Funeral Services | Forensic Files | S14 E20 | FULL EPISODE | Forensic Files

[Music] up next the murder of a funeral director it just didn't make sense it didn't ring
clear at all cell phone records provided some important evidence there was a whole lot more to this story
than what was originally thought but a homemade mask found near the scene indicated
the victim and killer knew one another i'm thinking we've messed something up somewhere we've made a mistake
[Music] in the small town of navasota texas lonnie turner was an important figure lonnie was the
owner operator of a local funeral home there in navasota he was a well-respected member of the
community at large he would help the needy i mean if you didn't have money or you didn't have
insurance to take care of a service he would tote the note for you a lot of times he went unpaid
and lonnie was one of the first african-american members of the city council and the school board he broke down a lot
of racial barriers good businessman all-around good guy one november night shortly before
midnight lonnie's son arrived home and discovered the light bulb had been unscrewed near
the door on the back porch he noticed the tv is only the den the lights are on and he goes back to
dad's room he saw lights on under his father's bedroom door which was unusual for this
time of night so he looked inside he noticed what appeared to be some blood on the wall he saw that his father
was there in an area between the edge of the bed and the bedroom wall he gets scared
and he runs to his room and he lifts up his mattress to get a gun then he ran outside and called police
[Music] and everything in a panic lonnie jr got in his car and drove to the police station
when police arrived at the turner's home a short time later the victim's brother lawson answered the
door lawson said he just arrived and when he got there he hadn't seen his brother or
his nephew lonnie jr and so he was going to stay with his brother overnight he goes through the
house and he doesn't see lonnie senior so he's thinking he's out on a call so he was gonna go ahead and get ready
and get ready for bed because he had to get up the next morning they took him out and treated him as if
he may be the shooter police found lonnie senior dead on the floor of his bedroom
shot twice at close range they found two spent nine millimeter shell casings in the police cruiser officers told
lawson that his brother had been murdered [Music] this is unbelievable oh no i was out there that night and he
just he cried like a baby he was extremely upset police found no signs of forced entry
nothing was stolen even though there was seven thousand dollars in cash in a safe
in an adjacent room the safe was actually open there were firearms all over the house
and none of those items seemed to have been touched at the police station the victim's son
loni junior told police he had no idea who would have done this do you know anybody would want to hurt your dad
i don't want to do something like this nobody no nobody just enemies it you know but police were
confused by the stories given by the victim's brother lawson and by the victim's son who'd left the
scene after calling police and those stories were about to get even stranger virtually everyone on the navasota texas
police force knew lonnie turner he ran the town's most successful funeral home and was a civic leader we spent time
at the funeral homes we respected him and respected the fact that he was not only a friend to us but he
was a leader and a role model the crime scene gave every indication that lonnie was in bed asleep
but woke up saw he was in danger and lifted his arm to protect himself the first shot hit him in the forearm as
the shooting began he had actually rolled to his left during the shooting and roll
completely off of the bed the second shot hit him in the chest start looking at people that knew him or
had a reason to kill him investigators were troubled by the movements of the victim's son
lonnie jr and the victim's brother lawson on the night of the murder lonnie jr said he came home found his father
injured in the bedroom then grabbed his gun and cell phone called police and drove to the police station by his
own admission lonnie said he called police without even checking to see if his father was
still alive we started asking him well why didn't you go check on your dad you know was he still breathing
was he trying to say anything to you and lonnie didn't even do that it just didn't make sense it didn't ring
clear at all it was one of the strangest stories i've had from a murder suspect and there have been some pretty strange
stories even stranger was what happened next shortly after lonnie jr left but before police arrived the victim's
brother lawson claimed he arrived from out of town and let himself into the house
he was going to stay with his brother overnight lawson was scheduled to referee college football in houston the next day
when he heard no answer he assumed his brother was out on a funeral call picking up a body
so when police arrived he was completely unaware a crime had been committed lonnie turner
was killed with a nine millimeter weapon interestingly police found a nine millimeter
taurus handgun under lonnie jr's mattress in his bedroom test fired from that gun
were compared to a bullet recovered from lonnie's senior's body i was able to determine that the
question bullet from autopsy was fired in the submitted taurus pistol fingerprints on that gun matched lonnie
jr's when questioned lonnie told police he wasn't surprised his nine-millimeter gun
was used as the murder weapon he claimed the gun had been stolen two weeks earlier
we thought that was kind of strange he never reported that gun stolen to law enforcement all of a sudden
reappears underneath the mattress and in the house police performed a gunshot residue test
on both the victim's brother lawson and the victim's son lonnie jr lawson tested negative he also passed a
polygraph and he had no motive no real reason for him to have shot his brother but gunshot residue was found on lani's
hands he said this probably happened because he grabbed his 38 caliber handgun for
protection before calling police to check lonnie's alibi investigators first had
to estimate the time of his father's murder we started checking to see who last spoke delaney senior
we determined that he spoke to a female friend of his around 9 15. and when lawson tried to call his
brother lonnie senior around 10 pm there was no answer so we believe the death will be between 9 15 and 10
o'clock lonnie jr said he had an alibi for the entire evening including between 9 15 and 10
pm lonnie claimed he was at a restaurant with his girlfriend then went to his girlfriend's house
his presence was verified both at the restaurant his girlfriend's house and he left his girlfriend's house somewhere
around 9 40 9 45 that night and from there he went to the local car wash it appears that he per his father's
instructions carried the suburban to a car wash there and washed the suburban and we've actually had some witnesses
that verified that information also but lonnie refused to take a polygraph he was starting to feel the heat and
knew he was a suspect at that point the day after the murder investigators found
a potential clue in a small creek just 50 yards from the turner's home was a pair of gloves
and what looked to be a mask cut from a felt bag they've cut two holes in it for the eyes and then a little
area where they can breathe out the mouth when that evidence was found it was thought to be a major
a major break in the case masks are good objects to find dna profiles on due to the fact that they're in close
proximity to your skin and also in the mouth region you get good profile from saliva
police were convinced these items would identify the killer 21 year old lonnie turner jr and his father both
lived and worked together lonnie's senior was grooming his son to take over his funeral business
lonnie jr was an only child his parents separated when he was a teenager according to friends
loni junior didn't fit the mold of a funeral director lonnie jr very flashy flamboyant junior he's the type of guy
that he likes nice things there were a significant number of rumors that lonnie jr was selling and bombing fluid on the
street when cigars and cigarettes laced with marijuana or pcp are dipped in embalming fluid
the effects are often intensified the embalming fluid was a rumor and it remained a rumor we were never
able to confirm that that was a that that was a fact as the beneficiary of his father's estate
lonnie jr stood to inherit the funeral home and all of his father's assets i think
junior saw the business as sort of his cash cow and it would be able to finance his lifestyle
dna analyst jennifer watson examined the mask and gloves found 50 yards away from
lonnie turner's home near a creek police believed they had been worn by the killer she
found epithelial cells around the holes for the eyes and mouth and was able to generate a dna
profile which she compared to lonnie jr's dna the results surprised everyone the result was that lonnie turner jr was
excluded as a contributor to that profile the dna from the mask was also compared
to the victim's brother lawson his dna also did not match in looking for other suspects
police knew one thing the killer was familiar with the house and the family lonnie senior always left
the back door open we figured that somebody knew about the layout of the house knew that the back
door was unlocked and there was only one other person who fit that profile 19 year old
james white lonnie senior's godson who often helped out at the funeral home he did work around the turner funeral
home in the turner senior home it's the church that the junior would have to do that he may not want to do and then he
would pay my son to do it four months before the murder james white was charged with stealing two of
lonnie senior's personal checks he made them out to himself for a total of eight thousand dollars in cash
and forged lonnie senior signature senior was mad at him for doing that and certainly felt betrayed
but he continued to embrace white as a godson but white apparently knew lonnie senior
kept cash in a bedroom safe he also knew where lonnie jr kept his guns we believed he would have had knowledge
of where it was kept lonnie jr loves showing off especially that nine millimeter because it was something
special he bought for his 21st birthday james white claimed he spent the entire night of the
murder at a party with two friends but they didn't corroborate this story we confronted a friend and he said
listen james white just called me said hey lie to the police tell them that i was with you
this friend said he saw white that night but not until 10 30 p.m which gave white plenty of time to commit the
murder the prime suspect in the murder of lonnie turner senior was his godson james white
white denied any involvement so investigators compared white's dna to the dna found on the homemade mask
found near the crime scene james white's dna was definitely on the mask and with the amount of dna that was
present it's likely that he wore that mask when i was told that i almost jumped out
of my boots now james white changed his story after several hours had passed one of
the people doing the interrogation threw in lonnie turner jr's name and it seemed to like turn on a switch in
white and that's when he started talking about how he had been set up white now said that lonnie jr hired him
to kill his father white said he went into lonnie's senior's house and that lonnie jr was with him but he
got cold feet and tried to back out but lonnie jr literally held a gun to his head
and threatened to shoot him if he didn't go through with it [Music] really grateful for the children of me
there was only one problem with this story lonnie jr had an alibi for the entire
evening he was at a restaurant at his girlfriend's house then at a car wash while driving home records indicate
lonnie jr was on his cell phone the entire time james white never said lonnie jr was on his cell
phone while he was literally holding a gun to his head we couldn't put him at the residence you
know committing that crime he was either with someone was being seen by someone or was talking someone on the phone
if things were to have happened the way he said it then junior would have had to
been pointing a gun at his head while talking on the cell phone at the same time
the polygraph that was given to him it came back inconclusive james david white is not the sharpest
crayon in the box and i didn't know how much of it was due to that or to deception i just didn't know
prosecutors believe james white needed money and knew lonnie turner senior kept cash inside his home
he also knew lonnie jr kept guns under his bed the evidence suggests white stole
one of the guns the nine millimeter two weeks before the murder prosecutors believe the motive was
burglary which is why white wore a mask in the event he was seen white unscrewed the light bulb on the porch
entered the house and probably thought no one was home when he opened the bedroom door looking
for valuables he found that wasn't the case one bullet entered lonnie's forearm and
he tried to cover his face the other hit him in the chest killing him instantly prosecutors believe white panicked left
the money and valuables behind but returned the gun to lonnie jr's bedroom then threw the mask and gloves in a
nearby creek but the mask still contained enough dna to tie him to the scene the other interesting element in this
case was the family member's movements that night lonnie jr came home found his father
wounded in the bedroom grabbed his gun and cell phone called police then drove to the police station
[Music] but before police arrived his uncle lawson entered the house since he planned to
spend the night when he heard no answer he assumed his brother was out on business
and when police arrived he was in the kitchen making a sandwich completely unaware of the crime
james white's father who was also the victim's best friend remains convinced that lonnie jr
was involved i think that it's fair for my son to be in prison for this murder because he
said he pulled the trigger but i would like to see lonnie jr there also because my son didn't have anything
to profit from this the junior is the one who profit everything in july of 2005 james white accepted a
plea bargain admitted his complicity in the crime and was sentenced to 25 years in prison
without the forensic evidence i don't think we'd be here today talking about this case i
honestly believe that if it hadn't been for that dna profile on that mass we wouldn't have made it
able to make a case prosecutors admit lonnie jr's story about what happened defies belief but the alibi
was what saved him i think there are a lot of people today who still believe that
he had something to do with his dad's death and it has hurt his reputation and it has certainly hurt the solid
reputation that his father worked so hard to build for the family business lonnie jr wasn't there that night when
his father was murdered there's no question about that the evidence clears that for me it stands out because
of the twists and turns it took us some places that i think we really didn't anticipate when
we began the investigation

In 2002, funeral director Lonnie Turner, Sr. was found shot to death. His son Lonnie Jr. became the prime suspect, particularly after it was discovered that the murder was committed with his gun. However, he had an alibi for the time of the murder.

Brief Summary

The murder of funeral director Lonnie Turner reveals family secrets and DNA evidence implicating his godson, James White, while doubts linger about his son, Lonnie Jr.

Key points

The Murder of Lonnie Turner. Lonnie Turner, a respected funeral director, is found murdered in his home.
Conflicting Stories. Confusion arises as police question Lonnie Jr. and his brother Lawson about the murder.
DNA Evidence. DNA from a mask found near the crime scene leads to shocking revelations.
James White's Confession. James White, the prime suspect, claims Lonnie Jr. hired him to kill his father.
Plea Bargain. James White accepts a plea bargain, admitting his role in the murder.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It just didn't make sense, it didn't ring clear at all.

Describing the confusion surrounding the murder case.

0:13WatchMar 13, 2021

Tension

75/ 100High tension

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