Turner trial is over; daughter says she will move forward

The television trucks that filled downtown Mocksville have packed up and gone away. The crowds that packed the largest courtroom in the Davie County Courthouse have dispersed.

The circus surrounding the trial of Dr. Kirk Turner has left town, and those of us who followed North Carolina vs. Turner have moved on to more mundane things.

For those who lived it, the trial was a capstone to a tragedy, an unavoidable ordeal to be endured rather than observed.

Now that it's over, the trial has become another burden for a family that's been irreparably broken.

"When I walked in the courtroom that first day, I was shaking.... It was real," said Wendy Turner, the adult daughter of Kirk and Jennifer Turner. "I had dreamed about what it would be like for so long. I couldn't believe I was actually sitting there.

"I wasn't ready for it. I'd had two years to get ready, but I wasn't."

A public reaction

Depending on whom you ask, justice was either served or miscarried when the jury determined that Turner was not guilty of murdering his wife, Jennifer, because he had acted in self-defense.

The case divided the Turners' children, Wendy and her brother, Gilbert "Ritchie" Turner. They no longer speak to each other. The daughter stood with her mother, believing that her father committed murder; the son has said that he believes that his father acted in self-defense.

So what happens now? Of course, there's a civil wrongful-death lawsuit still to be dealt with. Ritchie Turner has an unrelated criminal case. (Efforts to reach him through his attorney yesterday were not successful.)

Then there's Wendy Turner, a law student who has moved out of state. Hers was the face that everyone turned to watch as the verdict was being read, and her tearful reaction was the one caught on camera as she left the courthouse weeping.

She sat through most of the trial, avoiding portions in which gruesome accounts of her mother's death were replayed, or in which photos of the night her mother died have been shown. She had to listen as sordid details of her parents' relationship were recounted.

Obviously, the verdict was a disappointment to her.

"I looked at the jury, and none of them looked back at me," she said. "That's when I knew what I had heard was really the verdict."

Damaged relationships

After the trial, Kirk Turner's lawyers described him as a man filled with sadness about what his family has gone through, and said that he hoped to be able to someday repair relationships.

On his way out of the Davie County Courthouse, he gave a brief statement thanking God and the jury. When asked if there was anything he wanted to say about his daughter, he said, "She's a great girl."

As far as Wendy Turner is concerned, there is no relationship and never will be. She refers to her father as "Kirk," and said she can't imagine that changing.

"I cannot understand calling him dad or father when he took the life of my mother," she said. "I've taken a lot of care to remove myself ... and I don't want to speak to him, or for him to seek me out. If he does, I will take out some kind of restraining order."

As for her brother, Wendy Turner feels more conflicted. She said she still loves him, but doesn't yet feel comfortable with that relationship because of his support for his father.

"I have always felt a really strong older-sister bond and wanted to take care of him," she said. "Nobody could mess with him when we were growing up. It's hard. I feel a little bit like I can't talk to him because I'm afraid if I say anything it will be funneled back to Kirk."

Trying to move forward

Wendy Turner left town almost immediately after the trial. She wanted to resume her life as she had left it. She had final exams in law school scheduled, and she was going to take them.

"I needed to keep moving forward and finish my education," she said. "I'll be done in two semesters. I hope to practice environmental law and help to protect clean sources of water."

She's thankful for the support of her aunt and uncle, and was upset with bloggers and others who tried to portray her as a pawn of her aunt in a scheme to get at Kirk Turner's money.

"I have my own mind, and it's truly an insult to my intelligence to say that," she said.

She also said she is grateful to her friends in law school who helped her. She is scheduled to finish law school in the spring, and said that taking the bar exam will be "horrible."

So far, she has not had any therapy or used anti-depressant medications.

"One day, I will be going to therapy, but I'm a student right now," she said. "I'm definitely going to deal with this in the right way.

"Part of my plan is really just starting my life. A blessing in this, I suppose, is that I've already gone through the hardest thing I'll ever have to do in my life."

■ Scott Sexton can be reached at 727-7481 or at ssexton@


wsjournal.com
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