Murder by Antifreeze | Fatal Fraud | Forensic Files

[AUDIO LOGO] NARRATOR: Every fraud begins with a promise. - He wanted to be married by the time he was 30.
NARRATOR: A quick fortune, easy money, or a life transformed overnight. - You put all of that together, you're looking
at well over $1 million. NARRATOR: But behind these illusions lie calculated deceptions, carefully
hidden in plain sight. - It was wantonly horrible and inhumane. He suffered. NARRATOR: Sometimes these criminals
are backed into a corner and feel their only way out is to kill. - This case was about lust, greed, and murder.
[THEME MUSIC] [FOREBODING MUSIC] MARCUS K. GARNER: My name is Marcus Garner. I started working as a freelance reporter
while I was in college at Clark Atlanta University. NARRATOR: On January 21, 2001, emergency
services entered the home of 32-year-old fireman Randy Thompson. MARCUS K. GARNER: After not being able to hear from or
find Randy for some time, some of his colleagues came to his apartment and kicked the door
in when he didn't answer. They found him dead. Smith County Medical examiner ruled Randy Thompson's death
a result of natural causes, and said that he showed an enlarged heart, which is not normal for a 32-year-old,
who didn't have any history of heart problems or heart disease. NARRATOR: Randy left behind three children, two of which
were from his relationship with girlfriend Julia Lynn Turner, also known as Julie Lynn or Lynn.
They had been together six years. PATRICK HEAD: My name is Patrick Head, and I am the district attorney emeritus
for the Cobb Judicial Circuit. Julia Lynn Turner was a 911 operator in Cobb County.
She was very outgoing. - Lynn Turner was described as kind of the life of the party
in a lot of situations. She was described on her surface as bubbly, exuberant, exciting, kind of fun, party type person.
PATRICK HEAD: She was what you might refer to as a groupie with the police department.
She sort of had a thing for following officers around. She mostly hung out with police officers, law enforcement.
MARCUS K. GARNER: Julia Lynn had a thing for men in uniform. She was rumored to have been dating
multiple police officers, and in some cases, she would disappear. It was said that there were cases where she had enthralled
herself into police investigations, setting herself up as a honeypot or a patsy or
something like that, going in, you know, with wires on to make drug buys and things of that nature.
NARRATOR: Before Julia Lynn met Randy Thompson, she had been in a relationship with 29-year-old
police officer Glenn Turner. PATRICK HEAD: Glenn Turner was a Cobb County police officer.
I'm not exactly sure when they met, but my recollection, it was in 1993. MARCUS K. GARNER: Glenn Turner was a very
laid back and fun-loving guy. When Turner was in a group of friends who were police officers, he was at least at one point
a motorcycle officer with Cobb County Police. PATRICK HEAD: Other police officers
that Glenn worked with, they held him in high esteem. They felt that he was a good friend
and some referred to him as a Teddy bear. MARCUS K. GARNER: He was pretty much looking for love.
He told people that he wanted to be married by the time he was 30. [TRAFFIC NOISE]
Julia Lynn met Glenn Turner at one of the bars that they would frequent. I guess it stands to reason that Julia
was there because it was a place that police officers would frequent. They kind of hit it off.
She was bubbly and perky. Glenn was attracted to her vivacious attitude. NARRATOR: Within a few weeks of meeting,
Julia Lynn and Glenn Turner began a relationship. MARCUS K. GARNER: When Lynn and Glenn got together,
Lynn showered him with gifts-- snakeskin boots, expensive snakeskin boots, trips, new clothes, things
like that. - If she wanted to impress, then she would give gifts and sometimes expensive gifts.
They ended up going on a cruise. BRYANNA FOX: I'm Dr. Bryanna Fox, I'm a psychological criminologist
at the University of South Florida and a former FBI Special Agent. One thing that we commonly see with a fraudster
is that it doesn't just go straight to the fraud. They don't just pitch the initial fraud right outright.
There are grooming behaviors that occur. First, they have to get the person to trust them.
They have to befriend them. [OMINOUS MUSIC] MARCUS K. GARNER: I guess he wasn't, you know,
I don't want to say necessarily in a position to buy for himself, but things that he
didn't necessarily try to buy for himself, she did those things for him. NARRATOR: On August 21, 1993, Glenn Turner and Julia Lynn
got married, and the expensive gifts continued despite Julia Lynn working as a 911 operator.
MARCUS K. GARNER: I believe after their wedding, Julia bought a pair of Chevrolet Camaros.
One was a convertible and another one was a pace car. And I'm not sure for which race, but each
one costing about $25,000. Now, this is for a woman who was working as a 911 operator with salaries of $30,000 a year.
PATRICK HEAD: Lynn was someone who liked to be grandiose. She was what some people might call a person with champagne
taste but a beer budget. And she spent more than she earned. [TENSE MUSIC] - My name is Dr. Keri Nixon, and I'm a consultant
forensic psychologist. Their spending habits, their presentation, their standing in the community-- all of these things
are part of the same motivator to generate trust, generate confidence. When you see somebody who has a career, has nice things,
lives as part of a middle class community, you're going to trust them. NARRATOR: Despite the lavish gifts,
it was not long before cracks began to appear in the marriage. PATRICK HEAD: It was pretty clear from the things
that Glenn told some of his friends that he and Lynn were not having marital relationships.
So that put their relationship, I think, on shaky ground very shortly after they were married.
NARRATOR: Not long after the wedding, friends and family began to notice that Glenn
was becoming isolated. MARCUS K. GARNER: Leading up to their marriage, everything seemed like they were doing well.
He was head over heels in love with her. But at the same time, while he seemed very happy
and into the relationship, she kind of walled herself off from his family. And in so doing, kind of also walled him off from the family.
And the closer they kind of got together, the further he got from his sister and mother
and the rest of his family. NARRATOR: Glenn's family members were also concerned about Julia Lynn's controlling behavior.
- It seemed like once they got married, the romance immediately came to a halt. And he seemed to be less enthralled.
Family members and friends said that Julia was controlling, that she was manipulative.
She put him on an allowance so he could only spend so much money on a given basis.
NARRATOR: Julia Lynn had a part-time job at a local gas station and made Glenn cover her shifts,
claiming she needed to stay away from home to help local police with undercover sting
operations. - Glenn agreed to pick up some of the shifts, making only $7 an hour when everybody knows it as a police officer,
he could take on security jobs or private jobs for $20 to $30 an hour or more. And his friends seem to be concerned about, you know,
why he was doing all this for her. And she seemed to be more and more progressively
out of the picture. KERI NIXON: Something that's fascinating in this case is she
was very, very controlling. We see her isolate him. It also suggests that she's a controlling individual
that wanted to take control of him, wanted to make him vulnerable. And that's absolutely coercive control,
which tells me that this was also an abusive relationship. PATRICK HEAD: They had financial troubles
from the very beginning when they got married, and Glenn was actually working two and sometimes
three jobs in the latter part of their relationship when she was off doing undercover work.
So Glenn was the one that had made the decision that he was going to end the relationship.
NARRATOR: There were also rumors of Julia Lynn being unfaithful to Glenn. MARCUS K. GARNER: Julia Lynn had been disappearing
during the time that she was married to Glenn Turner, and it had been rumored that she
was in an affair with another police officer or someone else in a uniform. On March 2, 1995, Glenn Turner went to the hospital
with severe flu-like symptoms. He was throwing up, had a headache, was dizzy, just totally wasn't feeling well.
He'd had a conversation with his mother, even saying he felt like he was going to die.
He got himself into the hospital and they said that he had what appeared to be an enlarged heart.
They treated him and sent him home, telling him that, you know, he should take some liquids
and things like that. Julia went home with him to nurse him back to health. I think one of the things that doctors told her was maybe
a good thing for him to do was to have something fluid, like gelatin. She prepared gelatin for him, and she said she
left to go off to the store. NARRATOR: When Julia Lynn returned home, she found her husband unresponsive in bed.
PATRICK HEAD: When the police department showed up and the emergency people, everything
seemed natural in the house. There was nothing askew, nothing out of place, nothing that would indicate any signs of violence.
NARRATOR: On March 3, 1995, emergency responders pronounced 31-year-old Glenn Turner dead in his home.
- So when he was transported back to the medical examiner's office, they did an autopsy.
And in the autopsy, they found that he had an enlarged heart. He declared that the person had died of natural causes.
And the case was closed. [FOREBODING MUSIC] NARRATOR: In March 1995, Glenn Turner's sudden death
was ruled as natural causes due to an enlarged heart. His wife, Julia Lynn, attended his funeral
with a mystery guest. - Julia Lynn brought a date to her husband's funeral. No one identified who the man was that came to the funeral
with her, but she was seen sort of fondling the man's leg or holding his hand at times during the funeral.
BRYANNA FOX: I guess from a behavioral standpoint, subtle things that many people take
for granted, which is the way we display grief, that's telling in itself. PATRICK HEAD: She did not seem to be very grief-stricken.
She was more or less carefree. She did not demonstrate what people thought she would be demonstrating if she truly had
lost a person that she loved. MARCUS K. GARNER: So Julia Lynn acted very cold toward Glenn's parents, and within a week of the funeral,
she had moved out of the house that she lived in with Glenn Turner. NARRATOR: Julia Lynn collected around
$150,000 as a result of her husband's untimely death. MARCUS K. GARNER: Julia Lynn was
the beneficiary of Glenn Turner's insurance policy and his pension. So she stood to gain more than $150,000 from the policy,
as well as $700 a month from his pension. PATRICK HEAD: At the time Glenn died, he had left
his benefits to his sister. And Lynn actually filed suit against the sister to try to recover.
They ended up settling for half, but she was after every penny she could get. MARCUS K. GARNER: She identified that there was
$6,300 that Glenn had left in deferred payments to his sister, and she stepped in and said, "hey, no,
some of this money should go to me," and was able to get half of it. NARRATOR: Less than a month after Glenn Turner's death,
Julia Lynn revealed a new relationship with another man in emergency services. - Julia Lynn had been disappearing during the time
that she was married to Glenn Turner, and it had been rumored that she was in an affair
with another police officer. It's suspected that Randy Thompson was the person that she brought to Glenn Turner's funeral.
PATRICK HEAD: Randy Thompson was a Forsyth County Deputy. He left the Sheriff's Office, then came
back to Forsyth as a fireman. MARCUS K. GARNER: He became enthralled with Julia Lynn,
and that relationship progressed to a point where he and Julia Lynn were essentially
having an affair while Julia Lynn was still married to Glenn. Shortly after the funeral for Glenn Turner,
Julia Lynn moved in with Randy Thompson to his apartment in Cumming, Georgia, which is in Forsyth County, where
he worked as a firefighter. NARRATOR: After moving to Forsyth County, Julia Lynn got a job working in the county courthouse.
PENNY A. PENN: My name is Penny Penn and I am the Forsyth County District Attorney.
When I started working in the district attorney's office, Lynn was employed here as, they were called secretaries then,
now she would be an administrative assistant. MARCUS K. GARNER: She wasn't making more than maybe $30,000
at her courthouse job, about the same or maybe just a little bit more than what she was making when she was a 911
operator with Cobb County. PENNY A. PENN: Lynn was smart. And she was one that if she did something for you,
you gave her an assignment, she really was like a dog with a bone. Her mother was also the secretary for the chief judge.
NARRATOR: With a new job and a new relationship, Julia Lynn rarely mentioned her deceased husband, Glenn.
- Julia Lynn seemed to be kind of cagey about what her relationship was prior to getting with Randy.
It's not clear whether or not she told him if she was a widow, or whether she told him she was divorced,
but it was clear to Randy and his family that she had been married before. - When Lynn and I were working together,
she had actually brought her wedding pictures to the office. And I had, you know, gone through them.
And she had related that her husband had died of a heart attack. You hear that and, you know, that's a tragic story.
Here is this couple. He's young, they're recently married, and then he-- he dies.
NARRATOR: During the first few months of their relationship, Julia Lynn was very generous towards Randy Thompson.
- When she was dating Randy Thompson, she gave him gifts, a pair of cowboy boots,
and she paid for all of the stuff with her own funds. - Randy certainly had no reason to think
that Lynn did not have money. She had told his sister, I think at one point, that she had received an inheritance from the death
of her grandmother. MARCUS K. GARNER: They would go on expensive and exciting trips, and it just seemed like the thing
that couples would do but she was a lot of times footing the bill for that. And it was a thing that he enjoyed,
because I don't think that he had ever experienced a woman who would do as much for him as she was doing.
NARRATOR: 10 months after the death of her husband Glenn, Julia Lynn and Randy celebrated the birth
of their first child. - Lynn got pregnant very soon after she and Randy moved in together, and so then based on the birth of their daughter,
Lynn really prevailed on him to get this insurance policy. And it was for the daughter, and Lynn was a trustee.
PATRICK HEAD: They never got married. They ended up having two children. And during that time period when the first child was born,
Lynn made Randy take out a $100,000 life insurance policy. When the second child was born, she made him take out
or increase it to $200,000. NARRATOR: As long as she never remarried, Julia Lynn would still receive monthly payments
from Glenn Turner's police pension. Despite this, Julia and Randy soon ran into financial difficulty.
- Between 1996 and 2001, Julia Lynn's financial situation only changed because of the money that she was receiving
from Glenn Turner's pension and the money she'd received from his insurance payout.
She was still working in a relatively low-paying job. Now they had purchased a home and
were raising a family together, but the expensive trips, the lavish gifts, all of that
seemed to have died at this point. And while Randy Thompson made a good living as a firefighter,
it seems that there were still things that Julia Lynn wanted that were beyond their means.
FIONA HOTSTON MOORE: My name is Fiona Hotston Moore, and I'm a forensic accountant and expert witness.
So I would say that people's financial spending gives you an indication of what they are.
So if normally they spend $1,000 a month on whatever it is they spend it, they typically
continue with that pattern. PATRICK HEAD: Lynn was in financial trouble. She was behind on payments, her credit cards were maxed out.
She was in bad financial trouble. PENNY A. PENN: She was still living way beyond her means,
and her financial records reflected that. So towards the end of 1999 into 2000 and beyond,
she had many credit cards. She was overdue on those credit cards. She was behind on her house payments.
She had to refinance her house. She was overdrawn on a couple of bank accounts. So all of the money that she had
gotten as a result of Glenn's death, she had spent. NARRATOR: In early January 2001,
Julia Lynn and Randy Thompson's relationship was also in trouble. MARCUS K. GARNER: Randy Thompson
had separated from Julia Lynn. He'd moved into an apartment away from the home that he had shared and had purchased with Julia Lynn,
and lived in with their children. So he was living by himself. They were sort of back and forth in relationship.
He was going through bouts of depression. PATRICK HEAD: They had separated and were living apart
and were really not seeing each other. And then Lynn called Randy and asked him to have
dinner with her at Longhorn. And he canceled some dinner plans that he had with a friend, and went to dinner
with her at Longhorn. MARCUS K. GARNER: The next day, January 20, Randy Thompson went to the hospital
with severe flu-like symptoms. Checked into the hospital and was treated, then released.
On January 22, 2001, Randy Thompson was found dead. [OMINOUS MUSIC] NARRATOR: On January 22, 2001, Randy's worried co-workers
forced their way into his apartment and found him dead. - Forsyth County medical examiner
ruled Randy Thompson's death a result of natural causes, and said that he showed an enlarged heart.
NARRATOR: After Randy Thompson's death, Julia Lynn's behavior was once again questioned.
- She was criticized because she didn't take her children to the funeral, and Randy's friend's
reaction, their reactions when they heard he had died. And, you know, Lynn just-- she stayed at work.
People grieve differently. Just because someone doesn't cry doesn't mean that they are not sad
or that they are not grieving. MARCUS K. GARNER: News of both men's deaths wasn't something that was common knowledge
to the general public at the time. However, when the news and the similarities were brought to the attention of the media,
it raised flags for everyone who was aware that something was wrong. NARRATOR: A few weeks after the funeral,
Randy's heartbroken mother received a letter from the mother of Glenn Turner. - They compared notes.
And after comparing notes, they reached the conclusion that something was amiss.
NARRATOR: Both the Turner and Thompson families contacted police, who decided to look again at the results
of Randy's autopsy. - Randy Thompson's autopsy was conducted by the state crime lab.
Dr. Koponen was the medical examiner who performed the autopsy. And when he was going through everything and found something
that shouldn't be in the body. So he asked them to do a test for ethylene glycol.
Ethylene glycol is a colorless, odorless liquid. You might know it as "antifreeze."
When the test was performed, the chemist who performed it made a little bit of an error.
He misplaced a decimal by 1 point. So he was off 10 times. So the amount that was reported back, they
did find ethylene glycol but the amount that was reported was such a small amount that it is what the scientists
call insignificant. NARRATOR: When the state medical examiner realized the error, they ran a new test.
- And it came back positive with a very high number. So based on that, Dr. Koponen had some concerns.
He learned that Randy Thompson was having a relationship with Lynn Turner. And he also found out that Glenn Turner had died
under similar circumstances. He obtained the lab results from Glenn Turner's autopsy,
and found that Glenn also had calcium oxalate crystals in his kidneys. Based on that and the relationship between both
of them with Lynn Turner, Dr. Koponen put his down as a homicide as the cause of death.
KERI NIXON: That's another psychological significant fact. Shooting somebody and strangling somebody and
stabbing somebody, they are so what we call interpersonal crimes. You've got to be close.
You have to see the fear in their eyes. You have to see the life drain out of them.
Whereas if you poison somebody, you can then distance yourself from the result. It's almost-- it's still horrific,
but it's less invasive. It's less violent. MARCUS K. GARNER: In June 2001, the Georgia Bureau
of Investigations took over both investigations, and a similar autopsy was done for Glenn Turner
after his body was exhumed. Again, oxalate crystals were found in his kidneys, revealing the presence of ethylene
glycol, the primary substance in antifreeze. Because antifreeze is a substance that
has a sweet taste and can go undetectable in substances like jell-o or sweet tea.
NARRATOR: Police discovered that Julia Lynn had admitted to serving both men, either jell-o or sweet tea,
before their deaths. - Investigators were able to draw a very clear through line that, in both cases,
pointed back to Julia Lynn. NARRATOR: In November 2002, Julia Lynn Turner was indicted by a Cobb County grand jury
and charged with murder. PATRICK HEAD: You had two different homicides. The first one occurred here in Cobb County in 1995,
and the second would occurred in Forsyth County. Glenn Turner was here in Cobb. Randy Thompson was in Forsyth.
NARRATOR: Having two suspected murders in two very close knit communities meant holding a trial
was challenging. PENNY A. PENN: We spent a week here across the street in the old courthouse
trying to pick a jury, and we were just unable. Too many people had heard about this case,
you know, knew about it and had formed an opinion about her guilt. They could not be fair.
We realized we were not going to be able to get a jury here, and so venue was changed.
NARRATOR: There were further complications. Due to the fact that many of the prosecutors
involved in the case knew Julia Lynn Turner personally. PENNY A. PENN: It was odd.
You know, that is a unique aspect to this case as well. When Lynn got arrested, she was working for one of our judges.
You know, that's a little awkward, to say the least. And then her mother still worked here
so that, too, was awkward. And I always had a good relationship with her mother.
That was unfortunate. NARRATOR: After being unable to form a jury in Cobb County,
in 2004, Julia Lynn Turner was put on trial in Houston County for the murder of Glenn Turner.
- The opening line that I used when I was addressing the jury, I said, "this case is about lust, greed, and murder."
PENNY A. PENN: It was a circumstantial case. And so that often has just so many more pieces,
there are so many more witnesses, so many more facts. MARCUS K. GARNER: Julia Lynn seemed confident.
She presented herself as calm and self-assured. There wasn't any view of her seeming
to be frightened of anything, or even contrite. And she entered in knowing that there
was only circumstantial evidence that was being ruled against her. NARRATOR: One of the strongest pieces of evidence
for the prosecution was the presence of ethylene glycol in Glenn Turner's body. PATRICK HEAD: The amount of ethylene glycol
that should ever be found in a dead person's body is zero. The fact that they found any would indicate foul play.
The fact that they found so much and that it was the cause of death means it was a homicide or a suicide.
But there was nothing in Glenn's case to make it appear that he had ever considered suicide.
NARRATOR: The prosecution argued that Julia Lynn Turner poisoned her husband by adding ethylene
glycol into his last meal. MARCUS K. GARNER: If she had added ethylene glycol to the gelatin, it would be difficult
to detect the difference or that there was anything additional added to the gelatin.
PATRICK HEAD: You can hide it in soup. You can hide it in jell-o. You can hide it in Gatorade.
And these are all things that these people had consumed. MARCUS K. GARNER: Julia Lynn had
served Glenn Turner his last known meal the morning that he died. Green jell-o. And it's known now that antifreeze has a sweet taste
and can easily be passed off in jell-o without being noticed. PATRICK HEAD: Glenn had even told somebody that when
she had seen Glenn before she left, that he was feeling poorly and had eaten some jell-o that she had made.
When Randy was sick and she went over and carried stuff to him, she carried him iced tea, which he liked,
which could easily hide the ethylene glycol. She carried him what we heard was chicken soup, which can
also hide the ethylene glycol. NARRATOR: Prosecutors argued that Julia Lynn Turner's motive
for the murder was financial fraud and deception. FIONA HOTSTON MOORE: Typically, fraudsters
are very aware of the different items in their toolbox, so they're very aware of the different ways
that they can defraud money, so they'll be aware of hidden identities, fraudulent loan
applications, and so on. - With Glenn, there was a life insurance policy with MetLife that was $100,000.
There was life insurance through Cobb County as an employee that was $47,000. He had deferred compensation, which was close to $4,000.
He had the retirement, which if she had drawn all of the retirement that he would have
been able to get, was 84,000. And if you pull up the future retirement that she would have gotten, it comes to over $450,000.
So that's how we get to the total dollar amount of Glenn, which would have been $693,000.
- Julia Lynn inherited more than a quarter million dollars from Glenn Turner's insurance
and state proceeds. And that's just from Glenn Turner. [TENSE MUSIC] NARRATOR: On May 14, 2004, after a three-week trial
in Houston County, a jury took just five hours to reach their verdict. PATRICK HEAD: Usually, a quick verdict is not guilty.
When the bailiff came in and said, the jury has reached a verdict and it's the same day,
to be honest, I was concerned. - A jury found Julie Lynn Turner guilty of murdering
Glenn Turner. That means that all 12 jurors ruled against her. NARRATOR: The judge sentenced Julia Lynn Turner
to life imprisonment for the murder of Glenn Turner. - I know that Glenn's mother was very appreciative,
and she used to come by every year after that trial and would bring cookies to the office, up until the day
that I retired. NARRATOR: Three years later, Julia Lynn Turner was tried for the murder of Randy Thompson
for financial gain. PENNY A. PENN: The case against Lynn was about her murdering her former partner,
the father of her two children, solely for financial reasons. And we also sought the death penalty.
NARRATOR: It was revealed that in the months leading up to Randy Thompson's death, Julia Turner
was in financial trouble. MARCUS K. GARNER: As a result of a lot of the expenses that she had or had accumulated because
of her lavish lifestyle and her expensive taste, there were a lot of bills that were difficult to pay.
Julia Lynn had racked up credit card expenses again, which said at one point in time that she had over $35,000
worth of credit card debt. - She actually had gone to the bank because she was unable to write checks.
She had made a comment to a bank employee that she was going to take care of this soon.
And it wasn't long after that that Randy died. NARRATOR: Once again, prosecutors
argued that Julia Lynn Turner was financially motivated when she poisoned Randy Thompson
with antifreeze. - If you take the $200,000 that she was going to get, she has two children who are now going to draw Social
Security until they are 18 or 20, depending on whether or not they stay in college.
And you put all of that together, and it's over $600,000. So Lynn is looking at the potential of receiving,
over some period of time, over $600,000. So if you couple that with what she got from Glenn
or would have gotten in total from Glenn, you're looking at well over $1 million.
NARRATOR: During the trial, it was revealed that Julia Lynn Turner's plan to collect Randy Thompson's insurance money
was foiled by Randy one month before he died. - Yeah, he had taken out a $200,000
life insurance policy and made Julia Lynn the beneficiary. However, as a result of uncertain expenses
or however they were managing their funds or their finances, he allowed that insurance policy to lapse,
unbeknownst to Julia Lynn. PATRICK HEAD: I believe it was the day of the funeral
for Randy that she called the State Farm agent to collect on that $200,000 policy because she believed
it was still in effect. And he told her it had expired or lapsed because of non-payment the month before.
PENNY A. PENN: We had her phone records. And then we had a witness. And it was the woman who had to break it to her
that the policy had expired, you know, and testified that there was just this long period of silence on the other end of the phone
when she did that. PATRICK HEAD: So she was a month later on killing Randy. If she'd done it a month sooner,
she'd have gotten $200,000. But she believed at the time that she did it that she was going to get $200,000.
NARRATOR: In 2007, three years after she was found guilty of the murder of Glenn Turner, Julia Lynn Turner's second
murder trial drew to a close. MARCUS K. GARNER: On March 24, 2007, a jury found Julia Lynn Turner guilty of murdering
Randy Thompson. [OMINOUS MUSIC] In both cases, two different juries found Julia Lynn
guilty of killing her lovers. The judge wanted to sentence her to capital punishment, that is, they
wanted to put her to death. PENNY A. PENN: We thought that it was warranted, given the fact that she had murdered two people
and it was for financial gain. Also, there is the fact that it was like wantonly
horrible and vile, inhumane. He suffered. It took him several days to die. And she continued killing him.
She had poisoned him, and then, you know, what she gave him was enough to escape detection,
but it wasn't enough to kill him. And so she had to give him another dose. So it was over an extended period of time,
and he really suffered. NARRATOR: During sentencing, the judge heard pleas from Julia Lynn Turner's mother for mercy
on behalf of her two young grandchildren, aged 8 and 11. PATRICK HEAD: When they went for the punishment section,
the jury found that she should be sentenced not to death, but to life without parole.
PENNY A. PENN: Lynn Turner was getting away with murder until Randy's death. I think that if Lynn Turner had not
been charged with murder after Randy's death, she would have killed someone else.
PATRICK HEAD: Had she not murdered Randy Thompson, she would have gotten away with murder.
She hadn't done it twice, she would have never been caught. NARRATOR: Between 2006 and 2010,
Julia Lynn Turner launched two separate appeals against her convictions. All of them were rejected.
- When the decision came back on the habeas corpus, I believe she then realized that case was over.
She was going to spend life in prison. And it also meant that she was never going to get paroled.
KERI NIXON: When somebody continues to deny many years after an offense, it can be for many, many reasons.
However, when we look at her history of control and manipulation, I suspect that this
is just part of her continued need for control. - On August 30, 2010, Julia Lynn Turner
was found dead in her prison cell at Metro State Penitentiary for Women. Julia Lynn was 42 years old when she was found dead.
PATRICK HEAD: She had been found unresponsive in her cell and that she had died.
And they believed that she had-- she was on medication for blood pressure and she was on some pills.
And what we believe is that she hoarded those until she could end her life. MARCUS K. GARNER: Glenn Turner's mother, Kathy Turner,
told me that she didn't believe that Julia Lynn was able to go on and that she had
pretty much given up on life. PATRICK HEAD: And I believe that once she looked at it
and saw that she was going to spend the rest of her life in prison, she decided she might as well poison herself.
She'd done it to two guys. She knew how to do it, so she poisoned herself. And my belief was justice was served.
So that's how I felt. NARRATOR: The double homicide in the suburbs of Atlanta cast a long shadow over all those involved in the case.
PATRICK HEAD: Well, as I said in the beginning, this case was about lust, greed, and murder.
It was the greed that made her do the things that she did. PENNY A. PENN: Both Glenn's and Randy's family
sustained a loss. It was also terrible here because there were kids who lost their dad, and then two of them
ended up losing their mother, such as it was when she committed this crime. And you know, that's always sad.
But here, you know, purely for financial gain, it's just so the planning that went
into this, the thought that went into this, the fact that she can just watch these people
suffer as she's doing this, you know, she's killing them gradually, it's just so cold-blooded.
MARCUS K. GARNER: It's unfortunate that Randy Thompson and Glenn Turner fell prey
to Julia Lynn Turner's wiles. These were men who had taken the step to put themselves
and their lives on the line for the sake of others in an emergency situation. They were willing to give the ultimate sacrifice.
However, in the place where they should have been most comfortable, the place where they should have been the safest,
in the arms of their lover, that was the place where they were the most in danger,
and the place where their lives were taken from them. And it's unfortunate that while they
had committed to give their lives for the community, the person who had committed their life
to them was the one who killed them and snuff their lives out. [THEME MUSIC]

When a Georgia firefighter dies after a sudden illness, toxicology reports point to antifreeze and suspicion falls on the woman who once mourned another husband.

This true crime series delves into cases where financial schemes spiral into betrayal, violence and murder, exposing the deadly cost of lies fueled by greed.

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Brief Summary

Julia Lynn Turner murdered two partners for financial gain, using antifreeze to poison them, leading to her conviction.

Key points

A Life Transformed Overnight. The allure of quick fortunes often hides dark deceptions.
The Mysterious Death of Randy Thompson. Emergency services find fireman Randy Thompson dead, ruled a natural cause.
Julia Lynn's Controlling Nature. Julia Lynn's behavior raises red flags as she isolates Glenn from his family.
A Shocking Funeral Appearance. Julia Lynn attends her husband's funeral with a mystery guest, raising eyebrows.
The Unraveling of Julia Lynn's Finances. Julia Lynn's lavish spending leads to financial troubles after Glenn's death.
Julia Lynn Turner's Indictment. In November 2002, Julia Lynn Turner was indicted for murder, linking her to two deaths.

Episode highlights

Episode quotes

It was wantonly horrible and inhumane.

NARRATOR

0:31WatchMar 3, 2026

Tension

85/ 100High tension

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