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Judge rejects Turner request
Dentist's attorneys asked to have charges dismissed
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Prosecutors in Davie County have rested their case in the first-degree murder trial of Kirk A. Turner
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Published: August 13, 2009
MOCKSVILLE - After more than a week of testimony, prosecutors rested their case yesterday in the trial of a Clemmons dentist accused of killing his wife nearly two years ago in Davie County.
And defense attorneys immediately asked the judge to dismiss the charge of first-degree murder against Dr. Kirk Alan Turner, arguing that prosecutors had failed to prove their case and had never offered a theory on what happened that led to the death of Turner's wife, Jennifer Jean Wittwer Turner. Judge W. Erwin Spainhour of Davie Superior Court denied the request.
Jennifer Turner was found dead Sept. 12, 2007, in the shop building of the couple's house at 627 Jack Booe Road, just north of Mocksville. Her throat had been slashed.
"It is very rare that you go through a first-degree murder case where you have no idea what the (state's) theory is," said Joe Cheshire, one of Kirk Turner's attorneys.
Assistant District Attorney Rob Taylor said that prosecutors didn't have to provide a theory about what happened and that the jury could make inferences from the evidence presented to make their decision. Kirk Turner had gone to the house that night to help a friend get his furniture but, Taylor said, Kirk Turner also went there to confront his wife with divorce-related documents.
Prosecutors said that Turner slit his wife's throat so deeply that the cuts went straight to her windpipe and severed her carotid artery.
"To look at this case and to say there's no evidence of first-degree murder is ridiculous," Taylor said. "There's nothing in the law that says that the state must drop its drawers and show all of its evidence in its opening statements."
Prosecutors have argued that Kirk Turner was so angry over an impeding divorce and a lawsuit that Jennifer Turner filed against his girlfriend, Tondja Woods Colvin, that he killed his wife with a pocketknife.
Defense attorneys have said that Kirk Turner was defending himself after Jennifer Turner stabbed him twice with a 7-foot-long Viking-like spear.
Assistant District Attorney Greg Brown attempted to poke holes in the self-defense theory in his examination of Dr. Donald Jason, who performed the autopsy on Jennifer Turner. Jason was the last witness yesterday before the prosecution rested its case.
Jason said that a wound on Kirk Turner's left forearm was more likely to have been made by the pocketknife that prosecutors say Kirk Turner used to kill his wife. He said that the wound couldn't have been made by the spear because the blade was dull.
Jason, wearing rubber gloves, felt the blade of the spear in front of the jury.
"I ran my finger along the edge, and I didn't even cut my glove," he said.
The blade of the pocketknife, Jason said, was sharper.
But the first witness that defense attorneys called yesterday disputed Jason's testimony.
Dr. Craig Van Der Veer, a neurosurgeon in private practice in Charlotte, said that the wound on Kirk Turner's left forearm couldn't have been caused by the pocketknife because the skin was torn. A knife would have cut the skin, he said.
Van Der Veer also said that it is not likely that a pocketknife caused Kirk Turner's two wounds in his left thigh near his groin area.
He testified that Kirk Turner's hemoglobin levels had dropped precipitously the night of Jennifer Turner's death, meaning that he had lost a quarter of his blood. And by 5:20 a.m. on Sept. 13, 2007, Kirk Turner had gone into shock, he said. Kirk Turner had to get an emergency blood transfusion, according to Van Der Veer.
Brown asked Van Der Veer whether it was possible for Kirk Turner, with his medical training, to have stabbed himself with the spear.
"I think it would be unlikely for a person would be able to pull it off once," he said. It would be even less likely that a person could do it twice, Van Der Veer said.
He added that it wouldn't make sense for Kirk Turner, with his medical training, to risk a potentially lethal injury if he wanted to cover up killing his wife.
Van Der Veer also said that Jennifer Turner most likely got a blunt force injury to her head when she fell down and hit the floor. He said that the injury would not have come from a blow to the head.
Testimony is scheduled to continue at 9:30 this morning.
■ Michael Hewlett can be reached at 727-7326 or at mhewlett@wsjournal.com.
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