Michael Turner Ohio Death Row
Michael Turner was sentenced to death by the State of Ohio for a double murder. According to court documents Michael Turner would murder his estranged wife and another man. The convicted felon would be arrested, convicted and sentenced to death.
Michael Turner 2021 Information
Number A438811
DOB 11/29/1958
Gender Male Race White
Admission Date 01/09/2003
Institution Chillicothe Correctional Institution
Status INCARCERATED
Michael Turner More News
Turner’s criminal history dates from 1980; while a felony suspect being transported by a deputy sheriff for a polygraph in Virginia, Turner attempted to kill the deputy sheriff with a letter opener. During the struggle, Turner jabbed at the deputy and also tried to grab the deputy’s pistol. Turner pleaded guilty to attempted murder and received a 15-year prison term but served only five years before being paroled.
{¶ 3} Upon his release from prison, he managed to earn a living, but he violated parole and became incarcerated. After a second release from prison, he divorced his first wife, Paula, and married Jennifer Lyles in January 2000 in Bassett, Virginia. Within months of their marriage, Turner began abusing his wife to the point that she fled to the homes of friends and neighbors. In September 2000, Jennifer left Virginia and moved to the Columbus area at her mother’s insistence to escape Turner’s abuse. In December, she moved to her own apartment in Reynoldsburg. Later that month, Turner asked Jennifer for “another chance,” and she allowed him to move in with her.
{¶ 4} On March 14, 2001, however, she filed a domestic-violence complaint against Turner after he hit her in the head during an argument. On April 5, 2001, she filed another complaint after he choked her to near unconsciousness. The next day, the court granted a temporary protection order (“TPO”), compelling Turner to move out of his wife’s apartment.
{¶ 5} On May 5, 2001, police arrested Turner for violating the TPO. Angry with Jennifer because she had called police, Turner told the arresting officers that “the war is on.” On May 18, 2001, Turner pleaded guilty to misdemeanor domestic violence, and the court placed him on probation.
{¶ 6} After the imposition of his probationary term, Turner began stalking Jennifer. She filed a complaint against Turner for telephone harassment on May 25, 2001-charges that were still pending on the day of the murders. The next day, Turner told a co-worker at a Tim Hortons Restaurant that Jennifer had angered him by having him arrested and by filing the telephone-harassment complaint against him. Turner announced that he was going to “suit up and kill the bitch.” Boasting that he was a “cop killer” by reenacting the 1980 attempted murder of the deputy in Virginia, he showed his co-worker a list of items that he called “No Prisoners,” which included duct tape, a knife, rope, fuel, and matches, all necessary for his plan to, in Turner’s words, “off the bitch.”
{¶ 7} Two days before the murder, Turner told a bartender: “I’m going to kill my wife. She took me to court for harassment. I’m going to off her. You watch me.”
{¶ 8} On the day of the murders, Turner gathered the necessary items for his plan. He bought two knives, and two hours later, he bought two gallons of gasoline.
{¶ 9} On June 12, shortly after 10:00 p.m., Turner located Jennifer and her friend, Ronald Seggerman, at her apartment. Jennifer stayed inside while Seggerman grilled food outside. John Myers, Jennifer’s neighbor, had been in his front yard and saw Seggerman pointing toward a parking lot located about 100 yards north of the apartment. Seggerman shouted, “[T]here he is,” and went inside.
{¶ 10} Seggerman came back outside armed with nunchakus and walked toward the parking lot, where Myers lost sight of him.
{¶ 11} Myers then observed Turner forcing Seggerman to back up toward Jennifer’s apartment. When they got to Myers’s front yard, Myers saw Turner make several downward thrusts with a knife. At 10:28 p.m., Myers called 911, stating, “[T]he guy is being stabbed to death. I saw the knife and I saw him going down. Get a cop here.”
{¶ 12} At 10:32 p.m., Jennifer Turner also made a 911 call. The recording of this call reveals Jennifer’s screams for help begging Turner to stop and Seggerman’s plea with Turner, “Mike, you gotta stop.”
{¶ 13} Reynoldsburg police arrived at 10:34 p.m. The first officer on the scene found Jennifer bleeding profusely from the neck with Seggerman lying next to her, face down in a pool of blood. Medics were unable to find Seggerman’s pulse rate or respiration. Jennifer had “shallow respiration and a weak pulse.” Both underwent emergency surgery.
{¶ 14} Jennifer Turner and Ronald Seggerman both died later that night of multiple stab wounds. Autopsies showed that Jennifer had sustained 11 stab wounds and Seggerman at least four, including one that punctured his lung.
{¶ 15} Meanwhile, following the ambulance transport, police located Turner hiding in some trees near the parking lot at Jennifer’s apartment. He had blood on his face, arms, shirt, and shoes. Near Turner’s hiding place, police found a hunting knife, rope, chains, two locks, a hammer, and two one-gallon plastic jugs containing gasoline. On June 13, police returned and found bloodstained gloves, a bloodstained fillet knife, and a sheath for a knife.
{¶ 16} Also on June 13, detectives searched Michael Turner’s apartment. There they found a copy of Jennifer’s May 5 complaint against Turner and a handwritten list in Turner’s writing that included “knives, rope, gloves, gas, lock and hammer.”
{¶ 17} Detectives interrogated Turner on the morning of June 13. Turner told them that he had been “standing there in the parking lot” when Seggerman “came across there with [he doesn’t] know if it was a baseball bat or what it was.” According to Turner, a jug of gasoline happened to be “sitting there,” so he “ran towards [Seggerman] and threw it in his face.” Turner then began to beat Seggerman, who dropped his “stick” in the parking lot. Turner admitted that he “probably” had a knife. He stated that Jennifer came outside and “jumped in the middle trying to break [them] up.” Turner said, “I’m trying to push her away and she was ․ and I went, oh, fuck what did I do?” (Ellipsis sic.) He stated, “[I]t happened so quick I really had no control over it.”
{¶ 18} While in custody in the Franklin County Jail, Turner told a fellow inmate that “he murdered his wife and her boyfriend; that he went over to talk to his wife and never expected her boyfriend to be there.” He also told his cellmate that he had planned to kill Jennifer and commit suicide, but Seggerman “got in the way.” Turner claimed that “he didn’t mean to kill [Seggerman]” but admitted that “he did mean to kill Jennifer.”
{¶ 19} A grand jury indicted Turner for the aggravated murders of Jennifer Turner and Ronald Seggerman with prior calculation and design. R.C. 2903.01(A). Count 1, charging Jennifer’s murder, contained three death-penalty specifications: R.C. 2929.04(A)(5) (prior conviction), R.C. 2929.04(A)(5) (course of conduct), and R.C. 2929.04(A)(8) (witness murder). Count 2, charging Seggerman’s murder, contained two death-penalty specifications: prior conviction and course of conduct.
{¶ 20} On October 25, 2002, Turner filed a written waiver of his right to a jury trial. On December 16, 2002, Turner entered a plea of guilty to both counts and all specifications of the indictment. The three-judge panel conducted a hearing at which the state introduced exhibits and read a statement of supporting facts. With a few exceptions not relevant here, the defense stipulated to the facts contained in the statement.
{¶ 21} The three-judge panel then accepted Turner’s plea, found him guilty on all counts and all specifications, and, after a mitigation hearing, sentenced Turner to death.
You should not have said a thing about your babysitter. Then people might have helped you. You did this to get out of your troubles and that didn’t work. So now you are paying the price of freedom for your big mistakes. I can not imagine the hell that goes on in there.