work she saw Lynn Turner reading the large red "Physicians Desk Reference," now admitted into evidence. When McGhee asked about the book, Lynn told her she "was interested in medicine and how it worked in the body."

"I didn't see any emotion in her whatsoever when he died," McGhee said. "She wasn't crying or upset."

Turner, who has been living under house arrest at her parent's home in Cumming, Ga., faces life in prison if convicted.

The trial is expected to last three weeks and is being broadcast by Court TV.