00:00:05
a young farmen's untimely death raised
00:00:08
suspicions
00:00:09
when a young policeman died the same way
00:00:12
it was no coincidence
00:00:15
scientists wondered if these tiny
00:00:17
crystals
00:00:18
were the cause
00:00:23
[Music]
00:00:49
a fireman's job is exceptionally
00:00:51
dangerous and for randy thompson the
00:00:53
year 2000 was particularly troublesome
00:00:58
first he fell off a fire truck in
00:01:00
[ __ ] georgia and broke his nose
00:01:03
when he had surgery to repair the damage
00:01:06
he developed a life-threatening staph
00:01:08
infection
00:01:09
the doctors told him this is a very very
00:01:12
serious situation
00:01:14
you can die from this very easily
00:01:17
randy survived that
00:01:18
but his health problems continued
00:01:22
one of his friends found him sprawled on
00:01:25
his kitchen floor vomiting and
00:01:27
incoherent
00:01:28
he started hallucinating he looked at me
00:01:30
said get back in your damn cage now look
00:01:33
i said what get in your cage what are
00:01:36
you talking about randy
00:01:37
i said get in your cage then i realized
00:01:40
he thought he was talking to his bird
00:01:43
this was diagnosed as a severe stomach
00:01:45
virus
00:01:47
but gradually he improved thanks to help
00:01:49
from his common-law wife lynn
00:01:52
every time i talk to him he sounded
00:01:53
stronger and stronger and he said lynn
00:01:56
made me grilled cheese with sweet tea he
00:01:58
said i held it down didn't throw it up
00:02:01
i said well good right now so that's
00:02:02
good so maybe you're on the
00:02:04
you're on the uphill side of this
00:02:08
days later his condition deteriorated
00:02:11
and randy thompson
00:02:12
died
00:02:14
horrible a daddy taken from his children
00:02:16
for no reason
00:02:18
a man taken from a career that he loved
00:02:20
for no reason
00:02:23
at randy's autopsy toxicology tests
00:02:25
found no trace of drugs or alcohol in
00:02:28
his system
00:02:29
but the medical examiner found evidence
00:02:32
of heart trouble
00:02:34
he did have a large heart he did have
00:02:35
some significant coronary artery disease
00:02:38
and so as a consequence then i described
00:02:40
this gentleman's sudden unexpected death
00:02:43
with his heart disease
00:02:44
that was hard for us to
00:02:47
swallow because he had never had any
00:02:50
heart problems before
00:02:52
i was devastated it was a an experience
00:02:56
i don't ever want to have again
00:02:59
randy left behind his common-law wife
00:03:02
lynn and their two young children he was
00:03:05
just 32 years old
00:03:07
the very last thing he asked me was do
00:03:09
you think i'm gonna die
00:03:13
as time passed randy thompson's friends
00:03:16
and family gradually came to terms with
00:03:19
his untimely death
00:03:22
until
00:03:23
a few weeks later
00:03:25
when randy's mother got a letter from a
00:03:27
total stranger
00:03:29
the mother of a dead policeman
00:03:31
from the next town over
00:03:34
the contents of the letter
00:03:36
were shocking
00:03:39
i want to share my sorrow in the loss of
00:03:41
your son randy my son glenn died six
00:03:44
years ago mysteriously
00:03:47
i didn't really know what to think
00:03:49
everything she told me was exactly
00:03:52
what happened to randy
00:03:55
[Music]
00:03:57
a few weeks after randy thompson's death
00:03:59
his mother got a letter
00:04:02
i want to share my sorrow in the loss of
00:04:04
your son randy
00:04:06
it was from a woman who claimed her son
00:04:08
died under similar circumstances and
00:04:11
suggested the two deaths were somehow
00:04:14
related i was shocked that her son
00:04:18
and my son died
00:04:20
the exact same way
00:04:22
the report from the hospital the autopsy
00:04:24
reports everything was just the same
00:04:28
nita thompson did not believe me she
00:04:29
kept saying that can't be true that
00:04:31
can't be true
00:04:33
six years earlier glenn turner a police
00:04:35
officer had the same symptoms as randy
00:04:38
thompson
00:04:39
he was so sick i could hear his voice
00:04:42
shaking when he talked to me he just
00:04:43
said he had an unbelievable stomach
00:04:45
virus he couldn't get rid of it
00:04:47
he was vomiting couldn't stop vomiting
00:04:50
he had diarrhea and he's just basically
00:04:52
said man i've never been sick like this
00:04:56
he was also
00:04:57
incoherent
00:04:59
and hallucinating
00:05:01
his wife said he'd had a really bad
00:05:02
night that in the middle of the night he
00:05:04
had got up began to hallucinate he began
00:05:07
to run around the house
00:05:09
he pulled out his weapon he thought
00:05:11
there was intruders outside intruders
00:05:13
trying to get inside the house
00:05:16
glenn's wife coaxed him back into bed
00:05:19
the next morning he appeared to be
00:05:20
better
00:05:21
he'd called me he was going to go to
00:05:23
work the next day
00:05:24
and
00:05:26
i thought that you know he was sounding
00:05:28
good and i thought that he was going to
00:05:29
be fine
00:05:30
but a few hours later
00:05:32
glenn turner died
00:05:35
the medical examiner made the statement
00:05:37
in the autopsy that he died with a
00:05:40
irregular heartbeat
00:05:42
that was nothing that he ever had a
00:05:44
problem with
00:05:45
glenn's mother immediately suspected
00:05:48
foul play
00:05:50
she asked his friends in law enforcement
00:05:52
to investigate his death
00:05:54
but she got nowhere
00:05:56
they kept telling me that he died of
00:05:57
natural causes and there was no reason
00:06:00
to go into any further because it cost
00:06:02
too much money and that there was no
00:06:05
foul play in his life
00:06:08
i still had strong suspicions that there
00:06:10
was something else involved in it but
00:06:12
the me stated that's what it was and i'm
00:06:14
not a medical examiner so i pretty much
00:06:17
had to accept it
00:06:20
and that's how it stood
00:06:22
until six years later
00:06:25
when the turner family learned that
00:06:27
randy thompson died
00:06:29
the same way
00:06:32
it was difficult to fathom how two civil
00:06:35
servants in two neighboring towns both
00:06:38
in their early thirties
00:06:40
died so suddenly
00:06:42
until both families realized
00:06:45
they had something else in common
00:06:49
the two men were both living with the
00:06:52
same woman
00:06:53
when they died
00:06:55
lynn turner
00:06:57
i couldn't turn to get on the phone
00:06:59
quick enough i called them lead
00:07:01
investigator and i just basically said
00:07:04
you need to go out there and seal off
00:07:05
the apartment
00:07:07
do what you need to do because i'm
00:07:08
telling you there's no way
00:07:11
uh you could have two young guys like
00:07:12
this pass away
00:07:14
when questioned lynn turner claimed
00:07:18
it was just a tragic coincidence
00:07:21
and local prosecutors found no evidence
00:07:23
the two deaths were connected after all
00:07:26
lynn turner had no criminal history i
00:07:30
actually just thought that it was really
00:07:32
really bad luck
00:07:34
that
00:07:35
lynn had been involved with two men who
00:07:37
had died that way
00:07:39
and friends pointed out that lynn's
00:07:42
common-law husband randy thompson had
00:07:45
very little life insurance
00:07:47
just 35 000 dollars hardly enough to
00:07:50
kill for
00:07:52
and toxicology tests on both randy
00:07:54
thompson and glenn turner
00:07:56
found
00:07:57
no evidence of drugs or alcohol in their
00:08:00
systems
00:08:01
we still had strong suspicions that
00:08:03
something she had done to him that
00:08:05
caused his death but at the time
00:08:08
i'm not i'm just a police officer i'm
00:08:10
not an m.e i couldn't prove it
00:08:12
then investigators made a startling
00:08:15
discovery
00:08:16
even though randy thompson had only 35
00:08:19
000 worth of life insurance lynn was in
00:08:22
a big hurry to collect it
00:08:24
we were able to determine through cell
00:08:26
phone records that on the day of randy's
00:08:28
funeral
00:08:29
between the time of the service
00:08:32
in the church
00:08:33
and the
00:08:35
service that was held at the cemetery
00:08:37
lynn was on her cell phone trying to
00:08:39
contact the insurance company
00:08:43
maybe there was more to the death of
00:08:46
these two men
00:08:47
than first appeared glenn must have had
00:08:50
something to do with some of this
00:08:51
because there is no way two young man
00:08:55
police officer and a firefighter dying
00:08:58
at a young age without somebody doing
00:09:00
something
00:09:04
what are the chances that two civil
00:09:06
servants both in their early 30s would
00:09:09
die under mysterious circumstances from
00:09:12
heart disease the southeast part of the
00:09:14
country leads the nation in
00:09:16
cardiovascular disease
00:09:18
and in our office
00:09:20
it is not uncommon that we see
00:09:23
young men men of mr thompson's age who
00:09:25
have bad heart disease
00:09:27
toxicology tests on the first victim
00:09:30
policeman glenn turner showed no signs
00:09:32
of alcohol or illegal drugs in his
00:09:35
system
00:09:36
but during randy thompson's autopsy
00:09:40
the medical examiner found
00:09:42
calcium oxalate crystals in his kidneys
00:09:46
these could be the result
00:09:48
of prescription medications
00:09:51
or
00:09:52
it could be a sign of poisoning
00:09:55
the first thing i did was reach across
00:09:56
my desk and pick up the phone and call
00:09:58
the toxicology department and ask that
00:10:01
an ethylene glycol test be performed
00:10:04
ethylene glycol is the chemical name for
00:10:06
antifreeze
00:10:07
when we ran the sample from randy
00:10:09
thompson and analyzed for ethylene
00:10:11
glycol the results came back negative
00:10:13
for a significant quantity of ethylene
00:10:15
glycol
00:10:16
but the medical examiner had a hard time
00:10:19
believing that
00:10:20
so i thought that was very very strange
00:10:23
and bizarre
00:10:24
then dr caponen learned
00:10:26
what happened to lynn turner's first
00:10:28
husband glenn
00:10:29
six years earlier
00:10:31
on a hunch
00:10:33
he reviewed glenn turner's autopsy
00:10:35
report
00:10:36
i looked at all the tissues and
00:10:38
polarized the
00:10:40
lung in the kidney as i do in all of my
00:10:42
cases
00:10:43
and to my surprise there were oxalate
00:10:46
crystals in
00:10:48
glenn turner's kidneys
00:10:51
so dr caponen went back to the
00:10:53
toxicology lab and asked them to recheck
00:10:56
the test results on randy thompson's
00:10:59
tissue samples
00:11:01
and the lab discovered
00:11:03
they'd made a mathematical error
00:11:06
i immediately realized that i had made
00:11:09
an error in calculating the original
00:11:11
concentration of ethylene glycol and
00:11:12
randy thompson's flood and in fact it
00:11:15
was off by a factor of 10.
00:11:17
when we made the appropriate correction
00:11:19
for the mathematical air that i had made
00:11:22
suddenly became
00:11:23
a a lethal level of ethylene glycol
00:11:26
i've been doing this for
00:11:28
[Music]
00:11:29
almost 20 years now and this is the
00:11:31
first time that such a mistake has
00:11:33
has ever been been brought to my
00:11:35
attention
00:11:36
the medical examiner now knew
00:11:39
that randy thompson's death was a
00:11:42
homicide
00:11:44
based on the corrected toxicology report
00:11:46
then it was quite obvious that mr
00:11:49
thompson died as a consequence of an
00:11:52
acute ethylene glycol intoxication or
00:11:54
poisoning
00:11:56
when i found out randy had died from
00:11:58
antifreeze poisoning i knew when they
00:12:00
exhumed glenn's body
00:12:02
when they took those tissues
00:12:04
i knew they were going to find out he
00:12:05
died from the exact same causes
00:12:08
and that's precisely what happened
00:12:11
officials exhumed glenn turner's body
00:12:15
retested his tissue samples and
00:12:17
confirmed
00:12:19
there was a lethal amount of antifreeze
00:12:22
in his system
00:12:23
it's a mixed feeling because you're
00:12:24
happy
00:12:25
that you've got something happening but
00:12:27
you're not happy to hear what you hear
00:12:32
investigators did some digging into lynn
00:12:34
turner's background
00:12:36
and uncovered
00:12:37
more
00:12:38
incriminating evidence
00:12:42
first was her visit to an animal shelter
00:12:44
shortly before randy thompson's murder
00:12:48
lynn had inquired about what the animal
00:12:51
shelter uses
00:12:53
to euthanize animals
00:12:56
what chemical they use
00:12:57
she had claimed that she had a stray cat
00:13:00
problem and was wondering what it was
00:13:02
that that she could do about them
00:13:05
and the manager of lynn turner's bank
00:13:08
told investigators lynn had serious
00:13:10
financial problems
00:13:12
she had a lot of debts outstanding a lot
00:13:14
of credit cards were she was being
00:13:16
charged for uh non-sufficient funds for
00:13:19
late charges
00:13:20
adding up to several thousand dollars
00:13:22
monthly
00:13:23
lynn had a middle class income but she
00:13:25
spent like she was a millionaire i mean
00:13:27
she lived well beyond her means
00:13:29
and that wasn't all
00:13:31
lynn had gone until the bank a few weeks
00:13:34
before randy died and told one of the
00:13:37
bank officials that she would have
00:13:38
everything taken care of all her
00:13:40
payments
00:13:42
mortgages everything etc taken care of
00:13:45
in just a few weeks
00:13:47
prosecutors believe the motive for both
00:13:50
murders
00:13:51
was money
00:13:53
lynn turner was the beneficiary of her
00:13:55
first husband's 150 000 life insurance
00:13:58
policy and also received his pension
00:14:01
payments of 750 a month
00:14:05
and she was all set to collect 200 000
00:14:08
from randy thompson's life insurance
00:14:10
policy but investigators found evidence
00:14:13
that randy
00:14:15
double-crossed her
00:14:16
lynn had topped randy into buying life
00:14:19
insurance of 200 000
00:14:22
and she was the beneficiary of that
00:14:25
policy but when after randy passed away
00:14:29
she found out that the policy had left
00:14:32
and she would not be getting that money
00:14:36
this also raised the possibility that
00:14:38
randy might have suspected lynn was
00:14:42
trying to harm him
00:14:44
investigators also learned that a
00:14:46
container of anti-freeze had been found
00:14:49
in the home lynn shared with her husband
00:14:51
glenn turner
00:14:53
although at the time
00:14:54
no one found this
00:14:56
suspicious so lynn turner was arrested
00:15:00
on two counts of first degree murder
00:15:03
she insisted she was innocent
00:15:06
and was sure
00:15:07
there wasn't enough evidence to convict
00:15:09
her
00:15:10
lynn was smart lynn wanted to be a
00:15:12
police officer she knew a lot
00:15:14
she knew how to commit the crime
00:15:18
she knew what they'd look for and she
00:15:19
knew
00:15:20
how to create an
00:15:24
alibi lynne turner met her first husband
00:15:27
glenn while working as a 9-1-1 operator
00:15:31
but less than two years later glenn told
00:15:33
friends the marriage was in trouble
00:15:36
he said that they'd only had sex twice
00:15:39
after they were married he said that she
00:15:40
had some kind of female problem and she
00:15:42
wasn't able to have sex of course we're
00:15:44
all thinking to ourselves well
00:15:47
we we i could name three or four other
00:15:49
guys she's seeing that she's having sex
00:15:51
with of course i couldn't say anything
00:15:52
to him
00:15:53
glenn also told friends lynn was
00:15:55
spending money faster than he could earn
00:15:57
it he said here i am working 365 days
00:16:00
working all these part-time jobs
00:16:02
sometimes two or three jobs a day i've
00:16:04
about gotta paid off and here she just
00:16:06
rung them all back up again i mean she
00:16:08
just had a stack of credit cards and
00:16:10
just spent spent spent spent
00:16:13
while lynne was married to glenn she met
00:16:16
randy thompson a fireman from a nearby
00:16:18
town
00:16:19
randy's family says lynn lied about her
00:16:22
marital status
00:16:24
lynn had told us she had been married
00:16:26
but that she was divorced
00:16:28
she told all of that told randy that
00:16:31
we assume she was divorced lynn's
00:16:33
primary motive for murdering glenn was
00:16:36
for the the money
00:16:39
i think his secondary motive was to to
00:16:42
be with randy thompson
00:16:45
the forensic evidence suggests
00:16:47
lynn put antifreeze in glenn's food
00:16:51
possibly in gelatin
00:16:53
since this was found in his stomach
00:16:55
during his autopsy
00:16:58
[Music]
00:16:59
glenn felt violently ill and died lynn
00:17:04
collected a hundred fifty thousand
00:17:05
dollars from his life insurance along
00:17:08
with his pension of seven hundred fifty
00:17:10
dollars a month i knew she didn't love
00:17:12
him
00:17:14
so i knew it was pending gloom for him
00:17:16
and i figured she'd use him for
00:17:18
everything she could use him for then
00:17:19
she'd spit him back out but i never
00:17:21
thought that she'd kill him
00:17:24
just a few weeks after glenn's funeral
00:17:27
lynn moved in with randy thompson
00:17:30
although they had two children together
00:17:33
they were never legally married
00:17:35
probably because lynn would have had to
00:17:37
forfeit glenn turner's pension
00:17:40
i believe that's why she didn't marry
00:17:42
randy she'd have lost glenn's pension by
00:17:44
remarrying
00:17:45
so she didn't marry she's smart
00:17:48
she knew
00:17:49
that money was out
00:17:51
it wasn't long before randy thompson
00:17:54
told friends just as glenn turner had
00:17:57
that he was unhappy with lynn it was
00:18:00
almost comical the way they fought cat
00:18:03
and dog just back and forth back and
00:18:04
forth back and forth my ass was why do
00:18:07
you keep calling her
00:18:09
why do you even take phone calls
00:18:12
well she's the mom of my kids and my
00:18:14
wife
00:18:15
okay whatever
00:18:17
an employee of a local animal shelter
00:18:20
said that lynn wanted to buy the
00:18:22
chemicals they used to euthanize cats
00:18:26
but they refused to sell them to her
00:18:29
she didn't want to use antifreeze again
00:18:31
she checked around she wanted to use
00:18:33
something different to kill randy
00:18:35
but she wasn't confident enough to use
00:18:37
anything else she went back to what she
00:18:39
used before
00:18:41
randy told friends lynn prepared his
00:18:44
lunch shortly before he became violently
00:18:47
ill
00:18:48
a grilled cheese sandwich
00:18:50
and sweet tea
00:18:54
investigators think the anti-freeze was
00:18:57
in the t
00:19:00
within a day
00:19:02
randy was dead
00:19:04
it was only after his death
00:19:07
that lynn learned that randy allowed his
00:19:09
two hundred thousand dollar life
00:19:10
insurance policy to lapse just eleven
00:19:14
days earlier
00:19:16
she gave him the the ethylene glycol i
00:19:18
think that uh it's very slow cruel death
00:19:22
uh
00:19:23
it's not like uh
00:19:25
you shoot someone and you immediately
00:19:28
change your mind and start getting on
00:19:30
first aid i mean there was no no aid
00:19:32
given and she had plenty of opportunity
00:19:34
to give aid and she didn't on either
00:19:35
case
00:19:37
when these murders happened
00:19:39
antifreeze had a taste that could easily
00:19:41
be masked with sweet tasting foods
00:19:45
the industry has since modified
00:19:46
antifreeze so that it is now unpalatable
00:19:50
we the jury find the defendant julia
00:19:53
lynn womack turner guilty of malice
00:19:55
murder in may of 2004
00:19:58
lynn turner was convicted for killing
00:20:01
her husband glenn
00:20:03
three years later in 2007
00:20:06
lynn was also convicted of randy
00:20:09
thompson's murder
00:20:11
she is currently serving a life sentence
00:20:14
with no chance for parole to hear the
00:20:16
guilty verdict was very difficult
00:20:20
you don't like to hear that your
00:20:21
daughter-in-law has done something like
00:20:23
this to anybody
00:20:26
despite the mathematical misstep by the
00:20:28
toxicology lab
00:20:30
scientists eventually discovered the
00:20:33
truth about what happened
00:20:35
to both randy thompson
00:20:37
and glenn turner
00:20:39
it was a challenging case to get it all
00:20:41
out there even though it really was
00:20:43
quite simple that you had two men who
00:20:46
had been involved with her and both had
00:20:47
died
00:20:48
the exact same way forensic evidence
00:20:51
without it we had nothing we wouldn't
00:20:52
have had a case it had been just a bunch
00:20:54
of hearsay and rumors but the forensic
00:20:57
evidence it was uh all the nails in the
00:20:59
coffin it was the hammer that put
00:21:01
everything away
00:21:05
[Music]
00:21:14
[Music]
00:21:20
[Music]
00:21:24
so
00:21:28
[Music]
00:21:35
[Music]
00:21:41
you
