A Davie County woman who was found dead last September, her throat cut, had told her family that she had an audiotape of her estranged husband threatening to kill her, according to recently unsealed search warrants filed at the Davie County Courthouse.
Her husband, Kirk Alan Turner, is charged with murder in her death.
Another search warrant sheds light on Kirk Turner's claim that he acted in self-defense after his wife, Jennifer Jean Wittwer Turner, attacked him with a spear. Her body was found Sept. 12 in a shop building the couple owned at 627 Jack Booe Road.
According to the search warrant filed in September, Kirk Turner, in a statement made at the hospital, said he had been talking with Jennifer Turner when "she started stabbing him. He remembered fighting to get away from her but little else, the search warrant said.
Gregory Smithson, a friend of Kirk Turner's who was outside the shop building that night, told investigators that Kirk Turner went into the building and he heard Jennifer Turner talking. Later, Kirk Turner emerged and told Smithson that his wife had attacked him and that he was cut, the search warrant said. Authorities have said that Kirk Turner had gone to the shop building that night to collect items.
Prosecutors had asked that the search warrants, executed in September and November, be sealed. Assistant District Attorney Greg Brown had the warrants unsealed late last month.
Prosecutors have contended that Turner killed his wife because of a hotly contested separation and a lawsuit that his wife had filed against a Davie County woman with whom, she alleged, he had an affair. Defense attorneys said that Turner acted in self-defense. The couple had been separated for more than a year.
According to a search warrant executed Nov. 13, Jennifer Turner told her family that she had an audiotape of Kirk Turner threatening to kill her. Jennifer Turner's sister and daughter told investigators that Jennifer Turner kept the tape in a safe place. Gwen Elizabeth Kennedy, the sister, filed a wrongful-death lawsuit against Kirk Turner last year and is the executor of Jennifer Turner's estate.
Anne Gould, a friend of Jennifer Turner's, went to the house on Oct. 28 with attorney Tom Nesbit, who was appointed as a neutral third party in the civil cases. The next day, she contacted Capt. J.D. Hartman of the Davie County Sheriff's Office, who filed the search warrants.
Gould told Hartman that she had seen a small safe in a sitting room next to Jennifer Turner's bedroom. The search warrant does not say whether an audiotape was in it, and District Attorney Garry Frank said he could not comment on evidence.
Chuck Alexander, Kirk Turner's attorney, said that much of the search warrants' contents are allegations and not necessarily evidence. He said that prosecutors have not turned over any audiotape involving his client.
Turner is free on $1 million bond, and a trial is tentatively scheduled for June 2
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