Carlton Akee Turner was executed by the State of Texas for the murders of his parents
According to court documents Carlton Akee Turner would murder his parents Carlton Sr. and Tonya Turner, in Irving, Texas by fatally shooting them in the garage. Turner would then take his parents credit cards and went on a shopping spree
Carlton Akee Turner would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death
Carlton Akee Turner would be executed on July 10 2008
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When Was Carlton Akee Turner Executed
Carlton Akee Turner was executed on July 10 2008
Carlton Akee Turner Case
Condemned inmate Carlton Turner could not evade the Texas executioner a second time. Turner, 29, was put to death Thursday evening for killing his parents at their suburban Dallas home a decade ago.
Nearly 10 months ago, the U.S. Supreme Court spared him some four hours after he could have been executed. This time, however, the high court rejected his appeals and he became the second Texas inmate to die since capital punishment around the nation resumed following a seven-month hiatus prompted by a Supreme Court review of lethal injection procedures.
“I know I was wrong,” Turner, apologizing several times, told his slain mother’s brother who watched through a window as the punishment was carried out. “I accept responsibility as a man. I take this penalty as a man.” He also told his uncle that he loved him. “I am still your nephew, no matter what you believe,” he said just before the drugs took effect. Seven minutes later, he was pronounced dead.
“It makes it easier,” his uncle, Kyle Johnson, said after watching his nephew die and hearing the apology. “He could have chose not to say anything.” Johnson said he remembered being notified of the August 1998 murders of his only sister and her husband. “First I thought it was some kind of mistake,” he said. “I just couldn’t understand why. I’ll never understand why. In spite of the problems he had, he’s always had love, a lot of love. And that’s what made it so hard for me to come to grips with what he did.”
Turner acknowledged fatally shooting his adoptive parents, then making things worse by telling the jury at his trial that it didn’t matter to him if they gave him life in prison or death. The jury chose death.
“I was immature and arrogant,” Turner told The Associated Press from death row recently. He said he was sorry for the shootings, which he blamed on anger and hatred. “I still loved them,” he said. “What I did was wrong. There was a time when I had justification, but that’s all wrong.”
Turner, who was adopted as an infant, said he shot his father, 43-year-old Carlton Turner Sr., in self-defense after repeated instances of abuse. “I felt my mother couldn’t live without my father,” he said, explaining why he killed his mother, Tonya, 40.
His lawyers wanted the Supreme Court to delay the execution so he could get a federally appointed and paid attorney to pursue clemency. They also argued the Texas lethal injection procedures needed to be more thoroughly reviewed. On Wednesday, his lawyers lost an attempt to have his execution date withdrawn when a state district judge in Dallas refused to grant them more time to investigate claims his trial may have been unfair because jurors improperly were selected on the basis of race. Turner is black and his attorneys alleged the entire jury pool may have been racially selected.
Turner had been a disciplinary problem as a juvenile and at age 14 sexually assaulted an 8-year-old boy. His parents were retired from the Air Force and moved to the Dallas area about a year before the killings. His father worked in sales. His mother worked at a department store.
Evidence showed after the slayings he bought new clothes and jewelry, continued living in the family’s Irving home, dragged the bodies into the garage, then threw a party at the house for friends. Neighbors called police after they hadn’t seen the couple in several days and saw Turner acting strangely and driving his parents’ cars, something his parents prohibited. He was arrested at home on warrants for outstanding traffic violations. Police were led to the bodies by a foul smell coming from the garage.
“He had such a callous attitude and it didn’t bother him at all,” said Toby Shook, one of the prosecutors at his trial. “The parents did their best and they wind up dead.”
At least 14 other condemned Texas inmates are set to die over the next few months, including two more this month. Scheduled for execution next is Derrick Sonnier, set for execution July 23 for the 1991 slayings of Melody Flowers, 27, and her 2-year-old son, Patrick, at their apartment in the Houston suburb of Humble.