Cold Hearted
Lynn Turner Antifreeze Murder of Randy Thompson
Young firefighter Randy Thompson suddenly died in 2001. Six years before, another young police officer died of similar causes. What'd they have in common? Lynn Turner.
Original air date: October 10, 2007
Posted: August 6, 2022
By: Robert S.
Season 12, Episode 3
1995 was a good year for Georgia firefighter Randy Thompson. He'd recently begun dating Lynn Turner, a young divorcee from Marietta, and by March she agreed to move in with him. Lynn had no children from her previous marriage, but by January 1996, the couple had a daughter. A son soon followed, but over the next few years, the young couple's relationship started to decline. Lynn had expensive tastes, and Randy struggled to maintain the family's finances. And their love life slowed considerably.
2000 was an awful year for Randy Thompson. An accident at work led to a severely broken nose. During surgery to fix the damage, Randy developed a life-threatening staff infection. By the end of the year, he'd recovered from the infection, but something else began to ail Randy. In January 2001, the young firefighter became so ill that he began to hallucinate. His diagnosis was a severe stomach virus, and Lynn aided in Randy's recovery. Able to keep food down, Randy was optimistic about his rehabilitation and readied himself to return to work. But tragically, two days later Randy died.
At Randy's autopsy, the pathologist acknowledged a history of cardiovascular disease and an enlarged heart. The young firefighter's death was chalked up to heart trouble. The 32-year-old father of two was a victim of the cardiac maladies of the chronically unhealthy that populate the south. A few weeks after Randy's death, his mother received a sympathy card. It arrived at her home in Cumming from a stranger 35 miles away. The card was from another mother in Marietta whose son had also tragically died six years earlier from a similar condition. But their sons had something else in common – each was in a relationship with Lynn Turner when they'd met their demise.
It revealed that Lynn Turner lied about divorcing her husband. A police officer in Marietta, Glenn Turner had been only 31 when he died in March of 1995. By the summer of 2001, a full investigation led to Randy Thompson's cause of death being updated to ethylene glycol poisoning. A year later, Glenn Turner's death was also reclassified as a homicide. But would Georgia investigators be able to gather enough evidence to prove Lynn Turner had murdered both men?
The Facts
Case Type: Crime
Crime
- Murder
Date & Location
- March 3, 1995 through January 22, 2001
- Marietta & Cumming, Georgia
Victims
- Glenn Turner (Age: 31)
- Randy Thompson (Age: 32)
Perpetrator
- Lynn Turner
Weapon
- Poison: Ethylene glycol (Antifreeze)
Watch Forensic Files: Season 12, Episode 3
Cold Hearted
The Evidence
Forensic Evidence
- Phone records
- Report: Autopsy
- Report: Toxicology
Forensic Tools/Techniques
- None used in this episode
Usual Suspects
No Evil Geniuses Here ?
- Used same method after getting away with it before
Cringeworthy Crime Jargon ?
- None uttered in this episode
File This Under... ?
- Body exhumed
- Keep it in the family
The Experts
Forensic Experts
- None featured in this episode
Quotable Quotes
- "He started hallucinating. He looked at me and said, ‘Get back in your damn cage.’ I looked and I said, ‘What?’ ‘Get in your cage.’ ‘What are you talking about Randy?’ ‘I said get in your cage.’ Then I realized he thought he was talking to his bird." - Paul Adams: Randy Thompson’s Friend
- "He [Randy Thompson] did have an enlarged heart. He did have some significant coronary artery disease. And so as a consequence, then I described this gentleman’s sudden, unexpected death with his heart disease." - Mark A. Koponen, M.D.: Medical Examiner
- "We were able to determine through cell phone records that on the day of Randy’s funeral, between the time of the service in the church, and the service that was held at the cemetery, Lynn was on her cell phone trying to contact the insurance company." - David R. King: Special Agent, G.B.I.
- "I immediately realized that I had made an error in calculating the original concentration of ethylene glycol in Randy Thompson’s blood, and in fact, it was off by a factor of ten. When we made the appropriate correction, for the mathematical error that I’d made, it suddenly became a lethal level of ethylene glycol." - Christopher Tilson: Forensic Toxicologist
- "Lynn had talked Randy into buying life insurance of $200k, and she was the beneficiary of that policy. But, when – after Randy passed away, she found out that the policy had lapsed, and she would not be getting that money." - Nita Thompson: Randy Thompson’s Mother
- "He [Glenn Turner] said that they’d only had sex twice after they were married. He said that she had some sort of female problem, and she wasn’t able to have sex. Of course, we’re all thinking to ourselves, ‘Well, we – I could name three or four other guys that she’s seeing, that she’s having sex with.’ Of course, I couldn’t say anything to him." - Michael Archer: Police Officer
TV Shows About This Case
- Murder She Solved: Toxic Love (s02e03)
- Snapped: Lynn Turner (s06e06)
- It Takes a Killer: Seduced to Death (s01e44)
- Deadly Women: In Cold Blood (s03e09)
- Main Street Mysteries: Unnatural Causes (s02e22)
- Final Witness: Vixen's Elixir (s01e04)
Book About This Case
- Black Widow - Marion Collins
Last Words
In 1995, the internet was in its infancy. We take the access to information we have today for granted. Had the early events in this case taken place 20 years later, Randy Thompson might've caught Lynn in the lie she presented about divorcing her husband Glenn. Maybe this would have led him to doubt other inconsistencies in her narrative … maybe it could've ultimately saved his life.
Speculating alternate outcomes is interesting, but Lynn should have considered a few of the outcomes she initiated. Lynn was in serious credit card and mortgage debt with her bank. While circumstantial, telling bank officials that her money problems would soon be resolved was not favorable in her defense against murdering her husband. Likewise, a conversation at the Forsyth County Animal Shelter had a similar outcome. Asking technicians which chemicals they use to euthanize animals (and then requesting to purchase them) was foolish at best. The reasoning she offered was equally absurd – why'd she think anyone would give her the 'okay' to poison stray cats in her neighborhood?
Lynn Turner: Money and sex
Money seemed to be Lynn's ultimate downfall. Our episode never mentioned Lynn working, but she spent money like it was her career. It was said Glenn worked everyday and may've had two or even three part time jobs. They'd finally get their credit cards to a manageable balance, and Lynn would "run them back up". And this was before she had children. Lynn was never honest to Randy about why she wouldn't remarry. As their children's father, I doubt that Randy was the hold-out. Knowing Lynn never told Randy that Glenn had died, she wouldn't have been able to justify receiving his pension. It's doubtful that Randy ever knew that Lynn had a passive income – it's likely she didn't contribute "her" money to the family. So, what had she given Randy as her ultimate reasoning to not marry him?
Lynn seemed to control the men in her life with sexuality as well. Glenn admitted to friends that he and Lynn only had sex twice after they were married. Lynn lied (again) and told Glenn she had "female problems", but meanwhile she frequently cheated on him. We should regard that Lynn met Randy while she was still married to (a living) Glenn. How does a Marietta girl meet a firefighter over 30 miles away in Cumming without internet dating sites? While our episode indicated that Lynn moved in with Randy "just a few weeks after" Glenn's funeral, other research mentioned it'd merely been four days after Glenn's death.
There were indications in 2000 that Randy too had become unhappy in his relationship with Lynn. After getting away with murder in 1995, a rational person would likely not tempt fate a second time. But she wasn't going to walk away from the $200k life insurance policy payout she'd talked Randy into. Of course, this led Lynn to seek an alternative method from the antifreeze she'd used on Glenn. But she didn't seem to search beyond animal euthanasia drugs – maybe if she'd had the internet...
Karma and similar antifreeze cases
It felt like karmic justice when Randy's mother Nita spoke of Randy letting his insurance policy lapse. Instead of $200k, Lynn only stood to receive $35k, barely enough to cover her debts. Peter Thomas said that Randy had "double-crossed" Lynn, but I'm not entirely sure his plan was intentional. If he actually suspected Lynn might be trying to kill him, I don't believe Randy would simply stop paying his policy premium just to burn her if she succeeded. But I was curious in both Glenn and Randy's case: Did she dose either of them intentionally slowly? It seems both died of acute ethylene glycol toxicity, but had either suffered from smaller doses previously? Regard the cruel case in The Big Chill (s08e21) where Dennis Hellar used antifreeze to poison his wife Carol over many months.
Other antifreeze poisonings had taken place before the congressional Antifreeze Bittering Agent Act of 2006, but the amendment to the Federal Hazardous Substances Act indicates more concern over the toxicity to dogs, cats, and children. Another "black widow" case from our series was Freeze Framed (s14e07) where Stacey Castor also used "antifree" to murder two husbands. David Castor, Stacey's second husband, was poisoned in 2005, just one year before the new legislation.
Where is Lynn Turner now in 2024?
Our episode indicated that Lynn was arrested on two counts of 1st degree murder. In 2004, a jury found Julia Lynn Womack Turner guilty of murdering her husband Glenn Turner in 1995. Three years later in March of 2007, Lynn was again found guilty of murder, this time of her children's father Randy Thompson. She was sentenced to serve a life term without the chance for parole. Lynn Turner initially lost her first appeal and was working on another. But in 2010, she had reached her limit. It's said she hoarded her blood pressure medication, and on August 30th, she was found dead in her cell from an apparent overdose.
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Robert S.
I've been a fan of Forensic Files since the show's inception, and it is still my favorite true crime series. I have seen every episode several times, and I am considered an expert on the series and the cases it covers.- Unholy Alliance (s10e24) Posted: December 24, 2023
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