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Couple battled marital conflict
Kirk Turner spoke of rising hate, witness says
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Published: August 14, 2009
MOCKSVILLE - A therapist who treated Dr. Kirk Alan Turner, the Clemmons dentist accused of killing his wife nearly two years ago in Davie County, testified yesterday that Turner said in May 2007 that he was starting to hate his wife.
Karen Barry, a marriage and family therapist, said in Davie Superior Court that Turner made the comment at the end of a session on May 15, 2007. That was about five months before Jennifer Jean Wittwer Turner, 54, was found with her throat slashed in the shop building of the couple's house at 627 Jack Booe Road.
During the session, Barry said she was trying to determine if Kirk Turner wanted to reconcile with his wife, from whom he had separated more than a year earlier, and what his future plans were.
"He said, ‘I am starting to hate her,'" Barry said under cross-examination from Assistant District Attorney Rob Taylor.
Barry said that Turner was never angry but had expressed disappointment and resentment. When defense attorney Joe Cheshire questioned her later, Barry said that Kirk Turner did not mean that he hated Jennifer Turner as a person but that he was upset with her actions.
Kirk Turner is on trial on a charge of first-degree murder of his wife on Sept. 12, 2007. Prosecutors rested their case Wednesday, and defense attorneys started presenting their case Wednesday afternoon.
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.
Barry had several sessions with Kirk Turner. She also had joint sessions with Kirk Turner and Colvin; a session with his son, Gilbert Richard Turner; and one joint session with Kirk Turner and Jennifer Turner.
Kirk Turner did express in some of those sessions that he resented being made to feel like an ATM machine, Barry testified under cross-examination. She said that Kirk Turner said that many of his relationships seemed based on how much money he had.
"I was the ATM and the sperm donor," Barry said Kirk Turner told her during a session on June 28, 2007.
Barry testified that Jennifer Turner told her during a joint session with her husband that she would be willing to allow her husband to continue seeing Colvin if he remained married to her.
In other testimony, Angie Tharington, a dental assistant at Kirk Turner's practice in Clemmons, described an incident in February 2007 when Jennifer Turner came to the office.
Tharington said that Jennifer Turner started grabbing office records and putting them in her car.
"She was screaming and hollering," Tharington said about Jennifer Turner. Kirk Turner tried to calm her down and raised his voice only after a third time of trying to reason with her, she testified.
"Jennifer, please stop doing this," Kirk Turner told his wife, according to Tharington.
Kirk Turner threatened to call the police, Tharington said. Jennifer Turner ran out of the office in tears and sat in her car for 30 minutes before returning with some of the records, Tharington said.
Defense attorneys called on a forensics specialist yesterday afternoon to offer alternate explanations for bloodstains found at the crime scene.
Stuart James, an expert in bloodstain patterns, testified that a bloodstain found on Kirk Turner's shirt could not have been made by a pocketknife.
Testimony in the trial is scheduled to continue at 9:30 a.m. today.
■ Michael Hewlett can be reached at 727-7326 or at mhewlett@wsjournal.com.
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