Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, January 28, 1994 TAG: 9401280132
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: B1 EDITION: STATE
SOURCE:
DATELINE: LAURENCE HAMMACK STAFF WRITER LENGTH: Medium
Turner, who has never denied shooting William Dale Hartman five times in a shopping center parking lot, pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
A psychologist testified that Turner, a construction worker, saw the world as a combat zone and himself as a soldier of fortune and was unable to control his actions the night of April 3, 1992.
Eileen Taylor said that Turner, 40, experienced an irresistible impulse that night, when the stress of a feud with Hartman pushed him into psychosis.
In the days before the shooting, Turner had accused Hartman of burglarizing his Piedmont Street home and then making death threats when he pressed charges.
Turner's defense, which mixed elements of self-defense and temporary insanity, relied on the same "irresistible impulse" theory used in the Lorena Bobbitt malicious wounding trial.
While Turner's actions did not fit the classic definition of legal insanity - unable to distinguish between right and wrong - Taylor said he could not control his actions after becoming convinced that Hartman was trying to kill him.
An irresistible impulse is a sudden and unplanned act of violence, psychologists testified during the four-day trial in Roanoke Circuit Court.
For example, someone experiencing an irresistible impulse would commit the act even if there was a police officer standing at his elbow.
"I would submit to you that even if [Turner] had Janet Reno at his arm the night of April 3, 1992, it would not have stopped him," defense attorney Jonathan Apgar said in his closing argument.
Testimony showed that on the night of the killing, Turner spotted Hartman, 30, outside Turner's home. In a later statement to police Detective N.W. Tolrud, Turner said Hartman began to chase him down Riverland Road.
But a witness said it was Hartman who was being pursued when the two cars roared into the Jamestown Plaza shopping center.
The witness said he saw shots being fired from Turner's car as the two cars sped by side-by-side. Hartman's car then struck a van, and police later found him slumped across the seat - dead from gunshot wounds to the face, side and neck.
Turner left the scene, but tured himself in to police a short time later.
Commonwealth's Attorney Donald Caldwell argued that the killing was either a "brutal and callous" first-degree murder or a case of temporary insanity.
Although three psychologists disputed Taylor's opinion that Turner was insane, Caldwell stopped short of arguing against an insanity verdict. "Whatever you do, the commonwealth wins and the community wins," Caldwell told the jury.
If Turner is convicted of first-degree murder, he could face life in prison. If the jury acquits him because of insanity, he could be held in a psychiatric hospital for an indefinite time.
Turner, who has a history of mental illness including a manic-depressive disorder, did not testify.
But after jurors had filed out of the courtroom Thursday afternoon to begin deliberating his fate, Turner gave a rambling statement to Judge Clifford Weckstein.
"I'm just mental as hell," he said.
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by CNB