By Lisa Sweetingham Court TV
PERRY, Ga. The toxic substance that killed both Lynn Turner's husband and her boyfriend does not occur naturally in the human body, a forensic toxicologist testified Tuesday in Turner's murder trial.
Prosecutors say Turner poisoned them both by feeding them antifreeze, which is 95% composed of the toxin ethylene glycol.
Turner, 35, is currently charged with murdering her husband, Cobb County police officer Glenn Turner, in 1995. She is a suspect, but has not been charged, in the 2001 death of her former lover, Forsyth County firefighter Randy Thompson, with whom she had two children.
Medical examiners initially determined that both men died from heart failure. But after toxicologists found that Thompson had ethylene glycol in his tissues, his death was ruled a homicide. Glenn Turner's body was exhumed, six years after his death, and he too was found to have the chemical in his tissues.
William Dunn of National Medical Services in Pennsylvania, the independent lab that conducted tests on both men in 2001, told jurors on Tuesday that he would never anticipate finding any level of ethylene glycol in a victim's body unless the person had been exposed to the chemical or ingested it, a remark made by previous medical-expert witnesses.
"The fact that Mr. Turner had been embalmed, does that cause you any concern?" prosecutor Bryan Lumpkin asked Dunn, referring to implications made by the defense Saturday that Glenn Turner may have been embalmed with a fluid that contained ethylene glycol.
"No, it does not," Dunn said.
When the Georgia State crime lab initially tested Randy Thompson, it found that the amount of ethylene glycol in his system was "not significant," but then later amended its findings due to a mathematical error.
Dunn explained Tuesday that, because concentrations of ethylene glycol may vary within the organs tested, it would be normal for the periphery of the organ to have lower concentrations of ethylene glycol than those specimens taken from the central portion.
"If it was a 10-fold difference or they didn't find any ethylene glycol at all," Dunn said, "that would be a concern."
A second witness from National Medical Services, Caroline Burke, could not travel at the last minute for medical reasons and will offer testimony via videotaped teleconference. The judge released the jurors early Tuesday to enable the attorneys to travel to a facility that can conduct the taping. Jurors will hear Burke's testimony Wednesday, and the prosecution expects to wrap up its case shortly after.
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